Tosānchi

Tosānchi, officially the Empire of Tosānchi (Tosānchi: 東西地帝國 Tosānchi Tankoku), is a  in Sinju. It is located east of Jeongmi.

Tosānchi is divided into 34 prefectures and six autonomous prefectures. It is compromised primarily of the mainland and a small archipelago to its west. The capital, Imperial Residence, and its biggest city is Tankyo, with 6.2 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area.

WIP

Etymology
Tosānchi's name is comprised of the characters 東 (To, meaning "east"), 西 (Sān, meaning "west") and 地 (Chi, meaning "land"). It is meant to indicate that Tosānchi is one of the easternmost countries in the Sinju region and that it is located in the western areas of its continent.

History
TBD

Geography
TBD

Politics
Government

Tosānchi is a constitutional monarchy. The Emperor holds little, if any, power, and is only the ceremonial Head of State of the country. Executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and their cabinet. This makes the Prime Minister the Head of Government.

The unicameral national legislature of Tosānchi is called the Parliament of Tosānchi. Comprised of 494 seats, 246 of them are elected through single-district elections and 248 are awarded based on the national popular vote. Should a party exceed its share of the national vote in parliament, no more national seats shall be awarded. This makes the voting system of the parliament Mixed-Member Proportional. District seats are not divided nationally, but they are allocated based on a prefecture's population. For example, Tankyo is allocated 31 seats.

Judiciary TBD

Administrative Divisions

Tosānchi is divided into 34 prefectures and 6 autonomous prefectures. The most populous prefecture is Tankyo, with 6,202,294 residents as of the latest census. Prefectures themselves are divided into sub-prefectures, which are further divided into municipalities.

Foreign Relations

TBD

Military
TBD

Law Enforcement
TBD

Economy
Tosānchi is a high-income, developed nation in Sinju. TBD

Infrastructure
High quality maybe

Demographics
Population

Tosānchi is a nation with around 49.3 million residents. Most of Tosānchi, especially the western prefectures, are relatively homogeneous apart from major cities such as Tankyo, which have small immigrant communities. The east of the country is different: most of Tosānchi's various minorities inhabit the eastern prefectures, and the area is not as monolithic as the west.

The largest ethnic group are the Tosānchi, or Tosānchinese, a Japonic people comprising more than 80% of the population. The largest ethnic minority are the Shoyo, another Japonic people that make up almost 8% of the population. Most ethnic groups native to these lands are either of Japonic or Uju origin. The largest Uju minority, the Háatlag, are around 5% of the population.

Life expectancy high, elderly stuff, etc

Religion

Tosānchi has various faiths, but the one that predominates is Konminism, a monotheistic religion unique to the country. A small Buddhist minority, markedly in Sōkori prefecture, also exists.

The east is where minority faiths are more noticeable. Whilst the Japonic minorities such as the Shoyo or Taimo do have sizeable Konminnist communities, their original faiths do persist. The Uju minorities, on the other hand, have no large number of adherents of the Konminnist faith, and thus their native faiths comprise a vast majority of their populations.

Immigrant communities have largely retained their own religions.

Languages

The Tosānchi language, a Japonic tounge, is the dominant method of communication in the country. Almost all the citizens of the country are fluent in Tosānchinese. Despite this, the ethnic minorities do have their own languages.

The Shoyo and Taimo languages are both Japonic, closely related to Tosānchinese. Some Tosānchinese ultranationalists go so far as to state that these are just dialects of Tosānchinese, but linguists believe that Tosānchinese comprises its own branch of the Japonic family. Shoyo and Taimo are categorized into their own branch of the Japonic languages, and have been influenced more by their Uju neighbours than Tosānchinese has been.

Education
Traditional Sinju gulag, TBD

Health
Excellent by global standards, TBD

Culture
TBD

Originally written in the NS app
A Japonic nation, Tosānchi was settled by Japonic settlers in antiquity, which developed their own branch of the Japonic language family. A bureaucratic monarchy, Tosānchi had a wealthy class of noble landowners as well as an upper middle class of bureaucrats. The Tosānchi civil service examination was open to everyone, and it was a tradition for villages to fund their brightest to take said tests, and thus the bureaucrats do not have any extensive hereditary lineage.

Tosānchi arose as an entity following the unification of various petty kingdoms. The Emperor (or Tankishi, 天君, "Heavenly Ruler") legitimized his rule by claiming a mandate of heaven, confirmed by the Tanishan religion (天道, "Heavenly Road"). In the Tanishan religion, heaven is ruled by Konmin (神, "God"), a monotheistic all-powerful deity that grants the divine right to rule due to the Emperor being of divine blood (in the ancient legends, Konmin created the first humans out of the soil, but the deity created the first Emperor from its toenails, symbolizing the Emperor's subservience to Konmin's will). Unlike Japan, where the Emperor was worshipped as a living god once, Tonsāchi never did, as despite the Emperor being of divine blood, the Tanishan religion demands that all heavenly praise go to Konmin, and no one else. The Emperor is the Son of Heaven, and as a good descendant, he must follow his filial piety by fulfilling Konmin's will as its divine steward. This led to periods of court factionalism, as aristocrats sought power in the Imperial Court. Sometimes, and especially in the Haiya period, Emperors were even deposed in favour of other royal relatives in either peasant or aristocratic rebellions.

Tonsānchi sought to emulate Tianqi, sending emisaries to study the nation and forge diplomatic links. This led to the Jinmi Period in the 600s-900s, where Tonsāchi sought to imitate Tianqi (and then Jeongmian) statecraft and beliefs to an extent.

The Jinmi period ended when a succession crisis triggered a civil war. The new Emperor reformed the state, discouraging Confucianism and promoting traditional Tonsānchi culture more in order to appeal to the commoner populace. The Sāchi period was characterized by a militaristic aristocracy and isolationism that lasted until the 1100s, when a Jeongmi-phile faction of the Imperial Court seized control. The new Haiya period was characterized not only by a resurgence in Jeongmian concepts (especially since this was a golden age in Jeongmian culture), but also on new influence from Fusen, with Tonsānchi adopting a modified Kana script for the languages spoken in its realm during this period. Unlike the Jinmi period, the Haiya court walked a fine line between adopting foreign cultures and concepts and maintaining Tonsānchi traditions. It also revived the civil service examinations abandoned in the Sāchi period. Unlike the ancient Jinmi period, it was not royal power that dominated, but noble families, whom exterted influence and made the Emperor essentially a puppet to be fought over between the aristocratic clans of the Empire. These power plays led to sporadic but more common civil wars and rebellions, as clans often fought with each other to influence or even depose Emperors.

This mildly chaotic era lasted until the 1500s, when the royal family and its allied nobility finally took control from the waning clan system in the Arinaga War. In order to placate the nobility, the Emperor granted this class a concession by allowing them to assemble and pass laws with the consent of the Emperor. The Imperial Parliament (貴族会, Konshekushun, "Nobility Meeting") was born in the Tankonshe period, which lasted from the 1500s until the 1800s. In this era, the small kingdoms of Shoyokue and Taimohen were also conquered.

The 1800s saw Tonsānchi modernise, and new ideas sprung to life. The industrialization of the country saw a new urban working class and the rise of a middle class, both of which demanded greater rights and representation. The aristocracy was also altered, especially in the latter half of the 19th century, as business tycoons of commoner backgrounds joined the ranks of nobles in terms of power and prestige and even surpassed them.

The Imperial Court initially reacted brutally against dissent, censoring, imprisoning and even executing all those who pushed against the monarchy's power, but, especially after seeing the abolition of the monarchy in Jeongmi and growing anti-establishment sentiment, the Imperial Court relented. Tosānchi underwent major reforms in the late 19th century. The nation became a democratic constitutional monarchy, instituted compulsory public education, granted workers more rights, better healthcare, etc. Initially, elections were only open to the wealthy and those persons who could pass the Voting Registration Examination, but the early 1900s did away with the latter, as the general public demanded greater representation.

Today, Tosānchi is a relatively prosperous and democratic Sinju constitutional monarchy. The Emperor holds little to no power today.