Augustian conquest of Rekov

## Casualties and losses

20-30% of Rekov's population killed (9-16 million)

The **Augustian conquest of Rekov** (Common Dacanium: *Bellum Rekovum*, Standard Rekovan: *Venthi Rekova*) was one of the wars of the Augustian conquest of Maedaria, lasting from 363 BCE to 326 BCE. It ended with the full annexation of the nearly 300 Rekovan tribes by the Augustian Republic, and the formation of Provincia Rekovis. The jungle terrain of Rekov made for a very costly and slow war, with both Augustia and Rekovan tribes suffering heavy casualties, the Augustians mostly from attrition and countless Rekovan ambushes, and the Rekovans mostly in combat against heavily armored Augustians which they were unable to defeat in open terrain. The conquest would result in the deaths of 20 to 30% of Rekov's population, around 9,000,000 to 16,000,000 people, taking more than 200 years to recover to the original population.

## Course of events

### Initial Augustian offensives

The Augustian Republic began its conquest of Rekov with the 9th Legion attacking the town of Bimanna on 5 March 363 BCE. The town was only weakly fortified, and the 200 guards within were overrun by almost 6,000 heavily armored legionaries almost immediately, who proceeded to plunder the town, killing around 5,000 civilians and enslaving the rest. One week later, the entire Bimanna tribe surrendered. The next offensive was in late 363 BCE, from the north, after the complete conquest of Belemia opened a route into Arazania. Seven legions marched into the land of Arazania, where they massacred tens of thousands of civilians and militias with minimal resistance.

Their offensive would be stopped by the advanced fortifications of Ilar Arazan, which resisted all the artillery and soldiers the Augustians had, and despite a total apparent blockade, was supplied through over 100 km of secret tunnels leading to the south. Only with the help of a rival tribe, which cut the supply tunnels used to maintain Ilar Arazan, and then only after seven months of bloody fighting, Ilar Arazan finally fell, with all 30,000 civilians and guards that couldn't be evacuated killed in horrible fashion. This delayed the offensive for long enough for the remains of the Arazan tribe, and its other allies, to fully mobilize their forces and begin a guerilla war against the Augustians.

## Effects

### Demographic and political

The Augustian conquest of Rekov resulted in the death of 20 to 30% of Rekov's population, equalling 9-16 million people, and caused massive demographic shifts across the entirety of Rekov. Around 200 tribes lost more than half of their population, more than 100 lost more than 80%, and at least 40 tribes were completely annihilated. The conquest resulted in the merger of many of the remaining smaller tribes into the larger ones, the 289 documented tribes in 400 BCE were reduced to 76 by the end of the Augustian conquests of Maedaria in 306 BCE.

### Environmental

Much of the military success of the Augustians came from their destruction of Rekov's rainforests by systematically burning them by the millions, using specialized Fire Legions (Common Dacanian: *legiones igneae*) to burn them more effectively. This act caused the release of massive quantities of ash into the atmosphere, resulting in temperatures falling by up to 15 °C across southern Dacanium during the peak of the conquest. In Rekov, snow was recorded for the first time since the millennium-long Eternal Winter set off by the retreating Daelenaarim around 10,000 years ago, in mountainous parts of Rekov, an unprecendented exodus happened to escape the advancing frost, Lake Belem froze over for the first time in recorded history, and crop failures exacerbated the military problems of the Rekovan tribes, and were responsible for as much as 90% of the civilian deaths. The environmental catastrophe in Rekov even had effects across the rest of the world, possibly being responsible for the collapse of the Hawer Arelta, and large-scale migrations in northern Dacanium and subsequent decline of Daelaric kingdoms in Elvon.

Rekov also saw more permanent environental changes, with the rainforest once prevalent in the area turning into a dry savanna after the conquest, radically altering Rekovan culture as they tried to adapt to the new conditions. The area would only start returning to its original state during the final years of the Augustian Empire, and even now precipitation in western Rekov is still only half as high as before the Augustian invasions.