I do have quibbles regarding minetary discouragement. I think even that could be enough to cause trouble.
Well, I think you're absolutely right. It will undoubtedly cause some trouble, and the Xia will have to deal with more internal unrest at the outset than is generally the case. Look for some interesting Buddhist and Daoist sects to pop up as a result of being forced underground, so to speak. That said, the kind of gentle discouragement that the Xia will employ in lieu of more forceful measures will, I think, militate against any sort of broad-based national resistance to their disfavor of sects seen to be incompatible with millenarian principles. And of course, as I tried to emphasize, it's really not that difficult for more traditional Buddhist and Daoist groupings to tweak their ideology and thus avoid any official disfavor.
Do the Xia really need to force the Tibetans into submission? Is it about keeping the border secure?
Well, they really don't need to force the Tibetans into submission at all. Tibet is a long ways away, no one is likely to attack from that direction, and there's really not much of value there that I'm aware of. Thus, I think it's more likely than not that the Xia won't attempt any conquest or what have you. It would be prohibitively expensive and the rewards would be comparatively small. So I think we'll see a completely independent Tibet, not bound by any sort of tributary state arrangement with China, which should be rather interesting. I'm unsure as to exactly what this will mean in both the short and the long term, but I look forward to the challenge of trying to find out.
Are we to assume that Xia China is not interested in Manchuria or Tibet? If they are completely disinterested in Manchuria, I'd assume that have consequences when dealing with Korea.
Manchuria is really a different tale than Tibet entirely. The Xia are quite interested in securing the northern border and further weakening the Mongols, it's just that they haven't had as much success early on as the Ming did OTL due to the slightly longer survival of Toghun Temur, which kept the remnants of Yuan together for that much longer. Now that he's out of the picture, I think we'll see the Xia go on the offensive, likely with favorable results. Korea is a very interesting case. I can't see them jumping into bed with the Xia given the whole Manichaeism business - but exactly what line they'll take, and how the Xia will respond, is something that I really haven't decided how to work out yet. As you noted, I believe, in an earlier post, there is the potential for some major Korean butterflies around this time, which could shake things up even more.
I'm kinda surrpised the Xia are less warlike than Ming, but maybe I should not be.
Fang - the new Yuan High Admiral parallel, or perhaps an early Zheng He? (pretty please?).
I actually wouldn't characterize them as less warlike, just as less successful in extending their domains than the Ming were to this point. I think they're a bit weaker than the Ming were at this stage. That said, remember that even in OTL Yunnan, for example, didn't fall until after 1380, so these things take a bit of time to come together.
As for Fang, well, we certainly won't be seeing him sail off to Mogadishu anytime soon! That said, out of sight is out of mind, and it's certainly in Ming Yuzhen's interest to keep Fang busy and happy as opposed to idle and possibly contemplating the idea of revolution or some such. I'm thinking that he'll be undertaking some operations in the south in the not so distant future. Perhaps there's a more-navally oriented equivalent of the early Ming's invasion of Vietnam in the cards. Or, given that his base at this point is in Fujian, perhaps he'll get intrigued by a certain island that's not too far away at all, just a bit to the east in fact . . .
Who ever said bureaucracy was boring? I echo the last two commentators when I say that this entry was actually pretty interesting.
I'm glad to hear that, and that people weren't too bored with the bureaucracy bits, because one of my objectives in this timeline is to really talk a lot about the internal workings of the dynasty that I've propelled to power. Formulation of policy on a national level, its promulgation at more local levels of government, factional struggles within the bureaucracy, and so forth: these are all themes that I plan to return to quite a bit. Anyway, this last post was more of an overview; going forward, there are a lot of cool little offices and departments buried within the layers of bureaucracy that I'd like to draw out and talk about more. I'm excited already.