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by The Grand Duchy Of Nova Capile » Sat May 09, 2020 12:45 pm
by HypErcApitAl » Sat May 09, 2020 12:46 pm
by Ontorisa » Sat May 09, 2020 12:46 pm
The Grand Duchy Of Nova Capile wrote:When you realize the OP's own 48-hour reservation has expired and thus his land is claimable.
by HypErcApitAl » Sat May 09, 2020 12:48 pm
by The Grand Duchy Of Nova Capile » Sat May 09, 2020 12:52 pm
by HypErcApitAl » Sat May 09, 2020 12:56 pm
by Nuraca » Sat May 09, 2020 1:05 pm
by Danceria » Sat May 09, 2020 1:15 pm
Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States wrote:Sarderia wrote:I could see tensions brewing between the Crusaders and the not-Spanish Caliphate in their south. Though actually it's most of a secular state than outright Caliphate, as we have so many Christians it's almost half of the population.
Oh, that's interesting! I was actually planning a similar route with the Latines. Formerly a Crusader state, but now actually quite respecting of other faiths. It's Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims and Jews living together in relative harmony, loosely based on a post-medieval understanding of the Roman empire.
by Nuraca » Sat May 09, 2020 1:16 pm
Sao Nova Europa wrote:Application
General
--Nation Name: Great Shun
--Map:
--Flag:
--Capital: Beijing
Government
--Government Type: Absolute Monarchy
--Government Overview:
The Emperor (Huáng Dì) is the Son of Heaven and the autocrat of All Under Heaven. He is the supreme ruler of the entire civilized world. The Shun Dynasty does not recognize any other governments as legitimate entities, viewing them instead as tributary states or unruly barbarians. All must submit before the heavenly-ordained ruler of the world. Tributary states are expected to annually submit tribute to the Emperor. The unruly barbarians are excused for their lack of decorum before the Emperor as they know no better. Tributary states are allowed to trade with the Empire but barbarians are kept out.
The Emperor rules with the aid of the Chancellor. The Chancellor is always an eunuch, a precautionary measure to prevent the domination of the office by powerful political dynasties. The Chancellor heads the Six Departments and Six Ministries. The Six Departments are:The Secretariat, responsible for drafting policies.
The Chancellery, responsible for reviewing policies.
The Department of State Affairs, responsible for implementing policies.
The Department of Palace, responsible for the upkeep of the imperial household.
The Department of Books, responsible for maintaining the Imperial Library.
The Department of Service, responsible for staffing the palace with eunuchs.
The Six Ministries are:Ministry of Personnel, in charge of appointments, promotions & demotions of officials and the granting of honorific titles.
Ministry of Rites, in charge of state ceremonies & rituals and the maintenance of palace protocol.
Ministry of Revenue, in charge of collecting taxes, handling state revenues and gathering census data.
Ministry of War, in charge of appointments, promotion & demotion of military officers, maintenance of military installations and equipment, supply of the military and leadership in times of war.
Ministry of Justice, in charge of the judicial and penal process.
Ministry of Works, in charge of government construction programs and maintenance of infrastructure.
The Office of Barbarian Affairs is an independent agency responsible for diplomacy. It is mostly concerned with nations that are not tributary states of the Shun Dynasty. Relations with the tributary states are handled by the Ministry of Rites.
The Imperial Household is staffed entirely by eunuchs and servant ladies. The number of concubines is in the hundreds while the number of eunuchs and servant ladies in the thousands. The Imperial Household is a large, complex bureaucracy of its own, a miniature government of sorts handling the women and offspring of the Emperor. Concubines are chosen both in merits of political expediency and of beauty. They are trained by eunuchs to adhere to a strict protocol.
Below the Ministries are the Bureaus, government departments staffed by bureaucrats chosen in accordance to their rank in the Imperial Examinations. The scholar-officials dominate thus the bureaucracy. The maximum tenure in office is twelve years but every three years officials are evaluated and can be promoted or demoted.
The administrative division of the country is:Viceroyalty, comprising of several provinces.
--Head of Government: Chancellor Yang Guo
Province
Prefecture
County
--Head of State (if different): Jiajing Emperor
Demographics
--Population: 271,300,000
----Colonial Population (if applicable): -
--Demonym: Chinese
--Primary Culture: Han Chinese
--Other Cultures: Vietnamese, Mongol, Manchu, Uighur, Tibetan
--Religion Overview: A syncretism of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Ancestor Worship. Other religions are tolerated, as long as religious beliefs do not undermine imperial rule.
Development Points (Total = 15, 11 for nations with no navy)
--Infrastructure/Economy (out of 10): 6
--Army (out of 10): 7
--Navy (out of 10): 2
--Military Overview:
The military is divided into two main groups: the Standard Army and the Guard Battalions. The 300,000 men strong Standard Army is the professional force of the Shun Dynasty. It is equipped with the best weaponry available and has the most training and discipline. It is meant to undertake offensive operations and conquer land for the Emperor. The Guard Battalions, numbering 600,000 men, are hereditary soldiers stationed in the provinces. They are granted military farms (tun tian) and are supposed to be self-sufficient. Their main objective is to defend provinces and act as a policing force too, undertaking operations against bandits and rebels. They are less well equipped and disciplined than the Standard Army soldiers and cannot be counted on in a serious military engagement. The Heavenly Fleet is the naval arm of the Shun military but despite its impressive name, it is small in size and mainly acts as a policing force to keep coasts clear from pirates. The Shun Empire focuses on land warfare and thus the navy is underfunded. The military is under the strict supervision of the civilian Ministry of War to avoid the danger of ambitious generals turning against the central government. The Ministry is responsible for the maintenance of military installations and the supply of the troops. It maintains bureaus in the various provinces in order to undertake this task. A large network of roads, bridges and canals enables a steady and relatively fast (for the standards of the time and the size of the empire) supplying of the military. The number of bureaucrats employed to undertake this logistical support is almost half the size of the military.
RP Elements
--National Objectives: Maintenance of the status quo as the dominant power in East Asia. The Shun Empire has already fulfilled its territorial ambitions and seeks no further territorial expansion.
--History:
By the late 1600s, the once mighty and rich Ming Dynasty was in terminal decline. Widespread natural disasters and famines, banditry and military defeats at the hands of the Manchus in the north meant that the prestige of the dynasty had plummeted. Everyone was certain that the dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven and that the Ming Emperor was no longer fit to rule. In the 1630s a number of peasant revolts broke out. Among those rebelling was Li Zicheng, a man of obscure origins who joined one of the peasant revolts in 1633. Thanks to his cunning and martial prowess, by 1637 he was leader of the revolt. His armies marched forward, crushing Ming resistance and in 8 February 1644 he proclaimed in Xi'an, the old Han Dynasty capital, the establishment of the Shun Dynasty.
In April 1644, Beijing was captured and the last Ming Emperor hanged himself in shame. Li Zicheng managed to impose discipline on his troops, preventing a plunder of the city. Instead, he recruited many of the former Ming officials and sought to come to an accommodation with the Ming political establishment. In early June, Li proclaimed himself Yongchang Emperor. Realizing that the Manchus in the north could take advantage of the situation to launch an invasion of the Middle Kingdom, Yongchang came into a secret agreement with Wu Sangui, the Ming military officer in command of the vital Sanhai Pass, the eastern terminus of the Great Wall. Yongchang arrested his family and publicly declared Wu Sangui a traitor. Wu contacted the Manchu regent Dorgon, offering him his submission and a clear path to China. Dorgon accepted and a sizeable Manchu force arrived to the Sanhai Pass. Instead of aiding them, though, Wu and his men ambushed the Manchus and eliminated them almost to the last man. This clever scheme is now remembered in China as one of the most brilliant stratagems in Chinese history.
Wu Sangui became Marshall of the North, essentially supreme commander of the Shun military forces. His first task was to launch an invasion of the Manchu heartland, taking advantage of the crushing defeat the Manchus had suffered. By 1647 much of Western Manchuria was under Shun rule. This region had a sizeable Chinese population and was more urbanized, and thus easier to control. On the other hand, the eastern part of Manchuria was left outside Shun control and remained under nomadic Manchu rule. While Wu was busy subduing the Manchus, in the south things for Shun did not look good. A Southern Ming regime had been established by a fleeing Ming prince, who rallied Ming loyalists to his cause against the 'bandit pretender'. The regime was based on Nanjing and ruled much of the Chinese South. The Shun suffered a series of defeats but managed to maintain Northern China under their rule.
In 1648, Wu Sangui led an invasion of the South. A force of over 350,000 men invaded and fought a series of pitched battles and drawn-out sieges against the ramp Ming regime. By 1652, the South had been pacified but at the cost of over 120,000 soldiers dead on both sides and 400,000 civilian casualties. Wu, responsible for the pacification of the South, chose to show clemency towards the defeated and recruited South Ming officials into the new Shun administration. He reestablished the old Ming system of Guard Battalion, giving hereditary land to men in exchange for military service. Those new troops would ensure the establishment of long-lasting peace in the South.
In 1660, a Shun army of 150,000 men invaded Yunnan and pacified the region, establishing Shun control. In 1662, the Shun army managed to take over Taiwan, the last remaining Ming loyalist stronghold. The Ming loyalist Koxinga was executed publicly. With the reunification of the whole of the Middle Kingdom under Shun rule, the dynasty was able to stabilize its hold over China as it was now evident to all that the Yongchang Emperor enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven. Wanting to showcase the prestige of the dynasty and expunge China from devious foreign influence, the Yongchang Emperor proclaimed a policy of 'closed doors'. Only tributary states would be allowed to trade with China while trade with the barbarian tribes was forbidden. With the exception of a trade settlement in Macau by the Kingdom of Brittany, no other European power has been allowed to trade with the Shun Empire.
Yongchang died in 1663 and was succeeded by his eldest son, who took the title of Taizong Emperor. Primogeniture had been established by Yongchang as the succession principle of the dynasty. Taizong, sharing the same name as the great Tang Emperor Li Shimin, wanted to compete with his namesake in terms of military conquest and sagacity. In contrast to his father, Taizong was dreaming of expanding the borders of Chinese civilization, a Chinese version of the European 'civilizing mission'. Taizong was only twenty-three years old when he came to the throne and, unlike his peasant father, had been educated by the best scholars of the Empire. He was a poet, calligrapher and painter. Energetic, he showed an unwillingness to let the court control him. In 1664, he managed to assassinate Wu Sangui, getting himself rid of a possible opponent. He appointed fellow-minded young officials in high positions of governance. His Chancellor, Zhang Yudi, was only thirty-four years old while his Marshall Guo Jing was forty-four years old. A new era had dawned.
Just like the Taizong Emperor of the Tang Dynasty had imposed his will on the nomadic tribes of the north, the Shun Taizong Emperor wanted to impose his own will on the Mongol tribes. Taizong found his chance when in 1668 the Khorching Mongols requested his assistance against the advances of the Khalkha and Chahar Mongols. A Shun army was dispatched and managed to inflict a series of defeats on the hostile Mongols. This was in large part thanks to the Mongol cavalry provided by the Khorching Mongols. Guo Jing made clever use of that cavalry to compensate for the weakness of the largely infantry-based Shun military. By 1672, Mongolia had been pacified, as had the part of southern Xinjiang controlled by the Khalkha Mongols.
Taizong headed in person to the north and in a public ceremony in 11 March 1672, he was proclaimed Khagan of the Mongols. Guo Jing was left responsible for the continued pacification of the region. With cunning diplomacy, he managed to gain the friendship of many in the Mongol nobility. Instead of ruling the vast plains of Mongolia in a Chinese manner, Guo Jing chose instead to retain the traditional Mongol administration. He merged disloyal defeated tribes with the tribes of his Mongol allies and left the actual administration in the hands of the Mongol tribal leaders. Aside from paying a yearly tribute, providing a levy of cavalry and not engaging in tribal warfare, the Mongols were left to their devises.
At the same time, Chancellor Zhang Yudi implemented an ambitious reformist agenda. He enacted a broad land redistributing program to give farm to tenants and landless peasants, much to the dismay of many large landowners. Regional revolts in the 1660s were crushed by the Shun military, allowing the reform to go ahead. Zhang undertook the first population census since the collapse of the Ming. The 1671 census gave an accurate picture of the population of the Empire and allowed a revision of the tax assessment to make taxation fairer. Monopoly on salt was established, roads, canals and bridges were either updated or constructed and series of granaries were built in the provinces to allow steady supply in times of natural disasters.
The conquest of Mongolia brought the Shun Dynasty in conflict with the Dzungar Khanate. An Inner Asian Khanate of Mongol origins, it controlled parts of Outer Mongolia and much of northern Xinjiang. In 1683, a Shun invasion was launched, led by the brilliant Guo Jing. A mixed army of Chinese infantry and Mongol cavalry pushed deep into Dzungar territory. The Chinese infantry was garrisoning conquered land while the Mongol cavalry was undertaking the offensive. In a decisive battle in 12 August 1685, the Dzungar army was crushed and the Khan himself was killed. A civil war broke out between his two sons, allowing the Shun to overwhelm the remaining Dzungars. Although the Dzungar Khanate was fully conquered by 1686, it was not fully pacified. Two widespread revolts broke out in 1688 and 1691, which led to widespread massacres of Dzungar civilians. In order to completely pacify the region, the Taizong Emperor ordered the mass emigration of landless Chinese to the region. By 1700, the region had a Chinese ethnic majority.
In 1695, the Shun Dynasty intervened in Tibet on behalf of the Dalai Lama, after a riot in Lhasa had driven out the Tibetan religious leader. A 50,000 men strong Shun army conquered Tibet by 1698 and established Dalai Lama as its ruler. Shun garrisons were established in vital strongholds of the country and the Dalai Lama was nothing more than a figurehead meant to keep the Tibetans in line. While the Empire was expanding, Taizong had constructed the Grand Library in Beijing, a gargantuan pagoda that housed thousands of books, almost the entirety of Chinese literature. Taizong was a patron of arts and he financed many artistic projects.
In 1699, the Taizong Emperor died and was succeeded by his second son, as his eldest son had died from disease two years earlier (although there is speculation that he had been poisoned by the second son). The Kangxi Emperor, in his thirties when coming to the throne, was far less austere than his father and more willing to indulge in carnal pleasures. He was a competent ruler however, entrusting key offices of the state in the hands of capable officials. He established in 1701 the Secret Memorandums, allowing direct communication between him and local officials without the court or ministries getting in the way. This allowed far greater imperial oversight of the public administration.
In 1711, the Kangxi Emperor launched an invasion of the Lê Dynasty of Vietnam. An ambitious Vietnamese general, Nguyen Xi, had launched a coup in 1710 that overthrew the rightful Dụ Tông Emperor. Dụ Tông managed to escape to China and asked the Kangxi Emperor to intervene. An army under the Mongol general Tögs-Ochiryn invaded Vietnam and by 1712 it had managed to conquer much of the north of the country. The tropical conditions though and the irregular attacks by Vietnamese peasants forced the Shun army to retreat. Almost 20,000 men had perished. A second invasion was launched in 1714 that also ended in disaster.
Finally, in 1717, a third invasion was launched under general Huang Dao. This time, it was a combined land and naval invasion. The number of land troops mobilized reached 160,000, the largest Shun invasion force since the war against the Dzungar Khanate. By 1720, Vietnam had been pacified. Instead of restoring Dụ Tông, Kangxi chose to annex Vietnam into the Shun Dynasty. After hundreds of years of independence, Vietnam was finally once again a Chinese dominion. Dụ Tông was strangled and three revolts in 1721, 1725 and 1729 were brutally put down. Widespread massacres were followed by Chinese colonization of the region, as Kangxi found a chance to solve social problems caused by an ever increasing population.
In 1730, the Champa Kingdom was invaded and most of it was annexed by 1732, with the exception of the far south. Champa was to be the final Chinese conquest. The Empire had already gotten too vast and neither the Emperor nor the bureaucracy had any interest in further expansion. Instead, the Shun Dynasty chose to enforce a strict system of tribute by the neighboring states. In 1735, the Kangxi Emperor died and was succeeded by the Tongzhi Emperor.
The Tongzhi Emperor largely left matters of state to his Chancellors, spending most of his time in pursuing various literary efforts. His Chancellors followed a policy of lowering taxes and keeping the peace. A White Lotus revolt in 1745 was the only instance of war. A quasi-religious movement, it managed to gain many followers in central China. Rising up in revolt, it managed to defeat local garrisons but by 1746 it had been crushed by the Standard Army.
In 1756, Tongzhi was succeeded by the twenty-four years old Jiajing Emperor. A more energetic ruler, the Jiajing Emperor has taken a more active role in everyday governance. His reign so far has focused on large-scale infrastructure projects to update the road network and expand the canals and bridges of China. He remains committed to the traditional Chinese dogma of seeing the Middle Kingdom as the only civilized entity in the world and hopes to maintain that status quo.
RP Sample: https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=36926722#p36926722
by Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States » Sat May 09, 2020 1:32 pm
by Sao Nova Europa » Sat May 09, 2020 1:34 pm
Nuraca wrote:Looks good, although I do think your size will bring about a lot of administrative and extension issues. Accepted!
by Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States » Sat May 09, 2020 1:38 pm
by Ontorisa » Sat May 09, 2020 1:55 pm
Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States wrote:Also, can I just say that I am very happy with the territorial claims so far? Normally in this kind of RP, people fall over themselves to create enormous empires in order to be important players, but right now it looks like people are choosing to go into detail of smaller nations, which is really cool to see.
by Reverend Norv » Sat May 09, 2020 1:58 pm
For really, I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he. And therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear that every man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that Government. And I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that Government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under.
Col. Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates, 1647
A God who let us prove His existence would be an idol.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
by Khasinkonia » Sat May 09, 2020 2:09 pm
Ontorisa wrote:Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States wrote:Also, can I just say that I am very happy with the territorial claims so far? Normally in this kind of RP, people fall over themselves to create enormous empires in order to be important players, but right now it looks like people are choosing to go into detail of smaller nations, which is really cool to see.
Right? I find if we focus as being smaller nations, we leave more interaction & collaboration with others on the board
It's always good to have three-four large superpowers in the world, but having members sign up as smaller countries is always a welcome.
by Reverend Norv » Sat May 09, 2020 2:11 pm
For really, I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he. And therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear that every man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that Government. And I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that Government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under.
Col. Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates, 1647
A God who let us prove His existence would be an idol.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
by Danceria » Sat May 09, 2020 2:13 pm
Khasinkonia wrote:Right? I find if we focus as being smaller nations, we leave more interaction & collaboration with others on the board
It's always good to have three-four large superpowers in the world, but having members sign up as smaller countries is always a welcome.
by Sao Nova Europa » Sat May 09, 2020 2:13 pm
by The Grand Duchy Of Nova Capile » Sat May 09, 2020 2:18 pm
Reverend Norv wrote:I think I'll be bringing back my Huguenot French republic from past Alt-Divs.
48hr Reservation Form
New Nation Name: The French Commonwealth.
Map: France within something close to its real-life modern borders. Everything north of the Pyrenees (including Roussillon), west of the HRE (which looks from the map to give me Lorraine but not Alsace, though I could be wrong), and southwest of the Dutch frontier. Obviously, this excludes Brittany. The Italian border will follow more or less its modern RL line.
999 - Do not delete this.
by HypErcApitAl » Sat May 09, 2020 2:25 pm
Ontorisa wrote:Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States wrote:Also, can I just say that I am very happy with the territorial claims so far? Normally in this kind of RP, people fall over themselves to create enormous empires in order to be important players, but right now it looks like people are choosing to go into detail of smaller nations, which is really cool to see.
Right? I find if we focus as being smaller nations, we leave more interaction & collaboration with others on the board
It's always good to have three-four large superpowers in the world, but having members sign up as smaller countries is always a welcome.
by Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States » Sat May 09, 2020 2:31 pm
by Khasinkonia » Sat May 09, 2020 2:33 pm
Reverend Norv wrote:I think I'll be bringing back my Huguenot French republic from past Alt-Divs.
48hr Reservation Form
New Nation Name: The French Commonwealth.
Map: France within something close to its real-life modern borders. Everything north of the Pyrenees (including Roussillon), west of the HRE (which looks from the map to give me Lorraine but not Alsace, though I could be wrong), and southwest of the Dutch frontier. Obviously, this excludes Brittany. The Italian border will follow more or less its modern RL line.
999 - Do not delete this.
by Nuraca » Sat May 09, 2020 2:41 pm
Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States wrote:Also, can I just say that I am very happy with the territorial claims so far? Normally in this kind of RP, people fall over themselves to create enormous empires in order to be important players, but right now it looks like people are choosing to go into detail of smaller nations, which is really cool to see.
by Danceria » Sat May 09, 2020 2:49 pm
Nuraca wrote:Also, here's the Discord server!
Again, not mandatory to be in here, just may be easier to talk and would crowd up the OOC a bit less.
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