United Cities: Difference between revisions

Alarmed by the rapid rise of Tengu and the rapid defection of the northwest provinces to him, the weakening Chen dynasty appointed a certain nobleman named Da Beipan, who would later found the Zhong dynasty, to the post of Titanic Captain of the West to deal with the rebellion. Da Baipan mustered and trained his imperial forces of roughly 130,000 men for six months before moving his army into Tengu's territory. Da Baipan proceeded to invest the walled city of Sho Battai, attempting to storm the city twice but being repulsed. Settling on starving the city out, he was confident that Tengu's army was smaller than his own and would not approach to give him battle. This would prove to be a mistaken assumption as Tengu's 200,000 strong army force marched its way towards Sho Battai barely two months into the siege. Despondent at being so outnumbered and with the possibility of being pinned against Sho Battai's walls, Da Baipan abandoned the siege and began making his way back to Zhong territory.  

Overtaken at the Catun Fields, the vanguard of Tengu's army clashed with the imperial force, badly mauling it and sending it running from the field. After this defeat, Da Baipan offered a ten year truce with Tengu, swearing that the Chen dynasty would pay indemnities to him. More concerned at the time with consolidating his rule than territorial expansion, Tengu accepted the truce and allowed Baipan's army to leave unmolested. Knowing his failure would cost him his life and even after the Catun Fields defeat, in posession of one of the largest imperial field armies, Da Baipan turned traitor and began marching his army to the imperial capital to overthrow the Chen dynasty.

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.

 

Following the fall of the Chen dynasty and the rise of the Zhong, the United Cities signed a treaty of alliance with the Degei confederation under Darukh Khan. The United Cities provided funding to the tune of two hundred tons of silver plus ten thousand men from the Iron Legion under Warmaster Shin for Darukh Khan's invasion of Zhong territory. The war would extend itself for ten years and initially went well for the alliance. Darukh Khan's poisoning in 927 CE by a group of rival chiefs after battlefield reversals would lead the United Cities to pull off their support entirely and make separate peace arrangements. However the peace reached was shaky at best and recriminations broke into renewed conflict in 940 when the Zhong invaded ostensibly to free Zhong citizens captured and sold into slavery in the United Cities. The military fiasco that was the intervetion in favor of Darukh Khan left a lasting negative impact on the political stability of the United Cities. The military losses weakened several cities and led to an increase in brigandage. During the 930's and 940's, the Council of Magisters deposed several Grand Magisters for various reasons. The unity of the alliance was seriously compromised when armed hostilities broke out between Sho Battai and Brink. The defeat of Darukh Khan's attempt to conquer [[Daxia]] left the United Cities in a perilous position. Despite having withdrawn their support before war's end, the Zhong dynasty had no intention of letting the magisters off the hook for their participation and bankrolling of the war. Emperor Gong did was not able to punish the United Cities as he died in 926, his son and successor Mong began reconstruction of the devastated northern provinces and planning what would be the first of the Zhong-United Cities wars in revenge. While circumstances in [[Daxia]] aligned towards war, the cities of Brink and Sho Battai engaged in vicious skirmishes over control of the main slave trade route to the northwest. The fighting was not quelled until the Grand Magister Gashui himself marched the Iron Legion north and threatened to intervene if the two cities did not begin to negotiate. Sho Battai's and Brinl's truculent rulers finally made peace, judging that it was cheaper than being blockaded from the slave trade altogether. Gashui's spies in [[Daxia]] assured him that Emperor Mong's preparations would be ready within by the summer of 934. To counteract the stretched manpower resources at his disposal, Gashui chose to employ once more the [[Virtuous Worms|Grand Company of the Virtuous Worms]] and other mercenary groups.