Younglandian Empire

The Younglandian Empire is a powerful Empire, the size of the Russian Empire, plus Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and a larger slice of Poland. This story will detail this Empire’s rise, from the reforms of Charles the Great to the present day.

Reign of Charles the Great
Charles the Great was born in August 1672, to Aleksey I of Younglandia, and his second wife Natalie Argosy. He was a healthy baby boy, but rather plump, 14 pounds at birth.

Charles’ father, Aleksey, had been Ksar of Younglandia since 1645. He had conquered most of the Amy land and had initiated a reorganization of the Church service. Aleksey had been married to a beautiful young princess, Victoria Visclosky, in 1655. She gave birth to five children, of whom only three, Feodor (the oldest), Sophia (second-oldest), and Ivan (the youngest), survived. She died in 1668 from complications during her pregnancy with what was going to be the sixth child. Aleksey had loved her, and he mourned bitterly. But later that year he met and fell in love with Natalie, one of his youngest nursemaids. She was only 16 years old. In 1669 he proposed to her and she accepted, and they married in September 1669. Natalie gave birth to Peter, her only child, three years later.

Ksar Aleksey died in 1676, from brain cancer. His eldest surviving son, Feodor, became Ksar. But he was mentally unfit, and liked to dress like a woman and play with a doll. So, others, including his younger sister Sophia, ruled in his name. Feodor died in 1682, when he fell down a flight of stairs while playing with his doll.

After that, the Boyar Council, the theoretical legislative assembly of Younglandia, selected young 10 year old Charles to become ksar, with Natalie, his mother, ruling as regent in his name. They brought it to the people of Younglandian City, who ratified it as ancient custom required.

However, Sophia, Feodor’s sister, hated Charles and his mother. She was a plump, but ambitious woman. So, she staged a bloody coup with the support of the Special Corps, the most powerful branch of the Younglandian military. In the end, she forced the Boyar Council to proclaim Charles and his older half-brother, Ivan, joint ksars, with Ivan the senior of the two. Sophia became regent during their minorities.

During his childhood, Charles loved to play around with his toy army (actually an army of serfs his age his father had awarded him before he died). He forced this army to engage in mock military engagements, killing and wounding dozens in the process. He practiced shipbuilding and also mining and forestry work. Charles however, barely learned how to read and could only write an X-mark in place of a signature. He remained largely illiterate for the rest of his life.

While Charles prodded his “toy” soldiers along to battle, his brother Ivan dressed like a young girl and played with a dollhouse. Like his older brother, Feodor, Ivan was mentally unfit and could not rule even if he reached the legitimate age.

All this while, Sophia enjoyed life as an autocrat. She forced along her servants, took pleasure in executing those who opposed her, and loved to give orders to her subordinates. However, she made some fatal mistakes. For one, Sophia did not make sure her orders were actually carried out, and many of her subordinates didn’t even bother to do so. Second, she sent the military into several disastrous campaigns against the Meagan-land, a vassal kingdom of the Briannian Empire. And third, she was overly cruel, calling her subjects “her toys”.

In 1689, Sophia tried to have Charles murdered. Warned by the leaders of the Special Corps, Charles gathered his supporters and had Sophia arrested. After that, he assumed his role as ksar. Ivan continued to serve as a co-ksar, but remained ineffective and girly. Charles, however, did not assume full power until 1694, when his mother Natalie died at age 41.