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.