The
Wars of Enzimian Expansion were a series of wars fought between
Enzim and the
Holy Enzimian Empire and many of its neighbours between 2350 and 2425.
Enzimian Invasion of Varas
Throughout much of the preceding centuries, the
Furanist faith had been growing in the Varaso Empire, spreading around the mouth of the
Inner Sea. Viewing the faith as a potential fifth column, which had already been officially illegal in the empire for over 200 years with varying degrees of enforcement, the weakening
Varaso Empire, ruled by emperor João, instituted a harsh crackdown on the faith and its adherents in 2348.
Enzim, a free city ruled by Furanists, and whose independence was guaranteed by
Trati, had a
casus belli and enough support within the empire to risk an invasion, declared war on Varas. The Varasos were already occupied with invasions and rebellions in the north, and could not adequately respond to the threat. Assisting the Enzimians were a number of Varaso Furanists who supported the Enzimian invaders, and the Enzimians' use of early
gunpowder weapons. The Enzimans, as well, forged an alliance with the
Taminils rebelling in the north. These factors combined allowed the Enzimians to make quick incursions into Varaso territory, sacking
Varas in First Drums 2356, destroying religious temples and functionary buildings. Emperor João had fled the city to
Alvoradã several months prior, which would serve as the capital of the Varaso Empire for the next four years until the fall of the empire in its entirety, though technically Alvoradã would continue to be the capital until the empire was officially dissolved in 2369. By mid-2357 the Enzimians and their Taminil allies had closed in on Alvoradã and laid siege to the city, cutting off its access to the coast through the Uzê. After nearly two years, they breached the city, and the last holdout of the Varaso Empire fell. Emperor João was executed and the
Enzimian Sanhedrin appointed a newly created Varaso Sanhedrin to rule the conquered lands of Varas. In 2369, 10 years after the capture of Alvoradã, Cónsulo, hierarch of the city of Enzim and general of the army, with the blessing of the Enzimian Sanhedrin, dissolved the Varaso Sanhedrin for perceived vice and corruption, and staged a coup of the empire. He was shortly thereafter declared emperor of Enzim and the lands of Varas as Holy Enzimian Emperor.
Consolidation of the Holy Enzimian Empire
Following the Enzimian defeat of the
Varaso Empire, many of the lands it now nominally controlled had either been entertaining secession from Varas, or already in outright rebellion. Some, like Dacia and Cassidia, had already wanted independence from the Varaso Empire, but others were still largely pagan and had pagan ruling classes, and simply did not want to be brought under
Furanist control.
After the Enzimians conquered the Varaso Empire in 2359 by capturing
Alvoradã, a Sanhedrin of 23 clerics was established by the
Enzimian Sanhedrin to rule the city and the conquered territory at large. There was no official name for the conquered territories at this time, and it was administered separately from
Enzim itself. Enzimian rule was eclectic, largely disorganised, and highly variable by region. Much of the old nobility and ruling class was purged and either driven underground or executed. The Sanhedrin ruled the Varaso Empire, still technically independent of Enzim, for 10 years, in which time they were widely perceived as weak, ineffective, and corrupt.
Cónsulo was hierarch of Enzim, making him the military leader, effectively a general. While in earlier times this position held rather little importance, as Enzim had very little military power or authority, the expansion and conquest of Varas had increased its size and the hierarch's power and prestige greatly. Seen as a war hero and a champion of Furanism, Cónsulo was given permission by the Sanhedrin in Enzim to dissolve the Sanhedrin in Alvoradã, but it was assumed they would be replaced by another such assembly, or that Enzim would govern the conquered lands directly. Instead, Cónsulo used the authority given to him to rule personally.
One of the first decrees made by Cónsulo was the outlawing of slavery, as it’s proscribed by Furanist scripture. While the previous Sanhedrin had been against the practice, slave holders, though few in number, and slavery had been a declining institution in Varas for some time, still made up a substantial power bloc in the previous Varaso Empire, and while the Enzimian armies were already occupied with securing the borders, outlawing slavery would have invited widescale rebellion in the centre, which is exactly what happened upon Cónsulo’s decree. His armies were busy elsewhere and far away from the rebellion, centred in Treima and Elicia, and so Cónsulo took an extraordinary step: he promised Enzimian citizenship to any who took up arms against the slaveholders. While as hierarch, he did possess the power to grant citizenship, this had always been used historically as a ceremonial practice used only in rare occasions, always for single people, and always with the consultation and approval of the Enzimian Sanhedrin. This move caused great controversy in Enzim as there was debate over whether or not Cónsulo had overstepped his powers. There was debate in the Enzimain Sanhedrin over whether or not to issue an official remonstrance against Cónsulo. According to records, there was substantial debate over the wording and scope of the remonstrance, with a few hardliners pushing to go so far as to provide grounds to remove him from his position as hierarch. The hardliners fought to keep the wording severe, and likely helped kill the motion, driving several moderates to vote against it where they would have likely voted for a more moderate resolution. In the end, the motion failed 10 to 13. The failure of the motion emboldened Cónsulo as they had now tacitly approved his actions. The servile revolt encouraged by Cónsulo devolved into chaos with many turning to banditry and marauding rather than working to actually put down the rebellion. It wasn’t until an army could be brought to put down the chaos that the rebellion was actually suppressed. However, when the army was finally brought to bear, many ex-slaves, bandits, and homesteaders joined up with them as auxiliary units, and the chaos was eventually quelled. Those who had joined these auxiliary units and other citizen’s militias were registered and offered Enzimian citizenship by Cónsulo. Many chose not to, as conversion to Furanism was a prerequisite for citizenship, but many did choose to convert or were already Furanists. The act more than doubled the citizenry of Enzim. Cónsulo’s citizenship decree is often seen as a turning point in the Enzimian conquest of Varas: the end of Enzimian subjugation of Varas, and the start of state building; the beginning of integration of Varas into the Enzimian state apparatus and culture. Before this point, both those within Enzim and Varas thought of themselves as separate, and the Varasos, even Varaso Furanists, thought of themselves as Varasos being ruled over by Enzimians. The
en masse granting of citizenship, however, began to blur the line, and gave many within Varas a stake in what was beginning to turn from Enziman hegemony into the Enzimian empire.
The following year, with pressure mounting in the wake of Cónsulo's ever growing popularity, the Enzimian Sanhedrin declared him the emperor of the lands of Varas, effectively ceding control of the lands outside of Enzim to him. This created an interesting legal situation in which he was emperor in most of the lands of the new empire, but still only held the title of hierarch within the city of Enzim itself. This led to the establishment of
Alvoradã, which had already been serving as the capital since 2355, as the temporal or secular capital of the empire, while Enzim became the spiritual capital, which served as a microchosm of the parallel governments and institutions of the empire.
The Sanhedrin still enjoyed wide-reaching powers within the city of Enzim itself, and the emperor was still answerable to them on matters spiritual, but they had very little real power outside the city, though they did hold their own exclusive powers in parallel. There were, and are, two different armed forces within the empire: the imperial military (now broken into the branches of the Imperial Army (
Lo Exército Imperio), Imperial Navy (
La Armada Imperia), and the Colonial Pacification Force (
La Força do Pacificação Coloniál)), and the Enzimian Guard (
La Custodia Emzimia). The Enzimian Guard are not technically considered an armed force, as that would put them under the hierarch. Rather, they’re a sort of gendarmerie of the city and with jurisdiction throughout the Imperial Province, answerable to the Enzimian Sanhedrin. The
Enzimian Inquisition is an arm of the powers of the church, answerable to the church and the Sanhedrin rather than the emperor, that nonetheless at multiple times operated throughout the empire with a great degree of independence.
Peace of Útrecos
After 75 years of warfare, often involving blurred lines between sides, allies, and enemies and strange bedfellows, there was a collective will for peace, as well as the common issues of the
Akridians in the south and the
Sunaids to the west. The remaining parties: the HEE and its allies, the Chazhdurm states, and Dacia took part in negotiations in the Tratian city of Útrecos to settle their disputes. For their part, the Kingdom of the Taminils, which had been created by the Enzimians during the second Taminil revolt in 2390, was allowed to be nominally independent in internal affairs, but under the suzerainty of the HEE. The northern Chazhdurm states were coalesced into the larger kingdom of Ęžroģaniŗtt and given significant territory along the southeast of the Inner Sea up to the Buried Mountains, though the HEE was allowed to keep the city of Bóticas (now named São Haír). It was agreed that Ęžroģaniŗtt would be a Furanist polity. Dacia remained independent and the question of religion was left unresolved, and it became a haven for pagans and non-Furanists.
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