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Overview
Gaishan was the final emperor of the Ri Dynasty, though as he never ruled in Ba Sing Se, he is considered a pretender to the Earth Monarchy like his mother the Tiansheng Empress before him. Unlike his mother, who ruled substantial territories in the North and West at the beginning of her reign, Gaishan's authority as Ri Emperor was only acknowledged by the scattered mountain strongholds holding out against the Royal Earth Army of the Hao Ting at the time of his succession. He reigned for only two years before the last of these was overrun, and the Hao Ting announced that he had been killed in the burning of his palace along with his family members there. Rumors persisted for years afterward that Gaishan had survived, fleeing with visiting Air Nomads into exile and living out the rest of his years as a cloistered monk in the Southern Air Temple.
Early Life
In 634, Jinglian gave birth to a son, Gaishan. Like his mother, he was not expected to ascend the Badgermole throne, as he had older uncles with children of their own. Nonetheless, his father was the Yulu-Nara Prince of Wa, an important member of the Yonggan conquest elite, hereditary commander of the Speckled Yellow Banner. As the direct male-preference-primogeniture heir apparent of Yulu Nara (a younger brother of the dynastic founder), he was an Imperial Granite Prince from birth. Because of his anticipated future military responsibilities, he was given a vigorous martial education by his parents.
Gaishan, like many of the Nara clan, was a fairly talented Earthbender. He also excelled at riding the ostrich-horse and learned mounted Earthbending from a skillful but hot-tempered Nogai retainer who was deputy veterinarian (弼馬溫) of the princely stables of Wa.
In 620, while the young prince was away at his father's fief, the reign of his grandfather NIOHURU-NARA Turusi, the Taigai Emperor and twenty-second Earth Monarch, was overthrown by a coup orchestrated by the native officials of the Empire, who were threatened by the Emperor's reforms and attempts to centralize power with the throne and Yonggan elite. A counter-coup failed and the supporters of the Niohuru-Nara established a rump dynasty in the North and West, still describing themselves as the Great Ri but generally known to historians as the Northern Ri. With no surviving male heir - Turusi's adult sons and their nuclear families were killed in the coup - the supporters of the Ri enthroned Gaishan's mother Jinglian as Tiansheng Empress in the Imperial Hunting Lodge after a brief interregnum, in 619 BG.
As Jinglian's oldest son, Gaishen was then groomed as her Imperial Crown Prince as well as the heir to the principality of Wa.
Marriage
In 610 BG, Gaishen was married to Niohuru-Nara Tabai (630-579?), from among his mother's surviving kinfolk; she was a distant cousin. It is likely that this marriage was arranged so that Gaishen's successor would be a member of the Niohuru-Nara clan, and the intention was that he would later take a secondary wife from the Yulu-Nara to be mother to the future Prince of Wa - the Imperial Succession Council considered it improper for the offices of Prince of Wa and Emperor to be consolidated if it could be avoided. However, this never came to pass.
The War of the Dynastic Transition
After some years of dealing with Ri partisans and loyalists in the Southern and Central Earth Kingdom, in 610, the Hao-Ting began a serious campaign to conquer the Northern Ri. Gaishan's father, the Prince of Wa, died in battle in 607. Gaishan himself had grown into an able military commander, coming of age fighting the Royal Earth Army of the Hao Ting, but his efforts were doomed by the vastly superior base of personnel and supplies available to the rival dynasty ruling in Ba Sing Se.
Over time, the Hao Ting chipped away at the territory of the Northern Ri, until there only remained fortified mountain redoubts of the Nara Clan and their supporters. The Royal Army was able to overcome the superior defenses and earthbending with force of numbers and, as the tide of the war became clear, superior discipline - many opportunists of the Western Yonggan defected or attempted to take a neutral position when neither retaking Ba Sing Se nor establishing an independent khaganate in the West seemed viable.
Ascension, Reign, and Apparent Death
Gaishan's mother Jinglian died of a stroke in 587, and was succeeded by her son as the Gainan Emperor, pretender 24th Earth Monarch and the last of the Northern Ri. He was enthroned in the grandiosely-renamed Solar Palace of the Eastern Mountains, previously the Eastern Badgermole Arts Lodge, and the only imperial building of any stature still controlled by the rump dynasty.
Despite occasional military victories and punishing losses inflicted on the Hao Ting by the Ri and the mountain climate, the strongholds loyal to the old dynasty fell one-by-one to the Royal Earth Army, with almost all members of the imperial clan (the Niohuru-Nara) being executed in an attempt to firmly eradicate the rival dynasty. The only members intentionally spared were some peripheral courtiers who defected soon after the Great Ri was expelled from Ba Sing Se and renounced their claims to the Badgermole Throne.
Envoys of the Hao Ting attempted to negotiate a peace, but Gaishan refused to receive them. The then five-year-old Earth Avatar could do nothing to help them come to terms on account of his age.
At last, in 579, the last of the mountain redoubts fell and the Hao Ting sacked it, burning and looting the palace and massacring the Niohuru-Nara they found there, besides many others. A pair of charred corpses were presented as that of Yulu-Nara Gaishan and his wife Tabai, but unlike many of the other bodies of the former Imperial family found that day, Gaishan and Tabai were only identified by their jewelry.
Possible Later Life
Whatever his actual fate, Gaishan disappeared to history after the last of the mountain redoubts of the Northern Ri was conquered by the Hao Ting in 579. Rumors surfaced that he and Tabai, or perhaps one or the other alone, had escaped into exile. The most persistent legend is that Gaishan fled with some Air Nomads visiting his capital and lived out his days as a cloistered monk in the Southern Air Temple. Other stories have him living with his wife as a guest of the abbot of an obscure Air Nomad skete in Poshan or Qinyue; the latter destination remains popular with surviving yimen of Qin the Conqueror's abortive dynasty in the region.
Historical Appraisal and Legacy
Historians affiliated with the Hao Ting, and indeed the literate culture of the Central Earth Kingdom more broadly, tend to hold a very negative view of Gaishan; his stubborn and futile defense of the the Northern Ri cost many lives on both sides and left a legacy of ill-will that may have fueled early support by the Yonggan of the Earth Kingdom Civil War waged by Qin the Conqueror.
Among the nomadic peoples of the west, Gaishan is generally regarded as a tragic hero, even among their historians critical of his refusal to entertain a negotiated peace with the Hao Ting. He is the subject of various popular plays and songs performed in the North and West, though their historical accuracy is decidedly secondary to dramatic requirements.
Worldbuilding Comments
Gaishan's fate is similar to Jianwen of the Great Ming. The usurper is sometimes supposed to have sent the famous eunuch admiral Zheng He on his journeys of exploration at least partially to chase down rumors that the Jianwen Emperor survived his alleged demise and was living in anonymity as a monk.