End Berinus dynasty crisis

Disaster / Destruction

The crisis in the end of the Berinus dynasty's rule that almost killed the Berini empire.

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Background

  Filip II wasn't a very good mannered emperor and one could say that his fondness for sleeping with various women caused a paranoia in Alexander I by creating many potential claimers and usurpers to his son's throne. As a possible result of this or maybe plain paranoia, Alexander rearranged everything that everything went through him or his trusted friend Leonardo. Because he was very capable, he didn't fear for the flaws. His son, Berlintini II, was incompetent and tried to imitate his father and grandfather and everything came apart.  

Results

 

All around the empire in general

  Everything was still part of the empire but it wasn't physically in control of most of it's territory. Roads weren't repaired, public works weren't maintained, public institutions and organizations weren't funded, military warehouses weren't kept fully stocked and provincial treasuries were depleted. The armies didn't get any orders from their central commands so they couldn't do anything, and theft and piracy ran rampant along the main thoroughfares because the police and army had their hands tied in such a way that they couldn't do anything without it going through the court or the emperor himself without his ok (something Alexander I did to be able to closely monitor his empire. It worked in Alexander's competent hands but with Berlintini II it was a disaster due to his uneducated idiocy and incompetence. Raffaello later got rid of this in 274 A.B). The reason why the Berinus satrapy was quiet was because of it's close proximity to Berin and it's connection to it by many roads and waterways combined with a smart talented satrap kept the province out of crisis, while most of the empire was being torn apart by warlords and rebellions and various organizations (everyone was waiting for this opportunity because they loathed Filip II, Alexander I and Berlintini II). In 279 A.B Raffaello declared all the areas which he wasn't able to put back under the empire's active control as not part of the empire any more. A lot of troubled satrapies, provinces and domains he didn't reach became self sovereign or joined warlords or the republic or some other group, but some of them were abandoned by their government officials and soldiers who returned to the empire and left the defenseless lands they left to fend for themselves.  

At the capital

  Everything was kind of held together by Leonardo who was able to lubricate things and made sure that everything was in working order and that the capital was fully functional. The people who were motivated by the older population who were more familiar with the imperial document which stated the emperor's duties in protecting the citizens of the empire which were clearly ignored by the last and current emperors and the Noble's Ministry did nothing about it (see Berini League) were protesting in the streets about it because they knew about the emperor's incompetence. Those protests became riots which lasted until Raffaello came to power and put things under control.  

Along the Berinus

  The area along the Berinus was quiet and under the satrap of the Berinus satrapy's control who put a lot of effort to keep things working as they should.  

In the Bootleg Peninsula

  As soon as the Bootleg tribes heard of the new emperor's extreme incompetence and inability to control the empire, the Emorians rebelled and killed the Berini satrap, provinciers and governors and reestablished the monarchy (the last member of the royal family to survive after it was killed off by Alexander I fled north before Alexander could catch him). Using what they learned from the Berini and their own tactics they crushed the Berini army in the peninsula which was undermanned, under-supplied, poorly deployed and without any cohesive leadership. A lot of Berini soldiers fled or deserted because they had been in the peninsula away from their families for 5 years and they haven't heard anything from central command since Alexander's death.  

Enrekur Province

  There was absolutely no communication with the empire's capital since Alexander's death. When people learned of this, five people became warlords and seized much of the province from the imperial troops. When the provincier sent a request to the capital for reinforcements because his troops were not sufficient for defeating the warlords. The letter was intercepted and it didn't even reach Tesfan. The provincier and his troops either died, got captured or fled towards Tesfan or Kur when all was lost. The Kurs used this situation to play the warlords against each other after they defeated the imperial forces to keep them from getting any ideas of entering Kur.  

Res Publique

  The most organized and well trained non imperial organization with an army during the crisis. It used Alexander I's death and that they knew how incompetent the potential heirs were as well as their connections and their knowledge of how Alexander I changed the system and the degradation of situation to their advantage. They successfully overthrew satraps, provinciers, governors and warlords, crushed armies and swayed the population in their favor. They were successful in establishing their republic and temporarily stopped enlarging it after 10 years of war by when it was very large.  

Kirshan

  They decided to try rebelling again in 270 A.B after their people from the generation that rebelled 76 years prior were mostly gone. They were successful, they reinstated a new monarchy and they started conquering "defenseless" Berini territory and they were successful enough that Raffaello decided not to mess with them.  

Tesfan

  Due to it becoming completely cut off from everything except Lefan (which was kind of helpless as well) and it losing thousands of people to Alexander I's killings, and having a lot of it's convict women raped by Filip II on his march south towards Kur, as well as it's recognition of Berlintini II's incompetence (He thought the 150,000 man strong provincial reserve was not needed in the city and sent it to a village which they weren't allowed to leave which caused much strain on the village which didn't have large enough economy to support them all for more than a month which was stupid considering the fact that it was in Tesfan (a city with 4 million people at the time which was larger than NYC in the real world) to be able to assist the rest of the province or the satrapy or any of the domains if an invasion or rebellion occurred) it decided to act on it's unhappiness towards the Berinus Dynasty and join the Res Publique's republic which provided it with salvation.  

Toma

  Became completely cut off and was taken by the Saniri tribes (it's original founders) when they realized the city's bad situation and rebelled against the Berini Empire which they beat using mountain guerilla tactics.  

Kurkash

  The center of Res Publique activity. As soon as the Res Publique heard of Alexander I's death, they took over the city. Due to Kurkash being a port city and due to the fact that the imperial military had it's hands tied, they were able to get the needed foreign support and do as they wished.  

Ardine Island

  The Ardine Island province functioned normally even though it's communication with the central power was completely cut off. When Raffaello I made his declaration of the empire's new borders in 279 which excluded them from the empire, they instated their own government. Fully realizing their strategic trading position in the Hu-Balai, they declared neutrality and strived towards becoming a trading hub in the Hu-Balai sea.  

Saniri Mountains

  The Saniri tribes who were never truly subdued by the Berini empire (even by Alexander I) rebelled when they heard of the new emperor's incompetence as an emperor. They managed to seize control of the entire mountain range from the Berinus satrapy's western border along the eastern coast of the Eastern Great Lake to the Yumahi Sea to the coastal flats along the Hu-Balai's coast. They quickly lost everything from Toma and westwards because it reconquered by Raffaello I.  

Ushar

  Used the Saniri rebellion as a distraction so they could focus on rebelling themselves and reinstating their monarchy (the royal family was killed off by Alexander I, so they crowned a Gurbazi noble whose mother was from the Usharsan royal family). They hoped that the Berini would decide that the lands east of the Saniri Mountains weren't worth holding on to (they were right).  

Pali

  They rebelled with Ushar and reinstated their monarchy in a similar fashion to the Usharsan (they brought a prince from Yunar whose mother was a Palii princess.). They tried to gain control of as much as the steppe trade route they possibly could, but they didn't get too far due to interference from the Guntartar tribes.  

Raffaello I

  This is the emperor who had to sort out the whole giant mess. He returned imperial control to a lot provinces which functioned poorly or not at all and consolidated imperial power. He reorganized the system so the empire could function even if the emperor was incompetent and he cut the empire's territorial losses so he controlled a relatively small empire (relative to before, it was still huge) which was stable rather than have to govern a vast and unstable empire. He didn't have the unquenchable lust for power and territory of the Berinus dynasty.  

Fransesco (Alexander I's pet crocodile)

  No harm was done to him. He had been around in the royal palace since his hatching in 264 A.B and he was alive until 300 A.B when he died of the pigeon fever in the first pigeon fever outbreak. He had a long prosperous life and he was well treated (though it is rumored that Alexander I fed him the occasional human head and it is known that Berlintini II did so with his brothers' heads).