United Cities: Difference between revisions

Secure for a time against his most dangerous external foe, now Emperor Tengu would spend the next decade attempting to centralize power and have a greater power over the cities and local taxation. Feeling they had exchanged an autocrat far away for one at home, the elites of [[Heng]] and many cities began to resent Tengu's rule and withold funds from his tax collectors. In the winter of 915, a mob of peasants paid for by Heng's nobles attacked Tengu and his attendants on the streets. While Tengu's outnumbered guards attempted to hack their way out of the mob, a farmer with an axe hewed the emperor's peg leg below the knee causing him to stumble to the ground where he was stabbed to death. After merely 19 years in power, the childless emperor and his dynasty were overthrown as suddenly as they had risen. New Magisters drawn from the old nobility rose in every major city, agreeing to maintain their ties as a loose defensive union that would collectively come to be known as the United Cities.

=== Middle Period ===

=== Decline and Dissolution ===

== Geography ==

== Military ==

The United Cities kept a unified standing army known as the Iron Legion, composed of twenty thousand men in lamellar armor, divided into footmen, cavalry and artillery corps. It was augmented by city self-defense forces and private militias composed of slaves as needed. The Iron Legion was able to repel the numerically superior armies of the Zhong for many years until funding cutbacks, corruption and the intake of slaves into its ranks drastically reduced its combat effectiveness.

== Economy ==

The United Cities economy was heavily reliant on slave labor for its agricultural and industrial manpower. Slavers would undertake great raids into [[Rusana]], [[Duamacia]] and the rest of Zhong dominated [[Corumm]] to procure slaves for both internal use and for export. It would also acquire Audonian slaves through intermediaries since the United Cities never had direct access to the sea. The semiarid climate made for poor agricultural output, crops that required little water like cactus were favored. The rare alcoholic Cactus Rum has its origins in the United Cities and was also a big earner. Another source of revenue was taxation of caravans traversing through its territory. Most trade in and out of the United Cities was overseen by an institution known as the United Traders Guild.