Zhijun
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Zhijun Special Federal District 知君省 | |
|---|---|
Subject of the Democratic Republic of Daxia | |
 Flag | |
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| Special Subject | Daxia |
| Capital and largest city | Yishi |
| Official languages | Daxian |
| Ethnic groups |
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| Government | |
• District Chief | Deng Darro |
| Legislature | Zhijun Territorial Assembly |
| Gini (2030) |  32medium |
| HDI (2068) | 0.635 medium |
| Driving side | right |
Zhijun (Daxian: 知君省), officially the Zhijun Special Federal District, is a territory of the Republic of Daxia in Australis consisting of two islands off the northern coast of the Peratra region. The main island is named Zhijun while the smaller of the two is named Tang. Colonized in the 1590's by the Daxian Qian dynasty, the islands were extensively populated by transplanted colonists brought over from mainland Daxia. It grew in importance as a base of operations for the South Seas Trading Company and a trading outpost with the native tribes of Peratra, and later would be used as a staging point for a conquest of the subcontinent and as the foremost base of Daxian power projection in the western Ocean of Cathay and the Polynesian Sea especially during the Daxian Polynesian Wars. Zhijun was a key stopping point of the first leg of the trip for the flow of slaves of the Southern slave trade. In the aftermath of the Second Great War Zhijun experienced brief periods of political autonomy from the mainland, first under the governorship of Qian dynasty loyalist Tang Jun and later under the Green Army, a Hluttaw supremacist rebel group turned regional government. The custodianship of the Green Army soldier-bureaucrats over Zhijun came to a crashing end in 2011 after naval assets based in Zhijun were directed by mainland authorities to forcibly remove the group from power. Hun San, the last District Chief to emanate from the Green Army was disappeared in 2016, a testament to the utter political powerlessness of the organization.
In the modern day Zhijun remains an important center of sugar production and a regional tourist hub especially for gambling related activities for which there is an especially favorable fiscal regime in place. It is home to the Daxian Navy's Australis Squadron which operates in the area in anti-piracy and anti-smuggling operations.
Geography and Climate
Zhijun enjoys a mild tropical maritime climate with persistent seasonal winds blowing throughout the year and high volume rains during three seasons of the year. Mean summer temperature is 27.9 °C and mean winter temperature is around 23.3 °C. The temperature difference between summer and winter is 4.6 °C. January to June are the hottest months and October is the coolest month. However there are temperature variations affected by elevation, as shown in disparities between the flat coastal areas and the more mountainous interior. Geographically the north, south and eastern shores are covered in sandy shores while the west is predominantly rugged rocky cliffs and a large coral reef. A limestone covered mountain named Mount Podong is the tallest point in the islands at 560 meters tall.
History
Daxian settlement
The twin islands of Zhijun and Tang were only sparsely inhabited by peoples hailing from the mainland Peratran landmass to the south, who organized into small communities of fishermen and hunter-gatherers. The culture of the islands developed uninterrupted at a slow pace and was still in a relatively primitive state by the time Daxian explorers reached it in the 16th century. Zhijun was properly colonized by the Qian Dynasty during the maritime campaigns of the Yuanjian Emperor in the early 1590's, as part of Qian efforts to explore and establish Daxian outposts in Australis. A fort town named Yishi was founded in 1594 with sixty families. The Yishi colony was governed initially by Xi Haifong, captain of the vessel who had transported the colonists to the island. Two years later the Qian authorities sent another ship with twenty more families of colonists, three-hundred soldiers to serve as the town's garrison and several bureaucrats to order the affairs of the island and take over from Xi Haifong. Crucially, the new ship also brought five smoothbore cannons of which only three were mounted on the walls of Yishi. The remaining two would be used by the Yishi garrison in raids against the, up until now, peaceful island natives. The fort town of Yishi would be the focal point of Daxian activities in the area for the next fifteen years. The port of Bondor would be built in the eastern coast of Zhijun after buying the land from the Tufele tribe.
It is at Bondor that the explorer Gabo de Pogiano came into contact with Daxians, starting the exchanges that would lead to the establishment of the Southern route. By 1596 the natives led by the Tufele and Afakasi tribes, now suspicious of the foreigners intent, attacked Yishi and Bondor. The wall-less Bondor was captured but Yishi repelled the attack thanks to the three smoothbore cannons installed on the wall. Admiral Haifong set out on three ships to retake Bondor, doing so two weeks later. With relations between the two sides broken down, the Qian court ordered the complete conquest of the islands and the enslavement of the polynesian tribes. The imperial mandate was completed in 1607 after a lengthy guerrilla war and several decisive defeats for the tribes. Th defeated tribes of Zhijun would be the first people to be taken into bondage by the Qian in a process that would be the start of the Southern slave trade. After the military defeat of the natives, the Qian dynasty began an aggressive scheme of colonization of the islands with mainlanders to affirm its long term control and dominance.
Daxian Polynesian Wars
The colonization of Peratra by the Qian dynasty was the main contributing factor to its decision to start a conflict with other seafaring powers and to forestall their expansion into the western Cathay area. The series of conflicts and battles is known as the Daxian Polynesian Wars and it involved Daxia fighting at various times Kiravia, Burgundie and Caphiria. Supplies and men for the wars on Peratra continuously poured through Zhijun and the Fleet of the Eastern Tides had its main naval bases there. Zhijun was targeted in 1666 by a Kiravian fleet in retaliation for Zhu Bolin's Siege of Dun-Kurrengev, around a third of Port Bondor burned down as a result of enemy bombardment and parts of Tang were temporarily invaded by Kiravian land forces. This period of conflict resulted in the Qian dynasty pouring a great many resources into improving the defenses of the island by such actions such as: building new walls for Yishi that completely encircled the old ring wall, increasing the imperial garrison to five thousand men, building a keep and watchtower in Tang and enlarging the docks of Bondor to accommodate larger warships. Many non-Daxians captured from enemy fleets or taken from raided towns wound up in the flesh markets of Zhijun, usually sold off at high prices as 'westerner barbarian' slaves, especially sought after if they were dwarves. Zhu Bolin's famous albino manservant, Mala Jong, was bought in such an instance.
A curiosity of Daxian settlement in Zhijun is that intermarriage with the island natives was not banned for many years unlike the case in other colonies, resulting in many mixed marriages and as a result a large share of the population was of mixed origin. These genetic mutts were called 'Hluttaw' after an especially juicy local fruit. The practice of intermixing was much more rampant in the more remote interior of the islands compared to the coast and over time these Hluttaw would diverge from their Daxian progenitors in various ways that would prove a problem for imperial control. The colony would repel more enemy raids until the 1728 Truce of Caserges that ended most fighting between the Qian dynasty and other seafaring powers in the Cathay. The following period of peace allowed the Qian dynasty to build Zhijun into a prosperous hub of commerce between the mainland, the colonies of Peratra and the nations on the far east end of the Polynesian Sea. The South Seas Trading Company built dedicated facilities to handle its regional interests and handle all manner of transactions on the islands to the extent that two out of ten people were employed by the company.
Modern period
The Late Qian era saw renewed attention on the island by metropolitan authorities due to its perceived vulnerability to naval attack during the Second Great War. One of the junior commanders of Daxian forces during the Peratran War of Independence, General Tang Jun was appointed as Imperial Viceroy in place of a bureaucrat to prepare the island for the possibility of attack. Tang Jun imposed a heavy handed military government which at first led to periodic outbreaks of civil disobedience and armed rebellion. Eventually Jun's grip was tightened enough that finally order was restored across all of the island. Tang Jun successfully defended Zhijun during the course of the war and maintained it as a crucial naval base to prevent Allied encroachments. The end of the war and the collapse of the Qian dynasty with Hongli's abdication in 1946 left Tang Jun at a crossroads: accept the new government led by the army putschists or declare Zhijun's autonomy or even independence. In the end his loyalty to the dynasty and his personal antipathy for Qiu Heng resulted in him publicly rejecting the new government as illegitimate, furthermore declaring that Zhijun was still under the authority of the Qian dynasty and would remain a separate entity until the imperial family was reinstated to power. Tang Jun was able to prevent a takeover of the island thanks in part of his good relations with the commanding officers of the Australis Naval squadron, which was one of Daxia's strongest fleets. The mainland government declared Jun a traitor and criminal but were unable to mount an effort to oust him that had any real chance of success. In the meantime Jun maintained the fiction of Qian loyalty by continuing to don the robes of an imperial viceroy and printing money with Hongli's picture, all the while he toyed seriously with the idea of declaring total independence. The crisis was only resolved in 1950 when Qiu Heng sent secret messages to the commanding officers of Tang's fleet, threatening their families in the mainland with arrest and worse unless they sailed the fleet back to Daxia. The threat worked and suddenly Tang Jun found himself bereft of his shield at sea. Faced now with the real possibility of a successful invasion, the Tiger of Peratra decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He filled a passenger plane with all the currency he could take from the regional treasury and flew to exile in Takatta Loa; afterwards he was lampooned in the press as the 'flying kitty'.
The end of official Qian control and the transition to the new Republic did not signify any softening of oppressive policies. The Hluttaw demographic was squeezed out of public life and deemed suspiciously apathetic to the Republic and harboring of pro monarchy sentiments. Former Hluttaw members of Tang Jun's forces eventually gathered into an armed group called the Green Army. This group started the Hluttaw rebellion that lasted from 1957 to the late 1980's in what was the longest and most severe period of unrest on the island leading to increased militarization. The end of the Hluttaw Rebellion came about after a degrading and splintering of the Green Army allowed a negotiated settlement to take place and the co-optation and installation of Green Army bureaucrats as part of the island's administration and their institutionalization into the Daxian government. The new peace brought increased attention and federal funds to develop the island, with the South Seas Development Company building sugar refineries and the government increasing infrastructure spending that resulted in port facilities, waterworks, power stations, paved roads, schools and entertainment facilities being built. The increased amenities coupled with fiscal and monetary incentive began attracting more people to move the islands.
The Party of Daxian Democrats kept the political arrangement reached with the Green Army until 2010 when it began a process of 'political standardization' as a guise to remove the Green Army from power. The reasons for this decision were the Green Army's rampant corrupt practices (that meant PDD honchos missed out on this same corruption), its attempts to marginalize the Daxian majority in favor of the Hluttaw and even placing legal obstacles for the PDD operating on the territory. Prib Dodd likened the strategy employed against the Green Army to removing ticks from a dog, ranking members of the Green Army were constantly being assassinated with car bombs or attacked and knifed by flash mobs. On early 2011 the Australis naval squadron based on Zhijun went out to sea on purported exercises before turning their weapons on the Yishi government quarter. Faced with such firepower, then District Chief Hun San followed the example of Tang Jun before him and capitulated, he acceded to the political standardization and stepped down, signifying the end of Green Army power on the island.
Government
Zhijun is ruled officially by the Zhijun Regional Administration chaired by a District Chief who serves as the executive. The District Chief is nominated by the Chancellor of the Republic of Daxia and ratified by the local legislature. The current District Chief of the regional administration since 2028 is Deng Darro. The legislature is formed by a single chamber, which is the Zhijun Territorial Assembly which is formed by four hundred members, which are subject to popular vote every three years. The current iteration of the territorial assembly is dominated entirely by the PDD, the political parties close to the Green Army have been banned from political participation after they were charged with political extremism and sectarian leanings. Previously there existed an upper house that was called the Command Council and its fifty members were all active duty officers of the Green Army; the Command Council was abolished in 2011 during the political standardization process.
As of 2034 all traces of the former dominance of Zhijun's political institutions by the Green Army have been effectively wiped clean, the organization has been liquidated as a political organization and most of the members who were either in the public administration or in the legislature, the so called 'soldier-bureaucrats', have been pensioned off. The local branch of the PDD is ascendant under Deng Darro, who even enlarged the Zhijun Territorial Assembly to include an extra one hundred members in order to pack it with more of his loyalists.
Not subject to the District Chief's authority are the naval forces of the Australis squadron stationed in Zhijun and the stationed Bureau of State Protection battalions.
Economy
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The agricultural sector is one of the mainstays of the local economy. Thanks to its tropical climate, the island's interior boasts one of the foremost centers of sugarcane production in Australis, having cultivated the crop uninterrupted for hundreds of years. During the Republican years the full spectrum of facilities required for sugar production were installed and it is now the islands principal export. Tropical fruits such as guava and mango are also extensively cultivated for export and for local consumption. The South Seas Development Company operated several fisheries, liquor distillation plants and a garment factory, all of which continue to operate but with their operational focus now shifted to servicing the Peratran markets. Zhijun has become a pivotal entry point for Daxian companies looking to participate in Peratra, leading to many companies opening their regional offices there. The annual Zhijun Economic Forum seeks to continue attracting attention and investment to the island by promoting it as a unique communication and investment nexus between the regions bordering the Ocean of Cathay. Daxian commercial interest in cornering the Peratran markets puts Zhijun as the lynchpin of the strategy, necessitating the modernization of the territory's legal, tax and commercial frameworks; likewise the high levels of corruption under the current local government are pushing economic actors to demand changes to maintain the islands as economically competitive.
Under PDD rule, the construction of casinos on the island has been heavily promoted with the first casinos opened in the early 2000's. The gambling industry has seen an exponential growth in the last decade and its become one of the largest sources of revenue for the regional administration, with Fondor Gaming International being the single largest taxpayer on the territory. Fondor's license to operate casinos was extended in 2026 by 35 years. The increased stream of revenue has fueled a construction boom and the expansion of the tourism industry, with luxury hotels, condominium complexes and shopping malls catering to rich foreigners being built at an accelerated pace. Criminal enterprises have also taken root along with gambling. Prostitution, weapons smuggling and drug production are also thriving under the nose of the Green Army regime, and some say with its connivance and protection.
Demographics
Ethncity according to the official census (2030)
As of 2030 Zhijun and Tang have a combined population of 1,235,367 inhabitants. Of said number 68.2% self identify as Daxian and are virtually indistinguishable from mainlanders. The Daxian population of the islands saw a marked increase in 1921 after the success of the Peratran War of Independence where hundreds of thousands of ethnic Daxians fled the Peratran mainland and took refuge in Zhijun. Roughly a third of those displaced refugees ended up staying permanently on Zhijun. The second largest group at 23.4% are those officially designated as Island Daxians, also known as Hluttaw locally, these are people of mixed Daxian and Polynesian heritages and therefore have physical characteristics of both groups in various degrees. They predominantly speak mainland Daxian and a minority of them speak a pidgin dialect sprinkled with local words. The residual pure blooded native Polynesian population that remains stands at no more than 7.2% of the population, they tend to speak both Daxian and their own native dialect. The smallest population group are categorized on the census as Muslims instead of by ethnic origin, they mainly people from Rusana but also people from Truk brought over as laborers to work in the sugar cane productive process and also to be employed in the hospitality and casino industries.
Religion has little influence in Zhijun due to official encouragement of state atheism on the islands during the 20th century and a distinct lack of interest in religion by the original settlers, the latest census reported that 87% of Zhijun's inhabitants lacked any religious identification or strong feelings towards religion. The Christian Church of the East attempted and failed several times to acquire permission from the state to operate and proselytize in Zhijun. Permits for the construction of a mosque by the Rusani population have always been denied on account of several factors such as a lack of budget for religious affairs and instructions by the administration to instead pray privately at home. Old Polynesian rites may still take place in rural communities far removed in the island's interior, the authorities have shown no interest in persecuting these actions.
Television
Local television stations in Zhijun are the following:
- CZTV, which is owned by Daxian-Zhijun Television
- WSZT-8, which is owned by Dayun Group
- ABBA-TV, which is owned by Australis Telestations
Transportation
Zhijun is served by two airports, the Yishi International Airport and the Kaliman Military Aerodrome. The Zhijun Trans-Coastal highway traverses the length of the entire main island, linking all its major population centers and ports. There is also a terminal for cruise ships in Yishi and another one in Ato. A bridge connecting Zhijun and Tang is currently in the planning stages, to replace the ferry system in place. Transport between Stenza and Zhijun takes place by plane and by the Rakahanga-Yishi ferry.