Intermezzo: an overview of Song's accomplishments
Yuyuang Song was the right man at the right time: with his 9/9/9 stats, he took over the Central Republic in 1643, just after the ability to encourage factions was introduced. Because of this combination, his reign saw a lot of faction changes. In 45 years, Song managed to get the Templars in power 14 times, the Eunuchs 13 times and the Bureaucrats 7 times, in total 34 changes!
Besides his political manoeuvring, Song will be most likelly remembered for his conquests in North America. This was the situation when he took power:
While China was already of one the dominating powers on that continent, Great Britain still had a sizeable presence, together with some minor holdings of four other European nations. Also, three native nations were still around.
After Song's death, this was the new situation:
Great Britain's presence has been reduced to two provinces, all the Native nations has been annexed and the other European nations have only a few outposts left. Also, the Midwest has been colonized to a large degree. A total of 86 provinces were either conquered or colonized in North America by Song.
But Song did not only conquer land, he also conquered minds. In 1643, Confucianism was a minority religion in the colonies:
(I know, "religious" is misspelled. I only found out after all the pictures were edited and it would take way to much time to correct it. My apologies.)
And while his conquest outpaced China's ability to convert, he still managed to expand the Confucian sphere:
While not Song's doing, Confucianism also saw growth in Asia.
The demise of the Oirat Horde means that the majority of Buddhists live under the governance of China and its vassals. While Bihar has been a military enemy throughout the reign, it did convert a large part of the Indian subcontinent to Confucianism. Catholicism has been introduced to Asia by the colonisation of the Phillipines by Great Britain.
The other theatre where Song was active was Europe. The political situation when Song started his reign:
And after he was finished:
While no great amounts of territory were conquered, Song did establish Chinese control in Europe for the first time. By creating Confucian England, Granada and Firenze, China started to have influence in European affairs. Surprisingly, besides China's emegence in Europe, little else did change on the political field. Noteworthy foremost is the appearance of Sweden and the breakup of Lithuania.
For completeness' sake, a before and after picture of the religions in Europe:
Finally, while not as impressive as his political and military accomplismnents, Song constructed quite a few buildings, all in the Chinese colonies. At least 40 buildings have been constructed, including 6 Custom houses from the ground up. This is besides the many level 1 forts that were build. According to cautious estimations, at least 20 forts have been constructed.
(As and aside, this shows how many agents you lose with playing factions. During Song's reign, I got about 3.5 magistrates a year, almost 160 magistrates in total. And all the blossoming colonies have given at least 20 magistrates on top of that. With about 60-70 buildings constructed, not even half of the magistrates gained have been used for construction. The rest were either discarded because of the 5-agent limit or used for encouragement.)
Code:
change during reign change since 1399
1643 1688 absolute relative absolute relative
No. of provinces 119 206 87 73% 152 281%
Yearly income 8890 9029 139 2% 8.191 977%
Yearly income/province 74,71 43,83 -30,9 -41% 28,3 182%
Inflation 0 0 0 N/A 0 N/A
Manpower (x1.000) 498 513 15 3% 428 504%
Army Size 117 176 59 50% 137 351%
Navy size 92 114 22 24% 65 133%
Sadly, even with all his efforts, Song couldn't manage to increase China's income by any significant degree. Coupled with a massive territory expansion (73%!), this means that during his reign the quality of the economy plunged to a mere 60% of pre-Song levels. The army has seen a steady expansion to match the expanded territory. Note that even with the disastrous wipeout of Main Fleet, the navy did expand considerably.
So all in all, Song's reign was exciting and explosive and a great showcase of what a balanced ruler can do when the domestic sliders are likewise balanced.
Next episode: Menglin carries on the legacy