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