List of monarchs III
- Thread starter Shiva
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More religiously. Certainly, it'd make a more interesting thing than another list of probably Western Christian monarchs.
The list is approaching the life of Jan Hus and getting closer to the 'Protestant Reformation', the presence of Buddhism and the 'Christian-Buddhist mix' in eastern Europe should be having a major impact throughout the continent. Though maybe there should be a formal 'Western Buddhism' emerging in Mongol ruled Poland. Plus the presence of a major Jewish community will be having an impact on religion and culture as well.
In other stuff regarding monarch lists, honestly, having all monarch lists end in 2022 is kinda too boring with how the 19th and 20th centuries IOTL were not exactly kind to monarchies so we kinda need more monarchies ended via revolution/defeat in war as opposed to surviving until the "present day".
I like this idea, but currently under the rules lists can only 'end' if they either hit the present day, they die due to non-posts, they hit a pre-determined end date set by the OP, or the OP agrees to an early ending to the list. It's restrictive but it does prevent trolly 'lulz i kill everyone cuz i canz!' crap.
But maybe a tweak can be added? Not sure what.
It doesn’t really need a rule change just more list starters giving an end date.
Yes but they still are there, though. Koden didn't persecute the Buddhist community, he just sanctioned the Christo-Buddhist. Large parts of Poland are still Buddhist, although what that would entail is extremely confusing to me.
I think you should claim less often and let others have a chance to shape this Poland. Maybe wait for someone else to claim?
POD: The First Mongol Invasion of Poland leads to a decisive victory that sees the installation of Qadan Khan as the Khan of the proposed Silver Horde as vassal to the Mongol Empire
Khans and Khatuns of the Silver Horde (Khaganate of Poland)
(1241 - 1279) Qadan Khan (Ögedeids) [1]
(1279 - 1313) Baidar Khan (Ögedeids) [2]
(1313 - 1335) Altan Khan 'The Dragon' (Ögedeids) [3]
Khagans and Khatuns of the Khaganate of Poland
(1313 - 1335) Altan Khan 'The Dragon' (Ögedeids) [3]
(1335 - 1340) Alexander Khan (Ögedeids) [4]
(1340 - 1381) Zolzaya Khatun 'The Restorer' (Ögedeids) [5]
(1381 - 1414) Zygmunt Koden 'The Bear' (Subotaids) [6]
(1414 - 1437) Zen Khan 'The Warrior-Monk' (Turzóids) [7]
Qadar Khan as Khan of the Silver Horde and Khagan of Poland
[1] Born sometime in the early 1200s as the son of Ögedei Khan, the Great Khagan of the Mongol Empire, and a concubine, Qadar Khan was afforded the best childhood a Mongol Prince was entitled to. Much of his early life is unattested, as the Mongols had scarce resources at the time devoted to the solitary prince, but he was known to be militarily adept at the very least. When the time came for the Mongol Invasion of Hungary, Qadar Khan was chosen alongside Baidar Khan and Orda Khan to lead a diversionary force into Poland at the age of 25. The Invasion of Poland went swimmingly, surprisingly and what was originally intended to be the sideshow became the main show as the forces of Henry II were not only defeated, but they completely fell apart, leading the interior of Poland to fall to the Mongols by 1241 after some protracted sieges.
Qadar Khan drove his armies all the way to Kraków which he captured and made the seat of the Khaganate of Poland, with himself as Khagan and with the city renamed Krakov, which was more in line with Mongol phonology. Though the Mongol Invasion of Hungary had failed, the invasion of Poland was a rousing success, and Qadar Khan settled down as his cousins returned to Mongolia to administer his new realm. The immediate problem was that the Polish subjects he now ruled over were envious of their new overlords and not very accepting of the Mongols, and the Mongol cavalry he commanded had a problem raiding any settlement they found heightening local resistance against his rule. From Silesia, Hungary, and the Holy Roman Empire, raids against his new nation continued frequently. Until 1245 he remained generally peaceful, administering his realm and slowly removing dissent against his rule in Poland. At the same time he was called back to Mongolia to elect a new Khagan of Mongolia, and during that time, his realm was attacked. He returned in 1246 to find his realm on the brink of collapsing with Bohemian and Silesian forces nearing Krakov. Qadar Khan rode to the outskirts of the city and with his detachment, encircled the incoming army and defeated the invasion, restoring the territorial sovereignty of the Khaganate of Poland.
To find temporary peace at least, Qadar Khan married Constance of Wrocław as his only wife - who was left widowed after her husband died in the fighting the year prior. Qadar Khan had indirectly also adopted monogamous marriage, slowly adopting some of the customs of the land that he now ruled over. Constance and Qadar found it hard to have affection with one another during the first years of their marriage - largely due to communication problems and differences in religion. Qadar Khan was a committed Tengri-Buddhist whilst Constance was a committed Christian. Nevertheless, they did come to have respect for one another in due time, and the couple would have five children in total, all of whom lived to adulthood. As Infighting befell the Mongols in the Steppe, Qadar turned his back on the homeland and finally adopted Poland as his home by 1250. Nevertheless, that didn't mean that he left all semblances of Mongol life behind. He invited Tengri-Buddhist missionaries from Mongolia, China, and Central Asia and settled them in Poland. Though he was tolerant of Christianity for the sake of administration and having no rebellions, his focus on Tengri-Buddhism did lead to a good amount of conversions in Poland under his rule, and by the time of his death, all major noble families in Poland had adopted Buddhism to varying degrees, and syncretism between Buddhism and Christianity had become rife by the end of his reign. Mongol loanwords began to enter Polish as well over time.
Of course, Qadar Khan did have a hard time ruling despite his tolerant views that ensured his reign survived. Daniel of Galicia's Rebellion from 1256 - 1263 nearly captured Krakov and the Invasion of Poland by Bohemia from 1267 - 1274 nearly dethroned Qadar both times, but both times Qadar managed to win using military wit and using his charisma to at least instill some values of loyalty to him in the populace. He had also reined in his Mongol troops who had settled down in Poland, making sacking and raiding much more controlled than before. When he died in 1279 with his wife and children by his side, he died a peaceful man having achieved a long-lasting legacy at least within Europe.
[2] The eldest son of Qadar Khan and Constance of Wroclaw, Baidar Khan was raised more by his father than his mother, and became a devoted Buddhist, though paying some lip service to the faith of his mother for the sake of legitimacy, getting himself baptized and crowned by Christian priests as Piotr I, King of Poland. Despite this, Baidar's main claims to fame are the patronage of Buddhist monasteries established all across the lands of the Silver Horde, the migration and patronage of Jewish communities in the region, and the conversion of Lithuania and the Baltic regions, which he would take over from the German knightly orders in the first years of his reign. Under Baidar's rule, the Lithuanians and Baltic peoples would begin to rapidly convert to Buddhism and form a major loyalist faction to the khan, even as Christian heresies proliferated in the Silver Horde's lands thanks to the khan's tolerance of all religions.
In the middle of the khan's reign, the Silver Horde raided deep into the Holy Roman Empire in a preemptive strike against an incipient crusade, and it was during this time that the Silver Horde first started bringing in Ashkenazi Jews to settle some of the emptied cities of the region (or perhaps, more accurately, this period first saw Ashkenazi Jews flee into the lands of the Silver Horde as German peasants started committing pogroms against them).
To secure his rule over the northern lands, Baidar Khan married a Buddhist-converted daughter of the pagan Lithuanian Grand Duke Mindaugas, who had sworn fealty to the khan, in 1283, and the couple had many children. By 1313, the khan passed, leaving the khanate in the hands of Adai Khan.
View attachment 756795
Altan Khan's official portrait upon ascension
Born in 1285 to Baidar Khan, Altan ascended to the throne of the Khaganate of Poland and Khanate of the Silver Horde at the age of 28. Where his father had been more of an administrative guy, Altan Khan took after his Lithuanian heritage and their more warlike tendencies. After he reached his majority, he was the leading commander of the Silver Horde's military forces against any external foe that would try to fight against the might of the Silver Horde. Upon his ascension as Khan and Khagan, he immediately came into conflict with the Golden Horde in the East, with their Khan - Altan Khan's sixth cousin once removed - trying to assert a claim to the Polish Throne as well. Seeing that this was being scrutinized greatly by the European Powers with ideas of the conquest of Polish territory, Altan Khan quickly made a move, allying himself with the unlikely candidate - the Bohemians and marrying Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, securing his western flank. With the Habsburgs on the rise in Vienna, the Bohemians had now decided to make peace with the Silver Horde to focus on things close to home. Altan and Elizabeth would have three children who would grow into adulthood.
The War between the Golden Horde and the Silver Horde from 1313 - 1319 ended in a military stalemate for the most part, as while Altan had better tactics, the Golden Horde had more numbers in Russia. The war ended with the Silver Horde annexing Ruthenian Galicia from the Golden Horde instead, and not much else. While the Silver Horde Succession War hadn't been a rousing success for Altan Khan's military career, his exploits afterward would prove him worthy of his nickname 'the Dragon'. As Hungary warred itself between King Charles I of Hungary and the nation's powerful oligarchs, Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Belgrade officially asked for Polish support in 1320. Altan Khan was eager for more conquest and answered the call. His troops - an amalgamation of fast and hard cavalry tactics inherited from their Mongol heritage and the heavily armored heritage of Europe clashed down on the Pannonian plains in support of Stefan and the Vovoide of Transylvania against Charles I of Hungary. For two years, the Hungarians and the Poles would fight against each other indecisively but in 1323, when the two lead armies met with one another on the fields of Miskolc, Charles I miscalculated, and he was captured by Altan Khan whilst his army was routed. Altan Khan entered Buda without a fight afterward. To prevent their realms from entering the Mongol realm in Europe, even allied Stefan declared the independence of the Banate of Vojvodina and the Transylvanians declared their duchy to be independent. Viceroy of Croatia, John, Duke of Durrazo, and Charles I's cousin was declared King of Croatia. Altan was not ruffled and instead annexed Hungary proper and Slovakia into the Silver Horde. At the same time, to his north, the Teutons had started to raid into Northern Poland once again.
Deciding to end the Teuton threat once and for all, in 1325, the great Khan invaded Teutonic Prussia, and by 1328 was besieging Konigsberg at the head of a massive army. The next year, Konigsberg fell, and the Teutonic Order fled to Hamburg where the Hanseatic League gave them refuge. Nevertheless, Prussia had fallen to Altan Khan and was annexed into the Silver Horde as well. After 1329, Altan Khan mostly settled down to a peaceful life and administered the realm. In 1330 Buddhism was officially declared to be the State Religion after nearly a century of growing Buddhist influence in Polish society. Old Polish transitioned into Middle Polish with many Mongol loanwords and the language started to be written in the Mongol Script for official business as well. Altan Khan also shed most of the other hanging on of Mongolia and was the first Silver Horde Khan to call himself Polish declaring the Khaganate of Poland to be the primary title of the Horde. In 1331, after years of military jurisdiction, Hungary, Slovakia, and Prussia were directly integrated into the Silver Horde. In 1333, the Silesian Succession Crisis saw both Bohemia and the Silver Horde dividing the Duchy of Silesia in half, partitioning it with one another.
In 1335, at the age of 50, Altan Khan died, having expanded the Silver Horde to become twice as large. Upon his death, for his military prowess, he gained the moniker 'the Dragon'. He was succeeded to the Khaganate by_________.
[4] Alexander Khan, born in 1313 as the oldest of the three children of Altan Khan and his wife Elizabeth, was the first Khan of the Silver Horde to be given a "European" name, showing how the Silver Horde was increasingly adopting Polish culture and language during his reign. While his reign would be a fairly short-lived one, lasting five years before he would die from a sudden illness at the age of 27, in many ways, it would be a reign which would see a great deal of energy and vitality in the Khanate with the most notable achievements of Alexander Khan being the fall of Kiev to the Silver Horde with the Khaganate of Poland adding "Grand Prince of the Rus'" to his titles after the Fall of Kyiv. In addition, he would be notable for the marriage alliance he would forge with Andronicus III of Rhomania in which he would send off his sister to marry Andronicus III, tying the Palaiologos Dynasty with the Polish Ogodeids, and for his policy of enacting legal and administrative reforms to centralize the realm. Finally, he would be a ruler who would emphasize the Christian part of the Christo-Buddhist syncretism which marked the Silver Horde, something historians would argue was influenced by both his mother and his wife, Irene Palaiologina, daughter of Andronicus III, with whom he would have a single child before his death in 1340. In the aftermath of his death, Zolzaya Khatun would be acclaimed as Khayun of Poland, Queen of Hungary, and Grand Princess of Rus'.
A popular portrait of Zolzaya Khatun drawn in the 1860s depicting her role as the Warrior Queen
[5] - The Plague of 1337 had ripped into the House of Ogedei ruling in Poland brutally. When Alexander Khan died in 1340, his only direct heir was his sister, Zolzaya Khan. Mongol Customs of giving noblewomen high ranks had carried over into the Silver Horde, and Zolzaya was named Khatun in Krakov a week after her brother had died at the age of 24. However, cousins descended from Baidar Khan, who held feudal territory at the Prussian Marches rose up in rebellion, denouncing Zolzaya's claim to the throne of the Horde and demanding that Beg (Duke) Batu Khan become the Khagan. Zolzaya, impertinent and proud of her heritage and right to the crown refused to back down. The Silver War of Succession (1340 - 1344) erupted soon after, with Batu Khan declaring himself Khagan and denouncing Zolzaya as an illegitimate Queen. Recognizing that the military advantage was held by Beg Batu, Zolzaya decided to enlist the help of her cousins in the Golden Horde, who now facing the Crimean Horde's threat was warming up to the Silver Horde. In 1341, Prince Janibeg Khan of the Blue Horde (the western half of the Golden Horde) married Zolzaya Khan bringing the military power of another 40,000 professional cavalrymen behind Zolzaya. Using their strength, and her own military prowess, by 1343, Zolzaya had limited the rebellion mostly to the north. By 1344, Beg Batu was captured and executed for treason. But at the same time, her neighbors smelt weakness.
The Russian states such as Vladimir and Ryazan invaded Silver Horde-held territory in Ruthenia. As the Golden Horde descended into another civil war, their support in the matter was not going to happen. Sensing more weakness, Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Saxony formed an alliance and started to invade from the west. Lithuania declared independence and started to fight against the Silver Horde as well. Croatia began to raid Hungarian lands held by the Horde too. This was the Anti-Silver Coalition in its full entirety as the War of the Silver Horde (1346 - 1367) began in earnest. At first the combined forces were all too great for the Silver Horde. The Russian statelets captured Kyiv and pushed into Ruthenia, with the support of the local Orthodox population, and Lithuania soon captured all of the territory held by the Grand Duchy before accepting vassalage to the Silver Horde. Croatia began to advance towards Buda and the Germans began to close in from the west. By 1349, the situation was desperate, and in 1353, after 3 years of intermittent siege, at Bilistok (Bialystok) Zolzaya received news that Krakov had fallen and with it most of the Silver Horde.
Zolzaya only controlled the Vovoide of Bilistok and its surroundings and it was clear that Zolzaya was going to lose, but ignoring the pleading of her husband to flee to Sarai, Zolzaya vowed to fight on. When Bilistock was captured by a joint Lithuanian-German force, they found the city eerily abandoned. The remnants of Zolzaya's forces had retreated into the forests. For the next decade, Zolzaya waged a brutal guerilla war against the enemies, who de-jure partitioned the Silver Horde. Pomerania annexed the coasts all the way to Prussia, whilst Brandenburg and Saxony received huge chunks in western Poland. Hungary and Slovakia were captured by the Croats, and Ruthenia and Galicia had been taken by the Russian States. Lithuania had taken the rest. The Lithuanians, under the command of a Christian Usurper King, and the Polish populace under Christian control resented the high taxation that they were forced to give to their new masters simply because they were Christo-Buddhists and not 'pure' Christians. This resentment turned into hatred after the Holy Roman Empire's Papal Inquisition was given jurisdiction over German-occupied territories in Poland who enacted brutal kangaroo trials. Zolzaya had the support of the population and in 1363, the population decided enough was enough and in German-occupied regions, the populace revolted, and Zolzaya, from the forests, rode out to join up with them. In Poznani (poznan) she was welcomed freely and soon the Germans were kicked out of Polish Silver Horde territory and Prussia was reconquered. With the momentum shifting, Zolzaya quickly reconquered Slovakia and conquered Lithuania again and pushed the Russian statelets out of Galicia. But after that she could do no more. The manpower of the nation was depleted severely. The Peace Treaty of Nitra signed in 1367 affirmed the sovereingty of the Silver Horde, whilst the Silver Horde ceded the Kingdom of Hungary to the Kingdom of Croatia, and the Kyiv and Ruthenian regions barring Galicia was ceded to Ryazan, Vladimir and Muscovy. In return, the Croats and the Germans paid a very large sum of money to Krakov as reparations.
After the War of the Silver Horde ended, the 49-year-old Queen decided to rest the nation. It was tired after ~25 years of continuous war, and economic recovery was needed. Her husband and her four children aided her in the administration of the state, and rebellious nobles who had supported the invasions were all removed from power. When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans under Murad I in 1370, she allowed Byzantine refugees to settle down in Poland as well. However, barring the Byzantine refugees, she also outlawed Christianity in 1371. The suppression under the foreign invaders had not been forgotten and a strong anti-Christian undercurrent had been developed in Poland at the time, especially considering the Papal-sanctioned inquisitions during the occupation. Christo-Buddhism was dropped and full Tibetan Buddhism was adopted as the State Religion. Sadly for Christian Europe, this proved to be a popular decision among the populace. For the next decade, she reorganized the economy, brought in new advancements to the military, reformed the military and also became the first Silver Horde monarch to send emissaries to England and France in Western Europe establishing formal diplomatic ties. In 1381, she died peacefully in her sleep and for her grit and determination with which she resisted the invaders, she gained the posthumous epithet of 'the Liberator'. She was succeeded by her god-son, to the titles of Khagan of Poland, Duke of Nitra, and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
[6] The son of Zolzaya's great dog of war, Altan Karoly, Beg of Zhytomir and Governor of Galicia, Zygmunt Koden was a descendant of the great Mongol general Subotai through the younger sons of Uriyangkhadai, the first's eldest son, the Subotaids had long held land and stood in service to the House of Ogedei in the lands of the Poles, and were amongst the first to intermarry heavily with the old Polish noble (and royal families) that remained after the Mongol conquests. Zygmunt Koden was the favoured god-son of Zolzaya, and was educated at her court in Krakov for most of his young life, where he quickly became known for his intelligence and quick wit, as well as his very strong determination, willingness to learn and work ethic. He was sent by Zolzaya as her emissary twice, once, when he was sixteen, to her husband Janibeg, whom had taken rule of the Golden Horde, to fight by his side and learn the martial arts of the Mongol people, and Zygmunt would eventually lead some armies for Janibeg, to him being atributted the submission of two seperate Bolghar revolts in Kazan.
His return to Poland following the death of his father marked a change in the relationship between the Ogedeids and the Subotaids. Mongke Timur, the eldest son of Janibeg and Zolzaya, and hopeful heir to both the Golden Horde and the "Silver Horde", had been educated in his father's court of Sarai, being raised a stout Sunni muslim. He would go to live with his mother in Poland before Zygmunt's return, however, and following the death of Altan Karoly, convinced his mother to grant him the governorship of Galicia. When Zygmunt returned to Poland and found his home occupied by Mongke Timur, whom harshly sent his relative to Krakov, it was no surprise that he was furious. Khatun Zolzaya showered Zygmunt with gifts in reparation, but it was clear that something blackened the heart of Koden that day. From that moment on, Zygmunt Koden's relationship with the Ghenghisids in Krakov, Sarai and Lvov only deteriorated, even with Zolzaya's efforts to bring back him to their side - she would give him the governorship of Minsk in 1378, alongside the hand of her daughter Hedwig as compensation. It was not enough compensation for Zygmunt, who had grown into a very proud man, and Zolzaya might have saved the rule of her son had she recognized this when Zygmunt refused her commands to abandon Christianity and convert to Tibetan Buddhism. His famous response "Why should I, whom share the same religions of my fathers and those of our stock whom arrived to this land long afore, convert to the teachings of Asia when the heir to our Queen kneels to the faith of Ala ad-Din?".
The death of Zolzaya in 1381 was the final swing that cut the rope. Zygmunt Koden, as Zolzaya's god-son and son-in-law, demanded a small but substantive portion of her inheritance, as well as the return of Galicia alongside the Voivodeships of Volhynia and Byalostok for himself as governor for life. Mongke Timur, who had yet to be crowned Khan in Krakov, instead decided to ride to Minsk with quickly assembled armies to put an end to his hated cousin and brother-in-law. What he didn't count of was Jan Casimir, last of the Piasts and governor of Upper Silesia, Zygmunt Koden's cousin and friend, to betray his movements. When Mongke Timur and his armies entered White Russia, Zygmunt Koden fell upon him with the full force of his retinues and levies, capturing many of Mongke's lieutenants and forcing him to flee in the direction of his father's Golden Horde and the Russian Principalities. With the pathway to Krakov open, Zygmunt decided to claim the title of Khan with the support of the remaining Christian and Christo-Buddhist population of Poland mainly, and quickly amassed two massive armies which made short work of whatever opposition there was to him in Prussia and Upper and Lower Poland. Signing a treaty of alliance with Sigismund of Anjou, the King of Croatia, Hungary and Bosnia, marrying his sister Anna Organa to him in exchange for military support. Polish-Hungarian armies would fight a long war in Galicia and the Russian Principalities, with Zygmunt offering whatever piece of land the Russian princes could grab to them in exchange for their participation in the alliance. Eventually, the 1387 campaign meant the end of the War and the Golden (Blue) Horde, as a combined Polish-Kievan-Tverian army sacked and razed Sarai to the ground. Zygmunt, whom was familiar with Sarai's economy, popularily took most of Sarai's craftsmen, artists and inventors back with him to Krakov.
A modern concept art of Zygmunt Koden in Lithuanian armour and attire, whom greatly dominated Krakov' fashion during the later states of his reign.
Capturing the remainder of his in-laws and most of the extended Ghenghisids present in his lands who had sided against him, he had them all executed in what is remembered as the Malbork Massacre in modern history, eliminating most of the threats present in his reign. Zygmunt's reign as King marks what most historians call the end of the Mongol Period, as ethnic Mongols became less and less relevant in the administration and bureaucracy of the Khanate. Zygmunt also often referred to himself as Król instead of Khan, although he would often use the terms interchangingly. To start his reign, Zygmunt voyaged to Rome to come up with some kind of deal with the Vatican in regards to the Catholic Church in his lands. What come out of the "Council of Ostia" was the formation of the Autocephalous Polish Catholic Church, led from Krakov by a Cardinal. The Polish Church conjoined many aspects of Christianity (Mostly Catholic with some Orthodox) with buddhist teachings and become a massive arm of the re-construction of Poland in the aftermath of Zygmunt's ascenssion. Zygmunt sent settlers East-wards, to the mostly destroyed portions of his realm in Lithuania, White Russia and Galicia, mostly Poles, Prussians and Slovakians. The german-speaking community in these eastern territories grew rapidly not only due to Prussian influence but due to the many Saxon, Thuringian, Bavarian and Pomeranian artisans, soldiers and farmers that emigrated to Galicia and Lower Lithuania during Zygmunt's reign.
A grand proponent of reform, Zygmunt Koden ended any official "borders" between his realms, administrating all of them as a single unit from Krakov. This allowed for a great deal of ammelioration of the recruitment process of his armies, something which he would put to great use in his conquest of Courland and Lower Livonia in 1395 and with his purchase of land from the Kievan Principality to augment land for settlement in the south. He would beat Tatar remnants of the Golden Horde in the region and his armies would reach the Black Sea Coast, claiming it for Poland. A small fishing village in the region which many historians believe had been the center of the great ancient greek city of Odessos was chosen by Koden as the center of the new Ochkov Voivodeship - Kodessos was the name given to the city.
At the end of his reign, Poland was a vastly multicultural realm, dominated by the Poles (whom dominated ethnically in Poland proper and Northern Galicia) and by the Lipkans (Descendants of the Mongols, whom were mostly a elite class but had pluralities in the Volhynian and Turovian Oblasts, as well as the more recent additions of Ochkov in the South) although Livonians, Lithuanians, Prussians, Galicians and Slovakians also had homelands in his realm. Alongside these peoples, there were significant Jewish, German (Saxon and Pomeranian), Hungarian and Russian communities in the Empire, particularly in the East. By 1410, however, Middle Polish (Which had lots of Mongol influences) had become the language of the state, the army and most of society. The Mongol script, however, was abandoned in favour of the latin script, which eased trade with the west through the ports of Danzig, Marienburg and Konigsberg in the North, while Kodessos became a center of Black Sea trade.
Zygmunt Koden and his wife Hedwig of the House of Ogedei would have six children together. Zygmunt Koden would finally die of old age in 1414, being succeeded by his second Cousin, Zen Khan.
Portrait of Zen Khan a year before the ascension
Khans and Khatuns of the Silver Horde (Khaganate of Poland)
(1241 - 1279) Qadan Khan (Ögedeids) [1]
(1279 - 1313) Baidar Khan (Ögedeids) [2]
(1313 - 1335) Altan Khan 'The Dragon' (Ögedeids) [3]
Khagans and Khatuns of the Khaganate of Poland
(1313 - 1335) Altan Khan 'The Dragon' (Ögedeids) [3]
(1335 - 1340) Alexander Khan (Ögedeids) [4]
(1340 - 1381) Zolzaya Khatun 'The Restorer' (Ögedeids) [5]
(1381 - 1414) Zygmunt Koden 'The Bear' (Subotaids) [6]
(1414 - 1437) Zen Khan 'The Warrior-Monk' (Turzóids) [7]
Qadar Khan as Khan of the Silver Horde and Khagan of Poland
[1] Born sometime in the early 1200s as the son of Ögedei Khan, the Great Khagan of the Mongol Empire, and a concubine, Qadar Khan was afforded the best childhood a Mongol Prince was entitled to. Much of his early life is unattested, as the Mongols had scarce resources at the time devoted to the solitary prince, but he was known to be militarily adept at the very least. When the time came for the Mongol Invasion of Hungary, Qadar Khan was chosen alongside Baidar Khan and Orda Khan to lead a diversionary force into Poland at the age of 25. The Invasion of Poland went swimmingly, surprisingly and what was originally intended to be the sideshow became the main show as the forces of Henry II were not only defeated, but they completely fell apart, leading the interior of Poland to fall to the Mongols by 1241 after some protracted sieges.
Qadar Khan drove his armies all the way to Kraków which he captured and made the seat of the Khaganate of Poland, with himself as Khagan and with the city renamed Krakov, which was more in line with Mongol phonology. Though the Mongol Invasion of Hungary had failed, the invasion of Poland was a rousing success, and Qadar Khan settled down as his cousins returned to Mongolia to administer his new realm. The immediate problem was that the Polish subjects he now ruled over were envious of their new overlords and not very accepting of the Mongols, and the Mongol cavalry he commanded had a problem raiding any settlement they found heightening local resistance against his rule. From Silesia, Hungary, and the Holy Roman Empire, raids against his new nation continued frequently. Until 1245 he remained generally peaceful, administering his realm and slowly removing dissent against his rule in Poland. At the same time he was called back to Mongolia to elect a new Khagan of Mongolia, and during that time, his realm was attacked. He returned in 1246 to find his realm on the brink of collapsing with Bohemian and Silesian forces nearing Krakov. Qadar Khan rode to the outskirts of the city and with his detachment, encircled the incoming army and defeated the invasion, restoring the territorial sovereignty of the Khaganate of Poland.
To find temporary peace at least, Qadar Khan married Constance of Wrocław as his only wife - who was left widowed after her husband died in the fighting the year prior. Qadar Khan had indirectly also adopted monogamous marriage, slowly adopting some of the customs of the land that he now ruled over. Constance and Qadar found it hard to have affection with one another during the first years of their marriage - largely due to communication problems and differences in religion. Qadar Khan was a committed Tengri-Buddhist whilst Constance was a committed Christian. Nevertheless, they did come to have respect for one another in due time, and the couple would have five children in total, all of whom lived to adulthood. As Infighting befell the Mongols in the Steppe, Qadar turned his back on the homeland and finally adopted Poland as his home by 1250. Nevertheless, that didn't mean that he left all semblances of Mongol life behind. He invited Tengri-Buddhist missionaries from Mongolia, China, and Central Asia and settled them in Poland. Though he was tolerant of Christianity for the sake of administration and having no rebellions, his focus on Tengri-Buddhism did lead to a good amount of conversions in Poland under his rule, and by the time of his death, all major noble families in Poland had adopted Buddhism to varying degrees, and syncretism between Buddhism and Christianity had become rife by the end of his reign. Mongol loanwords began to enter Polish as well over time.
Of course, Qadar Khan did have a hard time ruling despite his tolerant views that ensured his reign survived. Daniel of Galicia's Rebellion from 1256 - 1263 nearly captured Krakov and the Invasion of Poland by Bohemia from 1267 - 1274 nearly dethroned Qadar both times, but both times Qadar managed to win using military wit and using his charisma to at least instill some values of loyalty to him in the populace. He had also reined in his Mongol troops who had settled down in Poland, making sacking and raiding much more controlled than before. When he died in 1279 with his wife and children by his side, he died a peaceful man having achieved a long-lasting legacy at least within Europe.
[2] The eldest son of Qadar Khan and Constance of Wroclaw, Baidar Khan was raised more by his father than his mother, and became a devoted Buddhist, though paying some lip service to the faith of his mother for the sake of legitimacy, getting himself baptized and crowned by Christian priests as Piotr I, King of Poland. Despite this, Baidar's main claims to fame are the patronage of Buddhist monasteries established all across the lands of the Silver Horde, the migration and patronage of Jewish communities in the region, and the conversion of Lithuania and the Baltic regions, which he would take over from the German knightly orders in the first years of his reign. Under Baidar's rule, the Lithuanians and Baltic peoples would begin to rapidly convert to Buddhism and form a major loyalist faction to the khan, even as Christian heresies proliferated in the Silver Horde's lands thanks to the khan's tolerance of all religions.
In the middle of the khan's reign, the Silver Horde raided deep into the Holy Roman Empire in a preemptive strike against an incipient crusade, and it was during this time that the Silver Horde first started bringing in Ashkenazi Jews to settle some of the emptied cities of the region (or perhaps, more accurately, this period first saw Ashkenazi Jews flee into the lands of the Silver Horde as German peasants started committing pogroms against them).
To secure his rule over the northern lands, Baidar Khan married a Buddhist-converted daughter of the pagan Lithuanian Grand Duke Mindaugas, who had sworn fealty to the khan, in 1283, and the couple had many children. By 1313, the khan passed, leaving the khanate in the hands of Adai Khan.
View attachment 756795
Altan Khan's official portrait upon ascension
Born in 1285 to Baidar Khan, Altan ascended to the throne of the Khaganate of Poland and Khanate of the Silver Horde at the age of 28. Where his father had been more of an administrative guy, Altan Khan took after his Lithuanian heritage and their more warlike tendencies. After he reached his majority, he was the leading commander of the Silver Horde's military forces against any external foe that would try to fight against the might of the Silver Horde. Upon his ascension as Khan and Khagan, he immediately came into conflict with the Golden Horde in the East, with their Khan - Altan Khan's sixth cousin once removed - trying to assert a claim to the Polish Throne as well. Seeing that this was being scrutinized greatly by the European Powers with ideas of the conquest of Polish territory, Altan Khan quickly made a move, allying himself with the unlikely candidate - the Bohemians and marrying Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, securing his western flank. With the Habsburgs on the rise in Vienna, the Bohemians had now decided to make peace with the Silver Horde to focus on things close to home. Altan and Elizabeth would have three children who would grow into adulthood.
The War between the Golden Horde and the Silver Horde from 1313 - 1319 ended in a military stalemate for the most part, as while Altan had better tactics, the Golden Horde had more numbers in Russia. The war ended with the Silver Horde annexing Ruthenian Galicia from the Golden Horde instead, and not much else. While the Silver Horde Succession War hadn't been a rousing success for Altan Khan's military career, his exploits afterward would prove him worthy of his nickname 'the Dragon'. As Hungary warred itself between King Charles I of Hungary and the nation's powerful oligarchs, Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Belgrade officially asked for Polish support in 1320. Altan Khan was eager for more conquest and answered the call. His troops - an amalgamation of fast and hard cavalry tactics inherited from their Mongol heritage and the heavily armored heritage of Europe clashed down on the Pannonian plains in support of Stefan and the Vovoide of Transylvania against Charles I of Hungary. For two years, the Hungarians and the Poles would fight against each other indecisively but in 1323, when the two lead armies met with one another on the fields of Miskolc, Charles I miscalculated, and he was captured by Altan Khan whilst his army was routed. Altan Khan entered Buda without a fight afterward. To prevent their realms from entering the Mongol realm in Europe, even allied Stefan declared the independence of the Banate of Vojvodina and the Transylvanians declared their duchy to be independent. Viceroy of Croatia, John, Duke of Durrazo, and Charles I's cousin was declared King of Croatia. Altan was not ruffled and instead annexed Hungary proper and Slovakia into the Silver Horde. At the same time, to his north, the Teutons had started to raid into Northern Poland once again.
Deciding to end the Teuton threat once and for all, in 1325, the great Khan invaded Teutonic Prussia, and by 1328 was besieging Konigsberg at the head of a massive army. The next year, Konigsberg fell, and the Teutonic Order fled to Hamburg where the Hanseatic League gave them refuge. Nevertheless, Prussia had fallen to Altan Khan and was annexed into the Silver Horde as well. After 1329, Altan Khan mostly settled down to a peaceful life and administered the realm. In 1330 Buddhism was officially declared to be the State Religion after nearly a century of growing Buddhist influence in Polish society. Old Polish transitioned into Middle Polish with many Mongol loanwords and the language started to be written in the Mongol Script for official business as well. Altan Khan also shed most of the other hanging on of Mongolia and was the first Silver Horde Khan to call himself Polish declaring the Khaganate of Poland to be the primary title of the Horde. In 1331, after years of military jurisdiction, Hungary, Slovakia, and Prussia were directly integrated into the Silver Horde. In 1333, the Silesian Succession Crisis saw both Bohemia and the Silver Horde dividing the Duchy of Silesia in half, partitioning it with one another.
In 1335, at the age of 50, Altan Khan died, having expanded the Silver Horde to become twice as large. Upon his death, for his military prowess, he gained the moniker 'the Dragon'. He was succeeded to the Khaganate by_________.
[4] Alexander Khan, born in 1313 as the oldest of the three children of Altan Khan and his wife Elizabeth, was the first Khan of the Silver Horde to be given a "European" name, showing how the Silver Horde was increasingly adopting Polish culture and language during his reign. While his reign would be a fairly short-lived one, lasting five years before he would die from a sudden illness at the age of 27, in many ways, it would be a reign which would see a great deal of energy and vitality in the Khanate with the most notable achievements of Alexander Khan being the fall of Kiev to the Silver Horde with the Khaganate of Poland adding "Grand Prince of the Rus'" to his titles after the Fall of Kyiv. In addition, he would be notable for the marriage alliance he would forge with Andronicus III of Rhomania in which he would send off his sister to marry Andronicus III, tying the Palaiologos Dynasty with the Polish Ogodeids, and for his policy of enacting legal and administrative reforms to centralize the realm. Finally, he would be a ruler who would emphasize the Christian part of the Christo-Buddhist syncretism which marked the Silver Horde, something historians would argue was influenced by both his mother and his wife, Irene Palaiologina, daughter of Andronicus III, with whom he would have a single child before his death in 1340. In the aftermath of his death, Zolzaya Khatun would be acclaimed as Khayun of Poland, Queen of Hungary, and Grand Princess of Rus'.
A popular portrait of Zolzaya Khatun drawn in the 1860s depicting her role as the Warrior Queen
[5] - The Plague of 1337 had ripped into the House of Ogedei ruling in Poland brutally. When Alexander Khan died in 1340, his only direct heir was his sister, Zolzaya Khan. Mongol Customs of giving noblewomen high ranks had carried over into the Silver Horde, and Zolzaya was named Khatun in Krakov a week after her brother had died at the age of 24. However, cousins descended from Baidar Khan, who held feudal territory at the Prussian Marches rose up in rebellion, denouncing Zolzaya's claim to the throne of the Horde and demanding that Beg (Duke) Batu Khan become the Khagan. Zolzaya, impertinent and proud of her heritage and right to the crown refused to back down. The Silver War of Succession (1340 - 1344) erupted soon after, with Batu Khan declaring himself Khagan and denouncing Zolzaya as an illegitimate Queen. Recognizing that the military advantage was held by Beg Batu, Zolzaya decided to enlist the help of her cousins in the Golden Horde, who now facing the Crimean Horde's threat was warming up to the Silver Horde. In 1341, Prince Janibeg Khan of the Blue Horde (the western half of the Golden Horde) married Zolzaya Khan bringing the military power of another 40,000 professional cavalrymen behind Zolzaya. Using their strength, and her own military prowess, by 1343, Zolzaya had limited the rebellion mostly to the north. By 1344, Beg Batu was captured and executed for treason. But at the same time, her neighbors smelt weakness.
The Russian states such as Vladimir and Ryazan invaded Silver Horde-held territory in Ruthenia. As the Golden Horde descended into another civil war, their support in the matter was not going to happen. Sensing more weakness, Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Saxony formed an alliance and started to invade from the west. Lithuania declared independence and started to fight against the Silver Horde as well. Croatia began to raid Hungarian lands held by the Horde too. This was the Anti-Silver Coalition in its full entirety as the War of the Silver Horde (1346 - 1367) began in earnest. At first the combined forces were all too great for the Silver Horde. The Russian statelets captured Kyiv and pushed into Ruthenia, with the support of the local Orthodox population, and Lithuania soon captured all of the territory held by the Grand Duchy before accepting vassalage to the Silver Horde. Croatia began to advance towards Buda and the Germans began to close in from the west. By 1349, the situation was desperate, and in 1353, after 3 years of intermittent siege, at Bilistok (Bialystok) Zolzaya received news that Krakov had fallen and with it most of the Silver Horde.
Zolzaya only controlled the Vovoide of Bilistok and its surroundings and it was clear that Zolzaya was going to lose, but ignoring the pleading of her husband to flee to Sarai, Zolzaya vowed to fight on. When Bilistock was captured by a joint Lithuanian-German force, they found the city eerily abandoned. The remnants of Zolzaya's forces had retreated into the forests. For the next decade, Zolzaya waged a brutal guerilla war against the enemies, who de-jure partitioned the Silver Horde. Pomerania annexed the coasts all the way to Prussia, whilst Brandenburg and Saxony received huge chunks in western Poland. Hungary and Slovakia were captured by the Croats, and Ruthenia and Galicia had been taken by the Russian States. Lithuania had taken the rest. The Lithuanians, under the command of a Christian Usurper King, and the Polish populace under Christian control resented the high taxation that they were forced to give to their new masters simply because they were Christo-Buddhists and not 'pure' Christians. This resentment turned into hatred after the Holy Roman Empire's Papal Inquisition was given jurisdiction over German-occupied territories in Poland who enacted brutal kangaroo trials. Zolzaya had the support of the population and in 1363, the population decided enough was enough and in German-occupied regions, the populace revolted, and Zolzaya, from the forests, rode out to join up with them. In Poznani (poznan) she was welcomed freely and soon the Germans were kicked out of Polish Silver Horde territory and Prussia was reconquered. With the momentum shifting, Zolzaya quickly reconquered Slovakia and conquered Lithuania again and pushed the Russian statelets out of Galicia. But after that she could do no more. The manpower of the nation was depleted severely. The Peace Treaty of Nitra signed in 1367 affirmed the sovereingty of the Silver Horde, whilst the Silver Horde ceded the Kingdom of Hungary to the Kingdom of Croatia, and the Kyiv and Ruthenian regions barring Galicia was ceded to Ryazan, Vladimir and Muscovy. In return, the Croats and the Germans paid a very large sum of money to Krakov as reparations.
After the War of the Silver Horde ended, the 49-year-old Queen decided to rest the nation. It was tired after ~25 years of continuous war, and economic recovery was needed. Her husband and her four children aided her in the administration of the state, and rebellious nobles who had supported the invasions were all removed from power. When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans under Murad I in 1370, she allowed Byzantine refugees to settle down in Poland as well. However, barring the Byzantine refugees, she also outlawed Christianity in 1371. The suppression under the foreign invaders had not been forgotten and a strong anti-Christian undercurrent had been developed in Poland at the time, especially considering the Papal-sanctioned inquisitions during the occupation. Christo-Buddhism was dropped and full Tibetan Buddhism was adopted as the State Religion. Sadly for Christian Europe, this proved to be a popular decision among the populace. For the next decade, she reorganized the economy, brought in new advancements to the military, reformed the military and also became the first Silver Horde monarch to send emissaries to England and France in Western Europe establishing formal diplomatic ties. In 1381, she died peacefully in her sleep and for her grit and determination with which she resisted the invaders, she gained the posthumous epithet of 'the Liberator'. She was succeeded by her god-son, to the titles of Khagan of Poland, Duke of Nitra, and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
[6] The son of Zolzaya's great dog of war, Altan Karoly, Beg of Zhytomir and Governor of Galicia, Zygmunt Koden was a descendant of the great Mongol general Subotai through the younger sons of Uriyangkhadai, the first's eldest son, the Subotaids had long held land and stood in service to the House of Ogedei in the lands of the Poles, and were amongst the first to intermarry heavily with the old Polish noble (and royal families) that remained after the Mongol conquests. Zygmunt Koden was the favoured god-son of Zolzaya, and was educated at her court in Krakov for most of his young life, where he quickly became known for his intelligence and quick wit, as well as his very strong determination, willingness to learn and work ethic. He was sent by Zolzaya as her emissary twice, once, when he was sixteen, to her husband Janibeg, whom had taken rule of the Golden Horde, to fight by his side and learn the martial arts of the Mongol people, and Zygmunt would eventually lead some armies for Janibeg, to him being atributted the submission of two seperate Bolghar revolts in Kazan.
His return to Poland following the death of his father marked a change in the relationship between the Ogedeids and the Subotaids. Mongke Timur, the eldest son of Janibeg and Zolzaya, and hopeful heir to both the Golden Horde and the "Silver Horde", had been educated in his father's court of Sarai, being raised a stout Sunni muslim. He would go to live with his mother in Poland before Zygmunt's return, however, and following the death of Altan Karoly, convinced his mother to grant him the governorship of Galicia. When Zygmunt returned to Poland and found his home occupied by Mongke Timur, whom harshly sent his relative to Krakov, it was no surprise that he was furious. Khatun Zolzaya showered Zygmunt with gifts in reparation, but it was clear that something blackened the heart of Koden that day. From that moment on, Zygmunt Koden's relationship with the Ghenghisids in Krakov, Sarai and Lvov only deteriorated, even with Zolzaya's efforts to bring back him to their side - she would give him the governorship of Minsk in 1378, alongside the hand of her daughter Hedwig as compensation. It was not enough compensation for Zygmunt, who had grown into a very proud man, and Zolzaya might have saved the rule of her son had she recognized this when Zygmunt refused her commands to abandon Christianity and convert to Tibetan Buddhism. His famous response "Why should I, whom share the same religions of my fathers and those of our stock whom arrived to this land long afore, convert to the teachings of Asia when the heir to our Queen kneels to the faith of Ala ad-Din?".
The death of Zolzaya in 1381 was the final swing that cut the rope. Zygmunt Koden, as Zolzaya's god-son and son-in-law, demanded a small but substantive portion of her inheritance, as well as the return of Galicia alongside the Voivodeships of Volhynia and Byalostok for himself as governor for life. Mongke Timur, who had yet to be crowned Khan in Krakov, instead decided to ride to Minsk with quickly assembled armies to put an end to his hated cousin and brother-in-law. What he didn't count of was Jan Casimir, last of the Piasts and governor of Upper Silesia, Zygmunt Koden's cousin and friend, to betray his movements. When Mongke Timur and his armies entered White Russia, Zygmunt Koden fell upon him with the full force of his retinues and levies, capturing many of Mongke's lieutenants and forcing him to flee in the direction of his father's Golden Horde and the Russian Principalities. With the pathway to Krakov open, Zygmunt decided to claim the title of Khan with the support of the remaining Christian and Christo-Buddhist population of Poland mainly, and quickly amassed two massive armies which made short work of whatever opposition there was to him in Prussia and Upper and Lower Poland. Signing a treaty of alliance with Sigismund of Anjou, the King of Croatia, Hungary and Bosnia, marrying his sister Anna Organa to him in exchange for military support. Polish-Hungarian armies would fight a long war in Galicia and the Russian Principalities, with Zygmunt offering whatever piece of land the Russian princes could grab to them in exchange for their participation in the alliance. Eventually, the 1387 campaign meant the end of the War and the Golden (Blue) Horde, as a combined Polish-Kievan-Tverian army sacked and razed Sarai to the ground. Zygmunt, whom was familiar with Sarai's economy, popularily took most of Sarai's craftsmen, artists and inventors back with him to Krakov.
A modern concept art of Zygmunt Koden in Lithuanian armour and attire, whom greatly dominated Krakov' fashion during the later states of his reign.
Capturing the remainder of his in-laws and most of the extended Ghenghisids present in his lands who had sided against him, he had them all executed in what is remembered as the Malbork Massacre in modern history, eliminating most of the threats present in his reign. Zygmunt's reign as King marks what most historians call the end of the Mongol Period, as ethnic Mongols became less and less relevant in the administration and bureaucracy of the Khanate. Zygmunt also often referred to himself as Król instead of Khan, although he would often use the terms interchangingly. To start his reign, Zygmunt voyaged to Rome to come up with some kind of deal with the Vatican in regards to the Catholic Church in his lands. What come out of the "Council of Ostia" was the formation of the Autocephalous Polish Catholic Church, led from Krakov by a Cardinal. The Polish Church conjoined many aspects of Christianity (Mostly Catholic with some Orthodox) with buddhist teachings and become a massive arm of the re-construction of Poland in the aftermath of Zygmunt's ascenssion. Zygmunt sent settlers East-wards, to the mostly destroyed portions of his realm in Lithuania, White Russia and Galicia, mostly Poles, Prussians and Slovakians. The german-speaking community in these eastern territories grew rapidly not only due to Prussian influence but due to the many Saxon, Thuringian, Bavarian and Pomeranian artisans, soldiers and farmers that emigrated to Galicia and Lower Lithuania during Zygmunt's reign.
A grand proponent of reform, Zygmunt Koden ended any official "borders" between his realms, administrating all of them as a single unit from Krakov. This allowed for a great deal of ammelioration of the recruitment process of his armies, something which he would put to great use in his conquest of Courland and Lower Livonia in 1395 and with his purchase of land from the Kievan Principality to augment land for settlement in the south. He would beat Tatar remnants of the Golden Horde in the region and his armies would reach the Black Sea Coast, claiming it for Poland. A small fishing village in the region which many historians believe had been the center of the great ancient greek city of Odessos was chosen by Koden as the center of the new Ochkov Voivodeship - Kodessos was the name given to the city.
At the end of his reign, Poland was a vastly multicultural realm, dominated by the Poles (whom dominated ethnically in Poland proper and Northern Galicia) and by the Lipkans (Descendants of the Mongols, whom were mostly a elite class but had pluralities in the Volhynian and Turovian Oblasts, as well as the more recent additions of Ochkov in the South) although Livonians, Lithuanians, Prussians, Galicians and Slovakians also had homelands in his realm. Alongside these peoples, there were significant Jewish, German (Saxon and Pomeranian), Hungarian and Russian communities in the Empire, particularly in the East. By 1410, however, Middle Polish (Which had lots of Mongol influences) had become the language of the state, the army and most of society. The Mongol script, however, was abandoned in favour of the latin script, which eased trade with the west through the ports of Danzig, Marienburg and Konigsberg in the North, while Kodessos became a center of Black Sea trade.
Zygmunt Koden and his wife Hedwig of the House of Ogedei would have six children together. Zygmunt Koden would finally die of old age in 1414, being succeeded by his second Cousin, Zen Khan.
Portrait of Zen Khan a year before the ascension
[7] - The Grandson of Zolzaya Khatun and a member of the Mongolified Turzoid Lineage in Poland, Zen Khan was born in 1377. Having no claim to the throne due to the dynasty's outreach and being weak physically even at baby standards, at the age of 4, Zen Khan was sent to the monastery in Bilistok, the largest Monastery in Poland and all of Europe, to study Buddhism and devote his life to theology. In the monastery, however, the warrior monks who made the place home found that Zen Khan's lithe figure and cunning mind made a powerful foe in combat, and instead raised him as a Warrior Monk. Raised conservatively in Bilistok Monastery, the Monks of the Monastery did not take to Koden's religious reforms well. Zen Khan reflected this and whenever he visited his second cousin in Krakov, explosive and sometimes violent arguments often broke out between the two cousins. As Koden neared death in 1413, and was reportedly ill, the dissatisfied Buddhist Purist Poles and Mongols began to back Zen Khan for the throne. When Koden died a year later, the very next day, a palace coup saw the 37-year-old Zen Khan ascend to the throne, having been put in charge by the still overwhelmingly Buddhist military. What followed was a radical change from the past few years. The Children of Koden and their children were all put under house arrest (and later killed in private - disappearing from public life completely). The rest of the members of the Royal Family were summoned to Krakov with a very clear message. It was either Buddhism or the Chopping Block. With the support of the military well behind Zen Khan, Most of the members of the Royal Family and their sub-branches converted fully (those who hadn't in the past anyway), and the ones who resisted were thrown into prison with the bare minimum of food and water given to them. All of them would starve to death in the following years. The children were taken and raised in the puritan Buddhist manner.
This bloody start to Zen's reign was inauspicious, as Christians, who were a majority in the western portions of the Khaganate were now becoming restless. Zen was pragmatic however and did nothing to them, bringing his rowdy troops under control. Christian Europe watched this puritan Buddhist regime in Poland with wary eyes as well. Zen Khan did his best to maintain diplomatic peace with his neighbors. Despite this, Zen came into trouble when Jan Hus began to preach his ideas of reforming Christianity, taking heavy inspiration from Buddhism, especially its non-political bureaucracy. When Hus was executed in late 1415, the Hussites turned to Poland to aid them. Sensing an opportunity to gain influence in Bohemia, Zen funded the Hussites to launch a rebellion in 1417 under the leadership of Prokop the Great and even went so far as to marry his sister, Kristina, with whom he would have five children in the future. It was a mortal victory for Zen when Kristina converted to Buddhism a year later. In 1420, as the Catholic forces neared Prague which had previously fallen to Hussite control, Zen mobilized the Silver Horde completely. With support from the French against the pesky Holy Roman Empire, Zen Khan's forces tore through Bohemia in support of the Hussites. King Sigismund of Croatia - the Holy Roman Emperor - rallied against the Silver Horde and pushed them back until the Battle of Silver Mountain on the outskirts of Prague in 1422 when Zen famously challenged Sigismund to personal combat. Sigismund accepted. Warrior monk that he was, his fighting style was completely alien to Sigismund, and Sigismund was killed in the duel. As per his terms, the Croatian-German Army withdrew completely. The other garrisons in Bohemia were wiped out as well, and the Hussites claimed control over the Bohemian Crown. Jan Žižka took the Bohemian Crown as King Jan I and accepted vassalage to Poland. Zen returned to Krakov in 1423 triumphant.
Other than the Hussite War, Zen did not engage in military affairs for the rest 14 years of his life other than small border skirmishes now and then. Instead Zen focused entirely on the domestic front. The coastline was severely under-developed, and Kyenigsbyerg (Konigsberg) was developed under his rule, and the Polish Navy (officially the Silver Fleet) finally became more than a patrolling force, with the construction of new carracks and barges going full steam ahead. The use of the Mongol Script for the language was restored, and the Latin Script was thrown away. To make sure its return was an impossibility, all the clergy and government was forced to learn its usage, and the small universities and schools that operated in Poland came under governmental authority to teach in the Mongol Script. Most books in the Latin Script were all translated into the Mongol Script and then discarded, sent to nearby Christian states for selling. But perhaps the greatest legacy of Zen's rule was in terms of religion. Buddhist Monasteries were constructed all over the country, numbering well into the thousands, and considering that enrolling into monasteries was mostly free (other than a small yearly charge that was minuscule in amount, even by the time's standards) and the only chance at literacy for the general population, families sent their sons and daughters to the monasteries, who returned as devout Buddhists from their time in the monasteries. Zen's court being made exclusively of Buddhists drove the remaining Noble families to do the same as well to gain social prestige up the social ladder as well. Zen's Serf Law of 1431 made it illegal for any Buddhist to be a Serf, resulting in widespread conversions among the German, Lithuanian and Slovakian Serfs, bolstering the Buddhist population as well. By the time Zen died in 1437, the Khaganate of Poland was firmly and majority Buddhist, with the first Polish Census - made in the style of the Yuan Census's of their distant Mongoloid Counsins - taken in 1435 showing that around ~2/3 of the country identified solely as Buddhist.
Zen died in 1437 at the age of 60. He had reformed the Khaganate by a great deal, sealing a lasting legacy behind him. Duke of Nitra, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Lord of Prussia were no subsidiary titles of the Khaganate. They transformed into the Tsianate of Nitra, Grand Tsianate of Lithuania and Lorddom of Prussia after authentic Middle Polish names. Zen was succeeded by_______after his death.
This bloody start to Zen's reign was inauspicious, as Christians, who were a majority in the western portions of the Khaganate were now becoming restless. Zen was pragmatic however and did nothing to them, bringing his rowdy troops under control. Christian Europe watched this puritan Buddhist regime in Poland with wary eyes as well. Zen Khan did his best to maintain diplomatic peace with his neighbors. Despite this, Zen came into trouble when Jan Hus began to preach his ideas of reforming Christianity, taking heavy inspiration from Buddhism, especially its non-political bureaucracy. When Hus was executed in late 1415, the Hussites turned to Poland to aid them. Sensing an opportunity to gain influence in Bohemia, Zen funded the Hussites to launch a rebellion in 1417 under the leadership of Prokop the Great and even went so far as to marry his sister, Kristina, with whom he would have five children in the future. It was a mortal victory for Zen when Kristina converted to Buddhism a year later. In 1420, as the Catholic forces neared Prague which had previously fallen to Hussite control, Zen mobilized the Silver Horde completely. With support from the French against the pesky Holy Roman Empire, Zen Khan's forces tore through Bohemia in support of the Hussites. King Sigismund of Croatia - the Holy Roman Emperor - rallied against the Silver Horde and pushed them back until the Battle of Silver Mountain on the outskirts of Prague in 1422 when Zen famously challenged Sigismund to personal combat. Sigismund accepted. Warrior monk that he was, his fighting style was completely alien to Sigismund, and Sigismund was killed in the duel. As per his terms, the Croatian-German Army withdrew completely. The other garrisons in Bohemia were wiped out as well, and the Hussites claimed control over the Bohemian Crown. Jan Žižka took the Bohemian Crown as King Jan I and accepted vassalage to Poland. Zen returned to Krakov in 1423 triumphant.
Other than the Hussite War, Zen did not engage in military affairs for the rest 14 years of his life other than small border skirmishes now and then. Instead Zen focused entirely on the domestic front. The coastline was severely under-developed, and Kyenigsbyerg (Konigsberg) was developed under his rule, and the Polish Navy (officially the Silver Fleet) finally became more than a patrolling force, with the construction of new carracks and barges going full steam ahead. The use of the Mongol Script for the language was restored, and the Latin Script was thrown away. To make sure its return was an impossibility, all the clergy and government was forced to learn its usage, and the small universities and schools that operated in Poland came under governmental authority to teach in the Mongol Script. Most books in the Latin Script were all translated into the Mongol Script and then discarded, sent to nearby Christian states for selling. But perhaps the greatest legacy of Zen's rule was in terms of religion. Buddhist Monasteries were constructed all over the country, numbering well into the thousands, and considering that enrolling into monasteries was mostly free (other than a small yearly charge that was minuscule in amount, even by the time's standards) and the only chance at literacy for the general population, families sent their sons and daughters to the monasteries, who returned as devout Buddhists from their time in the monasteries. Zen's court being made exclusively of Buddhists drove the remaining Noble families to do the same as well to gain social prestige up the social ladder as well. Zen's Serf Law of 1431 made it illegal for any Buddhist to be a Serf, resulting in widespread conversions among the German, Lithuanian and Slovakian Serfs, bolstering the Buddhist population as well. By the time Zen died in 1437, the Khaganate of Poland was firmly and majority Buddhist, with the first Polish Census - made in the style of the Yuan Census's of their distant Mongoloid Counsins - taken in 1435 showing that around ~2/3 of the country identified solely as Buddhist.
Zen died in 1437 at the age of 60. He had reformed the Khaganate by a great deal, sealing a lasting legacy behind him. Duke of Nitra, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Lord of Prussia were no subsidiary titles of the Khaganate. They transformed into the Tsianate of Nitra, Grand Tsianate of Lithuania and Lorddom of Prussia after authentic Middle Polish names. Zen was succeeded by_______after his death.
i have classes from tommorow anyway so i won't be able to claim for th next week anyway tbh
POD: The First Mongol Invasion of Poland leads to a decisive victory that sees the installation of Qadan Khan as the Khan of the proposed Silver Horde as vassal to the Mongol Empire
Khans and Khatuns of the Silver Horde (Khaganate of Poland)
(1241 - 1279) Qadan Khan (Ögedeids) [1]
(1279 - 1313) Baidar Khan (Ögedeids) [2]
(1313 - 1335) Altan Khan 'The Dragon' (Ögedeids) [3]
Khagans and Khatuns of the Khaganate of Poland
(1313 - 1335) Altan Khan 'The Dragon' (Ögedeids) [3]
(1335 - 1340) Alexander Khan (Ögedeids) [4]
(1340 - 1381) Zolzaya Khatun 'The Restorer' (Ögedeids) [5]
(1381 - 1414) Zygmunt Koden 'The Bear' (Subotaids) [6]
(1414 - 1437) Zen Khan 'The Warrior-Monk' (Turzóids) [7]
(1437 - 1452) Arban Khan (Turzóids) [8]
Qadar Khan as Khan of the Silver Horde and Khagan of Poland
[1] Born sometime in the early 1200s as the son of Ögedei Khan, the Great Khagan of the Mongol Empire, and a concubine, Qadar Khan was afforded the best childhood a Mongol Prince was entitled to. Much of his early life is unattested, as the Mongols had scarce resources at the time devoted to the solitary prince, but he was known to be militarily adept at the very least. When the time came for the Mongol Invasion of Hungary, Qadar Khan was chosen alongside Baidar Khan and Orda Khan to lead a diversionary force into Poland at the age of 25. The Invasion of Poland went swimmingly, surprisingly and what was originally intended to be the sideshow became the main show as the forces of Henry II were not only defeated, but they completely fell apart, leading the interior of Poland to fall to the Mongols by 1241 after some protracted sieges.
Qadar Khan drove his armies all the way to Kraków which he captured and made the seat of the Khaganate of Poland, with himself as Khagan and with the city renamed Krakov, which was more in line with Mongol phonology. Though the Mongol Invasion of Hungary had failed, the invasion of Poland was a rousing success, and Qadar Khan settled down as his cousins returned to Mongolia to administer his new realm. The immediate problem was that the Polish subjects he now ruled over were envious of their new overlords and not very accepting of the Mongols, and the Mongol cavalry he commanded had a problem raiding any settlement they found heightening local resistance against his rule. From Silesia, Hungary, and the Holy Roman Empire, raids against his new nation continued frequently. Until 1245 he remained generally peaceful, administering his realm and slowly removing dissent against his rule in Poland. At the same time he was called back to Mongolia to elect a new Khagan of Mongolia, and during that time, his realm was attacked. He returned in 1246 to find his realm on the brink of collapsing with Bohemian and Silesian forces nearing Krakov. Qadar Khan rode to the outskirts of the city and with his detachment, encircled the incoming army and defeated the invasion, restoring the territorial sovereignty of the Khaganate of Poland.
To find temporary peace at least, Qadar Khan married Constance of Wrocław as his only wife - who was left widowed after her husband died in the fighting the year prior. Qadar Khan had indirectly also adopted monogamous marriage, slowly adopting some of the customs of the land that he now ruled over. Constance and Qadar found it hard to have affection with one another during the first years of their marriage - largely due to communication problems and differences in religion. Qadar Khan was a committed Tengri-Buddhist whilst Constance was a committed Christian. Nevertheless, they did come to have respect for one another in due time, and the couple would have five children in total, all of whom lived to adulthood. As Infighting befell the Mongols in the Steppe, Qadar turned his back on the homeland and finally adopted Poland as his home by 1250. Nevertheless, that didn't mean that he left all semblances of Mongol life behind. He invited Tengri-Buddhist missionaries from Mongolia, China, and Central Asia and settled them in Poland. Though he was tolerant of Christianity for the sake of administration and having no rebellions, his focus on Tengri-Buddhism did lead to a good amount of conversions in Poland under his rule, and by the time of his death, all major noble families in Poland had adopted Buddhism to varying degrees, and syncretism between Buddhism and Christianity had become rife by the end of his reign. Mongol loanwords began to enter Polish as well over time.
Of course, Qadar Khan did have a hard time ruling despite his tolerant views that ensured his reign survived. Daniel of Galicia's Rebellion from 1256 - 1263 nearly captured Krakov and the Invasion of Poland by Bohemia from 1267 - 1274 nearly dethroned Qadar both times, but both times Qadar managed to win using military wit and using his charisma to at least instill some values of loyalty to him in the populace. He had also reined in his Mongol troops who had settled down in Poland, making sacking and raiding much more controlled than before. When he died in 1279 with his wife and children by his side, he died a peaceful man having achieved a long-lasting legacy at least within Europe.
[2] The eldest son of Qadar Khan and Constance of Wroclaw, Baidar Khan was raised more by his father than his mother, and became a devoted Buddhist, though paying some lip service to the faith of his mother for the sake of legitimacy, getting himself baptized and crowned by Christian priests as Piotr I, King of Poland. Despite this, Baidar's main claims to fame are the patronage of Buddhist monasteries established all across the lands of the Silver Horde, the migration and patronage of Jewish communities in the region, and the conversion of Lithuania and the Baltic regions, which he would take over from the German knightly orders in the first years of his reign. Under Baidar's rule, the Lithuanians and Baltic peoples would begin to rapidly convert to Buddhism and form a major loyalist faction to the khan, even as Christian heresies proliferated in the Silver Horde's lands thanks to the khan's tolerance of all religions.
In the middle of the khan's reign, the Silver Horde raided deep into the Holy Roman Empire in a preemptive strike against an incipient crusade, and it was during this time that the Silver Horde first started bringing in Ashkenazi Jews to settle some of the emptied cities of the region (or perhaps, more accurately, this period first saw Ashkenazi Jews flee into the lands of the Silver Horde as German peasants started committing pogroms against them).
To secure his rule over the northern lands, Baidar Khan married a Buddhist-converted daughter of the pagan Lithuanian Grand Duke Mindaugas, who had sworn fealty to the khan, in 1283, and the couple had many children. By 1313, the khan passed, leaving the khanate in the hands of Adai Khan.
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Altan Khan's official portrait upon ascension
Born in 1285 to Baidar Khan, Altan ascended to the throne of the Khaganate of Poland and Khanate of the Silver Horde at the age of 28. Where his father had been more of an administrative guy, Altan Khan took after his Lithuanian heritage and their more warlike tendencies. After he reached his majority, he was the leading commander of the Silver Horde's military forces against any external foe that would try to fight against the might of the Silver Horde. Upon his ascension as Khan and Khagan, he immediately came into conflict with the Golden Horde in the East, with their Khan - Altan Khan's sixth cousin once removed - trying to assert a claim to the Polish Throne as well. Seeing that this was being scrutinized greatly by the European Powers with ideas of the conquest of Polish territory, Altan Khan quickly made a move, allying himself with the unlikely candidate - the Bohemians and marrying Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, securing his western flank. With the Habsburgs on the rise in Vienna, the Bohemians had now decided to make peace with the Silver Horde to focus on things close to home. Altan and Elizabeth would have three children who would grow into adulthood.
The War between the Golden Horde and the Silver Horde from 1313 - 1319 ended in a military stalemate for the most part, as while Altan had better tactics, the Golden Horde had more numbers in Russia. The war ended with the Silver Horde annexing Ruthenian Galicia from the Golden Horde instead, and not much else. While the Silver Horde Succession War hadn't been a rousing success for Altan Khan's military career, his exploits afterward would prove him worthy of his nickname 'the Dragon'. As Hungary warred itself between King Charles I of Hungary and the nation's powerful oligarchs, Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Belgrade officially asked for Polish support in 1320. Altan Khan was eager for more conquest and answered the call. His troops - an amalgamation of fast and hard cavalry tactics inherited from their Mongol heritage and the heavily armored heritage of Europe clashed down on the Pannonian plains in support of Stefan and the Vovoide of Transylvania against Charles I of Hungary. For two years, the Hungarians and the Poles would fight against each other indecisively but in 1323, when the two lead armies met with one another on the fields of Miskolc, Charles I miscalculated, and he was captured by Altan Khan whilst his army was routed. Altan Khan entered Buda without a fight afterward. To prevent their realms from entering the Mongol realm in Europe, even allied Stefan declared the independence of the Banate of Vojvodina and the Transylvanians declared their duchy to be independent. Viceroy of Croatia, John, Duke of Durrazo, and Charles I's cousin was declared King of Croatia. Altan was not ruffled and instead annexed Hungary proper and Slovakia into the Silver Horde. At the same time, to his north, the Teutons had started to raid into Northern Poland once again.
Deciding to end the Teuton threat once and for all, in 1325, the great Khan invaded Teutonic Prussia, and by 1328 was besieging Konigsberg at the head of a massive army. The next year, Konigsberg fell, and the Teutonic Order fled to Hamburg where the Hanseatic League gave them refuge. Nevertheless, Prussia had fallen to Altan Khan and was annexed into the Silver Horde as well. After 1329, Altan Khan mostly settled down to a peaceful life and administered the realm. In 1330 Buddhism was officially declared to be the State Religion after nearly a century of growing Buddhist influence in Polish society. Old Polish transitioned into Middle Polish with many Mongol loanwords and the language started to be written in the Mongol Script for official business as well. Altan Khan also shed most of the other hanging on of Mongolia and was the first Silver Horde Khan to call himself Polish declaring the Khaganate of Poland to be the primary title of the Horde. In 1331, after years of military jurisdiction, Hungary, Slovakia, and Prussia were directly integrated into the Silver Horde. In 1333, the Silesian Succession Crisis saw both Bohemia and the Silver Horde dividing the Duchy of Silesia in half, partitioning it with one another.
In 1335, at the age of 50, Altan Khan died, having expanded the Silver Horde to become twice as large. Upon his death, for his military prowess, he gained the moniker 'the Dragon'. He was succeeded to the Khaganate byAlexander Khan.
[4] Alexander Khan, born in 1313 as the oldest of the three children of Altan Khan and his wife Elizabeth, was the first Khan of the Silver Horde to be given a "European" name, showing how the Silver Horde was increasingly adopting Polish culture and language during his reign. While his reign would be a fairly short-lived one, lasting five years before he would die from a sudden illness at the age of 27, in many ways, it would be a reign which would see a great deal of energy and vitality in the Khanate with the most notable achievements of Alexander Khan being the fall of Kiev to the Silver Horde with the Khaganate of Poland adding "Grand Prince of the Rus'" to his titles after the Fall of Kyiv. In addition, he would be notable for the marriage alliance he would forge with Andronicus III of Rhomania in which he would send off his sister to marry Andronicus III, tying the Palaiologos Dynasty with the Polish Ogodeids, and for his policy of enacting legal and administrative reforms to centralize the realm. Finally, he would be a ruler who would emphasize the Christian part of the Christo-Buddhist syncretism which marked the Silver Horde, something historians would argue was influenced by both his mother and his wife, Irene Palaiologina, daughter of Andronicus III, with whom he would have a single child before his death in 1340. In the aftermath of his death, Zolzaya Khatun would be acclaimed as Khayun of Poland, Queen of Hungary, and Grand Princess of Rus'.
A popular portrait of Zolzaya Khatun drawn in the 1860s depicting her role as the Warrior Queen
[5] - The Plague of 1337 had ripped into the House of Ogedei ruling in Poland brutally. When Alexander Khan died in 1340, his only direct heir was his sister, Zolzaya Khan. Mongol Customs of giving noblewomen high ranks had carried over into the Silver Horde, and Zolzaya was named Khatun in Krakov a week after her brother had died at the age of 24. However, cousins descended from Baidar Khan, who held feudal territory at the Prussian Marches rose up in rebellion, denouncing Zolzaya's claim to the throne of the Horde and demanding that Beg (Duke) Batu Khan become the Khagan. Zolzaya, impertinent and proud of her heritage and right to the crown refused to back down. The Silver War of Succession (1340 - 1344) erupted soon after, with Batu Khan declaring himself Khagan and denouncing Zolzaya as an illegitimate Queen. Recognizing that the military advantage was held by Beg Batu, Zolzaya decided to enlist the help of her cousins in the Golden Horde, who now facing the Crimean Horde's threat was warming up to the Silver Horde. In 1341, Prince Janibeg Khan of the Blue Horde (the western half of the Golden Horde) married Zolzaya Khan bringing the military power of another 40,000 professional cavalrymen behind Zolzaya. Using their strength, and her own military prowess, by 1343, Zolzaya had limited the rebellion mostly to the north. By 1344, Beg Batu was captured and executed for treason. But at the same time, her neighbors smelt weakness.
The Russian states such as Vladimir and Ryazan invaded Silver Horde-held territory in Ruthenia. As the Golden Horde descended into another civil war, their support in the matter was not going to happen. Sensing more weakness, Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Saxony formed an alliance and started to invade from the west. Lithuania declared independence and started to fight against the Silver Horde as well. Croatia began to raid Hungarian lands held by the Horde too. This was the Anti-Silver Coalition in its full entirety as the War of the Silver Horde (1346 - 1367) began in earnest. At first the combined forces were all too great for the Silver Horde. The Russian statelets captured Kyiv and pushed into Ruthenia, with the support of the local Orthodox population, and Lithuania soon captured all of the territory held by the Grand Duchy before accepting vassalage to the Silver Horde. Croatia began to advance towards Buda and the Germans began to close in from the west. By 1349, the situation was desperate, and in 1353, after 3 years of intermittent siege, at Bilistok (Bialystok) Zolzaya received news that Krakov had fallen and with it most of the Silver Horde.
Zolzaya only controlled the Vovoide of Bilistok and its surroundings and it was clear that Zolzaya was going to lose, but ignoring the pleading of her husband to flee to Sarai, Zolzaya vowed to fight on. When Bilistock was captured by a joint Lithuanian-German force, they found the city eerily abandoned. The remnants of Zolzaya's forces had retreated into the forests. For the next decade, Zolzaya waged a brutal guerilla war against the enemies, who de-jure partitioned the Silver Horde. Pomerania annexed the coasts all the way to Prussia, whilst Brandenburg and Saxony received huge chunks in western Poland. Hungary and Slovakia were captured by the Croats, and Ruthenia and Galicia had been taken by the Russian States. Lithuania had taken the rest. The Lithuanians, under the command of a Christian Usurper King, and the Polish populace under Christian control resented the high taxation that they were forced to give to their new masters simply because they were Christo-Buddhists and not 'pure' Christians. This resentment turned into hatred after the Holy Roman Empire's Papal Inquisition was given jurisdiction over German-occupied territories in Poland who enacted brutal kangaroo trials. Zolzaya had the support of the population and in 1363, the population decided enough was enough and in German-occupied regions, the populace revolted, and Zolzaya, from the forests, rode out to join up with them. In Poznani (poznan) she was welcomed freely and soon the Germans were kicked out of Polish Silver Horde territory and Prussia was reconquered. With the momentum shifting, Zolzaya quickly reconquered Slovakia and conquered Lithuania again and pushed the Russian statelets out of Galicia. But after that she could do no more. The manpower of the nation was depleted severely. The Peace Treaty of Nitra signed in 1367 affirmed the sovereingty of the Silver Horde, whilst the Silver Horde ceded the Kingdom of Hungary to the Kingdom of Croatia, and the Kyiv and Ruthenian regions barring Galicia was ceded to Ryazan, Vladimir and Muscovy. In return, the Croats and the Germans paid a very large sum of money to Krakov as reparations.
After the War of the Silver Horde ended, the 49-year-old Queen decided to rest the nation. It was tired after ~25 years of continuous war, and economic recovery was needed. Her husband and her four children aided her in the administration of the state, and rebellious nobles who had supported the invasions were all removed from power. When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans under Murad I in 1370, she allowed Byzantine refugees to settle down in Poland as well. However, barring the Byzantine refugees, she also outlawed Christianity in 1371. The suppression under the foreign invaders had not been forgotten and a strong anti-Christian undercurrent had been developed in Poland at the time, especially considering the Papal-sanctioned inquisitions during the occupation. Christo-Buddhism was dropped and full Tibetan Buddhism was adopted as the State Religion. Sadly for Christian Europe, this proved to be a popular decision among the populace. For the next decade, she reorganized the economy, brought in new advancements to the military, reformed the military and also became the first Silver Horde monarch to send emissaries to England and France in Western Europe establishing formal diplomatic ties. In 1381, she died peacefully in her sleep and for her grit and determination with which she resisted the invaders, she gained the posthumous epithet of 'the Liberator'. She was succeeded by her god-son, to the titles of Khagan of Poland, Duke of Nitra, and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
[6] The son of Zolzaya's great dog of war, Altan Karoly, Beg of Zhytomir and Governor of Galicia, Zygmunt Koden was a descendant of the great Mongol general Subotai through the younger sons of Uriyangkhadai, the first's eldest son, the Subotaids had long held land and stood in service to the House of Ogedei in the lands of the Poles, and were amongst the first to intermarry heavily with the old Polish noble (and royal families) that remained after the Mongol conquests. Zygmunt Koden was the favoured god-son of Zolzaya, and was educated at her court in Krakov for most of his young life, where he quickly became known for his intelligence and quick wit, as well as his very strong determination, willingness to learn and work ethic. He was sent by Zolzaya as her emissary twice, once, when he was sixteen, to her husband Janibeg, whom had taken rule of the Golden Horde, to fight by his side and learn the martial arts of the Mongol people, and Zygmunt would eventually lead some armies for Janibeg, to him being atributted the submission of two seperate Bolghar revolts in Kazan.
His return to Poland following the death of his father marked a change in the relationship between the Ogedeids and the Subotaids. Mongke Timur, the eldest son of Janibeg and Zolzaya, and hopeful heir to both the Golden Horde and the "Silver Horde", had been educated in his father's court of Sarai, being raised a stout Sunni muslim. He would go to live with his mother in Poland before Zygmunt's return, however, and following the death of Altan Karoly, convinced his mother to grant him the governorship of Galicia. When Zygmunt returned to Poland and found his home occupied by Mongke Timur, whom harshly sent his relative to Krakov, it was no surprise that he was furious. Khatun Zolzaya showered Zygmunt with gifts in reparation, but it was clear that something blackened the heart of Koden that day. From that moment on, Zygmunt Koden's relationship with the Ghenghisids in Krakov, Sarai and Lvov only deteriorated, even with Zolzaya's efforts to bring back him to their side - she would give him the governorship of Minsk in 1378, alongside the hand of her daughter Hedwig as compensation. It was not enough compensation for Zygmunt, who had grown into a very proud man, and Zolzaya might have saved the rule of her son had she recognized this when Zygmunt refused her commands to abandon Christianity and convert to Tibetan Buddhism. His famous response "Why should I, whom share the same religions of my fathers and those of our stock whom arrived to this land long afore, convert to the teachings of Asia when the heir to our Queen kneels to the faith of Ala ad-Din?".
The death of Zolzaya in 1381 was the final swing that cut the rope. Zygmunt Koden, as Zolzaya's god-son and son-in-law, demanded a small but substantive portion of her inheritance, as well as the return of Galicia alongside the Voivodeships of Volhynia and Byalostok for himself as governor for life. Mongke Timur, who had yet to be crowned Khan in Krakov, instead decided to ride to Minsk with quickly assembled armies to put an end to his hated cousin and brother-in-law. What he didn't count of was Jan Casimir, last of the Piasts and governor of Upper Silesia, Zygmunt Koden's cousin and friend, to betray his movements. When Mongke Timur and his armies entered White Russia, Zygmunt Koden fell upon him with the full force of his retinues and levies, capturing many of Mongke's lieutenants and forcing him to flee in the direction of his father's Golden Horde and the Russian Principalities. With the pathway to Krakov open, Zygmunt decided to claim the title of Khan with the support of the remaining Christian and Christo-Buddhist population of Poland mainly, and quickly amassed two massive armies which made short work of whatever opposition there was to him in Prussia and Upper and Lower Poland. Signing a treaty of alliance with Sigismund of Anjou, the King of Croatia, Hungary and Bosnia, marrying his sister Anna Organa to him in exchange for military support. Polish-Hungarian armies would fight a long war in Galicia and the Russian Principalities, with Zygmunt offering whatever piece of land the Russian princes could grab to them in exchange for their participation in the alliance. Eventually, the 1387 campaign meant the end of the War and the Golden (Blue) Horde, as a combined Polish-Kievan-Tverian army sacked and razed Sarai to the ground. Zygmunt, whom was familiar with Sarai's economy, popularly took most of Sarai's craftsmen, artists and inventors back with him to Krakov.
A modern concept art of Zygmunt Koden in Lithuanian armour and attire, whom greatly dominated Krakov' fashion during the later states of his reign.
Capturing the remainder of his in-laws and most of the extended Ghenghisids present in his lands who had sided against him, he had them all executed in what is remembered as the Malbork Massacre in modern history, eliminating most of the threats present in his reign. Zygmunt's reign as King marks what most historians call the end of the Mongol Period, as ethnic Mongols became less and less relevant in the administration and bureaucracy of the Khanate. Zygmunt also often referred to himself as Król instead of Khan, although he would often use the terms interchangingly. To start his reign, Zygmunt voyaged to Rome to come up with some kind of deal with the Vatican in regards to the Catholic Church in his lands. What come out of the "Council of Ostia" was the formation of the Autocephalous Polish Catholic Church, led from Krakov by a Cardinal. The Polish Church conjoined many aspects of Christianity (Mostly Catholic with some Orthodox) with buddhist teachings and become a massive arm of the re-construction of Poland in the aftermath of Zygmunt's ascenssion. Zygmunt sent settlers East-wards, to the mostly destroyed portions of his realm in Lithuania, White Russia and Galicia, mostly Poles, Prussians and Slovakians. The german-speaking community in these eastern territories grew rapidly not only due to Prussian influence but due to the many Saxon, Thuringian, Bavarian and Pomeranian artisans, soldiers and farmers that emigrated to Galicia and Lower Lithuania during Zygmunt's reign.
A grand proponent of reform, Zygmunt Koden ended any official "borders" between his realms, administrating all of them as a single unit from Krakov. This allowed for a great deal of ammelioration of the recruitment process of his armies, something which he would put to great use in his conquest of Courland and Lower Livonia in 1395 and with his purchase of land from the Kievan Principality to augment land for settlement in the south. He would beat Tatar remnants of the Golden Horde in the region and his armies would reach the Black Sea Coast, claiming it for Poland. A small fishing village in the region which many historians believe had been the center of the great ancient greek city of Odessos was chosen by Koden as the center of the new Ochkov Voivodeship - Kodessos was the name given to the city.
At the end of his reign, Poland was a vastly multicultural realm, dominated by the Poles (whom dominated ethnically in Poland proper and Northern Galicia) and by the Lipkans (Descendants of the Mongols, whom were mostly a elite class but had pluralities in the Volhynian and Turovian Oblasts, as well as the more recent additions of Ochkov in the South) although Livonians, Lithuanians, Prussians, Galicians and Slovakians also had homelands in his realm. Alongside these peoples, there were significant Jewish, German (Saxon and Pomeranian), Hungarian and Russian communities in the Empire, particularly in the East. By 1410, however, Middle Polish (Which had lots of Mongol influences) had become the language of the state, the army and most of society. The Mongol script, however, was abandoned in favour of the latin script, which eased trade with the west through the ports of Danzig, Marienburg and Konigsberg in the North, while Kodessos became a center of Black Sea trade.
Zygmunt Koden and his wife Hedwig of the House of Ogedei would have six children together. Zygmunt Koden would finally die of old age in 1414, being succeeded by his second Cousin, Zen Khan.
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Portrait of Zen Khan a year before the ascension
[7] - The Grandson of Zolzaya Khatun and a member of the Mongolified Turzoid Lineage in Poland, Zen Khan was born in 1377. Having no claim to the throne due to the dynasty's outreach and being weak physically even at baby standards, at the age of 4, Zen Khan was sent to the monastery in Bilistok, the largest Monastery in Poland and all of Europe, to study Buddhism and devote his life to theology. In the monastery, however, the warrior monks who made the place home found that Zen Khan's lithe figure and cunning mind made a powerful foe in combat, and instead raised him as a Warrior Monk. Raised conservatively in Bilistok Monastery, the Monks of the Monastery did not take to Koden's religious reforms well. Zen Khan reflected this and whenever he visited his second cousin in Krakov, explosive and sometimes violent arguments often broke out between the two cousins. As Koden neared death in 1413, and was reportedly ill, the dissatisfied Buddhist Purist Poles and Mongols began to back Zen Khan for the throne. When Koden died a year later, the very next day, a palace coup saw the 37-year-old Zen Khan ascend to the throne, having been put in charge by the still overwhelmingly Buddhist military. What followed was a radical change from the past few years. The Children of Koden and their children were all put under house arrest (and later killed in private - disappearing from public life completely). The rest of the members of the Royal Family were summoned to Krakov with a very clear message. It was either Buddhism or the Chopping Block. With the support of the military well behind Zen Khan, Most of the members of the Royal Family and their sub-branches converted fully (those who hadn't in the past anyway), and the ones who resisted were thrown into prison with the bare minimum of food and water given to them. All of them would starve to death in the following years. The children were taken and raised in the puritan Buddhist manner.
This bloody start to Zen's reign was inauspicious, as Christians, who were a majority in the western portions of the Khaganate were now becoming restless. Zen was pragmatic however and did nothing to them, bringing his rowdy troops under control. Christian Europe watched this puritan Buddhist regime in Poland with wary eyes as well. Zen Khan did his best to maintain diplomatic peace with his neighbors. Despite this, Zen came into trouble when Jan Hus began to preach his ideas of reforming Christianity, taking heavy inspiration from Buddhism, especially its non-political bureaucracy. When Hus was executed in late 1415, the Hussites turned to Poland to aid them. Sensing an opportunity to gain influence in Bohemia, Zen funded the Hussites to launch a rebellion in 1417 under the leadership of Prokop the Great and even went so far as to marry his sister, Kristina, with whom he would have five children in the future. It was a mortal victory for Zen when Kristina converted to Buddhism a year later. In 1420, as the Catholic forces neared Prague which had previously fallen to Hussite control, Zen mobilized the Silver Horde completely. With support from the French against the pesky Holy Roman Empire, Zen Khan's forces tore through Bohemia in support of the Hussites. King Sigismund of Croatia - the Holy Roman Emperor - rallied against the Silver Horde and pushed them back until the Battle of Silver Mountain on the outskirts of Prague in 1422 when Zen famously challenged Sigismund to personal combat. Sigismund accepted. Warrior monk that he was, his fighting style was completely alien to Sigismund, and Sigismund was killed in the duel. As per his terms, the Croatian-German Army withdrew completely. The other garrisons in Bohemia were wiped out as well, and the Hussites claimed control over the Bohemian Crown. Jan Žižka took the Bohemian Crown as King Jan I and accepted vassalage to Poland. Zen returned to Krakov in 1423 triumphant.
Other than the Hussite War, Zen did not engage in military affairs for the rest 14 years of his life other than small border skirmishes now and then. Instead Zen focused entirely on the domestic front. The coastline was severely under-developed, and Kyenigsbyerg (Konigsberg) was developed under his rule, and the Polish Navy (officially the Silver Fleet) finally became more than a patrolling force, with the construction of new carracks and barges going full steam ahead. The use of the Mongol Script for the language was restored, and the Latin Script was thrown away. To make sure its return was an impossibility, all the clergy and government was forced to learn its usage, and the small universities and schools that operated in Poland came under governmental authority to teach in the Mongol Script. Most books in the Latin Script were all translated into the Mongol Script and then discarded, sent to nearby Christian states for selling. But perhaps the greatest legacy of Zen's rule was in terms of religion. Buddhist Monasteries were constructed all over the country, numbering well into the thousands, and considering that enrolling into monasteries was mostly free (other than a small yearly charge that was minuscule in amount, even by the time's standards) and the only chance at literacy for the general population, families sent their sons and daughters to the monasteries, who returned as devout Buddhists from their time in the monasteries. Zen's court being made exclusively of Buddhists drove the remaining Noble families to do the same as well to gain social prestige up the social ladder as well. Zen's Serf Law of 1431 made it illegal for any Buddhist to be a Serf, resulting in widespread conversions among the German, Lithuanian and Slovakian Serfs, bolstering the Buddhist population as well. By the time Zen died in 1437, the Khaganate of Poland was firmly and majority Buddhist, with the first Polish Census - made in the style of the Yuan Census's of their distant Mongoloid Cousins - taken in 1435 showing that around ~2/3 of the country identified solely as Buddhist.
Zen died in 1437 at the age of 60. He had reformed the Khaganate by a great deal, sealing a lasting legacy behind him. Duke of Nitra, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Lord of Prussia were no subsidiary titles of the Khaganate. They transformed into the Tsianate of Nitra, Grand Tsianate of Lithuania and Lorddom of Prussia after authentic Middle Polish names. Zen was succeeded his son, Arban his death.
[8] Arban was the eldest of his father's sons. He was in his late twenties when his father died, ready to take on the world. He was an ambitious man who wanted to expand his territory. In 1441, he invaded Hungary, slowly but bloodily conquering the lands. Hungary called on the Holy Roman Empire for aid as well as the other Christian nations. In 1445, the Pope called for a crusade, wanting to get "the filthy pagen mongrols" out of Europe once and for all.
Arban was estatic, beliving this would be his greatest moment yet, and would mark the end of Chrstian domanience in Europe. He reached out to the Muslims of Europe in hopes of binding them together. He would meet the Franco-Imperial army on the field. He attempted to do as his father had done years ago and challanged the Holy Roman Emperor to single combat. Unfortunetly, Emperor Fredrick was well aware how his cousion died and did not take the bait. The ensuring battle was a disastar, with most of his army being slaughted. Luckily Fredrick decided not to follow the pope's plan to eradicate the Mongols, instead creating a peace treaty that forced Arban to give up Cortia and Bohemia, sending him home defeated and discouraged.
Afterwards, Arban fell into a great depression, his health began to detoraite and eventually he died in 1452, leaving_____to pick up the pieces.
Khans and Khatuns of the Silver Horde (Khaganate of Poland)
(1241 - 1279) Qadan Khan (Ögedeids) [1]
(1279 - 1313) Baidar Khan (Ögedeids) [2]
(1313 - 1335) Altan Khan 'The Dragon' (Ögedeids) [3]
Khagans and Khatuns of the Khaganate of Poland
(1313 - 1335) Altan Khan 'The Dragon' (Ögedeids) [3]
(1335 - 1340) Alexander Khan (Ögedeids) [4]
(1340 - 1381) Zolzaya Khatun 'The Restorer' (Ögedeids) [5]
(1381 - 1414) Zygmunt Koden 'The Bear' (Subotaids) [6]
(1414 - 1437) Zen Khan 'The Warrior-Monk' (Turzóids) [7]
(1437 - 1452) Arban Khan (Turzóids) [8]
Qadar Khan as Khan of the Silver Horde and Khagan of Poland
[1] Born sometime in the early 1200s as the son of Ögedei Khan, the Great Khagan of the Mongol Empire, and a concubine, Qadar Khan was afforded the best childhood a Mongol Prince was entitled to. Much of his early life is unattested, as the Mongols had scarce resources at the time devoted to the solitary prince, but he was known to be militarily adept at the very least. When the time came for the Mongol Invasion of Hungary, Qadar Khan was chosen alongside Baidar Khan and Orda Khan to lead a diversionary force into Poland at the age of 25. The Invasion of Poland went swimmingly, surprisingly and what was originally intended to be the sideshow became the main show as the forces of Henry II were not only defeated, but they completely fell apart, leading the interior of Poland to fall to the Mongols by 1241 after some protracted sieges.
Qadar Khan drove his armies all the way to Kraków which he captured and made the seat of the Khaganate of Poland, with himself as Khagan and with the city renamed Krakov, which was more in line with Mongol phonology. Though the Mongol Invasion of Hungary had failed, the invasion of Poland was a rousing success, and Qadar Khan settled down as his cousins returned to Mongolia to administer his new realm. The immediate problem was that the Polish subjects he now ruled over were envious of their new overlords and not very accepting of the Mongols, and the Mongol cavalry he commanded had a problem raiding any settlement they found heightening local resistance against his rule. From Silesia, Hungary, and the Holy Roman Empire, raids against his new nation continued frequently. Until 1245 he remained generally peaceful, administering his realm and slowly removing dissent against his rule in Poland. At the same time he was called back to Mongolia to elect a new Khagan of Mongolia, and during that time, his realm was attacked. He returned in 1246 to find his realm on the brink of collapsing with Bohemian and Silesian forces nearing Krakov. Qadar Khan rode to the outskirts of the city and with his detachment, encircled the incoming army and defeated the invasion, restoring the territorial sovereignty of the Khaganate of Poland.
To find temporary peace at least, Qadar Khan married Constance of Wrocław as his only wife - who was left widowed after her husband died in the fighting the year prior. Qadar Khan had indirectly also adopted monogamous marriage, slowly adopting some of the customs of the land that he now ruled over. Constance and Qadar found it hard to have affection with one another during the first years of their marriage - largely due to communication problems and differences in religion. Qadar Khan was a committed Tengri-Buddhist whilst Constance was a committed Christian. Nevertheless, they did come to have respect for one another in due time, and the couple would have five children in total, all of whom lived to adulthood. As Infighting befell the Mongols in the Steppe, Qadar turned his back on the homeland and finally adopted Poland as his home by 1250. Nevertheless, that didn't mean that he left all semblances of Mongol life behind. He invited Tengri-Buddhist missionaries from Mongolia, China, and Central Asia and settled them in Poland. Though he was tolerant of Christianity for the sake of administration and having no rebellions, his focus on Tengri-Buddhism did lead to a good amount of conversions in Poland under his rule, and by the time of his death, all major noble families in Poland had adopted Buddhism to varying degrees, and syncretism between Buddhism and Christianity had become rife by the end of his reign. Mongol loanwords began to enter Polish as well over time.
Of course, Qadar Khan did have a hard time ruling despite his tolerant views that ensured his reign survived. Daniel of Galicia's Rebellion from 1256 - 1263 nearly captured Krakov and the Invasion of Poland by Bohemia from 1267 - 1274 nearly dethroned Qadar both times, but both times Qadar managed to win using military wit and using his charisma to at least instill some values of loyalty to him in the populace. He had also reined in his Mongol troops who had settled down in Poland, making sacking and raiding much more controlled than before. When he died in 1279 with his wife and children by his side, he died a peaceful man having achieved a long-lasting legacy at least within Europe.
[2] The eldest son of Qadar Khan and Constance of Wroclaw, Baidar Khan was raised more by his father than his mother, and became a devoted Buddhist, though paying some lip service to the faith of his mother for the sake of legitimacy, getting himself baptized and crowned by Christian priests as Piotr I, King of Poland. Despite this, Baidar's main claims to fame are the patronage of Buddhist monasteries established all across the lands of the Silver Horde, the migration and patronage of Jewish communities in the region, and the conversion of Lithuania and the Baltic regions, which he would take over from the German knightly orders in the first years of his reign. Under Baidar's rule, the Lithuanians and Baltic peoples would begin to rapidly convert to Buddhism and form a major loyalist faction to the khan, even as Christian heresies proliferated in the Silver Horde's lands thanks to the khan's tolerance of all religions.
In the middle of the khan's reign, the Silver Horde raided deep into the Holy Roman Empire in a preemptive strike against an incipient crusade, and it was during this time that the Silver Horde first started bringing in Ashkenazi Jews to settle some of the emptied cities of the region (or perhaps, more accurately, this period first saw Ashkenazi Jews flee into the lands of the Silver Horde as German peasants started committing pogroms against them).
To secure his rule over the northern lands, Baidar Khan married a Buddhist-converted daughter of the pagan Lithuanian Grand Duke Mindaugas, who had sworn fealty to the khan, in 1283, and the couple had many children. By 1313, the khan passed, leaving the khanate in the hands of Adai Khan.
View attachment 756795
Altan Khan's official portrait upon ascension
Born in 1285 to Baidar Khan, Altan ascended to the throne of the Khaganate of Poland and Khanate of the Silver Horde at the age of 28. Where his father had been more of an administrative guy, Altan Khan took after his Lithuanian heritage and their more warlike tendencies. After he reached his majority, he was the leading commander of the Silver Horde's military forces against any external foe that would try to fight against the might of the Silver Horde. Upon his ascension as Khan and Khagan, he immediately came into conflict with the Golden Horde in the East, with their Khan - Altan Khan's sixth cousin once removed - trying to assert a claim to the Polish Throne as well. Seeing that this was being scrutinized greatly by the European Powers with ideas of the conquest of Polish territory, Altan Khan quickly made a move, allying himself with the unlikely candidate - the Bohemians and marrying Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, securing his western flank. With the Habsburgs on the rise in Vienna, the Bohemians had now decided to make peace with the Silver Horde to focus on things close to home. Altan and Elizabeth would have three children who would grow into adulthood.
The War between the Golden Horde and the Silver Horde from 1313 - 1319 ended in a military stalemate for the most part, as while Altan had better tactics, the Golden Horde had more numbers in Russia. The war ended with the Silver Horde annexing Ruthenian Galicia from the Golden Horde instead, and not much else. While the Silver Horde Succession War hadn't been a rousing success for Altan Khan's military career, his exploits afterward would prove him worthy of his nickname 'the Dragon'. As Hungary warred itself between King Charles I of Hungary and the nation's powerful oligarchs, Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Belgrade officially asked for Polish support in 1320. Altan Khan was eager for more conquest and answered the call. His troops - an amalgamation of fast and hard cavalry tactics inherited from their Mongol heritage and the heavily armored heritage of Europe clashed down on the Pannonian plains in support of Stefan and the Vovoide of Transylvania against Charles I of Hungary. For two years, the Hungarians and the Poles would fight against each other indecisively but in 1323, when the two lead armies met with one another on the fields of Miskolc, Charles I miscalculated, and he was captured by Altan Khan whilst his army was routed. Altan Khan entered Buda without a fight afterward. To prevent their realms from entering the Mongol realm in Europe, even allied Stefan declared the independence of the Banate of Vojvodina and the Transylvanians declared their duchy to be independent. Viceroy of Croatia, John, Duke of Durrazo, and Charles I's cousin was declared King of Croatia. Altan was not ruffled and instead annexed Hungary proper and Slovakia into the Silver Horde. At the same time, to his north, the Teutons had started to raid into Northern Poland once again.
Deciding to end the Teuton threat once and for all, in 1325, the great Khan invaded Teutonic Prussia, and by 1328 was besieging Konigsberg at the head of a massive army. The next year, Konigsberg fell, and the Teutonic Order fled to Hamburg where the Hanseatic League gave them refuge. Nevertheless, Prussia had fallen to Altan Khan and was annexed into the Silver Horde as well. After 1329, Altan Khan mostly settled down to a peaceful life and administered the realm. In 1330 Buddhism was officially declared to be the State Religion after nearly a century of growing Buddhist influence in Polish society. Old Polish transitioned into Middle Polish with many Mongol loanwords and the language started to be written in the Mongol Script for official business as well. Altan Khan also shed most of the other hanging on of Mongolia and was the first Silver Horde Khan to call himself Polish declaring the Khaganate of Poland to be the primary title of the Horde. In 1331, after years of military jurisdiction, Hungary, Slovakia, and Prussia were directly integrated into the Silver Horde. In 1333, the Silesian Succession Crisis saw both Bohemia and the Silver Horde dividing the Duchy of Silesia in half, partitioning it with one another.
In 1335, at the age of 50, Altan Khan died, having expanded the Silver Horde to become twice as large. Upon his death, for his military prowess, he gained the moniker 'the Dragon'. He was succeeded to the Khaganate byAlexander Khan.
[4] Alexander Khan, born in 1313 as the oldest of the three children of Altan Khan and his wife Elizabeth, was the first Khan of the Silver Horde to be given a "European" name, showing how the Silver Horde was increasingly adopting Polish culture and language during his reign. While his reign would be a fairly short-lived one, lasting five years before he would die from a sudden illness at the age of 27, in many ways, it would be a reign which would see a great deal of energy and vitality in the Khanate with the most notable achievements of Alexander Khan being the fall of Kiev to the Silver Horde with the Khaganate of Poland adding "Grand Prince of the Rus'" to his titles after the Fall of Kyiv. In addition, he would be notable for the marriage alliance he would forge with Andronicus III of Rhomania in which he would send off his sister to marry Andronicus III, tying the Palaiologos Dynasty with the Polish Ogodeids, and for his policy of enacting legal and administrative reforms to centralize the realm. Finally, he would be a ruler who would emphasize the Christian part of the Christo-Buddhist syncretism which marked the Silver Horde, something historians would argue was influenced by both his mother and his wife, Irene Palaiologina, daughter of Andronicus III, with whom he would have a single child before his death in 1340. In the aftermath of his death, Zolzaya Khatun would be acclaimed as Khayun of Poland, Queen of Hungary, and Grand Princess of Rus'.
A popular portrait of Zolzaya Khatun drawn in the 1860s depicting her role as the Warrior Queen
[5] - The Plague of 1337 had ripped into the House of Ogedei ruling in Poland brutally. When Alexander Khan died in 1340, his only direct heir was his sister, Zolzaya Khan. Mongol Customs of giving noblewomen high ranks had carried over into the Silver Horde, and Zolzaya was named Khatun in Krakov a week after her brother had died at the age of 24. However, cousins descended from Baidar Khan, who held feudal territory at the Prussian Marches rose up in rebellion, denouncing Zolzaya's claim to the throne of the Horde and demanding that Beg (Duke) Batu Khan become the Khagan. Zolzaya, impertinent and proud of her heritage and right to the crown refused to back down. The Silver War of Succession (1340 - 1344) erupted soon after, with Batu Khan declaring himself Khagan and denouncing Zolzaya as an illegitimate Queen. Recognizing that the military advantage was held by Beg Batu, Zolzaya decided to enlist the help of her cousins in the Golden Horde, who now facing the Crimean Horde's threat was warming up to the Silver Horde. In 1341, Prince Janibeg Khan of the Blue Horde (the western half of the Golden Horde) married Zolzaya Khan bringing the military power of another 40,000 professional cavalrymen behind Zolzaya. Using their strength, and her own military prowess, by 1343, Zolzaya had limited the rebellion mostly to the north. By 1344, Beg Batu was captured and executed for treason. But at the same time, her neighbors smelt weakness.
The Russian states such as Vladimir and Ryazan invaded Silver Horde-held territory in Ruthenia. As the Golden Horde descended into another civil war, their support in the matter was not going to happen. Sensing more weakness, Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Saxony formed an alliance and started to invade from the west. Lithuania declared independence and started to fight against the Silver Horde as well. Croatia began to raid Hungarian lands held by the Horde too. This was the Anti-Silver Coalition in its full entirety as the War of the Silver Horde (1346 - 1367) began in earnest. At first the combined forces were all too great for the Silver Horde. The Russian statelets captured Kyiv and pushed into Ruthenia, with the support of the local Orthodox population, and Lithuania soon captured all of the territory held by the Grand Duchy before accepting vassalage to the Silver Horde. Croatia began to advance towards Buda and the Germans began to close in from the west. By 1349, the situation was desperate, and in 1353, after 3 years of intermittent siege, at Bilistok (Bialystok) Zolzaya received news that Krakov had fallen and with it most of the Silver Horde.
Zolzaya only controlled the Vovoide of Bilistok and its surroundings and it was clear that Zolzaya was going to lose, but ignoring the pleading of her husband to flee to Sarai, Zolzaya vowed to fight on. When Bilistock was captured by a joint Lithuanian-German force, they found the city eerily abandoned. The remnants of Zolzaya's forces had retreated into the forests. For the next decade, Zolzaya waged a brutal guerilla war against the enemies, who de-jure partitioned the Silver Horde. Pomerania annexed the coasts all the way to Prussia, whilst Brandenburg and Saxony received huge chunks in western Poland. Hungary and Slovakia were captured by the Croats, and Ruthenia and Galicia had been taken by the Russian States. Lithuania had taken the rest. The Lithuanians, under the command of a Christian Usurper King, and the Polish populace under Christian control resented the high taxation that they were forced to give to their new masters simply because they were Christo-Buddhists and not 'pure' Christians. This resentment turned into hatred after the Holy Roman Empire's Papal Inquisition was given jurisdiction over German-occupied territories in Poland who enacted brutal kangaroo trials. Zolzaya had the support of the population and in 1363, the population decided enough was enough and in German-occupied regions, the populace revolted, and Zolzaya, from the forests, rode out to join up with them. In Poznani (poznan) she was welcomed freely and soon the Germans were kicked out of Polish Silver Horde territory and Prussia was reconquered. With the momentum shifting, Zolzaya quickly reconquered Slovakia and conquered Lithuania again and pushed the Russian statelets out of Galicia. But after that she could do no more. The manpower of the nation was depleted severely. The Peace Treaty of Nitra signed in 1367 affirmed the sovereingty of the Silver Horde, whilst the Silver Horde ceded the Kingdom of Hungary to the Kingdom of Croatia, and the Kyiv and Ruthenian regions barring Galicia was ceded to Ryazan, Vladimir and Muscovy. In return, the Croats and the Germans paid a very large sum of money to Krakov as reparations.
After the War of the Silver Horde ended, the 49-year-old Queen decided to rest the nation. It was tired after ~25 years of continuous war, and economic recovery was needed. Her husband and her four children aided her in the administration of the state, and rebellious nobles who had supported the invasions were all removed from power. When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans under Murad I in 1370, she allowed Byzantine refugees to settle down in Poland as well. However, barring the Byzantine refugees, she also outlawed Christianity in 1371. The suppression under the foreign invaders had not been forgotten and a strong anti-Christian undercurrent had been developed in Poland at the time, especially considering the Papal-sanctioned inquisitions during the occupation. Christo-Buddhism was dropped and full Tibetan Buddhism was adopted as the State Religion. Sadly for Christian Europe, this proved to be a popular decision among the populace. For the next decade, she reorganized the economy, brought in new advancements to the military, reformed the military and also became the first Silver Horde monarch to send emissaries to England and France in Western Europe establishing formal diplomatic ties. In 1381, she died peacefully in her sleep and for her grit and determination with which she resisted the invaders, she gained the posthumous epithet of 'the Liberator'. She was succeeded by her god-son, to the titles of Khagan of Poland, Duke of Nitra, and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
[6] The son of Zolzaya's great dog of war, Altan Karoly, Beg of Zhytomir and Governor of Galicia, Zygmunt Koden was a descendant of the great Mongol general Subotai through the younger sons of Uriyangkhadai, the first's eldest son, the Subotaids had long held land and stood in service to the House of Ogedei in the lands of the Poles, and were amongst the first to intermarry heavily with the old Polish noble (and royal families) that remained after the Mongol conquests. Zygmunt Koden was the favoured god-son of Zolzaya, and was educated at her court in Krakov for most of his young life, where he quickly became known for his intelligence and quick wit, as well as his very strong determination, willingness to learn and work ethic. He was sent by Zolzaya as her emissary twice, once, when he was sixteen, to her husband Janibeg, whom had taken rule of the Golden Horde, to fight by his side and learn the martial arts of the Mongol people, and Zygmunt would eventually lead some armies for Janibeg, to him being atributted the submission of two seperate Bolghar revolts in Kazan.
His return to Poland following the death of his father marked a change in the relationship between the Ogedeids and the Subotaids. Mongke Timur, the eldest son of Janibeg and Zolzaya, and hopeful heir to both the Golden Horde and the "Silver Horde", had been educated in his father's court of Sarai, being raised a stout Sunni muslim. He would go to live with his mother in Poland before Zygmunt's return, however, and following the death of Altan Karoly, convinced his mother to grant him the governorship of Galicia. When Zygmunt returned to Poland and found his home occupied by Mongke Timur, whom harshly sent his relative to Krakov, it was no surprise that he was furious. Khatun Zolzaya showered Zygmunt with gifts in reparation, but it was clear that something blackened the heart of Koden that day. From that moment on, Zygmunt Koden's relationship with the Ghenghisids in Krakov, Sarai and Lvov only deteriorated, even with Zolzaya's efforts to bring back him to their side - she would give him the governorship of Minsk in 1378, alongside the hand of her daughter Hedwig as compensation. It was not enough compensation for Zygmunt, who had grown into a very proud man, and Zolzaya might have saved the rule of her son had she recognized this when Zygmunt refused her commands to abandon Christianity and convert to Tibetan Buddhism. His famous response "Why should I, whom share the same religions of my fathers and those of our stock whom arrived to this land long afore, convert to the teachings of Asia when the heir to our Queen kneels to the faith of Ala ad-Din?".
The death of Zolzaya in 1381 was the final swing that cut the rope. Zygmunt Koden, as Zolzaya's god-son and son-in-law, demanded a small but substantive portion of her inheritance, as well as the return of Galicia alongside the Voivodeships of Volhynia and Byalostok for himself as governor for life. Mongke Timur, who had yet to be crowned Khan in Krakov, instead decided to ride to Minsk with quickly assembled armies to put an end to his hated cousin and brother-in-law. What he didn't count of was Jan Casimir, last of the Piasts and governor of Upper Silesia, Zygmunt Koden's cousin and friend, to betray his movements. When Mongke Timur and his armies entered White Russia, Zygmunt Koden fell upon him with the full force of his retinues and levies, capturing many of Mongke's lieutenants and forcing him to flee in the direction of his father's Golden Horde and the Russian Principalities. With the pathway to Krakov open, Zygmunt decided to claim the title of Khan with the support of the remaining Christian and Christo-Buddhist population of Poland mainly, and quickly amassed two massive armies which made short work of whatever opposition there was to him in Prussia and Upper and Lower Poland. Signing a treaty of alliance with Sigismund of Anjou, the King of Croatia, Hungary and Bosnia, marrying his sister Anna Organa to him in exchange for military support. Polish-Hungarian armies would fight a long war in Galicia and the Russian Principalities, with Zygmunt offering whatever piece of land the Russian princes could grab to them in exchange for their participation in the alliance. Eventually, the 1387 campaign meant the end of the War and the Golden (Blue) Horde, as a combined Polish-Kievan-Tverian army sacked and razed Sarai to the ground. Zygmunt, whom was familiar with Sarai's economy, popularly took most of Sarai's craftsmen, artists and inventors back with him to Krakov.
A modern concept art of Zygmunt Koden in Lithuanian armour and attire, whom greatly dominated Krakov' fashion during the later states of his reign.
Capturing the remainder of his in-laws and most of the extended Ghenghisids present in his lands who had sided against him, he had them all executed in what is remembered as the Malbork Massacre in modern history, eliminating most of the threats present in his reign. Zygmunt's reign as King marks what most historians call the end of the Mongol Period, as ethnic Mongols became less and less relevant in the administration and bureaucracy of the Khanate. Zygmunt also often referred to himself as Król instead of Khan, although he would often use the terms interchangingly. To start his reign, Zygmunt voyaged to Rome to come up with some kind of deal with the Vatican in regards to the Catholic Church in his lands. What come out of the "Council of Ostia" was the formation of the Autocephalous Polish Catholic Church, led from Krakov by a Cardinal. The Polish Church conjoined many aspects of Christianity (Mostly Catholic with some Orthodox) with buddhist teachings and become a massive arm of the re-construction of Poland in the aftermath of Zygmunt's ascenssion. Zygmunt sent settlers East-wards, to the mostly destroyed portions of his realm in Lithuania, White Russia and Galicia, mostly Poles, Prussians and Slovakians. The german-speaking community in these eastern territories grew rapidly not only due to Prussian influence but due to the many Saxon, Thuringian, Bavarian and Pomeranian artisans, soldiers and farmers that emigrated to Galicia and Lower Lithuania during Zygmunt's reign.
A grand proponent of reform, Zygmunt Koden ended any official "borders" between his realms, administrating all of them as a single unit from Krakov. This allowed for a great deal of ammelioration of the recruitment process of his armies, something which he would put to great use in his conquest of Courland and Lower Livonia in 1395 and with his purchase of land from the Kievan Principality to augment land for settlement in the south. He would beat Tatar remnants of the Golden Horde in the region and his armies would reach the Black Sea Coast, claiming it for Poland. A small fishing village in the region which many historians believe had been the center of the great ancient greek city of Odessos was chosen by Koden as the center of the new Ochkov Voivodeship - Kodessos was the name given to the city.
At the end of his reign, Poland was a vastly multicultural realm, dominated by the Poles (whom dominated ethnically in Poland proper and Northern Galicia) and by the Lipkans (Descendants of the Mongols, whom were mostly a elite class but had pluralities in the Volhynian and Turovian Oblasts, as well as the more recent additions of Ochkov in the South) although Livonians, Lithuanians, Prussians, Galicians and Slovakians also had homelands in his realm. Alongside these peoples, there were significant Jewish, German (Saxon and Pomeranian), Hungarian and Russian communities in the Empire, particularly in the East. By 1410, however, Middle Polish (Which had lots of Mongol influences) had become the language of the state, the army and most of society. The Mongol script, however, was abandoned in favour of the latin script, which eased trade with the west through the ports of Danzig, Marienburg and Konigsberg in the North, while Kodessos became a center of Black Sea trade.
Zygmunt Koden and his wife Hedwig of the House of Ogedei would have six children together. Zygmunt Koden would finally die of old age in 1414, being succeeded by his second Cousin, Zen Khan.
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Portrait of Zen Khan a year before the ascension
[7] - The Grandson of Zolzaya Khatun and a member of the Mongolified Turzoid Lineage in Poland, Zen Khan was born in 1377. Having no claim to the throne due to the dynasty's outreach and being weak physically even at baby standards, at the age of 4, Zen Khan was sent to the monastery in Bilistok, the largest Monastery in Poland and all of Europe, to study Buddhism and devote his life to theology. In the monastery, however, the warrior monks who made the place home found that Zen Khan's lithe figure and cunning mind made a powerful foe in combat, and instead raised him as a Warrior Monk. Raised conservatively in Bilistok Monastery, the Monks of the Monastery did not take to Koden's religious reforms well. Zen Khan reflected this and whenever he visited his second cousin in Krakov, explosive and sometimes violent arguments often broke out between the two cousins. As Koden neared death in 1413, and was reportedly ill, the dissatisfied Buddhist Purist Poles and Mongols began to back Zen Khan for the throne. When Koden died a year later, the very next day, a palace coup saw the 37-year-old Zen Khan ascend to the throne, having been put in charge by the still overwhelmingly Buddhist military. What followed was a radical change from the past few years. The Children of Koden and their children were all put under house arrest (and later killed in private - disappearing from public life completely). The rest of the members of the Royal Family were summoned to Krakov with a very clear message. It was either Buddhism or the Chopping Block. With the support of the military well behind Zen Khan, Most of the members of the Royal Family and their sub-branches converted fully (those who hadn't in the past anyway), and the ones who resisted were thrown into prison with the bare minimum of food and water given to them. All of them would starve to death in the following years. The children were taken and raised in the puritan Buddhist manner.
This bloody start to Zen's reign was inauspicious, as Christians, who were a majority in the western portions of the Khaganate were now becoming restless. Zen was pragmatic however and did nothing to them, bringing his rowdy troops under control. Christian Europe watched this puritan Buddhist regime in Poland with wary eyes as well. Zen Khan did his best to maintain diplomatic peace with his neighbors. Despite this, Zen came into trouble when Jan Hus began to preach his ideas of reforming Christianity, taking heavy inspiration from Buddhism, especially its non-political bureaucracy. When Hus was executed in late 1415, the Hussites turned to Poland to aid them. Sensing an opportunity to gain influence in Bohemia, Zen funded the Hussites to launch a rebellion in 1417 under the leadership of Prokop the Great and even went so far as to marry his sister, Kristina, with whom he would have five children in the future. It was a mortal victory for Zen when Kristina converted to Buddhism a year later. In 1420, as the Catholic forces neared Prague which had previously fallen to Hussite control, Zen mobilized the Silver Horde completely. With support from the French against the pesky Holy Roman Empire, Zen Khan's forces tore through Bohemia in support of the Hussites. King Sigismund of Croatia - the Holy Roman Emperor - rallied against the Silver Horde and pushed them back until the Battle of Silver Mountain on the outskirts of Prague in 1422 when Zen famously challenged Sigismund to personal combat. Sigismund accepted. Warrior monk that he was, his fighting style was completely alien to Sigismund, and Sigismund was killed in the duel. As per his terms, the Croatian-German Army withdrew completely. The other garrisons in Bohemia were wiped out as well, and the Hussites claimed control over the Bohemian Crown. Jan Žižka took the Bohemian Crown as King Jan I and accepted vassalage to Poland. Zen returned to Krakov in 1423 triumphant.
Other than the Hussite War, Zen did not engage in military affairs for the rest 14 years of his life other than small border skirmishes now and then. Instead Zen focused entirely on the domestic front. The coastline was severely under-developed, and Kyenigsbyerg (Konigsberg) was developed under his rule, and the Polish Navy (officially the Silver Fleet) finally became more than a patrolling force, with the construction of new carracks and barges going full steam ahead. The use of the Mongol Script for the language was restored, and the Latin Script was thrown away. To make sure its return was an impossibility, all the clergy and government was forced to learn its usage, and the small universities and schools that operated in Poland came under governmental authority to teach in the Mongol Script. Most books in the Latin Script were all translated into the Mongol Script and then discarded, sent to nearby Christian states for selling. But perhaps the greatest legacy of Zen's rule was in terms of religion. Buddhist Monasteries were constructed all over the country, numbering well into the thousands, and considering that enrolling into monasteries was mostly free (other than a small yearly charge that was minuscule in amount, even by the time's standards) and the only chance at literacy for the general population, families sent their sons and daughters to the monasteries, who returned as devout Buddhists from their time in the monasteries. Zen's court being made exclusively of Buddhists drove the remaining Noble families to do the same as well to gain social prestige up the social ladder as well. Zen's Serf Law of 1431 made it illegal for any Buddhist to be a Serf, resulting in widespread conversions among the German, Lithuanian and Slovakian Serfs, bolstering the Buddhist population as well. By the time Zen died in 1437, the Khaganate of Poland was firmly and majority Buddhist, with the first Polish Census - made in the style of the Yuan Census's of their distant Mongoloid Cousins - taken in 1435 showing that around ~2/3 of the country identified solely as Buddhist.
Zen died in 1437 at the age of 60. He had reformed the Khaganate by a great deal, sealing a lasting legacy behind him. Duke of Nitra, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Lord of Prussia were no subsidiary titles of the Khaganate. They transformed into the Tsianate of Nitra, Grand Tsianate of Lithuania and Lorddom of Prussia after authentic Middle Polish names. Zen was succeeded his son, Arban his death.
[8] Arban was the eldest of his father's sons. He was in his late twenties when his father died, ready to take on the world. He was an ambitious man who wanted to expand his territory. In 1441, he invaded Hungary, slowly but bloodily conquering the lands. Hungary called on the Holy Roman Empire for aid as well as the other Christian nations. In 1445, the Pope called for a crusade, wanting to get "the filthy pagen mongrols" out of Europe once and for all.
Arban was estatic, beliving this would be his greatest moment yet, and would mark the end of Chrstian domanience in Europe. He reached out to the Muslims of Europe in hopes of binding them together. He would meet the Franco-Imperial army on the field. He attempted to do as his father had done years ago and challanged the Holy Roman Emperor to single combat. Unfortunetly, Emperor Fredrick was well aware how his cousion died and did not take the bait. The ensuring battle was a disastar, with most of his army being slaughted. Luckily Fredrick decided not to follow the pope's plan to eradicate the Mongols, instead creating a peace treaty that forced Arban to give up Cortia and Bohemia, sending him home defeated and discouraged.
Afterwards, Arban fell into a great depression, his health began to detoraite and eventually he died in 1452, leaving_____to pick up the pieces.
I have a couple suggestions for lists if no one has any ideas.
1) An American Monarchy list, BUT with one stipulation. The American Crown is elective and remains so the whole list.
2) What if James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak had his illegitimate son recognized as his heir to the Raj of Sarawak.
I had a 'surviving House of Dudley' list where Jane Grey remains Queen percolating in my head, but I definitely prefer the American idea!
Ok, so does anyone want to start it or should I write up something?
I won’t have time to do a write up till Monday evening, so if you want to do it I’d say go for it
POD: The American attempt at forming a Republic failed, instead the Constitutional Convention agreed to form an American Monarchy. BUT the American Crown is elective and remains so for the entire list.
Monarchs of the United Kingdoms of America
1789 - 1799: George I (House of Washington) [1]
[1] George I of the United Kingdoms of America, informally known as George Washington was the obvious, and to many the only, candidate to rule the new nation of America in the wake of the American Revolution. Instead of taking power, George Washington initially returned to Mount Vernon and his private life and the weak Republican government established after the war nearly collapsed, forcing the Founding Fathers to gather in Philadelphia to create a new constitution for their new nation.
During the intense heat of the summer month a majority of the attendees of the convention came to the conclusion that the purely Republican model of the American government was proving unworkable and drafting an acceptable compromise Republican government became impossible when Benjamin Franklin suddenly died.
So with great reluctance did George Washington himself agree with the growing majority of the Constitutional Convention that only a new King, albiet one constrained by a constitution could effectively rule, without becoming a tyrant of course.
Despite the protests of Thomas Jefferson and his supporters, the convention voted and agreed to a new Constitutional Monarchy for the new United Kingdoms of America. Each of the former colonies were to be considered kingdoms in their own right, but united under a single monarch. The monarch was to be constrained by the United Kingdom Congress, divided between the House of Representatives and the Senate, and a Supreme Court. The monarch would still have executive powers, but they were balanced out between the other two branches of the government. The Monarch could also create titles of nobility, but the new nobles would not be eligible to be elected to either the Senate or the House (unless the Constitution was amended).
Most importantly of all, the American Monarchy was NOT hereditary, it would be an elective crown. The Electors of the Crown were to be chosen by random lot from members of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and a select few nobles, overseen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The monarch would have to be at least 30 years old, either a citizen of the United Kingdom or be able to accept citizenship upon being elected and accepting the American Crown, and to have resided within the United Kingdoms for at least 10 years (but this could be waived by unanimous decision by the electors). Theoretically this meant that a foreigner could be elected to the American Throne, but this was seen as unlikely or rare at the time by the Founders.
The First Election for the American Crown took place in Philadelphia in 1789 after the Constitution was ratified by the new Kingdoms and among the electors the choice for the first King of America was obvious.
With reluctance George Washington accepted the crown and swore his Oath of Coronation and donned a simple crown of Laurel leaves, becoming America's first King on April 30, 1789.
George I of the United Kingdoms of America, painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1797.
George I began his reign having to decide where he would rule the new nation from, for the moment the cities of Philadelphia and New York were hosting the new branches of the American government. However, he had agreed to build a new capital city in between the Northern and Southern United Kingdoms to help bind the nation together. Unfortunately, the initial site chosen along the Potamic River was deemed too swampy for a city to be built and not be at high risk for floods and sinkholes, other sites would be scouted but none would be chosen in George I's reign.
The new King created the first Privy Council, a collection of advisers who would in time include the Offices of the Monarch of the United Kingdoms, such as the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, etc. Among the first members of this new Privy Council was John Adams, George I's preferred heir to the throne, John Adams served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs for two years before abruptly dying of a stroke in 1791.
While the King has a strong distaste for political parties, the first two political parties did emerge in Congress, the Crown Loyalists led by Alexander Hamilton and the Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson. While the Crown Loyalists saw themselves as pushing forward the agenda of the new King, in truth the party would be shaped more by Hamilton's strong centralized vision for the UKA, while Thomas Jefferson himself would seek to dissolve the Monarchy, many within his party simply desired a decentralized government where the individual Kingdoms held sway and the monarch was largely ceremonial. Ironically in his own party, Jefferson was a minority figure and despite initial speculation that he would be George I's successor, Thomas Jefferson publicly declared that he would never accept any crown.
While the French Monarchy fell to Revolution and Europe descended into a series of brutal wars, George I declared that the UKA would be a neutral party but did try to bring the waring European states to the negotiation table to little avail. In addition, a brief rebellion against the crown occurred in 1791, the Whiskey Rebellion, but it was put down by the King who rode into battle himself, establishing the monarch's role as Commander of the Crown's Armed Forces.
While George I was able to negotiate with the British to leave several forts in the UKA's expanding territories beyond the Appalachian Mountains, the new revolutionary government of France was hostile toward the UKA both for it's ties to Britain, and it's abandonment of Republicanism in favor of a monarchy, however limited.
The threat of war forced King George to build the UKA's first navy, earning him the title 'Father of the American Navy', but with public pressure mounting to answer the French Republic's growing list of insults and attacks on American shipping, the UKA declared war on France in 1798. The American-Franco War would go on beyond the lifetime of George I, who's health was beginning to fail with his age.
While the Kingdom's military seized important ports in the French territory of Louisiana (which stretched across the North American continent), news that America's Navy had reached the revolutionaries in Haiti with supplies and fresh volunteers arrived at Philadelphia where King George I was residing as he was dying of pneumonia. The King's last words were "Good work." before he passed away on December 14, 1799 at age 67.
While the funeral for America's first King was getting underway under the cloud of war, the Electors were selected for the Second Election for America's next monarch and they chose ______ to be America's second monarch.
OOC: I know it's been done, but I can't really think of anyone that would be trusted to be America's first ruler than George Washington. But now the floor is open, who will be elected next?
Monarchs of the United Kingdoms of America
1789 - 1799: George I (House of Washington) [1]
[1] George I of the United Kingdoms of America, informally known as George Washington was the obvious, and to many the only, candidate to rule the new nation of America in the wake of the American Revolution. Instead of taking power, George Washington initially returned to Mount Vernon and his private life and the weak Republican government established after the war nearly collapsed, forcing the Founding Fathers to gather in Philadelphia to create a new constitution for their new nation.
During the intense heat of the summer month a majority of the attendees of the convention came to the conclusion that the purely Republican model of the American government was proving unworkable and drafting an acceptable compromise Republican government became impossible when Benjamin Franklin suddenly died.
So with great reluctance did George Washington himself agree with the growing majority of the Constitutional Convention that only a new King, albiet one constrained by a constitution could effectively rule, without becoming a tyrant of course.
Despite the protests of Thomas Jefferson and his supporters, the convention voted and agreed to a new Constitutional Monarchy for the new United Kingdoms of America. Each of the former colonies were to be considered kingdoms in their own right, but united under a single monarch. The monarch was to be constrained by the United Kingdom Congress, divided between the House of Representatives and the Senate, and a Supreme Court. The monarch would still have executive powers, but they were balanced out between the other two branches of the government. The Monarch could also create titles of nobility, but the new nobles would not be eligible to be elected to either the Senate or the House (unless the Constitution was amended).
Most importantly of all, the American Monarchy was NOT hereditary, it would be an elective crown. The Electors of the Crown were to be chosen by random lot from members of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and a select few nobles, overseen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The monarch would have to be at least 30 years old, either a citizen of the United Kingdom or be able to accept citizenship upon being elected and accepting the American Crown, and to have resided within the United Kingdoms for at least 10 years (but this could be waived by unanimous decision by the electors). Theoretically this meant that a foreigner could be elected to the American Throne, but this was seen as unlikely or rare at the time by the Founders.
The First Election for the American Crown took place in Philadelphia in 1789 after the Constitution was ratified by the new Kingdoms and among the electors the choice for the first King of America was obvious.
With reluctance George Washington accepted the crown and swore his Oath of Coronation and donned a simple crown of Laurel leaves, becoming America's first King on April 30, 1789.
George I of the United Kingdoms of America, painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1797.
The new King created the first Privy Council, a collection of advisers who would in time include the Offices of the Monarch of the United Kingdoms, such as the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, etc. Among the first members of this new Privy Council was John Adams, George I's preferred heir to the throne, John Adams served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs for two years before abruptly dying of a stroke in 1791.
While the King has a strong distaste for political parties, the first two political parties did emerge in Congress, the Crown Loyalists led by Alexander Hamilton and the Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson. While the Crown Loyalists saw themselves as pushing forward the agenda of the new King, in truth the party would be shaped more by Hamilton's strong centralized vision for the UKA, while Thomas Jefferson himself would seek to dissolve the Monarchy, many within his party simply desired a decentralized government where the individual Kingdoms held sway and the monarch was largely ceremonial. Ironically in his own party, Jefferson was a minority figure and despite initial speculation that he would be George I's successor, Thomas Jefferson publicly declared that he would never accept any crown.
While the French Monarchy fell to Revolution and Europe descended into a series of brutal wars, George I declared that the UKA would be a neutral party but did try to bring the waring European states to the negotiation table to little avail. In addition, a brief rebellion against the crown occurred in 1791, the Whiskey Rebellion, but it was put down by the King who rode into battle himself, establishing the monarch's role as Commander of the Crown's Armed Forces.
While George I was able to negotiate with the British to leave several forts in the UKA's expanding territories beyond the Appalachian Mountains, the new revolutionary government of France was hostile toward the UKA both for it's ties to Britain, and it's abandonment of Republicanism in favor of a monarchy, however limited.
The threat of war forced King George to build the UKA's first navy, earning him the title 'Father of the American Navy', but with public pressure mounting to answer the French Republic's growing list of insults and attacks on American shipping, the UKA declared war on France in 1798. The American-Franco War would go on beyond the lifetime of George I, who's health was beginning to fail with his age.
While the Kingdom's military seized important ports in the French territory of Louisiana (which stretched across the North American continent), news that America's Navy had reached the revolutionaries in Haiti with supplies and fresh volunteers arrived at Philadelphia where King George I was residing as he was dying of pneumonia. The King's last words were "Good work." before he passed away on December 14, 1799 at age 67.
While the funeral for America's first King was getting underway under the cloud of war, the Electors were selected for the Second Election for America's next monarch and they chose ______ to be America's second monarch.
OOC: I know it's been done, but I can't really think of anyone that would be trusted to be America's first ruler than George Washington. But now the floor is open, who will be elected next?
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