An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
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bumping this great thread!
Could you try to include Direct Democracy in somewhere?
Could you try to include Direct Democracy in somewhere?
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
I plan to include Direct Democracy at some point or another, probably in the chapter on democracy.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Chapter 2-
Being a Consideration of Anarchist and Libertarian Forms of Government
The most common trap that countries, regardless of their system of governance, fall into is that which occurs when the government begins to ignore the rights and freedoms of its citizens in favour of increasing its own power- by any means necessary. This can occur in a number of ways, by a single individual seizing control, by the population willingly granting more and more power to it’s leaders in a time of crisis, by politicians seeking to ensure their continued control.Being a Consideration of Anarchist and Libertarian Forms of Government
In any case a power-hungry government can inflict grievous harm to its people and to its neighbors in its willingness to discount morals that would otherwise constrain its actions. Anarchism and its distant cousin Libertarianism seek to prevent the stranglehold of those in positions of authority from growing too tight and to keep the people from being oppressed by their country's government. The term “anarchist” was first used as an insult in 1642 during the English Civil War but by the dawning of the 19th century it had lost many of its earlier negative associations and was taken up by those who believed that government of any kind was ultimately harmful. For this chapter I will only be referencing Anarchism as described by William Godwin…
…although it is impossible to state definitively that any specific form of government is more common than any other, successful anarchist revolutions do appear to be more rare than most other kinds and in the universes where it is commonplace the ideology is frequently spread by the actions of militaries or elected politicians. Ironically anarchists seem to attempt rebellion more than communists or democrats but their difficulty in terms of organization seems to be a significant handicap…
…the following five countries all share an official philosophy of minimizing (if not eliminating) government although as we shall see not all are able to uphold this policy…
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
I'm afraid I haven't been able to find any good maps of Paris and its surroundings to show the Democratic and Social Republic of Paris on. I'll keep looking but it may take a while.
Spengler
Banned
ONe could be a form of fascism emerging in the USA after say a bloody peace in world war 1 emerging (say america joins from the beginning) and the USA becomes a hyper authoritarian state with a strong christian centric government that uses fear of communism to seize power. Also have the government backed by Henry Ford for good measure. Although you really couldn't have a "good" fascist state. The "best" you could get is unionist Britain from EDT's fight and be right. Which barely qualifies anyways.
BTW loved the Democratic Social Republic of Paris, so whats with brazil when you mention it?
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Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Which is the reason why I don't really want to do fascism. You can have bad communism and good communism, bad democracy and good democracy, bad anarchism and good anarchism, but it's hard to do good fascism.
Glad you enjoyed Paris.
For some reason I have an affection for Brazil so it tends to surface in one form or another in things I write (I'm like Orson Scott Card in that way). ITTL there was a succesful Socialist Revolution in Brazil that resulted in the sort of Commie dictatorship you'd see in the USSR or somewhere else. The Parisians disparage Brazil for not practicing "real" Socialism, which it isn't.Speaking of Paris, I'm disappointed no one noticed my homage to Robert Service!
The Absinthe Drinkers
He’s yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix,
The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day.
He’s sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair;
He’s staring at the passers with his customary stare.
He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng,
That current cosmopolitan meandering along:
Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru,
An Englishman from Bloomsbury, a Yank from Kalamazoo;
A poet from Montmartre’s heights, a dapper little Jap,
Exotic citizens of all the countries on the map;
A tourist horde from every land that’s underneath the sun—
That little wizened Spanish man, he misses never one.
Oh, foul or fair he’s always there, and many a drink he buys,
And there’s a fire of red desire within his hollow eyes.
And sipping of my Pernod, and a-knowing what I know,
Sometimes I want to shriek aloud and give away the show.
I’ve lost my nerve; he’s haunting me; he’s like a beast of prey,
That Spanish man that’s watching at the Cafe de la Paix.
The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day.
He’s sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair;
He’s staring at the passers with his customary stare.
He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng,
That current cosmopolitan meandering along:
Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru,
An Englishman from Bloomsbury, a Yank from Kalamazoo;
A poet from Montmartre’s heights, a dapper little Jap,
Exotic citizens of all the countries on the map;
A tourist horde from every land that’s underneath the sun—
That little wizened Spanish man, he misses never one.
Oh, foul or fair he’s always there, and many a drink he buys,
And there’s a fire of red desire within his hollow eyes.
And sipping of my Pernod, and a-knowing what I know,
Sometimes I want to shriek aloud and give away the show.
I’ve lost my nerve; he’s haunting me; he’s like a beast of prey,
That Spanish man that’s watching at the Cafe de la Paix.
Krall
Banned
"Fascism" is generally a rather specific ideology that combines some socialist with ultranationalism, racism, and militarism/hawkism. It's very hard to do a "good" Fascism because Fascism essentially amounts to "Fuck democracy, let's be racist and invade every country that looks at at us funny" (also some stuff about organic representation of the people rather than elected representatives and third-way economic policy, I guess).
I suppose you could do dictatorships, or nationalist governments?
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Well there'll be plenty of dictatorships to come in the future, but I'll try and squeeze in a little more nationalism than I have thus far.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this because I can only think of one Anarchist state in Europe while I'm not sure how to create a libertarian or objectivist state outside of North America. And since I wouldn't want to just make an endless list of different version of the USA that pushes me into the territory of causing nuclear wars to break the country up. And I'd rather write a fiction style TL anyway.
So how much desire is there really for me to keep going?
So how much desire is there really for me to keep going?
I would like to see this keep going. A suggestion for an anarchist state: some kind of nutty revolutionary group in Africa, or an alt-Spanish Civil War. A non-American objectivist state could be a group of Americans buying land off of a poor African or Latin American state. Maybe you could have an earlier emergence of objectivism, say in the 1890s, a group of missionaries in China with objectivist leanings convert enough Chinese in a given area to split off a separate state when China collapses into warlordism. Or a surviving Nationalist China picks up objectivism. Maybe India or an Indian breakaway state after an Indo-Pakistani nuclear war picks up objectivism? There's lots of possibilities.
I hav been a keen follower of this thread, and if you cant think of any anarchist state outside Europe, ask for advice from us. Preferably over PM.
DISSIDENT
Banned
It is evening in a market place with a line of pagodas and bamboo stalls with a few shopkeepers and merchants left. This universe calls the city Hui Shen Tsien but it is located somewhere near what many universes call San Francisco. The contact, a man in peasants robes and two rucksacks approaches and carefully lays down his luggage.
In this universe, the west coast of North America was discovered by Buddhist monks from China in the fifth century, visited intermittently and ultimately colonized with small outposts by the T'ang and Song dynasties, then abandoned when the Mongols overtook the Southern Song.
"The secret police watch carefully. It would be best if we kept this very brief."
"What is your opinion of the Mandarinate of Fusang?"
"At first...at first I thought it was an improvement over the warlords. The bloodshed during the Warring States was frightful. I thought government by civil service mandarins would be an improvement. Less brutal, more just. They are just as corrupt, but not in touch with reality. They sit in their palaces upon the Precipitous Road and make laws that have sad consequences when obeyed and bring down the wrath of their soldiers and worse, their secret police, their torturers and spies, when disobeyed. It is only this part of Fusang which the Mandarins rule in. The city is a great port and wealthy. It is as much to deny the city to rival warlords that the other regions let them endure here as they wield their power in accordance with the Mandate of Heaven."
"What are the other governments like?"
"All Han government, to me, a Yurok, is alien and wrong. My people were here before them and we wish they would leave us. They came from their distant home and tried to make us worship their god, the Buddha, some centuries ago. We have never accepted the Buddha or them, but some others have. The Ohlone accepted the Buddha but the Han still treat them as inferior and oppress them and overtax their farms and villages. As did the Paiute, but the Han let them serve as soldiers in the armies of the warlord who rules the Mountains Where Men Devour Men and the city on the High Lake where his lieutenants play games of chance. The warlord there is a cruel and old man, who was once a general of the last of the Ten Kings of Fusang before the wars killed them all and their generals took power. To the south the warlord is young and paranoid, and apparently an accomplished musician. He neighbors the Tarascans and the Zapoteca and he uses his armies to keep those fleeing their human sacrifices from his city and the land he holds. The others are less powerful, but about as corrupt and bloodthirsty."
"Why did the kings all die in the wars?"
"Once, the Han were ruled from across the sea by an Emperor, some centuries ago, but a great army of barbarians came and killed their rulers and their leader ruled in their staid. Here, they tried to carry on, but their government collapsed and the land was lawless. Our people tried to keep the Han out, but a warlord who later made himself a king of a state conquered our villages but let us stay along the coast and its cities. While the horse lord ruled their home, the bandits attacked at first, and the Buddhist monasteries would train warrior monks and sometimes protect other tribes. The bandits eventually made themselves kings and there were Ten Kingdoms from the borderlands of the Tarascans and Zapoteca to the Endless Forest of Owls to the north. They fought a great war some years prior, when I was a boy. All the kings were exhausting their realms and two had been conquered and defeated and their generals killed them, took over their states and made peace with one another for thirty years and then began to fight each other again within ten years."
He became panicked and left shortly after saying this.
The Mandarinate of Fusang seems to be a shaky coalition of civil service bureaucrats relying on an underpaid conscript army to keep control of one city surrounded by the usurping generals and their warlord states on their borders.
The warlords seem to a considerable degree worse, but we did not tour their various realms in other parts of what other universes would refer to as California.
Our investigations later revealed more details about Fusang. We left the city aboard a junk and sailed south to the realm of the warlord Zhu Hai'tse, the young and paranoid man of apparent musical talent the peasant we interviewed told us of. A mysterious and aloof figure by reputation, he was reported to be a military genius and had ambitions of defeating his rivals and ruling all of Fusang.
The junk arrived in the city of Xu Fu Dou near the site of San Diego in other universes in a military dock staffed by a line of armed guards in metal plated armor. A Mandarin approached and asked if we were the visiting scholars. Seeing an opportunity for what it was, we told them yes. We were taken by carriage to an imposing walled citadel near the site of Oceanside, California in other universes and lead through a series of corridors to meet Zhu Hai'tse, warlord of the Xu Fu state.
We entered a room with two statues of horses inside of it and a young man of about twenty six years of age in a black shirt and robes and a soldier's helmet.
"You gentlemen are the visiting scholars from overseas to learn of my campaigns for your Church, are you not?"
"Yes...yes...indeed we are...sir."
"Sit! Please sit. I will have my staff prepare some kung pao chicken for us to eat while we discuss things."
"You are the ruler of this state?"
"Yes. After the king...lost the favor of heaven, it became nessecary for more...inspired leadership."
"We know little of Fusang in or out of your state. Please enlighten us of your circumstances."
So he did. The warlord, a student of history as well as the arts of war and music, told us of his land for the next day and allowed us access to his mandarins' libraries and records.
Fusang as it is known in this universe was discovered by Buddhist monks in the 500s CE searching for a land described by the Buddhist missonary Hui Shen that had reportdely been converted to their religion at some earlier date.
The land Hui Shen had described was evidently in fact an island in East Asia, suspected to have been in fact Japan or the Phillipines, but the Buddhist monks that sailed to search for it found the western coast of North America and established a monastery there in 543 CE near the site of other universe's San Fransisco along the East Bay. The monastery endured and some of the monks left and became laymen and interbred with the native tribes in the area such as the Ohlone and Yurok. Reports were sent back to the monastery's abbot and sect in China and Fusang became a known land to the Emperor and Chinese society.
Three other smaller monasteries were established by Buddhist monks between 580 CE and 800 CE and largely left alone by mainland China and the monks there for the most part left the natives alone though they explored the land somewhat. Many of the natives would not abandon their customs in favor of Buddhist doctrines of dharma and reincarnation, though some did convert.
In 880 CE, the T'ang Dynasty Emperor proclaimed his authority over the Buddhist monasteries in Fusang and sent a ship there to gather reports and taxes from the monks. The monks shared their maps, made as far south as other universes Baja California and as far north as other universes Oregon coast around Coos Bay.
After the fall of the T'ang Dynasty and the rise of the Song Dynasty, the Song proclaimed their authority over Fusang, sent peasants and garrisons of soldiers to live there in the Bay area and south of it to Big Sur where some outlaws now lived in the forested coastal hills. Confucianism was imposed and favored over Buddhism, though the monks persisted as did the natives they had converted. When the Northern Song dynasty fell and the capital relocated south, northern refugees fleeing the lands conquered by the invaders were sent en masse to Fusang beginning in 1130 CE.
A social division arose thereafter between Southern Chinese mandarins and nobles and Northern Chinese refugees, mostly peasants and merchants, relocated by force to ease the burden the refugees fleeing the Jin Dynasty were causing in the capital at home in China. Buddhism split between Proper Buddhism, those following the Buddhist traditions of Chinese Buddhism as they were practiced in Mainland China and Peasant Buddhism, Buddhism mixed with Native American religious traditions and shamanism.
Settlement spread south to accomodate the influx being sent in from the Jin invasion to the areas of other universes San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Goleta, Los Angeles and San Diego. These settlements became prosperous towns of their own and began farming Chinese crops in their fields and trading with the natives there such as the Chumash.
When the Southern Song Dynasty fell to the Mongols in 1279, the last Song prince made it to Fusang but died shortly after his arrival in the city of Hui Shen Tsien variously attributed to disease or murder.
Without authority from China, the towns began to be raided by bandits and outlaws that hid in the forests and the hills and lived among the natives and adopted their customs. Some hoped for order to be restored but the Yuan Dynasty under Kublai Khan could not reach them and when they learned of Mongol rule, they did not want the Mongols to have authority over them.
The bandits by now ruled the various towns as outlaw rulers of their own and in the absence of a legitimate Han Chinese authority to claim Fusang they proclaimed themselves kings of whatever regions the towns they controlled were in. They did not proclaim themselves Emperors as many they ruled still wished a return of the Song Dynasty and did not see the bandit warlords to have the Mandate of Heaven and they themselves did not regard themselves as powerful enough individually for any to be more than a regional king.
The Zhun Kingdom occupied roughly the area between Petaluma and Monterrey, California in other universes with Hui Shen Tsien as its capital.
The Yaio Kingdom controlled the area between Modesto and Fresno, California with its capital near the site of Visalia, California.
The Kaifan He kingdom controlled the area between Sacramento, Vallejo and Chico, California.
The Tam Kingdom controlled the area between San Diego and Santa Monica, California.
The Lai Kingdom controlled the area between Thousand Oaks and Lompoc, California.
The Shao Kingdom ruled between Sonoma and Garberville California.
The Gai Kingdom ruled between Morro Bay and San Simeon California with loose control over Big Sur.
The Feng Kingdom ruled over the area other universes call Calaveras County, Amador County and Tuolomne County.
The Yuo Kingdom ruled the area between Placerville and Modoc and Lake Tahoe and Truckee into the Sierra Nevadas and had the Paiutes as warriors in its armies.
The Shang Kingdom ruled the area between Eureka and Crescent City, California in other universes.
These kingdoms eventually stabilized and created their own armies, paper money and Mandarin civil services. They established trade with the Mixtec empire which had arisen after Chinese diseases had destroyed the city states and regional kingdoms enough for them to gain territory.
The kings ruled with absolute authority and cared little for civil administration or religion, being descended from bandits more concerned with warring among themselves when profitable to do so.
When the Mongols fell and the Ming Dynasty came to power, instead of other universes' last two treasure fleet expeditions, Zheng He was sent on two missions to reassert authority over Fusang, being repelled on both occasions by the now entrenched bandit kings who while superstitiously acknowledging of the Song, did not recognize the authority of the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming then turned inward and left the bandit kingdoms of Fusang to fight among themselves and the bandits on their thrones to govern as they pleased.
When Europeans arrived some years later, the Spanish and British both found the kingdoms too militarily powerful to conquer as they did their Mixtec neighbors. Trade and emmisaries were allowed but the Europeans found it much more difficult to extort the various Fusang warlord kingdoms than their overseas relatives.
The Mixtec Empire fell in the early 1600s leaving the Zapotecs and Tarascans to fill the void by 1700, though they had not adopted Chinese customs while they had adopted Chinese weapons, meaning human sacrifice was practiced with more zeal than the general population was used to from their old rulers. People began to flee north, seeking refuge in the Han Chinese lands.
Sometime after the year 1900, a large war was fought between these kingdoms in Fusang but the war destroyed many records and specific details are vague. The war stopped for two decades then resumed some time after 1960 and lead to the fall of the kings and the rise of their generals to power as a new generation of conquering warlords such as Zhu Hai'tse.
Zhu Hai'tse showed us the tomb of his former king, his zoo of New World monkeys, jaguars and peccarees, his armies and his libraries. We were treated well and allowed the various luxuries of his home. He told us of his plans to invade the Lai Kingdom and kill the general that ruled there the next month. He then secured passage for us on a junk to Hui Shen Tsien.
In this universe, the west coast of North America was discovered by Buddhist monks from China in the fifth century, visited intermittently and ultimately colonized with small outposts by the T'ang and Song dynasties, then abandoned when the Mongols overtook the Southern Song.
"The secret police watch carefully. It would be best if we kept this very brief."
"What is your opinion of the Mandarinate of Fusang?"
"At first...at first I thought it was an improvement over the warlords. The bloodshed during the Warring States was frightful. I thought government by civil service mandarins would be an improvement. Less brutal, more just. They are just as corrupt, but not in touch with reality. They sit in their palaces upon the Precipitous Road and make laws that have sad consequences when obeyed and bring down the wrath of their soldiers and worse, their secret police, their torturers and spies, when disobeyed. It is only this part of Fusang which the Mandarins rule in. The city is a great port and wealthy. It is as much to deny the city to rival warlords that the other regions let them endure here as they wield their power in accordance with the Mandate of Heaven."
"What are the other governments like?"
"All Han government, to me, a Yurok, is alien and wrong. My people were here before them and we wish they would leave us. They came from their distant home and tried to make us worship their god, the Buddha, some centuries ago. We have never accepted the Buddha or them, but some others have. The Ohlone accepted the Buddha but the Han still treat them as inferior and oppress them and overtax their farms and villages. As did the Paiute, but the Han let them serve as soldiers in the armies of the warlord who rules the Mountains Where Men Devour Men and the city on the High Lake where his lieutenants play games of chance. The warlord there is a cruel and old man, who was once a general of the last of the Ten Kings of Fusang before the wars killed them all and their generals took power. To the south the warlord is young and paranoid, and apparently an accomplished musician. He neighbors the Tarascans and the Zapoteca and he uses his armies to keep those fleeing their human sacrifices from his city and the land he holds. The others are less powerful, but about as corrupt and bloodthirsty."
"Why did the kings all die in the wars?"
"Once, the Han were ruled from across the sea by an Emperor, some centuries ago, but a great army of barbarians came and killed their rulers and their leader ruled in their staid. Here, they tried to carry on, but their government collapsed and the land was lawless. Our people tried to keep the Han out, but a warlord who later made himself a king of a state conquered our villages but let us stay along the coast and its cities. While the horse lord ruled their home, the bandits attacked at first, and the Buddhist monasteries would train warrior monks and sometimes protect other tribes. The bandits eventually made themselves kings and there were Ten Kingdoms from the borderlands of the Tarascans and Zapoteca to the Endless Forest of Owls to the north. They fought a great war some years prior, when I was a boy. All the kings were exhausting their realms and two had been conquered and defeated and their generals killed them, took over their states and made peace with one another for thirty years and then began to fight each other again within ten years."
He became panicked and left shortly after saying this.
The Mandarinate of Fusang seems to be a shaky coalition of civil service bureaucrats relying on an underpaid conscript army to keep control of one city surrounded by the usurping generals and their warlord states on their borders.
The warlords seem to a considerable degree worse, but we did not tour their various realms in other parts of what other universes would refer to as California.
Our investigations later revealed more details about Fusang. We left the city aboard a junk and sailed south to the realm of the warlord Zhu Hai'tse, the young and paranoid man of apparent musical talent the peasant we interviewed told us of. A mysterious and aloof figure by reputation, he was reported to be a military genius and had ambitions of defeating his rivals and ruling all of Fusang.
The junk arrived in the city of Xu Fu Dou near the site of San Diego in other universes in a military dock staffed by a line of armed guards in metal plated armor. A Mandarin approached and asked if we were the visiting scholars. Seeing an opportunity for what it was, we told them yes. We were taken by carriage to an imposing walled citadel near the site of Oceanside, California in other universes and lead through a series of corridors to meet Zhu Hai'tse, warlord of the Xu Fu state.
We entered a room with two statues of horses inside of it and a young man of about twenty six years of age in a black shirt and robes and a soldier's helmet.
"You gentlemen are the visiting scholars from overseas to learn of my campaigns for your Church, are you not?"
"Yes...yes...indeed we are...sir."
"Sit! Please sit. I will have my staff prepare some kung pao chicken for us to eat while we discuss things."
"You are the ruler of this state?"
"Yes. After the king...lost the favor of heaven, it became nessecary for more...inspired leadership."
"We know little of Fusang in or out of your state. Please enlighten us of your circumstances."
So he did. The warlord, a student of history as well as the arts of war and music, told us of his land for the next day and allowed us access to his mandarins' libraries and records.
Fusang as it is known in this universe was discovered by Buddhist monks in the 500s CE searching for a land described by the Buddhist missonary Hui Shen that had reportdely been converted to their religion at some earlier date.
The land Hui Shen had described was evidently in fact an island in East Asia, suspected to have been in fact Japan or the Phillipines, but the Buddhist monks that sailed to search for it found the western coast of North America and established a monastery there in 543 CE near the site of other universe's San Fransisco along the East Bay. The monastery endured and some of the monks left and became laymen and interbred with the native tribes in the area such as the Ohlone and Yurok. Reports were sent back to the monastery's abbot and sect in China and Fusang became a known land to the Emperor and Chinese society.
Three other smaller monasteries were established by Buddhist monks between 580 CE and 800 CE and largely left alone by mainland China and the monks there for the most part left the natives alone though they explored the land somewhat. Many of the natives would not abandon their customs in favor of Buddhist doctrines of dharma and reincarnation, though some did convert.
In 880 CE, the T'ang Dynasty Emperor proclaimed his authority over the Buddhist monasteries in Fusang and sent a ship there to gather reports and taxes from the monks. The monks shared their maps, made as far south as other universes Baja California and as far north as other universes Oregon coast around Coos Bay.
After the fall of the T'ang Dynasty and the rise of the Song Dynasty, the Song proclaimed their authority over Fusang, sent peasants and garrisons of soldiers to live there in the Bay area and south of it to Big Sur where some outlaws now lived in the forested coastal hills. Confucianism was imposed and favored over Buddhism, though the monks persisted as did the natives they had converted. When the Northern Song dynasty fell and the capital relocated south, northern refugees fleeing the lands conquered by the invaders were sent en masse to Fusang beginning in 1130 CE.
A social division arose thereafter between Southern Chinese mandarins and nobles and Northern Chinese refugees, mostly peasants and merchants, relocated by force to ease the burden the refugees fleeing the Jin Dynasty were causing in the capital at home in China. Buddhism split between Proper Buddhism, those following the Buddhist traditions of Chinese Buddhism as they were practiced in Mainland China and Peasant Buddhism, Buddhism mixed with Native American religious traditions and shamanism.
Settlement spread south to accomodate the influx being sent in from the Jin invasion to the areas of other universes San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Goleta, Los Angeles and San Diego. These settlements became prosperous towns of their own and began farming Chinese crops in their fields and trading with the natives there such as the Chumash.
When the Southern Song Dynasty fell to the Mongols in 1279, the last Song prince made it to Fusang but died shortly after his arrival in the city of Hui Shen Tsien variously attributed to disease or murder.
Without authority from China, the towns began to be raided by bandits and outlaws that hid in the forests and the hills and lived among the natives and adopted their customs. Some hoped for order to be restored but the Yuan Dynasty under Kublai Khan could not reach them and when they learned of Mongol rule, they did not want the Mongols to have authority over them.
The bandits by now ruled the various towns as outlaw rulers of their own and in the absence of a legitimate Han Chinese authority to claim Fusang they proclaimed themselves kings of whatever regions the towns they controlled were in. They did not proclaim themselves Emperors as many they ruled still wished a return of the Song Dynasty and did not see the bandit warlords to have the Mandate of Heaven and they themselves did not regard themselves as powerful enough individually for any to be more than a regional king.
The Zhun Kingdom occupied roughly the area between Petaluma and Monterrey, California in other universes with Hui Shen Tsien as its capital.
The Yaio Kingdom controlled the area between Modesto and Fresno, California with its capital near the site of Visalia, California.
The Kaifan He kingdom controlled the area between Sacramento, Vallejo and Chico, California.
The Tam Kingdom controlled the area between San Diego and Santa Monica, California.
The Lai Kingdom controlled the area between Thousand Oaks and Lompoc, California.
The Shao Kingdom ruled between Sonoma and Garberville California.
The Gai Kingdom ruled between Morro Bay and San Simeon California with loose control over Big Sur.
The Feng Kingdom ruled over the area other universes call Calaveras County, Amador County and Tuolomne County.
The Yuo Kingdom ruled the area between Placerville and Modoc and Lake Tahoe and Truckee into the Sierra Nevadas and had the Paiutes as warriors in its armies.
The Shang Kingdom ruled the area between Eureka and Crescent City, California in other universes.
These kingdoms eventually stabilized and created their own armies, paper money and Mandarin civil services. They established trade with the Mixtec empire which had arisen after Chinese diseases had destroyed the city states and regional kingdoms enough for them to gain territory.
The kings ruled with absolute authority and cared little for civil administration or religion, being descended from bandits more concerned with warring among themselves when profitable to do so.
When the Mongols fell and the Ming Dynasty came to power, instead of other universes' last two treasure fleet expeditions, Zheng He was sent on two missions to reassert authority over Fusang, being repelled on both occasions by the now entrenched bandit kings who while superstitiously acknowledging of the Song, did not recognize the authority of the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming then turned inward and left the bandit kingdoms of Fusang to fight among themselves and the bandits on their thrones to govern as they pleased.
When Europeans arrived some years later, the Spanish and British both found the kingdoms too militarily powerful to conquer as they did their Mixtec neighbors. Trade and emmisaries were allowed but the Europeans found it much more difficult to extort the various Fusang warlord kingdoms than their overseas relatives.
The Mixtec Empire fell in the early 1600s leaving the Zapotecs and Tarascans to fill the void by 1700, though they had not adopted Chinese customs while they had adopted Chinese weapons, meaning human sacrifice was practiced with more zeal than the general population was used to from their old rulers. People began to flee north, seeking refuge in the Han Chinese lands.
Sometime after the year 1900, a large war was fought between these kingdoms in Fusang but the war destroyed many records and specific details are vague. The war stopped for two decades then resumed some time after 1960 and lead to the fall of the kings and the rise of their generals to power as a new generation of conquering warlords such as Zhu Hai'tse.
Zhu Hai'tse showed us the tomb of his former king, his zoo of New World monkeys, jaguars and peccarees, his armies and his libraries. We were treated well and allowed the various luxuries of his home. He told us of his plans to invade the Lai Kingdom and kill the general that ruled there the next month. He then secured passage for us on a junk to Hui Shen Tsien.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
It's gratifying to see so much support for me to continue this, but I've got a few ideas for actual stories I'd like to work on and this thread doesn't really help me practice my writing. That being said since so many people want it to continue I'll keep updating this thread maybe 2-4 occasions a month. In the meantime anyone who wants to contribute can run updates of their own past me via PM.
Thanks again for following this thread so much and I'll try to keep it from dying completely.
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