Gorathian origins
From the steppe to an imperial center
Gorathia is the homeland and political heartland of the Great Khanate. Before Obdey Khan, it was not a kingdom. Nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes competed across the steppe, while settlements existed without a single centralized rule. Obdey Khan united those tribes and made Gorathia the base of imperial power.
Qanatu is the imperial capital on the Jivekh River. Altana, at the river’s mouth, is the principal maritime connection between the heartland and the Bakalatu world. Together, river, capital, port, and the routes between them carry the movement of people, goods, and imperial force.
The imperial settlement
Four obligations, many local arrangements
The Khanate does not impose one domestic system on every subject country. What it insists upon is that each realm reliably meet the obligations that make imperial power possible.
I
Loyalty
A subject country must have a singular ruler whom Obdey Khan recognizes and can hold responsible for obedience. Councils, assemblies, priesthoods, noble houses, bureaucracies, and city governments may continue beneath that ruler, but someone must answer for the realm.
II
Tribute
Annual imperial tribute is assessed at approximately ten percent of a realm’s assessed annual economic output. One quarter of its assessed value is normally rendered in silver, gold, or platinum; the remaining value may be provided in useful goods according to local strengths.
III
Military service
Each subject realm must maintain soldiers in imperial service equal to four percent of its assessed population. Subject countries retain their own forces and institutions at home, but troops supplied to the Khan enter the Army of the Great Khan.
IV
Strategic routes
Major roads, bridges, mountain passes, navigable rivers, canals, ferries, ports, docks, staging grounds, and supply routes must remain usable where they matter to imperial movement and extraction.
Census and annual accounts
Assessment makes obligation legible
Every four years, the Great Khan Census assesses a subject realm’s population, major forms of production, agricultural produce, material and manufactured output, and assessed annual economic output. That quadrennial record establishes the baseline for military service and tribute.
Annual accounts record precious-metal payments, food, goods, military supplies, enrolled soldiers, and other obligations between censuses. Januqaian clerks, assessors, accountants, and other officials contribute heavily to this tabulation and accounting through their administrative expertise.
The census governs the assessment; it does not replace local government. Subject realms remain responsible for producing what the Khan demands.
Rule at the Khan’s pleasure
Recognition is the imperial prize
Obdey Khan does not strongly dictate how a local ruler gains domestic legitimacy. Inheritance, election, religious sanction, military acclamation, conquest, civil war, and coup may each establish a ruler at home. The Khan’s concern is whether that ruler controls the country, remains loyal, sustains tribute and useful forces, and preserves the routes the empire requires.
Competent military officers may be rewarded with political authority. General Oösmaron, who led the conquest of Lithaea on the Khan’s behalf, became its first Khanish Sultan. Subject rulers may struggle among themselves without immediate intervention, provided the country’s obligations continue and the eventual victor remains obedient.
When instability interrupts tribute, military service, or imperial logistics, the Khan may intervene. Until then, domestic disputes are commonly left to the realm that bears them.
Armies of the subject realms
The countries administer their armies; the Khan commands their service.
National forces remain recognizable as national forces. They defend their own country, guard borders, maintain local security, and suppress disorder under local command. Their recruitment, uniforms, officers, and institutions need not resemble those of another realm.
For imperial service, each subject realm maintains the four-percent contribution assessed by the Great Khan Census. Troops supplied to the Khan enter the existing command structure of the Army of the Great Khan, where units may later be transferred, reinforced, consolidated, or reorganized as necessity requires.
Roads, rivers, and imperial supply
Movement is the measure of maintenance
Subject governments usually decide how to repair and maintain their strategic routes. The Khan’s concern is not civic improvement for its own sake, but whether troops, tribute, food, resources, weapons, materiel, and supplies can move without ruinous delay.
Civilian merchants may profit from roads, bridges, river passages, ports, and ferries kept open for imperial purposes. That incidental benefit does not change the purpose of the obligation: the route must serve the empire when it is needed.
Expansion of the Khanate
A widening imperial order
- Gorathia united.Obdey Khan gathered the competing tribes of his homeland into the heartland of a new power.
- Lithaea conquered.Lithaea was the first major foreign conquest, and wealth taken there helped finance the next campaign.
- Lamsara conquered.Lamsara’s large population was drawn heavily into the expanding Khanish military.
- Januqaia conquered.The enlarged and better-equipped imperial force then took Januqaia, the third major foreign conquest.
Later, Zamruzia was conquered after a long and bloody war. The Khanate now invades Naszeme. Khenshu remains under Khanish dominance while its city-states preserve substantial autonomy through heavy tribute.
Subject realms
Different countries, one imperial claim
Lithaea
The Sultanate retains its Sultan, councils, law, and Grand Army. General Oösmaron was the first Khanish Sultan; after disorder following his death, General Malasdier established the dynasty from which the later Sultanate developed.
Lamsara
A populous river and coastal realm whose local traditions and domestic institutions endure beneath Khanish obligations.
Januqaia
Its valuable bureaucracy survived conquest and continues to administer domestic affairs within the imperial settlement.
Zamruzia
A recently conquered country where the memory of the long war remains close and local institutions continue under Khanish authority.
Khenshu
Wealthy semi-autonomous city-states pay especially heavy annual tribute in exchange for broad freedom in their internal affairs.
The frontier