Added to this thing I posted a while ago.
This one has another DBWI that goes with it:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ul-red-turban-rebellion.466829/#post-18852492
Year 1408 AD
Here's the premise, from the associated DBWI:
The mid-14th century saw a major challenge to Mongol rule over China. Droughts, floods, and famine resulted in widespread dissatisfaction with the distant, ambivalent rule of the Yuan court. Factionalism between ministers and power struggles between the princes of the Yuan Dynasty caused neglect of these issues which cast into further doubt the efficacy of the Yuan rule, compounding the existing xenophobia.
After the prestige boost gained by Emperor Renzong when they further solidified the adoption of Confucianism in Yuan government, trouble began to start with the Coup d'état at Nanpo when the faction of the dead Grand Councillor Temuder and the Grand Empress Dowager Targi seized power with the help of the Alan Guard. This led to series of short-lived emperors and bloody coups that resulted in little attention being paid to good governance and repeated reversals of policy including the occasional abolition of the civil service examinations.
This culture of factionalism would eventually result in any official who displayed merit being murdered for the offense. However, the outstanding governance of Grand Councillor Toqto'a greatly improved conditions during the early reign of Emperor Huizong. His first administration resulted in flood management works and refurbishment of canals and irrigation systems, along with a crackdown on the black market and banditry. His second resulted in the army rapidly securing the central plains as the rebellion (which began as a salt traders' revolt) spread, forcing the early Red Turban warlords to the periphery through decisive action.
The rebellions were eventually put down largely through the highly effective military leadership of Wang Baobao, who after securing Gansu from a rival Mongol warlord and obliterating the Sichuan-based Xia state of Ming Yuzhen, defeated warlord Xu Da's Great Wei state at the battles of Anqing and Poyang Lake in a brilliant campaign along the Chang Jiang which brought most of the rebellion to an end. The triumph of Emperor Huizong's forces brought a second wind to the dynasty and the dynamism displayed by the new leadership was a reason that the Yuan lasted until 1539 rather than falling into chaos not a century after it was founded.
The Great Xia was probably the most promising state. Ming Yuzhen had successfully secured Yunnan and Shaanxi from a base of power in Sichuan, and had set up a capital in Xi'an. But Wang Baobao's campaign through Gansu encircled the Xia from the west and he brought the hammer down at the Battle of Jianmen Pass, resulting in the death of Ming and splitting the Xia in two. Even though the Great Wei ruled much of the south for a short time, their rule depended on Xu Da and the coalition crumbled after his death (Xu Da himself usurped power after the death of an earlier rebel leader named Zhu Yuanzhang). The Great Xia, meanwhile, actually survived the death of its first emperor and continued to resist for some time in western Sichuan under the rule of his heir. This seems like a much more promising and solidified administration. I imagine if the result of Jianmenguan had been otherwise, the Xia had a chance of bringing all the rebels under their banner and driving the Yuan out.
Another potential PoD, however, is the removal of Toqto'a by Emperor Huizong, who nearly dismissed him from his post out of fear that he would use the army to overthrow him. His decision to trust his minister may have saved the empire.
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The point of divergence is that Emperor Huizong of Yuan decides to trust Grand Councillor Toqto'a with the army, allowing the Yuan to secure the Yellow River plain quickly, driving the Red Turban rebels to the periphery.
The Red Turbans being the rebels that in our timeline would eventually found the Ming empire after driving the Yuan into the steppe and vying among each other for a little while at the same time. In our timeline, Emperor Huizong sacked Toqto'a in fear of a coup and allowed much of the Central China Plain to fall into rebel hands.
In our timeline, a vagrant-turned-warlord named Zhu Yuanzhang founded a powerful rebel state alongside his trusted generals including the famed Xu Da, and united a coalition of rebels to drive out the Yuan. This coalition also fought a massive series of battles with the rival Han and Xia states, including the Battle of Poyang Lake, arguably the largest naval battle in history, while Zhu named his state Ming after his title Prince of Ming which he received from a Manichean rebel (the Red Turbans began as a Buddhist-Zoroastrian-Manichean millenarian sect and managed to touch off a salt trader's revolt to begin the revolution).
In this timeline, however, Zhu Yuanzhang dies in battle and Xu Da usurps power from his young son, declaring his own Great Wei state. Under Toqto'a, the Yuan armies are able to secure the central plain and hold the lines in the south. Wang Baobao (Köke Temür), meanwhile, launches a campaign of his own in the west which secures Gansu from the Prince of Yu, a rival Mongol warlord, and encircles Ming Yuzhen's Great Xia state from the west before destroying its army at the Battle of Jianmen Pass. Xu Da is unable to hold onto Zhu Yuanzhang's confederacy and the Wei state is destroyed while fighting a civil war of its own.
With this sequence, the Yuan defeats the largest rebellion China will be capable of for generations securing both the Yuan's rule for another 150 years and the position of Grand Councillor Toqto'a, who is able to reform the bureaucracy and civil service, institute a new Confucian law code, rebuild walls and guard forts, establish tribute relations (eventually resulting in exploration of the Indian Ocean and contact with Mesoamerica), and give the Yuan dynasty a new period of dominance and stability, continuing under Huizong's heir the Longjin Emperor (or Emperor Gaozong of Yuan).
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On the map orientation:
I meant it to seem as though it originated from the modern day of the timeline itself: The English language is still around and developed similarly but not identically; the AH and AM dating systems are almost universal; Vajrayana Buddhism is the most widespread religion in the world followed by Islam, then Orthodox Christianity, then Theravada Buddhism; the most powerful regions in the world are OTL Indonesia (Java-Sumatra-Borneo), Southeast Asia (mainly Malay, Kampuchea, Dai Viet, and South China) South India, Ethiopia, OTL Nigeria and OTL Brazil. It's a world that primarily uses south-up orientation because I imagined many of the population and power centers of the world being located in or near the southern hemisphere in this timeline.