Shangqing Tianguo

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Revision as of 05:39, 8 October 2012

丄清天国
Shangqing Tianguo
The Pure Kingdom Upon the Heavens

Flag of the Shangqing Tianguo
Motto Gong qingguo Cheng tianchou (Solidify our Pure Kingdom, Underneath the aegis of heaven,!)
Anthem March of the believers
Official Language	Chinese
Capital	Xa'an (provisional)
Head of State	Great Teacher Zhang Tianran
Head of government	Sun Sunzhen
Establishment   - Shixaan Heavenly revolution	18 December 1924
Government	Theocratic state
Currency	Yuan (de facto)
Population	Unknown (The cult grows in numbers every day)

The Shangqing Tianguo is a state in central China. It borders the Qing Empire in the north and east, Allgemeine Ostasiatische Gesellschaft to the southeast, the Yunnan Clique to the south and the Xibei Lianbang Yiyuan warlords' demesne in the west.

History

The Shangqing Tianguo (English: The Pure Kingdom Upon the Heavens) is a theocratic revolutionary state founded by Zhang Tianran and his religious movement, I-Kuan Tao (English: The Path of Consistence). It is considered the spiritual successor of the Taiping Tianguo--an ill-fated rebellion against the Qing Empire in the 1850s-60s. The state is controlled by the Great Teacher, a position held by the Patriarch of the I-Kuan Tao. His wife, Sun Sunzhen serves as his second in command. The I-Kuan Tao is a monotheistic religion that borrows its core beliefs from Christianity and Islam, and the philosophical teachings of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.

The Tianguo was founded during a tumultuous period of civil unrest in the 1920s. China was divided by several competing warlord cliques, none of whom could adequately prove themselves worthy of the Mandate from Heaven. The disillusioned Chinese people were inspired by the charismatic demagogue and 17th Patriarch of the I-Kuan Tao cult, Lu Zhongyi. Lu spoke of a unified China, once again a great power; truly deserving of the name "Middle Kingdom." Most importantly, however, he proclaimed that China would be for the Chinese, and the foreign devils and their running dogs would be expelled once and for all! His words rallied all those who heard them to his cause, and within a few years' time, the ranks of his cult had grown to the point that it was able to compete with more established cliques.

In 1924, Lu Zhongyi successfully broke free of the unstable de jure government by seizing the Shaanxi province and proclaiming the mountains of central China to be the domain of the Shangqing Tianguo. Lu then set about establishing a benevolent theocracy with a modern, centralized bureaucracy. Although Lu's government was largely authoritarian, it was far more stable and (some argue) more enlightened than the German-backed Qing government to the East.

Lu would never see his dream of a unified China come to fruition. He passed away in 1925, leaving the position of Great Teacher to Zhang Tianran. Zhang understood that if he was to unify China under the I-Kuan Tao, he would have to stand up to the warlord cliques and possibly major foreign powers. To make this possible, he would have to modernize and industrialize the Shaanxi province. Over the next decade, Zhang ordered the construction of several roads, railways, and factories. He also founded the Millenarian Movement Army and appointed Fang Zhimin--a respected military commander and loyal student of the I-Kuan Tao--as his supreme commander.

Under Fang's watchful eye, the Millenarian Movement Army heavily fortified the mountains. The heavy fortifications combined with the natural defensive advantage of mountain ranges allowed the Millenarians to successfully repel a grand offensive by the German Expeditionary Force, securing Shangqing Tianguo's independence, at least for the time being. As a new year dawns upon the word, the modernization program of the Shangqing has born fruit, and Zhang is ready to declare a holy crusade against the non-believers and foreign intruders. Will the Pure Kingdom Under Heaven successfully unify all of China under one ruler? Will China be once again to the Chinese? Will the Germans and Japanese, hungrily clinging to their ill-gotten gains, be driven out once and for all? Only time will tell.

Government

The power is distributed in a three scales pyramidal, but dynamic, style. First there's the Great Teacher, who holds the ultimate decision on all what goes on in the country. Then there are the different bureaus, of industry, of agriculture, etc. who hold monthly reunions with a council of citizens randomly elected every month, as the government is populist it always needs to hear the will of the people. And then there's the citizens, who also have, in theory, power to control everything that goes on on the country, exposing what needs to be changed, or if taxes are to be lowered to the different bureaus.

The only thing that the government demands in exchange is complete loyalty to the country and to the I-kuan Tao. This means, that in time of war, every men and women must be enlisted onto the army (normally, they do so zealously). Men and women are respected equal, and unlike the repressive Qing government, military men can wear the hair as they like and not the traditional Manchu hairstyle.

Military

Officially the "Heavenly Host of the Pure Kingdom" (In Chinese: Qingguo Tianjun), more commonly known as Millenarian Movement Army, is as of 1936, a rudimentary and outdated, but zealous and determined in their goals, army. Composed only of a few professional soldiers, the rest are poorly armed, but courageous militias that will fight to the end for their Great Teacher. At the moment, the Shanqing Tianguo has not enough resources to build or buy planes, and is a landlocked country, therefore it has neither navy or air force.

Fang Zhimin, a well known hero of the 1924 revolution and a great strategic mind, is Commander of the great hosts of heaven, that is equivalent to a Supreme Commander of the army and of the land forces in a Western army. There's little information on who are the Supreme commanders of air and sea.