Bogyoke U Setiawan
General Setiawan of the Blue Standard Army was in front of a small cavalry unit moving quietly on the Pansodan Boulevard. He was a short but fat man, with a big belly that was weighting on the horse that was carrying him. He was in his late 50s, with wrinkles and gray hair. He was wearing his long grey hair in a bun, hidden under a light cotton hat. He had a short moustache that still had some black hairs in it and very lively black eyes. On his left, Eko, the chamberlain of the Mara Zi Palace and of Emperor Krisna Lestari. He was a very tall man and big man who also had a prominent belly. He was twenty years younger than the General and was wearing his hair in a queue, a Yujiner fashion. As the unit was slowly moving on the street between wooden buildings in the dark city, General Setiawan stopped it by raising his hand. Immediately a soldier from the back came to him.
“Go in front of us and see if the Hcaung is in their barracks, as its planned.”
The soldier started galloping towards the palace without saying anything. Eko approached the general.
“Bogyoke U Setiawan, I told you that my part was done with utmost care and it was successful. The captains of the Hcaung know about our move and will open us the way for it,” he said with a weak voice showing some weak protest.
“Maung Eko, you are so naïve… If the Hcaung was so open and ready to join our action, they would have done it themselves and there shouldn’t have been any need to bring a unit of the Blue Standard Army in the city. They said yes to you but it may also be a trap. Maybe this whole city is just faking its quietness, whereas in reality, the whole Red, Yellow and Green Standard Armies may be coming after us by now,” said General Setiawan as he looked at the sky and then at the wooden huts that were forming the majority of the buildings in this, “lower” part of the city. There were flags hung at every five to ten houses. One thing was clear with the Arakanese; they really liked their golden peacock on red background flag.
Suddenly, a light was opened in a house to the left of the General. The road was so narrow, even if it was called a boulevard, that if ten men were standing in line, they could reach with their hands the buildings from one side to the other. Setiawan moved his horse to the right side of the road and took out his sword. The soldiers around his also prepared either their swords or their modern lever-action firearms. Setiawan wanted this unit to have the best equipment he could find for this action. A half asleep half awoke man got out of the house and literally got right in the middle of the soldiers. When he saw all the horses, swords and rifles pointed at him he started screaming at first and then he started to prostate in front of the general to beg for mercy.
“Just move away…” he said with disgust. The man immediately ran back into the house and he extinguished immediately the oil lamp. Darkness again has befallen on the street. Setiawan listened around carefully. He was afraid that this event may have started a domino effect that may have woken up the whole town. He was surprised. Other than the horses breathing and sometimes rumbling through their nostrils, nothing could be heard. He listened again, to be sure. This time, he was thinking that something could be heard. He didn’t know at first if it’s his imagination or he was really hearing something. No… There was something there… and its approaching fast.
“Stay prepared!” he told the soldiers near him.
A few seconds later, the soldier he sent to the palace returned. He saluted and then reported:
“Bogyoke U Setiawan, I report that the Hcaung is in the barracks. Their standards and banners could be seen, but there is not movement there. I even entered the palace grounds and no one could be seen there.”
“Good… Go back in line. Maung Eko!” As the chamberlain came to him, the general continued. “It seems that you were right and the Hcaung will back down and won’t intervene. Before we will finalize our plan, are you sure that Princess Sari and her nephew, Prince Yuda will do what we told her?”
“Yes, Bogyoke U Setiawan. Prince Yuda is just one year old and isn’t a problem while Princess Sari said that she wants the return of the Thihaka family back to the throne. She said that even if her nephew is a Minkhaung, through her daughter’s marriage to a Minkhaung prince, the untimely death of her daughter brought to an end the union between Minkhaung and Thihaka and thus she says that she will fully support our movement and when he will be crowned she hopes to manage to change the name of the future Emperor to be a Thihaka. “
“Good. Time to move! I want you to ride in front. I will stay in the middle of the soldiers,” as Eko nodded and the unit started moving, Setiawan took his cotton has and gave it to Eko, while he took a hat exactly the same as the rest of the soldiers and moved him right in the middle of the formation. The unit continues its march on the Pansodan Boulevard towards the Mara Zi Palace.
The unit, which was no more than fifty cavalrymen, entered the palace grounds. Setiawan looked around. The scout was right; the banners of the Hcaung were there, but no guards. The Palace was made out of three sections, each being determined by the presence of a courtyard. In the first one, on the north and south parts were defensive walls, while on the east and west were the barracks of the Hcaung, the Imperial Guard. The unit entered from the southern gate and was approaching the northern gate of the first courtyard. Passing through it, they entered in the second courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard, there was a big garden, organized through the Yujiner Feng shui rules. On the east and west parts of the courtyard there where buildings where the royal family lived and where the harem of the Emperor was also living; On the northern side of the courtyard, there was a bigger building, with an architecture a mix of the Islamic Arakanese, influenced by the Sikandari and the Yujiner decoration styles. Behind that building, was the third courtyard, the smallest, where servants of the Emperor were based. Setiawan knew that at this time, no one would be in the main building of the palace, as there could be found only the throne room, so he asked Eko to bring them to the place where the Emperor was living. As they were preparing to enter the building, he looked to the east, to see the first rays of the sunrise. “Insha’Allah…” he said as he entered.
As the soldiers were being led by Eko in the buildings, behind the dormitories of the members of the Imperial family, a member of the Hcaung appeared in front of them. He immediately freaked out, unsheathed his sword and was ready to attack and kill Eko, but immediately the soldiers with rifles shot him. The gunshots immediately woke up everyone in that part of the palace. Eko was afraid, because he had managed to buy the Hcaung units from the gates, but he couldn’t do the same with the ones from the palace interior. With all those noises, more and more Hcaung soldiers were arriving on the scene and the small gunfight evolved into a fully-fledged battle. He entered the Emperor’s dormitory and saw him there with his weapon, a small pistol ready to defend himself. The woman who was sleeping with him when everything started may have been someone from his harem, not his wife, as he didn’t recognize the girl. Emperor Krisna Lestari didn’t shoot him, as he was still too baffled with everything that was happening around and he also trusted his chamberlain. When he saw this, Eko, bowed and said:
“Your Sublime and Imperial Majesty, you must come with me, I need to save you. A coup d’état is taking place and the miserable rats are now attacking the palace. Hcaung soldiers at the gates have all been killed…” After he finished, he waited to see what the Emperor will do. Outside, the sounds of the battle were getting louder and louder; probably the Hcaung guards from the palace were storming the building and to help the rebel soldiers, the members from the Hcaung who were bribed also came to help them, knowing that if it ends badly, they will also be killed. The Emperor put down his gun and then said:
“Very well, Maung Eko, we must get out of here,” right when he finished the sentence, Eko hit him with his fist, making Emperor Krisna Lestari to fall down. At that point, General Setiawan entered the room with two soldiers. Seeing the emperor falling down, the woman started screaming and attacked Eko, trying to gouge out his eyes with her nails. At the same moment the emperor got up trying to defend himself and in the whole blunder that followed, one of the soldiers pulled the trigger and shot… hitting Krisna Lestari in the head…
Seeing that the Emperor was no more, the Hcaung started running away as fast as they could and the scene quickly became quiet. There was blood everywhere and the halls were filled with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. In the dormitory, the Emperor’s brains were shattered all over, leaving a puddle of blood in the middle of it all. The woman got down and started crying. Both Eko and Setiawan were still in shock. The general looked at the man with the rifle. He had a face like he just saw a ghost, the rifle was not in his hands anymore, probably dropped it immediately after he fired. He also pissed himself, as the uniform was wet between his legs and a small stream was dripping from the cloth of the longyi. Setiawan looked at him:
“You… you… you idiot!” he screamed as he slapped him. The man started crying immediately. “Arrest him!” he shouted to the other soldiers. Eko was looking at him and then said:
“What now?”
“I don’t know! We needed him to make the governors support us! Bring the rest of the family to me!” he then shouted to the soldiers and then walked out of the building by the garden.
“What can we do now? Everything was just destroyed by a small piece of lead…” Eko was close to start crying.
“No, it’s not…” Said Setiawan after it gave it a thought. “It makes things harder, Maung Eko, but they aren’t impossible to make them right. We still have the imperial family and even if we can’t extort the governors by holing the Emperor hostage, we still have the throne. The family is nothing without the throne. The Minkhaung house is shit without it… If we have no hostage, we must be ready to enthrone Prince Yuda as quick as possible. The best thing would be to enthrone him before the news reaches the other regions. It will end well, Allah Akbar…” he said as a soldier was coming with an old woman, in her early 70s.
“Bogyoke U Setiawan… there is a problem. The Emperor’s sons and daughters and his first wife have disappeared. We managed to capture only the Emperor’s mother, Daw Sinta Utari,” said the soldier as he gently pushed the woman in front of him.
“Daw Sinta Utari, your highness… where are your daughters-in-law and where are your nephews?” asked Setiawan.
“Where is my son, Bogyoke U Setiawan?”
“He is in his dormitory…” said the general with a disgusted tone.
“I heard that you killed him… It means that what is in that room is just a pile of flesh. He is now in Paradise, for he died defending the Godlike state of things, the ones that you disrupted, U Setiawan. That is why you will burn in hell for eternity, U Setiawan. Not for killing my son, that is nothing compared to what you have really done. You disrupted the natural state of things created by Allah… “
“Where are the wives and the children?” he asked again nearly shouting.
“How could I know? I live in my own part of the palace, with the mistresses of my husband, his Sublime and Imperial Majesty, Min Kala, the last Emperor of the Krisna Era.”
“Take her away…” ordered Setiawan to the soldier. As he was taking the old woman away, the general turned back to the chamberlain:
“I want you to send a unit to take Prince Yuda and his mother and bring them to the palace. As quickly as possible; if the children of the Emperor have run away with their mothers it means they are still somewhere around the town. If we lose them, it means that they will run away to one of the governors and then we may even end up with a civil war…”
“Yes, Bogyoke U Setiawan. I will also send soldiers to look around the city,” said Eko as he left the general. Setiawan looked at the garden and felt what an harmonic atmosphere it was emanating and then looked towards the east. The sun started appearing and the crescent from a mosque started to be seen.
“Allah Akbar…” he said out of habit.
OOC: There are some honorifics that need to be explained: Bogyoke=General; U=Mr. or Uncle Its a honorific used for older men. Maung=Brother - used for younger men. Daw=Aunt - used for older women and Hcaung=Imperial Guard
General Setiawan of the Blue Standard Army was in front of a small cavalry unit moving quietly on the Pansodan Boulevard. He was a short but fat man, with a big belly that was weighting on the horse that was carrying him. He was in his late 50s, with wrinkles and gray hair. He was wearing his long grey hair in a bun, hidden under a light cotton hat. He had a short moustache that still had some black hairs in it and very lively black eyes. On his left, Eko, the chamberlain of the Mara Zi Palace and of Emperor Krisna Lestari. He was a very tall man and big man who also had a prominent belly. He was twenty years younger than the General and was wearing his hair in a queue, a Yujiner fashion. As the unit was slowly moving on the street between wooden buildings in the dark city, General Setiawan stopped it by raising his hand. Immediately a soldier from the back came to him.
“Go in front of us and see if the Hcaung is in their barracks, as its planned.”
The soldier started galloping towards the palace without saying anything. Eko approached the general.
“Bogyoke U Setiawan, I told you that my part was done with utmost care and it was successful. The captains of the Hcaung know about our move and will open us the way for it,” he said with a weak voice showing some weak protest.
“Maung Eko, you are so naïve… If the Hcaung was so open and ready to join our action, they would have done it themselves and there shouldn’t have been any need to bring a unit of the Blue Standard Army in the city. They said yes to you but it may also be a trap. Maybe this whole city is just faking its quietness, whereas in reality, the whole Red, Yellow and Green Standard Armies may be coming after us by now,” said General Setiawan as he looked at the sky and then at the wooden huts that were forming the majority of the buildings in this, “lower” part of the city. There were flags hung at every five to ten houses. One thing was clear with the Arakanese; they really liked their golden peacock on red background flag.
Suddenly, a light was opened in a house to the left of the General. The road was so narrow, even if it was called a boulevard, that if ten men were standing in line, they could reach with their hands the buildings from one side to the other. Setiawan moved his horse to the right side of the road and took out his sword. The soldiers around his also prepared either their swords or their modern lever-action firearms. Setiawan wanted this unit to have the best equipment he could find for this action. A half asleep half awoke man got out of the house and literally got right in the middle of the soldiers. When he saw all the horses, swords and rifles pointed at him he started screaming at first and then he started to prostate in front of the general to beg for mercy.
“Just move away…” he said with disgust. The man immediately ran back into the house and he extinguished immediately the oil lamp. Darkness again has befallen on the street. Setiawan listened around carefully. He was afraid that this event may have started a domino effect that may have woken up the whole town. He was surprised. Other than the horses breathing and sometimes rumbling through their nostrils, nothing could be heard. He listened again, to be sure. This time, he was thinking that something could be heard. He didn’t know at first if it’s his imagination or he was really hearing something. No… There was something there… and its approaching fast.
“Stay prepared!” he told the soldiers near him.
A few seconds later, the soldier he sent to the palace returned. He saluted and then reported:
“Bogyoke U Setiawan, I report that the Hcaung is in the barracks. Their standards and banners could be seen, but there is not movement there. I even entered the palace grounds and no one could be seen there.”
“Good… Go back in line. Maung Eko!” As the chamberlain came to him, the general continued. “It seems that you were right and the Hcaung will back down and won’t intervene. Before we will finalize our plan, are you sure that Princess Sari and her nephew, Prince Yuda will do what we told her?”
“Yes, Bogyoke U Setiawan. Prince Yuda is just one year old and isn’t a problem while Princess Sari said that she wants the return of the Thihaka family back to the throne. She said that even if her nephew is a Minkhaung, through her daughter’s marriage to a Minkhaung prince, the untimely death of her daughter brought to an end the union between Minkhaung and Thihaka and thus she says that she will fully support our movement and when he will be crowned she hopes to manage to change the name of the future Emperor to be a Thihaka. “
“Good. Time to move! I want you to ride in front. I will stay in the middle of the soldiers,” as Eko nodded and the unit started moving, Setiawan took his cotton has and gave it to Eko, while he took a hat exactly the same as the rest of the soldiers and moved him right in the middle of the formation. The unit continues its march on the Pansodan Boulevard towards the Mara Zi Palace.
The unit, which was no more than fifty cavalrymen, entered the palace grounds. Setiawan looked around. The scout was right; the banners of the Hcaung were there, but no guards. The Palace was made out of three sections, each being determined by the presence of a courtyard. In the first one, on the north and south parts were defensive walls, while on the east and west were the barracks of the Hcaung, the Imperial Guard. The unit entered from the southern gate and was approaching the northern gate of the first courtyard. Passing through it, they entered in the second courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard, there was a big garden, organized through the Yujiner Feng shui rules. On the east and west parts of the courtyard there where buildings where the royal family lived and where the harem of the Emperor was also living; On the northern side of the courtyard, there was a bigger building, with an architecture a mix of the Islamic Arakanese, influenced by the Sikandari and the Yujiner decoration styles. Behind that building, was the third courtyard, the smallest, where servants of the Emperor were based. Setiawan knew that at this time, no one would be in the main building of the palace, as there could be found only the throne room, so he asked Eko to bring them to the place where the Emperor was living. As they were preparing to enter the building, he looked to the east, to see the first rays of the sunrise. “Insha’Allah…” he said as he entered.
As the soldiers were being led by Eko in the buildings, behind the dormitories of the members of the Imperial family, a member of the Hcaung appeared in front of them. He immediately freaked out, unsheathed his sword and was ready to attack and kill Eko, but immediately the soldiers with rifles shot him. The gunshots immediately woke up everyone in that part of the palace. Eko was afraid, because he had managed to buy the Hcaung units from the gates, but he couldn’t do the same with the ones from the palace interior. With all those noises, more and more Hcaung soldiers were arriving on the scene and the small gunfight evolved into a fully-fledged battle. He entered the Emperor’s dormitory and saw him there with his weapon, a small pistol ready to defend himself. The woman who was sleeping with him when everything started may have been someone from his harem, not his wife, as he didn’t recognize the girl. Emperor Krisna Lestari didn’t shoot him, as he was still too baffled with everything that was happening around and he also trusted his chamberlain. When he saw this, Eko, bowed and said:
“Your Sublime and Imperial Majesty, you must come with me, I need to save you. A coup d’état is taking place and the miserable rats are now attacking the palace. Hcaung soldiers at the gates have all been killed…” After he finished, he waited to see what the Emperor will do. Outside, the sounds of the battle were getting louder and louder; probably the Hcaung guards from the palace were storming the building and to help the rebel soldiers, the members from the Hcaung who were bribed also came to help them, knowing that if it ends badly, they will also be killed. The Emperor put down his gun and then said:
“Very well, Maung Eko, we must get out of here,” right when he finished the sentence, Eko hit him with his fist, making Emperor Krisna Lestari to fall down. At that point, General Setiawan entered the room with two soldiers. Seeing the emperor falling down, the woman started screaming and attacked Eko, trying to gouge out his eyes with her nails. At the same moment the emperor got up trying to defend himself and in the whole blunder that followed, one of the soldiers pulled the trigger and shot… hitting Krisna Lestari in the head…
Seeing that the Emperor was no more, the Hcaung started running away as fast as they could and the scene quickly became quiet. There was blood everywhere and the halls were filled with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. In the dormitory, the Emperor’s brains were shattered all over, leaving a puddle of blood in the middle of it all. The woman got down and started crying. Both Eko and Setiawan were still in shock. The general looked at the man with the rifle. He had a face like he just saw a ghost, the rifle was not in his hands anymore, probably dropped it immediately after he fired. He also pissed himself, as the uniform was wet between his legs and a small stream was dripping from the cloth of the longyi. Setiawan looked at him:
“You… you… you idiot!” he screamed as he slapped him. The man started crying immediately. “Arrest him!” he shouted to the other soldiers. Eko was looking at him and then said:
“What now?”
“I don’t know! We needed him to make the governors support us! Bring the rest of the family to me!” he then shouted to the soldiers and then walked out of the building by the garden.
“What can we do now? Everything was just destroyed by a small piece of lead…” Eko was close to start crying.
“No, it’s not…” Said Setiawan after it gave it a thought. “It makes things harder, Maung Eko, but they aren’t impossible to make them right. We still have the imperial family and even if we can’t extort the governors by holing the Emperor hostage, we still have the throne. The family is nothing without the throne. The Minkhaung house is shit without it… If we have no hostage, we must be ready to enthrone Prince Yuda as quick as possible. The best thing would be to enthrone him before the news reaches the other regions. It will end well, Allah Akbar…” he said as a soldier was coming with an old woman, in her early 70s.
“Bogyoke U Setiawan… there is a problem. The Emperor’s sons and daughters and his first wife have disappeared. We managed to capture only the Emperor’s mother, Daw Sinta Utari,” said the soldier as he gently pushed the woman in front of him.
“Daw Sinta Utari, your highness… where are your daughters-in-law and where are your nephews?” asked Setiawan.
“Where is my son, Bogyoke U Setiawan?”
“He is in his dormitory…” said the general with a disgusted tone.
“I heard that you killed him… It means that what is in that room is just a pile of flesh. He is now in Paradise, for he died defending the Godlike state of things, the ones that you disrupted, U Setiawan. That is why you will burn in hell for eternity, U Setiawan. Not for killing my son, that is nothing compared to what you have really done. You disrupted the natural state of things created by Allah… “
“Where are the wives and the children?” he asked again nearly shouting.
“How could I know? I live in my own part of the palace, with the mistresses of my husband, his Sublime and Imperial Majesty, Min Kala, the last Emperor of the Krisna Era.”
“Take her away…” ordered Setiawan to the soldier. As he was taking the old woman away, the general turned back to the chamberlain:
“I want you to send a unit to take Prince Yuda and his mother and bring them to the palace. As quickly as possible; if the children of the Emperor have run away with their mothers it means they are still somewhere around the town. If we lose them, it means that they will run away to one of the governors and then we may even end up with a civil war…”
“Yes, Bogyoke U Setiawan. I will also send soldiers to look around the city,” said Eko as he left the general. Setiawan looked at the garden and felt what an harmonic atmosphere it was emanating and then looked towards the east. The sun started appearing and the crescent from a mosque started to be seen.
“Allah Akbar…” he said out of habit.
OOC: There are some honorifics that need to be explained: Bogyoke=General; U=Mr. or Uncle Its a honorific used for older men. Maung=Brother - used for younger men. Daw=Aunt - used for older women and Hcaung=Imperial Guard
Last edited: