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Overview
Niohuru-Nara Tuhai was the Yongguang Emperor of the Great Ri, the Yonggan conquest dynasty that ruled in Ba Sing Se. He was the eighteenth enumerated Earth Monarch.
As eldest son, he succeeded his father the Renxian Emperor in 712 BG when he was 44 years old. His reign was peaceful and devoid of major turmoil, but it was very short, as he died during the imperial hunt as a result of an accident in 710. Having produced no children, the Imperial Clan Council of Succession enthroned his younger brother as his successor.
Early Life
Tuhai was born during the reign of the dynastic founder, his grandfather the Jianen Emperor. Though he had many older sisters, Tuhai was the first son of the imperial crown prince Niohuru Nara Arjin, aged 38 at the time of Tuhai's birth. His mother was Nara Muke, a Yonggan noblewoman of the imperial clan.
Tuhai was a keen hunter from childhood. Though bright and a decent student, but preferred spending time riding and hunting with his nomadic vassals whenever his father would permit it. As a young man, he showed little interest in women, and openly preferred the romantic company of men, especially his favorite Hoifa Boosi, a Yonggan scholar and huntsman.
In 745, when Tuhai was a teenager, his father ascended the throne after the death of the Jianen emperor, and made Tuhai crown prince. A few years later, in a pairing arranged by his family, he married his cousin Yulu-Nara Hojo in 739, when he was 22 and she was 20. Hojo was pregnant three times during the early years of their marriage, but never carried a pregnancy to term, suffering a miscarriage each time.
While crown prince, Tuhai wrote a manual of hunting and traditional Yonggan life, probably with the assistance of Boosi and others learned in the traditional semi-nomadic ways of their culture.
Ascension to the Throne
In 712, Tuhai's aged father, the revered Renxian Emperor, died in his sleep. Tuhai succeeded him, proclaiming the Yongguang Era. Broadly speaking, he continued his father's policies, though he pursued a less confrontational foreign policy than his predecessor on the Badgermole throne. He also decided against further expeditions to find the antipodes, a project of his father's which had, he felt, cost too many lives already. He continued his father's policy of criminal justice reform, extending the reforms to many of the Earth Kingdom's constituent states where they had previously been inapplicable.
With regard to the Imperial Clan, Tuhai was concerned that members growing up in the Central Earth Kingdom, and in particular in Ba Sing Se, were losing contact with their nomadic roots. He sponsored various programs to counteract this, and issued two edicts ensuring that all members of the banner armies would have to demonstrate proficiency in the traditional Yonggan martial arts in order to receive their military stipends from the government.
Later Life and Death
Unsurprisingly, the Imperial Hunt was of great significance to Tuhai. During the hunt of 710 BG, he suffered a fatal accident. Customarily, the Emperor was protected by the elite guards of the Light Green Banner during the hunt, but Tuhai had them stay back as his party was stalking an unusually large rhinocerous-bison in the foothills of the Northern Barrier Mountains, as he felt they were too noisy and scaring away game. Unexpectedly, the quarry turned and charged, pushing the hunting party's stone barrier down on top of them. The Emperor was killed instantly with several other party members who were crushed. Ironically, his hunting manual had cautioned hunters against such a possibility, but he did not build the bracing his own manual prescribed.
After Tuhai's death, his wife Hojo became a nun, and enjoyed a long life, though she was banished from the capital in 671 during the reign of the Huowang Emperor (because of her criticism of his lack of moral virtue, most likley) and lived out the remainder of her life in Yonggan Lands.
His other lover, Hoifa Boosi, had gotten along poorly with the Emperor's younger brother, and retired to his rural fief in the Nemuland.
Historical Appraisal and Legacy
Tuhai's short reign receives broadly positive appraisal from historians, but the state faced no major crisis during his reign. His excessive interest in hunting is sometimes criticized, as is his failure to take additional wives or concubines to produce an heir. However, the better-informed near-contemporary historians refrain from harsh judgement, as the dynasty was secure through his brothers with children. It seems to be the case that he refrained from taking additional (female) partners because of concern for his wife's feelings, rather than because of his sexual preferences as some critical Hao-Ting historians claimed in their history of the Ri.
His successor made some minor amendments to the dynastic regulations intended to make the imperial hunt safer, though it remained somewhat dangerous, as in the case of the Jianshun Emperor who was permanently disabled as a result of a hunting accident.
Tuhai's hunting manual is well known down to this day among the Yonggan, and a collection of poetry he wrote is well-regarded, though it was censored by the Hao-Ting and usually circulates in a bowdlerized version today which removes some homoerotic content in the original. He composed poems in both the Yonggan language and Common.