Shangqing Tianguo

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Revision as of 16:16, 4 October 2010

丄清天国
Shangqing Tianguo
The Pure Kingdom Upon the Heavens

Flag of the Shangqing Tianguo
Motto Gong qingguo Cheng tianchou (Solidify our Pure Kingdom, Underneath the aegis of heaven,!)
Anthem March of the believers
Official Language	Chinese
Capital	Xa'an (provisional)
Head of State	Great Teacher Zhang Tianran
Head of government	Sun Sunzhen
Establishment   - Shixaan Heavenly revolution	18 December 1924
Government	Theocratic state
Currency	Yuan (de facto)
Population	Unknown (The cult grows in numbers every day)

The Shangqing Tianguo is a state in central China. It borders the Qing Empire in the north and east, Allgemeine Ostasiatische Gesellschaft to the southeast, the Yunnan Clique to the south and the Xibei San Ma warlords' demesne in the west.

History

The Shangqing Tianguo (english: The Pure Kingdom Upon the Heavens) is a theocratic revolutionary state founded by Zhang Tianran and his religious movement I-Kuan Tao (english: The Path of Consistence), it is also considered the "spiritual successor" of the Taiping Tianguo, the failed rebellion attempt against the Qing Empire in the 1850s-60s. The State is controlled by the Great Teacher, position held the founder of the I-Kuan Tao, and his second-in-command woman and wife, Sun Sunzhen. The I-Kuan Tao combines Taoist, Confucianist and Buddhist concepts and philosophy with western religion's, specially Christianism and Islam, and like the latter two, is monotheistic.

This state was founded following the period of fights and warlordism in which China plunged into in the mid-20s when the people saw the none of the competing warlord was worthy of holding the mandate of heaven. Moved by Lu Zhongyi and his charismatic speeches about a united China ruled only by Chinese people, a powerful middle kingdom, a Kingdom over the heavens, these people rallied to his cause, and over a couple of years, his little cult grew to a powerful faction to be considered, with special strength in the mountains of central China, in the Shaanxi province. In 1924, they successfully revolted against the government, seizing the Shaanxi province, implemented a theocratic, but benevolent, government and compared to the current government, liberal and with a modern bureaucracy under the leadership of Lu Zhongyi.

Lu died in 1925 but his replacer had already been chosen: the new "Great Teacher" was Zhang Tianran. Zhang wanted to make the newly formed nation a modern nation and then proceed to to industrialize the province and founded an army which he named Millenarian Movement Army and entitled Fang Zhimin, a known military commander and faithful follower of the I-Kuan Tao, as Commander of the great armies of heaven, who proceed to heavily fortify the province, successfully resisting the attacks of the German armies. Now, in 1936, after gathering a great army and followers and industrializing and modernizing his state, Zhang Tianran is ready to declare a "Heavenly Crusade", to expel the foreign, the corrupt and the impure from the Middle Kingdom. Will this campaign be successful, will China really be the Empire on top of the heaven that he proclaims? Or will he fade on the shadows of history, as another failed revolutionary?

Government

The power is distributed in a three scales pyramidal, but dynamic, style. First there's the Great Teacher, who holds the ultimate decision on all what goes on in the country. Then there are the different bureaus, of industry, of agriculture, etc. who hold monthly reunions with a council of citizens randomly elected every month, as the government is populist it always needs to hear the will of the people. And then there's the citizens, who also have, in theory, power to control everything that goes on on the country, exposing what needs to be changed, or if taxes are to be lowered to the different bureaus.

The only thing that the government demands in exchange is complete loyalty to the country and to the I-kuan Tao. This means, that in time of war, every men and women must be enlisted onto the army (normally, they do so zealously). Men and women are respected equal, and unlike the repressive Qing government, military men can wear the hair as they like and not the traditional Manchu hairstyle.

Military

Officially the "Heavenly Host of the Pure Kingdom" (In Chinese: Qingguo Tianjun), more commonly known as Millenarian Movement Army, is as of 1936, a rudimentary and outdated, but zealous and determined in their goals, army. Composed only of a few professional soldiers, the rest are poorly armed, but courageous militias that will fight to the end for their Great Teacher. At the moment, the Shanqing Tianguo has not enough resources to build or buy planes, and is a landlocked country, therefore it has neither navy or air force.

Fang Zhimin, a well known hero of the 1924 revolution and a great strategic mind, is Commander of the great hosts of heaven, that is equivalent to a Supreme Commander of the army and of the land forces in a Western army. There's little information on who are the Supreme commanders of air and sea.