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 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

Tianxia China: Part 05: 976-983: Wang Zheng Wenjie of Guangxi

I had some tribal vassals that wouldn't go feudal no matter what I did, and it looks like in this modpack you need to be non-pagan to go feudal, but Chinese governments are not allowed to demand conversion, or revoke land from heathens, so that's much harder than in Europe. I guess I can still send some priests over. There's actually quite a lot of such land in West China, and on islands around it.

After Han Emperor died, I aggressively moved against his son, and various remnants of Chu, to become the true ruler of South-West China.

Cheng Empire and Chengdufu Kingdom both suffered massive civil unrest. My vassals were also extremely restless about endlessly raised levies.

Three of my 4 adult sons died, and the fourth was not exactly king material, so I nominated my grandson as my heir. In good time, as I died at late age of 63.

Wang Zheng Wenjie of Guangxi is royalty on both sides. His paternal grandfather is king of Guangxi, and his maternal grandfather was king of the no longer existing kingdom of Dali.

He's 1/11/16/9/13, Midas Touched, Craven, Diligent, Wroth, and Paradoid.

His cousin is king of Annam, and his brother-in-law is king of what's left of Chu, but he doesn't have any connections with any of the three remaining imperial houses. 

I accidentally clicked succession screen, so none of that nice stuff

Cheng, Wu, and Chengdufu are all falling apart, and I'm doing my best to destroy Han, so soon China won't even have an imperial pretender

I suspect racism is a big reason why all vassals are rebelling against the Cheng Emperor

Soon China will find itself without any kind of Emperor

Tianxia China: Part 04: 963-976: African China

In just a decade, China changed beyond recognition.

Min and Liao claimants to the Dragon Throne got destroyed, limiting the war to just 3 claimants, and a lot of minors.

In the West, powerful kingdom of Chengdufu emerged, created by a liberator rebellion by a Shenist Pagan speaking local Qiang dialect. It's the second biggest Chinese realm, has the strongest army, and successfully won wars against Cheng (former Jin). Soon king of Chengdufu may try to claim the Dragon Throne.

In the North, Jin emperor had a martilineal marriage with some Yoruba woman, and a Yoruba kid inherited the empire, now renamed Cheng Empire. We're still allied, as his uncle is married to my daughter. His claim is far stronger than the other two, so future China might be African. Or not - as he's in terrible health, and his heir would restore Jin dynasty.

In the East, Wu emperor was doing well, but then independence rebellion split his realm in two, and it's unclear if it will recover.

Most surprising things happened in the South. When I declared my independence, Han Empire was on verge of collapsing (I even prematurely titled previous episode "Fall of the Han Empire"), and I expected to just sweep the remains.

Instead not only it fully recovered, it was bullying all the minors, and was on its way to be the second strongest claimant after Jin/Cheng. Meanwhile I was struggling wit disloyal vassals endlessly plotting against me and rebelling.

I had to do something about it. The key to Han's recovery was its alliange with king of Wuyue in East China. Han prince married Wuyue princess, and they were supporting each others' wars. I invited the couple to my court, and in a shocking development, the prince had a tragic accident. Thus ended Han-Wuyue alliance, but they're still about as strong as my kingdom.

As for minor countries, Chu and Dali completely collapsed, and I had parts in taking their lands. Various minor dukes in Central China keep getting independence, then being conquered by stronger realms, and so on. It will be a while until peace comes to those lands.

Current power ranking is about:

• Cheng Emperor
• Chengdufu King
• Wu Emperor
• Guangxi King
• Han Emperor
• Jiangnandong Duke
• Wuyue King
• Beifujian Duke (Taoist Min; but of Smith dynasty due to some game bug)
• Yongxin Chu King
• Chu King

And long list of insignificant minors.

Jin and Wu seemed to be stabilizing, but that's no longer true for both

I wonder if China will ever recover. If there remains just one claimant with clear Mandate of Heaven, I'm still open to joining their realm as a vassal king

There's not been any real issues with hordes or other foreigners. Liao dynasty founded by the Khitan horde lasted almost nothing, with former emperor (married to my oldest daughter) reduced to a vassal 2-count of Cheng.

Tianxia China: Part 03: 956-963: Fall of the Han Empire

Rebels against my emperor conquered the whole duchy of Guangnanxi. I offered to lead the reconquest, and in exchange I got the claim for the duchy for myself, and former rebels as my vassals. I still needed to pay the full price for re-establishing the administration.

My wife cheated on me with my marshal, so I divorced her, banished the marshal, and arranged marriage with a cousin of Japanese Tenno.

I declared wars against Chu and Tongren, calling into them Dali, Annan, and emperor of Wu. Up to this point I was my emperor's most loyal vassal, and I was trying to help the Han Empire recover, of course with me in control of the reconquered lands.

This doesn't look too desperate, but that's just the first wave

Unfortunately then the Han Emperor lost Mandate of Heaven utterly, and waves after waves of rebels spread all over what was left of the Han empire.

I didn't want to break my vassal oath, but I had no choice. I first had to break my son's betrothal to imperial princess, and declare independence war from Han by force, or else endless hordes of rebels would completely destroy my lands just as they were destroying the rest of the realm.

Then weirdly with death of the Han emperor, all rebels politely disbanded, and my independence war instantly succeeded. That didn't stop me from just resuming the fight, targeting a duchy I needed for king title.

After that I got myself king of Giangxi title.

What was left of the Shu empire collapsed. Liao, Min, and Han are just remnants of what they were. Jin is in multiple revolts, which could shatter the realm if they keep going for too long, and that would leave Wu as the only meaningful claimant to the Dragon Throne.

Annan and Wu are allies, and Dali used to be under previous ruler

Once I clean up the borders by taking a bit of Chu and Han lands, it will be a nice and safe corner of China

I don't currently have any imperial ambitions, and I might even swear fealty to Wu or Jin emperor, depending on how things go. Or just leave China to do its own thing, and migrate to Singapore or something.

Tianxia China: Part 02: 943-956: Imperial Connections

Now that I had duke rank, I could focus on important things, like making money and family connections.

Now that I was a respectable, duke, I got my three children respectable betrothals, my daughters got arranged marriages with:

• Liao Emperor
• youngest son of Jin emperor
• Korean king of Goryeo - and after that got mysteriously cancelled (why I never get notifications for that?) king of Annam instead
• heir to Empire of Japan

And my sons got got arranged marriages with:

• granddaughter of Wu emperor
• daughter of king of Dali
• sister of Han emperor
• sister of king of Goryeo

Quite a few other kings and emperors considered a duke too lowly for their children. The whole East Asia is strictly agnatic, so there's pretty much no way to gain any land with these marriages, but it's still a nice and prestigious thing to do.

My emperor got involved in a war with king of Chu, and they waged it mostly over my demesne. I even got pierced by a spear as his commander, it severely disfigured me, and the wound got infected. Thanks to my help, that losing war ended up with white peace, but it cost me personally and my demesne too much.

After that all forces of my emperor were spent, and rebels started running all over the place.

I sacrificed enough, so instead I passed primogeniture succession, and pressed my claims to two coastal counties. That war was going very poorly, as my demesne troops were so depleted, and my enemy hired some mercenaries, so I waited until he ran out of money and had to dismiss them, and hired my own.

Overall all this decade expanded the realm by just two new counties, and one city I built, but there's been a lot of construction and technological progress in my demesne.

I also wrote top quality Magnum Opus on Transmutative Alchemy.

Han Empire looks overran by rebels, and about to lose a county to Tongren tribals

Rebels even fight my opponent duke of Lien

Fortunately unlike Chu, they stayed away from my lands, so I won't help

Liao, Shu, and Min empires are nearly over.

Jin is far ahead of everyone else, Wu is far behind Jin, and Han far behind Wu

If Han Emperor remains incapable of protecting the realm, maybe I'll ask another claimant for protection instead