alternatehistory.com
7-Solid
Namgyal Bahadur was not a radical, indeed he was a conservative force. He was brother and uncle to the King, a man solidly with in the establishment despite having engaged in a military coup. Thus, he was predictable in his moves that followed.
Bahadur had enlisted the aid of the concubine Yangki and her family in securing support inside the capital. Her motives were likely fears that after the king’s death the Queen Mother would retaliate against her. She assisted in the smuggling of arms into the capital and in leaking secrets to Bahadur’s camp from the palace. She acquiesced to Bahadur assuming the newly created regency, acknowledging that as a foreign concubine she was unable to get any support in ruling the nation.
The pair remained united right up until Lhendup Dorji fled Bhutan House for exile in Sikkim, whose ruling family distrusted the coup and thought it too revolutionary. Yangki believed this to be the end of the Dorji family and pushed for one of her sons by the dead King to be placed in control of Bhutan House, probably seeing it as an independent power base for herself.
However, Bahadur still firmly believed in the importance of the Dorji family and so selected a distant cousin, Yab Ugyen Dorji, to hold the Bhutan House. In another timeline his four daughters would all marry Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the current Druk Gyalpo is his grandson. But Bahadur is not that trusting of the remaining Dorjis, and the King is still quite young. And so, the new Dorjis sat in the Bhutan House, torn between loyalty to the family and loyalty to those who have given them power.
Yangki however was not torn. She felt the sting of betrayal and did not hide her opinions about that fact. She wanted somewhere for her children and herself to be safe. She soon began to make plots to remove Bahadur, though in truth these were idler ramblings since she had no direct power to depose him.
Despite Yangki not posing a threat to his power Bahadur wanted her out of the picture. He was posturing himself as the stable hand at the tiller after previous radicalism. Having his chief ally being an aggressive concubine was not the best way to sell himself to the conservatives in the country. Soon enough Yangki turned her wrath towards the Queen Mother, the last Dorji in the country. Bahadur had promised India that the Queen Mother would remain unharmed, and he proved true to his word. Kesang Choden remained under strict house arrest and was not allowed to see her son, but no harm came to her.
Yangki’s threats towards the Queen Mother, like her treats towards Bahadur, were in all honesty empty, she had little influence over the new royal court being assembled around the King. But it did provide a neat opportunity for Bahadur to depose of his wayward ally. She was accused of conspiring against the royal family, sentenced to death, pardoned, and sent off to the remote Lhuntse District in north eastern Bhutan, where she lived the rest of her life in exile.
All of this was technically decreed by the boy king, who was not seen by virtually anyone at this point. Bahadur had no desire to usurp the crown and found it unseemly to imprison his nephew. Yet he lacked any ability to grant himself powers, no regency had ever been declared before and he feared simply having the king issue such a declaration would in fact decrease his legitimacy. He had dissolved the Tshogdu, the body had been sympathetic to the Dorji family, and Bahadur was skeptical of democracy. However an assembly could grant him legitimacy and would appease the Indian Government, who were still suspicious of his new policies.
So he called a Gyelyong Tshogde, or National Council to discuss what was to occur during the kings minority. Though it was still technically a body with legislative powers it bore no resemblance to an elected body. Instead it was modeled off of the assembly of notable people who had declared Ugyen Wangchuck the first Dragon King decades ago. It was not elected but instead convened by Bahadur vis the King. It was made up of notable religious officials and local leaders, entrenched men who were the most likely to sympathize with Bhahadur’s efforts.
There were three groups represented in the Gyelyong Tshogde. Representatives of various Buddhist organizations from across Bhutan were the first. They were headed by the Je Khenpo (Chief Abbot) Samten Pelzang. Pelzang was not a lackey per se, but the power of the Je Khenpo had been in decline since the founding of the monarchy and he was uninterested in challenging Bahadur. Most of the religious authorities also disliked the Dorjis for allowing Hindus into the country and so fell into line without any force.
Next was the local leadership. Reforms under Jigme Dorji Wangchuck had rearranged the internal divisions of Bhutan, but Bahadur returned to the traditional 8 provinces of Bhutan. This gave him ample opportunity to instate leadership loyal to him before calling them to the Gyelyong Tshogde. However, the nobles were still the only source of any dissent. The eastern provinces had long been a bit different from the west and had been among the first to be forced under Wangchuck rule. A small group came and made a lot of noise about the need for more development in the East. They were quickly bought off with large bribes.
Finally, there were direct appointees by “the king”, which included Bahahdur and, ominously, several army officers. Obviously, this group was lockstep behind Bahahdur.
There were no Lhothsampa represented at all.
The Gyelyong Tshogde opened by affirming the House of Wangchuck as the rightful kings of Bhutan and Jigme Sangye Wangchuck as the rightful king. It then affirmed its own right to declare a regency, with the scripted permission of the king, and promptly affirmed that office upon Namgyal Bahadur. Bahadur thanked the body for the honor and asked them to remain in session until the king reached the age of majority. This was a calculated move to “prove” to India that the rule of law still applied in Bhutan. The response from New Delhi, which was still mourning the death of Nehru, was mixed. No one was fooled into believing anyone but Bahadur ruled in Bhutan, but the money kept flowing into the country.
And so did the migrants.
Bahadur had enlisted the aid of the concubine Yangki and her family in securing support inside the capital. Her motives were likely fears that after the king’s death the Queen Mother would retaliate against her. She assisted in the smuggling of arms into the capital and in leaking secrets to Bahadur’s camp from the palace. She acquiesced to Bahadur assuming the newly created regency, acknowledging that as a foreign concubine she was unable to get any support in ruling the nation.
The pair remained united right up until Lhendup Dorji fled Bhutan House for exile in Sikkim, whose ruling family distrusted the coup and thought it too revolutionary. Yangki believed this to be the end of the Dorji family and pushed for one of her sons by the dead King to be placed in control of Bhutan House, probably seeing it as an independent power base for herself.
However, Bahadur still firmly believed in the importance of the Dorji family and so selected a distant cousin, Yab Ugyen Dorji, to hold the Bhutan House. In another timeline his four daughters would all marry Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the current Druk Gyalpo is his grandson. But Bahadur is not that trusting of the remaining Dorjis, and the King is still quite young. And so, the new Dorjis sat in the Bhutan House, torn between loyalty to the family and loyalty to those who have given them power.
Yangki however was not torn. She felt the sting of betrayal and did not hide her opinions about that fact. She wanted somewhere for her children and herself to be safe. She soon began to make plots to remove Bahadur, though in truth these were idler ramblings since she had no direct power to depose him.
Despite Yangki not posing a threat to his power Bahadur wanted her out of the picture. He was posturing himself as the stable hand at the tiller after previous radicalism. Having his chief ally being an aggressive concubine was not the best way to sell himself to the conservatives in the country. Soon enough Yangki turned her wrath towards the Queen Mother, the last Dorji in the country. Bahadur had promised India that the Queen Mother would remain unharmed, and he proved true to his word. Kesang Choden remained under strict house arrest and was not allowed to see her son, but no harm came to her.
Yangki’s threats towards the Queen Mother, like her treats towards Bahadur, were in all honesty empty, she had little influence over the new royal court being assembled around the King. But it did provide a neat opportunity for Bahadur to depose of his wayward ally. She was accused of conspiring against the royal family, sentenced to death, pardoned, and sent off to the remote Lhuntse District in north eastern Bhutan, where she lived the rest of her life in exile.
All of this was technically decreed by the boy king, who was not seen by virtually anyone at this point. Bahadur had no desire to usurp the crown and found it unseemly to imprison his nephew. Yet he lacked any ability to grant himself powers, no regency had ever been declared before and he feared simply having the king issue such a declaration would in fact decrease his legitimacy. He had dissolved the Tshogdu, the body had been sympathetic to the Dorji family, and Bahadur was skeptical of democracy. However an assembly could grant him legitimacy and would appease the Indian Government, who were still suspicious of his new policies.
So he called a Gyelyong Tshogde, or National Council to discuss what was to occur during the kings minority. Though it was still technically a body with legislative powers it bore no resemblance to an elected body. Instead it was modeled off of the assembly of notable people who had declared Ugyen Wangchuck the first Dragon King decades ago. It was not elected but instead convened by Bahadur vis the King. It was made up of notable religious officials and local leaders, entrenched men who were the most likely to sympathize with Bhahadur’s efforts.
There were three groups represented in the Gyelyong Tshogde. Representatives of various Buddhist organizations from across Bhutan were the first. They were headed by the Je Khenpo (Chief Abbot) Samten Pelzang. Pelzang was not a lackey per se, but the power of the Je Khenpo had been in decline since the founding of the monarchy and he was uninterested in challenging Bahadur. Most of the religious authorities also disliked the Dorjis for allowing Hindus into the country and so fell into line without any force.
Next was the local leadership. Reforms under Jigme Dorji Wangchuck had rearranged the internal divisions of Bhutan, but Bahadur returned to the traditional 8 provinces of Bhutan. This gave him ample opportunity to instate leadership loyal to him before calling them to the Gyelyong Tshogde. However, the nobles were still the only source of any dissent. The eastern provinces had long been a bit different from the west and had been among the first to be forced under Wangchuck rule. A small group came and made a lot of noise about the need for more development in the East. They were quickly bought off with large bribes.
Finally, there were direct appointees by “the king”, which included Bahahdur and, ominously, several army officers. Obviously, this group was lockstep behind Bahahdur.
There were no Lhothsampa represented at all.
The Gyelyong Tshogde opened by affirming the House of Wangchuck as the rightful kings of Bhutan and Jigme Sangye Wangchuck as the rightful king. It then affirmed its own right to declare a regency, with the scripted permission of the king, and promptly affirmed that office upon Namgyal Bahadur. Bahadur thanked the body for the honor and asked them to remain in session until the king reached the age of majority. This was a calculated move to “prove” to India that the rule of law still applied in Bhutan. The response from New Delhi, which was still mourning the death of Nehru, was mixed. No one was fooled into believing anyone but Bahadur ruled in Bhutan, but the money kept flowing into the country.
And so did the migrants.
- King of the Uzbeks
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