The Illustrious Expansion - Tallet Empire 1775-1800

The Illustrious Expansion is the name given by the Tallet to the time period between 1775-1800. This time was marked by an exponential growth and prosperity in the Empire which pushed their borders to the northern coastlines above their kingdom, west to the border of the Ashed Confederacy, east to the Broken Kingdom in the north, and to the Syndicate in the south.

## Critical Mass

The Tallet Empire had grown slowly throughout the Classical Era and the Post Classical Era. Much like the other great nations starting out, the Tallet were not significantly more powerful than their neighbors, which meant each additional territory was added through intense battles with long recovery periods afterwards. As the process continued, the Tallet grew more refined at stabilizing regions. Four generations to make a newly conquered area part of the homeland became three, and then two.

As the Tallet Empire grew, and its homeland expanded, the size of its native armies became too immense for any singular nation to fully resist as they entered the Golden Era. Many nations still tried, but as time went on more and more nations would capitulate without a fight, their leaders using the willing entry into the Empire to negotiate the best possible situation for themselves and their people.

The Illustrious Expansion began slowly around 1775 when a series of nations between the Empire and the northern coast capitulated, turning over their armies to the Tallet without a fight. True to Tallet policy, these new Wild Legions were redirected into the southwest and paired with native legions to maintain loyalty. The combined forces butted up against the Ashed Confederacy by 1780 and then were redirected to the southeast. With each added territory the size of this expansionary force expanded; by the year 1785 the Emperor had sent half of the Faceless Fist to ensure the loyalty of his officers leading the army as the distance between the Tallet homelands and new acquisitions grew. The great southeastward expansion halted at the borders of the Syndicate and turned north, sweeping back in a loop north towards the Broken Kingdom.

Following a temporary halt of Tallet advancement by a few hardy nations adjacent to the Broken Kingdom, backed with a sizable army of crusaders lead by Queen Ida in 1797, the Tallet united the greatest landmass seen in the history of the world, giving them an army so numerous that even great nations were threatened as potential points of expansion.

## Conquerors, Builders, and Civilization

As the Tallet entered this period of rapid expansion, they recognized the need to build a network of roads throughout their Empire to facilitate trade and troop movement. The Empire began to pulse and expand its roads in a spiderweb as the armies advanced. By the year 1780 the armies themselves were so confident of success that the troops were building roads as they marched, rapidly linking new territory to old, though the effort did slow advancement significantly.

True to Tallet nature, with the roads came police forces and the laws of the Tallet Empire, beginning the process of grinding out the previous cultures and replacing it with the enlightenment of the Faceless Empire. A number of barbaric practices were halted, economic prosperity flowed, and freedoms were generally curtailed. The Tallet Empire bubbled as only the might of its armies and the impossibility of ever managing to field an effective rebellion kept many of the more antagonized cultures from rising up.

Recognizing the need to continue expansion in order to keep their huge number of Wild Legions occupied, the Empire targeted the less-than-united Syndicate as their next campaign. The Empire was hoping that the longer battle and slower campaign would give them a means of consolidating their current territories while at the same time killing off the huge number of less-than-fully-loyal first generation Tallet legions. After a short period of infrastructure expansion, stockpiling, and working with strategists for logistical needs, the collected might of the Tallet Expansionary Legions was hurled into the Syndicate in the year 1800.