Bishant Trade Company

The **Bishant Trade Company** was a Shantine mercantilist and trade organization active during the modern era.

## History

The **Bishant Trade Company** (BTC) was established in 100 B.U. on Bishant. For the next two centuries, it acted as the dominant cosmic trade-house, before entering into a long decline under competitive pressure from the Aeldrum Trade Company. The nadir of the Company's foreign and domestic significance came in the mid-4th century A.U. with the disastrous Fialta-Shantine War and the apogee of the Aeldman Trade Company's power in the late 4th century. The Company experienced a significant revival in the latter half of the 5th century A.U. during the Golden Age of Theoboda, regaining a place of cosmic relevance, marked perhaps most strongly by the renewed use of company sinecures as signs of royal favor.

### Early Period

During the period of Shantine commercial supremacy from the 1st century B.U. to the 2nd century A.U., the BTC's principal rivals were geographically confined, consisting of the trading affiliates of the Bank of Valdos and the Knights Mercantile. At its height, the BTC had the largest fleet-tonnage in the cosmos, with mercantile posts throughout Imperial Space.

While an important pioneer in the expansion of Shantine influence and, ultimately, territory, the BTC did not take a leading role in colonial management or the administrative integration of territory into the Empire. Because of the evangelical mission of Shantine imperial expansion throughout its history, administration of unincorporated territory was more commonly left to the Knights of Adarnum (or later the Shantine Imperial Legion). More integrated territories were dominated by the Church of Kirva or by the agents of high nobility acting with the approval of the Church. Rather, the BTC served an ambassadorial function, establish commercial relations and acting as an early platform for religious infiltration as a prelude either to conversion and submission by the local leadership or to a combination of violent outside conquest and KoA-instigated local uprisings to demand a Shantine protectorate.

In foreign regions not slated for subversion and integration (whether due to their distance or anticipated resilience), the BTC could settle into a more benign role as both a trading house and a semi-official embassy of the Empire (with BTC offices often being commandeered by visiting Shantine diplomats on worlds too minor to warrant a permanent consulate).

Until the mid-4th century, the BTC also represented a significant pillar of Shantine domestic politics: unlike the ATC, which jointly represented the interests of the aristocracy and gentry (who also dominated the Aeldman political system), the BTC acted as a path to economic prosperity and political influence for those who did not belong to Bishant's dominant classes (the aristocracy and clergy). While most land in the core of the Empire was illegal to own for any but the Church and the aristocracy, investment in the BTC was open to all strata and provided a vehicle for savings by the general public. Franchising opportunities and generous lines of credit for leasing ships from the BTC, intended to encourage maximum reach for Shantine commercial interests (which were believed to serve as a first step toward religious conversion of commercial partners), also led to the dramatic expansion of the Shantine merchant class and the birth of the Shantine expatriate culture.

One feature of territorial expansion in which the BTC took a leading role was the allocation of land to smallholders: Shantine settlers were encouraged to buy real estate (almost always sight-unseen) on distant worlds from BTC land offices, offering a means of escaping the virtual serfdom of life in the core. These land sales often took place before a territory had been official added to the Shantine Empire, when the authority of the Church over the region was not legally established. Frequent land disputes arose between these smallholders and aristocratic or clerical landholders who lated received sweeping claims from the Church often without consultation of the BTC land surveys, and a key part of the BTC's social function was to defend the interests of its smallholders and investors in the church-dominated courts. This counterweight offered by the BTC made it a preferred tool of the Shantine Imperial House during periods of tension with Church of Kirva, and it is credited by historians with preventing more radical resistance to the power of the Church by providing a check from within the establishment (noting cases such as the Alusian Secession as examples of more radical dissension from Church and Empire in regions that were conquered by crusade without a commercial phase, such that land was controlled overwhelmingly by the Church and high nobility).

### Middle Period

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### Late Period

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