880-902 (127-149 AD) (L'Uniona Homanus)

The Succession of Guangmei
Emperor Guangmei 光美 was known across the Empire for his experience and knowledge in agriculture. This won him the fame of the farmers, who were most appreciative of the new peace within their country, but it gave him nothing from the noblemen. The Dukes of the Sinican Council, had been granted much more power than they had during the First Han Dynasty. It was the tradition of Sinica to have an absolute monarch and any advisers served at his discretion. In the Second Han Dynasty, the Emperor could make legislation and veto those of the Council but this rarely happened as he depended on their support to keep the young country alive. Guangmei was looking to found an environment so that his Dynasty could continue into the future without the interference of the Council.

Guangmei had three sons and four daughters which he was determined to marry to his advantage. His eldest son was the heir apparent of the Empire and he would need support from his earliest days. Giving these opportunities to his other children would be advantageous also. The Crown Prince Jia Bo 贾薄 was married to the wife of the most prominent Duke, Duke Qinglin 慶林 of Shanghai, the largest city in the Empire at this time. Jia Bo was still only twelve and their parents weren’t ready to have them meet. Guangmei was bringing up his son to return the power and character of the old Empire to this new one. Jia Bo had a vision of the future which he developed independent of his father. He wanted to extend his reign to all of the world and not make his the only words that could become law. He studied to philosophy of Confuscius and became fond of the idea of submission and the continuity of what he saw as the natural order, “With the Emperor as the supreme leader and with all below him accepting their position.”

Emperor Ruihuan
When Guangmei died in the year 843 (90 AD) Jia Bo was prepared to be the Emperor who would take back Hainan Island at the least and to his greatest aspirations take back Taiwan and Korea. Jia Bo named himself Empror Ruihuan 瑞环. In the year 845 (92 AD), when the Emperor was prepared and waiting to move out, a drought and series of tough desert storms changed the character of his reign. Mongolia, which had been an ally of the new Empire, was taken back by the Japanese. At the same time some other starving people immigrating into the Korean Empire, which had been independent from Sinica after the First Sinican Civil War and from Japan after the Sino-Japanese War. The growth of the Korean State prompted a small expansion from their war borders to the end of the Yalu 鴨綠 and Tumen 圖們 rivers. Though it was wonderfully celebrated in Korea, it was negligible to the loss of Japan. They did not even fight for that sliver of land. What resources had been there turned out to be not nearly as much as some of the new mines they Japanese had been making and those which they had retaken from the Mongols.

Ruihuan’s reign was defined by a series of programs, started by edict, which not only raised the taxes on the dukes and businessmen but also built many shelters and hospitals for the people coming towards the coast. He did this more out of pride, and wanting to prove that he could, than out of any duty to the poor. Ruihuan had one son, after a series of girls with his wife, but his brothers were looking to make sure that they would succeed to the throne after their oldest brother’s death. The third oldest son of Guangmei, named Jia Tao 贾涛 actually made an attempt at assassinating the son of Jia Bo, which failed and resulted in his execution. Ruihuan eventually succumbed to a heart attack in the year 867 (114 AD). His son was only eight years old at the death of his father and it scarred him greatly. Ruihuan’s oldest brother, Jia Fang 贾房 who was himself Duke of Shangqiu 商丘 in what was the Norther Province of the Kingdom of Han, was named Emperor until Ruihuan’s son, Jia Shu 蜀 turned eighteen.

Emperor Guanglie
Emperor Guanglie 光烈, as Jia Fang chose to call himself, ruled without many changes to the old ways of his older brother. The shelters and hospitals made for the destitute were drawn down because life was beginning to return to normal as the food supply replenished, though the cities were much more populous now. The Council, being close friends and allies of the Emperor, wanted Ruihuan’s son Jia Shu to “in some unforeseeable event” not be able to succeed his uncle. Empress Zhangsun 長孫, wife of Ruihuan, protected her son from the attacks of the new Emperor by making him a public figure. Jia Shu found himself sitting in meetings of the Sinican Council all the time with his mother so she could make sure that her son wasn’t killed. She kept as many people around her son as possible. Guanglie made several attempts to kill the child but in each one it was either to public of a place or the guards of the Empress, which couldn't be removed by the Emperor since he was not her husband,

Jia Shu became beloved by the people and his Guanglie knew that his death would threaten not only his reign but also the power held by the Dukes in the Council. The terrible position ate at Guanglie until he finally took some action in the year 873 (120 AD). During a private meeting among the councillors Guanglie, Emperess Zhangsun and Prince Jia Shu were together with around half of the Dukes of the Kingdom. They were there, as they told the Empress, “To discuss the legitimate and orderly succession of your son to the throne of our Empire.” When the doors closed and no one more could enter, Zhangsun noticed the lack of many dukes in this meeting. Her uncle, who succeeded her late father as the Duke of Shanghai, was missing ans so were many of the coastal dukes, who were known for their distrust of Guanglie and support for the young prince. The Dukes stormed the Empress first, as she was the center of anger, and looked intimidatingly at Prince. When Guanglie was prepared to stab him, Jia Shu pulled out a small knife and slit the throat of his uncle, as he had been trained by generals in the military under his mother’s suggestion. The Prince moved back and declared himself Emperor according to the old laws which had not been removed or touched since the accension of Guanglie.

As he backed towards the door the dukes were humbled and bowed, praying for mercy silently. When he opened the door he told the soldiers standing outside that he was their new emperor and, in a surprisingly forceful tone, ordered all of the dukes in the chamber to be arrested and hung for treason. Jia Shu named himself Emperor Yuanhong 元洪 and chose the replacements of these dukes as his first order of business. With this he had a fully supportive base in the Council to approve whatever he wanted. He was fourteen years old.