History of the Early Libirachi Republic (1852 - 1912)

* 1864 - Theodore Rothchild
* 1870 - *Vacant*
* 1871 - Gorden Tobiet
 Preceded By
 * Libirachi Dynasty

The **History of the Imperial Republic of Libirachi in the period of 1852 - 1912** is known as the **Early Republic** and was the first major period of history in the Imperial Republic of Libirachi. As the first republic to be formed in the 632 years of the nation’s existence, the Imperial Republic of Libirachi was founded out of the chaos of the first Libirachi Civil War, establishing formal parameters on the various offices of power, creating a triad of offices which collectively formed the ruling tribunal of the new republic, that being:

* **President of the Libirachi Empire**; defined as the head of state within the new republic, the president would be responsible for co-ordinating the efforts of the Imperial Government and directing the policies of the nation, whilst also taking the role of head of state and thus being the unofficial emperor of the country.
* **Vice President of the Libirachi Empire**; defined as the head of government in the Imperial Republic, the vice president would be responsible for keeping the National Congress in line with the president’s goals and policies, whilst also chairing the imperial cabinet in the absence of the president and was first in line to the presidency in the line of succession.
* **Grand Marshal of the Imperial Army**; as the head of the Libirachi Imperial Army, the Grand Marshal was the *alter rex* of the new Imperial Republic, with the army commanding huge influence in the nation and with the lack of a nation-wide civilian government, local warlords from the army would run entire regions of the nation, so the Grand Marshal wielded sizeable influence over the regime.

Forming a brief military coalition under the Rebel Alliance's High Command, Stanford Rightly and Ashford Longwood, both descendants of some of the first emperors of the nation, led the nation until the forceful dissolution of the Alliance on August 30, 1852, when the Libirachi Imperial Army that was stationed at all posts throughout the various allied countries seized power in all the national capitals, violating the Longwood Agreement of 1848 in which Rightly and Longwood both agreed with all the member nations at the ancestral Longwood homestead that once the war was over, that they would keep the Imperial Republic of Libirachi within it’s own boarders as a member nation of what would become the Asian Alliance, although as history knows, this entity never came to fruition and instead the new republic stormed across the nation with the Libirachi Imperial Army of Grand Marshal Ashford Longwood taking power across the whole country at the behest of Stanford Rightly, who was proclaimed President of the Libirachi Empire on August 30, 1852, alongside Ashford Longwood who was simultaneously granted the title of Vice President and Grand Marshal of the army.

## Early Republic

### A new republic

    With the death of Emperor George IV on August 26, 1852, the Alliance Grand Council took control over the nation as a military junta, before the Imperial Republic of Libirachi became the official title of the new regime under the leadership of the inaugural President Stanford Rightly, forgoing the flag of the Alliance for a new design and seal. Proclaimed from the the Forbidden City on August 30, 1852, the Imperial Republic took over the nation, with a President replacing the Emperor as head of state, although the nation retained its title as the Libirachi Empire despite not having a monarch. Founded from the ruins of the Libirachi Dynasty, the Imperial Republic took over land controlled by the former Empire and the Alliance, merging the two armies together over the span of the next decade. Elected almost unanimously in 1852 by Alliance High Command, General Stanford Rightly was proclaimed President on August 30, 1852 before dissolving the Alliance the same day with all former members becoming absorbed into the empire, with rebel states forcefully occupied by the Imperial Guard and former Alliance Army to keep them in tow with the Beijing government.

    With Duke Rightly's proclamation of the Imperial Republic of Libirachi on August 30, 1852, the new republic began to be hashed out haphazardly, with new institutions being introduced in the months after the proclamation of the republic, such as the office of Vice President of the Libirachi Empire in December 1852 which was granted to Grand Marshal Ashford Longwood upon the creation, and in 1853 the Libirachi National Congress was created with the Vice President acting as the chief presiding officer. Establishing the Constitution of the Libirachi Empire in 1852 as the principle law document of the new republic, Stanford Rightly set about introducing term limits and elections, the first of which being the 1852 Libirachi Presidential Election in which President Rightly was the only candidate for office. Conducted between April 24 and May 17, 1856, the Beijing Spring was a self coup by President Rightly in which the Constitution of the Libirachi Empire was re-written by the Libirachi National Congress in order to remove term limits in the run-up to a planned May 20 election which was scrapped by decree of the Congress on May 17, with the LNC instead ruling that President Rightly held the right to serve as he pleased for the sake of the nation, so long as he continued to hold the confidence of the Congress and the Imperial Army, in effect setting the precedent that Presidents could rule almost indefinitely within the right of law. In 1864, Ashford Longwood was removed from the Vice Presidency as Stanford Rightly began to reform the nation in his vision, attempting to limit the power of his deputy through his dismissal from the title of head of government, instead replacing him with Theodore Rothchild, whilst splitting the office of Vice President and Chairman of the Congress and granting the latter title to Azriel Janda.

    Upon his death in 1870, Stanford Rightly had created a cult of personality around himself, framing his leadership as being that which saved the nation from despair and failure at the hands of Emperor George IV and the Libirachi Dynasty, forever solidifying himself in history as the man who saved the nation from stagnation in the 19th century and rose the nation out of a tyranny, although state propaganda frequently glosses over the numerous failures of President Rightly in order to paint the picture of a noble statesman. As the founder of the Imperial Republic of Libirachi, Stanford Rightly established one of the longest lasting Asian republics and in doing so cemented a legacy as a nation builder too, although following the 2019 Libirachi Coup d'état and the dissolution of the republic in favour of the Fox Dynasty, the Libirachi family managed to secure vengeance with the systematic dismantling of the remaining institutions created by Rightly, although over the 167 year history of the republic much of the original constitution and organisations had been rewritten and rebirthed, most notoriously during Eshter Morgan's presidency.

### Longwood presidency

    Following the death of President Stanford Rightly in 1870 following a gunshot wound, Vice President Theodore Rothchild laid claim to the presidency and assumed control over the Libirachi National Congress on July 4, 1870, causing Grand Marshal Longwood to lead his armed forces in an uprising against the President and beginning a civil war within the nation as the army began to fight against the republican forces of the President from their city fortress of Shanghai. With the death of President Rothchild in October 1870, and his successor President Azriel Janda in December 1870, the Libirachi Republic was taken over by Feidel Longwood, brother to the Grand Marshal, until in October 1871 when Longwood and the Imperial Army stormed Beijing and overthrew his brother, ending the civil war decisively with the destruction of the only other major opponent to the LIA.  Having secured the Presidency in 1871 with the execution of his brother Feidel, President Longwood sought to establish the nation as a military dictatorship, closing the National Congress in vengeance for their support of the previous administrations during the war, and in it's place created the Imperial Ruling Council alongside the newly formed Revolutionary Party; likewise, Longwood began destroying records of the Presidencies of Rothchild, Janda and his brother in order to secure himself in historical records as the true successor to Stanford Rightly, a myth which is still perpetrated by Libirachi propaganda and records which decline to count the presidencies between Rightly and Longwood as formal tenures.

    Bringing his wartime ally Gorden Tobiet into government as the Vice President, Longwood set about demolishing the constitutional right to local governance and instead replaced much of the civilian government across the nation with a network of Marshals and other enlisted officers of the Libirachi Imperial Army, ensuring that all effective leadership would be conducted by generals and officials loyal to him, whilst figurehead Governors elected through the Revolutionary Party served to present the illusion of choice to the populace of the nation. With the Imperial Ruling Council ruling over the nation, Ashford Longwood began to attempt to solidify his position as the head of the nation and from 1880 onwards the Imperial Army began to conduct a Pacification of the Western Reaches, cracking down on remnants from the Libirachi War of Revolution in order to consolidate the president's power over the nation. Over the space of 27 years, the pacification campaigns eradicated much of the resistance to the Imperial Republic of Libirachi and with the defeat of the Kuomintang in 1907, the pacification came to an end as President Longwood's health began to deteriorate. Having made his son Pearce the head of the Imperial Ruling Council in 1905, President Ashford Longwood started to rely more and more on the IRC, with his son's role slowly growing into that of a head of government by the time of Longwood's death in August 1912, allowing Pearce Longwood to secure the presidency with minimal effort.