Arcél 2700

From Almeopedia

Arcél 2550

Arcél 2900

1 Rebirth of Uytai
2 Elsewhere in the south
3 In the north
4 Characteristic figure

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Rebirth of Uytai

The Uytainese rebellion proper took only five years, but it had been in preparation for more than a generation. The Gleŋ increasingly delegated local power to Uytainese. They were very careful— the Uytainese in the lower Ħomtso valley were not allowed to touch weapons; those Uytainese used as infantry were carefully monitored by Gleŋ officers.

But over the long term, armories and other military installations were entrusted to appropriately servile natives. The infantry could be infiltrated, weapons secretly aquired and stockpiled, and foreign allies (chiefly Nyandai and Ťrim) cultivated. All this was carefully organized by a network of activists, collectively known as the Fatħel (‘behind the door’).

Though the Gleŋ military remained formidable, the Gleŋ emperors had strikingly declined after Krišip. The Gleŋ were divided between those who wished to concentrate on Uytai and exploit its wealth, and those who wished to preserve nomadic traditions and expand, if anywhere, against other nomads. The later emperors were all young figureheads of one faction or the other. The last emperor, Briȟir, was installed at the age of three (2672).

In the 2670s the Gleŋ were preoccupied with a challenge in their homeland, fighting another Kemic people, the Ȟšanda. The Fatħel sprang its trap: Nyanese ships swarmed the harbors of Pheʔ and Swiʔkyau; Uytainese infantry rebelled; other armies appeared seemingly from nowhere. The Gleŋ rushed back to the south— leaving the Nikrit plateau to their rivals, and the Smë rift valley to a Mnesean tribe— but it was too late. Uytai was independent by 2680. Nyandai received Pheʔ as a reward; Tueʔ however had been occupied by the Gleŋ, their sole gain.

More than three centuries of barbarian rule had considerably loosened up Uytainese society. The Fatħel named a new king, Khesur, but made it clear that he would not be the divine emperor of before, only a symbol of unity. Real power remained with the Fatħel. The name was considered undignified now that it could operate in the open; but old habits die hard, and it continued to avoid publicity. It operated as an oligarchy, now known as the Yonram, the ‘important men’.

The nation had also transformed to a market economy— indeed, since large estates had been confiscated by the Gleŋ, many landowners had turned themselves into merchants instead.

Philosophically, the order of the day was neither Swolan fundamentalism nor Hyemsur skepticism— though both of these continued as minority movements— but pragmatism. The ideal was purpau, ‘good rule’. At the same time, there was a fashion for ancient literature, architecture, and dress, all symbols of national pride and the rebirth of the country.

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Elsewhere in the south

After the war the Gleŋ returned to their fight against the Ȟšanda and made some progress there. For some decades they continued to name emperors of Uytai, though they made little headway in their attempts to make good on this claim. Khesur also co-opted a number of Gleŋ tribes as a way of stabilizing the frontier and dividing the enemy.

The Siadese, the inhabitants of the Yurdzo valley, had pushed the Gleŋ out as well; this was supported by the Ťrimese army, but Ťrimese rule seemed more and more like an anachronism, and the Siadese quietly negotiated a separation (2695).

In the Dnetic area, Nšiwejig has taken over the middle Itseʔ from the Uytainese Tsaʔ.

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In the north

Lé rule over Mɔłɔsɔu didn’t go smoothly; the Mɔłɔ rejected the idea of Bé unity. It didn’t help that the Lé refused to learn Mɔłɔ and gave the country only token representation in the béjan. The expressed reason for this was Hake serfdom, which offended the Lé; districts with Hake serfs were given no representation at all.

By this time the ethnic and cultural differences between the Mɔłɔ and their serfs had nearly disappeared; they were simply a hereditary caste with fewer rights than free peasants. (There were many caste signifiers, things which simply underlined the inferiority of the serfs— e.g. serfs were not allowed to touch a Mɔłɔ in public, and male serfs could not speak to a female Mɔłɔ without permission— but the chief economic difference was the level of taxation. Peasants were considered to work for themselves and to owe a tax to the landowner; serfs were considered to work for the estate and were given a pittance to live on.)

Lé disapproval only hardened Mɔłɔ attitudes, and that in turn annoyed the Lé, who felt that concessions would only reward Mɔłɔ intransigence.

In 2612 the Mɔłɔ established their own council (the sɔujɔn). The Lé refused to negotiate with it, and eventually declared it illegal. By 2624 the country was in open rebellion, and by 2628 the Lé realized that they had a quagmire on their hands: the cost of regaining the country, to say nothing of holding it, was more trouble than it was worth. They withdrew, though they spitefully refused to sign a peace treaty till 2651.

In the late 2590s Hàɔráŋ fought a war with Mauraŋ which succeeded in conquering the southern of the two silk islands. This increased revenues enough to support another bold move: the establishment of a colony, Pahni, on the northwest coast— an attempt to leapfrog Mauraŋ entirely to capitalize on the north-south trade. However, the terrain was mostly hilly, not very suitable for Beic agriculture, and Pahni was unlikely to grow into a nation, though it would be important as a strategic outpost.

In inter-Bé wars it was acceptable to hire freebooters; there were also pirates who answered to no one. These were normally kept in check by the major powers, but with the troubles in Belesao piracy was on the rise.

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