HR2 Ming China

[Ming China was a pre-existing state in 1456. Game play boundaries have expanded over rounds to match the historical footprint. ]

In 1456, Ming China was ruled by the Tianshun Emperor, who in that year launched a massive series of reforms in response to palace conditions that had allowed him to be captured in the 1440s and held captive by the Mongols. After his release, he eliminated rival pretenders to the throne, moved the capital back to Nanjing, and reformed 1500 years worth of court practice informed by Confucian philosophy and yet corrupted by the time of his reign.

1458-64: Most importantly, the emperor renewed the treasure ship expeditions launched by previous emperors. Having received word that the previously missing and presumed lost last voyage of Zheng He to the far east land of Meiguo had in fact foundered in Tiosonia replete with treasure from the east now in the hands of Europeans, he sought to project Chinese influence abroad as part of his so-called "Mandate of Heaven."

1458-66: From their shipyards in Guangdong to the south, a massive fleet of wooden ships has set out to recreate the voyages of Zheng He. While large (massive by contemporary European standards), these ships have rarely ventured into the open ocean.

Of special note is the ship that set sail to Miskanaka in 1458. Venturing north toward Nippon from ports in the Ryukyu Kingdom and the Rajahnate of Maynila (principally Seludong [IRL Manila]), the 13th C Chinese ships that eventually landed in Miskanaka got there by accident while following the North Pacific Current and returning home via the North Equatorial current (drawing from Miskanaka records from their own contact with the Polynesians centuries earlier). Zheng He had taken this route on his final fateful voyage that ultimately foundered in Tiosonia, letting the cat out of the bag and setting into motion the infamous Papal Bull of 1456 (it remains a mystery the Zheng He took to his watery grave as to how he and his crew failed to make it back to Nanjing, but the Tiosonians aren't telling). The 1458 voyage deliberately used the knowledge of the current to attempt another open water voyage. This was no small feat, and it would not have been attempted save for the knowledge that such voyages had happened before and the incentive of fabled Meiguo riches.

Meanwhile, other treasure ship voyages headed south and west, returning to the Sultanate of Malacca and points along the South Asian coast, bound for ports as far as Mecca in Arabia and Mombasa in Afrika.

1466: Having reasserted his dominance in Court with the proven success of his treasure ship plan, the Tianshun Emperor has begun to assert other reforms in Chinese society. He launches a building and infrastructure program, using the promise of Meiguo gold to finance lavish public buildings, bringing in peasants from the hinterlands for labor. Young ambitious lesser nobles clamor for appointments as officers on exploration vessels. These ships are more frequently manned by sailors drawn from ambitious peasants who had only a few years earlier had nothing more to expect for their lives than the constant drudgery their ancestors had experienced for countless generations. Drawing on the reports from the Meiguo expeditions, the emperor's advisors suggest that the empire would be best served by channeling this potentially dangerous and abundant raw human resource into a resettlement program where the empire could bypass the natives and extract Meiguo's abundance directly. Plans are made, and maps are drawn.