Daxian people
The Daxian people are an ethnolinguistic group native to Audonia who share a common language, culture and ancestry. They are the majority group in the nations of Daxia and a significant minority in Canpei, Timbia and Rusana. Several diaspora groups of varying sizes exist in other places in Audonia and overseas as a result of a mercantilist mindset. The Daxian ethnonym is a corruption of the name Da Xié meaning Great Harmony, which was the name of the first ever recorded dynasty to form in Daxia. The historical point of origin of the Daxian people is believed to be located in central Daxia where the first organized polities took shape and created the precursor states that preceded the Xie dynasty. The early Daxian people developed for the most part in isolation, shielded as they were by mountains to the west, the sea to the east and south and the vast distances of the empty steppes to the north. This isolation led to the development of a cultural insularity that permeates traditional 'Daxian-ness' to the modern day, and is expressed in many aspects of Daxian life and historic trends, from political concepts tinged with notions of superiority such as Zhangwo, to historical relations with other peoples dictated by Daxian need to dominate and subjugate them, to an intense dislike and distrust of foreigners even today and a predilection for inbreeding.
 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 724 million approximate | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Daxia | 689,254,654 |
 Canpei | 7,122,035 |
 Timbia | 20,328,249 |
 Rusana | 8,668,650 |
| Languages | |
| Daxian language | |
| Religion | |
| Ancestor Daxian religion, Christianity, Islam, Tianism | |
Culture
The essential cultural mores of the Daxian people can be said to hark back to antiquity and while not immutable through time, the patterns set down by the Xie dynasty were mostly upheld by their successors in power. The ability of a dynasty at the height of its glory to form and shape men of learning that could in turn elucidate and teach the favored philosophies of the time to the great masses, while staying within the margins of what was already established Daxian-ness, determine in great measure that dynasty's contribution to the culture of the Daxian people.
Social practices
Bigamy and Endogamy
Bigamy has been practiced in Daxia for thousands of years, going back to the reign of Emperor Chiliang of the Xie dynasty. An old man by the time he ascended to the imperial throne, Chiliang's progeny had suffered from great misfortune and he had no male heir. The emperor consulted with a great council of sages and their learned conclusion was that the emperor should be allowed to marry as many wives as he needed. Not lacking in wisdom himself, the emperor counseled restraint, were he to sire too many sons they would surely fight amongst themselves and tear the empire to bloody shreds once Chiliang passed on, and so two wives would suffice for his great need. So resolved, Chiliang set aside his aged wife and married two nubile maidens that beget him three strong sons to carry on his bloodline into the future. And so that none of his subjects had cause to complain that their emperor ate alone, he passed a decree that was carved in imperial marble: Let all the subjects living on my lands and under my sky secure the immortality of their names, as have I, let every man be entitled to marrying twice; this is known as Chiliang's Pact. This decree was studiously respected by all succeeding dynasties for a number of reasons, the vast majority of the population worked in agriculture for a long time, having two wives meant more kids were available to add to a farm's labor pool. Abrogating Chiliang's Pact would be very unpopular, especially if the emperor continued the practice himself, which they would want to do given the high rates of infant mortality even among nobility. Bigamy was codified into law by every dynasty from Shang to Qian, all of which also made legal provisions for the caring of the numerous abandoned children and laws on the payment of pensions by the state to widows with small children. Bigamy continues to be legal in the modern era and Daxians continue to practice it but not to the same extent as in the past. The rising cost of living, insufficient social services, marital breakdown and the onerous expenses of having many children and also of divorcing dissuade many men from fulfilling their right to be bigamous.
Endogamy is the practice of marriage within a certain ethnic, religious or social group. Daxian people have for reasons of history and tradition, always frowned upon unions with non-Daxians. A partial explanation to this can be provided by the Zhangwo ideology, the core idea being that the Daxians have been so successful at building a bureaucratic empire because the divine have ordained them as a superior race. This idea has been both a curse and a blessing for smaller ethnic groups living in areas that border the Daxian heartlands; a boon because the massive Daxian people could have absorbed and diluted them into the greater whole if not for the fact that it was seen as culturally repugnant to marry a foreigner, a curse because their inability to marry Daxians meant they would never be truly accepted in that society, dooming them to subservience, suspicion and cruelty. One well known example is that of the Degei people, a nomadic people that lived in the grasslands north of Daxia for hundreds of years and interacted with and were influenced by it in many ways. The anthroposcopy of the average Degei has historically been considered to be close enough to the average Daxian as to be distantly related, the pigmentation of the skin and the elongated epicanthal folds lending themselves to a certain compatibility, if traditional looks were to be preserved in offspring. And yet despite the physical similarities, the Degei people were never truly seen as anything but uncultured, foul and treacherous barbarians, useful in a fight if you could get them to obey by feeding them trinkets and lofty but meaningless honors. Some historians have posited that the great revolt of Darukh Khan started with his innermost, most secret insecurity, that he admired the Daxian people but could not and would not ever be accepted by them as an equal no matter what he did, leading him to despair and violence. The allure of endogamy within Daxian society has ebbed and flowed across history and its hold has not always been absolute or equally respected in specific geographic parts of the empire. The settlers who colonized Xisheng found themselves fighting the natives almost from the very start and this hostile reception shaped their own attitudes and sharpened their native xenophobia; Xisheng's Daxian's took refuge in their redoubts and limited their contact with the Cronan peoples for three hundred years. Comparatively the explorers who discovered and colonized Peratra were received peacefully and traded in peace with many tribes for a number of years, this coupled with the great distances to the homeland softened and cracked the allure of endogamy; Timbia today is an example of a society with a great degree of mixing between native Polynesians and Daxians.
Daxian Racialism
A topic greatly discussed among scholars both foreign and domestic is the origin of Daxia's racialism, how far back in history lie its roots and if ancient Daxians were even prejudiced against other races. While one the great sources and justification of Daxian racialism is always named as Considerations of Yang Imperial Expansion, written in 680 CE by Heian Xiujian, First Minister of the Yang court, most experts now agree that the true origin lies much far back, in ancient texts and rites of Daxia's native religion. While Considerations of Yang Imperial Expansion is the premier text used and expanded on at the dynasty level to inflame and denigrate the foreign, at the popular level it was the priests and men of the hedge who spoke to the commoners of the need to protect the purity of the lands from that which was strange, dangerous and unholy. Tablets dated as far back as 2,400 BCE contain religious poems and hymns extolling the pure and calling on the faithful to honor the Gods of the Earth and the Air by defending their Great Garden (interpreted to be the land of Daxia) from the Shadows beyond the Garden and their servants. The tablets include an addition in less prosaic language, a listing of the known servants of the dark including the names of city-states to the west such as Nasrad, Khaton, Turaq and Rilban; cities then under the rule of king Iyachtu, an ancestor of the later self-styled Highest of Kings, Xvim the Black. The power of religion and its hold on both the ancient ruling and popular classes in addition to a history of constant border clashes and raids resulted in the inevitable, a deeply ingrained hatred of those who were not Daxian, whose hearts were seen as full of black bile and who desired nothing more than to soil the Great Garden bestowed by the divine. The success of territorial expansion and rule over others brought the aspects of arrogance and manifest destiny and combined them with what came before. The result was the Daxian belief that not only were outsiders evil, but that Daxians were predetermined to defeat and subjugate them no matter what. In the modern era, these ancient hatreds and prejudices remain, mixed with and reinforced by modern causes for racism and resentment elsewhere: an influx of migrants from poorer nations who compete for low level jobs and depress salaries, perceived incompatibility with Daxian society due to cultural and religious differences, foreign criticism of Daxia for its international policies and the scapegoating of outsiders by the government.
Daxians use a litany of names to refer to non-Daxians, usually out of earshot so as to not dampen money-generating activities. A historical term was Guoyi, a term given to outsiders who paid tribute to a Daxian dynasty, the term roughly corresponds with Good Barbarian. It can be said to have a negative connotation only in the sense that it underlines the subservient position of the foreigner. Other more blatantly insulting terms exist such as Kakun, which is used against black-skinned peoples and compares them to excrement or dog feces. Specific national groups are not spared this treatment, Urceans are called Sheng-pigu roughly equivalent to 'Holy Buttheads' for their overweening piety, Burgoignesc are simply called Laoshu or 'mice' for their proclivity to appear anywhere they are not wanted. People of Sarpedon are referred as Pizhi or 'Gross Zits' for their perceived oiliness and swarthoid complexions. Many scholastic attempts have been made to fully compile the various insulting ways Daxians refer to others, experts agree the most complete is the 18th century's sage Guo Wuru's Big Book of Insults.
Self-Perception
Main Article: Zhangwo
The definition of who is and who is not a Daxian has been a matter of philosophical, historic and racial contention since antiquity. In times past it was commonly accepted was 'Daxian-ness' was inherited patrilineally, as in Daxian religion the Great Garden was passed on into the care of the first man, son of the gods. The burden and honor of protecting it flowed into the sons of each generation and so on, the role of women was a supportive and nurturing one but not critical. By the late Xie dynasty this perception had changed, under pressure by powerful Empresses ruling in their own name, the priesthood and men of the hedge were forced to relent, the foundational mythos of the world was altered so that the son's task was also to protect the first woman, his wife and equal, foundational pillar of his descendance. Henceforth anyone who had at least one parent of Daxian origin could be inscribed in the citizen rolls of the state as a true Daxian, although it was common to for delays and obstacles to be placed on those with non-Daxian fathers. The custom and the legal framework began to clash during the time of overseas expansion under the Qian dynasty, while the offspring of native and Daxian were accorded Daxian official status, culturally it was hard to reconcile that status with the new variations in appearances (brown skin pigmentation, melanated hair). The solution that was concocted was to introduce regional descriptive nouns, for example the mixed children of Polynesian and Daxian marriages in Peratra came to be known as Island Daxians in official records and census taking. Ostensibly the same, this new format allowed for maintaining of a degree of separation from something that was diluted, less pure.
As pertains to their place in relation to their government, the dynasties and the religious hierarchies under them have always emphasized the special destiny of every Daxian, to either rule in the Great Garden or rule alongside the Gods in the great beyond. But one of the indispensable keys to achieve this luminous destiny, a religious mandate even, is obedience to the sovereign. Existence is also a test, whether Daxians will squabble between themselves and fail to rise up to the task at hand, or will they renounce their individuality and subsume themselves and prostrate their wills before a greater whole and the guiding hand that shows the way at all times, the sovereign. Daxian cultural and religious conception of the role of the emperors was not exactly of divinely appointed monarchs although that was part of it, they were by their own personal qualities the best suited to lead the people. If the Daxian people was a choir then the emperors were the choir conductors and every loyal Daxian was called on to play his part without compromise, complaint or defiance. This great task has been handed down from emperor to emperor and then to the modern leaders of the nation, obedience does not fundamentally spring from man-made laws but from the belief in the shared great destiny and that those currently in charge know the way.
As pertains to the Daxian people's wider role in the world, the Daxian people have been molded by millennia of religious and state indoctrination to believe in their divinely ordained superiority. Daxians abroad will be the most self-assured people to the point of being deaf to all criticism from foreigners. Daxians living abroad due to myriad circumstances usually go down two roads, they persevere under great personal stress, mentally agonized by having to live among creatures so inimically opposed to proper Daxian-ness. Or they fully disconnect themselves from their identity, divorcing themselves from 'being Daxian' in order to find a measure of happiness; this is one of the greatest sins to Daxians, the sin of assimilation into a different culture. Many opponents of the PDD who've escaped the country have subjected themselves to various degrees of assimilation, very possibly forfeiting any chance of successfully appealing to their countrymen or gathering enough support for a real chance at power. To abandon Daxian-ness is to embrace social death and the deepest opprobium.
Gigantomania
Daxians have a love for the monumental and fastuous, the country's landscape is dotted by remnants of fortresses that were just a bit too large to be defended properly and village houses that simply seem to grow towards the sky, rising upwards beyond all practicality. Researcher Congming Ren proposed the theory that the size of the Daxian nuclear family became so large thanks to Chiliang's Pact that families would literally need to transform their farm houses into literal complexes to have enough space. Cheap materials such as adobe and straw were favored in the countryside, the longevity of these buildings was not guaranteed without regular maintenance so there are few surviving examples. Townhouses in more affluent parts exhibit this architectural gigantism with houses five or six stories high. Emperors were not immune for this fascination with size, as not only the size of their palaces was used as a way to display their power and authority but to set themselves above their predecessors. During the Shang dynasty, emperors tended to disassemble the palace of their predecessor and use the materials to build a new, bigger one. The Zhong emperors stopped this wasteful practice, choosing instead to forever be building new additions to existing palaces, the Qian Palace of Columns was undergoing its 22nd expansion when the dynasty was overthrown. Current governments continue with the trend of giant buildings, the current seat of the Ministry of Information being 51-stories high and covering 493,000 square meters of floor space. The sinking of several Daxian cities built in softer terrain is a direct consequence of Daxian Gigantomania.
Generational Greed
In the words of the sage Qipian: Greed is good. Daxian attitudes towards money closely align with the stereotype of the red faced Daxian grabbing fistfuls of coins from a fountain. Alongside passing on their name, Daxians take great pride in passing on as much wealth as they can on to their descendants, and it is impressed upon the children from an early age that they too are responsible for adding on to the family hoard. A traditional will commonly leaves the fortune of the family to the eldest son, who is duty bound to section some parts off if he has any siblings so they can start their own piles. Unfortunately the greed aspect often rears itself during the proceedings leading to many younger siblings being given nothing by their elder brother, this is called a generational reset as they have to start over without anything to fall back on. Daxia stands at the top of world charts for the personal savings rate, banks are very accommodating and charge no handling fees for savings accounts. This money driven instinct has reflected in an adventurous streak of several Daxian generations who have embarked on dangerous and unsavory activities in order to generate more wealth, from the creators of the slave cartels to the colonists who hoped to plunder the gold studded cities of Ixa'Taka. At the dynasty level, the ruthless enforcement of the tributary system was also a form of dynastic wealth accumulation, much of the tribute went directly to the pockets of the imperial family. The generational greed of Daxians has had an important influence on the Architecture in Daxia as before the creation of electronic banking, the Daxian family hoard was an actual physical pile of currency and valuables. Therefore people, in accordance with their means, sought to protect and hide their accumulated patrimony. Those without great means would often simply transport their money to the wild and bury it in so called treasure hives, so named for they glittered as gold as a beehive full of honey. Those with more means would build secret alcoves, hidden basements and carved chambers; many old houses on the market still feature these old additions.
Numerology
Main article: Daxian Numerology
Numerology is the idea that the existence of certain numbers in certain combinations appearing in life is a way of understanding the universe and even predicting the future, this belief is reflected in the old Daxian adage: there is power in numbers. Daxian Numerology has religious undertones, the practice is believed to have originated with the belief that the gods had created the Great Garden according to strict mathematical exactitude. It then became priestly custom to recite the purported numbers that described the size of the Garden as a benediction and from that flowed the idea that numbers could have hidden, divine meanings that could be revealed into the world through the use of prophesy and ritual. Daxian emperors are known to have had secret names that were simply a string of numbers. Numerology was also an important practice due to the sheer size of Daxia's agriculture since ancient times as everything worked on dates and calendars. When to plant, when to harvest, when it was safe to let your animals graze, and when to stay inside to avoid the horrors. To mistime any one of these narrow windows was to starve to death or worse.
Numerology now extends beyond the strict confines of religious practice and into hitherto unrelated aspects of daily life, many Daxians favor names that are associated with good numbers for their children, one's date of birth can be cause for great celebration beyond the addition of a new family member, women have been known to die by either trying to delay or accelerate the birth of the child just so it can be born in a highly specific date. Trained 'numerologists' pullulate and offer consulting services, guiding people on the best day to have sex, which lottery tickets to buy or how many raisins to put on sweet bread. Some of these practices veer dangerously into the realm of quackery and scams, nonetheless numerology has sustained its popularity with the public, even members of the upper levels of the Party are known to 'consult the numbers' regularly.
Social Hierarchy
Daxians live in a society that is highly regimented, there is an ancient saying that goes: Not everything that glimmers yellow is gold, this suggests without much subtlety that there are stark differences between Daxians of different strata. Different authors have attempted classification throughout Daxian history and there is far from an existent universal consensus. One of the less criticized attempts at classification is Mae Kwok's Pyramidal Sociological Schematic that divide the Daxian people into four broad categories. These categories are informal, the lines between them can blur and social mobility is not uncommon.
The Amorphous Mass
Mae Kwok places refers to the most basic and lowest rung of Daxian existence as the Amorphous Mass. He also compares it to the vastness of the ocean, a particularly large mass of school fish or a locust swarm. The great heaping mass of people is composed of the unnumbered farmers, the throngs of factory workers, the urban and rural poor, the unemployed, the illegal immigrants, the micro entrepreneurs and the politically inactive. This mass of people will not move against the system unless under great, constant and unbearable pressure; or under the snake charm seductions of a demagogue from a higher rung. All great upheavals of Daxian history have required a significant part of the Amorphous Mass to be mobilized and once this has taken place, the tide of change has been as sure footed as a flat roller. Leaving the Amorphous Mass typically requires the right educational path and connections; membership in the Party is an unattainable dream.
The Cog in the Machine
The second rung of Kwok's diagram is called the Cog in the Machine. Kwok names as part of this group, the common soldiery of the army and the members of the organs of terror and order such as policemen, the white collared salaried men and women who keep the economy running. Also the large group of bureaucrat drones that man the state apparatus such as clerks, secretaries and assorted minor functionaries. The professional class and the small and medium plutocrats can be said to be closely associated with the cogs, while not truly being part of the category; they have more independence and leeway for autonomous action. The cogs can be relied on to do their jobs in dutifully and with minimal complaint, turn out to government rallies with only superficial threats required and overall be obedient parts of the system; their devotion to the national cause and the path set by the leadership is among the strongest. They are also the most surveilled strata, and they can also be cajoled with money and advancement. But even the cogs can be made to work against the system, usually if their continued physical existence is under threat by revolutionary forces from below. In such a scenario the cogs will prefer to either defect en masse or remove themselves from the conflict. During the fall of the Zhong dynasty, the educated classes that maintained the functioning of the state defected to the Qian after the Battle of Hong Shan to ensure their survival in the new regime, the following precipitous fall in tax revenues going to Zhong coffers sealed their fate.
The Imperial Bureaucracy
If the cogs are the working stiffs, those who are part of the 'Imperial Bureaucracy' are the overseers and foremen of the system, the executors of policy and reaching fingers of the regime. In ages past these would be the imperial leadership cadres such as Grand Secretaries, viceroys, governors and the bureaucrat-sages working directly under them as well as the generals and admirals directing the imperial war machines. What the leadership commands is translated into orders, directives and action through the Imperial Bureaucracy, their loyalty is essential to the system and an organized revolt from within their midst can be deadly to their superiors. Today it can be said the Imperial Bureaucracy is synonymous with the Party, who have monopolized every perch in high places and elevated highly ideological and paranoid cadres to these crucial postings.
The Commanding Heights
The Commanding Heights's existence as a distinctive group is a newer development according to Kwok. Whereas before the Imperial Bureaucracy answered solely to the Emperor, in modern Daxia the exercise of the highest power of state has been at times of a collegial nature. The presidents emanated from the NRF were not, by and large, unipersonal dictators, but delegated some powers and decision-making to a close coterie of advisors and colleagues, in addition to consulting with the richest plutocrats and syndicates. The leaders of the Party have continued this trend, they have in essence remade the old imperial court of the Qian, replacing the court sages and imperial favorites with Party elders and influential billionaires. The fifty or so individuals that are considered part of the Commanding Heights are the wealthiest, most powerful and informed people in all of Daxia, puppeteers of a nation of over 700 million people.
Political Culture
Power Struggles
As in politics in any other country, the struggle for power between rivals with competing interests is and has been a feature of Daxia's political culture. To hold onto the mantle of national leadership in Daxia has always required a healthy dose of gumption and paranoia, others are always waiting in the wings for a misstep. The transfer of power between dynasties was always realized through war and the elimination of the previous family. A war for the imperial throne in past eras could be, and often was, claimed as a war of religious legitimacy which the new dynasty was claiming from the old. The lust for power was therefore a veiled and muddled thing, something that could not be accurately traced to the new dynasty's founders. Outside of the field of battle, Daxian dynastic history is filled with frequent poisonings, murders under the cover of night and unexplained disappearances of personages in high positions. These 'tragedies' often brought with them great upheavals and calamity, such as the murder of emperor Huichen which ended unraveling the Zhong dynasty; they were also opportunities for men of ambition to climb beyond their station.
Under the one-party systems of the NRF and the PDD, the factional infighting has obviously been less conspicuous, conducted in secret and away from the public. But the accepted consequences of competing for power have remained the same, death is not ruled out. Numerous defectors and anonymous sources speaking from within the bowels of the system describe an implicit agreement between the big players that anything goes even acts that are illegal under the law, actual legal repercussions will only occur should anything become public knowledge. Some of the most important Daxian political leaders of the 20th century are believed to have climbed to the highest office through poisoning their predecessors, Qiu Heng is suspected of poisoning Dai Hanjian with arsenic and Linge Chen may have been poisoned with mercury, courtesy of his intelligence chief, Prib Dodd. Far from being seen as egregious crimes and disqualifying of high office, while there is no solid proof, these whispered notions are seen as proof of cunning and determination; traits most worthy in the nation's top leadership.
Glorification of Leaders
Demographics
Diaspora
Diseases due to inbreeding
Language
Religion
Traditional Pantheon
Main article: Daxian religion
- God of Greed is represented by a clay pot with a sinister grinning face
- God of Fortune, affects Luck and the use of Numerology, either looks like a dweeb with a scale or like a biblically accurate angel
- Evil gods could be a fantasy beholder, skeletal angel, a mountain with a giant eye