The Great Ri Dynasty (alt. Great Nara Dynasty) was an Earth Kingdom dynasty ruling from Ba Sing Se after supplanting the 15th Earth Monarch and his Former Ting dynasty in 789 BG. It was a conquest dynasty founded by Northern semi-nomadic people under the rule of the Yonggan khagans. The Great Ri expanded the boundaries of the Earth Kingdom to their modern extent and ruled as emperors of a multi-ethnic empire. However, they were ultimately overthrown by their own indigenous officials and replaced with the native Hou-Ting dynasty in 620 BG.

Origins

The Yonggan are one of two originally steppe-dwelling semi-nomadic pastoralist peoples inhabiting regions to the northwest of Ba Sing Se, along with the Abka people. Their reputation in the Central and Southern Earth Kingdom was as bellicose barbarians; the frequent raids of steppe-dwellers were certainly one of the reasons for building the walls of Ba Sing Se. Over time, the Yonggan grew more sedentary and and some of their tribes even quit the steppe for the rolling foothills and mountains of the North. By contrast, the Abka continued to be nomads.

In the mountains, the Yonggan harvested, and then cultivated, ginseng. They also grew sorghum and raised badgermoles as working animals. They gradually became more friendly with the Central Earth Kingdom, developing either trade relations with the Central Earth Kingdom, either via traveling merchants, or in times when the power of the Earth Kingdom waxed strong, under the tribute system. At times, the Yonggan took payments and gifts from the Earth Monarch to defend the northern frontier against the raids of "wild" Abka tribes.

Unification of the Yonggan

The Nara clan of the Yonggan gradually rose to prominence in the 10-9th centuries BG. The Nara antagonized the Hala Khagan by independently sending tribute missions to Ba Sing Se and thus presuming to conduct diplomatic relations independently of the khaganate. This was a stratagem; however, by which the Hala were successfully provoked into attacking the Nara in their home territory. The Hala discovered too late that the Nara had been preparing for the war for years. The Nara armies were swollen with allied Abka cavalry and Zhang mercenaries, their peasant levies were well-drilled, and the land itself was prepared with numerous traps and obstacles ready to be deployed by Nara earthbenders. After the Hala invasion was crushed, the Nara pushed back into Hala territory, and forced the surrender of the Hala Khagan in 835 BG to the Nara Khan. The the first Nara khagan, Boosi (納喇·寶實) was acclaimed by the Great Council of the Yonggan in 833 BG. Boosi consolidated power and received the submission of all the Nara clans, before fighting several victorious campaigns against non-allied Abka nomads. His victoriesc continued to be buoyed by technological exchange and money from the Earth King. He ended his reign with power uncontested in the North.

Relations with the Earth Kingdom

The Yonggan Khagan continued to be a nominal vassal of the Earth King, with tribute missions being sent to Ba Sing Se on a regular basis. Although the tribute goods (jade and metals from mountain mines, cultivated and wild ginseng, and most especially trained badgermoles) the Yonggan clans sent were indeed valuable, the amount of silver and treasure sent North substantially exceeded it in value, and in return the Yonggan and allied Abka guarded the Northern Frontier.

Founding a Conquest Dynasty

in 790 BG, The Yonggan khagan, NARA Jaikan (納喇·界堪), a nominal vassal of the 15th Earth King, was asked by the king to help suppress a peasant uprising in Ba Sing Se. This involved letting the Yonggan armies into the city to suppress the rebellion. The King was not naive to the risk this posed to his dynasty (The Former Ting), but his diviners assured him that neither Jaikan nor any of his heirs would ever be Earth King. At first, this plan seemed to be successful as the well-trained Yonggan armies swiftly crushed the rebels. However, they were reluctant to leave Ba Sing Se despite the King's increasingly explicit insinuations that now would be an appropriate time for them to return to their own lands. in 789, the 15th Earth King was assassinated (very definitely by the a surviving peasant rebel, according to the Veritable Records of the Great Ri) and Jaikan declared a regency under himself. This offended the Ba Sing Se elite, despite the affirmation of diviners that Jaikan would not ascend the Badgermole Throne. An attempted palace coup tried to overthrow the Yonggan regency and install the teenage son of the 15th Earth King as 16th Earth King, but it was defeated and the plotters were killed; the son of the Earth King and several of his brothers were taken to Yonggan lands "for their protection." Jaikan installed his eldest son, Niohuru (鈕祜祿) as Emperor of the Greater Nara State; the Former Ting royal family in exile in Yonggan lands were treated comfortably but imprisoned and ultimately died out.

Unsurprisingly, many polities of the Earth Kingdom did not approve of the regime change; Jaikan and his sons fought them in the Nara-Ting campaigns under the banner of the "Great Nara."

When Jaikan died in 761 BG, Niohuru, now the Jìanēn (建恩, Establishing Grace) Emperor, became khagan as well and consolidated the offices. He completed the conquest of the Earth Kingdom in 755 BG, directly incorporating many polities that had previously only been tributaries or vassals of the Earth Monarch. He enfeoffed his brothers, one of his sisters, and many of his generals as a new feudal aristocracy, replacing the native Earth Kingdom elite in the regions that had opposed him; in areas that had submitted peacefully, he left the indigenous aristocracy and structures of power largely intact. The Jianen emperor also organized the Yonggan, their Abka allies from the West, and the lineages of some Central Earth Kingdom supporters into a banner army system, to promote the continuing development of martial skills and a separate "Great Ri" cultural identity.

The Great Ri

Collapse of the Dynasty

The Ri were ultimately overthrown in 620 BG in a coup orchestrated by native Earth Kingdom officials, who installed a descendant of a cadet branch of the Ting dynasty as the first Hou-Ting Earth King.

The Later Ri - The Nara after the loss of Ba Sing Se

The Earth Kingdom Civil War

The Nara in Exile