Imperial History
Yu-Diguo
The Jade Empire
Part I: The First Emperor
Far, far back in the mists of time, the many islands that would one day become the great Empire of Yu-Diguo were inhabited by hundreds of small tribes, locked in near constant wars and petty territory disputes, with each other as often as the violent monsters that roamed the isles. Many rulers and would-be unites had come and gone, but each time the attempt at lasting peace had failed, and the monstrous creatures of the islands – guaiwu orcs and trolls, led by demons and undead – imposed their rule upon the human tribes, demanding offerings to sate their desires. The people of the islands were frightened and angry, but weak in their divisiveness; without unity, they were quickly suppressed whenever they arose.
According to the oldest legend of Yu-Diguo, one man managed to unite the people
of the archipelago and turn the tide against the Guaiwu. History calls him Dai
Wang, "great king," but he was of humble origin, a simple hunter of
the Cathayan tribe. One day, Wang sat contemplating his people’s plight, and a
venerable sage passed him by. The master asked the young man of his concerns and
was told of the state in which the islands found themselves. The sage promised
Wang he would help him as long as he never told anyone the sage’s name nor
teach others the secrets he was to expound to the young man. Agreeing to his
terms, the future king disappeared with the sage, to return alone some years
later and begin to form his army. He had learnt much of tactics and leadership,
and other secrets besides; he understood the flow of the world’s energies,
they say, and could use them to turn the tide of a battle.
Under his brilliant leadership, this army forced all of the monsters from the islands and brought peace to the lands for the first time. The people declared him as Emperor, and he sat upon a throne made of Jade, the symbol of yang and long life; thus Yu-Diguo, the Jade Empire, was born. He commissioned the building of the forts that still stand on the westernmost islands, that stand between the Jade Empire and the Gui-Huo ("Ghostlands"), the spiritually worthless lands beyond, to defend against the resurgence of the angry spirits and monsters that sought to retake the lands.
Dai Wang, the First Emperor of the Jade Empire, kept the tribes and kingdoms together in peace for over 500 years and, it is said, was ever seen dead. On his last day on Earth he disappeared once more into the mountains never to return, handing the Empire over to his first son. The legends say he never died and the secrets given to him by the sage granted him immortality. Some believe that he went to take his position in the celestial heaven to watch over his people there, and ruled on high as Emperor of Heaven as he had ruled on Earth.
It is also said that The Jade Emperor wrote down the wisdom he had learnt for others to find, for it did not break his promise to the sage if others had to uncover the secrets for themselves. Who the sage was, where the Jade Emperor went and where he left the sage’s teachings are mysteries that are still discussed to this day. Some say that the sage was a god; others that the King was himself went on to achieve godhood. Some hold that the sage was the Monkey King, playing a trick on the Guaiwu lords; some that he was the Emperor of Heaven, training the man to be his successor.
Part II: The Golden Age of the Great Empire
Myth blends into history. The earliest records of the Empire begin over two
millennia ago; Dai Wang’s family took his title as their name, and his first
successor Wang Zi instituted a calendar upon his ascension to the throne. Zi was
already a century old when he became Emperor, and ruled in peace for two hundred
years. Zi was succeeded by his fifth son Ling in the 208th year of
the Wang Dynasty, and Ling by his son Hun in the 397th. A practice
was established wherein the current Emperor would name and groom a successor,
rather than leave the succession to be decided after his death. The Emperors
were wise and well-loved, strong leaders but fair, and the Jade Empire knew a
peace that should have lasted for an eternity.
It was a Golden Age, during which the Empire was greater than it ever would be again. Great advances were made in art and learning. The histories even claim that the Jade Empire sealed an alliance with the Empire of Heaven; in this time, the Linshen and Shoushen spirits, which the westerners call Elves and Beastmen, came down from Heaven to live and serve amidst men. The Guaiwu were scattered and disorganised, apparently never to return, and the people of the Empire grew comfortable and complacent.
The two Empires, however, had their enemies. The creatures of the Ghostlands, now led by the demons of the underworld who had been routed by Heaven, turned their eyes back to the islands. Several of the petty kings and leaders started to cast avaricious eyes on each other’s territories, even upon the Jade Throne itself. To put a stop to the unrest, Emperor Hun began to pull together a form of government. Allowing each tribe to rule itself according to its own traditions, he established an overarching hierarchy, which is still in place today. He merged smaller areas under the control of provincial lords, and above these placed overseers and viziers, responsible for keeping order in their domains. He moved the emphasis for power bases away from the lands, and more to the positions, which were in turn duties. Lesser Lords would now vie with each other for higher positions within the Empire, rather than concentrating on the acquisition of more lands. To gain power was the serve the Empire, so the Empire could only flourish under their rivalry. To counterbalance the largely aristocratic hierarchy, the justice system and bureaucracy were placed in the hands of monks and sages.
Heaven, say the histories, acted in kind, raising a great Celestial Bureaucracy. The great Tien Lung, heaven dragons, ruled over areas of the natural world and the powers of the sky and land, and under them the smaller gods, divine messengers and individual Linshen and Shoushen busied themselves with smaller and smaller parts of the world.
Part III: The Downfall
Each Emperor had many children in his life, and usually elected one of his
younger sons to be his heir upon his death; the better to ensure long,
prosperous rules by competent kings. Each of the other sons, though, fathered
noble lines, founding houses that could lay legitimate claims to the Jade
Throne. Intermarriage with the other tribes and cultures within Yu-Diguo,
intended to seal alliances and treaties, meant that eventually Nipponese,
Malayan, Siamese, and other noble houses held Royal blood. While the tradition
of the Emperor choosing his own heir lived on in principle, in practice a great
deal of manoeuvring and political fighting surrounded each succession, and minor
wars were not uncommon. Wang Hun instituted a law for arbitration between Houses
that distinguished between High War, which could only embroil the champions of
the Houses involved, in open, declared contest; and Low War, in which battles,
assassinations and darker tactics were tolerated, but to which a House could
only stoop if it could justly claim its honour had been slighted and a more open
challenge refused.
Wang Hun’s son, Wang Li, succeeded in the 520th year of the Wang Dynasty. He ruled as Emperor for one hundred and fifty-eight years, and died childless, the last Wang Emperor. His nephew, Liao Wu, was chosen as his successor, and ruled for one hundred and thirteen years. Wu’s son, Liao Hi, then ruled for one hundred and twenty-two years, after which his son Liao Zu succeeded as Emperor. The Liao Dynasty was uneventful; they were safe rather than great rulers, and the prosperity their predecessors built remained in place. The Archipelago of Yu-Diguo thrived, although the infighting and squabbling that had already begun before Liao Wu took the throne continued to plague the nation, which began to crack under the strain.
Liao Zu was Emperor for only twenty years before his death of fever. A sealed letter in which he had nominated his successor named a distant cousin, P’o Ling, instead of any of his own sons, and the P’o Dynasty began. A new formal calendar began with Ling’s succession, but this history will continue to measure years from the succession of Wang Zi, as is the standard scholarly practice within the Empire. This was in the year 933.
Ling’s rule was also brief, and when he died of fever after twelve years, his three-year-old only son P’o Li became Emperor. Ling’s widow, Shu Mi, named herself Regent, and ruled for twenty more years before handing power to her son. Some mutter that Shu Mi was of demonic descent, and used the dynastic struggle to get her progeny on the Throne. Whether or not this was true, a dark time in Yu-Diguo’s history followed. Land wars between islands and houses became common, and formerly sacrosanct positions in the bureaucracy and justice system were taken away from the monks and handed over to corrupt, self-serving aristocrats. The worship of the P’o family’s ancestors became the state religion, and the practices of all other religions was outlawed; known monasteries were seized or destroyed. The legends claim that the Empire’s supposed connections with the Celestial Bureaucracy were severed at this point.
Whether these facts are connected or not is speculation, but it is during this time that the guaiwu and other less human spirits and monsters began to filter into Yu-Diguo. Men scoffed at the tales of a Celestial Bureaucracy, and the Shoushen were dismissed as bestial savages; such "cultured" non-humans as the long-lived, black-skinned Yin Mogui, whom the Westerners call "Drow," were accepted and traded with instead. Yu-Diguo formed an alliance with Dao Hengye ("The Island of Eternal Night"), an island deep within the Ghostlands. Dao Hengye is said to be shrouded in darkness, day and night, so that its masters, vampires and demons who fear the sun, may rule by fear and force.
The P’o Dynasty lasted for more than six centuries, during which time dozens of rulers came and went. P’o Li ruled with an iron fist for one hundred and ninety years, eventually falling to an assassin’s blade, and thirteen more Emperors ascended to the throne and died within twenty years. Eventually, one of Li’s grandchildren, P’o Lung, proved strong enough to hold the position in 1175, and fended off assassination for one hundred and seven years; his death started another round of short rules and murders. This continued several times until the reign of P’o Chi in 1503, the last and worst of his line.
Chi was infertile and, according to the history, mad. He was known for his magical skill, and is said to have dabbled in forbidden magic like Necromancy. For all that he was mad, though, he was razor sharp, and evaded attempts by family and rebels for almost a century. His Empire, though, was falling apart, and gradually being lost to the guaiwu; the Empire had even accepted a "peacekeeping" army from the enemy, keeping the various Houses in line and encouraging them to continue wasting their energy on one another.
Part IV: The Second Empire
During this darkened time of the Empire’s history, it fell once more to a single man to save the Kingdom. Miramoto Tetsuo was a minor regional Lord, not even from a Royal House, who lived at the western, Nipponese end of the island chain. Seeing the enemies of the Empire for who they were, he turned to the ancient texts of the elders and sages, and read the prophecies of the First Emperor. He believed the Empire was approaching the first of three times of "agonizing change" prophesied by Dai Wang, when the Empire would be in terrible danger and could only be renewed with blood. Each time, said the prophecy, a new Emperor would arise and lead Yu-Diguo into an age of prosperity, sweeping aside the enemies of the people. Tetsuo did not know who this new leader would be, but the prophecies hinted that he would not make himself known immediately, and that brave men would have to take the battle before the Emperor became known, or the Empire would fall.
Bypassing the self-serving aristocracy and the corrupt bureaucracy, he united a
few of the surrounding houses together by going straight to the common folk and
soldiery, asking them for help and building an army of commoners. Then he
journeyed high into the mountains to the south of the Empire, where he believed
the monastery where the First Emperor’s secrets were kept still stood, and
entreated the monks to come down from their temples and aid him. Seeing that the
Lord had been enlightened, the monks joined his fight, adding their wisdom and
fighting prowess. It was not as grand as the first Emperors army, but through
skilful manipulation and deployment, Tetsuo began to oust the guaiwu armies –
bakemono in Tetsuo’s tongue – and won several important victories. In time,
the soldiery of other houses joined the cause. Seeing their own power bases
being removed from beneath them, the noble houses joined in the fight. Again the
nation worked as one.
Emperor P’o Chi, in a desperate attempt to keep control, made the young Lord
Shogun - the ultimate military leader. However, Tetsuo refused the title, and
denounced the Emperor. With the people against him, the old Emperor could do
nothing, and killed himself before anyone else had the chance. The line
extinguished, the Empire was leaderless with the exception of the young Lord who
fought back the enemy hordes.
The Royal Houses conferred and declared the young warrior Emperor; Tetsuo demurred, insisting that he only held the Empire until the rightful Emperor presented himself according to the Prophecies of Dai Wang. However, Tetsuo’s adviser, a sage unnamed by history, chastised his student, explaining that he himself had come forth in the time of need, effectively presenting himself. Tetsuo accepted the title of Emperor, and the Second Empire began. This was in the 658th year since the beginning of the P’o Dynasty, and thus in the year 1591 by the current calendar. Tetsuo instituted a new calendar, beginning with his rule.
The new Emperor was not quite what the aristocracy expected. They had imagined a rustic from the warlike Western isles; a simple soldier who would be easily guided and manipulated. His first act upon arriving in the Imperial Palace was to take a hammer from the smith’s forge and sunder the Jade Throne. With the pieces still falling to the marble floor around him, he declared that he would be stripping all of those nobles who had declined to fight in the war of their rank and title. To the fifty men who had served as captains in his army, he granted ranks and lands, presenting them each with a gift made from a fragment of the Jade Throne. These tools, weapons and items of jewellery were called the "Emperor’s Favours," and those noble houses who owned them were called "Jade Houses" and given great deference to this day.
Tetsuo elevated lords who had allied with him quickly, and demoted those who had only joined the fight because they wanted to keep power over their people. When some of the corrupt, deposed and dispossessed lords rebelled, he squashed the rebellion quickly and executed the offenders, reassigning their lands. With the breaking of the throne and his wild reforms, some claimed that he was the reincarnation of the Jade Emperor; he refuted these claims, but they did wonders in uniting the people. He placed more emphasis on the security of the borders, charging those Lords who controlled them with the task of keeping the Forts maintained and manned. Protecting the people became a decree rather than an obligation and the new emperor built temples for the various priesthoods of Yu-Diguo, which the Empire supported and from which he began to learn.
While he’d been expected to marry a daughter of one of the Royal Houses and thus legitimise his line, Tetsuo surprised many by marrying an unknown Linshen maiden called Wang Xiao-Li. Some said the Empress was actually the daughter of the Emperor of Heaven; while these claims were, once again, refuted, she was beloved of the whole Empire.
Aware that the position of Emperor would not always be held by a strong
individual, Tetsuo appointed a Shogun to govern the military, whose palace would
stand in the west and would serve as a counterpoint to the Emperor’s power.
Tetsuo gave more control to the regional Lords. The Emperor would stay in or
near the Jade Palace most of the time, and leave regional rule under the
relevant Lords. ‘A Lord will be as strong as his people,’ he proclaimed, ‘and
the Empire as strong as its Lord’.
Part V: The Empire to Today
Tetsuo was a mortal man; without the mystical ancestry that gave the former
Emperors their prolonged lives, he lived only a mortal span. After fifty-three
years of rule, he died and was succeeded by his son, the Emperor Miramoto Yoshi.
The Miramoto Dynasty lasted five hundred years; its rulers, half-celestial and
half-human, had long, but natural reigns. The Second Empire is not as large or
as grand as was the First, but it has flourished. The enemy at Dao Hengye has
been kept at bay, and the Empire’s trade has been fruitful. The Shogunate, in
the West, remained strong. Under the Shoguns, who were always appointed by the
Emperor rather than passing down hereditary lines, the armies of the Empire were
united and effective. The lords of the Western, Nipponese, end of the Empire
rallied under their military commander, and often respected his authority over
that of the Imperial City.
There were six Miramoto Emperors, each reigning for several decades; the last, Miramoto Haru, died in 2013. His son Hirato had fallen in battle, and his younger son Timo refused the throne, having joined the monastery. The throne fell to his daughter, Hiroko, who was married to a Cathayan nobleman called Hing Lao. In the years since, there have been seven Hing Emperors, but something has befallen the family. Lao and Hiroko’s son Harubi lived to only fifty years of age, and the Emperors since have had progressively shorter reigns before falling to sickness or age. The family has been beset by madness and deformity, and people mutter that they labour under a curse. Some say that Hiroko was another demoness from Dao Hengye, sent to undermine the family and weaken the Empire; some that Miramoto, in shattering the Jade Throne, angered the gods; others that Miramoto took upon himself the corruption that had plagued the Empire under the P’o Emperors, and that it is coming to its fruition now. For whatever reason, the current Emperor, Hing Mao, is only thirty years of age and already dying. He has no heir, and when he dies the Empire will fall into contention once more.
In the west, meantime, the Shoguns have become progressively more independent. The last Shogun, Ishiguro Tatsuya, attempted a coup, declaring himself Western Emperor. A civil war immediately broke out and Ishiguro was killed by loyal troops. The new Shogun, Ishida Kazuo, has re-established peace, but found himself embroiled in intense political infighting, as different candidates for the Shogunate, both separatist and loyal, vie for influence and power.
The current year, 1101 by the Western calendar, is 2318. These are, as the old Yu-Diguese proverb runs, interesting times…