Nuisong

The **Nuisong** is a country in southern Pyrisia. Its demonym is Nuisongese.

Its capital is the city of Rongtranh. Its population is primarily made up of Qilins.

## History

### Rice kingdoms

Nuisong was created from the unification of rice farming kingdoms.

As Qilinia's population grew larger and more urbanized and its need for food increased, it invaded and conquered Nuisong and installed a puppet Qilinian-style government.

### Equestrian war

During the Equestrian-Qilinian war, Rongtranh was occupied by Equestrian forces, which toppled the reigning dynasty and installed a provisional military government.

This government, however, struggled to extend its rule to the rest of the country. The mostly rural population of Nuisong arranged itself into militias which knew their local areas well and could easily hide in the thick forests or among the population of towns, defeating any advances into the countryside.

With the area around the capital firmly under enemy control, occupied Rongtranh found itself lacking food and without supply lines, leading to the collapse of the military government and leaving the country in control of the militias.

### Civil war

In the absence of a central government, the militias coalesced into factions, each seeking to build the country followed their own ideals.

The capital region hosted loyalist factions which advocated for restoring imperial rule. These factions differed in ideology, with some advocating for an autocratic enlightened rule like the one that existed prior to the war and some advocating for a democratic system with a figurehead monarch as the head of state. In spite of their ideological differences, these groups mostly worked together and they would eventually become known as the restorationists.

Meanwhile, in regions with an agrarian economy, the ideologies focused more on the working class, advocating for land redistribution, the development of infrastructure and the creation of an extensive welfare system. These factions later became known as the agrarianists.

This lead to a grinding civil war where the agrarianist and reformist factions clashed for control of the country. Most of the battles were between the agrarianist and reformist factions, specially towards the end of the war, but fights within the larger factions were common as well.

Although the restorationists initially controlled the capital, their control weakened as time passed. The restorationists allied with an emerging commercialist faction which was growing in the port cities whose wealth came from trade, but this alliance only stalled the ultimate victory of the agrarianists, who eventually crushed the last pockets of resistance and unified the country.

## Economy

Nuisong's economy is mostly agricultural, which stands in contrast to Qilinia's more industrial economy.

Rice, the Nuisongese staple food, makes up most of the crops and Nuisong maintains an extensive infrastructure system that harnesses the water flow of its many rivers during the wet season to flood its rice fields. These controlled floods extend over a large area, covering the fields in shallow water which kills the undesired weeds while allowing rice to thrive.

The many canals of these systems also serve as transport networks, letting goods be moved around in barges.

Massive reservoirs store the water and gates are opened and closed to different degrees to control the water level, keeping the canals and fields from overflowing or drying out. At the height of the dry season, canals are one by one allowed to dry to perform maintenance labors.

## Culture

### Performances

During the wet season, the water flow in the canal system is used to create water puppetry performances, with puppets made of lacquered wood which float on the water and are moved around with telekinetic magic by the puppeteers.

### Religion

In Nuisongese religion, water is believed to be sacred. Labors of canal maintenance and the operation of gates are performed by priest engineers, which use their observations of nature to predict the weather and how it will influence the status of the reservoirs and act accordingly.

## Politics

After the victory of agrarianism in the war and the establishment of a government espousing that ideology, a new ideological split has appeared in the government between the agrarianists, who want to lean into Nuisong's agricultural power, and the industrialists, who seek to develop its economy industrially.