B'alam Chan Chakh
| B'alam Chan Chakh | |
|---|---|
| K'uhul Ajaw | |
 | |
| Tenure | 2 October 1933 – 16 March 1951 |
| Predecessor | Sak K'uk II |
| Successor | Jasaw Chan K'awiil IV |
| Born | 7 August 1889 Chak Yaxnah Hokan, K'alak Muul |
| Died | 5 November 1951 (aged 62) Cosmic Travellers Hotel, Yu |
| Burial | |
| Wife | Sakchi S'ika |
| Issue | |
| House | Ilok'tab Dynasty |
| Father | Kaminak |
| Mother | Sak K'uk II |
B'alam Chan Chakh (Born 07 August 1889, died 05 November 1951) was the Divine Lord of the Mutul from the death of his mother in 1933 to his own passing in 1951. His rule was placed in the continuation of his predecessor, dealing with the aftermath of two wars against Belfras and Kayahallpa.
Liks many of his contemporaries, B'alam Chan Chakh had been impressed by the Latins (in the strictest sense of Belfras and Latium) industrial and modern militaries. He thus maintained in power the Orientalists, a faction of Mutuleses nobles, administrators, and officials who wished to take further inspiration from the Eastern World : Latium, Arthurista... what followed was a vast campaign of reforms of the economy, military, and politics of the Mutul known as the Eastern Wind (liberalization, transition to a constitutional monarchy, secularisation of the State institutions and so on).
The Eastern Wind successfuly revitalized the Mutul' economy and changed the military toward a smaller, professional, force equipped with state-of-the-art materials. Nonetheless, the real interest of B'alam Chan Chakh laid in Intelligence gathering and espionage. He would push for the reformation of many of the House of Shadows (internal affairs) and the Night Sun (external intellignece) and took personal leadership of the Night Tribunal, the organism tasked with policing both the agencies.
While accepting of the Orientalists ideals, he nonetheless refused to see a "weakening" of the K'uhul Ajaw powers turning into a weakening of his entire dynasty. In the forties, he retook to his family' profit the idea of a Central Reinsurance Society which was finally created in 1946 and controlled by his eldest daughter, Balamkeh. This Reinsurance Society remain to this day under the total control of the Ilok'tab under the name of Mutul Mutual and remain a part of the Ilok'tab's soft power over the economy of the Divine Kingdom.
B'alam Chan Chakh would thus continue to reinforce the Ilok'tab soft economic power. In 1934, his second son B’amak’ak (already in charge of the Ilok'tab automotive investment fund) became the director of a new Consortium meant to rationalize and streamline the Mutul Automotive industry, from the rubber plantations and iron mines to the car assemblies. Meanwhile, his eldest son and crown prince Jasaw Chan K'awiil IV, who had been serving as an intelligence officer for the Akb'al K'in just like how his father had been in the House of Shadows, was given administrative responsabilities as police chief (Ajaw Tupil) for the Yajawil of Joy Chan before returning to K'alak Muul in 1940 as Yajaw, or Viceroy, of the Yajawil of Chaknal to prepare him for the succession.
In 1947, B'alam Chan Chakh and his government faced an international scandal when it appeared that many mercenaries engaged by the Latin Social Republic had in actuality been Mutuleses servicemen and even members of the Bok'ak'ula or "DA3N". These revelations destroyed all remaining hope of a normalization of the relations between the Latium and the Mutul. The Mutulese secret intervention had been motivated by the possibility of installing a government in the Latium that would be in opposition to Belfras, breaking the traditional Latin Alliance that had been so effective during the Belfro-Mutuleses Wars. As the end of the Latin Alliance had been the main explanation given to the Mutuleses to justify the demands and reforms of the Orientalists, the Social War would prove the end of their credibility and legitimacy as a ruling party.
It is possible that B'alam Chan Chakh had already planned to purge the Orientalists, who refused to give up power and became more and more authoritarian as the years went by, but a lifetime of heavy drinking and cigars caught up to the K'uhul Ajaw in the form of a cancer. In 1951, during a state visit in the city of Yu he staunchily maintained despite his medical condition, he would die in his bedchamber at the Cosmic Travellers Hotel, possibly of a cardial arrest but, as is policy among the Ilok'tab, his medical records were never made public.