Chauchu

= Chauchu =

Early history
The Lygoravetlan peoples are among the earliest known populations in Bangju, predating the Fusenic and even Aenuic settlements, and are believed to have migrated south from modern Taniilux as early as 40,000 BCE. They adopted settled agriculture and formed into chiefdoms around 500 CE.

Lygoravetlan principalities
Over the next few centuries these chiefdoms consolidated into larger (though still fairly small) principalities combining cultural influences from Sinju and Thunderbird Bay and intermittently under the influence of larger states like Wamu, Yaettengkkok, and Gitsan. By the 1600s there were seven Lygoravetlan principalities, the most prominent of which was Chauchuven, around what is now Chauchu’s central bay.

Taniiluxan rule
In the 1600s the Lygoravetlan principalities were gradually conquered by the expanding empire of Taniilux; the four northern principalities including Chauchuven were directly annexed into the empire while the southern three - Nemelan, Anqallyt, and Alutalu - became semi-independent vassal states under Tanii suzerainty. The former territory of the northern principalities, now united into a single imperial province, began to develop a united Chauchuan national identity, based mostly on the old Chauchuven, especially after the rise of the nationalist movement in the 1800s and the standardization of their dialects into a single language, while the southern principalities as separate jurisdictions each maintained their own distinct identities and dialects.

Kingdom of Chauchu
After the Bangju War, Chauchu regained its independence with a new monarchy and enjoyed a brief period of prosperity, but this proved to be short-lived: just a decade later, both it and the southern principalities were invaded and occupied by Hachuabsh soon into the Great Eulhae War. Parts of western Chauchu were also occupied and annexed by Sakushi. Most of Chauchu became free again with the collapse of Hachuabsh in 1943. Jeongmian forces soon landed in the country and fended off a Fusenese attempt to re-invade it from Wamu, and the remaining Sakushin-occupied western region was returned with Sakushi’s surrender in 1944.

Lygvarat Federation
After Eulhae, a wave of pan-Lygoravetlan nationalism fueled by the sense that the Lygoravetlan nations’ division allowed for their conquest combined with the Allies’ desire for strong nations in eastern Bangju as a counterweight to the now-socialist Hachuabsh and fears that the southern principalities in particular would be easy pickings for socialist revolutions and thus a bridgehead for socialism into Bangju. With Sinjuan backing, nationalists won brief clashes with monarchists in both Chauchu and the southern principalities, proclaimed new republics, and quickly united them into the new federation of Lygvarat.

Lygvarat was made up of seven member states, the three former southern principalities and the four former northern principalities (despite their pre-war unification as the Kingdom of Chauchu), each having an equal number of seats in parliament and one seat in the federation's multi-member presidency. From independence until his death in 1974, Lygoravetlan politics was dominated by the charismatic strongman Gyrgyn Korave, who rendered the other presidents largely ceremonial roles and managed to successfully head off major tensions, but after Gyrgyn's death the government they resurfaced became increasingly paralyzed and dysfunctional.

The southern nationalities resented what they saw as Chauchuan domination, while the Chauchuans resented what they saw as the artificial division of their homeland and increasingly sought to unite the four northern states into one state of Chauchu and concurrently switch to a proportional representation parliament and single popularly-elected president; southerners in turn insisted that were the Chauchuan states to unite into one they could still only be represented on an equal basis with the other states. Politics became increasingly polarized between north and south over the 1980s, culminating in a failed constituent assembly in 1988 in which the Chauchuan states voted to unite but failed to gain enough votes to change the constitution.

Republic of Chauchu
The newly-united Chauchu promptly seceded from Lygvarat as a result, taking most of the federation’s economic and military strength with it. Chauchu and the rump Lygvarat fought a short war over the ethnically diverse Gechurmen region on their new border, which Chauchu won, causing the remainder of Lygvarat to break up into its constituent parts. In the 1993 Namgyen Accords, all former members acknowledged the termination of the Lygoravetlan federation and recognized Chauchu’s control of Gechurmen.