Chapter 1: Shemyaka's Rebellion (1446-1452)
With trouble looming on the horizon, the security upon the throne of the Grand Knyaz would be threatened from an internal looming threat that Vasill II deemed to be hiding within the shadows. Having reigned through two crisis against the Grand Knyaz already, Vasilly II was no longer going to take any chances with the scheming against his throne. If one was to take the throne from him, it would never be peacefully. Feeling as if he was backed into a corner, preparations would be made.
Threatened with the internal security of the nation, the Grand Knyaz would begin to overhaul the military and directed the economy to focus upon increasing the size of the army. While able to easily outnumber any of the Principality’s subjects in a fair fight, Muscovy lacked the ability to properly project her influence outside of her internal borders, especially as she was almost surrounded in all directions by enemies and boxed in. The Grand Knyaz, paranoid about this, felt as if the biggest danger to the throne would come from within instead.
Along with her geopolitical isolation from the rest of the continent, the Grand Principality would focus upon building the foundations of an alliance within the still independent Rus princes through diplomacy rather than warfare. The Lord of Ryazan would become especially friendly to the Grand Knyaz, agreeing to a military alliance between the two realms.
With the increase of a military expansion, this would come to cause a stir within the rebellious elements within the nobility. With the Muscovite Civil War having already fought through two brutal phases, the final and most climactic phase of the civil war was about to take place through the form of Dmitry Shemyaka. When Vasily II ascended the throne, many saw him as weak and illegitimate, and many unloyal nobles supported Shemyaka’s claim to the throne. Dmityry knew he could not defeat Vasily on his own, and sought to ally with different Khans many times until he was forced to sign a truce. Now seeing the fragile state that Vasily is in, Shemyaka would make his move.
Dmitry Shemyaka, pretender to the throne (died 1446).
Shemyaka would be supported by a considerably high amount of the aristocracy, with the rebellious boyars throwing their weight behind the pretender. The attitude among the lords was that they would prefer an incompetent liege rather than a capable one. The rebellion also appeared to have been an obvious ploy by the Tatars to weaken their greatest rival through cunning. Despite the traitors around the throne, loyalties remained firmly aligned with the Grand Kniaz.
While it had come as a surprise, the rebellion would not be completely unexpected. The Principality would receive a tip from an anonymous source from Shemyaka’s forces that they would be staging the rebellion in Novyy Nizovoy, where they had hoped that a sudden decisive victory would be enough to either raise support for Shemyaka or force the Grand Kniyaz’s resolve to break and force Vasilly to abdicate the throne. These hopes were dashed when the army would arrive in the region, prompting Shemyaka to launch his rebellion in desperation. It was now or never.
Despite inflicting a rather punishing blow against the pretender, Shemyaka would hold the advantage upon the battlefield through using the environment and his own leadership capabilities to hold firmly. Along with fierce zealotry among his forces, the Grand Principality would lose the momentum for an early victory with a crushing defeat at Novyy Nizovoy. Shemyaka’s forces would celebrate a momentous victory, and the Grand Principality was forced to lick its own wounds, suffering from manpower and having morale sapped from their defeat.
With months passing by following the defeat, a second devastating loss would occur at the Battle of Murom. It would become a highly pyrrhic victory however for Shemyaka, who would barely emerge victorious against Bodisco’s loyalist forces after losing almost all of their infantry. Murom would be a brutal scene, where both sides would butcher one another in one of the most violent battles in the entire Civil War. Bodisco would order a retreat to Moscow to conserve whatever critically low manpower remained of the loyalist forces, while Shemyaka’s forces were so heavily weakened that they ceased all offensive operations outright out of fears of being caught unprepared.
Upon the defeats of Novyy Nizovoy and Murom, the Grand Kniaz would be prompted to enter into the fray himself. Taking leadership of the armies, Vasilly II would desire to put an end to Shemyaka personally on the battlefield. Being spurred into action, both sides would take whatever remained of their armies and meet upon the Battle of Alatyr. This battle would end up in a miraculous victory, drastically improving morale among the loyalist forces as Shemyaka’s army would begin to fall apart, with the pretender fleeing with whatever he could muster.
For the most part, the rebellion would largely come to an end. With his ambitious claim to the throne lying in tatters and with his support base practically ceasing to exist, Dmitry Shemyaka would refuse to allow himself to be taken alive by Vasilly II. By the time that loyalist forces would clean up the remnants of his rebellion, they would find the pretender lying motionless upon the floor of a partially destroyed church with a dagger embedded deep within his chest. Shemyaka would commit suicide, reporting back to the Grand Kniaz that he died with whatever pride that he had left rather than suffer the torture he would have endured had he been taken alive.
In the early months of 1446, Shemyaka’s rebellion would see the end of the pretender of the throne and the thousands of ambitious traitors that had aligned himself against the Grand Principality. Two years would come to pass since the death of Shemyaka, and a semblance of normality had returned back to the realm. The army, which had been sitting on critically low manpower, would recover to a reasonable strength within the period as Vasilly II and the loyalists would emerge victorious in the civil war.
This would not stop the schemes of the defeated, as the Rurikovich family had remained divided between those that support the eight year old Ivan Veliky and those that would see the more dynamic prince of Nizhniy Novgorod as the future heir. Another Shemyaka would arise to launch a revolt against the throne, convincing as many of his uncles and siblings as possible to deliver another ultimatum to the Grand Kniaz.
The rebellion would end up with disaster for the pretender, who had nowhere near the amount of support or leadership prowess that the deceased Dmitry had only two years ago. Being compared to a revolt, the rebellion by Nazariy Shemyaka would result in complete disaster for his faction as his forces would be surrounded and methodically destroyed. Nazariy and much of the supporting nobles that didn’t perish during the battle would be taken alive, while his own men would be killed. Vasilly II, having long faced threats against his life and left bitter about the bloodshed that would be caused in the name of the family, decided that an example would be made.
Nazariy Shemyaka and his leading advisors and officers would be executed after being taken back to Moscow, being beheaded one by one from the lowest of Shemyaka’s supports to the pretender himself being made to go last. Their bodies would be burned, while their severed heads would be taken to Nizhniy Novgorod and placed on pikes in the city center. The Grand Kniyaz was done with pretenders and bloodshed, and the message was loud and clear across the entire nation, with what was being known as the ‘Second Shemyaka Rebellion’ coming to signify the formal conclusion to the bloody affair of the Muscovite Civil War.
With so many years of civil war coming to an end, the Grand Principality would be able to recover and emerge stronger than before as the last undesirable elements of the rebellion would be completely washed away with the peace that would follow. The Muscovite Civil War would come to an end, and the time would come for the Grand Principality to break free and spread her wings. Within the nation, a new sense of hope would soon wash over the nation as the Grand Principality was set to embark on a new destiny.
With the Second Shemyaka Rebellion coming to an end, Muscovy would open diplomatic relations with the neighbouring Principality of Ryazan. Already both ruled by distant members of the House of Rurikovich, along with sharing similar interests, an alliance would be immediately accepted between Muscovy and Ryazan. Although the Principality was already within Muscovy’s sphere of influence, the alliance would simply reconfirm a shift of loyalties.
With the recovery of the Grand Principality, the largest of her subjects in Perm would suddenly suffer from a succession crisis. The current heir, barely two years old, would come to inherit the frontier realm following the death of his father. The former Queen, now a widow, would come to rule the region for herself while showing sympathies to Muscovy.
Rurikovich, Jagelellon and Genghisid. The Three Royal Houses of Eastern Europe in 1450
Now wanting to lose an important subject under internal or even Islamic opportunism, the Grand Knivaz would look for a more permanent solution to the problem. The former Queen would come to marry a Rurikovich relative who would be placed upon the throne instead, with the current toddler being adopted into the new ruling dynasty. While there would be protests among Permian aristocracy about the ‘unlawful’ succession to the new throne, which had made the Queen and her young son into a secondary house, the solution would permanently bring Perm into the fold. Now, only the House of Rurik would reign supreme.
With recovery ongoing from the conclusion of the Civil War, the Novgorod Republic and the Grand Principality of Muscovy would be destined for conflict against one another. It would be the Novgorodians who would make the first move, where espionage taken by the northern republic would fabricate and claim the region of Gorodetsk as their own. While their claim was dubious, tension between the two leading titans had been building for years. Destiny would await, and whoever would emerge victorious would truly become the ‘Protector of the Rus’ that both they claimed to be.
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Excellent start. Really looking forward to see how will Grand Principality deal with all the formidable threats to its integrity.
Only time can tell...
Thanks for this chapter. Now i'm eager to see what Muscovy will do. There are lots of opportunities (I had an excellent game with Muscovy some times ago).
Consider me subbed.
Thank you for your support
Will be interesting to see how the Muscovites deal with the Tartars and the integration of the tartar-muslim region into the Russian realm.
The Tartars are going to be a very tough nut to crack. Expect plenty of action and mini-crusades to come!
And another one!
As I said in a text while very drunk to a group chat I share with my friends once: "Beautiful. Long live the Tsar."
Looking forwards to this.
Thank you for your support!
Let's see how the Russians do.
Or should I say, let's see how the Muscovites do?
When in Muscovy, do as the Russians do...
Nice to have you back
It's damn good to be back!
