The Conflict
Prelude
For eons, and days before days, Catai had been a land of faith and spirts uncountable. The land is as diverse as its people and their beliefs, making the land beautiful even when it is drowned in war. The land has always been dotted by countless sects and faiths around the land, however in recent years it was a time of peril indeed. The War of the Jade Dragon had caused great upheaval in the lands even as Catai won against the Kanto forces. The emperor at the time, one Xu Wei, went mad as many emperors before him, and so brought about an age of some of the bloodiest civil war in Cataian history. However, over the years as orders such as the Order of the Silver Sun began to prepare to slay Emperor Xu Wei and restore balance to pave way for a new ruler, suddenly that is when Xiong Wuying revealed herself to the world. This was a strange occurrence to the many sects of the land, as none had forseen this strange mythical woman descending from the mountains and conquering land swiftly. Stories of her powers began to come to light, with many hailing her as the next great ruler.
She finally took over the palace and secured her position as Empress, though none were allowed to gaze upon the Jade Throne that had always helped choose who was worthy to rule. This worried some holy orders, but others shrugged it off, willing to if not work with the new empresses at least take a more passive role. However the Order of the Silver Sun was suspicious, and would begin trying to discover the truth of her ascension. That is around the time Xiong Wuying announced herself as the Jade Goddess, declaring her new faith in the land under the Church of the Jade Empress. At this time, other religions were still allowed, as the politicians and her court were still consolidating power, however this already began to set off alarm bells for many holy orders. While holy orders working closely with the imperial power are by no means anything new, a church directly worshipping a ruler? Madness, plain and simple madness. It was only after 2 years of carefully laid out spy work that the Order of the Silver Sun discovered the lies of her rise to power. She was a false goddess, a blasphemy against the wills of the heavens, and she had desecrated the throne by draining its power, and declaring her right to rule forever. The throne that many of the immortals (strange nearly mythical members who with alchemy and spiritual faith are said to be so old as to have lived since the orders founding) helped build was ruined, a slap in the face to the gods of the land, and revelation that she planned to wipe out their faiths from the land in favor of her own masquerading church.
Rebellion did not start overnight, but it certainly grew rapidly thanks to the many hardships in the land. While the government was able to rebuild its armies and power quickly, this came at a cost to the working people, with famine and rampant corruption amongst tax collectors ravaging the land. This coupled with rivers growling and writing against their flows and drowning swathes of farm land, would help spread the whispers of rebellion like wildfire. However, they were betrayed as one of the orders spies in the imperial palace caved under the pressure of the goverment officals, and confessed the growing rebellion in the imperial city. The Jade Empress had these sympathizers and their famalies dragged into the street kicking and screaming, and had them publicly executed before the citizens. With this act of terror, the Order of the Silver Sun and many other holy orders knew that they were out of time to prepare, and so cried out to the entire land of Catai for the laberours to take up arms against their tyrants and the mad empress. The golden sky has been dragged dead and gone down from the heavens, and now a Silver Sun once again rises into the infinite skies, in the year 4180EC.
In truth, the Empress and her court did not anticipate the rebellion to already be so numerous, believing it to be mostly centered around the imperial city itself and not the entierty of the nation. While orginization of the army was slow at first, The Jade Empress employed some of her greatest generals to help lead the loyalist forces such as Kong Xun, Qin Ru, Lin Ya, and Gao Yimu.
While the Order of the Silver Sun was one of the larger orders of Catai, and certinely one of the more powerful, it banded together with countless other holy orders under one banner. This coupled with several cities and towns killing their goverment officals and banding together under the banner of the peoples army, meant that although disorginized the rebels numbed in the millions almost overnight. While the immortals of the Silver Sun would help guide the orders, they also apointed generals to help organize the rebellion. These generals included:
- Mao Shi, General of Heaven and Sky
- Bai Ru, General of the Land and Sun
- Feng Jiang, General of Harmony and Faith
- Su Zhen, General of the People
It should be noted that some goverment officals also threw their lot in with the rebels, though these are by far the minority. It is even thought that mercenaries from Kanto and even the Ujikk steppe tribes would sell their services to the rebels in exchange for war spoils.
Effectively the entierty of Catai, though very little naval action was conducted it did nonetheless happen. No matter the weather or the season, war was waged almost without end.
While fighting at first went in favor of the rebels, this quickly turned into a brutal back and fourth campaign of death and destruction. Even in cities conquered/reconquered by the loyalist forces, the rebels used gurellia warfare and formed cells in the cities to cause hell for goverment officals. Both sides seemed utterly heedless to the crossfire of the people, and entire cities and towns were burned to the ground, reconstructed upon the bodies of the old, and then burned down again and again. After the first few years of fighting, the war became even more bloody as mages and the like used powerful magics to wipe away armies and mountains, and the immortals used their horrifyingly awe inspiring power to wreck havoc on the loyalist forces. Some whisper that even heavenly dragons became involved in fights, dueling above the clouds and mountains with thunderous lightning and dancing lights dotting the skies and heavens.
As stated previously, the Jade Empress was not expecting the roots of rebellion to run as deep as they did, and pretty soon several cities and towns began to burn with rebels setting fire to govermental buildings and mobs hanging any officals they could get their hands on. However thanks to the demonstration earlier, the capital city of the Empress was relatively safe ground for loyalist forces. This allowed for the Jade Empress to start to gather her forces for an organized push. However in this time, the Silver Rebellion was already gaining huge swathes of territory, only really being halted in the Yangchi province. Xizang was the first to completly fall, with many of the laberours ambushing loyalist forces and then looting the equipment off of them.
After finally getting an organized force despite the logistical hell the loyalist forces were under, the Jade Empress sent out her generals with their vast armies. General Lin Ya marched for the north to fight against Bai Ru and Mao Shi, with the fighting proving to be some of the most brutal. However due to unfortunate luck, Bai Ru would fall ill after the first few years of fighting, before finally succumbing to the strange illness. However even with one of the rebel generals dead, Mao Shi still proved to be a fierce warrior and commander, with his rebel forces effectively boxed into the northern province. So fierce was the resistance that General Lin Ya was lambasted by the empress for her incompetence, and General Kong Xun had to redirect his forces fighting in the east to move north to reinforce. Fighting in the west and south had by this point stalemated, but the loyalist forces were already begining to buckle under the stress of constant night raids and rebel cells sprouting in their backlines.
However after the first few years, the tide began to turn, as the Jade Empress kept her trade lanes secure with the outside world. This in turn with hiring vast swathes of mercenary companies, began to weaken the rebel forces. This led to one of the most important battles of the war: The Battle of Taizou. Taizou was a large mining city within the Han Province, set up near a large dormant volcano said to house some of the best minerals and gems in the empire. It has fallen in the first 2 years of fighting to the rebels and had been turned into effecitvely their main stronghold in the land. After years of horrific fighting and lossess, the loyalist forces were able to carve a path to the city, where a great siege began. The Siege took 3 years of fighting, with constant bombs and spells being thrown at each side. The immortals took to the fields once more and as word got out of the bulk of loyalist forces moving to assualt the city, the rebels gambled their fortune on deciding the war in this spot. By this point they had no choice, as Taizou was their last real stronghold in the empire, and so the battle would turn from gureling siege to total war. The nightmarish last few days of the siege are said to be the stuff of hell itself, with the Jade Empress taking to the field personally and unleashing her horrifying power upon the armies. terrocata automatons were called fourth on both sides to batter and bludgeon each other to death, and the volcano awoke and spewed fire and ash into the sky. Forces had to do battle in lava drowned streets, and no one could tell friend from foe.
However in the end, despite the horrific lossess on both sides, the loyalists retook the town. Scant few survivors were able to escape as the Empress declared no quarter to be given, with even most of the immortals being killed when directly dueling the empress and her surviving generals. News of the defeat spread, and pretty soon the isolated pockets of resistance began to crumble and fall one by one. The very last battle occured in 4189EC, not with a climactic, massive battle, but a whimper. The last Silver Sun garrison was undermanned, and under equipped, and yet they stood their ground, and were slain to the last, with the last rebel general Su Zhen falling to the spears of a dozen loyalist warriors. Thus marked the end of the rebellion as a significant threat to the Empress, and with it the faiths of the land died not with a bang, but an exhausted whimper.
Perhaps one of the most horrifying brutal reprisals to any rebellion in Catai history, this war saw the scouring and burning of every monostary the Order of the Silver Sun had, and all but a scant few of its immortals butchered. Other holy orders were not spared either, as soon very few monostaries and altars relating to anything not espousing the glory of the Jade Empress were desecrated and destoryed. Any thought to sympathize with the rebels were put to death by either the military or the Jade Empress's secret police, and within a few years the Silver Sun and the rebellion was effectively wiped off the map and books of history. Only a few members survived: one being a Huli Jing named Lang Ya.
Total casualties number in the millions. 10,000,000 at the very minimum, but a total counting of the dead has never been able to be provided, with some even claiming the number to be actively supressed by the current regime.
With the help of the purges and secret police of the empire, any religon not espousing the Jade Empress in some form was disbanded and made illegal. While isolated pockets of traditionalists still exist today, they are in effect powerless, isolated communities and towns who are wise to not poke the hornets nest. This war also served to strengthen the empress's stranglehold rule over the empire, even after the horrific loss of life and destruction across the empire. Even when faced with overwhelming odds, she truly did emerge victorious as the goddess had claimed, and soon after, the Church of the Jade Empress could be found in every major town and city. What historical accounts of the war that still exist tell of the ugly faced devils and demons worshipping silver lights trying to bring ruin to the greatest empire the world had ever known. Though some elements of rebel forces do (surprisngly) still live, they are either imprisoned or forced into hiding, and many still simply flee the nation, hoping to one day return. The Huli Jing of the Silver Sun espically have found the need to escape into Kanto or further beyond, being seen as a great threat to the current regime of Catai.
