Qiu Heng

Qiu Heng (May 16 1896-July 18 1964) was a Daxian military officer and politician who served as the second president of the Republic of Daxia from 1951 to 1964; succeeding his old comrade and superior, General Dai Hanjian. Qiu Heng was a recipient of several military awards throught his career including the highest attainable existing one, the Medal of the Republic. He joined the army in 1913 and rose through the ranks, participating in the 1918 suppression of the Liyuan peasant uprising and serving in Rusana during the Al-Dukir War. During the Second Great War he commanded Daxian land forces during the Battle of Ayermer (1936) and became a national figure after its successful conclusion. The disappointing lack of progress on other Daxian fronts and the unchecked popular growth of socialism under the indolent gaze of Emperor Hongli led him to side with his friend Dai Hanjian and together they overthrew the imperial system during the Glorious Revolt; he became vice-president and second in command of the military junta that was formed to rule the nation.

In 1947 he was promoted to Chieft of Staff of the armed forces and oversaw the rebuilding and expansion of Daxia's military might, and moved its doctrines towards a combined arms approach. As head of the military he supported Lixin Ji's push for the creation of the State Atomic Commission to spearhead the development of a nuclear weapons program. As president he guided the transition from a purely military regime to a hybrid one with the creation of the National Reconstruction Front and extended the latters political dominance and networks of patronage to cover most productive sectors. A lifelong opponent of socialist thought, he fiercely persecuted and jailed leftists throught his tenure, forcing the Communist Party of Daxia back underground. In 1962 he orchestrated the Daxian intervention in the long running Rusani Civil War known as the Little Incursion that swung the battlefield fortunes of the NCDP and allowed it to prevail by 1963. During the last months of his life he progressively forced the devastated Rusana into a subordinate position within Daxia's sphere of influence. He died in 1964 due to complications of leukemia.

Qiu Heng is a divisive figure in modern Daxia, on one hand he is celebrated for his many noteworthy military achievements, for strengthening Daxia's military capacities and for beginning the work of restoring the nation's place at the center of Audonia's power politics. On the other hand his detractors point to him as the principal architect of a repressive system that grew too sluggish and dysfunctional to keep up in the modern world and could only respond with brutality. He is vilified in Western sources especially for his mistreatment of prisoners of war and for the wholesale expulsion of Levantians from Ayermer.

Early life
On May 16 1896, Qiu Heng was born in the village of Quyang (曲阳) to a family of poor peasant farmers. Quyang and the wider province was going through a severe drought at the time so his family moved southeast to Xuhai in order to find work in that city. The family settled in the impoverished Wugou neighborhood, Qiu was enrolled in a local school while his parents found work as factory laborers. It was at this neighborhood school where Qiu met his lifelong friend Dai Hanjian, another student of peasant background. His father died falling from a construction scaffold when Qiu was seven and the family sunk deeper into poverty. Social advancement seemed impossible, except through the army; as luck would have it one of Dai Hanjian's maternal uncles was a lieutenant who helped the both of them be accepted into Zhaozou Military Academy when they reached 17.

Early military service
Upon graduation in 1917 from the academy with high honors, Heng was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. He was assigned to the lead a platoon as part of the 2nd artillery batallion based at Taiqiu near the border with Lakdu. In 1918 his batallion was called into action alongside the rest of the of the 11th artillery regiment in suppressing an armed peasant uprising in Liyuan. Heng demonstrated quick thinking and bravery under fire and his unit served well in the seven months it took to defeat the peasant movement. He received two battlefield promotions to captain, one officer was killed in action and the other one reportedly fell down a set of stairs while drunk and broke his neck. Now leading his own artillery company he was sent in 1920 to the Emirate of Lakdu as part of the forces sent in support of Emir Abdul Razik who was battling the Al-Dukir tribe. With Barpubad's support the Al-Dukir tribal chiefs sought to overthrow Abdul Razik and put one of their own as emir; Razik however was a Qian client and secured the court's support through a large monetary bribe. The war to defeat the Al-Dukirs was brutal and devolved into guerrilla warfare as the tribesmen fought as irregulars and their forces blended very well with the populace. The Al-Dukirs were defeated in 1922 after their last stronghold near the Barpubad border was reduced to rubble by Daxian batteries. Qiu Heng secured an appointment as adjutant to Daxia's military attache to the court of Lakdu where he stayed until 1926. His experiences in southern Rusana would be very helpful to Qiu Heng thirty years later when he organized the Little Incursion. On his return to Daxia he married a cousin of his friend Dai Hanjian, cementing an alliance between the two men that would serve him well in later years.

Second Great War
The outbreak of the Second Great War did not take the imperial government by surprise, a general conflagration in Sarpedon was expected from a revanchist Caphiria. Starting in 1936 the Daxian government joined efforts to cobble together the National-Continental Co-Belligerency League with a strong emphasis on pushing Burgundie out of the continent for good. Daxia's first focus was the liberation of the island of Ayermer, an island close to the mainland that had been occupied by Burgundie for two hundred years that the Qian saw as a sword aimed at them. By this time Qiu Heng was one of the youngest major generals in the army, thanks in part to connections made during his service in Rusana and the patronage of General Dai Ju, one of the strong men of the Qian army establishment.