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Overview
Niohuru-Nara Gagai was the nineteenth Earth Monarch and Emperor of the Ri Dynasty who ruled in Ba Sing Se. The second son of his father, he was not initially expected to become emperor, but as his older brother seemed disinclined or unable to produce children, he was eventually recognized as heir apparent. His older brother died without heirs after a short reign, and the Badgermole Throne passed to Gagai. A deeply religious man, Gagai patronized the the Air Nomad Religion as well as Yonggan traditional religion; he played a major role in shaping the State Religion of the Great Ri. Interested in secular scholarship as well, Gagai somewhat neglected the affairs of state in favor of his writings and discussions with eminent scholars of the Empire. He died of natural causes, leaving the throne to his son Isangga.
Early Life
Gagai was born the second son of Niohuru-Nara Arjin in 759, during the reign of the Jianen Emperor, the dynastic founder of the Great Ri. His mother was Arjin's paramount wife, Nara Muke. He had a relatively happy childhood, and enjoyed a close relationship with his older sisters and brother. Scholarly by nature, he spent long hours in the library and with his tutors.
After the banner armies defeated a Hao loyalist warlord in the Malachite Archipelago in 745, the young Gagai accompanied a visit to the new territories. While there, he became ill with a fever and was thought close to death; thanks to the intervention of Air Nomad herbalist-healers, he recovered. Having had a religious experience while ill, he thereafter hewed more closely to the Air Nomad religion of Angjiao than to traditional Yonggan ways, though he continued to honor the customs and ceremonies of the state religion throughout his life. When he returned home from the Malachite Archipelago after his convalescence, he learned that his grandfather the Jianen Emperor had died, and his father Arjin ascended the badgermole throne as Renxian Emperor. At the young prince's request, his father provided him with tutors versed in Angjiao, including a lama from the Northern Air Temple and scholars from Poshan.
Gagai married Muru-Nara Keqin, his only wife, in 743. They were unusually young; both 16 years old. The two had known each other since childhood, and Keqin had apparently gotten pregnant, as their first child, a boy they named Atai, was born seven months after the wedding. Gagai insisted that Keqin be his paramount wife, and the Emperor gave his blessing despite the Muru Nara family being peripheral members of the imperial clan whose base of power was rural and relatively unimportant from a political perspective.
A second son followed, Isangga, in 741, as well as twin daughters Xianyu and Xianmei. He took four concubines over the course of his life, mostly as diplomatic gestures, and fathered eleven other children with them. However, Keqin remained his only wife.
Unfortunately, Atai was not a healthy child. Tragedy struck the family when the 7 year old boy died of illness in 736.
As time went on, it became increasingly clear that Gagai's older brother, Tuhai, would not produce children. Therefore, Gagai began to groom Isangga for the throne. As with his own education, Gagai provided both air nomad and earth kingdom tutors for Isangga. Issanga married a Yonggan woman (a distant cousin, Aisin-Nara Ilha) in 720, and in 713, an air nomad woman named Lolha, who would go on to become a powerful empress dowager.
In 712, the Renxian Emperor died, and Gagai's older brother Tuhai ascended the throne as Yongguang Emperor. Gagai was appointed crown prince, as Tuhai had no children. However, the Yongguang era would be brief, as the emperor was killed during the imperial hunt of 710.
Ascension to the Throne
With the death of his older brother, Gagai's succession to the throne was ratified by the Imperial Clan Council of Succession. A deeply spiritual man, he choose the name Shenxing, reflecting his spiritual ambitions for the dynasty.
From the start of his reign, the Shenxing emperor was less interested in the temporal affairs of the state than his predecessors. He held court regularly and generally fulfilled his secular duties, but usually left the decisions about such matters to his ministers, powerful scholar-officials. The highest-ranking of these became known as the Eight Supernal Ministers（八天官). The administrative state of the Shenxing era waxed powerful and, unfortunately, also became corrupt.
In international affairs, he was rather more yielding than any of the earlier Ri emperors, but enjoyed a good working relationship with the Air Avatar Sangye. This brought something of a peace dividend to the Shenxing Era, as money and labor were freed from the expensive military pursuits of the first two emperors.
Scholarship and Patronage of Religion
Gagai, perhaps the most scholarly of the Ri emperors, was a great patron of scholarship and religion. Wishing to know the Empire better, now that it had reached its full extent, he ordered the compilation of an Imperial Gazetteer. Running to 319 volumes, it was anthologized from updated local gazetteers throughout the empire; this work was funded mostly by the imperial court; the Ministry of State Revenue disbursed twelve million silver taels toward the project. (Though an exceptionally fine gazetteer was produced, it is likely that a great deal of the money was embezzled.) Gagai also funded an encyclopedia project, but it was not completed despite several million taels being spent on the project. More successful (and economical) projects saw handbooks of medicine and agriculture being compiled under his supervision, which were notable for the contributions of visiting scholars from other elemental nations and from the minority peoples of the Earth Kingdom.
Gagai renovated the temples and religious facilities of the capital, and many facilities of the Earth Sages. His greatest act of religious patronage toward the traditional religion of the Earth Kingdom (as opposed to Angjiao or Yonggan religion) was to lavishly redecorate the Hall of Sublime Earth in the agricultural zone of Ba Sing Se, which had been rebuilt by his grandfather the Jianen Emperor.
Gagai continued to favor Angjiao. He made favorable agreements with the Northern Air Temple in Angxue State, relieving the monks of all but a token tribute obligation and providing them with a regular subsidy of grain and silver. Though he was generally perceived as being biased in the favor of the Air Temple because of his own religious sympathies, he did also secularize the administration of the temple's lands, feeling that excessive involvement in administration of these lands distracted monks from their religious duties. Instead, Ri dynasty officials were appointed to supervise the lands, remitting the rents to the Air Temple. The monks were divided about the benefits of this; most were glad to be rid of duties as monks-officials, but some did not approve of the stricter management the secular officials brought.
Gagai donated large amounts of land in the far southeast to the Eastern Air Temple, justifying it to the court by pointing out that it was remote and indefensible, and with a mountainous interior well suited to sky bison pastoralism anyway; the region had few earth nationals and was already frequented by air nomads.
Under his supervision, the Angjiao shrine in Ba Sing Se was rebuilt, sparing no expense. Being entirely above ground, unlike most spiritual facilities of the earth nations, it had a commanding presence on the skyline of the inner ring. (Its central pagoda burned down during the reign of earth king Jialun of the Hao Ting, and it was abandoned for a generation before being rebuilt in the more modest Poshanese style.)
Later Life and Death
Gagai continued in much the same vein as his reign went on. An uprising in the Eastern Earth Kingdom in 701 was put down by the banner armies, and a conflict with the Northern Water Tribe was resolved through the mediation of the Avatar.
At the time of his death, the emperor was sponsoring the compilation of a handbook of architecture. Unlike his encyclopedia project, the handbook of architecture was eventually completed during the reign of his son.
At the age of 68, Gagai had a heart attack. Initially, it was thought he would survive, but he died a few days later. (There were contemporary rumors that he was poisoned by a disaffected Yonggan shaman attending him.) He had almost twenty years on the throne, which was passed to his second son (and the oldest surviving), Isangga.
Historical Appraisal and Legacy
Gagai has a strongly mixed legacy among historians. Some praise his peaceable nature and willingness to compromise - despite having such a peaceful reign, he lost no significant amount of territory except what he gave willingly to the Air Nomads and, with the exception of some brief and localized interruptions, continued to collect taxes from the remainder of the territory conquered by his predecessors. His tolerance for religious and ethnic minorities, continuing policies established under his predecessors, were successful. His scholarly projects, though expensive, were of great benefit; his agricultural handbook is, in updated form, still used today.
However, in letting the bureaucracy become so powerful, Gagai sowed the seeds of the dynasty's eventual destruction. Yonggan historians judge him harshly for this. His reputation for favoritism toward the Air Nomads (both those resident in the territory of the Earth Kingdom and the air nations) made his supposed letter asking his son to appoint the infamous Kuazha as crown prince seem plausible to many in court, even though it was likely forged.