Anhia

# Overview

The empire-nation of Anhia is full of contradictions. In the south and east it is a fertile land, feeding its people and producing vast surpluses to sell. The north has lost its fertility, the land desolate, treeless, plagued with restless, malevolent spirits, and unable to support the small population that remains.

The court sits in the burned-out capital in the north, the young Emperor attended by bureaucrats, junivis, and scholars. Decrees and poetry flow with equal facility from the quills of the bureaucrats, for the examination system that raised them to bureaucrat status is purely based on their knowledge of classic tests and their ability to write poetry. Junivis, the magically sterilised servant class, can rise to high office by having the ear of the emperor. The scholars of the Kinin Academy have largely left, but a few remain loyal. The laws, taxes, and security are now entirely in the hands of the provincial and military governors.

The population follow one or more of the Three Paths, which are not so much religions as idealised ways of being. Not to follow one is not merely considered uncultured, it is considered almost subsentient by everyone from the court to the peasants. It is also considered inconceivable to not properly honour one’s own immediate ancestors – the punishment for not doing so can include death.

Trade and production are booming in the south, despite dissidence and increased bandit activity. Luxuries such as silk, tea, sugar, and pottery are even produced for export, and the cities of Anhia are the largest in the world.

# The Court and Government

The country is officially governed from the capital Thena in the north, where the court and the Emperor live. Thena embodies the North, for it was burned down by rebel armies fifteen years ago and is still largely a deserted ruin. The court sparkles with colours and poetry amongst the ruins, but relies entirely on produce from the south to live.

The official government has little to do with the actual running of the country. Once a country micromanaged to the last degree, through various ineptitudes in the court and rebellions in the provinces, the provincial governors now act as independent rulers. No taxes reach the court beyond those of the capital, and the court has no armed forces at all.

Emperor Huogo is a very young man, who has been in position only a few years. His official court consists of bureaucrats who gained entry through the examination system, but who are mainly of old, aristocratic stock. The Inner Court, on the other hand, consists of scholars of the College of Dannin, and of influential junivis. This Inner Court answers directly to the Emperor, the official court has various checks and balances designed to prevent any individual from becoming too powerful.

# Religion

There are three religions followed in Anhia, commonly known as The Paths. The old religion of the court was known as the Path of Heaven, and taught that the Emperor was a descendant of Heaven and thus divine. It argued that government should not only be efficient, but should also be ethical. In the first days of the Reunited Empire, some four hundred years previously, the government strove to at least appear fair, in line with the Teachings of Heaven. Recently, the ruling dynasty have tried to revive this, positing new gods, such as the city-god Gau. As the countryside of the north became more inhospitable, this faith became more relevant to the common people there.

The Path of Worth is the second court religion. It proposes a more indirect way in which the Emperor is divine, saying that he is a direct descendant of Kian Lon, who wrote the Canon of Worth and became a divinity. This religion holds the highest status, and the state has, over the centuries, sponsored many temples and monasteries. It emphasises attaining perfection and immortality through meditation, diet, breathing, and lifestyle practices, but its followers are often very practical. Spare people (the widows and widowers of the powerful, their children who could not be married off or did not want marriage, concubines of the dead) often ended up in their monasteries, whatever their actual faith.

The Path of the Circle is a faith more recently introduced from neighbouring Kina. It holds the lowest status, and does not argue that the Emperor is divine – in fact, it does not have any gods as central figures, and its monks often practice totemic magic. Since it was introduced, Kina has been invaded and influenced by the Elementalists, and now the Path of the Circle is largely an Anhian religion, with native Anhian practices and pilgrimage sites. This is the faith most commonly followed by those not at court or part of the ruling class. The Path of the Circle emphasises charity, self-control and abstinence (its clerics eat no solid food after noon), and rebirth. Large monasteries of the Path of the Circle are common, own and work a lot of land, and do a lot of charitable work among the people.

These faiths are rarely held to be mutually exclusive. Many of the court (including the Emperors) follow both the Path of Worth and the Path of the Circle, endowing monasteries of both faiths. A blip in this occurred some fifty years ago, when the Emperor Tiath decreed that the Path of the Circle should be suppressed and confiscated a lot of land and property, but this lasted less than a year and is generally held to have been a less than virtuous money-making scheme. The rest of the Anhians tend to follow the Path of the Circle with a nod towards the Path of Worth.

As well as the three faiths, there are several cults followed by those of all religions. The Ancestor Cult is so ingrained in society that a child or grandchild can be put to death for failing to provide a sufficient funeral, and visiting family graves to honour them is a widespread necessity. Each family honours its own ancestors only, and only for up to three generations. Money and goods are burned with bodies at funerals, and the descendants continue to make sacrifices for the first ten months after death, to speed the passage of the deceased through the Courts of the Ten Judges.

The Cult of Foxes is a belief of fear and tantalising danger. Foxes are considered demonic spirits with the ability to cross over into the human realm. They often haunt human habitations (especially remote ones), and the inhabitants will give sacrifices of food. Sometimes humans will try to strike bargains with the spirits, but this rarely ends well. Occasionally, people will do good things for the spirits unknowingly, including having love affairs, and be rewarded.

# Trade

Outwith the cities, the economy begins with the farmers. Although all the official markets are held in the cities, farmers need markets close by, so unofficial markets arose long ago. They soon became regular events, and sometimes settlements grew up around them, the birth of many a village and town. Along the major roads, travellers’ inns became popular places to hold markets, as they were convenient to get to. The regularisation of the unofficial markets allowed them to be taxed, usually by local landowners contracted by the government. Many a governor and landowner has become rich on these taxes, and nowadays they use that wealth to maintain private armies. Some are used to keep the peace, but some are used to rebel. The land throughout the Empire is much more dangerous than it was before the first rebellion, and it seems to be getting worse.

A network of canals links the country together, allowing merchants and other travellers to carry large volumes of goods, bringing great prosperity to the commercial cities. Even this network is less in the north, as the soil slides down from the deforested mountainsides to silt up the canals. The roads, too, favour the south, as the land there is flatter and there are more trees. In the mountains of the north, hanging galleries must carry roads along cliffs, but there is no longer enough wood. Bridges also suffer, as they are traditionally made of wood rather than stone, and tradition is important in Anhia. Especially in the north.

Salt is a huge part of the economy. The most powerful financiers in the Empire hold the post which started as Imperial Salt and Iron Commissioner, and their juniors spread far and wide as business managers to landowners and merchants. By now, business manager is a well-paid and highly skilled post.

Scarcity of copper for coins, and the sheer weight of them, has led to the development of paper money. This is also often burnt in large amounts at funerals, in payment to the first of the Ten Judges.

Merchants come in several flavours. There are those who stay at home in the cities, buy and sell goods, and hire ships to trade overseas (there are no Anhian merchant ships, and the country does not have a navy), and there are the travellers who trade within the Empire. Those that travel by land are fairly similar to other well-off Anhians, but those that live on their boats and travel by water are a different story, with their own traditions, faiths, and superstitions. The Herri people of Nevicia have been known to join with them.

# Junivis

Junivis are mostly very low-born, sold into servitude as young children as a way of escaping starvation, or captured as infants during raids and sold to the Anhians. Parents who cannot afford to keep them give them to the Junivi mages, and they are put through a ritual which enters them into servitude. Whilst most of the ritual is secret, known only to those who perform it, a few things are public knowledge. The most important is that junivis cannot bear or father children, and thus their loyalties are not to the families they do not recall and will never create. It seems that the ritual also gives the mages some idea of the babies’ aptitudes, because as soon as they have officially become junivis they are sorted into groups. By far the largest group is those that enter base servitude, performing the lowest and most menial duties in households that can afford to buy them, but others are educated and take positions as advisors in finance, commerce, and military matters. Intelligent and skilled junivis are highly prized as they are supposedly impartial or devoted to their masters. Mistreatment of menial junivis is not uncommon, but is looked on as being beneath a truly cultured person.

Because junivis are supposedly impartial, devoted only to their masters, the educated ones often end up in positions of trust. Looking after Imperial children has given many a junivi a position of power, and once they have the ear of the Emperor, they can use it to recommend other junivis of talent to them. Over time, this led to junivis practically controlling the positions of power within the empire. After the junivi Fala Ki was put in control of the army that quashed the second rebellion, the main part of the court’s army was always led by a junivi. As the way to be appointed as an official if you were not born highly enough to be educated for the examination was advancement through the ranks of the court army, by fifty years ago the junivis were in control of the appointments of a large proportion of the officials in the empire. Eventually, they began to take a major part in the appointment of a new Emperor (which was theoretically done by merit within the imperial family). After this, Emperors began coming to power as untried youths and frequently abdicated whilst still young, after a reign of closely following the advice of their junivis. Though their power in the Empire at large has waned now that the court army has mutinied and defected to the provincial governors, they still seem to hold sway over the young Emperor.

# The North

The capital city of Theria sits in the northern plain, connected by canal to the southern half of the country. The country’s second city, the spiritual capital of Goalos, is also in the north. Both of these cities have been burned to the ground recently, Goalos fifty years ago and Theria fifteen.

The desolation of the northern plains came about in several ways. Most practically, too many people tried to build and grow too much on soil that was already poor. Then the court, in an effort to stop foreign invasions, allowed the military governors too much autonomy so that many rebellions took place. After the first rebellion a hundred and fifty years ago, much of the north was under the control of governors who, whilst professing loyalty to the Empire, very much went their own way, paying nominal taxes to the state. Nomads from Cier to the northwest had also invaded, and for a time held the most productive lands of the north. Although Cier dissolved into civil war fifty years ago, the legacy of wastage of the plains of the north is still evident. Vengeful ghosts prevent much progress, even magical, from being made to repair the damage.

The vengeful ghosts are made up of many spirits - those who died with no descendants to honour them, those who died in war (soldiers and non-combatants), demonic fox-spirits, those who starved to death as the soil slipped into the canals and flowed away. Monasteries of the Paths often try to placate them, particularly the Path of Worth. Living people may be married to the spirits of someone childless, so that children born to them or their concubines will officially be the children of the spirit and can honour it. This rarely ends well, and often leads to the childless death of the living spouse and another vengeful spirit created.

Some spirits can be laid to rest by fulfilling their unfinished tasks. Some have been destroyed in battle, though they are not an easy foe. Bizarrely, some can be paid off - though some will be insulted by the offer. Sometimes, the faithful of the Circle can persuade them to go on and be reborn. There are a number of hardy travelling priests who make it their lives’ work to make the ghosts move on, for their own good as well as that of the living.

The northern mountains are a different slant on the same story. Less fertile and more vulnerable to begin with, they were inhabited by nomads settled on the land after their defeat by one of the states that became Anhia, and overseen by military governors from the very beginning. There are fewer ghosts here, but little comfort outside the provincial capitals.

# The South

The south is a land of specialisation. Although the land is fertile in the Doal river basin, subsistence food (rice) is grown in only a few provinces - as they are so fertile, they have sufficient surplus to export that the rest of the fertile land can be devoted to cash crops such as tea, sugar, silk, and fruit. There is one prefecture that grows almost nothing but lychees. The south also supplies the north with rice and other necessities and luxuries.

Peasant farmers are not so downtrodden as they once were, though the level of inequality between them and the provincial governors, or even the middling merchant class, is still startling. The tax system is now (since the first rebellion) based on wealth rather than per adult head. The increase in banditry hits the peasants harder than anyone else, and their protections vary wildly with the strength of the governor or landowner who claims the land they farm.

Tea is a very important crop culturally. Used by the monks and devotees of the Path of the Circle in their ceremonies, it has become almost a substance of veneration in its own right. Teas are used medically, ceremonially, and socially. There is serious competition amongst everyone to do with tea growing, from the landlords down to the peasants, as to whose is the best. The monks themselves grow many very superior types. Sugar is also used in their ceremonies (it helps keep them alert during the times when they are allowed to eat no solids), but it does not have the cultural cachet of tea. Tea competition has been known to lead to theft, murder, and kidnap.

Wheat is also a status crop – rather than a subsistence food, bread and pastry are delicacies.

# Cities

Anhian cities come in three varieties. There are the besieged cities of the north, along the Caolan River, which are still emulating the glory days of the court. Though officially these are the most important, in the past two centuries they have become a backwater. Then there are the cities of the South, along the Doal River, which are vibrant, prosperous, trading cities. As they are accessible by canal and river from the sea, they are full of merchants and crafters, with rich areas and also slums, pleasure quarters and also temples, open gardens and claustrophobic warrens. The last type of city is that not accessible by water, but with good road access and fertile soil. These days, the landbound cities are rich and prosperous but a little less flamboyant than the more accessible ones.

The three sorts of cities do have much in common. They are all built on a grid pattern, with strictly demarcated districts, large official markets, and very wide streets lined with shade trees between the districts. Temples of the Path of Worth and the Path of the Circle are frequent, with most districts having at least one, and most cities having at least one district that is entirely devoted to a temple and monastery of one of the Paths. Roads within the districts are less structures, though each has two main roads quartering it.

The pleasure districts are licenced, taxed and regulated. They became so official as a result of the examination system - numerous rich young people away from home unsupervised for the first time, studying and writing but also socialising. This socialising was not frowned upon; the candidates were looking for patrons, and the examiners also took samples of their writings in advance of the exams. Indeed, it was considered good practice for the examiners to know the candidates and take into account their characters when grading their papers. But as well as ingratiating themselves, they wanted to relax and enjoy themselves. Whilst the pleasure quarters were initially all about sex, gradually the emphasis on gracious hospitality grew, and banquets in the pleasure district were commonplace. Though the hosts and hostesses remained prostitutes, they were rewarded for being cultured. In the present, it is not just examination candidates that use them. In a nation where poetry is more than an art form, but a necessity of daily social intercourse, career poets frequent the brothels, and the courtesans are also poets. But at base, they are still people sold for sex, who have to give their madams money if they want a day off. The best they can realistically hope for is to captivate a rich patron sufficiently to be bought as a concubine. Although some few prostitutes eventually become spouses, with the attendant status, most live and die in the pleasure quarters. Their children are rarely acknowledged by their patron parent, and many of those children end up as junivis.

Foreigners in the cities are common - merchants and envoys from many countries. Although few envoys now go to the court, many travel to the provincial capitals, where the governors host them as though they were independent rulers - even in disarray, the culture of Anhia is held in high regard, and the crafters in silk and pottery are unequalled. Whole districts of the southern cities are given over to foreigners, and in the trade capital Yoarn the foreign quarter has even spilled out beyond the walls. Yoarn sits where the biggest of the canals joins the Doal river, and is the main hub of the southern road network.

# Magic

Exorcists and necromancers are held in high regard by the people, but not at court. They are likely to be priests spending their lives travelling the northern plains.

There are few elementalists in the open, and they are viewed with suspicion. They have little virtue within the Three Paths and are singled out by the vengeful ghosts if they should travel to the northern plains. The Anhians also consider the Elementalist Armies to be barbarians, and so even home-grown elementalists, well-versed in Anhian culture, are seen as somewhat barbaric. Many a marginal village, on the border of the fertile land, owes its current prosperity and good harvests to a water elementalist practicing in secret.

# People

Significant people in the present day should include the Emperor, Huogo. He is a young man in his early teens, idealistic and sure that the court will regain its former power. His plans to achieve this, however, are somewhat vague, and at the moment he accepts the ‘advice’ of Loenau, the military governor who currently has troops situated around Thena.

Loenau is a typical example of the military governors who hold real power. He is not from an Anhian family ultimately, but from one of the nomadic tribes settled in the north long ago as a barrier against the barbarians who sometimes attacked. Whilst he follows the Path of the Circle, and makes sure his ancestors are properly honoured, the principles of ‘Kri’ are more important to him. These are the principles of mutual loyalty between soldiers and leaders, devotion unto death with equals, and protection of the lands he considers his. He is competing for control of territory with other military governors. Currently he appears to hold the most, but that situation changes rapidly.

The closest of Huogo’s advisors, however, can see the writing on the wall. The most senior junivi, Ullor, has (illegally) adopted a child in one of the southern landlocked cities, and has managed to funnel wealth to her. He stays with the Emperor, who he has tutored since a small child, out of personal loyalty, but has made plans for if and when the court is finally crushed. Similar plans have been made by others in the recent past, many of whom have already slipped away to their new lives. Scholars and bureaucrats still remaining include Reboa, Scalau, Tanir, and Gatreau. Others at court include the rest of the Imperial family, almost all under age or only distantly related.

The Salt and Iron commissioner Pona is possibly the wealthiest person in Anhia. Though this role started as a court appointed one (and stayed that way long after the governors began appointing their own heirs), it is now held firmly in one family. Although Pona does not rule the South, or even the trade capital where she lives, nothing mercantile happens without her knowledge, and very little without her approval. In person she is unassuming. Though she dresses in the finest silks, the colours she chooses are muted. She is attended by both junivis and free servants, and seems to be a kindly master. Her apprentices look up to her with respect, and those who have graduated from apprenticeship and moved into business on their own still provide her with information as well as advice.

The spokesman for the river merchants is Doanon. He lives on a trading barge, well-appointed but seemingly not more so than many others. He is always gaudily dressed in bright robes. It is whispered that his boat always sails on smooth waters, and the wind is always in his favour. He trades in the small and expensive – gems, silks, precious metals, and exotica like glass sculpture from Nevicia. He seems to have a family connection to at least half the river merchants in Anhia – even including some of the few Herri. As one of the few river merchants who will ever leave their barges to meet governors and crafters, he is unchallenged as representing their views. And indeed, any city or regional law regarding the river merchants does seem to be sweeter for them since he began to speak for them.

# History

The current ruling family reunited the country four hundred years ago, taking the prestigious city of Thena for their capital. This city had been recently rebuilt along the principles of the Path of Worth, and remains the capital to this day, in spite of the progressive desolation of the countryside surrounding it and the fact that it was burned to the ground by rebels fifteen years ago. As soon as the rebels left the city, the Emperor and his remaining loyal junivis, scholars, and bureaucrats returned from the western city they had fled to, and now live in a city ringed by vengeful ghosts, demonic fox spirits, and bandit armies. Stripped of power and answering to whatever rebel general currently claims the city, the court seems to be bright with despair.

In the first days of the reunited empire, everything was micromanaged to the last degree. Those in positions of power, from generals to provincial governors, were moved around regularly to prevent them from forming too much of a bond with their subordinates. Most of the local knowledge was held by local people, each with responsibility for a very small area. These people were of very low rank, and could not make decisions, but without them the next rank up could not function. The higher ranks looked on a provincial governorship, despite the financial benefits, as a kind of exile and their ambition would be to secure a permanent place at court.

The Emperor Kire, initially a strong ruler, became less effective in later life. A favoured concubine, Hren, took much of his attention, and he began to give positions in the court to her relatives. His most trusted advisor, aiming to bolster support for his regime, allowed some of the governors they were sure were loyal to remain in their posts indefinitely. Military governors in the northern border regions, who were often not of Anhian ancestry, were also permitted to stay in place. However, these military governors were loyal to the advisor, rather to the court. When this advisor died, one of the relatives of Hren, Hrale, was appointed in their place. The most powerful of the military governors (Fa Dason) took exception to the replacement of a strong and fair advisor with a sycophant. They and their troops, loyal to them through their many years in command, rebelled. Quelling the rebellion took many years, a change in governmental style to encourage loyalty in the south, and some ruthless rulers.

After the first rebellion, military governors were set up over the whole country rather than just in the north (where they had long been placed as defence against invasion). This rewarded the loyal southern governors, allowing them to have armies of their own as well as hosting the divisions of the state ones, but set the state up for its downfall by allowing these provincial governors to become ever more powerful. Despite many attempts to quell their autonomy, some very successful, by the present day the governors hold all the power, ruling their provinces as kings do. The court no longer even has its own army.

For a lot of the common people, and many merchants, there is no difference. They pay the same taxes, grow the same foods, attend the same fairs, and follow the same faiths. Even the canals are still maintained - it is merely that the taxes all go to the governors rather than some to the state - as the governors want to remain prosperous.

## Bibliography

Lewis, Mark Edward. *China’s Cosmopolitan Empire*, Harvard University Press, 2009