Emperor Sampan rubbed his temple. Why was it always the damned Sulawesi?

Many years ago, Sampan's great grandfather had come to the aid of South Sulawesi at the onset of the Second Pact-Kulawanti war, and through a great cost of men and material to the Empire, South Sulawesi had been spared from the destruction that was waiting on their doorstep. In return for this most gracious assistance, the King of Sulawesi had promised unending tribute from their Kingdom to the Empire that had saved them, a constant flowing of gold, spices, and slaves, as well as special rights for Kulawantine merchants in their valuable ports. And this continued, uninterrupted, through the reign of his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father. There had even been a growing belief that eventually, South Sulawesi would peacefully join the Empire on their own terms, and bring the two sides closer together than ever.

But just under a decade ago, things began to change. At that time, Sampan was in his first few years of rulership, and was still finding his footing as Emperor - his father had died unexpectedly, and while Sampan had been raised to be a ruler since he was barely able to walk, 15 years of age was very young to become head of one of the most powerful Empires in the world. So Sampan was understandably confused by one of his first major crises as Emperor: the King of South Sulawesi had died without a male heir, leaving his daughter in charge of the Kingdom.

This was unusual, but not unheard of in Kulawanti. A number of times Bangsawan had died without a male heir, although usually a bastard son would emerge from somewhere claiming their inheritance. In the rare times that this did NOT happen, a woman would take charge, but in these rare cases they usually married quickly after, and would then cede control over to their husbands. Cases far and few between had seen a female Bangsawan continue ruling after marriage, and while these did not turn out on average any better or worse than a male ruler, it was not seen as an occurrence that should happen all that often. To this end, having a Queen of South Sulawesi would be... strange to say the least, but it was certainly something that could be tolerated, so long as the rights of Kulawantine merchants and the tribute to the Emperor continued without impact.

But these rights and tributes would not continue without impact.

The changes began slowly and inconspicuously. It started during Queen Liag Laing's first official visit to Kuching. There, after personally presenting the Sulawesi tribute to the Emperor, the Queen informed Sampan that she would be temporarily lifting the docking fee exemptions that Kulawantine merchants enjoyed at all South Sulawesi ports. This was just a measure to collect a little extra money to expand the harbors, she assured him. Not initially suspicious of what seemed like a fairly reasonable ask, Sampan agreed.

A year or so passed, and very little progress had been made. Queen Liag again came to visit Kuching, and discussed her financial inability to continue her projects. She would probably have to raise docking fees higher on all merchants, including those from Kulawanti, unless she could lower the tribute amounts, just a bit, and use those funds to finance these expansions. Sampan was a little wary, but he was still young and did not want to cause unrest among the merchant class, and so he agreed to accept a reduction in tribute. And at first this seemed fine. The reduction was not major, as promised, and work did seem to pick up on the harbors in Makassar and Palu...

But then things started to become very difficult.

About a year after the initial tribute reduction, piracy began to pick up in a major way along the trade routes around South Sulawesi. Merchant ships were being attacked left and right, and tribute began to be majorly interrupted, as many of the ships carrying Sulawesi gold and spices were boarded, raided, and sent to the bottom of the sea. Kulawanti and South Sulawesi started a joint naval force meant to protect merchant ships and hunt down these new pirates, but it seemed as if the pirates were always one step ahead of this combined navy, and continued to terrorize the seas uninhibited. Tribute slowed to a trickle, and then stopped entirely, and port fees across Sulawesi rose so that they could pay extra mercenaries to protect their waters.

But Kulawanti and Sulawesi were not the only peoples being affected by this new pirate scourge. The valuable trading routes between the Empire of Java and the Triple Alliance used this same stretch of water and their ships were being pirated just as much, if not more than the Kulawantine and Sulawesi merchants. Initially, they wished to join the same joint force as Kulawanti and South Sulawesi, but Queen Liag refused, not wishing to have either involved so close to her borders. This was not an unusual stance - Sulawesi had long been an enemy of the Triple Alliance, and North Sulawesi was a client state of the Alliance, so the mutual animosity in that region had long been a thorn in the side of the Kulawantine-Alliance relationship. But this was an issue greatly affecting the Alliance, and so they decided that, if they could not join the joint force, they would go at it alone, and fight the pirates themselves.

The Triple Alliance was far more effective at fighting the pirates than the joint navy, and made light work of many pirates that seemed extremely inexperienced for how well they seemed to be taking down Kulawantine vessels. They would take out these ships before they could board merchant vessels, and kill any pirates who would not submit to slavery - which was all of them. That is, until one decided to cut a deal. In return for not being forced into slavery and being castrated, the captain of the pirate ship offered some extremely juicy information. They weren't great at being pirates because they were brand new to this. They were employed not by themselves, but by the Queen of South Sulawesi, Liag Laing.

The Alliance captain realized how important the information he was just given would be, and so he had the crew immediately set sail for Kuching, where he presented the Emperor with the pirate captain and his claim. Sampan was furious at this news, and immediately sent for men to seize Queen Liag and bring her before him. Unfortunately, she got advance news of this force, and dropped all pretense of accommodation and had her ships block the Kulawantine force from approaching Makassar. She declared that South Sulawesi would no longer be subservient to the Emperor in Kuching, and that she was claiming full sovereignty over Sulawesi, rebuking the foreign powers who would impart their wills on it.

Over the next few weeks, Kulawantine and Alliance merchants were kicked off of Sulawesi and prevented from making port in South Sulawesi. At the same time, pirate attacks from Sulawesi ships increased tenfold. Queen Liag, now known as the Pirate Queen of Sulawesi, had used the reduction in tribute to build a massive pirate fleet, and was quickly establishing control over the waters south of her Kingdom.

Sampan wanted to respond, but rumors of unrest in Dvaravati and Akthijah to the north, as well as a renewed Darawan offensive against piracy to the west, meant that Kulawanti could not afford to send a force to put down the Pirate Queen and her fleets, lest they leave their homeland undefended. And so, for the last two years, Sulawesi has stuck as a thorn in the side of the Empire, a constant annoyance unable to be removed. And had things stayed the way they were, this could have been the status quo for years, even decades.

But a pirate's biggest weakness is their greed. And with a name like "The Pirate Queen of Sulawesi", Liag was the greediest of them all.

So, having claimed full sovereignty over Sulawesi, the Pirate Queen looked to make her words a reality. Rousing a force from across her Kingdom and leveraging the vast fleets at her disposal, she looked to make war on the Kingdom of North Sulawesi, and finally unite the island under one ruler - herself. She figured that if Kulawanti hadn't moved to stop her yet, they certainly wouldn't try to interfere now.

Unfortunately for Liag, she greatly underestimated the fear of a united Sulawesi in the eyes of Sampan. Kulawanti had for YEARS helped what used to be the "Three Kingdoms of Sulawesi" in balance, making sure that no one King could lay claim to the entirety of the vastly populated, very rich island. They had moved to prevent it all those years ago, kicking off the Second Kulawanti-Pact war. And they would not hesitate to interfere now, and prevent the Pirate Queen from controlling all of Sulawesi. They quickly sent word to the Triple Alliance, asking for their assistance in protecting their client state against the advances of South Sulawesi, and they immediately agreed - a united Sulawesi posed as much threat to the Triple Alliance as it did to Kulawanti.

It was a bloody fight. The Alliance and the Empire let the North Sulawesi line serve as a distraction, and as they soaked up the brunt of the Pirate Queen's attack, the allied forces landed in the weakly defended lands of South Sulawesi. Kulawantine forces immediately took control of Palu, and used that as a staging ground to move south, while preventing the Queen's forces from making a retreat. Likewise, forces of the Triple Alliance landed on the eastern shoreline, and moved to hit the South Sulawesi forces from the rear, and cut them off from any resupply.

Queen Liag saw that she was overextended and outmanned, and took efforts to ensure her survival. She moved her fleets into the Gulf of Boni, where her outnumbered ships could use their better knowledge of tricky nautical terrain to their advantage. Her remaining soldiers retreated from their positions on the west coast, instead fortifying towns along the Gulf, where it would be more difficult to get to them. She even abandoned the capital, instead taking refuge in the protected waters near Muna Island, and making the old capital of Southeast Sulawesi her staging ground, renaming it to Ratu Pelabuhan (Queen's Harbor) and preparing to fight for every inch of territory she had left.

Luckily for the Pirate Queen of Sulawesi, she would not be fighting much longer. Events north of Kulawanti meant that they had to retreat without claiming more than the western coastline of South Sulawesi, though that stretched from Palu to Makassar and reestablished trade between Sulawesi and Kulawanti. The Triple Alliance also decided to pull back, as at that point they would simply be fighting to give another state control over most of Sulawesi, which was the exact opposite of what they wanted. They ceded control over the bit of coastline they had landed on to North Sulawesi, and headed back to their main lands. For now, it seemed, Liag would live to fight another day...

Map of Kulawanti and Sulawesi after the First Pirate Wars