Nation Name: Great Wei
Culture(s): The dynasty has Tatar origins, and retains some of its heritage. Princes are tutored by Tatar warriors on how to ride the horse and shoot from an arrow at a young age, just like their nomadic forefathers did in olden times. In the northern parts of the country, Tatars, Mongols, Manchus and the myriad native Siberian tribes live as their ancestors always did.
However, in order to legitimize their dynasty, the Wei Dynasty has embraced Chinese culture and over the years has Sinicized to such an extent that it’s hard to differentiate it from past native Han dynasties. Emperors receive classical Chinese education, proclaim themselves to be Sons of Heaven and aim to govern in a Confucian manner. They also promote classical education, civil examinations and Chinese culture (poems, paintings, etch). Wei Emperors are always keen to present themselves are refined, civilized rulers and take an arrogant stance on foreigners, dismissing them as ‘barbarians’: this can be largely explained by their desire to demonstrate to their Han Chinese subjects that they are legitimate, civilized rulers. As a result of this, the Tatar Wei dynasty is ironically very much Sinocentric and xenophobic.
Territory: MapCapital City: Shuntian (Beiping)
Population: 100,000,000
Government Type : Absolute bureaucratic monarchy
Head of State: Xianfeng Emperor
Head of Government: Chancellor Yang Kang
Government Description: Central Government: The Emperor (Huáng Dì) is the Son of Heaven and the autocrat of All Under Heaven. All must submit before the heavenly-ordained ruler of the world. Tributary states are expected to annually submit tribute to the Emperor. The unruly barbarians are excused for their lack of decorum before the Emperor as they know no better.
The Emperor is the Khan of Khans (Khagan), Supreme Ruler of the Tribes. In order to stress this point, traditionally the Wei ruler is crowned Khagan the very next day after being crowned Emperor, in a grand ceremony attended by representatives of the Tatar, Mongol, Manchu and Siberian tribes.
The Wei Dynasty has changed the definition of civilized and barbarian from previous dynasties, in order to justify its nomadic origins. Tatars, Mongols, Tibetans, the various Siberian tribes, Manchus and Uyghurs are considered civilized, since they submit to the Son of Heaven and accept the lordship of the legitimate Chinese dynasty.
The Emperor rules with the aid of the Chancellor. The Chancellor is always a eunuch, a precautionary measure to prevent the domination of the office by powerful political dynasties. The Chancellor heads the Six Departments and Six Ministries, all reserved for Han Chinese officials with the exception of the Ministry of War that is reserved for nobles of Tatar or Mongol origin. The Six Departments are:
The Secretariat, responsible for drafting policies.
The Chancellery, responsible for reviewing policies.
The Department of State Affairs, responsible for implementing policies.
The Department of Palace, responsible for the upkeep of the imperial household.
The Department of Books, responsible for maintaining the Imperial Library.
The Department of Service, responsible for staffing the palace with eunuchs.
The Six Ministries are:
Ministry of Personnel, in charge of appointments, promotions & demotions of officials and the granting of honorific titles.
Ministry of Rites, in charge of state ceremonies & rituals and the maintenance of palace protocol.
Ministry of Revenue, in charge of collecting taxes, handling state revenues and gathering census data.
Ministry of War, in charge of appointments, promotion & demotion of military officers, maintenance of military installations and equipment, supply of the military and leadership in times of war.
Ministry of Justice, in charge of the judicial and penal process.
Ministry of Works, in charge of government construction programs and maintenance of infrastructure.
The Office of Barbarian Affairs is an independent agency responsible for diplomacy. It is mostly concerned with nations that are not tributary states of the Wei Dynasty. Relations with the tributary states are handled by the Ministry of Rites.
Below the Ministries are the Bureaus, government departments staffed by bureaucrats chosen in accordance to their rank in the Imperial Examinations. The scholar-officials dominate thus the bureaucracy. The maximum tenure in office is twelve years but every three years officials are evaluated and can be promoted or demoted.
Imperial Court:The Imperial Court is comprised of the Ministers, the Directors (heading the Departments), the leading secretariats of the Ministries and Departments and the Noble Lords (noblemen sent by the Tatar, Mongol and Manchu tribes as representatives of their respective tribes). The Court is convened at least three times a month, and debates domestic and foreign policy in relatively open manner. Courtiers can offer ideas and criticize the conduct of Ministers or Directors, but such criticisms must be well-grounded lest they incur the wrath of the Emperor.
Imperial Household:The Imperial Household is staffed entirely by eunuchs and servant ladies. The number of concubines is in the hundreds while the number of eunuchs and servant ladies in the thousands. The Imperial Household is a large, complex bureaucracy of its own, a miniature government of sorts handling the women and offspring of the Emperor. Concubines are chosen both in merits of political expediency and of beauty. They are trained by eunuchs to adhere to a strict protocol.
The women of the Imperial Household are ranked in accordance to their virtues, beauty and the favor of the Emperor:
1. Empress (皇后; huáng hòu)
2. Consort (夫人; fū rén)
3. Beauty (美人; měi rén)
4. Virtuous Lady (良人; liáng rén)
5. Consort (八子; bā zi)
6. Lady (七子; qī zi)
7. Senior Palace Woman (長使; zhǎng shǐ)
8. Junior Palace Woman (少使; shǎo shǐ)
As the rank of his mother affects a prince’s chances of being named Crown Prince, it isn’t uncommon for women in the Imperial Household to fight for influence and the favor of the Emperor.
Provincial Administration:The administrative division of the country is divided between the Han Provinces, the Steppe Lands, the Northern Frontier, the Ural Counties, the Western Military Governorate and the Tibetan Realm. Those divisions reflect the multitude of cultures and climates encompassed by the empire.
Han Provinces:The Han Provinces follow the traditional Chinese administration:
Viceroyalty, comprising of several provinces.
Province
Prefecture
County
The office-holders are chosen through provincial imperial examinations. Just like other government bureaucrats, they have a maximum tenure of twelve years in office but every three years they undergo evaluation and can either be demoted or promoted.
Steppe Lands:The Steppe Lands (comprising of Mongolia, the southern part of Siberia and Manchuria) are ruled in a dual manner:
Han settlements by Chinese style magisterial administration that reports directly to the central government.
The steppes by the officially recognized (by the Imperial Court) tribes. The Tatar, Mongol, Manchu and various Siberian tribes have broad autonomy in their internal affairs and are free to rule themselves as long as they avoid tribal warfare and pay an annual tribute to the Emperor. The tribes may also be called to offer military service if necessary. In certain cases, the Imperial Court can authorize the merging of tribes or the splitting of a tribe. The Imperial Court also grants titles (along with salary) to the chieftains of the tribes, creating in essence a parallel to the Chinese court nobility in the north.
Northern Frontier:The Northern Frontier, comprised of the northern part of Siberia that is sparsely populated (mostly by remote Han Chinese colonies), is governed by:
Dukes, who lord over extensive tracts of land and have both military and civil responsibilities. The Dukes generally have a hands off approach in governance, being happy to let settlements govern themselves as long as they provide an annual tax. They also oversee the few, small indigenous tribes, that are also largely left to their own devices as long as they recognize imperial rule.
Lord-Magistrates, the mayors of Han settlements who run the day to day life. Sheriffs (Zhènshang Jǐngzhǎng) maintain the order in the settlements, often employing the service of mercenary adventurers.
Due to the vast size and sparse population of northern Siberia, the Dukes and Lord-Magistrates are given a lot of leeway on how to govern themselves and on how to apply the law. Due to this, rowdy elements from the Han provinces are often traveling to the Northern Frontier, to escape imperial oversight. The imperial government generally encourages this trend, as it removes socially discontent elements from the far more important Han provinces.
Ural Counties:The Ural Counties cover the Eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains and their immediate regions. Mainly populated by the Turkic Bashkirs, each county is led by a Count who has both military and civil authority in his county. The counties are hereditary, but each Count is traditionally confirmed by the Imperial Court at his accession. Counts do not pay taxes to the Emperor nor are they required to provide troops for campaigns outside of their territory, but in exchange they are responsible for guarding the borders of Siberia from the West. An Imperial Envoy, usually a Han Chinese eunuch, is the Emperor’s overseer in the region, settling disputes between counties and ensuring that they remain loyal to the Emperor.
Western Military Governorate:The Western Military Governorate (Xinjiang) is ruled by a Grand Marshal with a militarized administration, and is strongly garrisoned. In parallel with this military administration, the local Uyghurs are allowed limited self-government: certain city-states and most nomadic tribes govern themselves as long as they provide an annual tax. All other holdings though are governed by military law.
Tibetan Realm:Tibet is ruled in a dual manner. The Dalai Lama in Lhasa presides over civil and domestic affairs, and is given much leeway by the central government. However there is strong garrison in Lhasa led by a 'Supreme Commander'. The Commander in effect administers foreign affairs of Tibet and ensures that the Dalai Lama provides taxes and men (for conscription) to the central government.
Majority/State Religion : Confucianism with elements of Taoism, Ancestor Worshipping and Tatar paganism
Economic Description: The Wei Empire is largely divided between an agrarian, sedentary south (northern China) and a nomadic, livestock-based north (steppes). The Western Military Governorate adds to that picture a combination of both ways along with land trade; unlike the other parts of the empire, non-tributary states are allowed freely to trade with Wei through land routes in the Western Military Governorate, thus keeping the lucrative silk road open.
The base of the Wei economy is located in the agrarian, Chinese part of the empire. There, the road network is of outstanding quality while canal building and river dredging have helped to create a large, unified internal market. As inter-regional trade and travel became ever more common, guild halls dedicated to facilitating commerce (
huiguan) have gained prominence around the urban landscape. As a result of this commercialization, mid-sized cities began popping up to direct the flow of domestic, commercial trade.
In the steppes of the north, the traditional nomadic way of life continues. The nomads own sheep and cows but due to the dramatic changes in seasons that bring harsh weather, they have to move throughout the year to find good spots for their livestock. In winter, they often move in front of a mountain for shelter. In spring and summer, next to a river for water supply, and in autumn up a hill to collect hay for the winter. They never live in one place for too long.
The economy of the Siberian part of the empire is "powered" primarily by mining. Siberia is extraordinarily rich in minerals, containing ores of almost all economically valuable metals. Siberian agriculture is severely restricted by the short growing season of most of the region. However, in the southwest where soils are exceedingly fertile black earths and the climate is a little more moderate, there is extensive cropping of wheat, barley, rye and potatoes, along with the grazing of large numbers of sheep and cattle. Elsewhere food production, owing to the poor fertility of the podzolic soils and the extremely short growing seasons, is restricted to the herding of reindeer in the tundra.
The state has imposed a monopoly on the production of salt, iron, and liquor. Wei also restricts maritime trade with the West to a few designated ports, under strict imperial supervision and plenty of regulations. This is done mainly to prevent the "cultural contamination" of Wei by "the barbarians". Tributary states are allowed, though, to trade freely.
Development: Semi-industrialized in northern China, pre-industrialized and primitive in the other provinces.
Army Description:High-ranking military offices are reserved for Tatars and Mongols, ensuring Tatar/Mongol domination of the Wei armed forces and acting as a check to the Han-dominated civilian government. That means that even the Han ‘
Red Standard Army’ is commanded by Tatars/Mongols.
The collective heads of the Wei military are the
Five Grand Marshals. Descendants of the five most prominent generals of original Tatar tribe of Zagip Tuqay, they command great respect and hold large fiefs in China proper. The collective leadership is meant to prevent one person from assuming too much military power.
The ‘
Flying Horse Banner’, named so after their banner that features a horse with wings, is comprised of around 70,000 men provided by the Tatar, Mongol, Manchu and various Siberian tribes. The vast majority of them are horsemen. In most cases, the regiments correspond to the tribe of origin, thus forging strong bonds between the men.
The ‘
Red Standard Army’, comprised of about 100,000 soldiers, is staffed almost exclusively by Han Chinese. The vast majority of soldiers are either infantrymen, archers or artillery corps. While the high-ranking and many of the medium-ranking officers are Tatar/Mongols, some of the medium-ranking officers and most of the lower-ranking ones are Han Chinese.
The '
Guard Battalions', numbering 350,000 men, are hereditary soldiers stationed in the provinces. They are granted military farms (
tun tian) and are supposed to be self-sufficient. Their main objective is to defend provinces and act as a policing force too, undertaking operations against bandits and rebels. They are less well equipped and disciplined than the other soldiers and cannot be counted on in a serious military engagement.
The '
Imperial Guard' is an elite 4,000 men strong unit that is responsible for protecting the Forbidden City. The Emperor is the nominal commander, but the unit is in practice led by an Imperial Palatine, a eunuch military officer (to ensure that they cannot take the throne).
The military is under the strict supervision of the civilian Ministry of War to avoid the danger of ambitious generals turning against the central government. The Ministry is responsible for the maintenance of military installations and the supply of the troops. It maintains bureaus in the various provinces in order to undertake this task. A large network of roads, bridges and canals enables a steady and relatively fast (for the standards of the time and the size of the empire) supplying of the military, at least in the Han provinces. The number of bureaucrats employed to undertake this logistical support is almost half the size of the military.
Army Weakness:While the Wei land forces are numerous, disciplined and have some of the best logistical support in the world, they are technologically inferior to Western armies. While the technological gap isn’t such that would make Wei armies inept, it means that when facing a Western army, numerical superiority is usually needed.
Naval Description:The Heavenly Fleet is the naval arm of the Wei military but despite its impressive name, it is small in size and mainly acts as a policing force to keep coasts clear from pirates. It is comprised of 300 Chinese naval junks.
Naval Weakness:Chinese naval junks are horribly outdated in comparison with Western navies.
National Goals: Retain territorial integrity, remain closed to Western influence, maintain regional supremacy in East Asia.
National Issues: All Under Heaven: Wei stretches from the seemingly endless steppes of Mongolia to the bustling cities of northern China, and from the scorching hot deserts of Xinjiang to the frozen plains of Siberia. While this might seem as a strength – and to a certain extent, it is – governing such a vast empire is an arduous undertaking, costing much in the way of money and manpower while making micromanagement impossible, thus allowing for lot of leeway in the further provinces.
An Ancient Empire in an Early Modern Age: In an era of emerging industrialized nation-states with colonial empires, Wei is still an "old school" land-based, multiethnic empire centered around an imperial house. It is also increasingly finding itself technologically inferior to the West, yet Wei Emperors desire for the empire to remain a "hermetic kingdom", closed to outside influence.
History : The great Mongol conquest of the 13th century took the tribes of the steppe across Eurasia, with victories over countless foes. One such tribe, the Tatars, would become highly influential in the western regions of the empire, gaining power over many of the Russian princes, making their base along the Volga River. By 1259, the unity of the Mongol Empire was gone. In the Western regions of the olden Mongol Realm, the Golden Horde rose, led by Berke Khan.
But nomadic tribes couldn’t for long remain sedentary. In 1351 two brothers, sons of one of the most influential Tatar chieftains, fought over who would succeed the father in lordship over the tribe. The younger brother, Zagip Tuqay, lost a battle due to treachery. With his hopes dashed, he decided that instead of fighting a losing war, it would be better to seek glory and wealth elsewhere, like his ancestors did. With half his tribe, he left for the East.
His first victory came during a war against a Kazakh tribe. Zagip crushed them in a decisive battle in 1358, but in victory he showed magnanimity and incorporated them into his tribe. Zagip’s enlarged horde moved further east, conquering Kashgar in 1360. Kashgar provided him with an opening further into China. Zagip would raid Chinese lands, accumulating wealth which he would use to attract further nomads and even some Han mercenaries to his cause. In a series of campaigns in the 1360s, he established his dominance over the various Mongol tribes of Inner and Outer Mongolia. In 1371, Zagip was crowned Khagan in Karakorum, all Mongol tribes recognizing Tatar supremacy in the steppes.
With the Hongwu Emperor establishing centralized control in the south, announcing the Ming Dynasty, Zagip turned his focus to the north. In the 1370s, he would expand Tatar control over southern Siberia, conquering the indigenous Siberian tribes living there. Although the soil was poor and the control tenuous, those campaigns ensured that his army was battle-ready and that more tribes would be incorporated into his nomadic empire. When Zagip died in 1378, he had established the most powerful nomadic empire since the times of Genghis Khan.
His successor was his youngest son, Cihanşa, who took leadership of the empire after a three years civil war. Cihanşa brutally murdered all his siblings and boiled alive the noblemen who sided with his enemies during the civil war. With the rest of the tribal nobility trembling in fear, Cihanşa was the uncontested ruler.
Making full use of the Jingnan rebellion of 1399, Cihanşa launched a massive invasion of Ming China. Cihanşa captured Beiping, the old Yuan capital, which he renamed Shuntian. Defeating the imperial Ming armies, who had to content with the rebellion of Zhu Di, Cihanşa conquered one Chinese province after the other, all the way to the Qin Mountains in the west and the Huai River to the east, brutally massacring and pillaging his way through. Attempting to cross that line, he was killed by a stray arrow during a battle, putting an end to a Tatar invasion of the south in 1403.
His successor was Talgat, a nephew of his and one of the few relatives who had survived Cihanşa’s purge. A soft-spoken eighteen years old man of partial Chinese descent from his mother’s side, who had been educated by Chinese scholars (unlike most of the tribal nobility) and with deep admiration of Chinese civilization, he was accepted as Khagan purely because the Tatar generals, led by Marshal Zaribzyan, understood that stability was needed if they were to consolidate their hold over the rich plains of north China.
Talgat moved into Shuntian, and adopted the dynastic name of Taizong Emperor, reminiscing of the great Tang Dynasty Emperor. He announced the establishment of the Wei Dynasty and gave his uncle Cihanşa posthumously the dynastic name of Yongchang Emperor and buried him with all the ceremonies of a Chinese ruler. Taizong called on Ming courtiers and bureaucrats to come to Shuntian and serve into the new administration. A few did and he honored them with handsome salaries and high offices, attracting more of them in the next years.
Unlike his brutal uncle, Taizong restored order in northern China and reestablished traditional Chinese administrative practices, earning the grudging admiration of the populace that had lived through generations of war. His adoption of Chinese etiquette and governance, though, wasn’t going to go unchallenged. In the steppes of the north, Taizong wasn’t respected and Marshal Zaribzyan in 1411 escaped to Karakorum, where he rallied much of the tribal aristocracy against him. The old ways were to be restored, or so Zaribzyan thought.
Taizong, making full use of the riches of China and the manpower the Han populace presented, coalesced around him a coalition of tribal horsemen who remained royal to the throne and Han infantrymen, some of them veterans of the Ming era and some newly recruited soldiers. In 1412, in a decisive battle, Taizong crushed the rebel forces; at first it looked as if the rebels were about to win, but an arrow killed Zaribzyan (who was fighting in the front lines) and caused chaos in the rebel army, which allowed the loyalists to push back and massacre them. With news of the victory becoming known, the tribes of the steppe submitted once more to their Khagan, Taizong.
With order restored, and in order to keep the Tatar, Mongol and Siberian tribes in check, Taizong expanded and reorganized the Han regiments into the Red Standard Army, so called because of their red banners. Taizong would also move a number of nomads into China itself, establishing them at strategic posts, while establishing some Han garrisons in the steppes of the north. That way, he could keep in check both the Han and the nomadic tribes. Another strategy devised to keep the tribes occupied was to give them a free reign in launching expeditions into northern Siberia, rewarding with gold and land the most successful ones. This policy (which would be continued by Taizong’s successors) brought in the next century northern Siberia into Wei control.
With peace reestablished in both north and south, Taizong went on with a radical reformist agenda. To ensure balance, all high military offices (including ones commanding the Han Red Standard Army regiments) would be reserved for Tatars and Mongols, while all high ranking civilian offices would be granted to classically-educated Han Chinese. In 1417, Taizong appointed Guo Jing (a Han Chinese prominent scholar) as Chancellor of Wei.
Guo Jing enacted a broad land redistributing program to give farm to tenants and landless peasants, much to the dismay of many large landowners. Regional revolts in the 1420s were crushed by the Wei military, allowing the reform to go ahead. Guo Jing undertook the first population census since the collapse of the Ming. The 1426 census gave an accurate picture of the population of the Empire and allowed a revision of the tax assessment to make taxation fairer. Monopoly on salt, iron and liquor was established, roads, canals and bridges were either updated or constructed and series of granaries were built in the provinces to allow steady supply in times of natural disasters.
When Taizong died in 1439, he was leaving behind a prosperous, peaceful realm. Unlike his own succession to power, his eldest son ascended to the throne peacefully, taking the title of Kangxi Emperor. The Kangxi Emperor was much more of a warrior that his father. An excellent horseman and skilled with the bow, he toured in person the steppes of the north, ensuring the loyalty of the steppe tribes. Sensing a growing unease of the Tatar and Mongol tribes with the Chinese administration in the south, he decided that the best way to prevent a crisis would be to direct their energy towards a war of expansion. His target was Manchuria: between 1445 and 1457, in a series of bloody campaigns, Wei domination of Manchuria was established. The Manchu tribes were forced to accept Wei rule, in return being allowed broad autonomy in their internal affairs.
In 1454, emboldened by his successes in Manchuria, the Kangxi Emperor sent a letter requesting the Joseon ruler to submit to him, as the rightful Son of Heaven. The Koreans scoffed at the Tatar pretenses, responding that they recognized the Ming Dynasty as the legitimate Chinese dynasty. The Kangxi Emperor sent a combined force of 'Red Standard Army' Han regiments and Tatar and Mongol cavalry to invade Korea. The overwhelming combination of a numerically superior infantry force and a highly mobile cavalry force meant that the Koreans faced defeat upon defeat. By the end of 1455, the Joseon ruler accepted Kangxi as the rightful Emperor of China and the Joseon Dynasty became a tributary of the Wei Dynasty.
Earning the admiration of the tribes due to his military prowess, Kangxi devised a new scheme to further tighten imperial rule of the north. Tribal noblemen would have to send relatives, including one of their sons, to China. Officially, those relatives were rewarded with lavish mansions and the sons in particular were granted education by the best imperial scholars. In practice, the Emperor would use those relatives as hostages while educating the sons to think in a Chinese, non-tribal way, so when they returned to their tribe, they would act as agents of the Emperor; he himself was an example of how that kind of education could mold a mind, as despite being a Tatar, his way of thinking was shaped by Chinese ideals.
The next Emperor was Zhengtong (1464 - 1495). A man largely interested in material pleasures, he left much of the governance of the empire at the hands of the cunning eunuch Yu Qian. Yu Qian focused his efforts on the construction of a number of forts in the northern steppes and an expansion of the road networks of China. He also oversaw the construction of the Forbidden City between 1479 and 1488. His death in 1489 ushered a period of misgovernance, which allowed Marshal Söläyman Nabiullin (a prominent Tatar chieftain) to rebel against imperial rule. Imperial campaigns against him in 1493 and 1495 failed.
The new Emperor, the Tongzhi Emperor, was far more interested in the horse and bow than his father, having been trained by Tatar tutors. Upon becoming Emperor, he led a grand campaign that put down Söläyman’s revolt, the last nomadic revolt against the empire. To ensure such a revolt wouldn’t be repeated, Tongzhi expanded the hostage-taking system, ordered more tribal expeditions into northern Siberia and bought the loyalty of the tribes with grand titles and hefty salaries.
In 1516, the Chenghua Emperor came to the throne. He established in 1521 the Secret Memorandums, allowing direct communication between him and local officials without the court or ministries getting in the way. This allowed far greater imperial oversight of the public administration. He also lowered taxation and was renowned for his austere personal lifestyle. He was succeeded by the Wanli Emperor (1545 – 1578). More interested in literature than in governing, he left much of the actual governance to a number of powerful Chancellors. In 1564, the empire faced a crisis in the form the White Lotus Rebellion. A religious cult, it attracted a large number of Han peasants. It initially defeated thrice Han regiments sent against it and occupied a number of cities, causing the Emperor to call for a Tatar – Mongol tribal force to come from the north to put down the revolt. In 1569, the revolt was finally crushed.
In 1578, the Yongzheng Emperor came to the throne. A dynamic ruler, he oversaw the opening of Manchuria and parts of Siberia to Han colonization (financed by the government), alleviating some social tensions in the Chinese provinces. He expanded the system of Secret Memorandums, which brought frank and detailed reports on local conditions directly to the throne without being intercepted by the bureaucracy, and created a small Grand Council of personal advisors that was independent of the Imperial Court. In 1592, Wei forces invaded Tibet and forced the Dalai Lama to submit to imperial rule. Literature, painting and music flourished in Yongzheng's reign as the Wei Dynasty entered a period of unprecedented economic growth.
This trend continued under his successor, the Jiajing Emperor (1613 – 1641). He commissioned the Siku Quanshu, an encyclopedia which compiled more than 3000 Chinese works of literature. At the same time, though, the Jiajing Emperor reestablished the tradition that princes of the Wei Dynasty would have to be trained by Tatar warriors on horsemanship and archery, wanting to retain connection with the ancestral traditions of the dynasty. The Jiajing Emperor toured twice Mongolia, overseeing personally the submission of tribute by the Tatar and Mongol tribes.
The Shunzhi Emperor (1641 – 1663) oversaw the closing of the Wei from the outside world. He pursued a strict Confucian agenda that would satisfy the Chinese literati. He sought to purify Wei from ‘barbaric influences’, announcing a policy of ‘Closed Doors’, which restricted Western merchants in designated ports and imposed strict regulations on trade. Shunzi also saw increased Han colonization of Siberia. The Guangxu Emperor (1663 – 1722) oversaw an increase of population. Aside from a peasant revolt due to a drought in 1681, his reign was largely peaceful and uneventful. His successor, the Qianlong Emperor (1722 – 1755), was a builder. On the hills northwest of Beijing, he expanded the villa known as the "Garden of Perfect Brightness" (Yuanmingyuan - Old Summer Palace). He also expanded the imperial summer palace in Rehe Province, and it was at Rehe that the Qianlong Emperor held court with various Tatar and Mongol nobles. The Xuantong Emperor (1755 – 1767) and the Jingtai Emperor (1767 – 1779) saw increased Han colonization of both Siberia and Manchuria as population had skyrocketed, causing concerns over its sustainability, while also witnessing low rates of economic growth.
Xianfeng Emperor ascended the throne in 1779, at the age of thirty-two. He rules an empire that is populous, large and rich but also increasingly stagnant and falling behind technologically. Wei still remains closed to the West, and has managed to maintain its isolation largely through its grand size. But that might be changing as merchants seek access to the Wei market…
RP Sample: I'm OP
#AER (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)