Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 12: 1056-1064: The Inca Invasion

My wife not only lost her war, but got imprisoned, and deprived of even a county. I couldn't even ask to bail her out. Well, I still have a few concubines, so I guess I'll spend time with them instead.

The Inca Emperor got even more troops, and continued subjugating minor islands.

Meanwhile 5 different independent Inca armies invaded Mongol-occupied Japan. They all got obliterated.

After the Mongol khagan died, his different relatives inherited Japanese and mainland parts of his realm. The Mongol ruler who inherited Japan settled down as its feudal ruler, and instantly got into trouble with the locals. And then the two khagans started fighting, so their event troops are dying in droves.

I got a super rare ability to wage holy war on Hindu queen of Champa - normally Buddhists cannot do that, but she's a known Satan Worshiper, and that unlocks everyone's holy wars. First time ever. I targeted Hindu holy site at Angkor, to reduce their religious authority from 69% to 56%.

Angkor didn't even stay as my vassal - the cousin to whom I granted it died of smallpox, and another cousin, direct vassal of Greater Pegu as duke of Aceh, got it instead. It doesn't even matter, what I need is the coastline connecting my capital to China.

Well, the time has come. Inca with their 153k troops attacked my cousin with merely 45k. The cousin was an idiot. Instead of spending his 80k gold on hiring every possible mercenary, he only hired two companies.

I didn't expect to win, but I joined with my 15k to kill as many of the infidels as possible. At first it went really poorly, so I went almost bankrupt hiring just one mercenary company.

We won about 21 battles, lost 7. They sacked most of my cousin's demesne, but after we turned the tide, my cousin even occupied their poorly fortified home island.

Of their 149k starting event troops, they were left with just 51k. Plus about 30k troops they can raise locally. So not quite obliterated, but drastically weakened.

Nobody joined us. It was just my cousin and me, each doing about half the fighting, even though he had twice as many troops as I did.

Almost the darkest times. The Incas sieged Pegu's heartlands (they'd get a few more provinces), and kept winning most battles. There were too many of them to get any advantageous fights, they'd just reinforce with more troops.

I didn't think we'd win, but I was going to kill as many as I can, and kept unsieging what they took to prolong the war.

I had very limited mobility, as the Incas were swarming, and it took forever for my ships to sail between two coasts around the Malay Peninsula. Kra Isthmus Canal would be great. It's actually narrower than in Panama.

My cousin didn't believe in my prolonged war strategy, and sent half his army to the capital of Inca invasion force. The whole war was for those two counties in the middle of Java, but that's where the last Buddhist we hold is - the Borobudur temple.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 11: 1052-1056: Empress Huilang of the Wu

Turns out I was confused by the Shanwei Empire name. Han Emperor inherited Tang Empire, but he was a tributary of Shanwei in spite of being much more powerful, so it's still Han Empire, just looks like Shanwei on the map. Now that clears it.

Despite my best hopes, Han Empire got wrecked by the Mongols practically without any resistance, even though they weren't outnumbered by that much, 60k to 40k or so total.

I was wondering when the Mongols would settle down, as nomads generally do at certain size, but the answer is never - they are specifically hardcoded to never use this decision. Well, if their event troops die, then their settled vassals are likely to rebel, so that will get rid of them, hopefully, someday.

As Mongol-Han War was over, I resumed my wife's claim war. After some more trouble, my wife, now proclaiming herself Wu Empress, got what's left of Tang.

Not like it did her much good, she was hit by independence revolt, claimant faction revolt, and foreign invasions pretty much immediately, and my forces were all spent just getting her on the throne in the first place. There should seriously be some truce timer with factions for this, otherwise every pressed claimant instantly loses their throne most of the time.

The only good news was that we had a child. Unfortunately that child was a daughter, so nothing will come out of this whole misadventure.

With everything going wrong in China, the Incas landed on island just East of Java, threatening the only Buddhist Holy Site we still had.

In principle my cousin grand mayor Chanarong "the Silver Blood" Mookjai has enough silver and gold and other shiny thing to hire every mercenary between Japan and Constantinople and push Incas back into the great sea, but will he?

Meanwhile I neglected missionary work, so I have a lot of angry infidel vassals, who can see my depleted army and are plotting to rebel.

For a brief moment it seemed like maybe she'd have a few years of calm to have a son, build some support among her vassals, and for my armies to recover so I can help. None of that happened, and she was cursed with a useless girl.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 10: 1040-1052: Almost Emperor of China

As I finally passed religious conformity laws, I could revoke 8 Chinese Taoist counts, as well as assortment of mayors and temple holders, to get the realm to spiritual peace. Well, they could also just convert, but only one of them agreed to that.

Missionaries were spreading the true faith there as well, just as they successfully converted my Hindu peasants in the South before. With far too much effort I even got to tier 4 in monk society, so I could instaconvert a province to Buddhist, currently every 3-4 years.

My chancellor kept looking for the ancestral homeland of the Shan people, and surprisingly found it in Champa of all places.

I had truce with queen of Champa, but various relatives of Vietnamese dukes were practically begging me to help them recover their lands located between Guangxi and Champa, and so I did.

Tang Emperor got wrecked by the Mongols, offering very little resistance.

I pressed my wife's claim to 2-county "Chinese Empire". Then a surprise happened - and the target inherited the whole Tang, and by some mod triggers, their two claimant empires merged, so I was actually accidentally pressing wife's claim for half of China.

That was a bit too much for me, so I called emperor of Japan into this war, but during that, Mongols invaded Japan and subjugated it all.

I got the war for China to stalemate with enough occupations to get the cap, but I couldn't get any decisive battle, as the emperor of (after far too many renames) Shanwei kept a doomstack - well, relative to what little troops I had from all the constant fighting.

I thought about hiring some mercenaries for decisive battle, but Mongols invaded Shanwei, and I really didn't want to help the Mongols, so I basically withdrew and left the war stalled.

I'll let Mongols beat him down, then get decisive battle against his leftovers. Otherwise my wife will inherit this fight anyway. Mongols are down to just 39k event troops from starting of about 100k, but Shanwei only got 20k remaining of his 25k max - and I only 8k of my theoretical 20k max.

And if he somehow wins? Well, then I'll crush his blooded leftovers anyway. He's supported by two 10k allies in this war, so it's not totally impossible.

Well, even if my wife accidentally became Empress of North China, that wouldn't make that much difference, as she's been childless so far, and spend far more time in company of young handmaids than in my bed. But surely those unnatural rumors of what they do there can't be true?

The Mongols completely ignoring the Khitai khagan of Zubu who controls most of the steppe and going straight for heart of China. The Incas are supposedly common, maybe there will be Inca-Mongol war for Japan?

Or Incas will minmax as well and invade China through Taiwan.

Kingdom of Guangxi currently consists of awkward 8 parts along the coast, but Zhong and Champa are too weak to keep those apart for long.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 09: 1030-1040: King of Guangxi

I had gavelkind inheritance, but my third son was a total imbecile, so I really had to switch to primogeniture.

My son in law emperor of Japan dragged me into defending his Manchurian holdings against the Mongols. I had too few troops to make much difference, and even fewer ships to transport them there - even for Lavapura to Guanxi, my army had to split in half.

One independent group of Mongols was raiding all the way to South China, at least I could deal with them.

Emperor of Japan made it as painful as he could, but in the end he had no chance of stopping their hordes.

My wife died so I married my niece, who's claimant to remnants of Wu Empire, now renamed Han. It was of course pointless claim, it's 2 counties with no future, even if once that was a strong regional state.

My father started construction of Great Lighthouse of Pegu, third great work in the realm. He died of old age, with my uncle becoming the new Grand Prince, also very powerful and competent ruler. My cousin who'd be next in line - maybe not so much.

Buddhism suffered major blows as Pala dynasty which held two of its holy sites lost them both to Hindu heathens. To counter this a bit, I sponsored missionary work in South China, and found a claimant to Cambodia, converted him, and split the Champa-Cambodia double kingdom by force.

Unfortunately queen of Champa managed to sack my capital, and take hostage a lot of my family, so after the war I had to pay her a lot of gold to get them released. Claimant's Cambodia fell apart a bit, with some vassals winning independence. Either way, I got rid of strong hostile country.

Finally, taking one county at a time (except for one holy war for Hainan, as it was somehow still Pagan) I got 13/24 counties of Guanxi, and proclaimed myself a king.

Backup plan of going for Guangdong also went quite well, with 8/19 done.

And it was quite close. Initial chaos of that region is pretty much over, and Chu and Song Emperors mostly swiped everything I didn't. Normally AI is slow at that, but they have duchy level CBs and I only had county level CBs.

Now I'll at least have duchy level CBs for the rest of Guangxi against Chu. It shouldn't be too much work to get second crown of Guangdong as well, and then de jure that against Song.

I'm also heir to my half-brother, and then I'd get crown of Lavo, and then I'd be able to get some of my uncle's vassals under me.

So far having those two disconnected parts has been awkward, I'm not sure if I should let Lavo go, or try to connect them - crushing Champa-Cambodia was definitely helpful step towards connection, but it would still be a huge project.

Meanwhile Catholics are doing a lot better than expected - Latin Empire is strong, crusade for Egypt succeeded, and most recent Jihad for Sicily collapsed.

This time Mongols don't waste time going West against Khitan and Cuman hordes. They defeated Tang and Yamato already, and are invading Tang the second time already.

Qin went Pagan, so lost their claim to China, but I manually let them keep their name, as mod would call them with e_dyn_random_numbers.

China is currently getting divided into Mongol, Tang, Song, Chu, and Guangxi parts, with remaining areas shrinking fast, but that could change fairly quickly.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 08: 1018-1030: Raja Aroon Mookjai of Lavapura

When my father granted me and my brother some land conquered from the infidels to manage, we were also given Chinese imperial princesses as wives.

It turns out what we got was not exactly top tier marriages - my wife's family lost all their land by now, and my brother's wife's family only had 3 counties left. This just shows that feudal rulers would agree to give their daughters to sons of merchant princes only in great desperation. Pala King of Bengal, cousin of my father, and with shared interest in defending the true faith and no border conflicts, would refuse even as little as a non-aggression pact in spite of their perfect personal relations.

On the other hand, as soon as I became a feudal character, Emperor of Japan agreed to marry my daughter. What a silly discrimination.

I joined the monk society presided by my father, but monks refused to get me beyond novice status due to my alleged cruelty.

For some baffling reason, my brother's duchy was released as a tributary state.

I was pretty much locked out from every direction, so I sent my chancellor to South China to maybe figure out how things are going on there. I hoped him to find evidence that Guangxi was long lost homeland of the Shan people over which we should rule again. That somehow didn't work out, but I found a count whose county was currently occupied by illegal pretenders, and who asked for my help.

After gaining foothold in China, it was much easier to expand, even if only one county at a time. The Guangxi (Chinese coast just after Vietnam) and Guangdong (next one along the coast) areas were all completely fragmented.

I got to 8 counties split between those two kingdoms before I got truces with everyone there. The goal is to obviously become the king of one or the other.

I also wouldn't mind connecting my holdings in Lavapura and China by crushing the infidel Champa and barbarian Zhou, but that might be a bit too ambitious.

Filthy heathen maharaja of Champa challenged me to a duel, based on some baseless rumors not worth repeating. It was my first duel ever, but with divine guidance, his life ended there.

Meanwhile the Mongol Empire showed up and invaded portion of Tang China. The Incas are supposedly still coming.

My holdings in duchy of Lavapura (west of Champa) and 8 counties in South China outlined. It's a bit border gore, but as Buddhist duke I have very limited CBs.

Politically, Tang used to dominate North China before Mongols showed up and took Hebei.

By my count there are 8 claimants currently - Tang, Zhao, Chu, and Song have strong realms in China and real hope for eventually uniting the region.

Qin in Korea and Zhou in Vietnam are really foreign kingdoms with fake claims for sake of prestige, but they have some real power.

Ming recently showed up in South China, trying to race me for local dominance.

And then there's my nephew's Wu in East China of 3 counties, too small to even see, and really king of Liangzhe's puppet. It's unclear why king of Liangzhe won't proclaim his own claim.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 07: 1008-1018: Emperor of Greater Pegu

Thanks to my high rank in the monk society, I got huge discount on constructing new temple holdings, paying only about 180 instead of the usual 480, so I mass built Buddhist temples in every province without one (except for tribal, and 2-holding provinces, and such).

All that temple construction made Buddhist 100% authority religion, which is really hard since we have no religious head, and only 3/5 holy sites, so our natural authority is just 50% excluding temporary events.

Things were going well, but there was a big thorn in my side, constant pirate raids:

• Thai Hindu pirates, under Khmers, tributary of Sailendra Empire
• Sumatran Hindu pirates, under Khmers, tributary of Sailendra Empire
• Sumatran Pagan pirates, tributary of Sailendra Empire
• Java Hindu pirates, tributary of Sailendra Empire

Notice something in common here? I tried my best to be a good neighbour, but Sailendra Empire responded with just this treachery, and they never accepted our control over West Sumatra and Borobudur Temple, and so they needed to be destroyed.

Once they got destroyed, and pirates mostly subjugated, I noticed I only missed 2 counties to go empire tier, so I went North to fight some Mongol Pagans for them. I didn't even notice that they awkwardly had 10k event troops, but they charged right into my armies into mountains like they're crazy crazy, so that did them no good.

At this point I pretty much achieved what I wanted, so normally they wouldn't be much point continuing. However, I'm actually going to switch to one of feudal dukes from my family.

I have 7 choices:

• son Aroon, duke of Lavapura (current Thailand), 18 year old, 11/18/23/8/15, married to Chinese pretender princess
• son Kiet, duke of Phetchaburi (current Thailand), 20 year old, 11/14/15/11/19, married to Chinese pretender princess
• son Som, count of 2 counties in duchy of Maura Enim (Central Sumatra), 17 year old, 7/11/13/9/14, he can conquer himself rest of his duchy with ease, it's just last 2 pagan counts
• brother Som, duke of Aceh (North Sumatra), 27 year old, 15/16/11/11/12
• uncle Sunan, duke of Padang (West Sumatra), 31 year ord, 17/11/3/13/13
• cousin Kamol, duke of Karinci (Central Sumatra), 15 year old, 9/11/10/7/16
• cousin Vanida, duchess of Bhamo (North-West end of my realm), 14 year old, 4/4/4/5/9, betrothed to my nephew

There's still 2 sons and 1 uncle in the capital ready to take the republic if anything happened to me, after bribing themselves election victory.

I think of those Aroon would be the most obvious choice.

Oh and the Incas are coming, and if I let AI control Greater Pegu, it might very well get overran, not to mention the title lost to other patrician houses, so whoever I'll end up playing as will face huge challenge soon.

Buddhism is doing decently, but not amazingly. Strangely West India is overwhelmingly Hindu not Muslim this time; while most of India is Jain or Buddhist.

Greater Pegu isn't really facing any threats right now, and it's filthy rich.

I wonder how well the Incas would do here against AI. They'd probably struggle to conquer the mainland, but Java would be really difficult to defend, and Sumatra would likely eventually fall as well. But who knows really, I only saw them once, and the situation is so different this time.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 06: 991-1008: Collapse of the Khmer Empire

Succession went really well, vassals were all weirdly happy about it.

Buddhish faith was doing great as well. We recovered 3 out of 5 holy sites. Pagans on West Sumatra were being converted or subjugated one by one.

But there was still huge thorn in my side - Hindu Khmer Empire to my East dominating the region. I invited two nephews of the emperor, who both gladly accepted the true faith in exchange for my support.

There was just a small problem that the infidels had more troops than I did. I thought their emperor would be slow to defend his country, as he was involved in the eternal Chinese Civil War, but he somehow did the right thing and focused on me. However as his levies and mercenaries followed separated ways, I dealt with each separately, and that was his undoing.

The Khmer Emperor I installed got himself into a civil war almost right away. I intervened against the rebels and seized some coastline that was de jure mine, but then rebels won anyway, and another infidel got the throne. Oh well, can't win every time. Soon Khmer Empire pretty much collapsed between rebels and Champa invasion, and Sailendra Emperor took the leftovers as his tributary state.

As a good Buddhist I joined the monastic society, donated generously to charity (considering my wealth, it didn't cost me much), went on pilgrimages and so on. None of that relic stealing nonsense my grandfather was falsely accused of. I became quite zealous because of it. After I advanced in ranks, I gained power to instantly convert any province in my realm to true religion, about every two years, at minor cost of angering peasants a bit. We'll finally teach those Hindu peasants the truth.

I also gradually consolidated my control over Western Sumatra coast. What started as a few scattered trade posts turned into 20% of de jure Southern Islands Empire coming under my control. I don't have any specific plans for major expansion there, but Pagan and Hindu pirates raiding my coastline are sure annoying and things might escalate. Also it's very possible for the Incas to come here someday.

As I predicted my yearly income is about 2500, and my stat total went from 95 to 137.

Meanwhile the Catholic Crusade outright targetted the Orthodox Roman Empire, angering the Pope. I know it's been in the game for a while now, but I haven't ever seen this. What they got was tiny, but remnants of the Orthodox Empire shattered.

In China Civil War, Tang Empire is very far ahead of every competing claimants, but simultaneously it's very far from actually winning, only controlling North-East China.

Orthodox Roman Empire was quite big, now it's shattered into each duke for himself

My position is really strong, but as I'm just a merchant prince, diplomacy is really hard. Even my cousin Pala king of Bengal refuses to agree to an alliance.

I would really love to have strong Buddhist allies in every direction, but feudal rules look down on me, even though I'm stronger and far richer than they are.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 05: 979-991: Prince Mayor Kiet II

After playing a merchant republic for a while, I realized base game is really lacking here. There's supposed to be 5 families competing against each other, but you literally cannot do anything to each other except plot to kill the whole family tree. So I added some mod I used before that added at least plot to seize each other's trade posts.

It was time to advance the Buddhist faith, and for that I declared a claimant war for Borobudur on Java, against queen of Java that was barely holding together.

As that ungrateful Hindu barbarian wouldn't convert to Buddhism even though I pressed his claim, I gave my concubine (too old to have any more children) and court priest the holy site and its whole county instead. It's not quite the same as having Pope as a lover, but it's the closest thing I can do as a Buddhist. I setup similar retirement in a temple for another of my concubines.

Inspired by my example, Pala 2-king of Bengal declared war on Pratihara 6-king of basically whole West India, to get duchy with holy site of Varanasi. As he was married to my daughter - and that was really hard to arrange - he called me into this fight. I was much weaker than either of them, but together our armies had easy victory. Unfortunately the Pala king would not replace Hindu priests there, so it was in contested state.

After that I got to military organization 4, which means no more defensive pagan attrition, so I went on conquering spree, leading troops personally again, and almost dying of scurvy.

Not like I had much longer to live, my last act as a prince mayor was leading troops against peasant rebels.

I hated my son, so I bribed people to vote my grandson into office. Kiet II is 15/15/27/15/23 Midas Touched, Quick, Just, Erudite, Ambitious, Chaste, Kind, and Diligent. Basically a perfect ruler. And I can likely increase that by another 20 points in a decade.

He's even perfectly married to my daughter Tasanee, perhaps a little less impressive 5/6/16/3/10 (they come from different concubines, so they're not even that related).

His other grandfather is king of Annam who proclaimed himself Zhou Emperor of China, but his realm really turned into a Khmer puppet. It's currently ruled by his fairly distant cousin.

His regular cousin is the Pala king of Bengal. In spite of his grandfather best efforts, there are currently no links with Sailendra Empire to the South or Khmer Empire to the East.

This is a ridiculously good second character, especially considering I have no access to Hermetics, almost no artifacts, no stats bonuses from great works etc.

One big failure of my first ruler was failure to fix bad laws and abolish council, so I get almost no vassal levies. Decent taxes I guess, but my income comes primarily from my trade anyway.

I don't think it's even possible to connect North and South Mookjai trade zones. That province in the middle with route bifurcating has port on the wrong side.

Next two yellow provinces along the route are part of my South Mookjai trade zone, the map mode is just confusing.

That bad map design costs me like 20% of trade income.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 04: 962-979: Republic of Bad Luck

My first goals now are to get filthy rich, and to pass laws to reduce council's powers, as every former tribal starts with 7 council powers (over laws, wars, granting titles, revoking titles, imprisonment, execition, and banishment).

4 competing merchant families emerged, each trying to compete for doge elections, but they wouldn't have patience to wait for my death, were plotting, and got themselves thrown into oubliette. And it was crazy how many accidents their families were suffering from. No idea where this bad luck comes from, I obviously had nothing to do with it.

A more interesting question is - is there any way for me to seize their trade posts other than my eradicating their whole house and then rolling 1 in 4 chance to get it redistributed to me?

One downside of going merchant I forgot about was that suddenly various kings of Chinese pretender emperors started considering my family too lowborn to intermarry with.

I fought some nearby pagans to improve Buddhist religious authority, but it wasn't anything serious. The realm being divided between coastal Pegu and highland Shan, barely connected by a narrow passage was constantly a problem, so I started conquering minor Buddhist rulers around that narrow passage.

Now that I had sufficient money, I started restoration work on Shwedagon Pagoda in Dagon.

I was getting richer and richer, but there was still far to go. So I thought - what would be my medium term goals?

• make huge trade zone for my family, from Bay of Bengal to Sumatra, getting hopefully 2000 gold a year
• improve Buddhist authority - currently we only control 1/5 holy sites, and 3 are hopelessly West, but I could maybe liberate one in Java from the Hindus
• so island hop through Pagan tribal islands to get closer to Java and Buddhist holy site there
• somehow destroy the Hindu Khmer Empire, even though it's crazy strong right now, and even has pretender Chinese Emperor as a tributary
• maybe crush Da Yining, as I had plausible path to empire of Burma, but I only had 31/51 counties, and they had most of the rest

And so far it's going decently:

• I got to 950 income
• island hopping got 4 islands, mostly not doing it faster, as each of them is primitive tribal county which needs tons of money to be of much use
• even got one county on Sumatra (last Muslim county there - rest were taken by the Khmers) - so Muslim threat is gone
• and Da Yining kingdom collapsed completely with fairly minimal involvement by me - I just took one county from the rebels while in was in civil war, but apparently everyone else had similar idea, joined the pileup, and that kingdom is no more
• I even found a claimant to county of Pajang which contains great work Borobudur and second Buddhist holy site - and queen of Java is getting wrecked by multiple wars so hard it should be no problem
• and somehow it's been a while since I last had any raiders - I guess Pagan eradication is having effects
• unfortunately council still holds 6/7 powers, the only one I managed to take from them was granting titles

I had excess sons, and as merchant republic all adult relative men in court take ridiculously generous salaries, so I got rid of two of them by granting them some lands. Merchant republic succession works really weird, so they're basically completely out of succession order.

Borders are as clean as they ever get, with nice big font

I'm expanding through island chain West of Sumatra. To my East are two empires I don't like - Khmers are the worst as Hindus. Salendra Empire are Buddhists, but they thing those tiny islands I liberated should be theirs instead

Trade map is confusing, as it shows Silk Road trade routes and merchant family trade zones together

But basically I'm stuck with tiny trade zone as Vangz blocks me from the West, and Nungz from the South, even after their many previous owners had terrible accidents

I'm building second trade zone way to the South, but my income would drastically increase if I could only connect them

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 03: 959-962: Prince Mayor of the Pegu Republic

I had a long todo list:

• get duchy of Pegu (-30 with all vassals if I do)
• get county of Pegu (-15 with all vassals if I do)
• get city in county of Pegu (-15 with all vassals if I do)
• make that city primary holding in the county
• gain 1000 prestige to get CB on duke of Thaton
• conquer duke of Thaton to get majority of de jure kingdom of Pegu
• create kingdom of Pegu
• make that kingdom my primary title
• get peace so I can move my capital
• move my capital to historical capital of Pegu (no other moves allowed for very long time)
• form merchant republic

Helpfully as I was fighting nearby pagans to gain prestige, duke of Pegu decided to plot against me, then rebelled when I tried to imprison him, so that covered first two points without any penalties, as well as got my 1000 prestige.

Unfortunately a filthy Hindu inherited Thaton, so I lost my vassalization CB. So instead I got a Buddhist claimant, granted him land I got from pagans, and pressed his claim. So that ended up working even better.

I tried spying on the mayor, but it was hopeless, so I just took that -15 penalty. They'll all get over it. And with that, I could create my merchant republic! The first one ever on the Indian Ocean.

Going from a landlocked Sanamahist tribal count at 16 to Buddhist king-tier prince mayor at 41 was quite a journey, but we're just getting started!

Meanwhile, my grandson became Pala king of Bengal, but my daughter / his mother got captured by some barbarians, so that part of my family is not doing great.

It would have been easier to become merchant republic as a tribal islander, and both easier and more funny as a Mongol horde.

Now that the tribe settled down, there's nothing that could possibly go wrong, we'll just trade with everyone, and be all peaceful, right?

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 02: 947-959: Maharaja of Shen

The whole South-East Asia (the area East of India and South of China) is split about evenly between Buddhist and Hindus, with pockets of various Pagans.

Buddhists have only one society - some kind of monks - and it's of course awful compared with every other society, but since I had no other choice, I joined them. I wasn't very good at this, and ended up stealing one of the bones of Buddha, and murdering one of the monks who caught me. It turns out I didn't murder all the people who saw, so they kicked me out.

King of Bengal who made us go Buddhist passed away, and the throne passed to his son - betrothed to my daughter. I ended up forming a lot of marriage alliances with Buddhist rulers around me, but I couldn't really cash in on that.

As a Buddhist, I just didn't really have any good CBs. There was a 6k tribal Sanamahist rebellion in the Da Yining kingdom to the North, I guess those guys really want those CBs. They managed to win themselves a 3 county realm.

I really wanted to get myself a coastal city, but the only way I could see involved creating two kingdoms - kingdom of Pegu to get proper coastal capital county, and first some early kingdom to get necessary vassalization CB - and best I could do was shitty 3-duchy kingdom of Shan. Back when I was pagan, my plan was to get much better 6-duchy kingdom of Ava through ambition to become king, which gives me good CBs, but non-pagans don't get that.

First problem was that as a tribal, I was really too damn poor, so I forced some neighbours to pay me tribute, but really it wasn't much.

In the meantime I also had to fight a lot of peasant rebels, and joined Bengal's many wars to gain some prestige, personally leading troops in battle for some prestige, and also because my stats are ridiculously good for such early game (+20% movement speed, +20% leading center, 21 martial, 82 personal combat skill).

I finally became king of Shan in 957, which got me good CBs, at very steep cost of 1000 prestige each. I could only afford one so far, so I declared vassalization war for Pegu, against my rival (former ally; all due to all that relic stealing business).

In this fight I even captured a Great Work - Shwedagon Pagoda, but it needs 480 gold for restoration work before it's useful, and I don't have anywhere near that kind of money.

Now being a Maharaja of Shen is absolutely not where I'm going with this long term.

My Moojkai kingdom, which if things go right, will become a merchant republic.

The easy way of just going feudal seems a lot less interesting.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 01: 936-947: Chief Kiet Mookjai of Hsenwi

My two Tianxia campaigns so far required a tons of mid-game modding, but I want to do one that will just work. So I'm playing as a regular pagan, Shen culture Sanamahist 3-count tribal chief of Hsenwi and 2 other counties. Hsenwi is still there as a 2 province minor in 1444 in EU4.

Playing at half sized demesne was mostly fine, but it really forced not having council, as without that +2 demesne size from abolishing council, demesne is really too tiny, and vassals rebel all the time. So I'm back to full sized demesne, except I removed that +2 bonus, so it's about 3/4 of regular demesne. And now I can actually play with the council if I somehow wanted (but I probably won't).

The character is Kiet Mookjai, Strong, Ugly, Stubborn, Skilled Tactician, 4/13/7/6/4.

My Sanamahist religion has 22 counties and 0 moral authority, so it will be fun. Or I'll switch to Buddhist or something if I have to (real Sanamahists were forced to go Hindu).

I was originally planning the extremely longshot campaign of reforming Sanamahist religion - getting 3 holy sites, going from 0% to 75% moral authority and so on. Multigenerational project, all while unable to get out of tribal, as unreformed pagan.

I start as tribal completely surrounded by non-tribals, mostly of wrong religion. I somehow convinced a Chinese duke to give me his daughter for a wife, and this wedding was the biggest event in Hsenwi history so far.

There really was no way to go to any real war, so I've been raiding my feudal neighbours, and after a while, once his lands has been too devastated by raiding to be able to levy any troops, I invaded his territory. A king to the North tried to side with him as his tributary overlord, but he was too busy with vassal rebellion to do anything.

I tried to do that again, but Sale king of Ava saw those devastated lands, and went in first. This way of waging war is fine for a small tribe, but it takes years of raids, and by the time you weaken your target, someone else might move in instead, and it was all for naught. Except gold you looted, you sure get to keep that.

Now that I was upgraded from a common Chief to a High Chief, I could arrange a better marriages for my daughters - and I tried my best to get such marriage alliance with Pala king of Bengal, even though it took a lot of convincing.

After two successful neighbour subjugations, and some successful daughter marriages, I declared war to abolish kingdom of Ava, and called duke of Lien (who was a constant thorn in my side in previous campaign) and king of Bengal into this war. King of Ava was also fighting his own vassals. King of Bengal would sure prefer not to have a competing kingdom on his borders, and duke of Lien could use a break from Chinese Civil Warception (he was defending his pretender to the throne from some revolts) for something more manageable.

Unfortunately king of Bengal turned out to be too busy in another war and never sent his troops over, and duke of Lien died of old age, so his troops after helping a bit went back home. No I mostly had to win this war against Ava myself. Personally leading the troops, as my skills as a leader are crazy good.

It turns out king of Bengal had ulterior motives in this fight, and sent Buddhist missionaries to my realm, whom I couldn't just throw out without risking our alliance. So while it was all really bad for my prestige, we all converted, from High Chief down to the lowly peasant.

I'm not sure where to go from there. I could try to become a feudal king, but I'm also tempted to start a merchant republic in Pegu or so.

Meanwhile thanks to my easier decisions to proclaim yourself emperor of China from previous campaign, here's been like 10 claimants:

• Zhou - in Vietnam (by my decision) - Khmer Empire already made them a tributary
• Qin - in Korea (by my decision)
• Cheng - East China (by my decision)
• Wu - East China
• Han - South China
• Chu - Central China
• Shu - West China
• Tang - North China
• Jin - North China, dead now
• Liao - Khitan horde, not declared yet, but they have special decision, so they sure will
• Jurchens - that's less likely, but mod also gives them a special decision, it's just very hard to do

Well, events forced this, so we're Buddhists now

There's only one remaining Samahanist ruler - tribal vassal high chief under Da Yining to my West. Weirdly same Mookjai dynastic name with a different shield, I guess Shan dynasty name pool is very small, so it could happen by random.

Tianxia China: Part 17: 1089-1094: I'm Emperor of China Now

Mongols managed to conquer their small piece of China, at great cost.

My distant cousin, overthrown Khmer Emperor, managed to escape imprisonment by the traitors, and ran to my court. I declared war to restore his rule, but I have my doubts if he'll be able to keep it. And soon enough he faced another revolt. I can't keep helping him forever.

With Jin beig so battered, by cousin was proclaimed the one true emperor of all China, which renamed the dynasty to Zhao. I think the mod does far too many such renames. This also messed up de jure tree of China. A much dumber thing happened, and game gave all my daughters "Chinese Princess (unmarried) - This woman is a member of the extended Chinese Imperial Family and cannot marry normally". They also cannot inherit, so my inheritance switched to my grandson. This is sort of intended to emulate the "request imperial princess" China interactions, but she's 5 steps removed from the Emperor. Honestly this mod is coded so terribly, I don't know why don't I just keep the map and throw away the rest. Well maybe because the map is also glitched, especially naval stuff. I really don't want to talk shit about fellow modders, but you really need to scale your ambitions to match your ability, as bugged features are a lot less fun than not having those features in the first place.

I needed to disable this, or it would wreck every single character in my dynasty. There's actually a game rule about it, but it's explained really poorly. So my daughter is back to being my heir.

Mongols laughed at his claim, and declared war on a piece of coast that was technically under my rule. Well, here's your test cousin, if you can defeat the horde, then you might be a real Chinese Emperor. And he really didn't, I had to send my own troops to defend China. Then my cousin died, leaving throne to a baby.

Since I was the one defending China, and baby cannot be a real emperor, many vassals agreed that I should be the emperor instead.

As if by sign from Gods that I was doing the right thing, a new doctor finally cured my cancer.

War for China was easy. The problem was that winning completely messed up my demesne laws, and instead of my carefully thought out laws, there's trash AI usually sets up, and it will take literally 120 years to fix it. I'm actually not completely sure how laws merge between titles, but if I simply got independent, and proclaimed myself emperor of China, then I'd definitely keep the good laws, and that would take a lot less than 120 years to do for sure.

Mongols, due to all the losses I inflicted upon them, soon faced independence revolt, which is definitely winning. Inca Emperor faced big independence revolt, which is also definitely winning. Both are over as a real threat.

And with this it's great time to end it, since there's really nothing that could stop me now.

Some takeaways:

• I tried playing as a vassal as an interesting change, but I really didn't have many interactions with my liege or fellow vassals
• playing the mod required constant manual fixes, it tries too much, and the result is a mess; I think it would be extra awesome if those features worked properly, but since they don't, just ship expanded map and the working stuff
• Incas were a nice surprise; both Incas and Mongols were fairly balanced - being intimidating, but not really overpowered. I think even without my involvement they'd run out of steam.
• Once again I really don't like Confucian Bureaucracy government type - not having city vassals with separate laws messes up everyone's economy; this could be corrected by tweaking vassal obligation laws (or at least which ones AI picks) and I knew about it, so my laws are sane, but it breaks AI's economics.
• After Japan and China, I guess I could try somewhere in Korea, Indonesia, and South-East Asia next - these have a lot less custom coding, so it would be just fairly regular game with fairly regular religion, just with a different map

I didn't even try to get anyone into my faction, just one person faction rebellion

I think the result in terms of laws etc. would be different if I declared war on my emperor instead of faction ultimatum, CK2 is full of quirks like that

Not only I own China (and have CB to take all of Jin in 5 wars, but really 2 and one assassination with some small tricks), my stats are ridiculous - 14/30/16/22/31. There are very few characters with even one trait 30+, nobody with multiple. Of course if I continued stacking long term bonuses, by the end of the game my heirs would have 50+ stats.

Tianxia China: Part 16: 1075-1089: Consequences of Broken Betrothal

Having cancer at age of 23 was obvious sign from the divines that I'm doing something wrong. As if that wasn't enough, Gods punished me for my sins by only giving me daughters.

My physician convinced me that I need to become Buddhist and it's my only hope for the cure. To be honest the difference between Han Taoist and Han Buddhist is rather subtle.

Inca Emperor broke betrothal to my sister, and that meant war. I even managed to capture his new wife, and cut her whore head.

I sent a 40k expedition to Southern Archipelago as the biggest raiding fleet in history of China, and reduced their 60k foreign troops to just 10k. Then as they decided to invade a Buddhist duchess Maharani Sepiah on Western end of Sumatra, I came to her aid officially, and also sent my 12k retinue over. I hate leaving my lands unprotected, as that always attracts raiders - currently mostly Mongols, and keeping raiders away has been the main goal of Chinese foreign policy since time immemorial.

Unfortunately while I was trying to fight the Incas, my vassals rebelled, so I had to recall my troops, and duchess Maharani Sepiah lost.

I defeated the rebels, and in my generosity I executed only 6 of them.

I still had unfinished business with the Inca Emperor. I wanted to present his head on a pike to my sister, but he died in an accident, and it wasn't arranged quite like I wanted, so I couldn't recover the head. Then his son had a tragic boat accident, and then another was smothered to death in his bed in his pillow. And so the whole line of the unfaithful fiance was extinguished, and another house took over the Inca Empire.

While all this palace intrigue was ongoing, I joined some hopeless war of a Malay Buddhist count against his son, and it was getting quite far for the Incas, they started hiring mercenaries. This was their first lost war. Well, it would be nice if their whole empire fell apart, but my sister's shame has been avenged, so my troops sailed back to China.

Surprisingly Mongols under the newly proclaimed Ghenghis Khan showed up attacking Jin Empire, and my cousin decided that we join, and surprisingly on the Jin side, instead of kicking them from the other side as I recommended. I did not concern myself with his opinions, and declared war on Jin, so it was nice clusterfun.

My first doctor failed to cure my cancer, so I got another. He tied me up, cut off my balls, and that also did not cure my cancer at all. Medieval medicine is the worst. And I have 7 daughters and 0 sons. So unless a miracle happen, a woman will inherit. Or my grandson, that would be the easiest solution.

I never really stabilized my realm. So far unruly vassals are only kept in check by fear of my troops, so whenever my troops go to war and take some losses, the plotting starts again. Half sized demesne makes things quite hard.

Meanwhile our dynasty lost Khmer Empire to Hindu rebels of previous dynasty, after 70 year rule. What a shame. I offered son of the overthrown emperor some help getting his empire back, but he refused like a coward.

Once it looked like Mongol Empire collapsed, but somehow it recovered stronger than ever, conquered Seljuks and Ghaznavids, and now trying their second attempt at entering China.

Incas barely made any progress since the broken betrothal obliterated all their armies, and spent most of their time since fighting peasants unhappy with their foreign overlords

Tianxia China: Part 15: 1067-1075: Wang Zheng Qun of South Coast

There's been some peace and quiet, so I tried to enjoy it, and funded development of underdeveloped regions of Chinese coast like Hainan.

My cousin thought otherwise, and went for big Song-Jin showdown war, targeting temple and cemetery of Confucius in Jining. 50k vs 40k armies. I really didn't want to send my troops there, but I sent some gold the right way, which caused the Jin emperor to be replaced on the throne by his underage son - unfortunately under fairly competent regent, so it was all for naught. Someone else then got the baby emperor killed anyway, so his uncle got the throne.

My cousin was actually losing this war until I finally joined, and some rebels on the opposite side of Jin forced him to split his forces. Then I got into a few small wars in North China to get some land for my landless extra sons.

Unfortunately while my I enjoyed the relatively peaceful times, I enjoyed my food too much, and all that overeating killed me at early age of 41.

My oldest son and heir is Zheng Qun, 23 year old Han Taoist like his whole dynasty. 15/18/10/12/3, Brilliant Strategist, Aggressive Leader, Amaterasu Descendant, Uncouth, Kind, Ambitious, Greedy, Gregarious, and somehow with preexistent Cancer. So I'm not sure this is going to last long. His heir is a 3 year old girl, so in fact it could end up terribly. If the daughter dies as well, his brother will get the throne, and all will be back on track.

Song Empire is doing great, and Kingdom of the South Coast is also doing great, but there's serious dynastic problem here

The Incas crossed into the mainland, but there's really no reason to worry, they have like a quarter of their starting troops left, and my sister is there as queen to civilize them.

Mongol and Seljuks fought another of their many wars, and they were killing each other's remaining event troops. The Mongol khagan proclaimed himself a Genghis Khan, but that's really silly at this point, their force is spent. My wife is cousin of the current Mongol Khagan.

For some weird reason, a lot of West Africans went Taoist. I really don't see why, normally only Christians and Buddhists can send missionaries to Pagans (and both did that). I'm not sure what exactly happened there.

Tianxia China: Part 14: 1058-1067: Just Casually Ignoring Incas

When Incas arrived we were very concerned, but then Incas' failed invasions of Taiwan and Japan showed just how awful those barbarians are at fighting. Japan with just a bit of my help crushed 5 Inca invasions with total size of two times our army, and they really looked like they could have done it by themselves. Together with my cousin, we crushed the army invading Taiwan like it was nothing. Even the puny barbarians of Southern Islands managed to kill a third of Inca Emperor's troops by the time he conquered Java.

So by now Incas outnumbered me only 5:1. Any kind of Inca invasion of China, against forces of me, my cousins, Jin, Chu, and everyone else here, has no chance of succeeding.

I felt confident I could crush them single-handedly if I wanted. But maybe I should just let the locals handle that. Mostly because I wasn't really sure which option would result in less piracy - local barbarians, or foreign barbarians - and fighting piracy was always my key foreign policy concern.

I updated my script to analyze province development (counted by gold value of all buildings), and my 5 province demesne is 2, 4, 14, 21, and 39 richest provinces in the world, out of nearly 2500 provinces. That's some great stewardship, and a lot of money poured into development. Now the "optimal" way to play is of course to not bother invest, just hire every possible mercenary, and go on conquering spree, but I've done that too many times already. Of course this also attracts pirates like crazy.

So I let Incas and island barbarians fight their wars, and I attended to important Chinese matters, like assassinating fake emperors, dealing with Mongol raiders, and helping my cousin crush rebellion against his rule.

Inca Emperor got slain in personal combat by one of the barbarian chiefs, and by their custom his baby son was ruling the empire. Actually I had a thought - I had a spare daughter, why don't two of them marry? Maybe she can teach those barbarians some civilized manners. According to rumors they started wearing silk clothes, drink tea, and watch fireworks, so it's been going great.

And it's really difficult to find respectable enough spouses for my children - especially as Hindus just flat out refuse to marry anyone out of caste. I even had to send envoys to get some French princess, that's how bad it got.

My cousin Khmer emperor died, and one of my vassals turned out to be his son, and he inherited Khmer Empire, and took his duchy with him. It's fine with me, as long as it stays in the family, but my cousin would have none of that, and two cousin-emperors went to war over it.

My third cousin's tiny Tang Empire got forcibly incorporated into my other cousin's Song Empire.

What was left of Han empire collapsed.

I was relentlessly focused on destroying what's left of Chu. 5 Chu Emperors in a row died in extremely suspicious circumstances, and in addition to my wars, anyone else fighting Chu would get my support.

Now it's just Song vs Jin. I don't know if there will be a big showdown, or if Jin somehow gets wrecked, and then we just pick up the pieces.

Meanwhile, crusades have been ongoing, and the Pope declared a crusade on Egypt. The Sunni Caliph responded with a call for Jihad against Aquitaine holdings in Africa, which succeeded, but that was just a few counties.

The new Inca Emperor and my genius daughter (with a French concubine, so looking very European) he'll marry. At rate he's been losing his troops, I doubt he'll even reach the mainland.

Incas and Mongols are doing the right thing, and keeping their distance from China. I'm actually more worried about Lan Xang, as it's led by a liberator revolter with 30k event troops that are actually not trash like the Incas, and conquered he a lot of land between my two cousins' empires.

Tianxia China: Part 13: 1051-1058: Sunrise Invasion

Disregarding rumors of incoming Incas, we striked back against Chu, Jin, and Han dynasties, and won some minor wars grabbing a duchy from each.

I got my son betrothed to Mongol princess, but Mongols are really not a big deal. Sadly we couldn't ally them, I'm not sure why. Mongols are busy conquering North-Western India, but Mughals are only EU4 thing.

Inca Emperor's forces swelled to 157k event troops, and he invaded various islands East of China.

In more baffling turn of events, at least 6 Inca hosts with 17k troops launched their independent wars - and one of them targeted my Taiwan. Now I don't even care about Taiwan, and I only keep invading it to stop Taiwanese piracy targeting my coastline, but I sure won't let some petty adventurer take my land.

5 Inca adventurers simultaneously invaded Japan. I literally bribed the Tenno to let me ally him and help, but the last thing I need is Japan turning into den of Inca piracy raiding my cities. I helped a bit, but to be honest Tenno was doing splendidly, and all the adventurers ended up in Japanese prison.

While all their Northern adventures collapsed, Inca Emperor was doing great capturing island after island in the South. After Borobudur Temple was captured, Buddhist holy order Chosen of Ashoka was gathered to defend Buddhism. Which doesn't make terribly much sense, as Borobudur was under Hindu control for centuries.

My cousin Khmer Emperor lost control over Lan Xang to some Hindu adventurer, but we have more pressing matters.

In an even more baffling turn of event, my cousin Song Emperor decided to press my cousin's claim to Yan Empire. So now our dynasty has 3 empires, but that last one is literally a shitty duchy, and even if she survives with her petty empire, her heir is non-dynastic anyway.

Incas conquered a bunch of shitty islands, and forced local emperor to abolish the title, so the remaining dukes will offer little resistance. Nothing in the islands or Malaysian Peninsula can offer even 5k troops against their remaining 108k, and Khmer Empire would still be an easy conquest at 13k.

Mongols have just 26k event troops left, so first serious vassal rebellion will shatter everything they conquered.

Tianxia China: Part 12: 1042-1051: Wang Zheng Jin of South Coast

My father ruled for only 7 years, and in that time he established my cousin's Song Empire. After his untimely passing, I gained the throne at young age of just 10.

I'm 7/4/5/2/4. Haughty, Affectionate, Playful, Indolent, Idolizer. Not even close to being ready for rule. Until I come of age, the realm is under regency of Savkelti Sarek, a Jewish Khazar woman who was possibly my father's lover. She later tried to get a whole damn duchy as reward for regency, but I said no. Some gold is enough of a reward.

My disloyal vassals didn't wait even one week and tried to blackmail me. They got crushed, but I let them just pay me money for their freedom, just this one time.

My cousin and my empress got attacked by both Chu and Jin. While those wars were ongoing, she was then murdered on order of disloyal vassal, and her younger brother inherited the throne. It took us years to finally beat them back. Perhaps we shouldn't have let those pretenders exist.

And within days of that victory, news of a Sunrise Invasion of Inca Empire arrived. Oh my father might have sold them some land on Taiwan. That might have something to do with it.

Meanwhile, Tang Empire completely collapsed, and really little is left of Han and Yan.

Mongol Empire fell apart, with various khagan taking their own followers and going their way. The Borjigin clan is still the strongest, but if they have to keep fighting to keep the Steppes together every succession, we have little to worry about.

I'm also actually quite impressed that my cousin managed to stay as Khmer Emperor for 35 years now, starting as a 5 year old baby. He went native, but he kept Taoist religion, none of that Hindu superstition.

Succession happening at time of peace is unusual. Rebellious vassals just had to mess it up, but that's typical for a minor inheriting.

Mongols lost Western lands, so they went into India, but they only have 36k event troops left of their original 115k, so they now either settle as feudal rulers or inevitably get kicked out

Inca's 45k event troops is actually less than we just faced between Jin and Chu together, but that fight was really painful.

If they could maybe fight Japan with their 30k, or assortment Indonesian rulers with about as much between all of them, that would be great.

Tianxia China: Part 11: 1036-1042: Song Empire

Zhao Empire was proclaimed by my cousin Jingzu, who died of old age of 62. It was inherited by his son and my son-in-law Chengzong, who died in battle. It was then inherited by his son and by grandson Shaozong, who also died in battle.

After Shaozong's death, he left no adult children, and his only adult brother was a total lunatic. The succession was open, and as grandfather of all potential candidates and trusted advisor of previous emperors, it ought to be up to me to determine, which descendant of Jingzu was to carry the Mandate of Heaven.

The council disagreed, and tried to force my grandson Ding-Nghe, largely so they can manipulate the young boy. I tried to talk some reason into them, but the dispute escalated. My grandson's supporters even hired mercenaries to bolster their forces, but since they couldn't pay them, mercenaries switched side to mine.

During this war, I died at ripe old age of 72.

The new king of Guangxi is Wenjie's son Yuanchong, 48.

Grievously scarred, gardener, ambitious, proud, deceitful, zealous, diligent, greedy, arbitrary, and stressed. 6/11/13/10/11.

The first order of business was finishing the fight for my niece's claim against my nephew. The fight was almost over, and my niece renamed the empire to Song Empire. And since we're renaming, I renamed my kingdom to South Coast.

Then the game bugged out, and random parts of my lands became independent. I guess this is some glitch with harsh exclave independence game rule (which is supposed to make exclaves independence on inheritance), and inheritance during rebellion, but a lot of these places weren't disconnected at all, so it's really unclear what happened.

I decided to just treat the bug as a valid succession related chaoc, and not fix it by console. In total 35 counties seceded by a bug. I politely asked a few counts to join me, less politely asked those who declined, but of 19 counties I didn't need for pretty borders I just let go for now.

Chu Emperor thought a young girl couldn't defend her empire, but she had uncle to protect her. Once we won, I attacked back, and seized their only coastal duchy.

Mongols were down from 115k to 65k event troops when adventurer host with 30k event troops invaded them. I'm still paying some attention to them, and the earlier they show up the stronger they usually are, but it increasingly looks like they'll run out of steam before they reach me.

All this arguing over succession gave my father a heart attack

My dynasty now holds two empires - Song and Khmer Empire

China civil war increasingly looks like Song vs Jin, with other 4 claimants less and less relevant - and I think it's like the third Jin Empire by now, list of potential names is too short

Heisui Jurchen tribals and Mongols are both a potential threat if they wanted to claim the Dragon Throne as well

Tianxia China: Part 10: 1022-1036: Zhao-Jin Wars

Normally I played with default demesne size settings, and vassals cower in fear. This is largely caused by China being all feudal (sorry, "Confucian Bureaucrats"). I can improve my relations with temple vassals by building up hospitals, and cities are generally not very rebellious and offer good tax base, but in China neither of these have any power. And there was one thing I could do - build a massive retinue. Once done it will be about 5k troops. It's been a while since I last did any retinues, they were totally overpowered once, but they got nerfed so many times I didn't even bother last few campaigns.

As my lands were so rich, I was suffering constant barbarian raids, so I decided to at least crush the Zunyi barbarians, who just defeated my emperor's attempt. That got me a lot of land I didn't particularly want, but stopped attacks from the West. Then I had to do the same with Taiwan, but there are still barbarians coming from faraway lands which would be much more difficult to crush.

My cousin, the Zhao Emperor died, and his son gained the throne. After his wife and my daughter died of cancer at ripe old age of 24, I gave him another one of my daughters in marriage. Unfortunately he then died in personal combat while leading troops against the rebels. My grandson was the next emperor - and I got him to remarry his father's second wife and my daughter.

Jin Emperor attacked us claiming my territory I captured from the Zunyi barbarians, and even though the fight was bloody, we were far from losing. However, the damn emperor surrendered to the Jin! A few years later he decided to attack Jin, and took back the same duchy, but for himself, not for me.

Zhao and Jin look like the strongest contenders for the Dragon Throne. Chu is still hanging on, but Han, Yan, and Tang look weaker and weaker. My son-in-law lost Yan throne, but at this point it's just too weak to matter.

Mongols have been attacking China, mostly weak dukes in the North, but at some point they'll need to fight Jin. They 115k event troops is down to 72k, but they conquered themselves a nice empire with that.

I was saving my grandson's Khmer Empire from his own vassals again, when he decided to break the alliance based on me not helping him. Interestingly my war contribution was "1%", even though he'd have absolutely lost without my help. CK2's way of counting war contribution is terrible, it's based on prolonged bloody battles and endless sieges, not on surgical strikes that obliterate enemy, and quick assaults that take their holdings.

Another Zhao Emperor died, and my grandson became 4th Zhao Emperor. there's however someone else I'd much rather see on the throne - my granddaughter Wenxiu with very good claim and great traits.

Meanwhile, the Pope proclaimed crusade for Jerusalem, but due to division in control over Jerusalem, the victorious kingdom is only 7 counties, not one of them actual Jerusalem. Then king of Jerusalem and the Pope started fighting each other and I'm not even totally sure why.

Will my granddaughter be the future Empress of all China, who will end the civil war and defeat the Mongol horde? Or will the rumors of the Inca turn out to be true, with China ending trampled under Mongol and Inca hordes? Only time will tell.

Right now Mongols are fighting Abbasids and Seljuks in Kurdistan, defending small horde (that yellow bit) from Muslim holy war. That is - wasting both time and soldiers.

Tianxia China: Part 09: 1014-1022: The Mongols Arrive

Out of interest, I wrote a script to find world's richest characters by income, and as usual I'm first, a bit ahead of two biggest merchant republics (Almeria and Regusa; the usual leader Venice got taken over by Ragusa), and beyond us three it's very big gap. I don't even do anything cheesy, AI is just bad at this.

Maybe I made claimant conditions a bit too easy, as 5th contender for the Dragon Throne joined - Han, just North-East of Chu and Jin. Then 6th contender Tang to the North.

Of course all that could soon be irrelevant, as the Mongols arrived with 115k event troops, twice as many as all emperors of China put together.

My son-in-law Khmer Emperor got wrecked by a revolt, and with him overthrown, my 5 year old incest baby (officially my grandson) became the new Khmer Emperor. Then he got attacked by two claimant revolt, and I had to save his throne.

Meanwhile, I pressed my other son-in-law's claim for Empire of Yan, with my non-incest grandson being next in line to inherit Yan and its claim to the Dragon Throne. Yan isn't exactly the leading contender, but it's nice to help the family.

As I didn't have too much too do, I went on artifact search, and while exploring Tomb of Three Kings, I got severely wounded and lost an eye.

Soon disloyal vassals made an attempt at overthrowing my benevolent rule, and install my uncle on the throne.

As I was fighting the rebels, Mongols invaded Tang, and Jin, Chu, and Han joined Han's side. The Mongols won, but they took very small amount of territory, and it cost them 15k of their 115k event troops. Mongols for now decided to head West to get more pastures, but they'll be back.

 The Incas are likely coming soon as well.

High point of my Chinese dynastic politics, with 6 contenders plus Khmers, and all the strong ones related

My sons in law are on thrones of Yan (matrilineally) and Chu. My cousin rules Zhao. My son rules the Khmer Empire which is obviously heading towards a disaster.

Jin, Han, and Tang in North China are unprepared for Mongol invasion, which is just getting into the lands of the Zubu horde

Tang Empire got to a terrible start, with Mongols taking over their capital

Zunyi are local tribals stuck between 4 empires who mostly managed to very successfully defend themselves from various attacks. This is quite impressive

Tianxia China: Part 08: 1004-1014: Dynastic Politics

War for China slowly continued. Nephew of previous Jin Emperor of North China managed to reconstitute enough of that realm to proclaim a Jin Empire, even if he was currently the weakest of the 4 claimants.

I got brother of Khmer Emperor matrilineally married to my daughter. This meant that if disease took the bastard, we'd have it in our family. Disease didn't, so I tried to send my spies. Eventually since that also failed, I sent my troops, and Emperor of Chu joined me.

As I wasn't sure if my claimant would have a baby, and the whole thing was pointless if he ended up dying childless, I had an affair with my daughter, so the baby boy Wenjie he thinks is his, is actually my son.

The fun thing is that if my son inherits without going Hindu, he'll probably proclaim his claim to the Dragon Throne.

I invited a brother of Yan Emperor and married him to my daughter as well. Right now that plan only got to the point of marriage.

So my connections to all current and likely future imperials contenders:

• Zhao - emperor is my cousin, heir married to my daughter, after his first wife and also my daughter died; next in life married to another of my daughters
• Khmer Empire - married matrilineally to my daughter, heir is my secret incest baby
• Chu - emperor married to my daughter
• Yan - heir (brother) married matrilineally to my daughter
• Jin - only very distant; my aunt was married to great uncle of the Jin Emperor

And some more connections to previous Cheng, Liao, and probably other houses as well.

I'm going full Chinese Habsburg here.

My forces are very depleted from fighting the Khmer Empire, hopefully my constantly disloyal vassals won't use it as an excuse to rebel. Playing with half demesne size turns something that used to be trivial - managing vassals by sheer force - into a bit more of a challenge.

Meanwhile there are some rumors that Inca Invasion might be coming from the East. I guess if it happens, they'll invade some of the islands first, so we have some time.

New Khmer Emperor is so unpopular I'll be shocked if it works

Plan Yan is another longshot

There's probably some way I could flip Zhao to my dynasty as well, they're practically my family already

Tianxia China: Part 07: 995-1004: Everybody Wants The Dragon Throne

With code fixed, king of Chengdufu proclaimed Yan Empire; while my cousin kin of Annan proclaimed Zhao Empire. These were facing Chu Empire, as well as assortment of minor dukes.

As I had no intention of fighting my cousin, and both his sons were betrothed to my daughers, I swore fealty to the Zhao Emperor.

He was a Vietnamese Buddhist, and I was Han Taoist, but he was overall a very competent ruler, 8/16/7/9/11 with a lot of good traits.

My other children were betrothed to Japanese and Chu royalty, but the Chu Emperor falsely accused me of something ridiculous, broke our alliance, and that was the final straw making me decide to side with my cousin's claim.

After that, I also changed my laws from agnatic to agnatic-cognatic primogeniture. Gods cursed me with 7 daughters and only 1 son, and the realm would be in crisis if anything were to happen to that boy.

My cousin started by declaring war on obnoxious tribals of Juzhou, which frequently raided my realm, and which I had to fight on multiple occasions before, but I didn't want to conquer their lands, as I had so many other tribal lands to civilize. I even received those tribal lands to administer as viceroyalty, which mostly meant it would cost me a lot of money to build necessary infrastructure, but it's either that, or the barbarians will go back to their raiding ways.

And since the imperial matters were in good hands, I focused on wine and women.

Empire of Japan declared war on us, targeting county of Baise held by my cousin, based on some really remote connection to some rebels who briefly held it.

That was truly obnoxious, as claimant Japanese princess was betrothed to my daughter, and it was two strongest countries of East Asia, both family, fighting over a stupid county. Emperor's troops invaded Japan and sacked Kyoto, while I was leading defense of the homeland.

After we won that war, my emperor's levies were depleted, and alliance 3 of vassal dukes of Chu attacked us. After winning this one, I reestablished marriage ties with Empire of Chu and helped them fight Yan dynasty - the only one I never had any links to.

We also got attacked by Khmer Empire - culturally it could also join the fight for China, but since it's Hindu not Buddhist or Taoist or something else Chinese-compatible, it will be its own thing. As usual in CK2 I absolutely despise all the Hindus as they won't enter any marriage alliances with people of the wrong caste, so they're literally the worst of all religions (from foreigner's perspective).

To balance out those costly wars, I waged a few minor reconquest wars against coastal dukes. A few coastal counties on Central and North China coast are extremely rich, and I want these in my demesne, even if it makes it completely disconnected.

The emperor tried to get my Han Taoist daughters educated to be Viet Buddhist. I didn't object, as their tutors were good, and my son should uphold family traditions.

My direct holdings are 2/3 of the Zhao Empire, even generously including its tributaries Champa and Luang Namtha a part of it. Of course as long as we're on good terms, I fully support his emperorship.

It's difficult to see the borders as Yan and Zhao have almost identical colors; and Chu has same colors as a lot of minor dukes.

Also that purple in Korea - that's a Tengri Mongol duke, who's a vassal of Greek Orthodox pretender Roman Empress! Mongol adventurer conquered that duchy, but his brother was a vassal duke of Anatolia, and somehow that's how it got inherited. There are 3 Roman Emperors.

There are a few more possible contenders:

• If Khmer Empire ever went Buddhist it could join the war.
• If Korean ever expelled their Jurchen occupying horde
• or alternatively if Jurchens got stronger, settled as feudals (they're tribals not horde; so it's actually hard), and dropped Tengri (but that decision's code looks bugged)
• Tribal duke of Nagormo got 30k event troops from random horde mod, but lost most of them fighting Khitans of Zubu. Either of them had a chance of becoming a claimant.
• North China after Cheng collapse had some strong multidukes, so maybe one of them gets a kingdom and joins the fight

Counting just counties in de jure China, and ignoring tributaries (Yan and Zhao both have some land outside too):

• Zhao - 67
• Chu - 32
• Yan - 23
• independent - 62

Tianxia China: Part 06: 983-995: Nobody Wants The Dragon Throne

My grandfather left the realm in good shape, but it didn't stay long like this, and I ended up facing two vassal rebellions. There was no mercy, the only way rebels leave the oubliette is when they're dead. My new vassals - either cousins or Han lowborn - are now much more loyal. This also let me replace pagan tribal vassals by good Han Taoist who then adopted feudalism.

The first of two rebellions. Halves demesne limit makes rebellions no longer a total joke

The war for the Dragon Throne was coming to its natural conclusion.

Cheng Empire completely collapsed in a massive civil war. I crushed the remnants of Han.

Wu Empire also collapsed, and it was taken over by house Ma, previous kings of no longer existing Chu, who proclaimed themselves Chu Emperors. I'm not sure if that naming is a coincidence or intentional.

With only just one contender the war should be over, but why isn't anyone else joining the fight?

Now this whole situation is made even more difficult by Fitna Fracture mod I also have in the modpack, which breaks big blobs in case of long stalled civil wars. The problem is that Fitna Fracture is trying to simulate stalled civil wars, but China already is in a stalled civil war, so we have civilwarception here, which is not good. However, only Cheng fell this way, so it's not really the root cause.

Well, time to check the code.

Khitans (who created Liao) and Jurchens (from other bookmarks) have special events. If you're a vassal of an emperor, you can plot to fabricate claim to his realm, the same way I got Japan in previous campaign. Otherwise, the requirements are just completely ridiculous. No AI would ever manage this in a thousand games, and even for the player it looks like it would be easier to conquer China by regular means than to setup a claimant empire.

So first I changed Fitna Fracture to wait 5-6 years instead of 3-4. It's not a big deal, but let's not make it worse than it already is.

Next I tried to lower conditions to claim the Dragon Throne to really easy - be king or higher, 50+ holdings, close enough culture and religion, at peace, 500 gold, 1000 prestige, done. And in a decade of that, not a single AI even tried. Not like they couldn't, or didn't want to, AI is just completely pathologically unable to save 500 gold (2-3 years income), and will always spend it on something before it has even close to that.

I guess I'll need to make it even easier, or to manually make some countries claim the dragon throne.

By the way, I think this Tianxia logic isn't completely crazy in bookmarks where China is unified, and it should be hard to challenge that with a pretender claim. It's just completely silly in this specific bookmark, where empire title has been vacant for nearly a century.

Elsewhere Umayyads conquered Aquitaine, and the Pope declared a successful crusade for it.

Chu is the last imperial claimant standing, but really there are at least three stronger realms - Chengdufu, Guangxi, and Annam

In the past there were so many other possible claimants, like Dali, previous Chu, Goreyo, Wuyue and so on