Middle Kingdom Succession War

The was a succession crisis and civil war in the Middle Kingdom which began in and ended in .
== Background ==
In , King Manang of the Middle Kingdom was killed in a tragic accident on his pleasure barge, along with two of his three wives, all four of his sons, and his surviving brother and uncle. Following his death, succession to the throne was uncertain, with Prince Haelog Yaland of Keshig, Duke Sanren of Kolong, and Duke Jinep of the Gates of Volune as the three principal claimants. This led to a civil war in which several other minor powers sought to claim the throne for themselves, while other powers in both Celestial and Imperial Space fought and maneuvered for influence.
== Description ==
Though each protested that it acted in defense of Middle Kingdom autonomy against the rapacious invasions of others, the Middle Kingdom civil war was swiftly driven almost entirely by foreign actors. In the first phase of the war, the "native Dukes" of Volune and Kolong who claimed the throne were thrown back by the forces of the Prince of Keshig, or the Prince of Kolong or the Grand Celestial Confederation (briefly the Grand Celestial Empire). The Prince of Kolong annexed his ducal neighbor, while the GCC destroyed the forces of Volune and added the Prince of Limei as their proxy claimant to the throne (and naturally as the GCC's latest member state).
What would have been the decisive battle between the GCC and Keshig, and almost certainly have ended Keshig's military capacity to participate in the conflict, instead became the flashpoint for a far more devasting war. The Veiled Masters demonstrated the capacity to paralyze both fleets from a distance in a stunning show of occult power – by denying either side the ability to harm the other, the VM could impose a definite neutrality in the spiraling Middle Kingdom conflict, while asserting themselves as the guarantors of a celestial defense community (with the implicit promise that members would be free to carve out territory at the expense of non-members). The response of the Imperial great powers was explosive when they discovered that the technology the VM had devised was a sentient etheric virus, and Celestial Space was plunged into a two year conflict that claimed tens of millions of lives and saw the annihilation of the Veiled Dominions as a political entity.
== Conclusion ==
The succession crisis ended in , amid the events of the Dominions War, with Duke Sanren of Kolong on the throne under the suzerainty of the Grand Celestial Confederacy. Later, after GCC defeat at the hands of the Brass Cities and Kingdom of Aksai, the succession crisis then came to a final end in when the Second Fialta Imperium defeated the Kingdom of Aksai, occupied Kolong, and placed Prince Haelog Yaland of Keshig on the Middle Throne.
Category:Wars