Alternate History Thread V

[spryllino]

Who's planning on modding this NES on das's timeline?

 

[Kraznaya]

I am, although it is technically a PoD and not a timeline.

 

[das]

The rather different explanation you give for the German loss of Poznan and Alsace-Lorraine than before (simply due to socialist regard for self-determination) is much more palatable to me (and Dachs, I suppose, although he won't like the result), although the vastly different implications it has for irredentist movements do seem to put this Spartakist Germany (love the name, by the way) into more of a Third Reich analogue.

Nah, it was actually a bit of both - Lorraine-Alsace and Poznan were self-determination, but France and Poland tried to push their claims further, claiming the Ruhr and the Danzig Corridor respectively, and subsequently were repulsed. There was some talk in the Reichstag of taking it further, but both out of principle and due to pragmatic considerations that was where it ended. There isn't actually all that much of an irredentist movement in Germany; foreign policy is more a blend of socialist internationalism and statist pragmatism, which, ofcourse, still makes reclaiming Poznan and Lorraine-Alsace look enticing.

How has the French economy done after the rise of the integralists?

Not bad, actually; while commerce has suffered somewhat from excessive protectionism and industrial development was perhaps too heavily tilted towards military needs, the overall state of economy is actually markedly better than in OTL - much less unemployment, substantial development of industry and particularly infrastructure, and finance isn't nearly as big a mess for a variety of reasons. A degree of economic dirigisme has generally helped things, as had the loss of numerous cumbersome colonies. The impetus of economic development might run out in the near future, though.

Did the civil wars in Germany help turn the demographic tide any in regards to population disparity?

Not really; after the war the French were struggling in the demographics department even more so than in OTL, and the subsequent attempts of the new government to rectify this situation have been a limited success so far. This might change in the future as time goes, or it might not if the positive economic trends do not keep up.

Is France still widely regarded as the strongest European army on paper, or has someone else ceased that mantle?

There isn't really any nation that could claim to have the strongest army in Europe. The French lost the war, remember? And then they lost another war, to the same Germans that supposedly were defeated. Germany held the reputation of being the strongest in Europe for quite a while, but then the 1931 war with Poland happened and that has dispelled any illusions. The French army right now is almost definitely stronger than the OTL one, being much more eager to embrace new doctrines and technologies, and the Germans have been rapidly catching up since, though they are actually more conservative in their doctrine than in OTL. Poland would be a serious contender if people had gotten used to taking it seriously, which they haven't, and its army isn't all that large. The new and improved Russian army is pretty solid in its own way - what it lacks in tanks it makes up for in its air force, and its officer corps is elite - but it hasn't been proven in battle against foreign powers, and its rather smaller than what a lot of people might expect. Britain hasn't neglected its army nearly as much as in OTL interwar period, but still, its Britain.

When you say the great depression was 'weaker' but then make comments about the entire structural problems of the British Empire, did the epicenter of the financial collapse happen in Britain and not America, then?

No, it was still in America, but Britain had even more of its own problems than in OTL, and so was affected more strongly than in OTL. Having become increasingly reliant on the US due to the chaos in Europe didn't help, either. They're trying to fix this now, by reviving the ghost of Joseph Chamberlain among other things; it's not really working yet.

At what specific points are the British Empire crumbling under its own weight? Have the various Indian independence movements gained any more traction than they have OTL?

Ireland, India, the Middle East, former French colonies. The Indian National Congress has actually been courted as a major ally with promises of further Imperial reform with regards to India in particular, though there certainly is a fairly strong anti-British, independence-now undercurrent; but if anything, it is actually weaker than in OTL. It's not as good elsewhere - Ireland is a horrible quagmire (I mean, even more so than usual), the Arab nationalists are really acting up and control over former French West Africa is slipping (an overwhelming amount of the French colonists have left since the late 1920s, crippling local administration, and the local elites are being antagonistic). Mostly its overall overstretch, and, ofcourse, the loss of economic positions.

How icy are diplomatic relations between the various Eastern European military dictatorships, and for that matter, Italy and Greece?

Pretty icy, really. Hungary wants to take over the whole of Croatia, and so does Serbia. Serbs and Greeks alike want Albania (though they are actually likely to work out an alliance on this basis). Turks hate everyone (but are willing to play them off against each other). Bulgaria is an Agrarian Socialist-dominated republic which still wants to take over the whole of Macedonia.

If the radical communists in China are insurgencies, what is the Xinjiang (Uyghurstan?) and Gansu based states there?

Warlord cliques. Tribal Turkmen- and Muslim Chinese-flavoured, respectively. The former are leery of Turan, the latter are actually quite cooperative towards both Turan and the Communist insurrectionists, no doubt out of sheer pragmatism.

Of the Far Eastern Siberian republics, which is the American and which is the Japanese puppet?

North is American; pretends to be a republic - badly, though it actually has been something of a haven for those of the Russian Social-Democrats that are neither dead nor in Europe. Still, dominant elements are a local Russian army clique with highly-tenuous connections to the White Guard movement and much more prominent connections to American military advisers. South is Japanese, and it's much more respectable, drawing in part on pre-war local administrative and military circles and, ofcourse, being controlled fairly closely by agents of the Kwantung Army, who are (reputedly) entertaining the idea of creating the Army's Navy there (ofcourse!).

Does the Beijing military government fall along the lines of the Wang Jingwei puppet state established in OTL WWII, or does it have greater autonomy than that?

Oh I should say so! It's the remains of the Beiyang Clique. They have their own established power-base, but are willing to make concessions to the Japanese in exchange for first fending off and then pushing back the damned Southerners, and to work together with Japanese Army structures (while also trying to play the Navy off against it).

How the hell did the American politicians convince the American public that a more ambitious Japan was sufficient cause for breaking its tradition of isolationism, especially the complete (even moreso than OTL) failure of America interventionism in WWI?

America had to some extent "turned away" from Europe after the war and its aftermath, and this resulted in a partial shift of focus towards the Pacific and particularly China, where the Republic was viewed with quite some hope. The alarming growth of Japanese economic, political and military presence had first alarmed the political and military leadership, then the business circles, then finally the greater public; the latter was a gradual and uneven process, but it has happened nonetheless to such an extent that it has become a public sentiment that a stance must be taken against some particularly exceptional cases of Japanese pushiness (but not yet to the extent of actually going to war!). Even earlier, the general support of financial and political elites was enough to provide some limited assistance to Japan's opponents. Note, though, that public opinion was isolationist enough to allow the Japanese to establish themselves in both the Russian Far East and the French Indochina, despite all the outbursts of panic that has caused in the right circles; it was only afterwards that public opinion began to flip out over what has apparently been allowed.

Have there been any major population transfers a la the OTL Treaty of Lausanne or the entirety of Poland moving west after WWII?

Not as such. Well, there have been efforts to push out the Turks from the lands they had lost, especially by Greeks, but those were only partially successful for now. The late 1920s-early 1930s French exodus from their lost colonies might count, but note that it's not a very large population to begin with.

Transylvania must be returned to her rightful Magyar lords, then.

Well, about a half of it anyway.

So, did all the Romanovs and their main noble cronies get offed, or exiled, or what?

Well, the October Revolution still happened, and the Romanov main line was still imprisoned and ultimately executed, though in this case it was perceived as more of an act of desperation. The Bolsheviks were defeated as war moved into Russia: Germans tried to impose their puppet government, while the Anglo-Americans backed the pro-Entente White Guard mainstream; then when everything collapsed there was a relatively brief period of warlordism in European Russia that ended when one of the military factions managed to unite the others and beat up those who didn't agree as well as any remaining Red or Green forces. They couldn't agree on anything like a restoration, though, as the dynastic affairs had become terribly muddled by then and many of the officers turned out to be actually in favour of a "national" republic; so the remaining Romanovs are still languishing in exile despite occasional talk of a restoration in Muscovite political circles, and the same goes for a fair amount of aristocrats. Other aristocrats remained and continue to play prominent parts in government and industry, but titles are, by this point, purely cosmetic; the post-war Russian political elite is more informal and determined by connections to the military-industrial complex and/or the officer societies.

 

[Kraznaya]

Nah, it was actually a bit of both - Lorraine-Alsace and Poznan were self-determination, but France and Poland tried to push their claims further, claiming the Ruhr and the Danzig Corridor respectively, and subsequently were repulsed. There was some talk in the Reichstag of taking it further, but both out of principle and due to pragmatic considerations that was where it ended. There isn't actually all that much of an irredentist movement in Germany; foreign policy is more a blend of socialist internationalism and statist pragmatism, which, ofcourse, still makes reclaiming Poznan and Lorraine-Alsace look enticing.

Why would Alsace-Lorraine self-determine themselves to be French, though? In 1900, 11.6% of the population of Alsace-Lorraine spoke French as mother language (11.0% in 1905, 10.9% in 1910). The rest spoke German. It would make more sense for France to opportunistically take the region during the German civil war, wouldn't it?

 

[das]

National identity can be pretty fickle; while no place in Western Europe could ever hope to contend with the Balkans in this regard, there certainly isn't any clear line of national identification (as opposed to linguistic affiliation, which doesn't seem to matter quite as much in those situations as one'd think it shouild) to be drawn in Lorraine-Alsace, and by the end of the war there was something of a revival of French national sentiment in there. Ultimately, though, it was not so much a result of a plebiscite or anything as a Lenin-style political concession by an insecure new government. They might've tried to work it out differently if they had time, but they also rather overestimated the quality of the restored French army at this point. So, as I said, it was a bit of both.

 

[Thlayli]

Speaking of Lenin, did he die in the civil war or flee somewhere else? It'd be ironic if there was a core of exiled Russian communists in Germany, or even in Paris squabbling with the Tsarists.

Same question for other "well known" leaders we might recognize from OTL; are they in power anywhere?

 

[Kraznaya]

Yeah, since the PoD is less than two decades ago, having a leader list would be good since there will probably a lot of familiar names.

 

[das]

Did I ever settle on what year is it, anyway? 1940? 1938? I'll think about the leaders. Anyway, Lenin is dead (but his cause lives on), but yeah, Berlin is mighty popular among the Red emigration, though so is Geneve. The other Russian emigres tend to prefer London, or even America; the new and improved France somehow hasn't really caught on with a few exceptions. Then again, more politically-~neutral people stayed in Russia, including Sikorsky which is part of the reason why the Russian air force is so great. No Philosopher's Ship if you know what I'm talking about, either.

 

[Kraznaya]

I don't think you ever have. I think the best assumption was "Mid-1930s."

In addition to a leader list (and perhaps a "where are they now?" for OTL important people who aren't leading nations), a list of rebel movements (like you provided for TNES II) and interesting cases of collusion between them (like IRA with Marxists) would also be very helpful.

 

[North King]

Random postulate: One should start an althist NES with a BT in order to ease the NESers into the world and set their policy choices in motion gradually, rather than having a "Year the world went mad" every time a new NES springs up.

Just throwing it out there.

 

[Masada]

That would be using something NESers seem to have NK incentives.

 

[Yui108]

Here's the very last installment, and I'm putting the map in WWW.


Chapter VII: What Comes Up Must Come Down.
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” - Psalms

1330-1339: The Yuan Dynasty invaded Mongolia to try and stem their advance into the Chagatid Khanate. They met with initial success, yet did not make major territorial gains, particularly owing to the perhaps premature end of the war due to events in the Ilkhanate. Also in China, there was a coup to oust the current Emperor, who had overly traditionalist Mongolian and Christian sentiments. He was deposed by a Sinnic (albeit ethnically Mongol) Junta, who have imposed a new emperor, a descendant of Kublai and distant cousin of the deposed ruler.

The collapse of the Ilkhanate has begun, initiating the greatest reshuffling of power in the Middle-East since the first coming of the Mongol Hordes in the 1240’s and 50’s. It began as Sukhbataar died in Muscat in 1332, when an elderly woman threw a floor tile at the aging rulers head as he was parading through the conquered city, killing him. Due to the new hereditary succession policies Joseph, young son of Sukhbataar, is succeeding to the throne. To hold together the Ilkhanate and even a sizable proportion of its crumbling and attacked empire would have required an incredibly capable and guileful emperor. Unfortunately, Joseph was neither. On top of this he was thoroughly insane. Ascending to the throne at age 17 in 1332 many prominent generals returned home to ensure their favor in this new regime. Perhaps most notably the leading general leading the war against the Chagatids, Peter, causing the ultimate victory of the Chagatids in their war with help from Yuan reinforcements. In a particularly bad fit of insanity, Joseph executed the Patriarch of the East, and proclaimed himself King of All Christians, and the half-brother of Christ. This incited rebellion among many of the Nestorians of his realm, further eroding his rule. He also officially proclaimed Muhammad to be a false prophet, as he claims was related to him by Paul (yeah, THAT Paul) in a dream. This of course led to another wave of Muslim rebellions across his realm. His increasingly peremptory rule began to cause the erosion of his authority among his own subjects, not in the least helped by the crumbling of the empire at its own borders.

As for actual conflicts between the Ilkhan’s armies and other states, as soon as news of Sukhbataar’s death reached Jerusalem, an army was dispatched to Antioch and after laying siege to it for six months the sappers under the wall managed to bust into the city. The Duke was exiled to France and became a resident of his relatives there. The Cilicians agreed to pledge fealty to Conrad III (who of course refuted the surrender of his title to the Ilkhan as completely illegitimate). Then, Conrad invaded the Kingdom of Egypt, in the name of his long-dead wife and 50 year old son’s right to the kingdom. He was aided by his former rival the Genoans, who were looking to reprove their credentials as friends of the Crusades after the recent embarrassment, and were also motivated to try and regain some power in Outremer after being muscled out by the Venetians. The Khan of Egypt suffered continual losses, facing invasion from two fronts, as Conrad had allied with the Mamelukes of Cyrenaica. The Mamelukes cut a vast swath into southwestern Egypt and made contact with the Makurians, who joined into this partition of Egypt in 1338. Cairo fell to the Knights of Jerusalem and the Templars in 1337. Shortly thereafter the celebrated and majestic Conrad III died. Perhaps it was from effects of campaign fatigue on an 85 year old man, but it is likely another contributor was a happier one as Conrad died immediately after fulfilling his lifelong dream of unifying Outremer (including Antioch!) and Egypt. A desperate state based out of Antioch leads a group of the lone surviving Mongol warlords with some Shiite and Coptic militias trying desperately to maintain their state, or at least get good terms for their generals when peace is finally settled. In the late 1330’s the Chagatids invaded the collapsing empire too, led by their new Khan Ali. They are probably now more correctly referred as the Alids, as Ali has founded a new dynasty in this land and looks to create an empire out of the growing power vacuum in what was the Ilkhanate. The Byzantines have recaptured Constantinople, with the aid of their Venetian allies, in a surprising reversal of 130 years ago. Elsewhere in the 10th crusade the Serbian and Byzantine allies have made significant inroads into a weaker Bulgaria. The Hungarians have invaded the Ilkhanate, and have encountered little substantial opposition, only fighting the periodic armies that the Mongolian regional governors are able to draft up. The Principality of Tver has also been trying to suck up some of the land left rulerless starting with the collapse of the Ilkhanate. The Mongolians have also annexed some land from the Ilkhan, in the name of reinstating order in the regions left by the Ilkhanate.

As for new independent khanates, the first one to be established was the Khanate of Crimea established by Mark and his armies, battle-hardened by decades-upon-decades of conflict with the princes of Eastern Europe. It has immediately established cordial relations with the Genoese, and even given more trading privileges to the Genoese for their support. In the far east, the Khanate of the Ob has begun to emerge, an interesting state hosting a number of Christians, Muslims, and Mongol Shamanists. In the middle of all this the Saksin Khanate has also emerged. Additionally, a khanate based around Checnya has developed in the North Caucasus. Perhaps the area where the Ilkhanate’s authority collapsed the most swiftly would be in the north of Russia where several strong states emerged, such as Moscow, Karelia, and the Tre/Kolo Volost trading unions. In the Caucasus the ancient kingdoms of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan have all reemerged. An Emirate of Damascus has also taken power in some of the Middle-Eastern, bordering a new Emirate of Aleppo. Finally, the Emir of Aqaba has also carved out a new state for himself on the Red Sea. In modern-day Iraq, a Nestorian Kingdom centered around Mosul has been created. In the rest of the Middle-East, while it has eroded the reign of the Ilkhanate is maintained somewhat well by the local governors through their strong ties to the local Nestorians and the still extremely powerful military of the Ilkhanate, which has pursued a position (probably wisely) which cuts its ties to regions deemed “undefendable” and has done an excellent job picking its fights.

The Teutonic Order has launched yet another war against the City of Novgorod, but this time it is clear the military order has the clear upper hand. It seems that the role of reunifying the Russian peoples is now beyond the capabilities of the Novgorodians, and will perhaps fall to one of the new ascendant states that have been born in the wake of the collapse of the Ilkhanate.

The Aragonese entered the Anglo-French wars in 1235 creating a major break in the Capetian defense. The war was still raging by the end of this decade, with major British and Aragonese gains across the south of France. Elsewhere in the north of Europe, English authority is continually undermined in Ireland, with the few remaining Norman lords often having to take on ethnically Irish people as some of their highest ranking vassals.

1340-1349: In 1348, yet another one of the sporadic wars between the English and French ended. The English largely retained control of all their lands in the north, and made significant gains along with their Aragonese allies in the south. While most of France is at least nominal loyal to the new Capetians the real power of this dynasty is quite pathetic. Additionally, as French control in Navarre has eroded, the Castilians and Aragonese have begun campaigning for influence there. The ruling King there married his ambitious daughter to the premier scion of the Castilian House about ten years ago and has now begun campaigning for her sons right to the kingdom in the court at Madrid. The realm has dissolved into civil war between the competing claims of the generally French-backed Castilians and the Aragonese.

In the Baltics the old order in Russia has completely collapsed. Novgorod fell to the coalition of Sweden, Teutonic Order, and the Karelians. At the end of the war the ever opportunistic Muscovites jumped in to grab some territory off the disabled realm. The Teutonic Order grabbed by the far the biggest chunk of the ended realm, and it has yet to be seen whether they can stably rule these vast new realms.

Bulgaria was fully conquered and partitioned by the Byzantines, Serbs, and Magyars in this decade. Particularly in the Serbian parts of Bulgaria, strong barons have arisen, nominally loyal to whichever country has recently conquered them but in reality exercise a great deal of autonomy. Nevertheless, all of the Ilkhan’s territories and his former instrument have been subdued throughout the region and so in addition to the Hungarian peace with the Crimean Khanate that establishes a small flow of tribute to Budapest the 10th Crusade ends with great success.

Egypt experienced a fate similar to Bulgaria, with probably culminated with the crowning of King Godfrey I (well kind of the second, but because Godfrey of Bouillon neither claimed the title “king” nor ruled Egypt the numbering in official records was quite inconsistent.) as King of Jerusalem and Egypt in the Holy Sepulcher. Egypt will be governed from Alexandria, while Cairo is within the borders of the new Jerusalemite state. The Mamelukes made serious gains into the interior of Egypt, and even annexed a small area on the East Bank of the Nile. The Makurians made advances into Egypt and even returned several hereditary lordships to some of their most loyal Ayyubid vassals. Jerusalem temporarily turned its attentions to perhaps conquering Damascus, and for a short time everyone forgot about the Ilkhanate, until a very byzantine series of events transpired in the Ilkhan’s capital Marageh. The most competent and powerful general in the khanate, Adam, was the object of increasing paranoia by the mad ruler Joseph I. Eventually when Adam was in town for the great Easter banquet honoring the crucifixion of Jesus and the coincidentally enough, the visit of the prophet Josephus to Joseph I (don’t ask) Joseph I ordered that the palace guard execute Adam. Luckily Adam was able to escape, and along with his loyal armies declared his own kingdom in the Middle-East. He met with very little opposition, and any ideas to try and retake those lands for the Ilkhanate were quickly (and rightly) overruled by the military brass. This new proverbial elephant in the room was able to subdue any further Arab attempts at secession and even forced the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Emirate of Damascus into a temporary alliance. As the Ilkhanate further detoriarated in 1345 Joseph I was forced to flee the capital with only his royal guard as protection after a coup orchestrated by his brother-in-law Baghatur. After seeking to take refuge in a largely Jewish village, he was murdered by a mob after they discovered who he was, for he had perpetrated many awful injustices against their people in the name of evangelism. Baghatur was now able to fully seize power, and began the long process of reversing Yemeni, Alid, and the Saksin Khanate’s armies. The Ilkhanate still has a wealth of resources to draw upon and rules all of Persia, and thus while its best days may be behind it, it is far from finished.

1350-1359: At the start of this decade the Yuan Dynasty invaded Mongolia. It is important to note by this point the Yuan had become almost completely Sinicized, and while Mongolians and other northerners were given greatly favorable treatment under this regime and the Christianity of a couple upper-level bureaucrats, elsewhere they are almost indistinguishable from their forebears in China. In Mongolia the Yuan subdued their former rivals, and while they did not wholly conquer, it was forced to pay tribute.

After the long civil war the Ilkhanate has returned to normalcy, and the trade routes across Eurasia reopened. Soon thereafter the Black Plague struck in Europe, wreaking havoc across the land. The effects are pretty much the same as OTL and obviously across Europe and the Near East campaigning basically came to a stop for the duration of the disease which gave some of the new Levantine kingdoms and northern khanates a respite from conquest, albeit at a horrible, horrible, cost. The Mamelukes, Makurians, and Ayyubids made some headway against the Kingdom of Jerusalem, whose upper classes were wrecked by the plague. King Godfrey II died in 1351 during the first wave, as the throne passed to his 27 year old son Conrad IV who was crowned in a beautiful ceremony in Hagia Sophia. Conrad died two years later in a tragic death also caused by the plague, so the throne passed to his brother, aged 28, named Baldwin VI.

In Anatolia the Hamidoglu beylik has sporadically laid siege to Prusa, the only remaining Byzantine outpost in Anatolia.

The Marinids were able to conquer Tunis with no effective calls to Crusade owing to the incapacitation of the entire European continent by the plague. To the north, the Castilian faction in the Navareese civil war triumphed, basically making it a vassal state of Madrid. Additionally, the new phase of the war between the English and French was a complete false start, ended by the plague, although things have begun to heat up again.

The Teutonic Order’s hierarchy was relatively unaffected by the plague, and conquered Belarussia towards the end of this decade in spite of several large peasant rebellions.

 

[Perfectionist]

A couple of years ago I was kicking around a PoD for a potential NES, which never got very far along. I found a blobby proto-map for that PoD on my computer a little while ago, prettied it up a bit, and figured I might as well post it as a GtPoD.

Spoiler AD 1500 :

 

[das]

What are the red states in Russia and the Balkans, respectively? Ryazan/a related successor state and the Byzantine Empire, or something else? Some of the borders in Europe look pretty weird; I can probably guess how some of them came to be, but are you sure Bohemia is supposed to look like this (i.e. like it's divided roughly along the middle)?

Anyway, currently guessing the PoD is somewhere in the 13th century and probably connected to the Mongols in one way or another.

 

[Perfectionist]

What are the red states in Russia and the Balkans, respectively? Ryazan/a related successor state and the Byzantine Empire, or something else?

Yes on Byzantium and kind of on Russia. That's the latest successor to Chernigov, currently based around Nizhny Novgorod.

are you sure Bohemia is supposed to look like this (i.e. like it's divided roughly along the middle)?

Yeah. It was divided under Polish administration, and the Bohemian rebellion got rolling in Plzen. The Poles got their act together in time to hold, barely, the province of Prague, which was anyway less incompetently managed than the others, and the Bohemians haven't since been able to beat the reformed Polish Army of Bohemia.

Anyway, currently guessing the PoD is somewhere in the 13th century and probably connected to the Mongols in one way or another.

No and no.

 

[North King]

Is that some kind of Swiss state (meaning cantons, not the ethnicity, obviously).

 

[Ninja Dude]

What is that in northern China? It can't be the Yuan, is it?

 

[Perfectionist]

Not as such. It does contain Alpine communes with varying degrees of autonomy, but that's the Duchy of Swabia.

EDIT: More or less, Ninja. The Yuan didn't exist, but it is the descendant of a Mongol dynasty in China, which lost most of its territory a century or so ago. The rump was semi-recently conquered and reinvigorated by the Mongolian Qagan.

 

[Ninja Dude]

So did the Mongols beat the Song and take all of China? Or is that yellow country the Song?

 

[Perfectionist]

They beat the ruling Chinese dynasty but didn't take all of China, being too busy with the rest of the world. The Sinicized Mongol dynasty in north China tried to conquer the south towards the end of the fourteenth century, but fell to rebellion before finishing the job. The Song, or rather their successors, are the dark brown. The yellow rebelled from the Song a little while back, and is meant to be a sort of confederation of regionalist and mercantile interests upset by the shift north and being taxed into poverty to finance the reconquest, respectively.

Of course, my knowledge of Chinese history is quite pitiful, so I suspect the Chinese portions of the TL are absurdly implausible to varying degrees.