Canpei: Difference between revisions

Reorganized as a frontier military province under the name of Guangbei, the region began to gather the renewed attention of central authorities due to the military advances of the [[Oduniyyad Caliphate]] successor states in western [[Audonia]] and the fall of the reconstituted Nasrid state, which was under vassalage of the [[Daxia|Zhong dynasty]]. Hundreds of thousands of settler families were moved into the province to reinforce its defenses, quickly tilting the demographic trends against the original nomad inhabitants who ended up almost wholly absorbed by the newcomers. The fall of the new kingdom of Nasrad in 1278 turned Guangbei into an active front against the [[Ghanim]] sultanate and an imperial army was stationed there on a permanent basis. Most of the province west of the Hongse was once again devastated in the first Zhong-Ghanim war which saw Muslim forces push east up to the river before their crossing attempts were defeated. At this point the province of Guangbei became an hereditary appanage of Emperor [[Huichen]]'s only full blood brother, Prince Tao. As ruler of Guangbei, Tao also had command of significant military forces to protect the western and northern borders of the empire from invading forces circumventing the Arik mountains to the south and attacking through the flat plains. The rule of Tao and his descendants over the province brought much development to the localities under their possession, a royal paved road was built from Sui province in the south all the way to the old lands of the Liang in the far north and a system of ferries were built to traverse and ferry goods via the Hongse river. Many stone bridges were constructed across and forts built on both ends for defense and customs checks during this period. Over the years the court of the Princes of Guangbei also began to adopt some of the cultural practices of the [[Degei Confederation|Degei]] and 'Northern Daxian' peoples that were their subjects, for example they adopted as one of their titles the [[Degei Confederation|Degei]]'s Atabeg and certain Liang fashion styles. In general the Princes of Guangbei were faithful to the imperial center even as their original Zhong blood diluted over time. By the fall of the Zhong dynasty, the old loyalty was frayed and there was only a desultory act of support for the Zong against the rising tide of the Qian dynasty. When Qian messengers arrived at [[Brink]] to demand the submission of Guangbei, the Prince Tong acquiesced without fuss, an act which the Qian rewarded with confirmation of his position and a scepter of carved jade.