Taikieng

Taikieng, officially the Republic of Taikieng (: 泰岑民國; Taikieng Mingguok) is a sovereign nation in eastern Sinju, situated in the Bay of Minstates. It borders Mincang to the west, Gveigo and Byagbo to the south, Hukuek and Ziemgok to the east, and Zhuigo to the north.

The country is governed as a , and was one of the first modern republics in the world.

Etymology
Taikieng’s name is composed of the two characters “泰” Tai and “岑” Kieng in Taikiengese. The name derives from the fact that Taikieng is “shielded” by mountains in its north and, more prominently, its west.

Classical and Tianqian Taikieng
Taikieng before Tianqi's conquest was dominated by city-states and tribal societies. Tianqi eventually conquered the entire area in several wars, incorporating them directly into its realm. Several tributary states at first existed and served the Tianqians, but, as time went on, they eventually rebelled and/or got annexed by the legendary empire.

Early Taikieng
After the Tianqian Empire collapsed, noble refugees and local lords established several states. Some claimed to be the rightful successors of the Tianqians, whilst others just intended to keep control in their individual regions. After a series of wars, the State of Nuong conquered them all and claimed a heavenly mandate. The Nuong Dynasty was thus born.

The Nuong dynasty initially saw an increase in prosperity and security. The first Emperor was prudent, and engaged in wars against the Mincangan states in moderation. Under his rule, the Early Nuong virtually eradicated banditry, commerce boomed to new heights, the unified region was administratively integrated, and widespread hunger was rare due to wise investments in agricultural infrastructure and development. It was under subsequent monarchs that the Nuong engaged in wars more often. The Nuong Dynasty's rulers, under a delusion of grandeur, truly saw themselves as the successor to the Tianqians and sought to re-establish their empire in some form. As a result, the Nuong engaged in several wars against the Mincangan states, which exhausted the state and depleted the treasury. Due to the constant violence and lack of safety due to the army being deployed to the frontlines instead of taking care of domestic security, commerce was disrupted, taxes on peasants increased, and, especially under the Later Nuong, state investment in and maintenance of agricultural infrastructure gradually declined to the point of negligence. As a result of the devastation, the economy collapsed, and famines caused several peasant rebellions, which were brutally suppressed. Unrest grew and grew under the late Nuong, with the late 1000s seeing several rebellions both from peasants and aristocrats until the Nuong were overthrown by the Song in 1092.

Early Song


The Song arose from a noble family who claimed descent from Tianqian nobles. Holding the title of duke and a high military position, the first Emperor of the Song led a rebellion to depose the Nuong. Such insurgencies were not rare during this time. However, what made this particular revolt different is that the first Song Emperor managed to convince many warlords to defect, as well as join forces with peasant militias who were revolting against the Nuong. Marching on the imperial capital, the Nuong were deposed. Thus, the Song dynasty was founded.

The Nuong royal family had fled the capital, and several of their princes led counter-rebellions to restore their fading honour. The Song, under a more pragmatic leadership, silenced these rebels by bribing key Nuong princes with modest lands and titles. Thus, these rebellions ended quicker than most anticipated, and peace was restored.

The Song immediately put a halt to the vicious military campaigns against the Mincangan states, focusing only on internal issues. They demobilized a sizable portion of the army and used their now-unemployed veterans to build vital infrastructure, such as roads, canals, military fortifications, and so on. What remained of the army was then utilized to crack down on crime and guard against hostile states in the frontier. Seeking to improve agricultural output, the Song opted to lower taxes on the peasantry and passed economic policies designed to encourage a boost in production. The rise of the Song fortunately coincided with a time of good weather for Taikieng, increasing yields. Prudent in their financial policies, the Early Song kept their expenditures modest in the first years of their reign, and avoided extravagance. An exaggerated tale, possibly created for propaganda purposes but which also exemplified how the Early Song were seen, told that even the lowest peasant ate better than the crown, signaling that the Emperor was a hard-working and frugal leader to the point of having a zealous dedication to his duties and a fatherly concern for his people.

The Early Song managed to agree to a détente-esque policy with the first Mincangan state, restoring peace for a considerable amount of time even after the latter collapsed. Further wars would occur less often and were driven by more rational ambitions and rationale than compared to the Nuong. A golden age in art, philosophy and commerce occurred during the Early Song. WIP

Late Song
Historians and scholars often establish the beginning of the Late Song era at around the late 1300s.

Republic and Industrialization
The Ca had been greatly weakened by a succession of child emperors. Unable to wield more power, the dynasty was deposed in a coup in 1801 by a coalition of aristocrats and scholars named the Rose Society, led by regent XYY, taking inspiration from Jeongmi's overthrow of its monarchy earlier that same year. The state was ruled by an alliance of nobles and bureaucrats, who officially insisted that they were "waiting for the Heavens to reveal their will" regarding the imperial succession. However, when Jeongmi declared its republic in 1811, XYZ, a senior court official who had obtained much political influence and led the Rose Society, declared a republic a few years later with him as President.

From its inception, the Republic was an oligarchy dominated by members of the Rose Society. The noble classes retained their titles, even. However, due to factional infighting, the government's policies were inconsistent domestically, leading to a de facto relaxation of the censorship imposed during imperial rule as the state's security organs proved incapable of being coherent enough to suppress dissent to its rule. In 1828, a new President, XXZ, inspired by the "new ideas" these dissenting scholars preached, passed reforms making everyone equal before the law. All titles of nobility and their assorted privileges were abolished, and the civil service examinations were made more equitable. This led to the Republic being dominated by bureaucrats from the 1830s onwards, as the old noble class gradually lost their influence in the government, and the Republic became a scholar oligarchy, a state run solely by bureaucrats.

At the same time, Taikieng began its own industrial revolution in the late 1810s, with a new bourgeois class rising in prominence. Some of these new elites were nobles who had invested wisely, but many came from the common classes, especially from the merchants of Taikieng. In the 1840s, these new economic elites managed to accumulate so much power that they had begun bribing Republic officials to benefit their own financial interests. Seeing this new influence creep into the government, the army, who was influenced by hardline Confucian officers and scholars, conducted a military coup in 1854, determined to wrestle control of the state away from the new bourgeoisie. In order to counter the influence of both the corrupted scholars and the capitalists, the military established a new legislature elected through partial suffrage, with those able to pass a voter aptitude test allowed to participate in its elections. To the dismay of the military, the Rose Society clique organized into a mass political force and won the 1860 elections.

The new legislature worked to establish its supremacy, transferring power from the President, who was controlled by the army at the time, to the Prime Minister, now elected amongst themselves. However, divisions between the conservative and liberal factions of the Rose Society caused the clique to split in two. The conservatives chose white as their colour, whilst the liberals opted for red. The White Rose Society and the Red Rose Society, Taikieng's traditionally dominant political parties, trace their origins to this event.

Divided, the Rose Society lost the 1870 elections to the Lily Club, a pro-military clique that still exists today as Taikieng's traditional third wing of establishment politics. The Lily Club reversed some of the Rose Society's reforms, returning some powers, including the supreme command of the armed forces, to the Presidency. This three-way split would create an interesting power dynamic: both the WRS and the RRS used the Lily Club and each other as a coalition partner to elect the Prime Minister and rule the country. The Period of Accord led to the general pacification of political activity, as both the military and the bourgeoisie expanded their influence to all three parties, albeit each represented more interests than others, and both the military and the developing civil political elite chose to oppose each other politically instead of using brute force in order to keep the country stable. The Lily Club was - and to some extent still is - seen as the military's political wing. The WRS and the RRS would either collaborate or oppose the Lily Club, and thus cooperated or challenged the military's influence in politics when they saw fit. This odd political period established Taikieng as one of the few countries in the world where the armed forces also played a role as an independent political actor and, paradoxically, did not often use extralegal methods or acts of violence to achieve their aims.

This political climate couldn't last forever. [military gets more power here]

20th Century
Taikieng participated in the Great Eulhae War, joining the Allied Powers. Its main contribution to the fight was its invasion of Mincang with allied support, opening a crucial front in the war. Taikieng was one of the most affected nations by the war, losing between 5 to 10% of its population to the conflict according to historical estimates. Every year, Victory Day is celebrated in the country as well as in its former overseas colonies, as they contributed forces into the fight as colonial troops.

One of Taikieng's rewards for its victory was the acquisition of Bakusai from Fusen, a colony they had lost in the late 1800s. WIP

The Red Lady


After the Eulhae War, Taikieng underwent an economic downturn caused by the devastation and general strain of the conflict despite being one of its victors. As a result of this, chaos and unrest gradually grew over the years, leading to far-left and far-right agitation in the 50s. The violence was so great that President X declared martial law in 1956 after far-left terrorists attempted to bomb the legislature. However, the President failed to control the situation, leading to a rift between him and the army generals that supported him in his self-coup. Tired of him, the army, led by General Song Muoigoi, led its own coup in early 1958. Creating the State Council on Peace, Song assumed the title of Prime Minister and rendered the President practically inert, as his actions had to be approved by the SCP, chaired by Song herself. She also neutralized the legislature by requiring all legislation to be approved by the SCP. She remains an oddity in the world as one of the few female dictators of the modern era, earning the nickname "The Red Lady" for her bloody and ruthless purges of political extremists from both sides of the political spectrum and for establishing a police state that was dismantled after she stepped down. Handing back power to civil authorities in 1962 after a flawed election, she managed to become a member of the Taikiengese legislature for life and had obtained immunity for all her actions. Despite her resignation from formal power, however, she held some informal political influence as a Grand Marshal of the Army, a post she held until 1972, when she was forced to quit as the civil government regained its complete control over the military. In 1973, the government stripped Song of her immunity and ordered her arrest, but before she could be apprehended, she fled to Rodasia, where the royal family, friendly to her for having secured their power post-independence, allowed her to live in exile. Song remains the only Grand Marshal the Republic has ever had outside of wartime. She remains a controversial figure to this day, as the Taikiengese people debate whether her bloody measures to stamp out political extremism and instability were necessary for the era.

Government and Politics
The Republic of Taikieng is a   with a strong democratic tradition.