Azriel Janda

**Azriel Janda** (May 11, 1811 - December 30, 1870) was a Libirachi politician and revolutionary who briefly laid claim to the title of President of the Libirachi Empire between October 18 and December 30, 1870, having previously claimed the title of Vice President of the Libirachi Empire between August 1 and October 18, 1870. He also served as Chairman of the Libirachi National Congress between February 27, 1864 and December 30, 1870, and held the rank of Marshal within the Grand Army of the Alliance. Janda was also a founding political figure within the Imperial Republic of Libirachi and served as the first head of the Imperial Civil Service.

As a career civil servant within the Libirachi Dynasty, Azriel Janda as one of the first within the diplomatic corps to defect to the Rebel Alliance in 1847, joining Lord Stanford Rightly as a key military advisor in the War of Revolution. After helping secure the defection of General Ashford Longwood, Janda was granted the title of Marshal within the Grand Army of the Rebel Alliance, and alongside Longwood helped lead the Beijing Campaign in 1850-52, presiding over the two major Battles of Beijing in 1851 and 1852, joining Longwood in advancing on the capital and overthrowing Emperor George IV in August 1852.

Following the end of the War of Revolution, Janda left the armed forces and entered the political circles of the new Imperial Republic of Libirachi as the head of the new Imperial Civil Service, working alongside key figures like Theodore Rothchild, Roth Dalton and Stanford Rightly, and was one of the first contenders for the post of Chairman of the Libirachi National Congress, though ultimately lost out on the role to vice president Ashford Longwood. In 1846, Azriel Janda was part of the congressional delegation to vote in favour of abolishing term limits during the Beijing Spring.

After the dismissal of Ashford Longwood as Vice President in 1864, Azriel Janda was granted the title of Chairman of the Libirachi National Congress and became the presiding leader of the state legislature; in 1867, Janda became part of the original membership of the Kuomintang political party, at the time remaining the group's highest ranked political figure until Vice President Theodore Rothchild joined the group officially in 1870. The same year, Janda led the movement to set in place an order of succession to the presidency as President Rightly's health began to deteriorate, taking part in the movement which caused a large political rift between the Kuomintang and Grand Marshal Longwood's loyalists, who claimed that their leader should have been placed at the head of the order of succession.

With the death of president Stanford Rightly on July 4, 1870, Chairman Janda passed a motion to grant Vice President Rothchild presidential powers as the *acting president*, joining the new government as a senior advisor. The following day on July 5, 1870, Grand Marshal Ashford Longwood launched an uprising in the city of Shanghai, setting up his own base of power within the region as an alternative government. As power began to slip away from the regime of *acting president* Theodore Rothchild, the Kuomintang representatives in the National Congress under the leadership of Azriel Janda controversially motioned to formally appoint Rothchild as President on August 1, 1870, with Janda being unanimously selected as Vice President by the congress, although the withdrawal of the Conservative Party and numerous Rightly loyalists from the congress after refusing to take part in the vote severely damaged the authority of both president and vice president.

During the course of the early months of the uprising, numerous senior military leaders defected from the Imperial Republic to join Grand Marshal Longwood's imperial army, resulting in a "two capitals" policy being formed in September 1870 to ensure that no military attack would be able to topple both heads of the regime; despite this, on October 18, 1870 president Theodore Rothchild and his regional cabinet were captured and executed in the city stronghold of Wuhan, leaving Janda as the leader of the government. Using his powers as Chairman of the Libirachi National Congress, Janda passed the necessary acts to assume the office of President of the Libirachi Empire on October 18, 1870.

Now as the leader of the Kuomintang faction, Azriel Janda led the Libirachi armies of the Imperial Republic of Libirachi against those of Grand Marshal Ashford Longwood, commanding the fragile remnants of his power base from the city of Nanchang as Longwood's armies surged north towards Beijing in November 1870. On December 29, 1870, President Janda suffered a debilitating stroke, and the following day died, leaving the Kuomintang without a leader for the second time in under 80 days.