Zhangwo

Zhangwo or Mastery of the Material is the guiding national ethos of the Corummese people and their State. It is a belief in the superior cultural, moral and racial worth of Corummese people and their special place in the history of not just Alshar but the world. The term Zhangwo was coined in 680 by the First Minister and philosopher Heian Xiujian in a treatise describing the foreign policies of the Yang dynasty and his justifications of external conquest by claiming the material world as the divinely granted inheritance of the Corummese race. Later intellectuals sponsored by various dynasties would further expound on notions of racial and cultural superiority veering on arrogance and xenophobia, ideas that further seeped into the public consciousness upon contact and conflict with non Corummese polities such as the expansionist Muslim caliphates, nomads from the northern plains and western explorers. In the modern era the Party of Corummese Democrats has appropiated the concept of Zhangwo and mutated it to serve its own geopolitical ends, using it to justify national involvement in the Deluge as a paramount national effort to neuter hostile and inferior peoples and aggrandize Corumm at their expense, a vital step on the road to fulfilling the nation's destiny of world conquest.

Etymology
WIP

Origins
WIP

Major Themes
WIP everything below is brain farts and half baked concepts

Nationalism and Expansionism
Corummese might secretly or not so secretly want everyone in the world to look, speak and think like them, because they think they are the best people. Find the path of least resistance and expand that way, find an obstacle? go around it, can't go around it? maybe others can help you chip at it or be bribed into aiding you. Like a crocodile waiting for a meal, exercise patience, the patiences of decades or centuries while not losing sight of the grand prize.

Militarism
Status of the army as the vanguard of the corummese manifest destiny. Increases in the power of the military before and during the great wars, radicalization through secret societies/lodges and favoring a state run 100% by the army, discarding the monarchy and 'shedding the fat' leads to Dai Hanjian's coup and the installation of an army government.

Racialism
Corummese are just made different. Yellowish, sallow skin glows like the everlasting Sun. Like snakes in the grass we allowed lesser races to get close to take a bite, then sprung the trap and ate the choicest most useful bits, the rest is discarded as offal. How might non corummese minorities exist in such a hellscape of racism and xenophobia, by adopting aspects of corummesedom becoming Lesser Corummese but Corummese in the end, accepted albeit grudginly into the fold for their use as labor and whatnot.

Political Control
The corummese have a destiny, the biggest and bestest destiny ever, and it can only be reached by everyone rowing the same way. Disagreeing means you hate Corumm and its glory, why should you be allowed life? The guardians of this precious, world shattering destiny were the emperors and now the Party. Traditional oriental despotism was never supplanted, only upgraded to work with modern methodologies and be more effective. Corummese political culture is a fellow traveler to rl world fascism. Linge Chen underwent apotheosis and his successors share in some of his charismatic leadership or perhaps each new leader undergoes his own metamorphosis into a man of near mythical vision and sagacity, by tearing down his predecessors cult and building his own.

Economics
Mix of crony state capitalism and true free market capitalism with long term goals for self reliance and efforts towards autarkism in specific sectors of the economy, Corummese economic practice overseas likened to a fat leech, latching onto targets to suck them dry(without killing them), stealing and cannibalizing of the efforts and achievements of other nations for self benefit, cheating foreigners through legaloid means(read the fine print, stupid). Government mentality to this might be 'Dont want to know, proud of you if you pull it off'

Cultural Effects
Corummese do not like you, they will stare at you and then tell you that you are ugly. You will hear snickering as you walk by(yes they are laughing at you). Foreign brands and pop culture have a hard time being accepted, Anti-Catholic League only one permit from being reactivated, glorification of aspic as national treasure

Modern Adaptation
write here how the Party has instrumentalized the concepts of Zhangwo to reinforce itself, recognition of the limits of Corummese hard and soft power, the existence of ideological fissures inside the Party? Dominant Pragmatists who realize Corumm must be careful and sly, Brutish Fanatics who would throw caution to the winds, invade Ayermer, invade New Yustona, re-nuke varshan into the stone age. Zhangwo taken to its logical conclusion might start war of world proportions, expectations of a fanatical public must be carefully managed and manipulated. Licentious use of government terror if all else fails =Notions for a national political/moral/cultural guiding ideology= Names: The Golden Path, Eternal Mandates, Zhangwo, tablets of the brilliant mandates, mastery of the material