Mighty Shaka emerged from his hut, his tousled appearance worrying his gathered subjects. “He has been smoking the local fruits again” some mutter. Certainly the leader can see things that the ordinary village finds hard to take. “Go, my scouts! Out into the icy jungle.” He orders. “There you will find gems sparkling beside the rivers, stone aplenty and animals living on the frozen flood-plains”. “Here we will build a mighty Zulu nation, but first, a city in my honour, where we will construct wonders for the world to behold, you see if we don’t”. He then plunged into a deep sleep, but while he snored, the history of our world began…
Two parties of scouts spread out – like the spiral arms of a galaxy they mapped out the land. It was indeed strange. Eventually they both died to animal attacks, but not before we had a good knowledge of our surroundings and had met two of our near neighbours – Wang Kon and Asoka. They were both cautious towards us – even more so when told of Shaka and his strange visions.
“The barbarians will come! He ranted. I know they’re not here now, but they will swarm over us like flies. I decree a mighty wall be built. You can use all of these stones outside my palace” he said – pointing at the rocky outcrops near his hut.
Since the earliest days, our great thinkers (that is, all those who had a good excuse not to toil in the scorching sun for Shaka) had pursued the discoveries of Mining, Bronze Working and Masonry. We thought Shaka would be pleased to hear that Bronze was freely available very close by, and he was, until we started mining outside his kitchen window. So? He loses his view. A small price to pay, in my opinion, and he will change his mind when he sees the mighty Kings Impi Battalions that emerge from the national Ikhanda!
As soon as we had knowledge of Masonry, we began construction of the Great Wall. Before it was half done, to great shouts of “Didn’t I tell you this would happen?!” from our leader, the first barbarian scum began to appear, sniffing around our borders.
With alarming timing, they appear just as our first and only Impi are away on a short trip to see Shaka’s Mountain down to the south! However, the Impi move like lightning through the trees to intercept. The raiders try to run, foolishly. The end is abrupt and bloody.
These games continued for a few cycles, and reached a peak of danger in 2080BC when our two cities (we now had the capital – KingShakaHimGod - and Ulundi to the north by the shores of Lake Cool.) were both menaced and we didn’t have enough Impi to cover all bases. Salvation came in the form of the last stones being lowered into place to complete Mighty Shaka’s Gargantuan Wall! The invaders were repelled as if by magic, and we settled back to watch all of our neighbours suffer at their hands instead.
In the years that followed, we made use of the more spiritual discoveries to construct a fabulous Oracle by 1560BC, that taught us Monarchy (Shaka was delighted) and took us into the Classical Era.
We had met Cyrus, followed by Isabella and Saladin, making 5 that we knew, and Shaka was getting restless. He was often heard muttering things like “Let’s get ready to rumble”. We knew when to stay away from him.
We advised the king that Wang might be a good person to hit first. He was doing well, and could do with being taken down a peg or two. For cultural reasons he would probably never like us. But he surely had bronze and would have good defenders. Shaka had no such qualms. “Go to it, boys!”, he commands.
We commenced preparations for rumbling.
This took a wee while. In the meantime Leonardo da Vinci arrived, single-handedly completing the Pyramids for us. Shaka's home town was beginning to look impressive!
In 600BC we declared war on Wang and his kind! We enter his lands with Impi and Axes, stealing workers and pillaging his lands.
However, the years passed and we hadn’t managed to take P’yongYang, despite it being defended by mainly archers (but what archers! Superbly promoted master archers!)
The next great engineer – Sinan – arrived to drag our technology forward. We headed for Construction, as the King had ordered that we fling things forcibly at the northern scum.
As this early history of the Zulu nation draws to a close – in 500AD – we were pelting P’yongYang with catapults in a war that had lasted nearly a millennium but had still not made any real headway. Hardly what lord Shaka had in mind!
Still, we are the finest nation on Earth, by whatever measure you might choose, and better fighting men are on their way. Zulu will emerge triumphant, or Shaka will be very upset…
