I don't own Hetalia! end/AN/

China's visit was out of the blue; Mongolia had welcomed him into his ger, though he would have rather thrown him out.

"Aiya… it's just more and more with these people," China complained, throwing his hands up and making his sleeves flutter in the wind. He could still afford nice clothes, apparently, much finer than Mongolia's felt. It made Mongolia think back to the old days, when he was the one bedecked in finery.

"The barbarians?" To Mongolia, and the others in China's empire, it was a bit of joke by now that he'd called the Westerners barbarians in his communications with them.

He didn't take well to that. His face turned a bit red, and he frowned at Mongolia. "Yes, the Westerners. They only take and take, and never want to give. They look down on me, and lock me out of their houses. Yet they can come any time they want to!"

Mongolia only really knew Russia, out of the Westerners, and even him he didn't know too well. He watched China silently.

"It's rude, so rude! I'm only good enough to be a work animal for them. I am a great empire! Bigger than the most of them, in fact! It's so rude!" China apparently still couldn't get over how rude the Westerners were. He tucked his hands inside his sleeves

It had been a rough time for China. With the taking of territories (from Hong Kong to Macau to Shantung) and the imposition of treaties from the Western nations, there was little that China hadn't endured, it seemed. There was also very little he had been able to stop.

Mongolia looked at him in annoyance. The nation still wore the fat on his body like a grand robe compared to Mongolia himself. Mongolia had found himself having to take in his clothes considerably, tighten his belt.

"What are you here for?" he asked, taking a seat.

China didn't, choosing to loom over him. "I wanted to talk to you. I need more silver."

Mongolia's heart leapt in his throat, but he choked it down. Now was not the time to get frantic, even as his stomach turned over. "I don't have silver; you know what I've been paying you has been on loan."

"Well, you're going to have to get more loans, then. With the revolution and all, we don't have enough silver to run on; I have to make it up somewhere." China said this like it was a small matter, not one that wrenched Mongolia's livelihood away from him.

"I'd like to explain something to you." Mongolia stood, tucking his arms behind his back. "When you ask for silver, something I don't have, instead of animals, something I do have, for taxes, there's a problem. I have to go to you for a loan of silver. I cannot pay back that loan except in animals. And because of the high, high rates you charge me, I pay far more in animals for the silver than I would pay if I only had to pay in animals. Do you know what this means?"

"I can't help the price of silver, Mongolia," China shrugged, as though he had nothing to do with it.

"It means that my herds are shrinking and I am starving. Myself and my people are going through great hardship because of you; we need our animals. They are what we base our whole lives around. If you continue this way, we won't be able to live the way we always have; we may not, many of us, be able to live at all." Mongolia let out a deep, frustrated breath through his nose. China had to understand.

China nodded slowly. Then, he said something that shocked Mongolia. "This works out well for my plan."

Biting back anger, Mongolia said, as calmly as possible, "What plan is that?"

China looked him directly in the eyes, an insolent action if ever there was one. "I'm going to absorb you. There will be no more Mongols, only Chinese."

Mongolia had to sit down then. It wasn't unheard of to absorb another nation; it was known as assimilation among humans. When one group was forced to follow another group's customs, intermarry, and disappear. It felt like he was trying to swallow chalk. "You can't be serious."

"Why shouldn't I be? You've always been a thorn in my side," and here China coughed, sick, "Just like Tibet. Why shouldn't I try to gain complete control over your lands?"

Mongolia could feel it. His time as a nation would come to an end, after the hundreds of years he had lived. He would fade away, nothing to remember his great empire but the whispers in Europe and Asia, and then not even that. He would disappear. A sort of icy fear filled his veins; what happened after he disappeared? What would happen to his people?

It was the worst blow a nation could take, and China proposed to do it to him like it was sweeping dust under a rug.

"I will be moving many of my people into your lands- though, of course, they are technically my lands too. Once your people are Chinese, they will stand between myself and the invaders, protecting the main part of China." China sounded like he had this all planned out.

"I beg you," Mongolia said, startling China, "don't do this to me. Allow me to live out my life in the peace of my herds, and you won't hear even a voice raised against you again from me."

China shrugged, saying, "It's been decided. Your people are to become Chinese."

"China, allow me to live as I always have. I allowed you to keep your ways-"

"When you burned my cities? When you massacred Chinese? It's a little late for any apology for that, by the way," China sniffed, and he moved towards the doorway. "I'm having a barracks built; myself and my troops will stay in while we enact these new laws."

"China, please, don't do this." Mongolia's plea was ignored, as China stormed out.

There was little worse that could be done to a nation than to make him disappear. Mongolia's head dropped into his hands, and a whole body shudder went through him.

He was going to die.

/AN/ I thought this was a good start for a series on Mongolian history, starting at about 1911. He is technically a canon character, after all. And don't worry, I won't forget about Inhuman, any readers of that story. It's just a lot harder to update than most of the other stories.

Anyway, history time!

The Qing Empire was in a bad way before 1911. They'd lost wars and territory to many different countries, from Germany to Japan. Plus, with the South in rebellion, silver taxes weren't getting paid. Since Mongolia was owned by China at this point, they, as well as other territories, were forced to pay more taxes, and with silver. This was a departure from the norm, because originally the Mongolians were allowed to pay in animals, since that was all they had.

When silver became the requirement, Mongolians had to get loans of silver from Chinese merchants, who would charge them exorbitant rates, and then have them pay them with massive amounts of animals that would then be shipped off to China. As you can see, this was not a sustainable system. Mongolia was in a worse place than China proper.

On top of that, China had aims to assimilate Mongolia, by settling great amounts of Han Chinese as farmers in the area.

The Mongolians sent letters and pleas to the Qing government, asking to be allowed to continue in their ancient way of life, but they were ignored. There were troops installed so that the Mongolians would cooperate.

This did not turn out well for China, however...