War of the Axtuwas

Tzonaqi ships at Jian-Lu

## Belligerents

Aggressors: * Ming-Sha
* Minshani client states.
* Clan Skhada

Defenders:

* Tzonaxiquan
* Exalted Clans

The War of the Axtuwas was a conflict fought nearly a millennium ago between the Empire of Ming-Sha and the Eternal City of Tzonaxiquan. It is regarded as one of the most defining turning points in the history of the lands surrounding the Huhx'yitan Ocean, causing the collapse of Ming-Sha and the ascension of Tzonaxiquan to take its place as the regional hegemon.

The name of the conflict comes from the Tzonaqi concept of an "axtuwa", a low-level god, said to be an angry soul caught between lives that has accumulated much of its own power, being able to wreak havoc on the mortal plane and attack others of its kind out of spite. The ferocity of the fighting and larges casualties caused by the war were said by the Tzonaqi to surely be caused by a war between the axtuwas in the heavens, with some on the side of the Tzonaqi and others on the side of the Minshani.

Scholars still debate over the exact cause of the war. Some claim that it was caused by bitter disputes over trade and monopoly rights throughout the Huhx'yitan region, where Ming-Sha reigned supreme but the insurgent Tzonaqi economy was threatening its stranglehold. Others claim it was the Great Flood that struck the southern coast of Ming-Sha several years prior, popularly said to have been the result of the orca-god worshipped by the Tzonaqi and the justification used by many Minshani commoners for the war to this day. Regardless, the Yellow Emperor of Ming-Sha declared a holy crusade against the "heathenous, dark-skinned savages of the northern shores", claiming that it was the will of the Minshani gods that Tzonaxiquan be wiped from the face of the Earth.

The Grand Fleet of the Yellow Emperor arrived a mere month afterwards and began to bombard the city of Tzonaxiquan as Tzonaqi holdings were seized elsewhere throughout the region. The fleet was said possess over 300 warships and when it arrived, the various fleets of the Tzonaqi clans were nowhere to be seen, allowing the Minshani to fire upon Tzonaqi strongholds with relative impunity. While direct assaults on the harbor were repelled several times, the Minshani could not be stopped from landing on the relatively undefended coasts further north, besieging the city from multiple directions.

During the Siege of Tzonaxiquan, which lasted roughly three months, the Eternal City's inhabitants engaged in a series of cunning and brutal methods of guerrilla warfare, believed to be the genesis of the now all-pervasive Public Force. Minshani camps were frequently robbed and burned in the night, their attackers long gone deep into the dense forests before a response could be formulated; entire villages, knowing they faced extermination otherwise, would sacrifice themselves in massive charges meant to disorganize and demoralize the enemy, with any who made it through enemy lines setting fire to themselves and masses of enemy supplies; of particular note were the contributions of the Lyahlie and Tukung'eo clans; the former made effective use of fire-based magic in surprise attacks on Minshani ships in tandem with primitive wooden submersibles used by the latter to affix powder charges to the bottom of ships. An exalted clan within the city, Clan Skadha, attempted to open the gates to the Minshani, hoping to be installed as permanent dynastic rulers of the city in return; every member of their clan was promptly purged in retalliation.

Three months after the siege began, relief arrived. A unified fleet of most of the city's major clans launched an attack on the Grand Fleet from behind; the larger Minshani ships were unable to maneuver effectively between the many small islands dotting Tzonaxiquan's coast, giving the smaller Tzonaqi cogs and galleys a significant advantage. After losing over 200 ships, the Grand Fleet was routed and the Tzonaqi gave chase.

In their counter-attack, the Tzonaqi showed no mercy. Colonies were seized and those that were not useful were burned to the ground, their inhabitants either enslaved or sacrificed to the gods. The war took on a mythological air in the Tzonaqis' cultural mindset, a titanic struggle of their gods against those of Ming-Sha, particularly the Sun-Eagle God Tzonaquakxa against the Yellow Emperor, who was said to be an immortal god himself, having supposedly lived over one thousand years already. The magical prowess of the Tzonaqi people was used to its fullest potential, and sacrifices were made with glee and a sense of duty.

By the time they reached the shores of Ming-Sha in the south, Minshani forces had reorganized and mounted a counteroffensive. However, the coast was far too vast to defend entirely, and Tzonaqi beachheads quickly blossomed into massive invasion forces that spilled out across the rolling plains of Ming-Sha, rowing their galleys up rivers with them to assist in the destruction of major cities many miles inland. Spoils were divided amongst the clans as they went. The Tzonaqi offensive was stalled outside of Tian-Shang, a city standing at the foot of the "Seven Great Citadels", a series of enormous fortresses of white stone constructed into the Miyang Mountains that were said to be impenetrable, with their tallest walls said to be well over fifty meters tall, guarding the only way into the Ethereal Valley which the Yellow Emperor inhabited. The Tzonaqi possessed no siege engines capable of breaking these walls, so they laid siege to the fortresses with great difficulty, as the fortresses were seemingly large enough to produce much of their own food.

A break came one month later. A red comet sighted in the sky, said to be a sign of the Lion-Fire Goddess Kha'talxet, marked the sky for several nights. One night when the moon was at its highest, the comet was said to have struck the Earth, causing an enormous earthquake that ruined even the mightiest of the Citadels' walls and set massive, raging fires across the remaining fortifications, allowing Tzonaqi troops to pour through, storming the castles as well as the Eternal Valley.

The details of the ensuing struggle are poorly documented; it is known that Lyahlie forces, rallied by the comet and led by female Lyahl Awa, Tzuka Jinal, were among the first to storm the Yellow Emperor's palace, along with a covert force of Tukung'eo agents led by Taiyang. The ensuing struggle is widely disputed; some claim Tzuka xo Jinal ripped the Yellow Emperor's heart from his chest and bit from it like Kha'talxet did from the heart of the Night-Goddess Talwashia; others say that Taiyang severed the Yellow Emperor's head and hung it as an ornament in his pavilion. Neither story has been proven, and it remains a point of immense contention and pride for both clans, with both claiming the title "Godslayers".

The remains of Ming-Sha crumbled quickly after news of the Yellow Emperor's death spread, with the entire mainland empire being subdued in just a few years. With their God-On-Earth dead, many Minshani simply laid down their arms and gave up their faith. Ming-Sha was divided into a series of petty client-states loyal to the various exalted clans, with the Lyahlies using the fact that their goddess supposedly toppled the Citadels as leverage to get a large chunk of the new pie.