The Dakai Dynasty: Rise of the Heavenly Kingdom​

Chapter 2: The Clash of the Empires

“It is a general truism of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide”
-Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms

At first it seemed as though the Nian were peaceably assimilated into the Heavenly Kingdom during its northern expedition, as the same folk songs in honor of Shi Dakai were sung from Guangdong to Shaanxi. But after the fall of their common enemy, animosity began to grow among the Nian lodge masters, and especially Lord Zhang Lexing, who quietly began to reinforce Nian villages with earth walls. This opposition to the Taiping rule stemmed from the perceived foreign nature of the Heavenly Kingdom, and the Christian religion that its leaders preached.

This perception was not helped when, after the fighting died down, Hong Rengan came to Tianjing from Hong Kong. He had been separated earlier from the movement during the onset of hostilities, but Shi Dakai made him a member of the court in recognition of his status as a founder of the God Worshiping Society, before his impressive breadth of knowledge and mind for reforms compelled the Heavenly King to promote him to the newly created office of Chancellor. In the time that he was gone, Hong Rengan had learned a great deal about economics, geography, astronomy and Western politics from his studies at Ying Wa College, where he also worked with Reverend James Legge translating Chinese classics. In addition to his appreciation for the past, he's considered the founder of Chinese modernism, and some of his initial reforms include the establishment of the Royal Taiping Post Office, the Taiping Patent Office, and the Tianjing Banking Corporation, as well as two newspapers: the Tianjing Good Words and the Shanghai Good Words. In these publications, he popularized Christianity by relating its ancient history in China as embodied in the Nestorian Stele, with which he was especially familiar because of his studies. Shi Dakai went on to recognize him as a fellow Elder of the God Worshiping Society, and he did much in the way of establishing church doctrine and practices.

As the Taiping Kingdom began to settle down and bureaucratize with its area of control lying in the coastal south, the Qing Dynasty's remnant reemerged without the fear of imminent attack. In February 1856, Yixuan or Prince Chun leveraged himself as the new Emperor of China from Chengde, where a small number of Qing officials had resided during the Taiping revolutionaries' assault on Beijing. Although the Chinese Empire still had dominion over swaths of Hebei and Manchuria, even that was threatened by Russia in April 1856. Czar Nicholas I hoped that the Imperial Russian Navy could recoup prestige and power by expanding eastward, especially after its influence in the Black Sea was reduced by the Treaty of Paris. They docked at Lüshun, declaring it Vladivostok, and Emperor Yixuan didn't wait for bloodshed to occur before seeking a settlement with the Russia, noting that 'our nation lacks the numbers to survive a European bullet shower, and we need every man we can muster to counter the rebels in our midst'.

This culminated in the Chengde Agreement, which gave Russian citizens and military the right to settle or travel throughout the entire Chinese Empire, as well as the ability to establish their own system of settler laws; Kulja, Priamurye, and Primorye were annexed outright. Most importantly, the treaty conferred exclusive access to excellent naval points in the Pacific in Vladivostok and Haishenwai, the latter of which they named Port Nicholas. In exchange, much needed funding would be injected into the Qing government from Russian coffers, although the amount was negligible for what essentially amounted to selling one's country.

This alarmed the Dakai court, as Tianjing and Beijing were both vulnerable to a Russian naval assault on behalf of the Chinese Empire. However, France and the United Kingdom disputed the legitimacy of the newly emerged Chinese Empire, and insisted that the Taiping Kingdom was the true legal successor to the China. This was primarily because the binding payments and trade stipulations of the Treaty of Nanking were meaningless when applied to a rump state mostly confined to Manchuria. Emperor Yixuan attempted to donate a token amount of the debt owed to the U.K. and France, accompanied with an offer to open ports to the south if they would aid in fighting the Taiping, but the two powers were suspicious of him. His extensive prior collaboration with Russia made him a mere puppet, and they further believed that his rump state had little chance of regaining ground. They thus persisted in withholding any diplomatic recognition of his state, and in pressuring the Taiping Kingdom to come to terms.

With an intervention of Russia, the United Kingdom and/or France seemingly on the horizon, Chancellor Rengan dispatched Taiping Ambassador to the U.S. Yung Wing to Washington D.C. in order to follow up on Commissioner McLane's secret treaty. President Franklin Pierce was eager to expand the United States' prestige and presence on the world stage as it happened in the Perry Expedition, while King Shi Dakai trusted the United States more than the British Empire, with the precedent of the Treaty of Wanghia, which had affirmed the illegality of the opium trade, and promised that any offenders would be handed over to the Chinese government despite being rather lax in the enforcement.

By July 1856, the Treaty of Tianjing was ratified between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the United States of America, under which the former became a sort of protectorate of the latter. American merchants were granted limited tariff fixing rights, while Formosa was to be a base of operations for the U.S. East Indian Squadron as long as they would defend the kingdom. Furthermore, all citizens of the United Kingdom, France, and any other Western nation which the Taiping Kingdom assents to, has the right to extraterritoriality, as well as free travel and trade at designated treaty ports; this provision was negotiated specifically to deter any European power from challenging the entire arrangement. Through this agreement, the Taiping Kingdom hoped to put itself on equal footing with the Russian-backed Chinese Empire, and to leverage the best deal with the Europeans before they inevitably found a pretext to arrive with their gunboats outside of Tianjing.

Nonetheless, domestic reception was mixed, and when Lord Zhang Lexing caught wind of the Treaty of Tianjing, he declared that “We have been betrayed again by a foreign king to barbarians!” and assembled the Nian army to capture Beijing, which had been demoted to a provincial capital by the Taiping Kingdom. Zhang Lexing claimed that he truly had the Mandate of Heaven, and staged an elaborate coronation for himself as the new Emperor of China, taking his place on the Dragon Throne on January 23rd 1857. Shi Dakai immediately sent an envoy to the Sultan Du Wenxiu of Pingnan Guo in order to confirm his loyalty to the Taiping Kingdom. He was reported to have sent the following message: “Muslims and Christians are brothers; our bonds are whole.”

Treaty ports that had just been opened in Hebei through the Treaty of Tianjing were attacked by the Nian armies, who drove out and sometimes killed any Westerners they could find in retaliation for the perceived foreign encroachment upon their homeland. The United Kingdom used the murder of British missionary Rev. James Campbell in March 7th 1857 as a casus belli, and formed a maritime intervention coalition with the French Empire. The United States protected its interests by offering its “assistance” in preempting British forces with the United States Navy's Pacific Squadron, who asserted themselves on behalf of the Taiping Kingdom, while the Imperial Russian Navy rounded off the atmosphere of a standoff at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Diplomatic machinations ensued to prevent a three-way naval melee between the British-French, American and Russian forces. In lieu of global industrialized war, an agreement to internationalize Beijing and divide it among themselves was concluded in secret. Shortly thereafter on April 2nd 1857, the Battle of Beijing commenced, with the Four Power Alliance utterly destroying the Nian defensive forces with a ludicrously unfavorable casualty ratio racked up in just four days. “We fired at a fly with a G-----n cannon,” said one U.S. naval officer, before adding, “well, four G-----n cannons, really.” No matter the number of 'Goddamn' cannons there were, Emperor Zhang Lexing refused to surrender or negotiate, drawing his forces into the interior of the country. After such devastating losses though, the Nian lodge masters and their armies concluded that they would not be able to hold Beijing, thus renouncing Zhang Lexing as Lord of the Alliance as well Emperor, before tendering a complete surrender of Beijing to the Westerners.

The charter to establish the Beijing International Settlement was assented to by the four powers on July 27th 1857. The government was modeled completely after Shanghai; in short order the Beijing Municipal Settlement Council, the Beijing Municipal Police, and the Beijing Volunteer Corps were founded. The BMSC would have equal representation from among the four nations, while the entire city had been divided into roughly equal, semi-autonomous quadrants. Some historians claim that this was a watershed moment in international diplomacy, and United States presence on the world stage. In this particular historian's opinion, the orderly divvying up of foreign real estate was nothing revolutionary.

The more immediate and evident short-term impact was the change of domestic policy for King Shi Dakai. Seeing that the Western powers were not going to seriously back the Chinese Empire once and for all, he decreed that "the so-called 'Emperor' sits upon a throne of paper, and at the appointed time, both will be consumed by hell-fire". Emperor Yixuan reciprocated, labeling Dakai a "regicidal crusader who wears an ill-fitting, ill-gotten robe still dripping with the blood of my family".

Relations would not improve in the future.

Chapter 4: The Chinese Civil War, Part I

To fortify the American quadrant, Chancellor Rengan commissioned the Heavenly Corps, a mercenary group led by Henry Andres Burgevine, with modern artillery and a nucleus of 220 Westerners as well as 50 Filipinos. The Heavenly Army also sent recruitment into overdrive, with thousands of new volunteers in male and female combat-ready units, armed with guns at best and farming instruments at worst. Meanwhile, Emperor Yixuan consistently failed to shore up domestic support or push through modernization efforts. Unlike King Shi Dakai, he didn't have the means to collect revenue from internal trade dues, and had most of his empire's spare capital aggressively siphoned by Russia.

In October of the same year, the Shi Dakai court warmly welcomed an expedition from Prussia as the representative of the entire German Customs Union, and hence concluded the Sino-German Treaty of Commerce and Friendship in hopes of solidifying an alliance to counterbalance the influence of the United Kingdom. The Prussian expedition also made similar agreements with Japan and Siam by 1862 to corner more new markets.

They also had similar luck in Mongolia, wherein a diplomatic mission was more favorably received, leading to the establishment of an informal trade agreement between the two. This was despite the fact that Mongolia was being supported by Russia through the efforts of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky. Mongolian Premier To Wang, ruling on behalf of the child sovereign, later described their foreign policy as “bowing to China without turning our back on Russia.”

The Qing-Taiping animosity would again come to fore not through Mongolia, but with the events of November 14th 1863, the Jade Bridge incident. Although the facts of which have yet to be sorted out by historians, King Dakai asserted that unarmed Heavenly Army soldiers were fired at by Chinese Imperial soldiers, without provocation, at the Jade Bridge during military exercises. Qing officials insisted instead the Heavenly Army fired upon their forces, and they then shot back in self-defense. Whatever the case, the Taiping Kingdom launched a surprise invasion of the Russian quadrant of Beijing, which was too under-defended to cope with Taiping numbers. Emperor Yixuan was taken as a political prisoner, while the Heavenly Army advanced to Chengde, easily grinding down the comparatively ill-equipped Qing army remnant before taking the city in four weeks.

Yixuan's wife, Yehenara Wanzhen, crowned herself Empress, and warned, “my husband will not be humiliated and made prisoner by these hairy rebels without consequence." The Russian Empire declared war on the Taiping Kingdom for the incursion on their territory. Russian diplomats attempted to rally the United Kingdom and France, with the logic that the Taiping invasion of any European quadrant established a worrying precedent.

However, it was feared that Russia would gain geopolitical dominance in the region if the Qing were to be given a free hand to take over the Taiping Kingdom, thus support was not forthcoming. Nonetheless, the United Kingdom and France hoped to force concessions first, dispatching a diplomatic mission which made the unsubtle point that they would join in a decisive intervention against them unless “the Chinese Compact for Cooperation and Commerce with France and the United Kingdom” was assented to. Pursuant to the treaty, citizens of the United Kingdom and France were to supplant the United States' status as the most favored nation, becoming the beneficiaries of exemptions from import dues, travel fees, and local laws, as well as gaining naval basing rights in Formosa. Finally, an International Legation was to be established in Tianjing to compliment the one in the center of Beijing.

King Dakai thought the terms of this agreement were ridiculous, but Chancellor Rengan voiced his concerns that they would be forced to entreat worse terms with hundreds of thousands more causalities and the capital in shambles. The Chancellor thus signed the treaty on behalf of the King without his knowledge. When he heard about the deal made behind his back, King Dakai relieved Rengan of his Chancellorship and appointed Yung Wing in his place. Hong Rengan remained an Elder of the God Worshiping Society, and stated: “my job is a small price to pay for the lives that I have saved.” Newly appointed Chancellor Wing ordered a mandatory and generous retirement package for the current members of Jingywei, personally confiding in his journals that “the idea of a secret police was already distasteful to me”, before vastly increasing the pay for the Heavenly Corps; both were measures to ensure neither of these would be used as tools by a vengeful Hong Rengan.

Thereafter, the United Kingdom and France sided with the Taiping version of events, insisting that the matter was an internal one that Russia got itself involved with through hosting Emperor Yixuan in the first place. Deprived of other support, Russian ground forces lined up behind the Qing in North China, as the Imperial Russian Navy set out from Vladivostok to attack Tianjing. The Pacific Fleet at this point was underdeveloped and incapable of transporting a very large invasion force, thus it was hoped they would intimidate the Taiping into capitulating as they had done to the Qing, and failing that, they would be supplemented by northern support after beginning a siege.

The offensive began against Shanghai on December 12th 1863, which was deemed strategically important to capture first, along with the fortified islands of Chongming and Yangzong in the Yangtze River. What was to be a quick campaign soon bogged down, as the Heavenly Corps and the well-organized Heavenly Army outnumbered them by 1:400, which is a conservative estimate. The invading forces further struggled the rain and low temperatures; Typhus and dysentery ravaged their troops as a consequence.

Nonetheless, this helped to divert Taiping troops and supplies away from Northern China, which allowed the Qing a victory in the Second Battle of Chengde on January 22nd 1863. However, over three thousand Russian casualties were incurred within two months in Shanghai, and despite the Heavenly Navy's inability to challenge the Russian Navy directly, the ground battle had proven to be a costly mistake. The siege ended with a withdraw of Russian forces on March 7th 1863; however, the Qing helped take back the Russian quadrant before conquering the American quadrant during the decisive Battle of Beijing, which concluded March 10th.

It appeared that they were at a stalemate, with Emperor Yixuan still a political prisoner at the nigh unassailable Tianjing while half of Beijing was under Qing control. King Dakai announced that Yixuan would be executed in two weeks unless concessions were made. Qing Empress Yehenara Wanzhen was informed by the Russian attachés at her court that it would too costly for their Navy to attempt to another siege, and that Taiping would now be able to regroup against forces from the north, undoing the gains from the last four months. She thus announced that in exchange for the release of her husband, she would recognize and respect the standing borders of the Taiping Kingdom as a “part of China that has been made foreign to us”.

However, this was objectionable to Prince Yiho, younger brother of Yixuan. He openly ranted to his inner circle that, “the so-called Empress is a sniveling sentimentalist that would allow our undefeated army to surrender in exchange for the life of her husband!” On March 23rd, Empress Yehenara was found dead from what was later confirmed to be poisoning. Assuming the throne, Emperor Yiho told the court, “why should we sacrifice the empire for one man, if that man is unwilling to sacrifice himself for the empire?”

Yixuan reportedly did not believe it when the Taiping informed him of the news, but once he was convinced, he sent a curt, unusually informal decree to the Qing court that read, idiomatically translated:

“To my former brother, who calls himself Emperor:

My captors murdered most of my family, but you finished the job. I have almost nothing left; not my freedom, my kingdom, or the people that I loved. All I have is this title, the title you think belongs to you. I have thus abdicated in favor of the long-haired rebel with the barbarian religion, who deserves the throne more than you do.”

King Shi Dakai had originally planned for Yixuan to be released to cause a political crisis in the Qing Empire, but failing this, he made an offer to their aristocracy: if they sided with the Taiping Kingdom, they would be able to retain their titles and their lands; in circumstances where they couldn't keep the latter, they would be entitled to a stipend. King Dakai also gladly accepted the position of Emperor, reasoning that it would help to fill in the power vacuum, and cement the legitimacy of his dynasty. However, Chancellor Wing believed that this would smack of sacrilege to some of the conservative members of his court, and so to appease them, the imperial coronation ceremony celebration was planned for the Easter Triduum, beginning on Good Friday. That day, March 25th 1864, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was transformed into the Holy Chinese Empire, and Heavenly King Shi Dakai became the Holy Chinese Emperor.

Chapter 5: The Chinese Civil War, Part II

The imperial coronation was reported to be the most visually stunning, with lanterns and fireworks regularly illuminating the sky, as the Holy Chinese Emperor Shi Dakai assumed the throne to an audience of hundreds of thousands. The festivities were incredibly loud, and it wasn't immediately clear to onlookers why Shi Dakai had suddenly doubled over, with his ceremonial robes dyed a deep red. What was thought to be a firework had in fact been an assassin's gun, which killed Emperor Shi Dakai nearly an hour into his reign, along with his wife, the current Empress. Heavenly Army troops immediately captured the lone suspect.

The assassin, Wang Jianli, readily admitted he was a member of the Jinyiwei, working for the former Chancellor Rengan. He testified that Rengan wanted his revenge on King Shi Dakai, and used his connections in the secret police to do it. It was later revealed that Rengan was merely a convenient target, as North Prince Wei Changhui crowned himself Heavenly King, citing a 'private and solemn decree that our fallen king had made to me', allegedly on the basis that rulership should be meritocratic and not familial.

Not only did this help earn him the loyalty of the traditional princely class, who had more opportunities for advancement under this scheme, it was an unsubtle critique of the presumptive Crown Prince Shi Yonghuo, who, at sixteen years of age, would be as old as Shi Dakai allegedly when he began his crusade. Prince Yonghuo inevitably and openly challenged Wei's claim, and Chancellor Wing was similarly skeptical and demanded a trial for former Chancellor Rengan. King Wei accused them all of being complicit in the assassinations, and ordered their executions.

Responsibility was essentially conceded when King Wei made a speech on Easter wherein almost all of the late Dakai's recent edicts were to be reversed, such as the liberalizing measures for controlled substances and the offer for the Qing aristocracy to maintain their power and prestige in exchange for cooperation. He also condemned the title of 'Emperor' as sacrilegious and the crowning ceremony as decadent, implying that Shi Dakai had failed to uphold the competency and piety necessary for his office. Concluding, King Wei Changhui declared that capital punishment was to be reinstated for tobacco, alcohol and opium use, as well as prostitution; the princes were allowed concubines, however.

Large swaths of the Heavenly Army defied King Wei, with many calling him “False King Judas” or even “Prince Lucifer”; they offered loyalty to Shi Yonghuo, who reorganized the Heavenly Army as the Holy Imperial Army, removing any princely intermediates in the military organization. He decreed that “the lives of the traitors must not be spared; after forfeiting their souls, their bodies are the only things they have left to be taken from them.”

At sunset on what would be known as Bloody Easter, Wei's Heavenly Army contingent sent to murder the Crown Prince and the entire royal line were met with unexpectedly stiff opposition from the Holy Imperial Army. The resulting massacre would be instructional in the conduct of urban warfare, and notable for its ratio of casualties to time fought. An all out civil war broke out in the streets, as Crown Prince Yonghuo heroically rallied the troops against Wei.

The fighting dragged on until April 27th, with over 350,000 deaths. Wei was beheaded, and his head put on an ivory Ruyi. “For anyone wishing to challenge my throne,” said Shi Yonghuo open his ascension to the Imperial throne, “I urge them to look at my scepter.” All signs of celebration had long evaporated however, and the victory was a joyless one.

In Xinjiang a challenge had already been issued months prior. The Tajik commander-in-chief of the Kokand army, Yaqub Beg, had taken advantage of the chaos during the Chinese Civil War and led the charge in capturing Kashgar and Yarkand from Jahriyya. The Russian Empire funneled money, arms and even mercenaries to Yaqub Beg, who subsequently deposed the Buzurg Khan, and went on to seize Urumqi, Turpan and Hami, before crowning himself the Amir of East Turkestan. Yaqub Beg then declared a jihad against the Hui Muslims, launching ruthless raids into their territory from a secured base in Xinjiang and Qinghai.

Meanwhile, Qing Emperor Yiho had advanced considerably in his northern campaign of spring 1864, taking large swaths of neighboring provinces by the end of the Bloody Easter conflict. Holy Emperor Yonghuo desperately sent a defensive expedition to regain ground, along with a diplomatic mission to Mongolia. The message to the latter was simple: complete independence in exchange for military assistance.

Historians are divided on if Premier To Wang would have accepted the call if not for the serendipitous timing of a Qing mission to Mongolia. They promised to reduce taxes compared to their estimate of the Taiping standard from before the war, in exchange for the parts of Inner Mongolia already under Qing control. To Wang thus gladly pledged support for the Holy Chinese Empire, and dispatched an army to disrupt Qing supply lines in Inner Mongolia in June.

Fighting from then on was largely touch and go, back and forth. The industrial capacity, agricultural base, and population size were all to the favor of the Holy Chinese Army, but morale, momentum, and support from both Russia as well as the East Turkestan Emirate helped prop up the Qing. There was brief hope that the United States of America would assist their once good ally, but the loss of exclusivity in trade and basing rights led to President William Seward declining any military aid even as the American Civil War officially ended on August 22nd 1866.

The war dragged on for another four years of constant battling. In the third year, the war turned from defensive to offensive, as East Turkestan was assailed from all sides by Pingnan Guo, Tibet, and the Holy Chinese Empire as its conquests were seized until Yaqub Beg was captured and subsequently beheaded on September 26th 1868. A warpath was now being forged into Manchuria with new focus, making the Qing nobles increasingly nervous. Defecting princes were becoming a serious problem, as Holy Emperor had reinstated the policy of rewarding them for swearing allegiance to his throne.

In October 1868, Chancellor Wing helped to negotiate a secret deal with Russia, wherein the ports of Vladivostok and Port Arthur would be left untouched if they would end support for East Turkestan and the Qing; this would later be formally codified in the Sino-Russian Naval Treaty of 1870. With an ally in Mongolia, and the Holy Empire's victory seeming close at hand, they assented to this arrangement. Deprived of their aid, the northernmost Qing provinces were seized within five months, and on February 12th 1869, Emperor Yiho committed suicide as his last capital was besieged.

And so the Chinese Civil War concluded. Over the course of that nineteen year period, from December 1850 to February 12, 1869, it's estimated that at least 45,000,000 people died in total. An unprecedented number of women soldiers were also felled due to their mobilization in combat roles by the Holy Chinese Empire, and almost all of the casualties regardless of gender were young. In addition to the demographic destruction, the land had suffered, and the entire economic output of China was plunging towards historic lows. In contrast, the Empire of Japan was rapidly modernizing under Emperor Meiji, and beginning to look beyond their shores for new places to assert themselves. It appeared that the difficult road did not only lie in the past for the Holy Chinese Empire, but the future as well.

Chapter 7: The Trials and Tribulations of the Imperial Congresses

In 1887, the Imperial Congress passed the Elections and Provinces Law, which formally defined as follows: China proper [1. Anhui, 2. Zhejiang, 3. Nan Zhili, 4. Fujian, 5. Henan, 6. Hubei, 7. Hunan, 8. Gansu, 9. Jiangsu, 10. Jiangxi, 11. Guangdong, 12. Guangxi, 13. Shanxi, 14. Shandong, 15. Shaanxi 16. Sichuan 17. Bei Zhili], East Turkestan [1. Xinjiang, 2. Qinghai], and Manchuria [1. Liaoning, 2. Heilongjiang, 3. Jilin, 4. Inner Mongolia]. Both Nan Zhili and Bei Zihili were designated as 'Special Provinces', because both Tianjing and Beijing respectively had political importance in the Empire, with the latter functioning as a sort of second capital. Finally, elections were to legally take place on July 7th, unless there was a disaster preventing it.

Although the Holy Chinese Empire may have had a more representative governmental structure on paper, the common people were barely included anymore than before. Voter turnout remained depressed, never even approaching a tenth of the total eligible population due to all of the barriers for participating including property ownership, literacy taxes, and high fees for receiving a ballot. The incumbent candidates had over 90% re-election rates for 1888, and some began to use public funds or tax exemptions to help grow their businesses. Heads of larger corporations thus hit upon the idea of running for the Popular Party to reduce taxes and use public funds for their companies. Many were already Populists, but they began to compete for seats in 1890 leading the way for the complete annihilation of the Royalist Party by 1892, attaining a record high of 532 seats for their party. Companies which sponsored Populist candidates include the Tianjing Banking Corporation [Nan Zhili], Tong Ren Tang Pharmaceutical Company, [Bei Zhili], Luzhou Laojiao Distillery [Sichuan], Jiangnan Shipyard [Jiangsu], Guangzhou Loaning and Investment [Guangdong], and Zhang Xiaoquan Scissors Company [Zhejiang], with some limited rivalries with other businesses such as Rong Bao Zhai Stationary Corporation, Wangmazi Scissors Corporation [Bei Zhili], and Guangzhou Chenliji Pharmaceuticals [Guangdong] . Landlords also began taking seats in Anhui, Fujian, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Shanxi, Gansu, Shandong, and Shaanxi under the Popular Party banner.

These problems were compounded by the generous tax breaks for newspapers that gave them positive press, as well as by the Ministry of Rites, which assumed the duties of overseeing elections through the Voting Bureau, while maintaining a staff almost entirely comprised of Popular Party members. Thus the peasants and the proletariat were effectively disenfranchised by stringent property owning requirements, while business owners and landlords were free to vote their interests.

The bourgeoisie shifted the tax burden to those who had their livelihoods harshly impacted by stringent grain collection or wage garnishing quotas. In 1893, the 4th Imperial Congress raised popular ire when they unanimously passed the Third Accommodations and Pay for Civil Servants bill. A neighborhood of fifty-two manors would be built in Tianjing for all of the Representatives' personal use, while their incomes were uniformly tripled, riding on a long trend of exuberant pay increases in past legislative sessions. Finally, Representatives of the Imperial Congress gave themselves the ability to promote people to Ministry employment without civil service exams, and promptly did so for most of their respective families.

News of this spread by word-of-mouth, and in reaction, Chancellor Yung Wing denounced the “naked avarice and patronage of the Popular Party”, resigning as their chairman; he was quickly replaced by Wu Sung, the party deputy and a lead editor of the Tianjing Good Words, which had largely become a string of advertisements for companies represented in the Imperial Congerss. Despite Chancellor Wing's dramatic exit, Emperor Yonghuo refused to intervene, reportedly retorting to the Chancellor: “Can weeds not be trimmed in your little garden without the holy swords?”

Not everyone viewed the matter as trivial, however. On October 18th 1893, Xu Yun, a soldier who had saw active combat before testing into a job at the Ministry of Revenue, founded the Veterans' Socialist Party of China. “I fought in the Civil War. My brother, my father, and my nephew,” she said in one of her first rallies, “all fought and died in the Civil War. My husband died in it. But would any of them vote be able to vote today? No. We serve our country, and we can't vote? What has become of China?” Her demands were to end property requirements on voting, pass an amendment to make pay increases for sitting Representatives possibly only through Imperial decree, ensure equality of tax burden in the newspapers, end the generous corporate subsidies, end patronage in public employment, and finally, establish a progressive income tax. “Socialism means fairness” was their slogan.

The Socialist Party disseminated their views through Red Lantern, anonymously co-written by a German-educated economist at the Tianjing Imperial Institute named Chen Xiannian, while the first industrial unions were founded in Tianjing, Shanghai, and Beijing around the same time period. Yun was fired from the Ministry of Revenue on November 20th, for pursuing 'the inextricably atheistic tradition of Marxism'. The 4th Imperial Congress passed the Responsiblity and Honesty in Publications Act, which required all newspaper publishers to have a license granted from the Imperial Congress in order to 'ensure integrity'. It just so happened that all socialist newspapers couldn't receive one. They then passed the more direct Anti-Socialist Law, which banned ostensibly socialist parties and all labor unions. Xu Yun was imprisoned for allegedly violating it.

This only caused the Socialist Party to explode in popularity, as many took up her platform as “Independents”. Her imprisonment energized fiscally progressive pastors, who formed the Servants of One Master Party. Their name was inspired by Matthew 6:24: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money”, alleging that the Popular Party was disloyal and irreligious in their pursuit of money. An Elder of the God Worshiping Society, Zhang Yutang, lit up hundreds of thousands with his fiery rhetoric in support of land reform, saying in one landmark rally: “these Populists are a party of Two. They try to divide China into two people: the haves and the have-nots. We believe in one people. They try to serve two Emperors; one of the industry, one of the nation. We believe in one Emperor. They try to serve two Masters: God, and money. We believe in serving the one Master in Heaven”. This speech was distilled into their slogan in the streets, known as the Three Ones: “One People! One Emperor! One Master!”

Chen Xiannian began to publish a new paper alone under his own name simply entitled “Truth” which satirically condemned the Socialists' and the Servants' platform in a way that amounted to supporting it. This hidden purpose was lost on God Worshipers and the Popular Party, which circulated his publication all throughout their membership, unintentionally building an internal base for their ideals. Civil servants especially were angered that the Populist Representatives gave unearned positions that they worked hard for, and began to utilize their efficient mailing network to form mass protests against the Popular Party, along with its stringent property requirements for voting.

After a little over three months in the brewing, the Tianjing General Strike of 1894 broke out on April 11th, as thousands and then millions began to mob the Imperial Congress House and the streets surrounding it chanting the Three Ones, while sporting large banners making their aforementioned demands clearer. They were defended by the Imperial soldiers, and after more than two weeks of this chaos, Emperor Yonghuo finally felt prompted to address the building furor by decreeing the following amendments on April 28th:

“Amendment I. The collection and allocation of government revenue shall be determined by us through the Chancellor. The pay and accommodations for all government officials shall be determined through the above mentioned process.

Amendment II. Employment in our Ministries shall be determined by civil service exams, unless we decree otherwise.

Amendment III. Property prerequisites for participation in any elections, among other arbitrary barriers to voting, are prohibited.”

To help the situation further, Chancellor Yung Wing's budget restored the relative rates of taxation and Representative pay from 1888. He further nullified the Third Accommodations and Pay for Civil Servants by allocating no funds for the construction of the fifty-two manors. An imperial decree also reversed the Anti-Socialist Laws, allowing socialist political activity and publications under the government's Socialist Party, chaired by the Chancellor; unions remained illegal. Finally, to sweeten the deal, insurance and pensions were established for all members of the army who saw active combat; these were incredibly low by Western standards, and were deliberately made hard to access, requiring a higher degree of literacy to access than most veterans were familiar with.

On June 5th 1894, Xu Yun was invited by Chancellor Yung Wing to accept a nomination as Co-Chair of the state-sponsored Socialist Party. After Chancellor Wing gave an approximately two hour speech delineating the fine details of the Socialist platform including 'an equal, flat tax', Xu Yun was given the opportunity to speak: “I respectfully reject your offer to join this party. Do you think your people are children? Blind? Deaf? You might not know that socialism is equality, but they do, and I shall be running as an independent.” She then walked off stage. The reaction of the audience is reported differently depending on the political disposition of the publication, but they either exploded in thunderous applause or were completely silent.

Yun campaigned vigorously for the next few months in favor of herself and other independents. The Red Lantern was now a state-owned newspaper, but an underground edition called the Real Red Lantern ran counter to it. Chancellor Wing organized a network of state Socialists to compete against the Independents. In the end, turn out increased to 36.2% of the eligible population because of Amendment III and voter recruitment; the results of the July 7th 1894 elections are as follows:

Representatives
Popular Party- 353
Servants of One Master- 156
Independents- 113 [Socialists: 76]

In addition to the Taiping Independents featuring the first female legislator in history, Xu Yun, the election was also notable because the Popular Party had lost 234 seats to the Servants and Socialists, while all of the state Socialists lost. The two formed the Agrarian Bloc, and their first attempted legislation was a progressive taxation reform bill, which failed. What did pass however, was making 'assembling without a license' a criminal offense, while licenses are made extraordinarily expensive, thus preventing the kind of mass rallies that helped the Agrarian Bloc gain power in the first place.

However, a new threat to the Popular Party was soon on the horizon. In March 1895, the Great Unity Party was founded in Bei Zhili by Confucian scholar Ma Zhi. He was not prone to large-scale demonstrations, but he had considerable influence among the traditionalists and Confucians, peasantry and aristocracy alike. The name of the party derived from the Liji's depiction of a utopian society, where society is ruled by the public, and those cannot care for themselves are looked after. In many of Ma Zhi's meetings and pamphlets paraphrased Mencius, saying “The people are the most important element in a nation; the spirits of the land and grain are the next; the sovereign is the lightest. Therefore to gain the peasantry is the way to become sovereign, and when a prince endangers the altars of the spirits of the land and grain, he is changed, and another appointed in his place.” He advocated for a stipend for the peasants to be created from taxes levied on landlords, again quoting Mencius: “An enlightened ruler, in regulating the people's livelihood, must ensure that it is sufficient. If they have a secure livelihood, they will have a secure mind. ” The Great Unity Party soon became popular, and the results of the 1896 elections proved that, with a voter turnout of 41.7%:

Representatives
Popular Party- 313
Servants of One Master- 193
Independents- 82 [Socialists: 79]
Great Unity Party- 34

Despite all of the measures taken to suppress them, the Agrarian Bloc had still grown to 306 Representatives out of the total 622, six short of a majority. In desperation, the senior leaders of the Popular Party turned to Chancellor Wing and suggested that they ban all opposing parties but their own. He refused, saying “national harmony is only insured if we allow peaceful translations of power.”

Thus, with little recourse, the Popular Party turned to mudslinging and dirty tricks. A massive propaganda drive, paid for in part with public funds, alleged that the Servants and the Socialists were colluding to overthrow the Emperor to establish a Marxist republic. “No God, No Emperor, Just People” would be their alleged slogan, while they would practice polygamy and concubinage as “communal marriage reform”.

Elaborate, full-color depictions of Elder Yutang surrounded with fearful young women in a smoky room were printed with the caption “1898: If You Let Them Win” all throughout the country's schoolhouses and churches. Yutang was painted as a sexually immoral old man because he had never married, with some salacious publications even branding him a pedophile, while Zhi was depicted as a saboteur hellbent on restoring the Qing Dynasty. Opposing narratives were suppressed because Truth, the Real Red Lantern, and several other Agrarian publications still had to find means of releasing newspapers without a license, forcing them all underground.

In 1897, Chairman Sung penned one of the first cacotopic or anti-utopian novels serialized in the Tianjing Good Words called “Sunset”. The brilliantly illustrated tale takes place in a future where the Emperor has been murdered by Socialists, who have taken over China, and have banned love and families in their 'Reign of Terror'. The nameless peasant narrator attempts to fight the evil fictionalized depictions of Yutang and Zhi to free his wife, a Princess of the Shi Dynasty, from their massive concubines; making a cameo appearance was Yun, as the Whore of Babylon. The climax of the tale is the revelation that the narrator is too late to stop his wife from being sacrificed to Satan. In the closing speech of the novel, the villainous Yutang reveals that he controls people through demonic possession, and in a twist ending, he reveals that the hero had voted for the Servants in the crucial 1898 elections. It's strongly implied that the narrator then killed himself in regret.

Neo-Mohists were sharply critical of the work, complaining that the depiction of evil in the novel set a bad model for the people. Emperor Yonghuo was reportedly disturbed by the work, and immediately ordered Wu Sung to create a happy ending where God and the Dynasty prevail over evil. Obliging his request, a new ending was tacked on depicting Jesus Christ coming from Heaven to prevent the narrator from committing suicide. Jesus is then followed by Shi Dakai, Shi Yonghuo, and all of the royal line, as well as the Saints Hong Rengan, Hong Xiuquan, Feng Yunshan, et. al., who then slay the Socialists and the Servants with their flaming holy swords, and establishing Paradise on Earth.

Although the response was tepid and decidedly mixed among the church community, through the generous contributions of the Tianjing Banking Corporation, Sunset was adapted into a hit play in nearly every province in the opening months of 1898. It received positive reviews in the Tianjing Good Words, the Shanghai Good Words and the government's Red Lantern. All of them urged voters to support the Popular Party, that vision of the future would come to pass.

With a landmark turnout of 55.9%, the results of those crucial elections were as follows:

Representatives

Popular Party- 308
Servants of One Master- 196
Independents/Socialists- 81
Great Unity Party- 37


One critical factor in these results was that Sunset had been condemned of the God Worshiping Society for the defamation of one its members. The GWS further censured Chairman Sung, and bolstered the Servants' reputation at the expense of the Populists. Thus, despite it all, the Agrarian Bloc now possessed a 314-seat majority.

Their first piece of legislation was the repeal of assembly fees, as well the end of corporate subsidies and exemptions for pro-Populist newspapers. They also passed the Tax Reform Act of 1898, which combined the ideas of the Servants, the Socialists, and the Unitists into one bill. Particularly severe taxes were to be levied on inheritance and land. The latter operated under the theory that landlords simply borrowed all of 'their' land from the Emperor, and thus they had to pay a 'rent' for their use of it. The revenue from this would go into a stipend that would be paid back to those who worked the fields, and for the elderly and disabled of the peasant class.

Chancellor Wing refused to assent to any of this under his Amendment I fiscal powers, and a majority of the Governors, most of which came from prominent landlord families, entirely opposed the measures as well. Another strike and mass protest broke out in Tianjing, but it was suppressed by the Holy Imperial Army, as the government threatened to withhold insurance and pensions from anyone who collaborated with them like in 1894. Many of the prominent organizers of this were imprisoned for for assembling without a license, which was explicitly made a crime again afterward by Imperial decree.

The Agrarian Bloc then impotently tried to pass legislation to free the protestors, to prohibit ex post facto laws, and to restore the fiscal powers of the Imperial Congress. When these failed, they then attempted to make the Chancellor an elected official and to extend the franchise to all Chinese subjects. It was thus revealed that the national legislature was essentially powerless when running counter to the agenda of the Chancellor. Xu Yun began to advocate for socialist revolution, and to bypass partisan politics altogether; she was then sentenced for sedition, this time for life.

The disillusioned public thus barely showed up to vote in the 1900 elections, with a turnout of 38.3%:

Representatives
Popular Party-409
Servants of One Master- 133
Independents/Socialists- 58
Great Unity Party-22

The Popular Party won in a landslide, and Chinese democracy, if it had ever existed at this point, was dead.

Chapter 9: The Continuing Crisis, Chaos, and Catastrophe

The closure of the Imperial Congress after twenty years of operation was formally codified in the Edict for the Return of Order, promulgated July 7th 1908:

“Even before the reign of Yu the Great, monarchy had been the most natural form of governance, for it is the Kingdom of God that we look up to in Heaven, and not the Republic. I have seen the hands of democracy take the food from our children's mouths. I have seen an unruly, vulgar mob burn down the homes of innocents and reduce the largest sanctuary of written knowledge into smoldering ruins. As I have said, democracy is barbarism, and it doesn't benefit our illustrious civilization, our Huaxia.

Twenty years ago, I assented to the creation of a European-style constitution and parliament known as the Imperial Congress. This was under the advice of Yung Wing, infected with republicanism from his stay in the United States and now spreading that disease of democracy among us. His civil service reforms undermined the necessarily spiritual basis of imperial loyalty in favor of the materialist scientific disciplines, and a vast bureaucracy has been born in the shadow of these errors; it is my duty now to correct them. The Imperial Congress shall be dissolved forevermore, its members arrested, and no one shall ever become Chancellor by election again.

Wu Sung has been relieved of duty: he and his corporate cronies are to be held accountable. All industry in this nation shall be monitored by Imperial observers, who possess veto power on my behalf over corporate stakeholders, to prevent future fiscal crises. Moreover, the 'right' to enterprise seniority, sedition and to form mobs is revoked. Any demonstration or publication against my rule will have its participants punished by death. Furthermore, there will be no more political parties to divide the allegiances of the people, and to sew seeds of bitter discord. Every subject shall be loyal to Our Throne, and none another.

When all embrace this loyalty, there will come food and stability. The starving masses shall be nourished. The natural relations between ruled and ruler will be restored. And as we welcome the days of plenty in our future, we shall continue to embrace this day as People's Day, because we are the zenith of humanity, incarnated in the strongest and oldest nation in the world. The will of God, as manifested through the Sovereign ruler of the Holy Chinese Empire, is the only lasting and binding authority in this land.”

The national reaction was a quiet chaos. It was quiet because there were very few reported incidents of civil disobedience, as ideals of liberal democracy had been thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the citizenry. But it was chaotic in that many business leaders bristled at the idea of the Emperor's 'observers' and feared a spike in taxation due to the entrenched economic crisis and the lack of a Populist Party to support their interests. Employers thus relocated to Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai and Beijing in order to take advantage of extraterritoriality, incorporating their businesses with token European representation to do business in accordance with the broad language of the 1856 Treaty of Tianjing. They were joined in their self-imposed exile by Xu Yun, Chen Xiannian and hundreds of socialists and republicans fearing political persecution.

Meanwhile, conservatives in the Yonghuo court had used the Edict for the Return of Order to push familiarity with Biblical materials as the new basis for civil service exams and public education. They had a friend in Prince Shi Jūn, the son of the Emperor who had recently come back from a tour of the Holy Land to deal with the current situation. These reforms drastically increased the potency of the conservatives at the loss of tens of thousands of people in public employment. Officials from the Ministry of Revenue who attempted to warn Emperor Yonghuo of this were dismissed as trying to cynically save themselves. The private sector absorbed many of these losses, while science literate teachers were hired as tutors, and numerous businesses chipped in to continue funding a technical education for fear of a generation without these skills.

Nonetheless, the blows to public education and unemployment were real, and with tax revenue drying up and investor confidence diminished, the Tianjing Banking Corporation busted on August 22nd 1908. An overwhelming majority of Chinese-sponsored businesses were threatened with collapse in Đại Nam, Luang Prabang, Vientaine, Champasak and Siam failed. Wing schools, GWS temples, and Imperial military garrisons could no longer be supported without funding and domestic cooperation stemming preferential interest rates that the TBC once boasted. Emperor Yonghuo thus desperately organized the acquisition of the TBC's assets to the Creditanstalt banking conglomerate in Germany. He also sold thousands of kilometers of Chinese railway track to German as well as American corporations and banks. Sacrificing some sovereignty to secure solvency seemed sensible.

By late September, it became clear that Governors of the interior provinces were circumventing the Imperial price controls on grains, and the harvest was sufficiently productive to feed the population. However, most people in the cities were unemployed or working for extremely low wages, and thus couldn't afford food. The government didn't have the tax revenue to provide effective aid, and because a majority of businesses were now de jure foreign-owned, they couldn't impose minimum income regulations. Finally, more foreign loans wouldn't be granted unless the Holy Chinese Empire yielded to exuberant interest rates which it could ill-afford. Thus malnutrition and starvation became endemic problems for the urban population.

Emperor Yonghuo ordered the dismissal of over a dozen Governors who contributed to the situation, and ordered local garrisons of the Holy Imperial Army to collect the grains. His younger and only living half-brother Prince Shi Dingji volunteered to coordinate HIA activities in this endeavor, and the Emperor acquiesced. Numerous HIA divisions with primarily rural soldiers defected and formed the Golden Banner Armies or Shennong's Militias, which sought to protect the peasantry. In Pingnan Guo, the Sultan allied himself with the Militias, and refused to let their grains to be essentially requisitioned.

The Emperor resolved to kill two birds with one stone by conscripting the urban poor into HIA, and sent them out to quell the rebellion. The fighting lasted for five months, in what would be called the “Bloody Harvest”. The loyalists were at a numerical disadvantage, but they more than made up for it with their superior equipment and military discipline. Although logistics were somewhat hamstrung by the frequent dues that had to be paid on the foreign-owned railroads, the only meaningful 'victory' achieved by the revolting peasants was the death of Shi Dingji in battle, on October 27th. Thereafter, the Emperor ordered HIA to stop taking prisoners and execute those they had.

The longest and deadliest part of the entire campaign was the invasion of Pingnan Guo, which boasted a professional, well-organized army with semi-modern equipment and high morale. Nonetheless the Battle of Dali in December 1908 ended with the death of the Sultan, whose severed head was preserved in honey and sent to Emperor Yonghuo for a place on his scepter. The province of Yunnan was restored, as HIA went on to massacre over two million Muslim civilians and irregular militants. Muslims throughout the empire had their membership in the God Worshiping Society revoked, as it was legally mandated that one had to recite the Nicene Creed to be a part. In January 1909, the 'Great Mosque' in Xi'an was made into the Great Christ Temple, and Crown Prince Shi Jūn was appointed Governor of Shaanxi. Other posts of provincial authority were filled by the Shi family, who were also given possession of the lands conquered during the campaigns.

The Dalai Lama responded by expelling Chinese soldiers and officials from Tibet, fearing a similar invasion. He then forged the Lhasa Accord on January 10th 1909 with the British Empire, becoming a semi-independent dependency of theirs. This wasn't the only territorial losses accrued during the Bloody Harvest, as Chinese soldiers had been recalled from Southeastern Asia while German garrisons were deployed using the fiscal leverage they had attained over the region with their purchase of the TBC. This situation was legally solidified on March 8th 1909, when Holy Emperor Yonghuo and German Emperor Franz Joseph I assented to the Tianjing-Vienna Defensive Pact, supplementing the earlier Sino-German Treaty of Commerce and Friendship of 1862. This was in opposition to the alliance network of Japan, Russia, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, which encircled both Germany and China on either side of the Eurasian continent.

Thus, the crisis that had beset the Holy Chinese Empire since 1907 subsided with significant changes to the status quo. Emperor Yonghuo would not allow his life and reign to end on this sour note, however. He thus establishment the Chinese Olympic Committee in 1911, which sent its first delegation to the 1912 Summer Olympics. However, the celebration was somewhat eclipsed by the death of Elder Yung Wing on April 23rd of the same year. Crown Prince Jūn attempted to scale back the size of state funds for his funeral, but his seventeen year old daughter Princess Shi Guìyīng gave a eulogy that had been as controversial for its wistful reminiscence of representative governance as it was moving due to her personal relationship with him when he served as Chancellor.

Chapter 10: The Spartan Emperor and the Great Commission

Emperor Shi Yonghuo died at the age of 68 in September 8th 1915, outliving his younger half-brothers Shi Dingji and Shi Dingzhong. He was succeeded by Shi Jūn, who was thirty-nine years old at the time of his ascension. The funeral, and the crowning ceremony in Tianjing on September 11th 1915, were spartan and subdued military marches devoid of music or imagery. Emperor Jūn gave a laconic first speech therein: “My people, you must not waver in your absolute devotion to your countrymen, your Emperor, and your God. Your loyalty will ensure our victory and our peace.”

As exemplified from day one, Emperor Jūn was the embodiment of Neo-Mohist values through a Christian prism. Like Mozi, Jun believed that the “world was in disorder because the people lacked political leaders to unify the world's morality”, and that the Son of Heaven was “commissioned” to do this task. He further maintained a decidedly anti-aesthetic approach; in October 1915 he banned the use of public revenue on music and ceremonies, including performances of the national anthem “Ten Thousand Years”. He also converted the “overly ornate” flag to a simple, triangular gold banner with a red trim, and drastically reduced the number of paid holidays for civil servants.

Emperor Jūn also usually wore very simple attire for his position. He eschewed the traditional leather shoes and silk robe for a black ensemble made from cotton with a short robe that resembled a simple shirt. He frequently donned trousers to ride on horseback through the city streets, and lacked a hat for his long, unkempt hair, although this style had been popular since the original revolution. One popular anecdote is that a new bureaucrat arriving from Beijing criticized him for not being suitable at the presentation of the Emperor, to which he replied that “John the Baptist wore only a cloak of camel-hair when he baptized our Lord”, before the adviser realized who he was talking to.

On November 20th 1915, the Emperor opened the Imperial Palace in Tianjing as a shelter for the city's poor. He quoted James 2:5 for the occasion: “Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?” He explained more later on, “the ancient sage-kings and my grandfather didn't have need for these luxuries. The prophets and the savior didn't either, and they weren't wanting for virtue.”

The court had a high rate of turnover under Jūn, who was said to have little tolerance for criticism, branding the bureaucrats that surrounded him as “decadent” and less loyal to God as he was. This helped accelerate the trend that had been set in motion with the Edict to Restore Sanctity of a conservative court filled with Biblical scholars and ardent theocrats. He especially loathed the hold-overs from the former Qing aristocracy who occupied governorships and judicial positions in the northeastern provinces, who had survived in part due to their unwavering state loyalty since the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War. However, after the cosmopolitan, pluralistic nature of the Holy Chinese Empire was torn asunder during the brutal massacre of the Muslims in the Bloody Harvest, their cultural commitment to Confucianism began to come under increasing scrutiny.

On April 26th, Easter, Emperor Jūn made the following speech. It was notably verbose for him:

“Since the reign of my grandfather, Holy Emperor Shi Dakai, the illustrious Chinese civilization has taken great steps towards embracing God and seeking salvation in Our Lord Jesus Christ. His work was continued by my father Shi Yonghuo, and now it is my duty to unite the morality of our people under Heaven.

Although we are freer of sin than we were during the darkness of the Qing days, millions of you are still in danger of having your souls condemned to suffer everlasting hellfire. I would be derelict in my divinely-appointed duties if I did nothing to help absolve my subjects of this fate. As Our Lord said: 'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'

We are on the precipice of a Great Commission in China, a baptism of the whole nation that will propel us to the fortune and bounty of the westward Christian lands. However, it is not for temporal riches that we're taking this great undertaking. It is for the glory of heaven that we do this work. As it says in the Scriptures, “Set your minds on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these days, in the life you once lived.'

And once we abandon that life, 'the Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of His people from all the earth.'”

This became known as the 'Great Commission' speech, which became the name for the process it set into motion. The Jūn Penal Code, released May 1916 with an accompanying quote from 1 John 3:4, “Sin is Lawlessness”, as well as Romans 6:23: “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is the glory of God.” The Code explicitly made paganism, idolatry, blaspheming, adultery, familial impiety, homosexuality, transvestism, murder, theft, prostitution and gambling all punishable by death unless the accused formally recanted their sin. 'Blasphemy' was given a broad definition that included all media, a 20th Century version of speech crime that regulated culture to an extent not seen before in the Shi Dynasty.

Emperor Jūn also established the Holy Imperial Order of Wrath Executors to enforce the Code and prosecute it in the newly established Spiritual Tribunals, all the while proselytizing to the Chinese people. Most Executors who worked as religious police tended to be extremely young but were feverishly loyal to God, as well as to their more literate but no less zealous leaders in the Jūn court. The rest were the public employees already working the Ministries who had maintained the piety necessary for the office. The organization's slogan soon became “Sin is Lawlessness”.

A majority of God Worshiping Society's Elders rebuked Emperor Jūn for the Penal Code and the Executors. Elder Yutang the Younger stated that “salvation must come from a place of sincerity and love. Baptism at gunpoint is vulgar, and an affront to God. These laws are similarly barbaric, and, like the Pharisees, our Emperor is well-versed in legal minutiae but misses the entire point in his unthinking dogmatism. Did our Lord not say 'Love thy neighbor as thyself'? Did He not say, 'judge not lest ye be judged'? Emperor, we sincerely advise you to read the Scriptures that you claim to abide by. God bless you and your family.”

Emperor Jūn, when he read the GWS's declaration, is said to have coldly replied: “we have find our first volunteers for penance.” Not all Elders disapproved of the Great Commission or the legal changes however, especially those who served in the Jūn court. A faction that would be called the Loyalists, led by Elder Han Chāo, released the following statement: “the traitorous Yutang and his pack of heretical dogs have excommunicated themselves in their sinful disloyalty to the divinely appointed temporal authority of our nation, the throne and family of which have His eternal blessings. May salvation come to those who have wronged before they are damned eternally.” The GWS thus underwent a schism between the Loyalist God Worshipers and the Traditionalist God Worshipers; four Traditionalist Elders fled to Beijing with some of their flock to ensure that the church would survive should the state come down against them.

Meanwhile, the Confucians who were rounded up by the Executors did not make martyrs of themselves for the most part. As it says the Analects 15:7b: “When the government is unjust he can roll up his principles and keep them in his breast.” They simply gave the confessions requested and repeated the creed necessary for spiritual salvation in the eyes of the law. Nonetheless, some dug in their heels, resisting the “death of our culture” even if it meant the end of their own lives. They were joined by the Traditionalist God Worshipers, Muslims, and Buddhists who refused to confess to any wrongdoing.

On August 3rd, Emperor Jūn went on a horseback trip to Guangzhou to “help clear his mind” on the schism. In the midst of his countryside trek, a fifteen year old Traditionalist named Xiàng Yàn shouted “Die, Anti-Christ!” before lobbing a bomb at him. She missed, but the explosion spooked the horse, knocking off the Emperor and trampling the assassin. The HIA soldiers that had accompanied the Emperor for the trip then shot her to death.

The Emperor believed this to be a Traditionalist conspiracy, and the attempt on his life had hardened his resolve against them. On August 5th 1916, the first forty-six Traditionalist clergy and lay adherents were executed after being found guilty in the Nan Zhili Spiritual Tribunal, alongside fifty-nine others who had refused to seek 'forgiveness', among them Confucians, Muslims, Buddhists and the irreligious. The Kingdoms of Tibet and Mongolia sharply criticized the religious prosecution, while the German Empire refused to extradite Traditionalist clergy or allow the Executors to enter Southeastern Asia, fearing that it would stir up rebellious sentiment among the indigenous population. Emperor Jūn did not press the issue, well aware of his limitations there. On the same token, the Jūn Code wasn't enforced in Korea.

The Wrath Executors continued to recruit teenagers for their cause, who took to destroying 'idols' and burning 'pagan books' en masse with enthusiasm, chanting the Three Ones repeatedly while doing so. Many of them were told by the recruiters that the tribulations of their childhood, from the famine to the depression, had been the result of sinners invoking divine wrath. Thus, they sought to violently rectify these perceived wrongs. Some defied the legal process and went straight to murdering those they felt were lacking in faithfulness, and violently purged fellow members who failed to accord to their ideals; their preferred methods were stoning and burning.

Sources in Beijing estimated that 63,200 people died from the first wave of terror associated with the Great Commission. Historical parallels were drawn to the Qin Dynasty's burning of books and burying of the scholars, although Legalist texts and artifacts associated with Emperor Qin were considered to be 'pagan'. Indirectly responding to criticism that all of this was inhumane, mostly from Traditionalists who had taken up residency in the foreign-owned Chinese cities, the Emperor justified his actions by quoting Mozi: “The task of the humane is surely to seek to promote the benefit of the world and eliminate harm to the world, and to take this as a standard in the world. Does something benefit people? Then do it.”

Chapter 12: "Austerity is the Answer"

The rule of Empress Shi Guìyīng was typified by the recovery that it started with, as the Holy Chinese Empire healed from the wounds of the Great Commission and the near constant chaos since the Great Panic of 1907. Under the guiding hand of the Imperial Consortium for National Revitalization, the cavalier spending that led to the sovereign default of 1920 was curtailed, and balanced budgets for the Imperial government were able to be regularly observed by 1932 onwards, while the Holy Treasure currency was now strictly backed by the gold standard. The price of this austerity was the rise of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness as government benefits dried up. In 1934, the insurance and pensions for soldiers established after the Tianjing General Strike of 1894 were ended to keep up the surplus.

Despite the retraction of the welfare state, these signs of fiscal prudence were rewarded by those who began to invest again in the Tianjing Banking Corporation, as well as other financial institutions that were able to thrive due to the Anti-Trust and Banking Fairness Decree. The rights to resources and transportation were slowly bought back from foreign governments during the 1930s, and the Western governments negotiated a debt forgiveness settlement for the Empire during the height of the 1937 Stock Market Crash, when most of their economies suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed.

The 1938 Treaty of Tianjing effectively restored Chinese territorial rights over Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai and Beijing. The reasons for this were twofold. Firstly, many of the new governments in the West were left-industrialist, which sought to protect native jobs and industry by promoting the domestic market at the expense of the international one, and promoted a more idealistic, equitable view of international relations, perhaps to justify it. Secondly, there was fear that the Holy Chinese Empire would side with South Germany in the German War given the Tianjing-Vienna Defensive Pact. However, China abstained from the conflict on the grounds that South Germany invaded North Germany, and that it was only obliged to aid South Germany if it had been attacked.

However, trouble would soon be on the horizon. The new tariffs and import dues imposed on Chinese products by the left-industrialist governments of the West, as well as the loss of their capital due to the Crash, began to cause an economic contraction at home. The '39 Recession saw unemployment go from 7% to 23%, with many hungry and without jobs. Many banks busted, but the Tianjing Banking Corporation remained solvent, while the Imperial government refused to enact any reforms.

The Imperial Consortium released a white paper entitled “Austerity is the Answer” on June 2nd 1939. It described the downturn as to be expected given normal economic cycles, and that the Chinese government should keep to its gold standard and balanced budget in times of crisis. Empress Guìyīng addressed the people: “this small downturn will soon be ending, if only we can keep calm, and maintain the practices that have given us prosperity for over a decade.”

However, many began to criticize Empress Guìyīng as decadent, especially in contrast to Emperor Jūn, wearing extravagant clothes, heavy make-up, and after having cast out the poor when she came into power, holding extravagant banquets in the Imperial Palace. She was unfortunately tone-deaf to these class issues, frequently recommending her subjects to “make do with what they have” and “learn the art of self-sufficiency”. The shrunken Holy Imperial Army were also discontent, having most of the benefits of their duty wiped away in contrast with the Navy and the IDAF. Some believe this was intentional, as the Empress was keenly aware of how a massive ground army effected the regime change that put her into power.

Nonetheless, many of the laid off and unemployed HIA began to join the Loyalist Order, a paramilitary religious group devoted to the ideas of Emperor Jūn and with the goal of continuing the Great Commission, by purging the God Worshiping Society of Traditionalists and reestablishing the Wrath Executors. Their leader in this period was Wan Gāng, who was one of the teenagers recruited by the Wrath Executors over twenty years previous, which had been merely a nuisance in the prosperous late 20s and 30s.

Others began to follow Lai Min, the leader of the Revolutionary Socialist Front. The RSF differed with the now defunct Veterans' Socialist Party of China by its rejection of parliamentarian politics. They partially accepted that democracy was the incorrect way of running China, but they believed that a republic with a market controlled by a workers' government was the best possible path for the impoverished to escape their squalor. Their pamphlets took up the name of the Real Red Lantern publication of old.

Numerous assassination plots, hostage crises and bombings ensued by the Loyalist Order and the RSF as unemployment only continued to increase and the economic malaise was allowed to fester. Chairman Hu Xiao of the Association for Representative Government desperately put forth democracy as the only means to end the violence and solve the fiscal crisis. Chairman Hu quoted Chancellor Wing: “national harmony is only insured if we allow peaceful translations of power.”

Eventually, the Consortium acquiesced, but only after Li Zhun was nearly killed by a member of the Loyalist Order in November. On December 22nd 1939, Empress Guìyīng issued the Representative Government Decree at the Dongzhi Festival, which restored the 1884 Constitution of the Holy Chinese Empire and its amendments with new elections to be held in 1940, and amended it as follows, based on the ideas of legal scholar Tan Guìyīng:

“Amendment IX. Article II is repealed.

Amendment X. The position of Chancellor shall remain vacant permanently.

Amendment XI. The Imperial Congress shall consist of two houses: the People's House, which shall function according to the provisions of Article IV, and the Imperial Council, which shall replace the Imperial Consortium for National Revitalization. The various members of the Imperial Council will serve at the pleasure of the Empress or Emperor, with the powers formerly reserve for the Chancellor in Amendment I. The budget of the Imperial Council can be rejected by the People's House with a two-thirds vote.

Amendment XII. The leader of the People's House shall be the Prime Minister, who will be confirmed by at least a majority vote of the members of their house.

Amendment XIII. The Imperial Court shall have the power of judicial review.

Amendment XIV. Pingan Guo shall have voting Representatives elected to the People's House.

Amendment XV. The term of office for a Representative in the People's House shall be increased to five years.

Amendment XVI. The People's House shall have 662 seats.”

The Empress stated, “For the first time in thirty-two years, free elections shall be held in this Empire. We have matured considerably as a people, and I believe that we can face this challenge of democracy better than the previous generation with our greater gifts in prosperity. So let us welcome the new elections to be held next year, as People's Day becomes truly yours!”

Chapter 13: The Election of 1940

All of metropolitan China had a sort of jubilant carnival atmosphere despite the ongoing recession, as elections were to be held on July 7th 1940. Brewing underneath this was a nervousness that the prosperity that had been ushered in under the Empress, waning in the recession, would completely collapse with the onset of democracy.

The first party officially established was the New Order Association, led by Hu Xiao and named after the “The New Order for a New China” pamphlet series from thirteen years previous. NOA called for a continuation of the Consortium's policies with no revisions, and argued against spending.

The second was the Veterans' Socialist Party, founded by Long Juān, a former low-ranking soldier who never saw active combat but was nonetheless a prolific author. Long ardently toed a Reformed Marxist line, and struggled to distinguish themselves from the Revolutionary Socialist Front, which branded it the “Imperial Socialist Party” and connected it with the government-run Socialist Party founded in 1894 by Chancellor Yung Wing. The Veterans' Socialist Party called for an abandonment of the balanced budget in favor of more spending on government programs for the poor and needy, an increase of the marginal tax rate and corporate taxes, as well as the end to privatization. They also continued the now deceased Xu Yun's calls for progressive taxation, better working conditions, legal labor unions and prohibition of child labor.

There was also the Virtuous Party of Hou Boyi, who was a Traditionalist God Worshiper clergyman that nonetheless wanted to restore some of the Jūn Penal Code, calling for the re-criminalization of homosexuality, adultery, gambling and prostitution, while being tolerant of religious pluralism. Hou also argued that deficits should be kept down, but the Holy Imperial Army should be built up as a means to fight unemployment, who could then work on peacetime civilian projects, while their pensions and insurance would be restored. Finally, the Virtuous Party blamed the Consortium, of which Hu Xiao was a part, for the recession, and painted the Veterans' Socialist Party as equivalent to or the puppets of the Revolutionary Socialist Front.

The public was caught off guard however by the Manchurian Independence Party, founded by Huangfu Aiguo. Huangfu argued that Manchuria was dragged down by the rest of China, and that it could have been out of the recession if it had full range over its natural resources. He further argued that Manchuria had always been culturally separate from the rest of the nation, and that they had greater respect for Confucian traditions. Huangfu was able to make a pertinent emotional connection here as he was nearly executed as a part of the Great Commission for his beliefs.

The results of the July 7th 1940 elections are as follows:

275- Virtuous Party
152- New Order Association
136- Veterans' Socialist Party
59- Manchurian Independence Party

(332 Majority, 662 Total)

Hou Boyi reached out to Huangfu Aiguo to form a Virtuous-Manchurian Independence coalition government with a 334 seat majority. Hunagfu thus led his party to confirm Hou Boyi as the first Prime Minister of the Holy Chinese Empire. Hu Xiao, having expected a Popular Party-like landslide, was incredibly disappointed with the results and resigned from his positions with the New Order Association, the Association for Representative Government, and the Consortium.

Prime Minister Hou's most significant pieces of legislation were the Manchurian Basic Laws, the 1940 Penal Code, and the Military Expansion Act.

The Manchurian Basic Laws created the Manchurian Congress, which could pass laws and present the slate of candidates for the Empress to choose from in her gubernatorial and judicial appointment there. The Virtuous also sought to reduce and flatten taxes for Manchurians wherever possible from the Imperial government, but this was generally ruled unconstitutional by the Imperial Court as it didn't have the approval of the Imperial Council in the budget.

The two other landmark laws were promised in their platform, with the 1940 Penal Code in particular providing for life imprisonment for homosexuality, adultery, gambling and prostitution. The Military Expansion Act sought to drastically increase the numbers of the Holy Imperial Army, ostensibly in order to promote economic growth. However, there was an undertone of reasserting control over the Democratic State of Korea, which was essentially a Japanese satellite after twenty years in its sphere of influence.

The Imperial Council approved of increases in spending for the military, and millions of Holy Treasures suddenly stimulated economic activity after nearly two years of high unemployment and economic malaise. Nonetheless, the deficit was still kept low, and those who weren't a part of the military were unable to benefit from the Virtuous policies.

As unemployment declined and the HIA's numbers soared, Prime Minister Hou became incredibly popular, and he was something of a celebrity with photos of his likeness plastered about everywhere. His cult of personality eclipsed and surpassed that of Empress Shi Guìyīng, as well as the entire Shi family. The Imperial Congress had taken over the Holy Chinese Empire, and they had the army to back them up.

Chapter 15: The Recession and the Dali Earthquake

Following their loss of 150 seats in the People's House during the 1950 election, the Veterans' Socialist Party saw the resignation of Long Juān. With its majority, the Virtuous Party under Prime Minister Hou Boyi passed the Second Military Expansion Act, to increase the size of the Holy Imperial Army to six million soldiers, with more minor increases in the Imperial Domineering Air Force to fifteen thousand officers and the Heavenly Navy to seventy-five thousand officers. After acrimonious debate from fiscal conservatives, the Imperial Council refused to fund the bill in their budget, and the New Order Association in the People's House wouldn't support Prime Minister Hou in attempting to reverse this decision.

“These figures are simply ludicrous for peacetime,” said Head Councilor Li Zhun, “there's no pressing reason for such a dramatic increase.” His opinion was echoed by Kǒng Dafa in House: “perhaps he [Hou] fears the demon armies of Zouzana,” he chuckled, making reference to the antagonist of Saving the Dead Horse. Prime Minister Hou complained bitterly: “the Council is the least democratic, and thus least legitimate, organ of the entire Empire. They have no right to obstruct the will of the Chinese people!”

The proposal spooked the Democratic State of Korea, which signed the Korean-Japanese Defensive Alliance in 1952 after a couple years of negotiation. The Alliance provided for mutual aid in case of invasion or internal aggression demonstrably supported by an outside force, and deepened existing trade ties. Prime Minister Hou stormily addressed the House: “if we had the military that the people demanded, this disaster would have never happened!”

Meanwhile, despite the collapse of the Veterans' Socialist Party, many of the socialist candidates were close runner-ups in almost every core constituency of the New Order Association, and opinion polling suggested that it was the New Order's commitment to a progressive tax code that was behind their increased popularity. In 1954, the Representative Kǒng thus unveiled the New Path for a New Order platform during local elections, calling for the creation of a Workplace Inspection Agency and a minimum wage, as well as laws mandating employers to provide some form of pensions and insurance.

This alienated some of their big business supporters, who rallied around Zhang Automotive Group corporate executive officer Hong Wenchang. CEO Hong rejected the fiscal conservatism that called for balanced budgets, and embraced tax cuts. He also favored a repeal of the Anti-Trust and Banking Fairness Decree, which he believed to be “detrimental to business, and to freedom”. With this platform, Hong founded the Progressive Liberty Party on New Years 1955.

That year, a slow-down in the economy occurred, and the already waning popularity of Prime Minister Hou took a hit. The cause and solution to this minor recession were debated between the New Order Association and the Progressive Liberty Party. Representative Kǒng argued that “if the people had more income and a greater safety net, they would be able to spend more money even during a time of contraction”. CEO Hong disagreed: “they're overburdened by their taxes, and with less of those, the market will naturally flourish.” Prime Minister Hou blamed the Japanese for “muscling into Chinese business”, but this message didn't resonate as well with the public. Finally, the Veterans' Socialist Party had folded after disappointing local election returns, and did not contest any seats.

The 1955 election results:


243- New Order Association
189- Virtuous Party
187- Progressive Liberty Party
43- Manchurian Independence Party

(332 Majority, 662 Total)

Despite winning the most seats, the New Order Association had no willing parties volunteering to coalition with it. Prime Minister Hou was thus elected to a fourth term by a Virtuous-Progressive alliance, which sought to drastically reduce taxation and increase military spending. However, once again the Council refused to acquiesce to this in their tax code with the drastic military buildup also demanded, and the New Order Association wouldn't agree to help the Virtuous-Progressive alliance override the Council's decision.

The recession continued, and deepened on April 1st 1957. An earthquake in Dali killed nearly 6,000 people and destroyed 95,000 homes. Many businesses in Yunnan failed due to property damages, and smaller banks began to collapse with them. A bank holiday helped to salvage the fiscal situation in the region, but the natural disaster didn't just hurt the economy. Some people there believed that the earthquake had happened because the Great Christ Temple hadn't been restored as a place of Islamic worship, an issue Empress Guìyīng and the Tianjing government in general was more conservative than usual about. In fact, Muslims were still treated as second class citizens as they had been after the Bloody Harvest, often denied the right to employment or to file suit in court. The New Order Association had adopted an expansion of Muslim civil rights as one of its planks since the 1940 election, but many had become frustrated with the parliamentary process.

The Great Mosque Restoration Army, an underground militia in Xi'an that had been operating under this name since 1939, was at the forefront of Dali relief efforts while the Holy Imperial Army had been criticized for not deploying more troops to help the victims as the government did little to provide them shelter or financial aid. Their self-proclaimed Sultan Ma Ziyi founded the Pingnan Guo Reclamation Party in May 1957, campaigning on regional separatism in the mold of the Manchurian Independence Party.

Times were fast changing in the Holy Chinese Empire.