Stenzan War of Independence

The Stenzan War of Independence, called the Tau Mo le Saolotoga (Fight for Freedom) in Stenzan and the Australis Emergency in Daxia, was a defining moment in the history of Stenza in which the country gained independence from its colonial overlord, Qian Daxia. The war can be defined in two phases, a long period of insurgency pitting guerillas and pro-government security forces between 1907 and 1919, and a full scale armed revolt leading to open warfare between 1919 and 1921. The war was eventually decided by the Battle of Xīwàng (current day Faamoemoe) a decisive Stenzan victory that led to peace being signed between a newly independent Stenzan state and its former Daxian overlords. This was followed by two major events, namely the Daxian retreat from the island and the Stenzan Civil War.

Qian Colonization of Stenza
The colonization of modern day Stenza started in the early 1600s, when a Daxiaese vessel captained by Xi Haifong suffered a major scurvy outbreak and decided to deviate off its course to find land. The landmass they found turned out to be Stenza, and upon returning home the crew reported of their findings. Xi Haifong was employed by the South Seas Trading Company rather than the Daxian state. The land they had discovered was deemed interesting enough and of untapped economic potential that several other expeditions were organized, and within two years a Daxian walled compound had been found in the Cape of Hope on the northwestern part of the island, named after the fact it brought hope to the ill sailors who discovered it. The Daxian called this city Xīwàng (Hope), but is now known as the regional capital Faamoemoe (Hope). The Company would gain authorization from the imperial court to further colonize and exploit the new landmass, for the greater glory of the Empire.

Daxian exploration beyond the initial settlement at Xīwàng was met with curiosity and then hostility from the local tribes, who did not trust the foreign settlers. A seven decade long push into the country followed, and by 1671 the whole island was under Daxiaese control, with the native population being subjected to the choice of compliance or death. It is estimated that up to half the native population died during this period at the hand of the colonizing forces.

Over the course of the next 100 years the island was transformed into a modern colony. Stenza was found to be rich with metals such as nickel and iron, phosphates and potash, exotic woods and crops such as coffee and tea. These untapped resources were ripe for exploitation by the Daxian colonizers. By the early 1880's the Company had fallen into bankruptcy due to corruption, foreign competition and native revolts. The Daxian state intervened and seized all of its assets, including in the Stenzan colony, thus removing any intermediary between itself and the natives.

From then on the local population was forced to follow Daxian culture and, by 1887, the nation was a Daxian model colony headed by a 'Stenzan' Governor-General named Noa Zhu. Although seemingly given a wide latitude of decision making, Zhu was nothing more than a Daxian puppet while the nation was still ruled with a tight grip by the metropole.

The next three decades were not per se bad for the Stenzan population, who enjoyed all the technological and social developments the Daxian brought to them while their land was still being exploited. Regardless of this progress, the native population was still treated as a second rate class to the Daxian colonizers, who enjoyed considerable wealth and status based on the labor of the native ethnic polynesian majority.

Stenzan Guerillas and Free Stenzan Army
Although very thorough in their efforts to subjugate the Stenzan population, small pockets of tribal guerillas were never fully swept out of Stenza's vast mountainous reaches. For most of Stenza's colonial history, these guerillas posed not much more than a nuisance to the colonial government. Occasional scuffles would be followed by search-and-destroy operations, which in turn led to relative peace.

In the early 1900s, the guerilla threat seemed to have mostly died down for the Daxiaese. Unknown to the colonial government however, multiple guerilla bands had settled in the mountains at the current day city of Etangeni in 1901, spending multiple years training and planning a future struggle to fight their colonial oppressors. The guerilla bands grew over the years through word of mouth recruitment, until it was decided in 1906 that the struggle should begin. Armed with stolen weapons and, in some cases, tribal tools. The guerilla bands each set off in different directions, having agreed to start their fight the next spring across the country.

These guerilla bands would eventually grow out to become the Free Stenzan Army during the large scale revolts in 1919, becoming an immediate precursors to the modern day Stenzan Army

Stenzan Security Force and Daxian Army in Stenza
The Stenzan colonial administration, headed by the aging Governor-General Noa Zhu and his Daxian advisors, possessed a relatively modern Daxian-equipped army and security apparatus. This force, called the Stenzan Security Force, consisted of Daxian officers and leaders commanding native Stenzan junior officers and enlisted men. The colonial forces drew the majority of its officer corps from the northern districts which were more heavily populated by ethnic Daxian people, while the common soldiery was mostly of Polynesian background. While apparently formidable in paper, it would be soon apparent that the force was not prepared to combat a determined insurgency, suffering from frequent desertions, poor morale, leaks of operational information and corruption. The Stenzan Security Force was sometimes backed in its operations by groups of armed ethnic Daxian known as the Buyao. The Buyao was formed by settlers, town watchmen and local petty criminals, this irregular force was incredibly brutal and committed many of the atrocities early in the war.

Apart from the previous groups, a relatively small force of regular Daxian troops operationally called the Xiwang Army was also present. The Xiwang Army was led at the start of the war by General Heshen Shenbao, from who Governor Zhu received his orders, making the general the true ruler of the colony. The Xiwang Army's numbers had been dwindling since the 1890s thanks to the relative peace in the country and engagements in other parts of the Empire. With the Stenzan Security Force seeming competent enough at first, the Daxiaese government in Stenza saw no real need to maintain a large Daxian military garrison if the colonial forces could maintain security on their own. The increasingly intense guerrilla war, the hostility of much of the population and the surprisingly constant unreliability of the colonial security force would lead the metropolitan authorities to greenlight a much larger deployment of Daxian regulars to bolster the combat power of the Xiwang Army. Additionally, men from the loyalist northern districts would instead be recruited to the regular army, away from the local security force.

Start of hostilities
The morning of the 13th of April, 1907 marks the official beginning of the Stenzan War of Independence. On this morning, Guerillas that completed their months march from Etangeni, struck the coastal town of Falloopi from the mountains. Falloopi was considered a valuable port at the time, with mined metals delivered by rail or river craft being loaded onto Daxian merchant vessels for travel back to Daxia at this port. The Stenzan Security Force garrison guarding the town was taken by utter surprise and multiple guardsmen were killed trying to respond to the threat, but an organized response never came to be by the complacent defenders. Gunfights in and around the town lasted for two hours, with guerillas successfully blowing up part of a metal warehouse and a harbor crane. The guerillas retreated into the mountainous terrain once security forces started responding with enough force to cause considerable guerilla losses. The attack was considered a success by the guerilla forces, with multiple laborers taking up arms dropped by killed security forces and guerillas to join the retreating geurillas. The tone was set for the next twelve years.

The summer of 1907 saw similar attacks erupt around the country with mixed success. Various bands of guerillas, having set out from Etangeni the previous year, attacked facilities they considered essential to the Daxian throughout the summer with the intention to cause as much chaos as possible. These attacks had a varying amount of success, with some guerilla bands succeeding in their objectives while others were fully wiped out by the Security Force troops. The initial end goal of this offensive, to spark major revolt across Stenza by its oppressed workers, was not achieved by these actions. The suddenness with which the guerillas disrupted the relative peace did inspire some to join the guerilla bands however, providing manpower with which the struggle could be continued.

Daxian reaction and escalation
The immediate Daxiaese reaction to these attacks was to condemn them as outright criminal. Stenzan workers were informed by Zhu's government that anyone found aiding the guerillas would be shot without hesitation, and a witch hunt for those who helped the guerillas march across the country started. It is widely believed that this witch hunt led to the deaths of over 10,000 innocent civilians in the mountains. Conscription for the Stenzan Security Force increased, and increased Daxian forces were shipped in to both lead the increased Security Force elements and provide additional manpower to the Daxian Army in Stenza.

The next 12 years were periods of relative peace and periods of chaos across the country. Guerilla bands roamed the country, attacking targets of opportunity and occasionally clashing with elements of the Stenzan Security Force and Daxian Army in Stenza. These groups were loosely organized, manned by local volunteers who came and went and armed with whatever weaponry they could get hold of. It proved impossible for the Daxian to contain these guerillas however, with guerilla formations sometimes disappearing into thin air as guerillas hid their weapons in caches and returned to their villages to lay low. The guerillas also proved masters at eluding the Daxian and government forces across Stenza's diffucult terrain, their light nature and ability to live of the land allowing them to keep ahead of the supply-dependent attackers. News of Guerilla successes and the attacking of innocent civilians accused of helping the guerillas cause over the years, with their popularity increasing steadily.

Guerilla successes during these years include the disruption of Daxian export from Stenza to various degrees and the sinking of at least one Daxian warship in 1917. Daxian successes throughout these years include the killing of over 62,000 guerillas, with more than 45,000 innocent alleged guerillas and guerilla supporters being killed as well. Corumesse losses through this period amounted to over 23,000 military losses and 12,000 civilians killed by the guerillas.

Xhipong Revolt and open warfare
By 1919, secret public support for the Guerilla cause had grown considerably, with Stenzan workers and even elements of the Stenzan Security Force frequently discussing the guerillas and their successes among each others. Reprisals for such "guerilla supportive thoughts" were serious, with those caught being shot without as much as a second thought. On the 7th of July, 1919 a young Stenzan officer by the name of Li Xhipong, a company commander in the Stenzan Security Force, walked into his Daxian superior's office and shot the colonel in the face. The body was hung from a flagpole and the mostly Stenzan garrison revolted against their Daxian superiors. Xhipong declared the Free Stenzan Army then and thare, claiming they would "fight for a free Stenzan state or die trying". The revolting force held onto their camp at Putetina a week until forced out by a superior force of Daxian regulars sent from Xīwàng, fleeing into the mountains to regroup. At this time, word had spread among other dissatisfied elements of the Stenzan Security Force and Xhipong's force grew to over 10,000 strong.

Xhipong realized that momentum was everything and that they should take the initiative before Daxia was able to ship more forces into the colony. The following weeks were spent raiding Stenzan Security Force garrisons and caches, recruiting troops and gathering the weapons needed to arm them along the way. The relatively low morale the Stenzan colonial troops had at this point from over a decade of fighting the guerillas led to them joining the revolt in large numbers with relative ease. By the time considerable Daxian reinforcements reached Stenza in late August 1919, the Free Stenzan Army had grown to nearly 30,000 ex-security force troops with thousands of guerillas still roaming the rest of the country.

The next two years were nothing if not bloody for both sides, with the Free Stenzan Army being forced to resort to irregular warfare to deal with the higher technology the Daxian forces brought with them. Armored vehicles, artillery and airplanes were all brought in from Daxia to squash the "out of hand rebellion", but unrest prevailed across the country as every battle seemed to inspire more Stenzans to either defect or pick up arms instead of working for the Daxian. Slowly but surely, the country split into an west-east divide marked by the country's central mountain range, with the Daxian-led government still seated in Xīwàng while the Free Stenzan Army named the city of Rakahanga its capital in 1920.

1920 was the year of major military engagements between both armies across the central mountain range, with tens of thousands dying on both sides of the conflict. The year proved to be a relative stalemate though, with the modern Daxian forces being unable to break the resistance. It was not until May 1921 that the situation would change.

Battles of Xīwàng and Daxian surrender
Main Article: Battle of Xīwàng

On the 4th of May, 1921, a Free Stenzan Army offensive down the multiple rivers leading up to Xīwàng started. The Stenzan numbers proved serious enough to overwhelm the Daxian defenders, with both regular Stenzan troops and guerillas forcing their way through the defensive lines through sheer manpower, capturing whatever equipment was left behind along the way. By early June, Stenzan forces had reached the outskirts of the city and started besieging it using captured Daxian artillery. The city was cracked on the 20th of June when the Stenzan workers inside the city turned on the Daxian defenders and distracted them long enough for the forces outside the city to flood in. A frenzied massacre followed, with Free Stenzan Army forces capturing the port and the vessels inside it while the revolting workers and guerillas hunted down Daxian citizens inside the city. Many Daxian were beaten to death or captured in front of captured movie cameras, with the footage of the events being spread across the world to showcase the fate of the Daxian population.

The Daxian were cut off from their main supply hub, with other coastal cities becoming the subject of simoultaneous attacks backing up the Xīwàng offensive. Two counterattacks were staged by the Daxian forces during July, with Daxian forces trying to push in from Khaneli on the 3rd of July to little success. A second counterattack, consisting of a major push by remaining Daxian forces in the country supported by an amphibious assault from the Daxian mainland on the 26th of July, resulted in failure when the Stenzan defenders proved to have ramped up their defenses using captured Daxian equipment in a manner of fending off the attackers from both the sea and land. Xīwàng stayed in Stenzan hands, a major symbolic victory for the Stenzans.

The Daxian forces surrendered on the 2nd of August, 1921. This date was later to be known as the Day of Stenzan Independence. Armed scuffles continued for another week as loosely organized Stenzan guerilla forces did not listen to the order to cease fire, but by the 10th all hostilities had ended.

Exile of the Humiliated
Main Article: Exile of the gumiliated

Stenzan independence was followed by a long month period that saw the defeated Daxian leave the island along with the majority of the colonizers, a period known in Stenzan history books as the exile of the humiliated.

Stenzan Civil War
Main Article: Stenzan Civil War