Xisheng

Xisheng, officially Xisheng Province is an overseas province of the Democratic Republic of Daxia located in northern Crona. Early Daxian explorers arrived in the Nysdra in the early 1600's, with an imperial punitive expedition wresting possession of the island of Cao from pirates in 1606. More violent confrontations with then native Cronan kingdomgs in today's Quetzenkel and New Harren funneled exploration further east.

The fort of Pinghai was founded in 1623 in a coastal region only loosely controlled by the empire of Ixa'Taka. The following centuries saw an on and off colonization effort that nonetheless spread Daxian presence over the eastern Nysdra coastline. Daxian colonial officials routinely meddled in Ixa'Takan and Chimoche affairs by funding internal dissension, providing mercenaries to rival powers and active campaigns of economic sabotage such as the damming of important rivers to disrupt crop production. The Ixa'Takan Empire and Chimoche kingdom were overtaken by the 1860's and reduced first to vassal states and later turned into administratively subordinate enclaves.

Successive Daxian regimes have worked extensively to rebalance the demographic makeup of Xisheng away from native Cronans, even so Daxians only constitute around 17% of the total population. Furthermore Cronan peoples are confined to enclosed administrative units with various degrees of autonomy such as Chimoche and Ixa'Taka, outside of these quasi states Daxian culture is ascendant. Xisheng is the most militarized province on Daxia, given its location surrounded by Urcean possesions and the only recently defanged Varshan.

Classic period
Xisheng is inhabited by many groups but most of them point to a common ancestor originating from what is now central Varshan. The various Ixa'Takan peoples who lived in the eastern shore of the Nysdra have done so since at least the late 800's BCE, after displacing local Venua groups under the guidance of their proto-monarch, Tlipoca. The ancient Ixa'Takans appear to have upheld a system where they were ruled by an absolute monarch known as the Umatz. According to the Chokma stele, construction of the great city of Rixis begun in 875BCE on the orders of the 6th Umatz, a ruler only named as Enetzin and known to be of the line of Tlipoca. It is this ruler that seemingly set down the base of a state, the social order and military that would be needed for imperial growth. The city of Rixis is believed to have risen in the following centuries to establish its primacy and expanded its territorial control by building sister cities. In time, cities such as Mezro and Tolon grew in importance and wealth and served as regional bases for further growth. These other cities were never ruled directly by the Umatz but by lesser kings anointed in Rixis, not quite puppet rulers but neither fully autonomous. Their loyalty was often secured through royal marriages, sacred oaths to the gods of Ixa'Taka and the military might of the Umatz, often times they were also blood relatives of the Umatz such as royal cousins and nephews. The result was that Ixa'Taka created something that resembled an empire in outward appearance, but was in truth was a brittle construct and its longevity depended in great measure on the talent and charismatic rule of successive Umatz. An important challenge of the classic period was recurrent the Kimor struggle for independence. Kimor was one of the earliest colonies of Rixis and had grown over the years into a very powerful city, its nobles did not see themselves as subservient to Rixis and they chafed at even the slightest notions of foreign control.

In 1112 the supposed puppet ruler of Kimor, king Shagur I led a first schism that would eventually end with the Chimor declaring themselves a separate people. This schism was fueled by the murder of Shagur's son on the orders of the king of Mezro and the Umatz of Rixis siding with him. The cause of the murder is suspected to have been a dispute over a woman's attention. Taking advantage of the kings grief, the nobles of Kimor egged him on to declare the city's independence from Ixa'Taka. The dispute led to a break-up of Ixa'Taka's quasi unified domain as some cities sided with Kimor instead of with their overlord in Rixis. Kimor expelled the Umatz's tax collectors and marched to war against Mezro, which called on Ixa'Taka for aid. Gaining entry to Mezro by treachery, the army of Kimor rampaged through the city. Shagur ordered the captured king of Mezro to have his hands and feet tied up, then he was thrown off from the steps of the great pyramid of the city. When he reached the bottom and was discovered to still be alive, he was carried back up before being flung down a second time. By the time relief arrived from Rixis, the city was completely looted and heavily depopulated. Kimor's army was laying siege to Tolon when it was overtaken by the army of Tlipoca VI who along with Tolon's defenders soundly defeated the attackers. After a short siege, Kimor opened its gates and surrendered and Shagur was forced to abdicate but otherwise the Ixa'Takans did not feel the need for harsh retribution. A regent was appointed to rule over Kimor and the city was now considered to be part of the Umatz's domain proper. In 1156 the regent of Kimor was overthrown and killed in a popular uprising, the nobles of the city raised a supposed son of Shagur as Shagur II although historians believe the man to have had no royal blood and to simply be a convenient figurehead. The second Kimor War lasted for much longer than the first as Shagur II successfully went on the offensive, capturing many cities loyal to Rixis and replacing their kings with new nobles. Tlipoca VI was by this time an exhausted old man and his sons squabbled between themselves often. Effective control of Ixa'Takan forces was bestowed on Hakkar, the chief priest of the Blood God.

Hakkar enacted a bloody campaign that saw hundreds of people in recaptured cities sacrificed to the Blood God while not being able to deliver a knockout blow to the army of Kimor who studiously avoided open battle. Hakkar sacked Kimor a second time, threw down its walls and managed to scatter much of its population but Shagur II retook it the next year. Hakkar's penchant for sacrifice of civilians made Ixa'Taka unpopular in cities that had formerly been loyal and the nobles he had put in place to rule them were thrown out in 1165. Tolon, Chokma and Atil joined the rebellion of Kimor and their combined army defeated and killed Hakkar in 1167. The defeat of this army convinced the elderly Tlipoca VI to agree to a treaty that released Kimor from its bonds to Ixa'Taka. The other cities that had joined Kimor did not push for full independence but agreed to be ruled by their own elected kings, paying tribute to Rixis. This treaty put the Ixa'Takan Kimor problem to rest and allowed it to focus on other affairs, but it also turned that city into a future rival. The Kimor would rename themselves as the Chimor people to display their uniqueness as a separate people.

Varshan Dominion
The schism in the Ixa'Takan empire did not go unnoticed by Varshan, only a few years later it started incursions into the former's southernmost territories as far as the Mountains of the Sun. At first these territorial intrusions involved only a few hundred men at any one time and were either ignored or thrown back easily enough. By the 1200's Varshan began to openly attack the Ajaw settlements that paid tribute to Ixa'Taka prompting harsher responses. An army commanded by a nephew of the Umatz Janab I pushed the invaders out and then invaded north Varshan for five months before being annihilated in battle by the Zurg's royal army.

Government
TBA

Demographics
Xisheng is home to many local ethnicities whose ranges of habitation have fluctuated over time; their locations affected by various Daxian policies designed to acquire richer and more geographically advantageous land for settlement and limit their material prosperity. The Ixa'Takan people dominated most of present northwestern Xisheng before the arrival of Daxia forced them inland. Their population of some four million currently reside near exclusively within the borders of the Ixa'Taka Autonomy and have been granted limited forms of autonomy to conduct their affairs. Following them in numbers are the Chimor people who inhabit the region of Chimoche which abuts Mid-Atrassic Crona. At a population of 3.7 million people they are the second most numerous indigenous people on the region. The Ajaw, Nuun and Varshani peoples are more recent additions, the Ajaw falling under Daxian domination in the 18th century after the March into the mountains and the Nuun and Varshani being added after the territories they lived in were cut off from Varshan and attached to Xisheng at the end of the Deluge. There are plans to carve an autonomous region for the Nuun and transplant all the remaining Varshanis inside it so the Nuun majority keeps them in check.

Xisheng has never been as widely and intensively settled as Cao was. Daxians constitute a mere sixteen percent and are outnumbered by Cronan ethnicities by a proportion of 4 to 1, yet have the majority of the land. Daxians mostly live on the coast and in fortified cities dotted across geographically advantegous locations such as hilltops.

Daxian policies towards Cronans

 * Land Seizures and property expropriations- The Daxian state routinely strips non-Daxian residents of both their land and any properties they build. The common argument used for these actions is that Cronans either have no proof of ownership, consistently fail to to pay land and property taxes or never had rights to the land they inhabit in the first place e.g. they built on land owned by the State.
 * Fertility cap - To address the current demographic disadvantage of ethnic Daxians, authorities have come up with a number of solutions and schemes to disadvantage and dispossess Cronans and permanently stunt their demographic growth. Native Cronan (e.g. Ixa'Takan, Chimor, Ajaw, Varshan, Nuun) families are required to acquire a special child permit that both entitles and limits them to having one child only. Violation of this regulation carries a lengthy jail sentence for the parents and the destruction of any additional children. In cases where the birth of two or more children is outside the parents hands(such as the case of twins and so on), the extra child is taken away by the authorities and placed in foster care.
 * Ghettos - Non-Daxians may not constitute over 15% of the population of any settlement with the status of 'City'. This percentage of a city's population is confined to live in separate, walled off neighborhoods or ghettos. People living in the ghettos require valid work permits issued by their employer in order to leave and must return to the ghetto before 12pm or be arrested if caught outside. Ghettos are provided with rationed utilities and consumer goods of inferior quality. This policy does not apply to all native settlements or within the Chimoche and Ixa'Taka autonomies.
 * Caste system - The government of Xisheng has rolled out a system of racial categories to determine the social and legal standing of the inhabitants of the province. This caste system is best represented by a pyramid with Daxians at the very top with full rights and special protections and following them in descending order are Rusani, Chimor, Ixa'Takan, Ajaw, Nuun and Varshani. In the case of relations between a Daxian and someone of a lower ethnicity that result in a child being born, the Daxian parent has the option of paying a significant fine to have the child registered as fully Daxian or leave it with the non-Daxian parent to be registered with his or her ethnicity; regardless of the choice the non-Daxian parent is subject to arrest. Children of mixed Cronan descent are entitled to be registered with the caste of the father.

Economy
The economy of Xisheng was primarily geared towards labor intensive agricultural production for much of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the production of figs. The fig production sector was developed and dominated by the Xisheng Trading Company, a subsidiary of the South Seas Trading Company Up to 65% of Xisheng's cultivable land was earmarked for fig tree plantations employing tens of thousands of Cronan indentured laborers under very harsh conditions. A souring of commercial relations with Varshan's Zurgs and financial losses elsewhere caused the company to divest itself from the fig business, causing a near collapse of Xisheng's provincial economy. Only around 15% of fig plantations survived long enough to modernize themselves and start diversifying their fig products into items such as jams, fig pastries, dried figs and various medicinal presentations and laxatives. These producers now control the biggest share in this sector and are boosting exports with the reopening of the Varshan market, especially into the Zanoma Regional Administration. Corn is also a crop commonly grown in Xisheng, first having been introduced during the period of Varshan domination; Xisheng produced 1.3 million bushels of corn during 2030. The native peoples of Xisheng have grown and consumed corn for thousands of years; a staple of their diet is a type of very thin flat bread made from corn called a tortilla.

Important gold deposits have been known and exploited since the time of the early Ixa'Takan settlement; new discoveries and modern technologies have made Xisheng region into one of the biggest gold producers in the world, amounting to some 30% of the region's total exports. Gold mines operate under a 60/40 revenue sharing agreement between the government and private mining companies. Xisheng produces on average ninety five tonnes of gold on an annual basis, forty of which are extracted from the open air Chicxulub mine. Another growing sector that is a big earner of foreign exchange currency is the home appliances sector, a number of companies have established plants in the province mass producing affordable smart tv's, microwaves, toasters, refrigerators, stoves and juicers. These appliance companies rely on the cheapness of the labor in Xisheng and government subsidies to offer competitive pricing. The Daxian armed forces are also a driver in economic activity as the region is the most militarized in the country, the provision of services to military bases are economic lifelines for many smaller towns and companies.

Blood Fane of Buruso
Main article: Blood Fane of Buruso