War on Quon Wo (WQW)

Military: War

The War on Quon Wo is the collective term for the various engagements and campaigns fought on the Sea of Quon Wo throughout the Long War's Duration. Anything relating to that on this timeline will be marked with (WQW), and the reader can refer here for more holistic information.

The War on Quon Wo is the collective term for various engagements and campaigns fought on the Sea of Quon Wo throughout the Long War's duration. While historians will include anything from a skirmish with vaguely aligned sides to full-on campaigns launched by each into the label, this timeline will only note actions that had an actual impact and was explicitly sponsored by one side or another. Unless it is particularly interesting.

A common element of the western water war--as it is also known--is the usage of proxies. The Akroni navy had little in the name of central control and federalization, so naval power varied much more than its army. Depending on the client's states participating in an event, their performance could be stellar or atrocious. Laran had and has little in terms of naval tradition, so instead hired and aligned itself with regional powers to do the naval work for it. The relationship was always fairly loose in terms of Larani oversight, at minimum an understanding to avoid Larani casualties and shipping.

The first major engagement in the War on Quon Wo was a response to Akroni naval raids, perpetrated by the Akroni client states of Damakos and Tebeklon. They were aided by corsairs from the Pirate Republic of Jhe Kin, who while not a part of the Confederacy, were Akroni aligned.

Lacking a navy that was little more than merchant ships, the Lati House of Choking Algae entered negotiations with a pirate confederation known as the Da Rir. In the first part of the War on Quon Wo, most of the legitimate governments refused to join the Long War, guessing correctly it would destroy their states. The pirate republics that infested the sea on the other hand were happy to gain some credibility and some coin.

The Da Rir Federation, the largest at the time, gleefully took the Lati up on their offer, to basically blocade military ships from entering Larani waters and to collect any plunder they gathered. The head of the House of Choking Algae, Nima, also sent twenty subservient Lati along to learn the ins and outs of naval command. The final part of the trade was to bring several instructors to the Larani mainland, to train sailors and teach them naval combat.

The Federation sent the next two decades plundering as much as they could, but a slow withdrawal of Larani support left them weak and unable to replenish manpower. As such, when Damakos, Tebekon, and Jhe Kin mounted a joint assault not just to break the blockade but to raze down the Federation's capital, they could do little to mount a focussed defense.

With the heads of the Federation dead, the capital in ruins, and their navy cohesion shattered, most of the surviving parts of the federation declared independence, sending the Sea into a state of a thousand little pirate groups grasping as much as they could. The prepared army of Nima of the House of Choking Algae filled much of the power vacuum, incorporating or annihilating many of the pirates near Larani waters. While they would not be as effective as the Federation was at blocking the Akroni, they did keep a tighter grip on the operation.

Naturally this shattered any reputation the Larani had built up among the pirates in the Sea of Quon Wo, so it was not until a new House--House Shickida--became involved some three decades after the federation dissolved that any headway was made on the Larani side.

The Akroni in the meantime had consolidated much of their control over the northern Sea of Quon Wo, formally incorporating several kingdoms and pirate republics. However, the latter did not do away with their old habits and they rarely made exceptions for Akroni ships, leading to a civil war between Damakos, Tebeklon, Jhe Kin, and the various smaller powers aligned with them.

After a catastrophe involving an Aquakinesis Wych resulted in most of the top brass of Jhe Kin dying in a naval battle, the pirate republic dissolved, reforming into a merchant republic. It did not save them from the fighting with Laran, but the accession of their sphere of influence in the Sea got the other two to leave them alone. Tebeklon would fall after a long siege, leaving Damakos the head of Akroni naval operations in the Sea of Quon Wo for another century. The region would fall under the influence of what was known in Arlesciatre as the Damakos League, due to Damakos' unofficial effective rule over all Akroni territories in the area.

To Be Updated