Jahangir Khan

Jahangir Khan
Full name	Jahangir Aziz Khan
AKA	His Serenity
Physical information
Species	Human
Race	Babkhan
Gender	Male
Biographical information
Date of birth	1.I.1657 AN
Place of birth	Vijayanagara
Residence(s)	Palace of One Thousand Columns, Ardashirshahr
Nationality	Benacian Union  Elluenuueq
Allegiance(s)	Nationalist & Humanist Party
Occupation	Szodan of Elluenuueq

Jahangir Aziz Khan (born 1.I.1657 AN, Vijayanagara), politician and Humanist of the Benacian Union. Szodan of Elluenuueq since 1722 AN.

Biography

Early life

Born as the youngest of four brothers, six years after the Auspicious Occasion to a middle class family which had come into wealth by claiming bounties for fugitive Froyalaners, Jahangir Khan found his early life of affluence cut short in his infancy as in 1660 AN his parents were obliged to flee their ancestral home ahead of the arrival of Cimmerian militiamen at the onset of the First Elwynnese Civil War. Left destitute in an Alalehzamini refugee camp at the end of the conflict in 1669 AN, Jahangir Khan completed his primary and secondary education at gymnasia controlled by the Army of the Southern League in Islus where his family was ultimately resettled. Whilst the family fortunes had recovered after his mother had established a human resources agency specialising in providing Babkhi workers as temporary employees for Elw companies during the Roqpin holidays, Jahangir, as the youngest son, was obliged to find his own way into adult life.

With the Kalirion Fracture commencing the year prior to his graduation in 1672 AN, Jahangir found his path into the People's Academy of Elwynn blocked by the chaotic circumstances of the period immediately prior to the restoration of Elwynnese independence. Instead of pursuing higher education, Jahangir, after a variety of temporary and menial jobs provided by his parent's agency company, began his career as an officer of the Union Defence Force, having enlisted in 1675 AN at the age of eighteen in order to pursue his degree studies under a bursary scheme with the Elwynnese Military and Naval Academy, known colloquially as the Royal Academy of Warfare, in Eliria.

Commissioned as a Löjtnant in the 3rd Jägarbataljon of the 15th Division, had achieved the rank of Kapten by 1679 AN, having passed through the Second Amokolian War without playing any part in hostilities. Shortly after receiving his promotion he had been assigned to the Peace and Stability Mission in Angularis as part of bandit hunting operations directed against the 'Nclavesci in Northern Tellia, which in the following year had been expanded to include garrisoning duties provided for by the Northern Tellia Agreement. From 1681 AN to 1683 AN Khan was attached to Berht Klarænst as part of an officer exchange programme between the UDF and the Black Legions. The experience of Khan in the Unified Governorates was something he subsequently would describe as a "culture shock". Although he would develop a lifelong loathing of Central Benacian cuisine, his appreciation of Schleps Gin, cultivated during that period, would prove to be similarly enduring.

He would discover, to his dismay, that he had been disowned by his family after they had learnt of his forming a relationship with a "Vanic harlot" he'd first met in the dive bars of Sansabury. The accusation of consorting with a Vanic had been a serious one, and very nearly terminated his career as it had resulted in an investigation by the officer commanding 15th Division "Angularis". Acquited of "blood defilement" by a court of honour, the woman had in fact been Wintergleamish and her family redeemed after the Auspicious Occasion, his progression through the ranks had nonetheless been harmed by the association, and the attention it had brought upon him. He was subsequently transferred to the 21st Works Division and placed on half-pay, a position where he would languish until the Amokolian Revolution of 1685 AN.

West Amokolia

Along with many other politically and morally suspect officers who had been shunted into unfulfilling duties rather than subjected to the kinds of punishment that would attract the unwanted attention of Ayreonist officials in the civilian government, Jahangir Khan found himself abruptly recalled from obscurity at the onset of Operation Amok-Dag, the intervention of Benacia Command of the Raspur Pact and the UDF in the break-up of Benacian Francia. Khan found himself attached to the logistics staff and supply train of the XXIII Combined Arms Corps and swiftly thereafter directed to Tsofnhafen where he was thrown into the unfamiliar task of serving in the occupation administration of a significant city under the direction of the Commission for the Integration of Amokolia.

While Khan had expected his duties to revolve around the logistical problems of a city under occupation, he instead soon found himself along with an ad hoc squadron-strength contingent of UDF personnel, thrust into the vexing and dangerous task of maintaining public order in an allotted district of Tsofnhafen, as the Amokolian population had reacted with fury to the efforts of the CIA to suppress the Amokolian Revolution and depose Kir Azariah Vidar, the fleeting King of West Amokolia. The small contingent, assailed from all sides and caught in the fighting between Amokolian and Germanian communities, successfully held onto the collection of warehouses and administrative buildings which had been optimistically designated as a patrol base until relieved by a sizeable detachment of cudgellers hurriedly assembled and dispatched from Elwynn to restore order. The fortitude Khan had shown by remaining at his post served him in good stead and he was subsequently granted a brevet promotion to Major and assigned to the Sector Reconstruction Team of the Fourth Sector Sub-Command. Khan would later remark that it had been easy to remain at his post under the circumstances as there had been nowhere to escape to whilst the ravening mob was outside.

He would nonetheless be grateful to quit his duties in Tsfonhafen after the formal annexation of West Amokolia in XIII.1685, which saw his duties handed over to the newly minted civil authorities.

Remaining garrisoned in the region, his next posting was to the headquarters administrative staff of VIII Territorial Inspectorate in Pozdam, where he settled into the comfortable life of a professional officer on full pay with access to all the amenities of a cantonment adjacent to a significant regional city. Whilst other officers sought postings that would burnish their careers, or else were willing to lay down the significant cost of purchasing their next commission, Jahangir was content with the hand that fate had finally dealt him, and enjoyed the life of a man whose duties were not so onerous as to preclude him from a life of luxury. The downside, however, of waiting on seniority in order to progress to the next rank, that of överste-löjtnant, was that his turn could not be reasonably expected to come before 1697 AN. Whilst this necessarily entailed the stagnation of his career, Jahangir was not one to mind, so long as his salary, along with the perks associated with management of a significant inventory of equipment with an appreciable resale value, was sufficient to cover the expenses he routinely incurred at his preferred casino, gentleman's club, and tailor.

As it was, his idyll was only to last seven years before events, set in motion in distant Eliria, were to bring his indolent dreams crashing down in the midst of the ruins of the Elwynn that might have been.

Second Elwynnese Civil War

The treachery that unfurled when the governments of Amokolia and Upper Elwynn attempted their illegal secession from Elluenuueq on 12.II.1692 AN with the declaration of the Republic of Elwynn and Amokolia. Mutinies and disorders quickly spread through the rank and file of the UDF, with distressing and bewildering speed. On 13.III.1692 AN mutinies broke out in the area of the VIII Territorial Inspectorate, centred around Pozdam and covering Western Amokolia up to the frontier with Batavia. Mirroring the process of disintegration that had hit the UDF garrisons around Eliria in the preceding month, while corps commanders remained uniformly loyal, divisional commanders showed more inclination to be swayed by their mutinous soldiery. Fully five out of the eight UDF divisions assigned to the region were swayed to the rebel cause and defected to the "Self-Defence Forces". It was fortunate for the UDF however that the 15th Division "Angularis" and the 5th Pansarfördelningen counted amongst the diminished contingent of loyalist forces. Through them a rough triangle of territory, encompassing Einhorn, Pozdam, and Tel-Amok, remained in loyalist hands. Nonetheless the Batavian and Kalgachi frontiers were now under the control of the SDF and the rebel government.

In the chaos of those dark days, as the beleaguered loyalists held on to Pozdam whilst assailed from sides, attacked from without and within, Jahangir found that his career progression was now being swiftly moved along by the constant attrition of battlefield casualties, assassinations, desertions, and rumoured defections, opening up new places in the higher command structure, leaving posts for him to helpfully backfill. By the winter of 1692 AN he found himself as the brevet överste of a regimental combat group attached to the defence of Pozdam, assailed by brigade strength SDF formations commanded in large part by former comrades, including men whom he had once deigned to consider friends.

Effectively trapped within a pocket of loyalist territory deep within traitor-held Amokolia, Jahangir endured the privations of what was to all effects a siege alongside those under his command, as well as those civilians, including those whose loyalties were suspect, who had been unable to escape into rebel territory before the frontlines had become fixed. With the failure of the Western Amokolia Offensive (15.VII.1693 AN – 23.VIII.1693 AN) to break the encirclement, the defenders of Pozdam would begin to suffer the second order effects of the strategy pursued by Benacia Command of starving out the rebel territories through the interdiction and destruction of stored foodstuffs in rebel territories. Food shortages during 1693 AN – 1694 AN would quickly become felt in the loyalist held enclave and left the garrison wholly dependent on supplies airlifted from Mishalan, at great risk to the aircrews which ran the gauntlet of SDF fighter and ground-based air defence interdiction missions. Seldom were the monthly targets for garrison's food requirements met, those of the civilian population were met not at all, and only those involved in essential war work could expect even a fraction of the reduced rations offered to the UDF defenders. Towards the end, soldiers were obliged to make up the shortfall in their rations by plundering civilians in their area of operations most ruthlessly for even the merest suspected morsel or crumb of food. It was the hunger that made the deepest impression on Jahangir Khan during that time. He would later say that even the rations doled out by the UGB, which he otherwise would liken to offal bulked out with sawdust, would have been welcome under those circumstances.

It would only be with the Scouring (20.XIV.1695 AN) that the frontlines would be cracked open, allowing for the commencement of an apocalyptic "endsieg" scenario where Pact aligned forces struck northwards into Amokolia making rapid gains whilst the entirety of the north, loyalist and traitor alike, unravelled amidst scenes of horror and despair. In the end the 1st Pansararmé had between 16.XV.1695 and 17.XV.1695 crushed a counteroffensive by the Western Amokolian Front formations of the SDF, and pursued the broken remnants of V Corps from Cherokee to Hyfrost. By the end of these battles Jahangir had been hospitalised with what was diagnosed as "psychological exhaustion". At some point news had reached him that the entirety of his family, with whom he had exchanged not a single word since the absurd affair of the girl from Sansabury, had perished during the rebel countervalue strike which had destroyed Islus.

Reconstruction era

A vengeful spirit could be said to have possessed Jahangir, as he languished in a field hospital outside Malexander during the dreadful final month of 1695 AN and the first months of 1696 AN leading into the spring that never came. The winter of 1695 AN – 1696 AN was said to have been the worst in living memory, although this would soon be eclipsed in the popular memory by the horrors of the so-called "Hunger Winter" of 1696 AN – 1697 AN. The bleakness of the season could be said to have matched Jahangir's own mood. Although he would not speak of the grief he might have felt at the death of his family during the Scouring, his actions spoke. The regimental combat team which he had somehow come to command during the defence of Pozdam had been broken up and its survivors reintegrated into their parent units, those that remained extant at any rate. Jahangir had however been confirmed as substantive in the rank which had formerly been a brevet commission. What he lacked was a posting to go with the rank to which he was now entitled. He accounted for this by seeking one out, volunteering for the singularly grim duty assigned to the occupation forces now garrisoning conquered Amokolia. Grain requisitioning had been mandated by Benacia Command as a form of collective punishment for those communities where partisan resistance was still manifesting in the months after the rebel collapse. If any armed resistance was reported, the nearest villages would be swept, and all grain and foodstuffs were to be confiscated. Khan willingly assented to a transfer of his commission into the Elwynnese Landstorm, which had the responsibility for undertaking these reprisal actions against the defeated rebel communities.

Finding volunteers for this task was rare enough, finding an officer willing to commit to the task with an efficient zeal was rarer still. It caused Jahangir Khan to be noticed favourably by higher command for the first time in his career.

Career

• 6.II.1708 AN – 19.IX.1722 AN: President of the Realm’s General Staff, Vice President of the Civil Executive, Director of the Executive Bureau
• 19.IX.1722 AN – : Archon of the Third Degree, N&H National Sector Party of Elluenuueq
• 19.IX.1722 AN – : Candidate Szodan of Elluenuueq