History of Yansaka

Yansaka means “Land of the Beautiful Rising Sun”, essentially meaning the north-eastern part of the Continent, and can divided into five regions: Fālai, the Centre; Shojun, the North; Khirtsen, the West; Bhan-Tiet, the South; and Ekoro, the East. Yansaka is inhabited almost exclusively by an avian people called the kochulo although evidence shows that there might have other non-kochulo avians in the distant past.

Archaic Era

Its history begins with a woman called Minoma who used her powers of divination to unite the different tribes of central Fālai and found a state centred on the village of Shezi on the banks of the Rong River. The culture that emerged from this union of tribes formed the basis of Yansakan culture, especially when it came to religion. Under Minoma, state authority was based on the inner spirituality of a priestess and women were tasked with protecting their households by communicating with the kami and ancestors. However this early state came into conflict with a powerful nation that emerged from the south: the Sōqā. The Sōqā introduced rice farming, metalworking and sky worship and while the cultures gradually blended over time the Sōqā maintained a sharp distinction between them and Minoma’s people.

Classical Era

One of Minoma's descendants, a man from the Jūng family called Teūng, galvanised his people’s resentment and overthrew the Sōqā, forcing them to flee southward to Bhan-Tiet. He established himself as the first emperor, claiming that Heaven had given him the mandate to rule, and re-established the institution of high priestess. He named his dynasty the Later Jūng, retroactively naming Minoma’s state the Former Jūng, built a court in the town of Chōde and codified the role of the emperor and the high priestess.

Era of the Three Kingdoms

Over time, the Jūng state gradually decentralised as land was given out to nobles and distant family members. Factionalism increased at court, weakening the Jūng Empire from the inside and fracturing the country into semi-autonomous domains, while tribes from the western grasslands raided along the border. A peasant uprising led by the powerful Nuo family who claimed that the Jūng had lost the Mandate of Heaven and established a rival court in Yalē. Meanwhile, one of the commanders of the western border, named Liae, rebelled against the Jūng, decisively defeated their armies and established his own dynasty in western Fālai. Thus started the Three Kingdoms Period. After years of brutal fighting the Nuo armies overcame the Jūng and forced them to flee north to the town of Tozae. The Nuo meanwhile tore down the city of Chōde and used the materials to build a new capital called Hasi. All was not war and destruction however; the Nuo established a civil examination for the nobility that was used to choose the most capable government officials. Meanwhile the Jūng recovered from their setbacks and became a thalassocracy, expanding their influence into Shojun and spreading Fālai culture as they went. The Liae on the other hand spread into the western grasslands and blended the cultures of Fālai and Khirtsen.
The Liae’s grip on power weakened which allowed a western clan called the Dokyo to unite the clans and with the help of the Nuo, take down the Liae. The Dokyo established a state run in a similar fashion to the Liae but made a few efforts to gain legitimacy by adopting aspects of Fālai culture, going so far as to rename themselves the Shū and build cities along the Cheolda River. However, they never fully integrated and often preferred to travel from city to city collecting tribute. Their uneasy alliance with the Nuo soon unravelled and the two states became bitter rivals. Around this time, the Atoran religion began to grow in prominence and proved to be particularly appealing to the Nuo since the traditional reverence for Minoma and Teūng had always been problematic due to their link to the Jūng dynasty. For the westerners of the Shū Dynasty, the Atoran faith was an appealing alternative to the Fālai-centric worship of Minoma and Teūng in addition to alienating the Jūng. However, the promotion of male-centric Atorism severely marginalised women who traditionally had a monopoly on religious matters. One western clan in particular, the Qatoka of northern Khirtsen, fervently opposed the spread of the new faith.

The Age of Ten Thousand Demons

At the peak of the Nuo and the Shū’s power, the fabric of reality was torn and a horde of demons invaded the physical world, obliterating the Nuo capital of Hasi and forcing the Shū flee from their strongholds. Fortified temples, both Atoran and native, became the only places of refuge for the people. Out of this chaos the Qatoka built their forces around the warrior priestesses of these fortified temples and, to the surprise of all, even allied with the Atoran strongholds. Under Qatoka leadership Fālai was liberated from the demons and the Qatoka built a new capital on the banks of the Rong called Rian, proclaiming themselves as a new dynasty under the name of Lun. As the demon threat receded they expanded into Khirtsen and Shojun, displacing the disgraced Shū and Jūng dynasties, and forced the fortified temples to disarm and make peace with each other, beginning a long process of syncretism between the kochulo and Atoran religions. The warrior monks and priestesses were surprisingly compliant, although contemporaries described how their magical abilities seemed to wane over time.

Golden Era

The Lun Dynasty was the longest and most powerful dynasty of in the history of the Kochulo. Their military campaigns brought all five regions under their rule and they were the first to introduce the notion of Yansaka as a single political entity. They expanded the examination system, established a centralised infrastructure, codified the hierarchy of priestesses and monks and spread the tributary system of the Nuo throughout Yansaka and even into Mahibram. Their great strength was their ability to present themselves differently to the different people of Yansaka: to Fālai they were sage-rulers, to Khirtsen they were warlords, to Bhan-Tiet they were divine-monarchs and to Shojun they were cultured aristocrats. Scientific advances were made which led to rapid urbanisation and the expansion of agricultural land, enabling the population to recover quickly from the Demon War.
But as time went by the pressure from the population growth put a strain on the state and climate change disrupted tradition agrarian patterns. Society became increasingly competitive and commercialisation brought wealth for some but misery for others. When faced with these issues the Lun government reacted by closing in on itself and becoming more conservative and rigid, breeding discontent as it stagnated. Initially the Lun had favoured a prominent Falaese family called the Qyu but by the later periods their alliance had shifted to another family called the Maung. The Maung helped the Lun reach even greater heights of prestige and magnificence but their excesses alienated many and drove them into secret societies headed by descendants of the Nuo and the Shū. Despite this the Lun dynasty enjoyed a high level of prestige throughout Yansaka and was considered the cultural and political centre of the East.

Early Modern Era

The Lun Dynasty met its end with the Great Plague. As the disease struck the empire the Lun were forced to abandon the peripheries and focus their attention of Fālai itself. Other nations stopped giving tribute as the Lun seemed to weaken and peasant uprisings spread across the land. The Lun monarchs sent a general descended from the Nuo to crush the peasants but instead he turned against them and besieged the city of Rian. As the siege dragged on the country fell into chaos and the Lun rulers sent desperate messages to their generals and their allies requesting help. In a last ditch attempt to end the siege, the Nuo forces tossed disease-ridden corpses over the battlements killing every single person from the highest court to the lowest slum. The Nuo had killed the emperor and arch-priestess but armies of Lun loyalists led by a Shojunese family called the Zaekan had responded to their rulers’ call and were bearing down on the traitors. The Shū meanwhile had organised several clans into an army called the Silver Horde and were prepared to make a grab for power. The Nuo retreated to the fortress of Sōta. The power vacuum left by the Lun lasted for several decades until the Shū emerged victorious, destroying the Nuo and chasing the Zaekan back to Shojun. A new dynasty was proclaimed under the name of Yozao and the Shū rebuilt the capital of Rian and show the continuity of the Mandate of Heaven.