Daxia: Difference between revisions

===Zhong Dynasty (915-1550)===

====Revolt of the Degei Confederation====

Having unseated the Chen dynasty by treachery and with the stain of defeat on the battlefield against Northern Shang, Emperor Gong of Zhong wanted nothing more than to raise new armies to reclaim what he saw as imperial territory in revolt. However the destruction caused by his own insurrection, the pressure on a depleted treasury to pay the wages and bonuses of his standing army and a restless population that were tired of war and high taxes were insurmountable obstacles to realizing his ambition of fully reunifying the empire in the short term. By 918 the northern nomad commanderies were close to revolt, with pro-Daxian nobles and officials being forced to flee their lands by a certain Darukh Khan agitating to reunify the tribes under his command. Darukh Khan was the son of a local Degei chief and functionary and had served in a Chen cavalry unit. Angered by the reduction of imperial stipends going to him personally and other local chiefs, and the resulting disruption of local patronage, Darukh Khan renounced his Daxian titles and began arresting Zhong tax collectors.  

If Dai had any misgivings about the growing influence of his friend he gave no indication in public or private conversation that survives; he gave the post of Minister of Defense to Qiu in 1949 and allowed him to staff its structure as he saw fit. Shortly after Qiu began speaking of setting up a [[National Reconstruction Front (Daxia)|political structure]] to gain more legitimacy in the eyes of influential Western nations, whose financial help might be needed to continue army expansion. The junta leader seemingly disagreed with these notions and intimated that he would get the job done and if necessary would stay on the job for twenty years. The insinuation of quasi imperial ruling for life was not lost on [[Qiu Heng]] who may have begun quiet preparations to oust Dai, or perhaps have him assasinated. According to medical records [[Dai Hanjian]] fell gravely ill from a bladder infection of worrisome intensity. Despite all attempts to save his life, the junta leader died on December 12 1951 at the age of 56. Authors critical of [[Qiu Heng]] suggest he had Dai poisoned with arsenic to get him out of the way of political reforms and stop his succession plan which may not have included Qiu in it anymore; no conclusive evidence has ever been found to corroborate this accusation. As deputy leader of the Committee of National Restoration, Qiu was sworn in two days later as leader of the junta and the country.

==Republican Period (1946-1992)==

[[Qiu Heng]]'s rise to the leadership of the country saw for the first time the ascendance of politics over purely military leadership; [[Qiu Heng]] saw the perpetuation of the military junta system as inherently unstable, absent an electoral mandate and the legitimacy it could bring, any ambitious general in charge of a military zone could feel themselves justified in attempting to take power the same way as the junta did in the first place. Since Qiu distrusted the established but outlawed old political parties and their cadres, he decided instead on building a new party from the ground up without 'any of the old chaff'. As the base of his new party of state he chose a pro-military civic association called the [[National Reconstruction Front (Daxia)|National Daxian Rally]] or NDR that had existed since 1945 but had never reached much relevance. The NDR had been started at the behest of military intelligence and was originally led by people close to it. Qiu directed the Ministry of Social Services and the Ministry of Finance to direct significant financial resources to the NDR to support its growth into a real national party that could hold on to power. The junta leader himself joined the NDR in the summer of 1952 and was elected its leader 'by acclamation' of the party delegates. This was followed by a massive bump in party membership as government employees joined en masse(to curry favor, preserve their jobs or genuine agreement) and trade unions and government contractors enjoined their affiliates and employees to do the same. In this early stage the biggest labor union of the country, the then All-Daxian Workers Central Union negotiated generous terms on collective bargaining and perks for its members in exchange for its unrestricted support for the new political machinery. Qiu Heng announced the first national elections for President and a new National Assembly would take place concurrently in mid 1952, he also announced his candidacy at the head of the now renamed [[National Reconstruction Front (Daxia)|National Reconstruction Front]] or NRF. To contest in these elections, Qiu's junta released the leaders of the Daxian Liberal Party, while of the more popular communist cadres only a handful were released. The campaigning was anything but fair, opposition events were routinely cancelled or when they went ahead they were not televised or were broken up by thugs. Several campaign aides of the communist party were assassinated and offices of the Liberal Party attacked by mobs (historians agree the mobs were paid by the government). The NRF campaigned mainly on a platform of nationalist xenophobia; its political rivals were painted as inwardly thinking like [[Burgundie|Bergendii]] wearing Daxian faces, lovers of all things foreign and traitorous internationalists willing to sacrifice the [[Daxian people]] in exchange for utopias being created abroad. On economics the party swung hard towards economic protectionism with policies such as the creation of nationally owned companies on strategic sectors like oil to massively employ people.

The exponential growth of the gambling sector and the fact that much of it is poorly regulated is having notoriously negative societal effects in Daxia such as an increase in organized crime, fraud and money laundering, gambling and substance addictions and predatory practices by gambling operators.

=Technology=

{{Audonia topics}}