Oligarchs owned the world, this much was known. But since they protected their existence by denying it, most publics scrutinised the rung down.

In the Republic of England & Wales, the second rung held four players.

In charge of defence, Secretary-General Marcus Sung. An undemocratic appointee - to the disdain of those surviving Millennials - but an unavoidable one - Parliament had to put him somewhere of benefit to himself. Ex-military, and a peer of the revolution general, it would not take much for Sung to head north and become the fourth marshal. He was also half Chinese, respected by them, and had as much of a pathway East.

Though inferior to his revolutionary rival, this double political armour made Sung untouchable. He was all the smarmier for it. His job was to prepare the Republic’s military contractors - a division of fickle mercenaries in all but name - with painstaking caution, as disloyalty sprang from every rank.

Anita Søreni ran the Ministry of Intelligence. She too faced scrutiny, given her marriage to the President, but her dignified glamour and quiet competence won high enough opinion for her survival. The shadows in the public mind were hers to battle, including the terrorists of Opus Veda. However dangerous her duties, Intelligence offered the means to hunt down her highly sought-after deepfakes. For this she faced complaints of misusing power, of getting her priorities wrong, despite the justice she had won for similar victims.

These two were occupied today, mired by their respective enemies, Red and Black. The President had to face his boss alone. The most powerful of the four, Cìshǐ Jiǎ Shìyǐn. The Cìshǐ - or Regional Inspector - oversaw China's western frontier with the authority to halt any intrusion on Xīn Hán's dynastic designs. The Emperor spoke through him, Administrators could mobilise forces under him within the hour. Whatever the facet of English life being politicked, Jiǎ Shìyǐn’s sign off was the final say.

On most weeks, President visited Inspector every Tuesday at Buckingham Palace, updating China on the week's concerns. Rarely did Jiǎ Shìyǐn visit Downing Street in turn.

He was outside now, surrounded by his retinue and twice as many cameras. He himself appeared modest, an uninspiring office manager in any other context.

The concubines behind him said otherwise. At their head, a Han wife, flawless with silken skin, forbidden from the surgery of lesser ethnicities yet so beyond needing it. Around her, badges of Xīn Hán conquest: two former pop stars, Korean and Japanese; a cluster of tanned Indochinese; a Saxon English woman chancing fame. Under her wing, a jittery young gift from the Arabic Caliphate, nervous but grateful to escape the appalling Islamist treatment of girls. The Nepalese concubine had been sent home, Jiǎ Shìyǐn staying mindful of the Gurkhas in exile.

Such an entourage was a benchmark of power, accessible by law only to senior imperial courtiers. Great care was taken that no entourage outshine the Emperor's, either in number or quality, and only he could retain Eunuchs. Since those were regarded as too extreme by other nations, he had so far made do with concubines alone. At least in London, the Inspector's modest group could still dazzle.

And they were not the greatest sight on Downing Street. Flanking them stood the symbolic and literal guards of the imperial court: the Shèshēng Ménwèi, armed and armoured ahead of anything the Republic could muster. Charcoal plate armour fully encased them, over which their deeds had been engraved. On one breast, a calligraphic pine tree - awarded for showing fortitude outnumbered. On another, pink kisses of plum blossom - rejuvenation after noble war wounds. Virtuous scripture - Taoist, Buddhist, Confucian - covered each guard with stories.

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Most distinct were the two spears lancing from their helmets; metallic pheasant feathers, flecked with brown ridges and tipped with vermilion. Their rifles, for all their complexity, were famed for the L-shaped bayonets protruding under their barrels. The Shèshēng Ménwèi mastered two martial arts with these, one choreographed to amaze their allies, the other minimal and utilitarian, designed for their foes. In formation, bayonet and feather united in a perfect triple phalanx.

These were the fiercest soldiers of the greatest empire. Any enemy wishing to reach China, had to go through them.

Adrian Søreni watched from Number 10's office as they marched away. He was the fourth of England’s leaders; the most responsible, the most imprisoned, in a job nobody would ever win. His cabinet was infected, seditious ministers stepping over him to reach the private sector, and cabinet kept shrinking. Some roles, such as Foreign Secretary, were shut down by China. Other roles concerned matters too corporatised to need a Minister, as the last Health Secretary discovered.

Above Westminster, investors forced England through a minefield of debt selling, spiked interest, and welfare handouts for the rich. China needed its tribute payment too - a thank you for delaying annexation. On quieter days, Adrian had time to think about the Welsh Independence Movement, swelling in size and anger.

Today was not quiet. The red menace was pouring out of Leeds into surrounding towns, and from Manchester down to Stoke. Jiǎ Shìyǐn had paraded to Downing street to give the President a telling off. While Revolution Britannia remained ambiguous to the empire, the Inspector didn't want them cutting England's middle region in half.

That same ambiguity prevented China getting involved. Adrian's worst suspicion materialised: the empire would keep a wait-and-see strategy, tolerant of a successful revolution as long as tribute and occupation stayed in place. And since Opus Veda avoided Han targets, they were met with even greater dismissal. The Republic was truly on its own.

Adrian returned to the room and sighed with dismay. Those who dealt him this hand smiled from the walls, portraits of Prime Ministers, then Presidents, paving the nation's future with shards of corruption. Populists and technocrats took their turns to dance onstage, one offering destruction, the other indecision, their performances darker every decade. The original Red and Blue - Labour and Tory - fell before Adrian’s time, and as their portraits ended the first of the Reformists began.

Nigel Farage. That papier-mâché fascist; who could blame the weather on immigration, and the desperate halfwits who voted him in would buy it. He was the genesis of Adrian's problems, leering at the President from his portrait daily. Adrian had been a child then, as Reform made a Belarus of Britain, handing the best of it over to the Whitehouse, that Kremlin shill. Between these two fading powers Britain lay bedded, their silly little girlfriend, with mascara running down her cheeks and cheap Russian gas whistling out from between her thighs.

Europe rallied against Russia without Anglosphere help, and annihilated it all the same. The crumbling British Armed Forces faced humiliation elsewhere - at the Malvinas, and in the Middle East, fleeing with their American handlers as the Caliphate buried Israel alive. Scotland ditched the Anglosphere, driving a wall between it and its southern letdowns. Northern Ireland unified months later. The Monarchy found opportunities elsewhere, and left.

Then came China. They wanted a military base between the US and Europe, and England lay before them like a wounded gazelle. Adrian was old enough remember it - the lockdown, the panic buying, the adults quaking. Everything got a mandarin sign underneath it, and life seemed to carry on as usual.

How innocent he had been. The English were crushed without a single bullet fired. Bank accounts frozen, trading lanes blocked by strings of code, cities robbed of internet and driven insane. And when the internet returned, their souls were exposed naked - all their private messages, their browsing history and dirty desires, leaked online, for all of time. Every family had its own civil war, every identity had its minute as scapegoat. When the dust settled, the family - the relationship - never truly came back. It was against corporate and political interest to rescue it.

He had a wife though, somehow. Too good for him, as the men around her implied. She wasn't coming home tonight - too busy, too many people to see. Terrorists to outwit, one day.

Adrian slumped on his desk and crushed 3 pitiless sugar cubes into his tea, enjoying one of the few things he had any power over.