Shenzhen City

Official Name: Most Ancient and Revered City of Shenzhen

Founded: 132

Form of Government: Monastic dictatorship

Head of State: Supreme Master of the 36th Chamber Wu Xiaoping

Population Level: Very high

Society Structure: Urban

Technological Level: Very high

Background: Of all Ereth's nations, none has sustained its existence for as long as the country of Shenzhen. Founded in 132 of the Civilized Era, Shenzhen developed into a coherent entity from the joining of several influential monasteries. These monasteries, built as many as five centuries before the Civilized Era began, possessed discipline and self-sufficiency unknown elsewhere in the world at that time. Most grew substantial amounts of corn and other crops; those near tributaries of the eastern Shengzheng River worked rice paddies instead. In most cases, the monasteries grew enough to feed their members and barter with the surrounding areas for other basic goods, ensuring the loyalty of local villages.

Archaeological findings related to the founding of Shenzhen are slim; written sources dating back to the first century C.E. provide the most extensive evidence. Excluding information of questionable veracity leaves fair, if not substantial, background on the beginnings of the state.

Founding: Before the Civilized Era, dozens of monasteries existed across what would become Shenzhen. Each monastery shared the basic philosophical constructs of Shenzhen ancestors, though each taught the philosophies in its own slightly unique way. Due to constant raiding from the north, and to a somewhat lesser degree from the south, temples developed their own theories on war and defense. These theories became the main sources of differentiation between the sects. (In fact, only one detail is known to have been shared amongst the standing forces of every monastery: the creation of nine ranks, or chambers, in reference to the testing ground a monk was require to pass through in order to ascend to the next rank. The number of ranks is believed related to the influence of the number nine in Shenzhen philosophy.)

By the early C.E. years, thirteen major monasteries remained. These lay scattered in a roughly circular pattern; those in the north were regarded as superior to the south. By surviving accounts, this status was accorded due to the greater invading threats from the north and not due to any specific failings of the southern temples. These thirteen were considered the norm, as they had driven off all raiders for at least one hundred years with minimal disruption to their communities. From some point in the late pre-C.E. years, until approximately 75 C.E., no information exists regarding any invasions whatsoever. {C}{C Between 70 and 75 C.E., Shenzhen writings began to detail an increase in smoke trails rising from the northern steppelands. Within a few years, the temples and their surrounding villages were raided en masse by the largest known barbarian horde swarming down from the steppes. The first wave sacked the northern Shing monastery, by all accounts home to one of the strongest monk sects. This pushed all the temples into a defensive posture, leaving them vulnerable to focused attacks when one or another of the barbarian warlords could focus enough of their army in a single direction.

Over the next twenty years, under the burgeoning leadership of Khan Sukhbataar Chuluun, the horde picked its way through Shenzhen, ransacking most of the territory on their way through to the southern lands. By the turn of the first century C.E., only four monastic orders remained. Complicating matters, dozens of miles separated the temples, with most of the territory covered by enemy soldiers. Of what happened next, verifiable details are sparse, but it is believed the leaders of those temples secretly met in the Shing ruins, agreed to a unification pact, then gathered their forces for a string of guerrilla strikes on the invading force. Moving swiftly and launching their attacks a great distance from one another, the monks succeeded in spreading out the army until the commander's thinly-manned bodyguard unit sat far from assistance. Khan Sukhbataar was slain in approximately 102 C.E. Several of his lieutenants attempted to keep up the fight, but battled themselves as frequently as the monks, and were soon routed.

For a time afterwards, the unification pact was forgotten. The monks returned to their temples and attempted to help the people rebuild. But without enough active monasteries to support the entirety of the Shenzhen holdings, the people created rumors about the return of the hordes, most frequently led by the vengeful ghost of the Khan. It was decided around 110 C.E. that, with the threat of invasion constantly looming, the highest-ranked monks of each order would battle for pre-eminence in the new nation, and the ranks of the new army would be ordered according to the outcomes of those fights.

Over the course of six months, dozens of monks appealed for the right to represent their orders in combat. At the end of the trials, the Tang monastery reigned supreme, followed by the Lin, Wu, and Shao schools. The nine ranks of each order were combined to create a thirty-six chamber hierarchy, with the top four belonging to the ninth chamber of each sect in order, the next four being the eighth chambers, and so forth. Because the four temples were approximately equidistant from each other, at the four corners of the compass, a fifth temple was built in the center of the territory for the most powerful monks in each order and their adherents. Due to faulty translations, the temple's official name has long been the source of debate; today it is mainly referred to by its common name, the Genius Temple. This became the seat of government for the new city of Shenzhen.

Pre-Melt Era: For the next four hundred years, Shenzhen rebuilt itself from the Genius Temple out, supported first by the few farmlands remaining after the barbarian invasion, then by those recovered from the decay of old, broken villages. Shenzhen's army worked to expand their territory, to grow from a city to a nation, mostly by pressing into the southern lowlands and routing the weaker tribes struggling to subsist. Farmlands slowly expanded to the north, guarded by large cadres of warrior-monks, but the Shenzhen did not push far and the barbarians did not return. By 550 C.E., the Shenzhen nation had grown to encompass all the land between the western Ya Tse River and the Shengzheng. This territory stretched to the southernmost tip of the continent, equal in latitude to tropical Hilahi Island, and reaching the sea that separated the northern lands of eastern Ereth from what would become Kumasi and the other Southern Hemisphere nations.

In 581 C.E., after the consolidation of southern Shenzhen, Supreme Master Tang Quon sought to expand the nation's holdings, and sent an expedition to search the islands of Niho and Hilahi. One year later the expedition returned with only one-third of its original cohort alive. The survivors explained that the Nihon were relatively friendly, if cautious, and willing to trade, but the Hilahi were well-ensconced and ambushed the party once it had made a few days of progress into the thick island forests. Heedless of the vast land available to explore across the Ya Tse, Supreme Master Quon gathered his army and headed south to invade the Hilahi, rout their people, and claim the island's resources for Shenzhen.

Despite steady supply lines and overwhelming forces, the Shenzhen army made slow progress through Hilahi land. Hit-and-run throwing spear attacks did not create substantial Shenzhen casualties, but constant waves of guerrilla strikes followed by immediate disappearances into the trees kept Quon's army from returning fire with their own spears, and rarely allowed for melee combat of any sort. These tactics made the trek from shore to the center of the island, a distance normally covered in two days on foot, require six full weeks of effort. Once the forest cleared and Hilahi's capital came into view, Quon readied his army for the final assault.

Forming ranks at the edge of the tree line, the initial monk wave found itself under assault from an unfamiliar weapon: bows and arrows. Shenzhen monks had long demeaned the concept of distance fighting; the Shao school alone taught any type of ranged combat, and that only the throwing of a melee weapon- the spear- in desperate circumstances. Nor had the Shenzhen ever faced an enemy boarded up behind a sturdy defense. Thus, seeing his soldiers lying wounded or dead by the score, Quon ordered a full assault on what he perceived to be the cowardly Hilahi soldiers, sending nearly his entire army at the capital's western wall.

It remains unclear whether Quon failed to understand the peril of sending massed troops against a rain of archers, or if he grasped the truth and did not care. Regardless, hundreds of monks fell short of the wall, and dozens more were struck down attempting to scale or break through the Hilahi defenses. Some few, including Quon, made it into the city; after hours of battle Quon's body was lifted over the ramparts, cut apart limb by limb, and cast down onto the corpses at the base of the wall. Upon seeing this, the Shenzhen reserve troops left the remainder of their supplies behind and ran for shore. No monks who took part in the assault survived.

The destruction of Supreme Master Quon and nearly every experienced warrior-monk in the nation left Shenzhen with no option but to restrain any expansionary impulses for several generations. In this time the merchant class rose to prominence through trade with the booming Nihon people, the smaller nation of Busan to the north, and several fledgling tribes across the Ya Tse, in modern day Cartagena. In addition, strongholds arose dedicated to arms training apart from the monastic structure. Soldiers who graduated from these schools were generally considered inferior to monks as warriors, but held fewer reservations about when and where they would fight.

The monks, for their part, made a wider perspective on the tools of war part of their recovery. Quon's Folly became the answer to any question regarding the wisdom and efficacy of developing ranged or siege weaponry, or the building of specific defensive structures in and around both Shenzhen City and smaller towns to the south. In addition, due to the Tang school possessing the greatest number of monks who fell in Hilahi and the weakening influence that followed, national leadership was opened to challenges from the other three major temples for the first time. Beginning in 583 C.E., any monk could be nominated by Genius Temple leadership to face each school's final test; successfully completing all four trials would make him Supreme Master until his death. In 584, Shao O-ling Dai Bao completed the challenge and became the first "outside" master of the 36th Chamber.

Around 700 C.E., Shenzhen leaders determined their military ranks adequately filled to continue national expansion. However, in the intervening period the power of the merchant class had continued to grow, and fearful of their holdings being left exposed to attack, they set themselves in opposition to expansion through conquest. Between the Nihon, who had overtaken the entirety of their own large island and were considered an equivalent power, and the return of the northern barbarians in fruitless but increasingly frequent raids, the merchants maintained that enough threat existed to current Shenzhen territory to warrant a defensive posture. Furthermore, Shenzhen's most veteran merchants claimed western lands held no value for conquerors, and were best exploited through trade with inland tribes and the Ya Tse fishing villages that were slowly adapting to become ports of commerce. For two decades the conflict brewed, threatening to set monk versus lay soldier in civil war.

However, the worst was not to be. Eventually the sides came to an agreement: Cadres of warrior-monks would accompany merchant vessels across the rivers as elite guards, but no army would put forth from the lands of Shenzhen.

The Melt:

Great War Era:

Post-War to Present: