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#2381
August 10th, 2010, 05:12 PM
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Isaac's Empire 2.0 Timeline and Wiki. Updated 28th March. Quote:
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#2382
August 11th, 2010, 06:19 AM
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As a punishment, I'll re-read the timeline from the very beginning. Quote:
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#2383
August 11th, 2010, 04:27 PM
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Thoughts on IE's update
Great update, as always. Five more years and we will see a 'canon' map of 1800
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 .What happened to the capital and the newly discovered Terracota army? And this means the monarchy could return? Or should I wait for Megas' updates on Russia?  Quote:
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#2384
August 11th, 2010, 04:29 PM
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#2385
August 11th, 2010, 04:58 PM
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Yes, the Black Sea is heavily fortified- most of the Interior part of the Imperial Navy is stationed there (Interior=Black Sea, Red Sea, and Mediterranean, Exterior=Everywhere else). Quote:
He might do. I'm saying nothing. Quote:
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Isaac's Empire 2.0 Timeline and Wiki. Updated 28th March. Quote:
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#2386
August 11th, 2010, 05:36 PM
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However, I pretty much shamed myself before BG by making a mistake. So I'm reareading the timeline never to do that again 
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#2387
August 11th, 2010, 06:40 PM
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What happened to the theory of evolution? I just re-read the parts where it was mentioned, but it didn't say which side won. Did it ever gain public acceptance?
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#2388
August 11th, 2010, 07:31 PM
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Isaac's Empire 2.0 Timeline and Wiki. Updated 28th March. Quote:
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#2389
August 11th, 2010, 11:06 PM
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Thoughts on latest update
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The most beautiful Terracotta Army figures are mounted in niches on the Monument of the Revolution (where Borisov is buried); others are 'guarding' the burial chamber of Borisov himself. Most of the hundreds of statues are in storage in a warehouse outside Tsaritsyn waiting for the Museum of the Revolution to be built (it will take a while ... especially now Russia is in trouble) Last edited by Megas Dux ton Kypraion; August 15th, 2010 at 10:46 AM..
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#2390
August 16th, 2010, 06:07 AM
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Question to BG. I was just wondering, as I have not seen it discussed too much in this thread, what is the state of ethnic relations inside the Roman Empire. Granted most of the population is Uninate Christian, are the (I'm assuming still Muslim) Arabs or Turks actively put down a la Hapsburg Austria? Also, is there any difference in "homelands" for the ethnicity inside the empire, compared to OTL/. Obviously there are many more Greeks than there are OTL, but say, is the ethnic makeup of the Balkans or the Middle East, or Europe in general drastically different?
Sorry if this has been discussed before, just consider it a bump then.
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The Gate to the East: Byzantium Rising, a Victoria: Revolutions AAR/timeline.
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#2391
August 16th, 2010, 10:46 AM
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Homelands here are much larger than OTL homelands- the Balkans and Near East ITTL have been spared the various genocides, as well as population movements, of OTL. Probably the biggest difference is the lack of Turks in Anatolia and the Balkans as a significant presence, but there are others too. A lack of Crusades and Ayyubids mean a significantly larger population of Semitic Christians in Syria and Palestine. They number perhaps 30% of the population. Slavic groups are found all across the Balkans, and are very jumbled up. Sicily remains predominantly Greek, not Latin, in character. And so on, and so forth.
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Isaac's Empire 2.0 Timeline and Wiki. Updated 28th March. Quote:
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#2392
August 18th, 2010, 02:53 AM
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Russia: Chapter VI, part III - the rise of the Censorial Republic
Renko’s arrival in his new office coincided, for some strange reason, with a wave of terrorist attacks and atrocities at the end of June 1760, which claimed the lives of the Ephor of Kiev, and some high ranking military commanders posted in southern Russia. Renko badly wanted to make a bid for control of the Freedom Guard – in order to take the fight to Russia’s secret enemies within – but he felt it was too early to do so, and that the expedient thing was to keep a modest profile for a while.
And so, at first, Renko used his new position as Censor of the Republic to make apparently trifling changes: his first official act in July 1760 was to issue a non-binding Instruction, called (very significantly) a canon, to all Ephors, Tribunes and Senators demanding the abolition of any “Un-Russian” names of districts, towns or other places. Most Russian officials shrugged their shoulders at this measure; Renko’s allies in government immediately implemented the canon – and the followers of Chuikov and Apraxin did so by September of that year. In this way, the district of Tatarstan was renamed ‘Sarmatia’ (after the country of an ancient warrior-people Renko admired); the term ‘Khazaria’ was banned; and the city at the mouth of the Volga with the Turchian name Yenitil was rechristened as ‘Geroyevgorod’ (‘Hero City’). Hundreds of other small towns and villages were also given new, Russified, names – but a follower of Chuikov mocked the changes in the Senate with the acerbic observation that “Here, at last, with this mighty decree, Renko is finally achieving his dream to change the face of Russia.” His next act as Censor was similarly bizarre but seemingly harmless. During the summer of 1760 Renko announced his plans for a civic cult for the Republic and began by opening a new neo-classical temple in Geroyevgorod dedicated to ‘Russia’s Heroes’. Inside the beautiful marble-columned building statues of Borisov and the anthropomorphised, and alluring, female figures of ‘Mother Russia’ and ‘Progress’ were unveiled. Renko, with some of his closest young followers, appeared in the temple dressed in strange clothing reminiscent of Roman togas and gave a dignified speech in front of injured veterans of Russia’s recent wars praising them for their military glory, honour and self-sacrifice in the Motherland’s service. He then distributed medals, grants of land and the keys to fine houses previously owned by Turchians resident in the city. Earlier that same day, 5,000 Turchians had been arrested by security forces loyal to Renko and expelled to the East. As if on cue, all of Renko’s allies in government announced plans for Civic Temples in their cities, districts or jurisdictions. In September 1760, when the followers of Chuikov and Apraxin appeared to drag their feet in doing the same, Renko and his allies sprang their trap. The first act of the drama occurred when Svetlana Zelenskaya, the Diplomatic Relations Commissar, accompanied by Renko, approached the Tribune of Nenetia, Vitaly Salekhard, and offered him the diplomatic post of Ambassador to Vinland. Salekhard was reluctant to give up his military and legislative powers to be sent to distant Jensby. Playing “bad cop” to Zelenskaya’s “good cop”, Renko threatened that if Salekhard did not agree, the Neo-Spartan movement would target Samoyeds and other native peoples of northern Russia in the purges and population deportations to come; on the other hand, however, if Salekhard cooperated, and loyally served the Russian cause at the court of King Alexander of Vinland, the Samoyeds and other northern peoples would be not only not targeted, they would be declared Equals of the Russians and have an honoured place in the Neo-Spartan state. Perceiving that Renko was deadly serious in his threat – and that the Chuikov-Apraxinists barely tolerated a native general in Russia’s high councils – Salekhard made the best of the deal and sacrificed his domestic authority in the interests of the indigenous peoples of the North. At the same time that this was going on, Lavrenty Mihailov, Renko’s most loyal follower and Internal Affairs Commissar, arrived unexpectedly in Russiberia and announced – as was his right under the Constitution – for an audit of the state affairs of the Tribune Chuikov. Panic-stricken, and aware of many skeletons in his closet, Chuikov refused Mihailov’s inspectors access to Chuikovgrad and appealed to Apraxin in Tsaritsyn to foil the audit. Apraxin raised the issue urgently with the Chancellor; however, aware that many members of the League were grumbling that the rule of law should be upheld, Ankudinov warned Chuikov against taking any illegal military action and promised him a fair hearing. Consulting the Constitution, the Chancellor’s aides noted that any Tribune undergoing an audit was automatically suspended from office pending a final decision on the audit investigation report. Retiring in confusion, and not a little consternation, to Sibirgorod where he locked himself in the Kremlin with his closest captains and supporters, Chuikov abandoned Chuikovgrad to Mihailov’s gleeful inspectors, who seized thousands of papers from the archives stored in Chuikov’s private office. With Salekhard resigning his Tribuneship to be Ambassador to Vinland, and Chuikov suspended from his office by law while an audit was underway, suddenly the legislative process in the Senate was deadlocked. Belyakova, Chehov, Zenchikov, and Trefiolov were the 4 Renkoist Tribunes and they were perfectly counter-balanced by the 4 remaining Chuikov-Apraxinist Tribunes, which meant that either side could veto the legislative proposals of the opposing faction. Where neither side could table new legislation, the Constitution allowed the Chancellor the sole right to propose new laws – a situation which quickly became onerous for Ankudinov as eight pushy, articulate and permanently squabbling Tribunes besieged the Chancellor’s office. The Chuikov-Apraxinists were desperate to get the audit of Chuikov overturned and a new Tribune elected from Nenetia; the Renkoists were equally adamant that the audit should go ahead and put obstacles continuously in the way of elections for a new Tribune from Nenetia. The bickering at the top of government allowed Renko to play the role of the dignified, determined and decisive statesman – who acted urgently out of his care for Russia and the People’s best interests. In October 1760, Renko issued a Censorial canon which required the immediate expulsion of foreigners from Russia’s 30 modern universities. The Chuikov-Apraxinist Education Commissar complained to the Chancellor that Renko was interfering in her own areas of responsibility and asked Ankudinov to strike down the canon. In response, Renko appeared before the full Senate and made an impassioned speech where he warned that “most foreign students are the spies, saboteurs and assassins of the Dragon Society or the agents of other powers unfriendly to our glorious Revolution. Russia cannot afford to hold these vipers to her breast.” Ankudinov nodded in approval and introduced the motion, which was carried by 56 votes to 44. But Renko was just warming to his theme: “And no poison in our Education system is greater,” he declared, “than that injected into the bloodstream of Mother Russia by the servile Romanophiles of the Uniate Church, or the trickster Imams of the Mohamedans in our midst. They hold posts as teachers, lecturers and administrators in our schools and universities! They are partisans and collaborators in the madness and duplicity of that traitor Kamensky! Hurl these reprobates out onto the streets, o Senators! Give me as your Censor the power to direct our Education system down a noble path of ideological righteousness! Give me your votes so that I might gird not just the loins, but also the minds, of young Russia for pitiless war with the shifty malefactors within and the sniveling Caesaro-papists without!” And with those words ringing in the ears of the Senators present, Ankudinov introduced a motion giving the Censor the power to order the Education Commissar to adopt any canon relevant to Russia’s schools and universities; and, to the din of exultant cheers mixing with furious insults, the motion was carried by 52 votes to 48. With the Censor now in effective control of education policy, Renko expelled all foreign students, and Christian or Muslim teachers, from places of education by the end of November 1760. As the snows gripped Russia that winter, and thousands of miserable young people waited shivering at border-crossings to leave the country, and their Christian or Muslim teachers traipsed dejectedly back to forlorn homes, Renko issued another canon, this time making all his Neo-Spartan tracts compulsory reading in school. All this, however, was merely the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end for Renko’s power grab. In 1761, the big news came from developments in China. At the beginning of the year, China’s Chief Minister, Li Manshi, still just 38 years old, had started to doubt the soundness of the advice from his four Russian Grand Commissars – led by the baleful Anatoly Voropaev – and tried to return to the tutelage of his old mentor Renko. Unfortunately for him, Voropaev, a fluent Mandarin speaker since his student days, did not intend to be sidelined and so outfoxed Li Manshi by arranging a coup; the Praesident of the Revolutionary Council, a quiet, but brutal, bureaucrat called Men Gao was raised to the highest power – and Li Manshi was executed by firing squad within the hour. Voropaev now whispered in Men Gao’s ear that he could make China great again, and further the aims of China’s own deepening Revolution, by making war on the Nyapanese who controlled several of the Treaty Ports which had been Portuguese possessions on China’s coast. The war which erupted in the spring lasted 8 months and led to devastating losses for the Chinese, who witnessed the destruction of their two ancient capital cities of Beiping and Nanjing to an aerial bombing campaign by the more modern Nyapanese air-fleet. In a cold fury, Men Gao sent Voropaev an uncompromising message to get the Russians to enter the war on China’s side – by any means necessary – or face the consequences. Voropaev sent one of his fellow Grand Commissars as ambassador to Tsaritsyn but the Senators refused to see the turncoat and the Chancellor had him shot for treason. The Russian Government would do nothing to assist its enemy Voropaev and his dangerous plaything, the so-called Neo-Spartan Chinese State. While the war was raging, Renko tried to extend his Censor’s power over the military of Russiberia, stationed on the border with the bloody conflict, arguing that it was a dangerous situation for Russia there due to the Tribune’s suspension and the lack of local military leadership. However, on this occasion, Apraxin was able to convince Ankudinov that military matters were not within the Censor’s competence and the Chancellor blocked Renko’s attempts and upheld the Military Commissar’s authority over the Army. Apraxin did do something useful with his small victory over Renko, however; impressed – and worried – by the vast size and organisation of China’s armies besieging Shanghai, Guangzhou and invading Coria, he ordered an “Iron Wall” of modern fortresses to be constructed along the Sino-Russian border between Stalgorod, a fortress near where the Russian, Mongolian and Chinese borders met, and Borisovsk, the port city on the Anatelic. These fortifications would prove vital in just a few years’ time. Renko had better luck in May in extending his powers – but only after a harrowing incident which left him personally shaken and his followers in a state of fearful grief. Renko had been visiting Vladikavkaz, the district capital of Greater Alania, when, on a whim, he decided to inspect a new zinc-processing plant on the edge of town. His companion, and local Tribune, the ever beautiful and charismatic Katarina Belyakova, had decided to go ahead in Renko’s motorcade to open the newly-built Civic Temple of Vladikavkaz. On the way, she and the rest of the motorcade, which included some senior Freedom League members and confidants of Renko, were killed in a huge explosion from a bomb buried beneath the surface of the road. Upon hearing the news, Renko had bravely raced (via back-country roads) to Vladikavkaz and made a sorrowful oration at the Civic Temple before a weeping crowd. “We have lost a peerless daughter of Russia”, he had intoned, “whose like we will struggle to see again unless our brave young women step up to the mark. But our spirit is unbowed; our defiance is undimmed; and we will triumph against foul assassins who skulk in the shadows! Beware, wretched plotters, for I swear on my life that I will make the hand of Russia reach out, grasp, and crush you for your perfidies!” Later that month, in Tsaritsyn, following an emotional state funeral for Belyakova, and the swearing in of the rapidly-elected Svetlana Zelenskaya as Tribune in Belyakova’s place, Renko once again used the sympathy vote to argue for his takeover of the Freedom Guard in a bid to stamp out the bombings, shootings and other attacks which had plagued Russia for a year. Many Senators feared giving control of the secret police to Renko; however, others believed only Renko had the competence to do anything about the terrorist incidents; and so, when the Chancellor introduced the law and it went to a vote, the result was tied at 50 votes for and 50 against – and passed only by virtue of the Chancellor’s vote, which acted as a casting vote under the Constitution in the event of a tied result in the Senate. It was a huge victory for Renko, and the decisive event in his attempt to make the office of Censor the ultimate power under the Republic. The Chuikov-Apraxinists complained bitterly to the Chancellor about how two Tribunes had been excluded from power for 9 months thanks to the delaying tactics of the Renkoists, yet Belyakova’s replacement had been elected in less than 9 days. Embarrassed, and under pressure from Apraxin, Ankudinov ruled in favour of Chuikov in the matter of the public audit – despite much of the evidence of his financial irregularities being unexamined – on the shaky grounds that his alleged misdemeanours predated the coming into force of the Constitution and therefore were invalid. It was a weak and disreputable decision by the Chancellor – but Renko declined to criticise him in public and smoothly arranged for his supporters in Nenetia (now backed up by strong-arm tactics from the Freedom Guard) to elect a Renkoist Tribune from that district. Once again, the two factions were deadlocked in the Senate with 5 Tribunes each – and the Chancellor once more had to propose new laws personally. Events, however, soon gave the Chuikov-Apraxinists a chance to shine. By February 1762, Praesident Men Gao of China had established a new capital at Wuchang, purged his administration of pro-Russianists, and supporters of Li Manshi, and finally captured the three remaining Russian Grand Commissars, who had been holed up in Yingchuan desperately trying to arrange asylum in a neutral country. Voropaev and his two terrified companions were brought to Men Gao before the Yellow Crane Tower. The Praesident then gave a long, rambling and dull speech which rejected Chinese subservience to Russia and established a new movement, based on a ‘Neo-Confucian philosophy’, which borrowed heavily from Neo-Spartanism’s exclusivist, and racist, ideas but cast them in a Chinese mould. To cap the ceremony, Voropaev and his companions were then brutally, and agonisingly slowly, cut to pieces by an expert swordsman before the assembled Chinese notables. Unfortunately for Men Gao, his armies and people, still battered and suffering from the bloody nose given to China by Nyapan, were not ready for the robust response from Russia to his rhetoric and the grisly public executions of formerly high-ranking Russians. Chuikov, restored as Tribune, was itching to use his modern, lethal and mobile army against the poorly-equipped, cumbersome and demoralised Chinese forces. In Tsaritsyn, Apraxin pressed Ankudinov to declare war; and Renko – with all his pro-war rhetoric for the glory of Russia – could not oppose war even though it risked giving Chuikov increased glory and status. On 3rd March 1762, rather two-facedly citing “grievous insults to the honour of Russia and the intolerable treatment of the Grand Commissars”, the Senate passed a motion for war by 91 votes to 9. That same day, Chuikov’s forces poured over the border into China and made rapid progress for several miles on all fronts. All seemed to be going well: the large Chinese armies that scrambled to the defence of the frontier were constantly outflanked by vierradern troops, machine-gunned with superior weapons, and attacked from the skies by Dragons. Chinese losses were heavy. Chuikov thought his ‘Borisov moment’ was at hand… But it was not to be. A competent general whipped the Chinese armies into shape, and they stabilised their positions around 6 miles inside the Chinese border. Digging trenches, throwing up barbed wire, deploying anti-aircraft cannon and bringing their own air-forces into the action, the Chinese managed to hold firm for 2 weeks – even though they were losing 12 men for each Russian casualty. However, behind Chuikov’s lines, in the Russian-ruled Seresian Republic, trouble was brewing among the Chinese communities of Borisovsk, Pokai and Bingbu. Kong Xiuning, the Chairman of the Republic, seemed powerless to prevent a major outbreak of rioting and civil disobedience as students and looters rampaged through the streets attacking Russian businesses and symbols of authority for a full week before anyone took any action. Alarmed, Chuikov was forced to withdraw troops from China to quell the disturbances – and this made him lose momentum on the Chinese front. Chinese forces grimly pushed forward, and Russia’s outnumbered troops under pressure were slowly pulled back. After another 3 months of bloody stalemate, with the Sino-Russian frontier turning into a hellhole of blackened landscapes, pocked-marked with shell-craters, broken bodies and churned up mud, disease broke out among the Russian troops while the Chinese camps seethed with rumours that the southern provinces of China were on the verge of revolt. In the circumstances, both sides were agreeable to a patched-up peace based on the status quo ante. For Chuikov, however, it was the end. Renko was not going to pass up the opportunity to take maximum advantage of Chuikov’s misfortunes. In the Senate the Censor roundly condemned Chuikov as incompetent, neglectful and clueless in his prosecution of the war-effort. His most wounding accusation, however, was that Chuikov was unaware of Men Gao’s plots with Kong Xiuning to stir up the Chinese inside the Seresian Republic, which was supposed to be under Chuikov’s control. The allegation was deeply unfair because Kong Xiuning – a former deputy to Li Manshi – had no sympathy towards Men Gao and his policies whatsoever – but that did not prevent him, and Chuikov, being made the scapegoats for the disappointing campaign. With Senate and the People of Russia baying for blood, Renko ordered the Freedom Guard to arrest Chuikov. Kong Xiuning immediately fled abroad – ultimately ending up in Fusang, where he bitterly criticised Russian policies towards the Chinese of northeast Asia for the rest of his life. For a moment, at the end of June 1762, it seemed as if Russia was on the verge of civil war; Chuikov still commanded the army in the Far East – and the Freedom Guard there were few in number – but Apraxin in Tsaritsyn did his best to distance himself from the embarrassing campaign, and so all the pressure piled on Chuikov to give in or to confront Renko’s men. In the end, Chuikov struck a rather pathetic figure as he retreated from Chuikovgrad to Borisovsk – with a train packed with Freedom Guardsmen hot on his heels – and was finally arrested on the docks where, indecisive and broken at the last, he was contemplating boarding a ship to escape to Nyapan. Back in Tsaritsyn, Chuikov was forced to resign his Tribuneship, and was put in jail while his trial was prepared. A year later, in August 1763 he was found guilty of misuse of state funds, maladministration, corruption, embezzlement, immoral behaviour and un-Revolutionary activity and was sentenced to death by firing squad. The sentence was carried out on August 5th 1763. But while Chuikov’s trial was underway, Renko once again left the Russiberian Tribuneship unfilled which, for the first time, gave his Tribunes the legislative initiative. Renko used the 5 to 4 majority to propose, and drive through, some far-reaching legislation. In August 1762, the Senate approved a canon which awarded the Censor an independent source of income in a bid to get around the budget restrictions imposed by the Trade and Economics Commissar (who was a supporter of Apraxin) on the Freedom Guard, the Civic Temple-building programme and on Renko’s own growing Censorial Department. Renko was awarded the oil income of the Absheron Peninsula, which had increased its production from around 100 Metrētēs* per day in 1755 to around 12,000 Metrētēs* per day in 1762 after Bahraini naphthologists hired by Belyakova had uncovered several oil “gushers”. The oil, sold to the State by the Censorial Department for a profit, gave Renko a handsome income with which to expand the Freedom Guard, the Civic Temple-building programme and the Department itself, which gradually became almost a state-within-a-state. Boris Apraxin, now deprived of the support of the jailed Chuikov, clung on as Military Commissar but, with no war going on – and the Chuikov-Apraxinist faction fearful, confused and disorganised – Renko could afford to ignore him. In September 1762, Renko brought back to Tsaritsyn from Germany the greatest living Russian scientist, Anna Gordieva, and arranged for her to be Education Commissar with a brief to make Russian science, technology and engineering the most advanced in the world. At the same time, Lavrenty Mihailov was made Agriculture and Industry Commissar and put in charge of one of Renko’s flagship policies of the 1760s and 1770s: the ‘Racial and Economic Reorganisation of Central Asia’ (see Chapter VII, to come). Apraxin, too, managed to advance a protégé at this time: promoting a hugely talented officer, Strezhislav Kobylin, then aged just 34, to be chief aide to the Tribune of Sarmatia. On 1st December, 1762, Renko issued a canon, immediately endorsed by his loyal Tribunes, and pushed through by the Senators of his faction, banning the celebration of Christmas that year. On December 25th, while the Uniate and Catholic lands celebrated Christ’s Birth, Renko made one of the most defining speeches of his career in a carefully stage-managed event in the public square of Kiev, in front of the closed and boarded up Cathedral of Holy Wisdom. In it, he described a vision for Russia as a “Warrior Nation: its men proud and strong; its women quick and clever.” He set out policies that would train and equip true-blooded Russian men and women to be “the largest Army on earth: an entire People-at-Arms” for the first time since Russians were “Noble Savages in the Principalities Period, fortified with the blood of fierce ancient warrior peoples: the Scythians, Sarmatians and the Alans.” Renko described how the State would educate and support Russians “Giving them true Freedom: the freedom from mundane cares and wants; the freedom to aspire after Truth, Strength and Glory.” In this new Russia, a valued role was offered to “Demi-Russians and other Protected Peoples”; they would not enjoy the vote, or be able to serve in the military, privileges which would be reserved for True Russians alone, but they would be reserved roles in farming, industry and administration. “The Mohamedans, Hebrews, Finns, Lithuanians, Poles, Galicians, Georgians, Armenians, Persians, Mongols and other Allies of the Russian People” would play their own part in the “Great Battle for Revolutionary Progress” – and would be well-rewarded as the “Russian Age dawned”. Renko emphasised the role of the Allied women, who were expected to be the mothers of the next generation of farmers, workers and officials of the Revolutionary State. “And”, Renko finished, “the Censor of the Russian Republic will act as the Protector and Guardian of the Russian People in all things: their education, their training, their discipline, their loyalty, their Ideology and their onward march to Freedom. The Chancellor of the Republic will represent the State and its Glory; the Tribunes will represent the Military Strength and Wisdom of the People; the Senators will act as the People’s Heart and its Will; but it is the Censor who will be the People’s Guide and Judge.” Having set out this clear programme for the years ahead, the attending crowd of Freedom League loyalists went wild with delight, waving Russian Revolutionary flags and clapping and cheering for over an hour as Renko waved, smiled and saluted those present. But the writing was very much on the wall for Apraxin and his followers. Caught by the Freedom Guard at an underground site near Tsaritsyn celebrating Uniate Christmas, in direct contravention of the new law, a savage gunfight broke out in which 52 Freedom Guardsmen were killed – but Apraxin and over 100 of his closest supporters and a dozen priests also perished in the storm of bullets as well. As the shocked country absorbed news of what came to be known as the ‘Christmas Day Massacre’, Renko’s propaganda went into overdrive as the New Year 1763 dawned; the Censor loudly blamed “Dragon Society snakes, scheming Kamenskyists, Roman stooges, counter-revolutionary lunatics, bloody-fingered priests, foolish chatterers and Motherland-haters.” It was at this point that the remaining notable followers of Kamensky wisely fled the country, chief among them the exiled former Ephor’s brilliant students Yuri Gorbenko and Vasya Daletsky, who had served with distinction as the Deputy Commissars for Education in the Kiev and Novgorod districts. Cleverly disguising themselves as Muslim women in full veil, they joined their mentor in Bahrain via Azeria and Persia. When, later in 1763, Kamensky was assassinated in the Arab capital, the two young prodigies were assisted by the Dragon Society to escape and settle in the city of Oliveira, in Western Lusitania, from where they received their unexpected recall to Russia in later years. For now, however, with the fall of Chuikov and Apraxin’s Army faction, opposition to Renko started to ebb away – and previously hostile Tribunes, Senators and Ephors started to fall over themselves to support Renko’s radical racial and social policies. For the rest of 1763, Renko issued canon after canon from his base in Geroyevgorod, canons which the Tribunes and Senators in Tsaritsyn rapidly transformed into law: the formation of women-only military units called ‘Amazon Divisions’; the takeover of the Freedom Corps by the Censorial Department – putting at Renko’s disposal once again a huge paramilitary force spread across all of Russia; and a law which required that ‘Allied’ women inside the borders of Russia proper could not turn down the sexual advances of a male True Russian citizen (if they did so, what followed would not be viewed by the courts as rape). On August 15th 1763, Renko got the Senate to pass a law giving the Censor the sole right to designate a given region as an ‘Ideological Intervention Zone’. This enabled Renko to appoint ‘Harmosts’ – an ancient Spartan military title from the period after the Peloponnesian War – to troublesome areas of the Republic. Inside an ‘Ideological Intervention Zone’ the normal rule of law did not apply and a Harmost had full military and civil powers to do as he or she pleased in the service of ‘Ideological Purification’. Renko pronounced the leaderless Seresian Republic, the conquered region formerly known as Khazaria and the city of Kiev as I.I.Z.s – sending five Harmosts to do their bloody work. In Kiev, many Kamenskyite sympathisers, monks, priests, or members of their families, were dragged from their homes at night, summarily shot, drowned in the River Dnieper, jailed, tortured and forced to confess or to incriminate their neighbours. Within the month, the previously independent-spirited city was utterly cowed – and the Harmost in charge declared that Kiev’s title of ‘Third Rome’ was now abolished and a new title of ‘Second Sparta’ adopted in its place. In the former state of Khazaria, the partisans of the exiled Khan were crucified or left exposed in the desert sun to die of thirst or sun-stroke; others were castrated or forced to eat pig-meat until they were sick. Then, just to emphasise his power to do completely as he pleased, the merciless Harmost – echoing Renko himself 11 years earlier – burned the partially rebuilt town of Qazarabad to the ground and scattered salt over the ruins. The site was never occupied again. In the Seresian Republic, the three Harmosts set to work completely expelling all Chinese-descended inhabitants from the territory – on the grounds that they were all “traitors, rebels, blood-suckers and Gaoist sympathisers.” Of the estimated 2 million Chinese who lived in the Russian Far East, all but 34,000 (mostly beautiful women or rich merchants who paid off the Harmosts in gold, diamonds or opium) were violently expelled south of the border between August 1763 and January 1764. An estimated 170,000 of these Chinese perished in the harsh winter conditions and a further 200,000 – who had escaped Revolutionary China for one reason or another since 1752 – were captured, starved, jailed or executed. Of the directors and orchestrators of these massive human tragedies, Lord Eustace de Granville, the British Ambassador to Constantinople, quipped to the Grand Logothete that “Never was an office more truly designed to Harm the Most ever better named than this” – but the foreigner’s strange humour was lost on his Roman hosts. After these events, the pace of change quickened as Renko issued more canons and climbed to the absolute pinnacle of power inside the Russian Republic. In 1764-65, Renko targeted the Uniate Church: he ordered that all Church wealth and properties should be confiscated by the Censorial Department; Bibles and Icons were piled high and burnt in public squares all across Russia in what the Uniate Church in free lands came to call the ‘Second Iconoclasm.’ Priests were executed or expelled; hundreds of churches and monasteries were dynamited – including the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom in Kiev. The generations of Tsars, princes and great bishops buried in the Cathedral were shockingly disinterred from their tombs on Renko’s order – and the bones piled up in a great heap in the public square and burned, the ashes dumped for good measure in the Dnieper. On the spot where the Kievan Cathedral had stood, Renko directed that the largest Civic Temple in Russia should be built – and that its appearance and dimensions should match those of the ancient Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. In 1766-67, the Second Sino-Russian War broke out as Russia attempted to exploit dissensions in the Neo-Confucian government upon the sudden death of Men Gao from a heart attack and the aftermath of China’s own recent war with Nyapan. The war lasted 9 months and Renko sent two Tribunes – one of his own, and a former Chuikov-Apraxinist – into the battle-zone to break the back of Neo-Confucians; the skilled commander Kobylin also served in the war with distinction. The Russians were equipped with new camouflage uniforms – enabling them to hide in the ice-and-mud fields of the warzone and ambush the enemy effectively – and strengthened helmets, which could deflect all bullets except a direct hit. The Russians also had flying bombs: high explosives packed into the tips of tall, metal, rockets with a range of up to 100 miles. The hospital facilities were also greatly improved since Chuikov’s time, so Russian casualties from disease were much less. However, the Chinese armies had also improved since 1762 – and now they had numerical superiority not just on the ground but in the air as well. The Russians, taking 1 casualty for every 8 Chinese, were pushed back to their fortified “Iron Wall”. Escaping inside these formidable emplacements, however, which featured massive south-facing cannon in concrete, steel and earth-covered bunkers, covered machine-gun nests, mine-fields and underground tunnels connecting rest-rooms, ammunition dumps and water-sources, the Russians were practically invincible. Chinese Dragons may have swarmed overhead trying to pound the fortresses from the air – but they immediately strayed into “kill-zones” made up of anti-aircraft barrages, cannon and short-range rocket-launcher arrays, which brought down hundreds of planes and their pilots. It was a stalemate once again. Renko claimed a “great victory”, but the two powers once more agreed to revert to the status quo ante and pulled back their forces from the frontier. While the war was going on, Renko sent his agents and ambassadors out into the wider world to take the fight to Russia’s “Ideological Adversaries”. Diplomats were sent to Xambrahei in 1766 to forge an alliance with Emperor Kisanga – then conquering most of south-eastern Africa; and the Freedom Guard in 1767 unsuccessfully plotted to take over the troubled states of Armenia and Azeria in order to destabilise the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Finally, in 1768-69, Renko put the capstone of his radical Revolutionary policies in place when he officially banned the Uniate Church inside Russia – with religious observance now punishable by deportation to a forced labour camp – and demonstrated his anti-Church zeal by arresting and publicly hanging in the city square of Kiev the Patriarch Cyril IV, who the Uniate authorities were later to declare a Saint for his martyrdom. The new Patriarch, taking the title Cyril V, and abandoning his cloth-of-gold robes, crowns and scepters, dressed in plain clothing and went underground as the Church became a persecuted sect – in scenes reminiscent of the beginning of Christianity in the pagan Roman Empire. Constantly on the run, but revered passionately by the Uniate faithful of Russia, he was permanently hunted by the Freedom Guard, lived in safe-houses and carried out his holy duties with bravery and diligence with the assistance of the spies and resources of the Dragon Society. In January 1768, Renko issued a canon making attendance at the Civic Temples compulsory on Sundays – and millions of Russians now flocked to hear sermons on the purity of the Russian race, the principles of the Revolution and the evil and corruption of the Church and its Roman puppet-masters, while being doled out free rations of bread and vodka and pamphlets on the Sacred Destiny of Russia penned by the great Censor himself. By 1769, Renko’s power over Russia was the greatest of any figure the Russians had ever known in their history. He dominated the education, culture, police forces, Army, government, legislature, politics, intellectual and “religious” life of the Russians. Aged 69, his energy was undimmed and his ambitions were infinite. Now he prepared to turn his attention to the oldest, bitterest enemy of his Revolution and dreamed up a breathtaking plan to crush this enemy like a snake-head being pulverised by a heavy stone. He was ready; the moment of truth was here at last. __________________________________________________ ____________ A Metrētēs is an ancient Greek unit of liquid volume corresponding to around 39.4 litres or 9 gallons. The world of "Isaac's Empire" does not use our measure of 'barrels of oil' for oil production - it uses the Metrētēs. 100 Metrētēs is around 21 barrels of oil and 12,000 Metrētēs corresponds to about 2,571 barrels of oil IOTL. Last edited by Megas Dux ton Kypraion; August 21st, 2010 at 10:15 PM..
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#2393
August 18th, 2010, 12:51 PM
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A delight to read, as always. I particuarly love all the political wrangling, and the way Renko uses his patience and guile to force his foes off the playing field. Super stuff! I also did enjoy the descriptions of the Russian Senate- is it comparable to the British House of Commons when it comes to a sort of "scrum" atmosphere? Much shouting, sweating, low lights, etc?
Also, is this bitterest enemy of the Revolution another of your characters, Megas?
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#2394
August 18th, 2010, 04:25 PM
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Nice updates, Megas and BG!
Renko is destroying Russia. The expulsion of foreigners from the universities are going to weaken their R&D, including the military, and the attacks on religions will weaken the social structure, besides antagonising an even larger degree of the population (not to mention the political purges which weaken the bureaucracy and military).
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#2395
August 19th, 2010, 10:44 AM
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IE readers might be interested to hear their Basileus has achieved a storming A-Level result, and will be heading for London imminently to study a degree in Ancient History. Oh yes.
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Isaac's Empire 2.0 Timeline and Wiki. Updated 28th March. Quote:
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#2396
August 19th, 2010, 10:56 AM
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Vive la Francewank - 17/04/12 To Boldly Go - 23/11/12 Star Trek (2009) reimagined - completed
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#2397
August 19th, 2010, 03:06 PM
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#2398
August 19th, 2010, 03:53 PM
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Isaac's Empire 2.0 Timeline and Wiki. Updated 28th March. Quote:
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#2399
August 19th, 2010, 03:57 PM
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Guessing you dived for the Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies then?
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#2400
August 19th, 2010, 04:02 PM
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Nope- I'm doing general Ancient History, which has a wide range of modules- Republican Rome, Achaemenid Persia, Macedonian era Byzantium. It's a huge spread, with options to do modules in other areas of history. So I'm hugely excited. Where are you living?
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