Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 19: 1120-1134: One China

I still had 40% of China to liberate, two pretenders to overthrow, and Mongols to push back into the steppe.

Foreign rules kept sending me commanders, eunuchs, physicians, and artifacts. It was honestly unbearable span, and it was tedious to even check their stats - mostly mediocre. A few sent me some gold and that was the best tribute.

Some even asked to be my tributary. Because of that county in Greece my vassal accidentally inherited, I even got some tributaries in Greece. Now one might argue that's an argument to turn on diplomatic interaction range in game rules, but that causes more problems than it solves.

Damn Buddhist king of Maynila I installed went Hindu. Barbarians of Mindanao, after endless tries, finally managed to win their independence from the Inca menace.

Somehow a Sunni revolt took Java from the Incas, even though there shouldn't really be any Sunnis there in the first place.

I had a chance to use kingdom-level CB against Song at cost of 5000 prestige and 1000 karma, but really I'm not sure it was worth it, as now I'm stuck with a vassal king.

I got so crazy good at assassinating people it was like playing with 1 year truce timers.

I was one county away from eliminating the last pretender to Chinese throne, when my vassal grabbed his title and took his lands there. Fortunately that just meant one extra war, and all the claimants were gone. And with that, China was 96% mine.

There were still 7 counties held by Mongols, 1 county by a duke who'd love to be my vassal, but he'd need to be at peace first, and 1 county by my cousin who somehow became a duke under Japanese king. All not worth prolonging campaign for.

I never actually had a war against Greater Pegu republic, but it kept shedding land to independence factions, and I usually managed to convince those rulers to join me instead with minor bribery. This way I even got Borobudur Temple on Java. At current rate they won't have anything beyond their capital in 100 years.

I'm plotting to kill grand master of Assassins as I'm next in line, but that might take a while. This plot is why I didn't kill the next Mongol khagan to reset truce timer and got those land few counties.

Vassals mostly like me, at least there aren't any serious factions, and if there were, I'd crush them.

Incas are barely hanging on. Mongols are doing a bit better, and even managed to win some battles against me, but really, they can't face unified China.

And with that I'll end the campaign. I think that's about all I wanted to do with Tianxia mod.

I'm not sure if I'll come back to CK2, as I played thousands of hours of this game, and CK3 has been out for a while, and supposedly it's decent. And there are so many other games to try.

More powerful than any historical China ever was, and with ridiculously good personal traits.

From this point on I could do easy world conquest (or at least India, Tibet, and Japan conquest) using vassal king claimants, but this is rather tedious and not very challenging.

Buddhism is very difficult to spread due to very low religious authority (unless you play in India and go on a holy site conquering spree), but we did pretty well.

Monk society was definitely helpful - and I only really used it because Buddhists don't have far superior Hermetics (or Satanists, or Warriors, or anything except Monks).

Culture spread in CK2 is really slow, but Shan culture spread to a lot of random places including my  Chinese capital on far North edge of this map

Meanwhile in Europe it's a huge Catholic vs Sunni war. Catholics got Egypt and Jerusalem, but Sunnis managed to sold onto Spain. Latin Empire was huge for a while, but got kicked back to just North Italy.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 18: 1110-1120: Emperor Niran of Dai China

First there was my puppet emperor's Mongol war I needed to finish, and all the usual busywork of succession.

I was bored with monk society, and interestingly there was a Shia character in my court somehow, so I joined the Assassins and became secretly Shia.

As part of initiation, they made me kill my uncle, which I was totally fine with.

Somehow I inherited a duchy in Japan, which makes some sense as there's some degree of intermarriage ongoing, a duchy on India's borders, which also makes sense as it's family connection, and also a county in Greece, which is completely baffling. Exclave independence game rule will make them independent on succession, so I don't really need to care.

I found out a way to deal with the Incas - they had vassal king of Maynila, and I found a claimant whose claim I pressed - making Maynila independent, and Inca Empire shrunk by a third.

I controlled 50% of China, so it was really time to decide - become claimant emperor to China, or get my own empire.

The main downside of becoming emperor of China is annoying government type which does not allow revoking infidels, and removes holy wars - not like I had that many as Buddhist, but I had them against Incas.

But in the end I declared myself emperor of China in 1115 as it was my only chance to experience mod's content for it. I chose Dai as my imperial name.

This unlocked decent CBs inside China - I got duchy CBs almost for free, and for ridiculous price of 1000 karma and 5000 prestige I could even get a kingdom CB, sometimes.

And Assassins gave me modest murder plot chance bonus, so I could reset those truce timers more easily.

There were no special events, but by 1120 I got enough China to be able to declare myself real emperor of all de jure China. It was a bit premature, as I only controlled about 60% of it, but with truces being reset by assassinations so often.

And I got my first flavor event right away, some distant ruler sent me a commander as tribute, except that commander wasn't much good, so I gave him to my vassal. Still, it's a start.

Assassins also have very little flavor so far, just endless "assassinate this guy" missions, and some plotting bonuses as reward. It's totally all right for power level, but less interesting than I hoped for.

North China is still not pacified

Mongols and Incas are still not destroyed

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 17: 1101-1110: Maharaja Niran II the Bean Counter

I setup second Japanese king, kicking out Mongolian Mongols out of Japan. This inspired one of my puppet "Chinese Emperor" of Song to start the long work of liberating North China from Mongol oppression.

The Umayyad Qin Emperor who's not my puppet had the same idea, and then a son of my puppet emperor. Their first war against the Mongols went really well, second failed miserably, and the third I'm fighting for them.

I also got into some fights against the Incas, but while many people died on both sides, little land changed hands.

And then while my troops were fighting the Mongols, I died at age of 70.

New maharaja of Guangxi is his grandson Niran II, 28 year old Shan Buddhist like his ancestors. 13/15/27/10/20, Midas Touched, Kshatriya, Shrewd, Craven, Honest, Chaste, Ambitious, Paranoid, Stressed. These are good stats, but fairly bad traits for someone who needs to live long and have a lot of children.

At coronation, Niran II controls 45% of China not even counting his tributaries, so it seems sillier and sillier to not pronounce himself an Emperor, either of China, or of a new empire.

Incas and Mongols were major focus of last decade of Niran's life, but actually opportunistic fights against minors were how he got the most new territory.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 16: 1087-1101: Battle for Sumatra

There were still some Chinese Empire claimants left - Wu and Song, as well as Korean Qin which used to claim the Dragon Throne, but then went African Pagan, which is apparently too much for the racist Chinese people.

I let them play their silly games in exchange for some gold. My tributaries were stretching from straits of Malaya to Korea.

But why stop there? My Japanese nephew with 30k troops declared invasion on me, which reminded me of Mongol occupation of Japan, so I found a Japanese regional kingdom claimant, and declared war on Mongols on part of Japan that was under Mongol rule for now. It's really chaos over there with two Mongol khagans, and multiple vassal and independent Japanese feudal rulers, maybe they'll liberate themselves someday with my occasional help.

I felt unusually generous with my nephew and even gave him a county after I crushed his silly invasion. He died of leprosy soon anyway. What a sad life.

Incas occupied everything East of Sumatra except Temple of Borobudur itself, so I extended my protection to parts of Sumatra to stop them, and then I holy warred one duchy on West Java.

Unfortunately Inca CBs can teleport across multiple duchies, and they CBed and conquered some minors on Central Sumatra, even though it's a very long walk. So the idea of containment failed.

I had to fight another war on Sumatra against them just to defend my tributary - on paper I had more troops, but tributary was just 2 counties, so they could quickly assault and 100% that war unless I split my armies to defend both counties, and with jungles and rivers everywhere it was hard to get a good battle, overall quite an awkward fight.

Somehow Umayyads from Spain - Han culture, Taoist dynasty, but still Sayyid - got installed on one of Chinese pretender kingdoms by faction demand. That's crazy. Also annoying as that breaks tributary relation I had with previous dynasty.

I took one coastal duchy from the Umayyads all the way across Mongols - maybe I should begin pushing Mongols back into the steppe? The blue Mongolian Mongols that is, I'm actually on good terms with purple Japanese Mongols. It's all quite complicated.

I also started building Grand University in my capital - it's a shame that a realm as big as mine has no Great Works.

The Mongols and the Incas might have lost their event troops, but they still have regular troops, and all their broken CBs. I really ought to eradicate them both, but with my CBs being duchy at time, I don't really see how.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 15: 1073-1087: New Royal Capital

The Republic of Greater Pegu came back under my family's rule, but we didn't want to fight each other again. We got into some silly fights anyway, as our allied and tributary minors fought, but we both just pretended to get involved, and didn't have any real battles.

And later my family lost it again. They have such obscene amount of wealth, they could bribe the electors so much they'd elect a baby or even a woman, but they're clearly too incompetent or too stingy to do so.

I controlled 39/230 counties of China - and rapidly growing from there, and I could have definitely declared myself Emperor of China, like so many others (currently Han, Chu, Song, and Zhou), but it was really premature. For now I was just opportunistically grabbing coastal land to connect my realm into one nice coastline with good font on the map.

Three highest technology cities were Pegu (my capital before character switch), Hangzhou (in East China), and Lavapura (my capital since character switch).

As Hangzhou was just on my borders, I needed to conquer it for myself, and move my capital there. Having capital that far North and on the border is not great, as it's exposed to every Mongol raider and every enemy army, and it even got sieged a few times and sacked once, but it will get better once I conquer some lands around it.

I struggled a lot with cruelty, and the monk society very much did not appreciate that, but I finally got over it. Meanwhile I became a possessed lunatic while on a pilgrimage, but apparently monks have no problem with that. I really need to reach the top rank so monks give me the magic power of insta-converting infidel provinces.

After decade of casual fighting, I nearly connected my lands - only one duchy is slightly disconnected with Greater Pegu's county between us. That's close enough.

Proclaiming myself Emperor of China is increasingly tempting, but there are other things I could do instead. It would definitely help if I understood mod's "Mandate of Heaven" system to know if I should.

I'm also very annoyed that infidels hold 4/5 of our holy sites, but going for India from here would be such an enormous detour. Destroying the Incas is also tempting.

Japan is a really chaotic story, many local kings, Mongol Emperor, second Mongol Emperor, and Korean Qin Emperor all fighting for control, it just keeps breaking down and reforming. 

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 14: 1068-1073: Independence League

The wife I had was some lowly relative of a court. Soon after I became a king she had an accident - and somehow I was blamed for it. I married my distant relative instead.

I helped my cousin fight the Incas a bit when they were passing through my lands, but he was mostly doing fine, and ended up destroying what few event troops Incas had left.

I was busy with a much more important problem - vassal rebellion.

In what should be an impossible event, somehow my house lost elections for Republic of Greater Pegu. Somehow from geniuses of greatness known all over the world, our patrician and candidate was imbred incapable lunatic, 0/7/0/1/10.

Well, it was time to end this, so I joined independence league. Somehow directly declaring independence is not possible in merchant republics.

Unfortunately my cousin as faction leader was leading the fight, and I just provided troops. Getting independence from my cousin would be hard, but House Gao did not have income or retinue of House Mookjai, so this was a shockingly easy fight.

In addition to kingdom of Guanxi, a few other duchies and counties became independent of Greater Pegu. It's still 4th biggest realm in the world, and I'm only 7th.

While I'd prefer if the republic went back under our dynasty, I feel no ill will against them - my plan is to conquer China after all.

Sunan won the elections, and then lost half the republic

Guangxi is still in 6 pieces, but that can be fixed

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 13: 1064-1068: Wang Niran of the Guangxi Kingdom

There was a war I was in the middle of losing as I sent my troops to fight the Incas. Once I got my troops there, it was an easy win, but I caught Camp Fever, and at this age it was likely to be fatal.

Fortunately my court physician treated me enough to give me a few more years - and that was my oldest daughter. She did not want to marry anyone, and preferred life devoted to the faith, so I gave her a temple duchy taken from the Hindu infidels. Unfortunately the heathen peasants she tried to enlighten murdered her. The Buddhist faith is not doing too well.

Mongols of Mongolia attacked Mongols of Japan and won. As both titles had different inheritance laws, I sent bags of gold up there, to help that inheritance happen earlier. The more Mongols fight each other, then less they'll bother us. Japanese Mongols instantly got into trouble with both peasants and their Japanese vassals. Hopefully their whole horde falls apart.

My lands were still in 9 disconnected parts. It wasn't quite that bad as it was mostly coastline with small gaps, but I started a few fights to reduce the border gore. Without good CBs and with very scattered land it's going to take very long time.

Inca Emperor was depressed after losing his first invasion, and at first he focused on conquering remaining pagan minors on the Southern Islands. Then he died, and his baby son attacked us again for Java. Damn, I did not recover from the previous war yet.

I couldn't even join the war, I was dealing with my unruly vassals, and in the end I died of camp fever. The Second Inca Invasion so far has been a stalemate, but our troops reinforce while theirs don't, so it seems unlikely that they could win, even without my help. Incas have only 40k event troops left, and Mongols just 12k, so I'm not really too worried.

Wang Aroon was succeeded by his son Niran with an Arab concubine. Niran, 18, is a Grey Eminence, Genius, Patient, Envious, Temperate, Just, Cruel, and Possessed. At 18/13/22/21/16, he's a very formidable character. Buddhists get ambitions to reject their bad traits, so he'll probably get even better.

It was a pretty smooth succession. As usual, if I can pick my successor, I pick youngest adult son, as I don't like a 45 year old inheriting and only ruling for a few years.

The Guangxi Kingdom consists of 5 bigger areas and 3 random counties. I'd like it to cover the whole coastline from Malaya to Korea.