The Manonash
Update Three: War & Peace
In Trys, Myoi Mli prepared for war as did Ataricn Mtoric of Gedmeria, and their plans were carefully laid. But like so many plans, these were made as if they were the only two nations in the world and when the unanticipated happened, neither was quite ready. The Harum plans for war were less organized, but bold.
Josim, aide to Yucai, the young heir of King Coan of Harum watched his lord from a respectful distance as they returned to the battlefield the 5 days after the great battle. It was the summer of the year 301 and Yucai’s part in the campaign against the Trys was to invade and capture the eastern lands of the Trys. With his army of 500 archers, 250 swordsmen and 100 horsemen he had done so. The border had been lightly guarded and by Midsummer’s Eve Yucai’s army was deep inside Trys. They had not been expected. In fact the advance had been so easy that each day Yucai put off securing his success with encampments and forts and chose to add to his territory. With each day’s advance the glory of his return grew also. Josim watched and saw the pride in Yucai, and like him, Josim could almost feel the glow of the king’s pleasure. Once past the heavily wooded frontier the trees gave way to more and more farmland and it was not until they was 120 miles from their homeland they finally came face-to-face with the Trys. The Trys were camped on a low hill and clearly ready to fight. Josim was confident that it was here that Yucai would earn his fame.
When the Myoi Mli of Trys heard that the Huram had crossed his Eastern border in force, he was dismayed. He was unprepared; his plans had called for Trys to strike the first blow against the Harum and to put them in their place before they got too ambitious. He had underestimated their initiative. Since his son, Myoinam Sous, was already assembling an army and he would be dispatched, forthwith, to the East as soon as the new levies were ready to march. By midsummer the Myoinam had placed himself across the line of advance of the Harum invaders and had prepared for his defense, or as he thought of it, the destruction of Harum. 700 levy archers were positioned atop a hill that gave them a bit of an advantage. 300 horsemen and 350 infantry were less obviously placed. He doubted that the extra time the sun’s slowest day provided would be needed.
Josim held the dispatch entrusted to him and he would place it in the hands of the king himself. Fifty feet away Yucai eased his horse as it twitched and snorted with impatience. The heir to Harum surveyed the battlefield before him. In the past five days it had been picked over and the rotting bodies that had not been burned were a feast for crows and foxes. The oak tree over his head provided some noonday shade. Josim knew that the young lord was replaying the battle in his mind. The plan had been simple: his archers flanked his swordsmen for the attack and he held his few horsemen in reserve. Three hours after sunrise the attack was underway. The enemy's first barrage of arrows brought down many of his swordsmen and Yucai stopped his archer’s advance to return fire only to see them mostly fall short, so he rushed them forward again. Two more flights of arrows from the Trys thinned the swordsmen before they could close with an enemy that broke and ran. With shouts of victory his army followed. Beyond the hill a wall of Trys spearmen gave them pause, but as they tried to reform, 300 horsemen charged the left flank archers who panicked and ran. The rest of Yucai’s army soon followed. Hundreds were ridden down; the rest threw their weapons away and ran for any woods large enough to hide in. Yucai and Josim hid in a bog for three days. There was no rally or heroic stand just a fleeing mob running for safety wherever they could find it. The Trys cared for their wounded, slew the rest and moved off to the east in pursuit. Josim was not optimistic about his fate and he watched Yucai. With a quick flash of a dagger Yucai stabbed his horse in the rump sending it in a dash into the harsh sunlight. The heir to Harum was left dangling from a short rope in the shade. When Yucai stopped twitching, Josim turned and began his journey home.
By fall 301 the Harum-Trys war was essentially over. The Myoinam pursued the vanquished army of Yucai into the mountains of western Harum where he was met by the other half of the Harum army. The difficult terrain and determined enemy convinced Myoinam Sous to settle for what he had won. For now the Harum were broken and posed little threat. He secured the border and returned triumphant to the capital.
The Borderlands
By the spring of 306 General Pikyloiman of the Trys and his counterpart General Makacit of Gedmercia had become old friends. For the past four years they had skirmished all across the disputed lands each of their kings claimed title to. After two summers of feint and retreat and feint again, it became obvious to both that the other would not engage in any kind of decisive battle and both were merely marking time. So on a cold winter’s night in late 305 General Makacit and two aides invited themselves into the Trys camp to deliver five kegs of fine Gedmerian wine to the leader of the Trys. The kegs got them all the way to the door of the Pikyloiman’s winter headquarters where further progress was barred until he revealed exactly who he was. Frank talk and warm wine made fast friends of the two generals who parted late the following afternoon. Their visits were frequent all winter and by spring they marched and counter marched with renewed vigor, but fewer casualties all around. They knew that the war would be decided elsewhere and perhaps they might meet under different circumstances, but for now they would posture like the best of enemies. Farms were burned and villages pillaged and conquest of these disputed lands frequently teetered on a knife edge, only to be saved by valiant and heroic action. The real war would be fought 400 miles to the south.
The phony war ended in the summer of 307 when 800 infantry and 200 horsemen left the Gedmerian capital and marched west. Word of the maneuver reached Trys by fast horse and quickly another message headed east. About the time Ataricn Mtoric turned his army south and sent its commander General Solim to strike the heart of the Trys, Trys General Desfnam launched his flotilla north on the currents of the River Seracon. The 250 mile trip down river would take several weeks.
And time passes...
General Desfnam counted his troops as they finally crossed back into Trys lands. Of course they were only estimates given he had had little actual control over his men for the last several weeks. 275 levies out of 1,000; 110 infantry out of 200 and zero of his 50 mounted troops. Not many. He recalled the first week of his trip down the river and how he swore he would never set foot off land again. He would renew that oath on the grave of his grnadfather. He had left with 25 boats packed with men and another 25 full of supplies on a grand expedition to attack the Gedmerian capital by surprise from the river. Currents, rocks and other debris played havoc with the boats and keeping them together was a constant struggle. Most of the horses and several boats were lost early in the trip, a few more when they were attacked at night three days north of their target. It only took a few days before for the boats had become fetid with waste and vomit that had not made it over the side. The trip down river was terrible and discouraging.
Their landing was uncontested, but no surprise. Almost 400 enemy troops and 1000 quickly raised levies greeted them. He had not expected to capture the city, but to his surprise he was not able to inflict much damage there either. Once his force had landed and done what damage it could to the surrounding land, his plan had been to retreat south and pillage as he did so. Mostly though, he fought a rear guard action against the ever-pressing enemy. He had destroyed farms and burned villages that were in their path, but by the time they arrived the peasants had already fled with anything of value or use. The Gedmerian pursuit had been relentless and ever present. Many troops were lost to sheer exhaustion and after the halfway point he commanded little more than a mob. He hoped that the other war efforts had had better results. After a day’s rest, he would ride to the capital to report.
The Plains of Trys
As Desfnam burned his boats and prepared to attack the Gedmerian capital, General Solim was entering the heartland of Trys with 800 infantry and 200 horsemen. The diversion skirmishing in the north had not seemed to produce any significant shift in the Trys armies and he hoped that his turn south had gone unnoticed. It was full summer and the crops many weeks yet from harvest. With storehouses at their lowest, burned and trampled crops would make for a hard winter. He destroyed every field he passed and when the battle came he would destroy the Trys too. And the battle did come.
Two weeks later Solim was naked, hog-tied and face down in the dirt. Hot coals and sharp knives had wreaked havoc on his body and the steady intense pain had numbed his brain into a fog. It was dark and his captors were eating a late meal so he anticipated being left alone for at least a few hours. The battle had been a bloody one with no quarter given on either side. His plan had been to use his horsemen to encircle the Trys footmen and break them so his infantry could finish them off. It would have worked too except that his horsemen were outnumbered two to one and quickly driven from the field. His infantry were beaten down by over 700 Trys archers and finished off by almost 600 of their infantry. But the Gedmerians did not break and run. Most died, a few were captured, but they took their weight in enemy lives and Solim was proud of that. He wasn’t sure what his fate would be. It seemed that if he survived their fun and games, he would be caged for slavery or impaled and left along the road for the crows. He prayed for slavery.
The villa on the hill
For Matilda, the early years of the 4th Century marked a change in the history of the Manipur. For the first time detailed records of the kings had been found. The wars of the western regions between Trys, the new kingdom of Harum and Gedmeria were documented in some detail and confirmed by other sources. She reveled in the detail that had been preserved. Even though Trys had not lost its war with Gedmeria, the warlords and noble were not happy and the Myoi and his son were seen as weak. The ambitious and greedy plotted and schemed, each waiting for the right time to step forward and challenge the king for power. And with battle hardened troops on hand, they were ready.
Harum had lost its war on Trys, but as a result King Coan had made efforts to remedy that failure. He improved his weapons and armor and even began to introduce battlefield tactics instead of relying on the mass charge. And to help build ties to his eastern neighbors, he endeavored to build a real road to Striga. More and more such details began to appear in the records of many more nations. When she found them, Matilda was in heaven. Road building seemed to be popular with many kings of that time. She found evidence of it in Gedmeria, Kapo, Striga, and Mernacia. Now these roads were still little more than wide dirt paths, but they did show that these early kings knew the importance of roads for both trade and war. The wars of the west all but ended the use of chariots throughout the world as horse breeding and horsemanship became important. While actual war dominated the west, in the east the nations wrestled with other problems and solutions.
The records for Mernacia were scare and not even the names of its kings were known, but from the excellent records of neighboring Iskan, bits and pieces could be gleaned. The nameless Mernacian king of 309 made improvements to his army and even started a small academy for those in command. He built up the civil bureaucracy and created standards for his selected leaders so that they were more loyal to him and his way of governing. The Iskan writers even hinted that the improvements to the government only came about because an intended road network had collapsed in corruption and confusion and the king realized that he did not have people skilled enough to complete the job. Of course Matilda could not know if those accusations were based on fact or just Iskan looking down on their neighbor.
In Iskan itself, the decade was one of royal intrigue, deception, assassination and rebellion. At the death of the king of Iskan in 301 and the ascension of Prince Hyenreit to the throne, powerful nobles tried to usurp power for themselves. Plot and counter plot ensued year after year. Hyenreit waged war on his nobles and on the disorder their rebellion brought to the countryside and in the end he won. The young king consolidated his power at the expense of the nobles and brought peace to the length and breadth of his nation.
The King of Aabal! Focused on trade and learning. His explorations brought a wealth of knowledge that fueled trade and filled the coffers of his treasury. In Yexal Var Villafuus and his sister Keesalee were not well liked by their people, but they worked hard and brought the nation back from chaos by refilling the empty treasury and focusing the people on the old values of worship and ritual while instilling in them basic education that would serve to improve their lives.
The details of Kapo and Striga were sketchy and few and it appeared that they kept the peace with one another, but did not neglect their armies and readiness for war. It was only Racadonia that broke the peace in the east. And her war was with the remnants of the Toki. In these early years of the century Matilda attributed the ascendency of Racadonia (and Aabal!) to the strong central leadership that brought stability to each nation. Empress Catherine carefully prepared for her war by improving her nation’s shipbuilding (for her attacks along the coast of Toki); developing tactics for fighting in the jungles and driving her blacksmiths to make better weapons. While the land attack had only limited success, the coastal invasion secured all the important objectives. The invasion, though, prompted the strongest of the regions warlords to unite and form a new nation they called Tokipan and it was this united front that slowed and finally stopped the Racadonian advance. None-the-less, both generals, Zharov Ceaser and Kapo Yxii were honored by the Empress for their success. The great theater from the previous century continued to draw crowds and artists enhancing the cultural prestige of the nation all across the eastern nations as it filled the treasury.
And it was only because of Iskan records, Mathilda realized, that she knew that Tokipan was created at that time and along the western coast, the nation of Tradur occupied a sliver of shoreline and was focused on maritime endeavors.
NPC Stats:
Tradur (bright yellow)
Treasury: 2
Army/Navy index: 3.8/3.1
Army: 700-I, 100-M
Navy: 10-W
Tokipan (brown)
Treasury: 1
Army Index: 4.3
Army: 1200-I, 200-M
Navy: 0-W
