Red Famine

An economically created famine that struck the Aurian Empire in the late 1480s particularly in the heartlands where the majority of the Empire's crops were grown and their herds husbanded.

## Key Events

1486PE: Emperor Kavad embarked upon the War of Vengeance with Torash. Almost all military units were sent to the war front. This was a very unpopular war with the Protectorates as they were emptied of man power for the war.

1487PE: The Emperor levelled a war tax on food in order to support the war. While maintaining normal taxation on the farmers the imperial tax collectors now demanded an additional 10% of all grown produce and herds must be given directly to the military for use in the war as a tax. This became known as the Red Famine. Partially because of the idea of it being blood money but also because the civilians saw the Red Protectoran as the main soldiers fighting the war rather than their own Blacks. So the famine was seen to be caused by these red soldiers eating while they starved at home.

Imperial civilian sympathy for the war plummeted and the Emperor's personal popularity took a dive as well even in the normally loyal cities and towns such as Middleholm. Some of the Black Protectoran Legions (who were almost entirely recruited from the Protectorates) turned a blind eye to farmers avoiding the Food Tax, yet others used military expedience as an excuse to enforce their rule ruthlessly.The Trade Master/Governor Melthis specifically over blew the threat of the Torans. Suggesting they would rape, pillage and plunder their way through the Protectorates. The attack on Leyroch by a Toran insurgent force was used to fuel this fear and helped reinforce support for the war. This of course helped prolong the Red Famine as well.

1489PE: After years of the Red Famine tax without relief and increasingly harsh and draconian measures being enforced hundred of starving Aurians have become thousands. The death toll mounted and mounted and resentment against the war built and built. Some of the Red Collectors were ambushed on the roads and killed but most attacks of this kind failed and several were put down extremely harshly. Most of the fighting men were already in the army and in the very war the tax was being used to support. This led to some very dark days in the Imperial heartlands and imperial tax collectors and the military engaging in acts that in other eras would have seen them hung themselves.

1490PE: The all women resistance group known as 'the Robins' was betrayed and uncovered. The food stores were given to 'loyal' imperial subjects who turned in the women. The group were made an example of with mock trials, torture and executions some graphically public. This cowed many similar groups who ceased their activities but it also caused a spark of outrage in the local nobility that had not been foreseen. This later resulted in a powerful movement of noble women who banded together with their husbands, sons and father's protection to form a charitable band and they named themselves 'the Robins' in a parallel that could not be missed. They then used their finances diminished as they were to donate essentials to their peasants, but also to start investigations into corruption under Imperial law. Many in the nobility and event the Black Protectoran Military were very sympathetic to the people and were uncomfortable with the level to which the country had sunk during this war. They used the new Robin movement to salve their own guilt and some even gleefully protected and supported the noblewomen's plans. Perhaps one of the most important parts of this effort was the Robins sent out some of their number to other cities in the Empire and recruited amongst the nobility of Rak Danning, Tor Celer, Tor Honarik, Leyroch, Tor Honarik, Oakhome, Yewdon, Kolaran and Tor Armakan. This not only raised sudden and remarkable assistance for the starving peasents of the Protectorates but it created a politically powerful movement against the war to give voice to what the majority of Aurians were already feeling, that they had had enough of the War of Vengeance

1491PE: Kavad was forced to bring an end to the War of Vengeance and the associated taxation that had caused the Red Famine.

## Legacy

1512-1514PE: First Dragon Army Invasion affected the Protectoans. They sent significant cavalry forces to the assistance of the Eastern Protectorans that were engaged in the fighting. However due to generational anger about the War of Vengeance and the **Red Famine** there were very few volunteers and a lot of draft dodging.