The year 1874 ushered in a new period of uncertainty for the Swazi. With Ludvonga dead, a struggle for the succession ensued, which concluded with Mbandzeni being installed as a virtual puppet of the queen mother and the regency council. The next eight years, until Mbandzeni disposed of the queen mother and assumed the full perquisites of power, were a period of decentralisation of royal authority as the regiments were partially demobilised and as local leaders reclaimed some of their lost powers. In the wider regional context this was also a period of marking time. At first sight no clear pattern can be discerned. Fresh permutations of the old political order following hard on the heels of one another, in a bewildering kaleidoscope of political change. Renewed pressure from the Zulu in the mid-1870s, and a new Swazi defeat at the hands of the Pedi, were followed by the Republic's collapse in the 1876 Pedi War, and by Britain's annexation of the Transvaal. Yet beneath this surface swirl of events deeper currents were running which were reshaping the regional balance of power. The repercussions of the mineral discoveries of the late 1860s and early 1870s pulsed their way through the whole of the region, while demographic pressure was building up in Zululand, Pediland and the Trans-Vaal. The squeeze on Swaziland increased accordingly, and was applied in a far more systematic fashion, although the quarters from which it emanated constantly changed. The deepening contradictions of the period were at least partly responsible for Britain's annexation of Transvaal, which heralded the birth of a new era, in which the Zulu, the Pedi and the Swazi would all succumb successively.