“Those who refuse to learn from history are bound to repeat the same mistakes all over again.” - Old folk saying.
“Right, girl, you said your name was… what was it again? Hweil or something?” asked Duke Orsla Banitu after Hua-Li was given a seat and some refreshments in the tent. The old Duke of Kolitschei was not being difficult with her, it was just that at his age his hearing had started to deteriorate and he didn’t catch her name properly. “Tell us about your nation, this so-called Empire of yours. Feel free to include your history too.”
Nestor and Griselda nodded at the old Duke’s question. Some people thought it was silly to learn or ask about the history of the enemy nation they were fighting, but they understood that there were things that could be glimpsed from history. Things like certain habits or predilections tended to stay similar for long periods of time, and could be exploited if one was familiar enough with them.
“My name is Hua-Li, Milord,” corrected Hua-Li politely before she took a sip of the light ale that had been provided to her. The leaders in the tent were aware that talking for a long period was thirsty work, and saw no reason to not allow their source of information to wet her throat while answering their queries. “Since you asked about the Empire… Do I have permission to start from the beginning? From before the time the Empire was an Empire?”
“Please do so,” said Griselda with an interested nod. She was seated beside Nestor that day not only as his wife and Duchess Consort, but also as one of Algenverr’s generals, as the noblewoman had never lost her warlike disposition even after marriage and childbirth. “Feel free to include anything you felt might be relevant, no matter how minor.”
“As you wish,” replied Hua-Li who took another quick drink from her mug before she started her tale. “To begin the story as requested, I will have to relate the time period prior to the Empire’s establishment. We hail from an archipelago around a couple week’s journey by boat away from your lands, and there used to be two powers that reigned over our homeland.”
“There are those like me, who are descendants of the native inhabitants of the islands, who later united and formed a nation we called the Huan Confederacy, and there are those who we assumed were refugees from distant lands who somehow found their way to some of the other islands. Later these people also formed their own nation and called it the Aqwa sultanate.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“I can see where this is going,” noted Nestor with a sagely nod. “Please continue.”
“As Milord guessed, while at first there was no conflict between our two peoples, as our respective populations grew larger and the islands we inhabited became too little for everyone, we started eyeing each other’s territory with greedy eyes,” admitted Hua-Li openly. “This led to a long period of war that lasted several hundred years, with the conflict between us intermittently continuing, only at times staved off by short periods of truce.”
“All that fighting had in a way solved our population problems, since both sides lost a lot of people in the fighting, but after centuries of continuous fighting, none of us were looking for peaceful solutions anymore. At that point the war continued pretty much because neither side wished to relent to the other,” she added. “It was around the final years of the war, which we later called the unification war, that contact with your lands were cut off as well, because some of the leaders were fearful that if your people caught wind of our situation, they might choose to interfere or even attack us while both sides were weakened from the fighting.”
“A little paranoid, but understandable,” commented Duke Banitu.
“In the end, the Aqwa people defeated us Huan, but it was a bitter fight, and in some ways, they did not dare to overly flaunt their victory over us, knowing that it would lead to another war and prolonged bloodshed if they pushed us too far,” Hua-Li continued. “This happened around two centuries ago, and the people decided to rename our nation into that of the Al-Shan Empire at the end of the war. Both of our peoples now lived together, if some wariness and tension towards the other side still remained.”
“Given that you faced issues with overpopulation that was bad enough to lead to war before, I am assuming that the current invasion had similar reasons behind it?” asked Nestor with some curiosity.
“Actually, that is not exactly the case. Our Emperors had been diligent in expanding and developing our nation, exploring and colonizing previously uninhabited islands and regions, so we have our population issue well in hand,” explained Hua-Li with a somewhat demure tone. “The root cause of the current invasion is the succession war we had just a decade ago, when the Emperor died without naming a successor, leading to fighting amongst his children for the throne.”
“Ugh. Those always get ugly,” noted Duke Banitu with a frown on his face.
“It was a rather ugly time, yes, Milord,” agreed Hua-Li with a nod. “That conflict saw all the princes and princesses mobilize their supporters and conscript as many soldiers as they could, and while the fourth prince eventually triumphed in the end, he was faced with a rather unenviable situation. Far too many of the soldiers gathered during the conflict had tasted the benefits of being soldiers and refused to return to civilian life. I am certain you can see where this is going.”
“Ah, so he’s saddled with an army far too large for domestic security purposes that drains the nation’s resources constantly and no way to disband it without causing another potential conflict to erupt. Quite an unenviable situation indeed,” commented Nestor. “Using the army up in an invasion would give them purpose and gain new land for the nation to use, effectively killing two birds with one stone. Clever.”