Had to search through 19 pages to make sure no one took the greatest nation on earth yet. Thankfully no one wants the congo yet. So I take it. I briefly wanted to make a absolute surveillance state somewhere in Scandinavia, but ultimately settled down on a congolese empire.
Name of Nation: The Empire of Kongo
Territories:
The green part, which is actually a lot more land than it looks on this map. Remember that.
Government Type: Autocracy
Military: Mostly uses outdated weapons, although the richer soldiers who can afford it have imported more advanced weaponry from smuggling and nations willing to sell.
Economy: A economy based on the principle of self-sufficiency, but in practice deals with outside nations often are made with raw commodities still being a major export while importing from whatever source they want high tech, weapons and food. 3D printing and automation has led to being able to free up people to join the military and efforts to make "fun" attractions in the dominion has been carried out by wealthier civilian populations.
Foreign Policy: Empire of Kongo is a state that will work with far off powers, in order to get their technology and wealth from what high tech industries are left in the world. They despise any nation that helps foment rebellion in their territories, or even simply assist nations they invade [like a china supplying Nigerian troopers with type-150s [or whatever the PRC uses nowadays]].
History: In the early 21st century, the Congo wasn't doing so well. Multiple ongoing insurgencies from the Tutsis and a ongoing war between other african nations along with UN troops patrolling around "keeping the peace"- plus the corrupt government, crushing poverty and corporations stealing the democratic republic of congo's wealth made things very bleak. But things changed. Joseph Kabila in his illegitiment second term pursued many ground breaking deals with china in december of 2014, vastly expanding Chinese influence on the DRC.
As a result millions of Chinese workers in the course of a few years would come in, invest and start acting like they ran the place. They made private neighborhoods just for their workers, filled the factories they promised not with african workers, but Chinese workers and the mutual benefits would be at beat the steady income that ultimately would be seen as the shit end of the punji stick. European Multinational corps would continue their presence, and end up helping make infrastructure for the congo in trade deals. However, Chinese investment in the congo out did european investments with ease.
In 2017, a new prime minister of the congo would be sworn in, Didier Etumba Longila winning apparently by a landslide. He would start the gears that would make congo further suffer as he made the same mistakes of Mobutu- he tried rebuilding Mubutu's palace using the money china gave him to invest in exchange for lending special economic areas for Chinese factories to harvest raw materials that they sold back to the Congolese. This would go on for eight years as things did not get better for the congolese people- and the Chinese workers who have immigrated to the congo became the scapegoat for multiple power hungry politicians who at first would not be a issue.
Yet infrastructure wise, Congo improved considerably, and the mutual deals with china still slowly seeped in to prop up congo into a relatively more stable regime. Or so it seemed.
In all this time there had been a ongoing rebellion, and this ongoing rebellion for the most part was kept down by congolese military and chinese PMCs. The rebels at first weren't organized and had little outside support, however Nigeria working with CAR secretly had been supplying rebels in the Équateur province, and this was noticed by PRC at the time. However the chinese business folk supported both sides, as they businessmen in Africa cared much more for maximizing profits than which side actually wins.
Meanwhile in 2023, a young upstart officer by the name of Pepsy Bosekilo born around the times of the M23 rebellion managed to beat down the interstate conflict through a astounding string of victories for the congolese military that would dazzle the world- managing to use a single brigade to ambush, slaughter and strike fear into Congo’s rivals with no remorse. Managing to snake through the jungles like a boat sails through the sea, and a charisma to wield even the least disciplined men into fighting machines.
Pepsy however, had a history of being a slave of Joseph Kony- of which in 2013 he managed to escape from through miles of jungle. Starving, his escape nearly had him killed. Things looked hopeless for the kid as he survived in the hostile, predatory jungles of africa. But a miracle came as a relatively rich congolese family in the Équateur province would adopt him. What the parents didn’t know, would be that Pepsy would develop to become a man far greater than just a slave for Kony. His achievements would have Didier, caught off guard by the chaos, try to get some Pepsy to help quench the thirst for the horrors to come. Of which he probably never would have seen the consequences of.
Than WW3 broke out in 2025, and the humanitarian aid, the PMCs and even the UN just vanished almost overnight. China however tried to keep their ties in Congo, despite the economic crash that would [apparently] devastate them to the point of the tibet province successfully seceding. This would cause issue for the congolese people as local chinese military presence grew- and made the local people riot. Some would even defect to the growing rebellion movements in the northern provinces. Others would start attacking chinese people on the streets, burning their private houses and the government itself. These actions would not go down well the PRC, whose party bureaucrats would use the facade of the UN peacekeepers to intervene with their military and try getting their men out of the increasingly hostile country.
An action of which, struck hatred. Didier for one, saw the action as a betrayal by China. Despite the increased unemployment, famine and plague running aboud, Didier declared war on China. An action that at first went unnoticed by the PRC, not wanting to devote more of their military resources to the DRC believing the current forces they had allocated under the guise of peacekeepers would suffice.
What they didn’t see coming, was Pepsy.
Didier, being outmatched by the peacekeepers due to incompetent commanders who would accept bribes and defect to the peacekeepers, if not the rebels, started to purge the old officers and replace them with “more passionate young folk” that he saw as more devoted to himself. He made sure to include Pepsy as a officer. Didier made one mistake: he did not execute the old officers, but instead just imprisoned them.
Pepsy would however, prove to gain more loyalty than Didier hoped. Pepsy without hesitation managed to shock the peacekeepers, attacking their convoys from out of nowhere using technologies stockpiled over the years. After attacks, pepsi’s troopers would take their weapons, their equipment and assimilate them into their arsenals. The peacekeeper forces continued their mission of evacuation as numerous raids from every direction- the air, the ground and the forest- caused great paranoia. So much paranoia that the peace keepers started to round up villagers and civilians into internment camps, and regularly use chemical weapons on the jungles. A action that caused international outrage, and Pepsy used this to get more sympathizers.
What contributed to Pepsy’s successes would be secretly freeing the old officers, and having them continue leading. However, they led subordinate under Pepsy, whose charisma made him out to be a better leader than the current leader by far. Pepsy became a popular leader, as he would go out of his way to emancipate civilians from the peacekeeper “safe camps”, and gain ever more followers.
Eventually, the peace keepers in 2031 made their retreat after six long years. China had to keep internal stability, and the foray into africa as far as they were concerned was successful enough; the majority of workers stationed in the DRC were saved from the rampaging natives. The failure, was in failing to keep hold of the special economic zones that now fell into congolese hands. A failure however, that was little in comparison to the loss of Tibet.
Immediately afterwards, Pepsy would initiate a coup against Didier’s regime, and take control of all of the DRC. His coup was seen as the start of the end of Congo’s suffering. Or so people believed, as now Congo would be stabilized. Hope for a honest leadership, ran by people who at least knew how to run a country well regardless of how free came to be. Pepsy did not hesitate to declare martial law, and begun immediately to initiate mass mobilization of the military, building up infrastructure and seizing control of corporate assets abandoned, now filled with anyone Pepsy’s government wanted. Native or not, Pepsy didn’t care despite the rgeime officially promoting hatred of foreign people.
All that matters is that the congolese war machine gets oiled, and that is just what happened in the course of three years. In those three years, he managed to unify french congo and started his invasion/unification of the CAR. The next five years would involve the unveiling of the congolese war machine, which began to invade various territories, especially those on the western coasts of sub saharan africa, taking over by force. Annexation after annexation, land after land occupied by an ever growing military made of a focused force. One that the Empire of Kongo, despite the aggressiveness and speed of taking over, in 2040 would start showing signs of crumbling as a result of the occupied territories putting up a far stronger resistance than Pepsy imagined they would.
Pepsy renamed his country Empire of Kongo, and is hellbent on being ‘the napoleon of africa’- although outsider views generally point to him being more of a Tamerlane than Napoleon.
Yet, this war machine would hit a snag in spite of Pepsy’s unrelenting and lack of UN keeping his ambitions in check- a humble country called Nigeria has become the biggest thrown in Pepsy’s quest to make the atlantic ocean into a congolese lake. Even worse, there is civilian militias and warlords opportunistically trying to cause rebellion in the occupied territories and rumors of foreign countries aiding nations the Empire of Kongo intend to invade.
In 1938, Pepsy, paranoid of Chinese and Commonwealth spies alike has initiated programs to “snuff out the spies” and “kill the traitors”. Also starts contemplating on the idea of invading Uruguay to demonstrate the power of the congolese navy. All the while simultaneously dealing with numerous ongoing insurrections in numerous recently annexed and occupied territories, in a central africa that despite Pepsy's attempts to "stabilize" through conquest, has unwittingly probably caused more chaos in the jungles of africa than he ever could imagine as international intervention in the region by the Commonwealth and PRC fuel regional warlords, rebels and terrorists with guns pointed in every direction.
Foes: They hate china and anyone who supplies the warlords weapons and engage in setting up rebellion in newly acquired congolese provinces.
Demographics: Very diverse, including hutus, tutsis and various sub-Saharan african peoples under one boot. There is also a chinese minority left over despite the attacks on chinese people and the evacuations. Some euros as well hang around still for god knows why. There is probably about 400-450 million people within the borders of the empire [see the current fertility rate of africa to see why I think that is reasonable].
Other: I hope aaron don't mind, since the parts of Africa the Empire of Kongo takes over [like CAR and french Congo] are already in the french mercenary war corp's app. The Empire of Kongo would tolerate them due to common enemies.
I also hope the PRC involved itself in WW3 quite a bit, since the economy in their corner of the world crashed hard if they really did lose tibet.