Li Suyi
Li Suyi, Duke of Novi Nigrad (1650 AN - ...) is a Shirerithian nobleman, military officer and former Jingdaoese Tegong officer who was eventually promoted to the position of Marshall in 1691 AN. He became the leading figure of the organisation during the era of the Chidao Emperor and was known to rule his organisation with an iron hand. In contrast to his predecessors, he was known to travel a lot to personally investigate cases and the organisation's branches. As his visits brought him all over the Empire and his function brought him in direct contact with the Heavenly Light, he acted as his ears and eyes. His later career would see him involved in certain controversial aspects of the Decade of Inharmonious Regrets and the Fortuitous Immolation. Later assuming power as Minister for the Eastern Imperium in order to commence the campaign that would be known as the Chastisement of the Hereditary Lords.
Li's life and actions are highly controversial, even among his closest allies. In the 1710's he rapidly developed a reputation as heroic savior of a divided nation. His successes in crushing rebellious nobles and warlords, only hindered by bureaucracy and pleas from Shirekeep to keep casualties as low as possible, aided in improving his popularity. During the 1723 Party Congress of the MSM he used this popularity to support more moderate candidates. Nonetheless, his cruelty has not been forgotten among millions of Kildari, who see in him the personification of a dictatorial Tegong police secret force. His, and those of the Tegong, powers grew exponentially after the start of the Streïur uis Faïren in 1733 AN, to combat the social unrest. In 1741 AN he succeeded Tinker Sprocket as Prætor of the Landsraad.
Stance during the Troubles
When the Chidao Emperor ascended in 1695 AN and the post-Chidao Troubles began, Li was on an inspection in Qaoshan Province. Afraid that this sudden disappearance would destroy the status quo, he called upon the Tegong's several branches to assemble in the province. The port town of Genkaku, which was located at Lake Christoph and granted access to a large part of the Realm, became his new headquarters.
Due to the uncertain situation, Li was unwilling to directly support Houdezaiwu, despite the Tegong's immediate subordination to the Heavenly Throne. Li started envisioning a Jingdao which was liberated from impurity and began acting more and more as a local warlord, strengthening his power base. He threatened other factions that he would use the nuclear arsenal if they would wage full scale war, which limited the fighting and bloodshed.
While acting as mediator, Li himself knew well that most of his nuclear stockpile was outdated and could not function as deterrence forever. Only a few of his closest friends were aware of his plans to prepare his newly established state for full scale war.
Extremist tendencies
Having grown up to see the Heavenly Light as a god, he followed the Chidao Emperor as a shadow. Wherever he came, rebellions and subversive thoughts were squalled. His extremist tendencies, while useful in certain cases, were discouraged by the Emperor himself. Without His guiding hand, Liu's subordinates started to notice increasing rhetoric about cleansing Micras from impurity. Maps of the continent showed burned holes on places known for their lack of purity.
Forced retirement and studies abroad
In spite of being ostensibly on the side of the victors in the Post-Chidao Troubles, Li Suyi had made many enemies at court during the civil war, largely on account of his early failure to offer complete and unconditional fealty to the Heavenly Light, and his ominous reservations regarding the mooted union with Çakaristan. At the Conference of Apollo his vote for the appointment of Akbar Çakar, the Sultan of Çakaristan, as Emperor was a grudging one made out of consideration for the need of unity, and made only after his appeals to pour down atomic fire upon the rebels and their sponsors had been summarily rejected. This left him vulnerable to the intrigue that was organised against him by his lieutenant Shi Pupei and the eunuch courtiers inside the Forbidden Palace of Daocheng. As his worst fears regarding the Great Apollonian Empire falling to the cultural and political hegemony of the Cakari were increasingly realised, Li Suyi found himself side-lined and eventually obliged to accept an Imperial Rescript that had acknowledged his voluntary retirement. It was a stinging insult and Li Suyi would later remark that "It would have been preferable had I been permitted to drink the red tea of heavenly wrath, than to endure living with the shame of being dismissed from the light of heaven". In spite of being granted the honour of a pavilion and tea house in the outer wards of the Imperial Guang Palace, Li Suyi had instead resolved upon the distance of exile as the best salve for grief he felt at the betrayal he felt by Shi Pupei and the dynasty whom he had been raised from birth to serve unthinkingly. Not wishing to be wholly sullied by exposure to corrupted barbarians, he had elected to spend his self-imposed exile amongst the Jing resident in the port of Tiegang, the capital of the International Mandate.
It was a fortuitous decision as it spared him the fate of many associated with the old regime during the Second Kildarian Revolution and also fortuitously left him in helpful proximity to the Jingdaoese Mandate Regiment, one of the few formations of the Imperial Armed Forces to remain uncorrupted by the regretful period of history that would unfurl between 1700 AN and 1707 AN. It was during this period of enforced contemplation that Li Suyi first began to read locally available translations of the core texts of the Humanist movement, finding to his surprise much there that could be of use when it came to the purification of his ancestral homeland. Of course the Humanists would all have to die a dog's death eventually - how could they not, for they were not Jing - but for the restoration of obedience amongst the lesser races here was an ideology unmatched. Once all heresy and individuality had been burnt away from the minds of the servile, their hearts would once more be open to receiving the heavenly wisdom of the true Tianchaodao.
Li Suyi enjoyed a certain level of prestige amongst the purist officers of the Mandate regiment, hosting them for evenings of rice wine toasts to the memory of the Chidao Emperor and games of Go that would last into the early hours. The emeritus marshal during this time became known for his fiery and fervent monologues which were said to kindle and further stoke the patriotic ardour of those who were privileged to have heard them.
When he learnt of the death of the Tobu Emperor in 1704 AN, Li Suyi was said to have paused from sipping his tea to remark that it was a pity. Later that day he would pen a poem on the tendency of the discordant and the inharmonious to destroy themselves that was much admired for the classical brushwork of its calligraphy. If Li Suyi had thought that the fortuitous removal of the foreign interloper by a zealous patriot would set in motion the restoration of the Tianchaodao he was to be sorely disappointed, as his hated rival and nemesis Shi Pupei would respond not by restoring the Xinshi Emperor to her rightful dominion, but instead to commence a seditious intrigue against the throne with the exiled leader of the Nokarodo Faction, Wang Wei. The course of the Second Kildarian Revolution would leave Li Suyi disgusted but also, more importantly, bereft of his pension and the earnings of the Daocheng tea house owned in his name. As such it was fitting that he would seek to ameliorate the threat of dire poverty by seeking a teaching post at the School of the High Inquisitor of Tiegang where, from 1704 AN to 1707 AN, he would each certain elective subjects on the curriculum and serve as tutor for the eldest age cohort of the school. It was through the school that Li Suyi was able to overcome his famous aversion to foreigners, at least to the extent necessary in order to live safely amongst them, by participating in the faculty staff's various initiatory rituals held at the Blackfriars' Redux. These occasions at the local watering hole would also mark the first occasion where Li Suyi had come into direct contact with representatives of the Honourable Company in an environment other than a pain technician's operating booth.
Return to Politics
In 1741, after his ascension to the Landsraad as Duke of Novi Nigrad, and the retirement of Tinker Sprocket, Li Suyi was nominated to the position of Prætor of the Landsraad. He was unanimously elected to the position. In his speech of acceptance, he promised he would continue honouring the traditions of the Landsraad, but that he would not be able to even come close in the length of tenure of his predecessor, who had been prætor for 82 years straight.
The Eastern Imperium
The role played by Li Suyi in the Fortuitous Immolation will be recounted in due course. However, by 1716 AN, he was sufficiently disgusted by the chaos in Greater Kildare that he took it upon himself to take the Imperial banner into his own possession and acclaim himself Minister of the Eastern Imperium, which he combined with his reappointment to the position of Chairman of the Tegong. In the absence of firm directions from Shirekeep, Li Suyi resolved to take forth the banner armies and quell the squabbling dukes. In this he would have the support of Apollonia Command.
Family Life
Li Suyi's personal life was as complex and eventful as his career. Over the course of his life, he married four times and fathered nine children, some of whom followed him into the Tegong and served in other influential positions within the Jingdaoese state.
His first wife, Meng Xiaolan, was from a prominent Jingdaoese family, and they married in 1674 AN. Their union was short-lived, as Meng died unexpectedly in 1679 AN, leaving Li with two children:
- Ruifang Suyi (1675 AN), a daughter who became a scholar and court official, known for her writings on statecraft and the virtues of loyalty to the Heavenly Light.
- Daoming Suyi (1678 AN), who followed his father into the Tegong, eventually becoming a high-ranking officer. Daoming was instrumental in quelling several rebellious movements in northern Kildare during the Decade of Inharmonious Regrets. He would later serve as a regional commander in Dalmacija during the Chastisement of the Hereditary Lords.
In 1681 AN, Li Suyi remarried, this time to Cai Linhua, a relative of a Tegong commander. Their marriage produced three children before Cai’s death in 1690 AN:
- Junshi Suyi (1682 AN), who rose to the rank of commander in the Tegong but later became estranged from his father due to disagreements over the extent of Li Suyi's purist tendencies.
- Meiling Suyi (1685 AN), she remained largely out of politics, focusing on her family and serving as a teacher at the Military Academy of Blackrock.
- Yingjie Suyi (1686 AN), she pursued a diplomatic career, seeking to stabilize Jingdao's relations with the surrounding states during a tumultuous era. Was instrumental during the treaty negotations which led to the Treaty of Gaelen's Landing.
Li's third marriage, to San Huiyin, lasted from 1692 AN until her death in 1711 AN. Zhu, a woman of great intelligence and political acumen, was a frequent advisor to her husband during the height (and fall from) of his power. They had three children:
- Shen Suyi (1693 AN), who became an aid in the Ministry in the Eastern Imperium and was known for his pragmatic approach to governance, often tempering his father’s more extreme ideas.
- Xinyi Suyi (1696 AN - 1699 AN), a short-lived son who died during the post-Chidao Troubles when a syndicalist attempted to assasinate his father, Li.
- Yongrui Suyi (1697 AN ), she served as one of his father’s closest aides in the Tegong and played a key role in the Fortuitous Immolation, though her methods were criticized as excessively brutal even by Tegong standards.
His final marriage, to Wu Qiaomei, a woman much younger than himself, began in 1713 AN. Wu was often considered a stabilizing force in Li’s later years, providing him with a sense of peace as his political career faltered. They had one child together:
- Zhen Suyi (1715 AN), who entered the Tegong in his teenage years and gained a reputation as a highly efficient but ruthless operative at the frontline in Mishalan during the Maltenstein Meat Grinder (1734–1735).
Despite Li Suyi’s stern and often harsh public persona, his children spoke of him as a strict but devoted father, one who demanded excellence and loyalty both at home and in public service. His influence shaped the careers of many of his offspring, ensuring that the Li family remained closely tied to the inner workings of the Jingdaoese, and later Shirerithian, state.
In 1741, awarded the peerage of Duke of Novi Nigrad.
Quotes from Li Suyi
"The danger of Humanism lies in its attractiveness: in principle it is a watered-down version of Jingbuism, in which not the Jing is regarded as a perfect specimen, but humanity in itself. This gives minorities a chance to see themselves as more than they are. But let us not fall for this hypocrisy: the Humanists in our Imperial Republic are deluded fools (though sometimes ingenious fools, led by their pent-up frustrations with the establishment!). They do not realize that they are exchanging one patron for the Benecian Beast which borders our Imperial capital. Let the Tegong and other security forces be vigilant: luckily our people are weary of years of mismanagement and chaos, but today's words may inspire future leaders to stand up and seize rights for denizens. If necessary without the approval of the true - chosen by the gods - supreme rulers: they will bring our empire to ruin. When push comes to shove, this ideology will tear our empire apart, and this mighty realm will be reduced to a mere dependency of the lords and ladies of Chryse."
Fine. I can't blame you, as more Pure and Better People have failed where you did before. I'll do it, but know this—by the time I’m done with Novi Nigrad, you'll wish I left someone alive to complain about the mess. The rebels will paint the streets red with their failure. You’ll have your order, I will have the Purity, and... your silence. Let me do as I wish and our hands will be free to reduce the Humanists to whispers—if whispers could scream."
- Discussion between Li Suyi and Steward Thuylemans, early 1735 AN, after the move from Shirekeep to Novi Nigrad.
