Yakaleikin

Yakaleikin, officially the People's Republic of Yakaleikin (: Yakaleikin Nimiipuu Nakzeézetitókan, ) is a landlocked, state in central Yeongju. It borders Hachuabsh to the west, Iyuaschi to the east, and Aibapatikket to the south. Its capital and largest city is Paaptanmuetes.

Historically, the Yakaleikins were a horse-riding nomadic people that dominated the plateau along the Imall river and its many tributaries. In their heyday prior to the 16th century, the Yakaleikin periodically conquered large swathes of Western Yeongju and Thunderbird Bay, at times controlling territories as far as the Hachuabshi, Yudeokan, and Yelamese lowlands. The X Kingdom, which comprised the territory of modern Yakaleikin from 1456 CE, was made a protectorate of Hachuabsh in 1891. Yakaleikin was fully annexed by Hachuabsh in 1908. Hachuabshi rule was exploitative and brutal.

Today, Yakaleikin's many dams are an important source of energy in the region, especially in Hachuabsh, Atfalati, and Yudeok. It is a major exporter of. Yakaleikin is a founding member of the OSDMA.

Hachuabshi Rule
Yakaleikin was subjugated and incorporated into an industrializing and imperially-minded Hachuabshi Empire as it expanded inland during the late 19th century. The Hachuabshi Army (an organization that was becoming increasingly nationalist) recognized the strategic potential of the region's naturally defensive terrain, extensive coal reserves, mineral deposits, rich agricultural land and access to the Imall river, a major thoroughfare between the Hachuabshi heartlands and Central Yeongju. Thus - following a process that repeated itself in many other parts of the Hachuabshi Empire - it pushed out civilian stakeholders to become the dominant political force in the territory, and engaged in a forced industrialization campaign.

Yakaleikins were removed from their ancestral pastures and coerced into working in the steel mills and coal mines of factory towns that were growing rapidly in number on the banks of Imall river. Simultaneously, millions of Hachuabshis, Yudeokan, Yelamese and other peoples from territories across the Hachuabshi Empire poured into the region to work the newly irrigated fields. In most instances, Yakaleikins and non-Hachuabshi migrants were used as forced labor in these agricultural settlements. The Yakaleikin language and traditional cultural practices were repressed and Hachuabshi became the territory’s formal language. This brutal colonization project engendered a significant resistance movement with a vast array of ideological strains among peasants and laborers led by a radicalized Yakaleikin class of intellectuals returning home from universities in Sinju and Hachuabsh. As the socialist movement gained steam in Hachuabshi urban centers, leftists became the most prominent and active of these resistance groups in Yakaleikin.

Revolutionary Yakaleikin
Imperial Hachuabsh's disastrous performance in the later stages of the Eulhae War would lead to a socialist revolution throughout the remaining parts of the Empire that empowered the Yakaleikin Socialist insurgency. Although the socialists and trade unions quickly gained control over major urban centers in the Hachuabshi lowlands, what was left of the Hachuabshi Army retained its grip over Yakaleikin with support from ethnic Hach settlers. When civil war broke out in mid 1942, support for the Imperial Hachuabshi Army from the Allied Powers dragged out the conflict, especially in Yakaleikin. However, the peasant insurgency - now calling themselves “Hinmatóoyalahtq’it” (lit. “thunder traveling to high places”), “Hinya” for short - building upon its successes in guerilla warfare soon gained control over most of the hinterland by the end of 1943. After Hachuabshi socialist militias arrived in Yakaleikin with heavy weaponry in early 1944, the Imperial Army was finally defeated in its remaining urban strongholds along the Imall river.



For the next decade, a tenuous coalition between the socialist government in Túlq and the Maoist peasant insurgency governed Yakaleikin as the war-torn region attempted to rebuild (perhaps with an emphasis on dam restoration and energy restoration which was badly needed to sustain Hachuabshi heavy industry. Thousands of settlers left during this period, although some communities of Hachuabshis remained in cities and urban centers. Negotiations in the late 1950s saw the withdrawal of Hachuabshi forces from Yakaleikin as a newly socialist Yahuimilco - wary of any seemingly imperialist Hachuabshi intentions in Yeongju (largely colored by its experiences during Eulhae) while at the same time a major source of food imports for Hachuabsh as it was under an embargo by Sinju & Friends - urged Túlq to grant sovereignty to Yakaleikin and the Hinya.

Yakaleikin under the Hinya
Once in power, the leaders of the Hinya quickly split into two factions. The moderates advocated for a slower transition to communism and were less extreme in their proposed solutions for the remaining Hachuabshi settlers and ethnic minorities, especially the Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit. Conversely, the radicals were heavily influenced by utopian perceptions of “primitive” in precolonial Yakaleikin as well as a chauvinistic nationalism. The radicals saw what was left of the Hachuabshi settler population in urban centers as a humiliating reminder of Yakaleikin’s colonial past. They pushed for a policy of rapid and violent collectivization of the countryside, de-urbanization, and autarky - a departure from Yakaleikin’s still tight-knit relationship with Hachuabsh.

These tensions boiled over into a second revolution sometime in 1967, with the radicals taking power and purging the moderates. They were led by Ollikut, the Jeongmian-educated son of a prominent chief who had collaborated with the Imperial Hachuabshi Army and served in an important post in the colonial administration.

Over the span of the next five years, the Ollikut-led Hinya organized the wholesale evacuation of the urban population from cities to, pastures and , as well as the expulsion of the Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit from Yakaleikin, which many historians have labelled as ethnic cleansing and even. Out of a population of around 23 million, it is estimated that around 4-5 million lost their lives in the ensuing famine and mass killings.

Socialist Hachuabsh watched in alarm as a hostile regime took over the neighbor it had historically seen as key to the country’s strategic interests. After several border skirmishes, Hachuabsh invaded Yakaleikin in 1974. The Hachuabshi invasion saw war crimes committed on both sides, as well as a brutal carpet bombing campaign of the countryside. The Hachuabshis easily defeated what was left of the demoralized and malnourished Hinya militias. Soon after, a socialist client state was established under the leadership of the Hinya moderates that had fled Ollikut’s coup to Hachuabsh. It remains in power to this day.

People's Republic of Yakaleikin
The near-total destruction of Yakaleikin’s intelligentsia, institutions, industries, and agriculture required huge amounts of aid from Hachuabsh in the years following invasion. A pro-Ollikut insurgency - secretly funded by the Center and Iyoka - persisted through the next decade, further hindering efforts to rebuild the country. Yakaleikin remains impoverished relative to its neighbors, and is heavily reliant on Hachuabsh for economic support.