Holy Glory Empire

Biodata

Territory and Borders

• Northern frontier: The border with the Golden Horde Khanate extends for over ten thousand li. Mountains obstruct most large-scale crossings, but smaller routes allow smuggling and Tuwu raids 24.
• Dragon Spine Pass: The strongest northern pass and the main obstacle to a full-scale invasion. Before the current war, the khanate had last breached it fifty years earlier 12 22.
• Dragon Spine Province: A northern province extensively plundered after the pass fell 34.
• Andorra Peninsula: Lies between the empire and the khanate but remains outside either state’s control. Its terrain and powerful ogre inhabitants have defeated repeated attempts at conquest 49 50.

Government and Administration

Imperial Court

• Noble influence: Even the emperor must show the great nobles due respect. Aristocratic interests constrain both policy and taxation 4 20.
• Noble Assembly: Rejected another levy on noble lords during the northern emergency, leading officials to pursue additional taxation of freemen instead 20.
• Local military obligations: Noble lords can be called upon to provide private armies and organize defenses around their castles 4 22.
• Bureaucratic obstruction: Court rivalries and reluctance to assume responsibility delayed reinforcement decisions despite repeated meetings 20.

Corruption and Reform

• Failed reforms: More than ten political reforms ended in failure; nearly all the ministers who initiated them suffered miserable later years 4.
• Procurement fraud: Substandard magic crystal cannons and shells exploded among Dragon Spine Pass’s defenders. Other weapons and equipment were also defective 15 24.
• Equipment discrepancies: Soldiers with sufficient money bought their own equipment, although military ledgers recorded that equipment had already been issued 20.
• Unreliable intelligence: Bureaucratic corruption left much of the empire’s information on Tuwu tribes outdated 23.
• Distorted reporting: Commanders habitually inflated enemy casualties while understating captured spoils 18.

Economy and Trade

Finances and Taxation

• Limited fiscal capacity: Despite its territory and population, the empire can maintain its existing government but cannot easily finance major military expansion 4.
• Emergency war tax: After noble taxation was rejected, Scott agreed to draft a proposal imposing an additional levy on freemen 20.
• Powerful tax authority: The Finance Ministry’s tax department aggressively pursues evasion. Officials must even pay taxes on bribes and embezzled funds; payment secures the department’s confidentiality 20.
• Currency: One gold coin equals ten silver coins or one thousand copper coins 23.

Commerce with the Grasslands

• Closed border markets: Hostile relations ended legal border trade, leaving smuggling as the khanate’s means of obtaining many imperial goods and production supplies 26.
• High steppe prices: Imported goods commonly cost several times their imperial prices; scarce supplies can cost ten times as much. Some tribes accumulate heavy debts to smugglers 26.
• Valuable exports: Imperial armor, bows, crossbows, spears, and sabers are prized on the grasslands for their superior quality 8 27.
• Strategic disruption: Imperial expeditions frequently target the khanate’s agriculture, keeping its cultivated land scattered and preventing large-scale production 27.

Military

Army Structure

The following figures describe the standing establishment before Alvin’s defeat, not the forces remaining afterward.

• Nominal strength: The empire claims a million soldiers, but the figure is explicitly described as inflated 4.
• Elite reputation: Tuwu commander Jeremiah cannot be certain of defeating any imperial main army with equal numbers 28.
• Proposed expansion: Lawrence calls for eight additional main battle armies and twenty-five additional garrison armies; lack of funding prevents immediate implementation 4.
• Logistical burden: Scott estimates that reinforcing the frontier with another 200,000 troops would require at least a million additional serfs for support 20.
• Mixed supply system: Military convoys operate alongside contracted merchant caravans. Originally economical, the arrangement has become deeply dysfunctional 20.

Ranks and Promotion

• Rank and appointment are separate: A captain may command a squad in a main army but an entire battalion in a supplementary formation 5 29.
• Unequal transfers: Main-army squad leaders can readily obtain larger commands in lower-status formations; supplementary officers need military merit to transfer upward 5.
• Promotion priorities: Background comes first, military merit second, and personal strength third 29.
• Ennoblement: Battlefield achievements can earn an ordinary soldier a knightly title and eventually a barony, although superiors may appropriate part of the credit 29.

Magic and Specialized Resources

• Mages: The empire has approximately 20,000–30,000 mages, mostly low-tier. Their expensive training makes them children of relatively wealthy noble families 21.
• Mage corps: The imperial mage corps is stationed in the capital. Dragon Spine Pass relies on a hastily assembled local force during its siege 21.
• Magical defenses: Dragon Spine Pass possesses magic crystal artillery and an anti-magic field, but both fail during the invasion 15 21 24.
• Communications: Elite units can carry small numbers of flying magical beasts for delivering messages 28.

Military Merit Verification

• Evidence: Claims require supporting proof, such as enemy heads or captured totem banners verified against intelligence records 23.
• Multiple reviews: Civil officials screen reports before further checks confirm the merits 43.
• Arena examinations: Suspicious personal kill claims can lead to an arena match against a knight whose strength corresponds to the claimed achievement 43.
• Reform legacy: The system was designed to restrain well-connected claimants and preserve advancement opportunities for lower-ranking soldiers. It limits extravagant claims but has not eliminated stolen credit 43.

Background and History

Rise and Conflict with the Tuwu

Before the empire’s rise, several states south of Dragon Spine Pass traded independently with the Tuwu tribes. Imperial unification reduced those trading partners to one and placed pricing power in the hands of northern frontier nobles. Disputes over unfavorable prices, repeated raids, and broken treaties escalated into warfare and the closure of trade routes 33.

Successive defeats forced the tribes to abandon nearby pastures and migrate farther north. Pressure from the empire encouraged their cooperation; after a century of consolidation, they formed the Golden Horde Khanate 33.

The empire subsequently launched more than a dozen northern expeditions without eliminating the threat. Its armies possessed greater overall strength, but mobile nomadic communities offered few fixed targets, and campaigns sometimes returned empty-handed 6.

Attrition and Territorial Losses

One five-year war reduced the khanate’s population by sixty percent and devastated its livestock. Zander recalls that upheaval elsewhere on the continent drew imperial attention southward before the khanate was destroyed 12.

Cross attributes the empire’s subsequent loss of continental supremacy to the exhaustion caused by that war. The Aodon and Radiance empires attacked together, Desais later forced territorial concessions, and Quake exploited the crisis to take five eastern vassal duchies 12.

The empire also attempted three unsuccessful campaigns against the ogres of the Andorra Peninsula. Difficult terrain, strong opposition, and the risk of exhausting itself for neighboring powers’ benefit prevented conquest 49.

Story Role and Major Arcs

Northern Defeat and the Fall of Dragon Spine Pass

Duke Alvin’s expedition collapses after fighting undead and then facing the enemy’s main force. Nearly 100,000 northern frontier elites are lost, alongside more than 200,000 supplementary troops; the empire’s forward fortresses also fall 4 5.

Alvin is relieved of command, and Lieutenant General Griffin takes responsibility for Dragon Spine Pass. Reinforcement plans stall amid court disputes over money, logistics, and the danger of weakening other borders 4 7 20.

Negotiations fail over the khanate’s enormous reparations demands. During the siege, defective artillery and a failed anti-magic field cripple the defense. The Tuwu sacrifice tens of thousands of prisoners to summon an Abyssal Demonic Dragon, which breaches the wall. The pass falls after holding for just over a month 10 15 21 22.

Imperial Defensive Response

After the breach, Lawrence calls on northern nobles to defend their castles, slow the invasion, and deny supplies to the enemy. Benjamin proposes bounties and titles for killing Tuwu warriors 22.

The invaders plunder Dragon Spine Province, but their advance becomes more costly as cities strengthen their defenses and lesser nobles gather in fortified settlements. Sebastian’s arriving forces then repel repeated attacks and push the front back two hundred li over more than ten days. His refusal to pursue recklessly turns the campaign into an attritional struggle and strengthens calls for withdrawal within the khanate 34 46.

Victor’s Isolated Army

Victor assumes command of the Third Supplementary Army after Viscount Sutton and the senior officers abandon it. Operating behind enemy lines, his troops destroy the Goshawk and Cors forces and acquire substantial livestock and supplies 1 12 14 20 21.

Tuwu intelligence mistakes the supplementary formation for the elite main Third Army. Its victories prompt Silas to divert the Seventh Tumen back to the grasslands; that force subsequently suffers a devastating defeat attributed by its commanders to an imperial curse 24 28 43 45 46.

Unable to return through the fallen pass, Victor marches west toward the Andorra Peninsula. He recruits Tuwu manpower for a campaign against its ogres, presenting the Holy Glory Empire as taking the lead in a struggle for humanity’s benefit 24 46 48 49.