Context.
The Voleizene Civil War was the cause of intense destabilization in the Sea of Goent, which had come to be seen as one of the remaining Sasinthene heartlands on the continent. By the fall of 1023, the Voleizene hinterland had been decimated by two years of guerrilla warfare in Menovina and the Crown. While the Reds maintained their dominion over Voleize, the Fort of the Pinnacle, and a few northern enclaves of Menovina, after the battle of Mouzofal, it was clear that it would not be feasible to extinguish the Gold threat.
The Golds were, at this time, undergoing their own difficulties. While they were well-positioned in the swamplands, they struggled to develop even basic industry, while they were in active hostilities with the nearest large city. As staunch Sasinthene nationalists, they were furthermore unable to accept any overtures towards assistance from Cazia-Orod, which they viewed as the designers of the fall of Imperial Panarine. Their best ties to Sasinthene civilization were, then, Tanthes (as few of them had actually been excommunicated, despite Tanthes’s condemnation of the war) and Goentea.
While Tanthes had a longstanding position as both an open city and an impassive mediator, the clergy therein were simultaneously undergoing their own schism on the same issue– Imperial Panarine had been, for nearly 900 years, the representative of the Adanist Church as a polity, with its rulers anointed personally at Tanthes. Goentea, on the other hand, found its interests threatened by the instability the Voleizene question brought. As a chief financier to the Golds, and a state with strong ties to Voleize under the Reds’ government, Goentea pressured both sides to the negotiating table following the Mouzofal armistice.
One of the promises made to the Gold government was support for the eventual recapture of the Imperial capital at Panarine, and the incorporation of all of Menovina into a new Sasinthene state. The price for the Golds was the relinquishment of territories taken outside of Menovina, and the cessation of attempts on the life of S. Giulou. However, the Gold delegation was hesitant to give the borderland back to the Reds, against whom they had grown deeply embittered. The resulting compromise was that ‘Mandatory Mouzofal’ was granted self-governance as a fourth ‘free city’ on the sea of Goent, though it was little more than a Goentean puppet state.
Remnants of the Imperial Palace, including the Dōnatou Banking Group, collate and selectively unveil centuries of political blackmail, as well as documents detailing the rights of protectoracy over Great Sasinthy and Onavara. In exchange for installing former Palatials as high-ranking officials in the Gold government of Menovina, and a full war of conquest against the remainder of the city of Panarine and Cazian Menovina in 1056, Goentea receives de jure protectoracy over Sasinthy.
Outcome.
Goentea gains primacy over the former Voleizene territories. In the ensuing years, Goentea leverages its dominion over Voleize to vassalize Tanthes, Nomourōs, and Sechors to form the Goentean League. After receiving Sasinthy as a protectorate, Goentea attempts to force Tanthene recognition as Imperial successors, which is not granted. However, with effective control over the Imperial territory of Menovina, control over Sasinthy, and Hesod under a Calicart government as their eastern border, Goentea supersedes the Panarinian borders under Jirair I Danechē.