Lwang Lit

Long Lêt
Native name	桐摕
Born	(1745-01-03)January 3, 1745
Died	October 2, 1807(1807-10-02) (aged 62) Prjin Prefecture
Allegiance	Themiclesia
Service	Themiclesian Marines
Active	1764 – 1793
Rank	general
Unit	3rd Battalion, 14th Regiment West Expedition Army
Battles/wars	First Maverican War Second Maverican War
Awards	Order of Authors (1955, posthumous)

Long Lêt (Shinasthana: 桐摕; Jan. 3, 1745 – Oct. 2, 1807) was a Themiclesian military officer who led the first phase of the Camian Campaign in the Maverican Wars.

Early life

Little is known for sure about Long's early life, except that he came from a family of modest means living in Prjin Prefecture. His parents were peasants working on tenanted land. That he was not heir to his family's tenancy may explain his choice of a military career, which was one of several options for ambitious commoners who had no access to education or social connection. It appears he was somewhat literate and numerate when he enlisted in the military in 1761. Though it is unclear where he acquired these skills, they have certainly contributed to his preference in appointments and promotions.

Long was involved in the First Maverican War in his youth, participating in the Great Firefight against the Colonial Army. It is understood that he led the Marines' charge in 1768 and held opposing forces at bay for over an hour, at a numerical disadvantage, which enabled the fleet to revictual amidst a famine in Norfeld. His bravery in the charge greatly impressed the admiral in charge of the operation that he was made an officer. However, the affair was ultimately a civil war, so the Admiralty was unable to promote him further without inviting the ire of the Finance Secretary, which was in charge of both the Navy and the Colonial Army. The two were then entangled in a factional conflict over control of various strategic positions, though escalation into violence such as in 1768 was rare.

In 1785 – 90, Long commanded a 400-man unit that was stationed in modern-day Solevent. Attacked by the Sieuxerrians, Long led his men to at least two victories at the cost of one defeat. During the Raid on Rad, he and his unit were stationed in southern Themiclesia and somewhat fortuitously avoided the disastrous defeat by the Tyrannians, for which at least 100 officers were dismissed. After the Camians deployed to Norfeld to expel the Themiclesian forces and their colonies there, the Foreign Secretary Lord L′i (鷈君) planned to start a new front on Camian soil to divert their resources from the Maverican front. The Admiralty, greatly impressed with Long's dedication and vigour, recommended him to lead the campaign above officers senior to him. Lacking an alternative, the Government appointed him the General of the West in Nov. 1791, with six regiments of marines assigned to him.

Camian Campaign

The Royal Counsel Rjem (御史林) was appointed as tribune-invigilator (監軍), charged with monitoring the general's activities and suppressing disobedience and crime amongst the troops. The two proved a poor combination from the outset of the campaign. Rjem looked down upon Long due to his humble origins, while Long was not accustomed to the presence of a supervisor who, though unable to override him, had access to all his papers and conversations. Long then offended Rjem further by asking him to be quiet when discussing his battle plans with his officers. While Long was not bound to consider Rjem's opinions, invigilators were respected by most generals and permitted to speak freely. However, Long loathed to appear anything short of dominant to his subordinates, some of whom were technically more senior than he was.

Rjem allegedly told Long that if his views were not considered, "only defeat after defeat will befall you." Some early progress convinced Long that Rjem was bluffing, but starting from Apr. 1792, the Themiclesian forces suffered three consecutive setbacks and several nighttime assaults. Long later claimed that Rjem muttered, "I will make sure of it," though this remains unsubstantiated. Long began suspecting Rjem passed his plans to the Camians, who otherwise were able to offer little resistance to trained Themiclesian soldiers. A series of observations and a captured Camian spy convinced Long and his inner circle of this suspicion, but his officers dissuaded him from telling the troops as much, for fear of upsetting their morale. Instead, he reported Rjem to the Government, with statements by other officers corroborating. However, the Government ignored his report, citing the fact that many of these officers previously said that the fleet was adequately defended when it was not.

Without a response, Long resorted to intimidation to prevent Rjem's actions. He asked for Rjem's permission to execute the spy, which he secretly hoped Rjem will refuse and thus demonstrate the dubiousness of his recent conduct to both the Government and his men, but Rjem gave his permission easily. He then ordered the spy whipped and horribly tortured before Rjem's tent. Rjem retaliated by inviting Long's subordinates for meals but not himself, telling them that he felt rather bored that Long was not planning anything. On his birthday, Rjem gave all officers, including Long, a small silver ring but a captain related to his father-in-law a large gold ring. Long told Rjem he ought not play favourites in an army owned by the Admiralty; however, Rjem then questioned Long's own legal intuition when he decided to lead the charge against the Colonial Army in 1768. This was effectively a threat to prosecute him for rebelling against Themiclesia, for which superiors' orders was not an admissible defence.

This impassé continued for several months, until the Government became impatient with the lack of progress and dismissed Long in favour of the Lord of L′jin in late 1792. L′jin arrived in early 1793 to a somewhat ambivalent reception by Long. He knew that L′jin was also a Royal Counsel by origin, which he hoped would moderate relations with the Rjem; on the other hand, he was also hesitant to inform L′jin of his findings, uncertain about how L′jin regarded him and the trustworthiness of his information. However, L′jin was courteous and asked about the theatre in great detail, which inspired Long to declare that the campaign was saved from failure. Ultimately, Long did not inform L′jin about the invigilator, fearful that Rjem might become more secretive and elude L′jin. He set sail on Feb. 5, 1793 and shouted to L′jin from the deck, "general, keep your eyes open, for everywhere here there exists hostility."

Later life

After his dismissal, he returned to Themiclesia and visited the admirals, to whom he confessed that he had let them down. Reportedly, they were neither happy nor sad. He resigned his existing commission with the Admiralty and returned Prjin Prefecture with his savings, with which he bought land and settled his family. He died in 1807 of an unrecorded illness.

In the days before his death, he muttered:

Scarlet sash, scarlet sash, tied over white linen / golden seal, golden seal, dangling on a marred body

The poem characterized him as a commoner, with a body that grew up marred by physical toil and clothed in plain linen, who has achieved what were then the preserve of the aristocracy, a scarlet sash and golden seal. The scarlet sash was second in dignity only to the green sash, worn by the prime minister himself, while the golden seal was granted to peers only.

State funeral debate

His death, per customs to recognize inviduals of dignity newly passed, was reported to the royal court only a few days since. The chief admiral, Lord Kaw, asked for a funeral held at the Court Hall for him, an honour reserved for peers and bureaucrats achieving the high rank of 2,000 bushels. The admirals reasoned with the Commerce Secretary that Long had led a successful campaign against the Sieuxerrians in 1791 and was more successful than any of his three successors in the Camian campaign. The Commerce Secretary was dubious, since Long's achievements were neither extant nor an object of glamour in the political environment.

Nevertheless, the matter was raised the government of the Lord of Gar-lang. Gar-lang detested the idea of using an aristocratic honour to commemorate a commoner who applied himself to military success, which Gar-lang wished to discredit; thus, he sent the case before the Board of Royal Counsels to find out whether state funerals could legally be granted to commoners. It should be noted that Long was instrumental in the later execution of Royal Counsel Rjem, who was a member of that very board. The Board, however, decided that "there is no precedent of a state funeral accorded to common individuals," indicating that the admirals' proposition, though unprecedented, was lawful.

Gar-lang thus approached Emperor ′Ei with the idea that he would be sitting opposite Long's peasant son, during the funerary rites, and hold hands with him afterwards, in the pulling of the sarcophagus from the court hall. ′Ei was originally sympathetic to Long's condition, believing that he had done more than what could be required from a man without any family background, but apparently Gar-lang's projections were too much for ′Ei to bear, and he asked the Govenrment to think over the matter again, which was an euphemism for disapproval. Gar-lang then gave ′Ei a list of objects he could grant, at public expense, to Long's family as a demonstration of his affection, and this ′Ei gladly accepted.

When the admirals learned that Gar-lang had personally intervened against their proposal, a delegation of two admirals came to meet him. They contended that of the seven generals appointed at that time, five had already died and also received state funerals; these generals, according to the two admirals, were not any more successful than Long. Gar-lang then explained, at uncharacteristially great detail, why state funerals, held at public expense, occur:

The purpose of state funerals is to connect a successor to his predecessor in a public space and ceremony shared by the crown, the peers, and the rest of the aristocracy, so that everyone may know and witness that a deceased man's history, honour, and glory has passed to his inheritor. Long, though holding the high honour of a scarlet sash, has no inheritor. Thus, it would be a waste of time and money, in a time of national stringency and reconciliation, to hold a state funeral for him. Other dignities befitting his condition and work will follow.

Many of Long's subordinates found Gar-lang's decision, which was proclaimed in Emperor ′Ei's name, difficult to believe and made representations, but Gar-lang reminded the monarch of the extrordinary royal grace already extended to Long's family and characterized these protests as ungrateful. Lacking a response from the throne, several Marines officers resigned in protest, but Gar-lang, seeking to reduce the size of the armed forces, easily authorized their resignations and even refunded the values of their remaining commissions in cash.

In 1809, the petitions came up again when the royal court ordered a state funeral for the Lord of L'jin, Long's successor in the role of General of the West. Gar-lang said that L'jin, ignoring his military actions, was still to credit for the compilation of the Common Pleading Code, which averted thorny disputes for courts and distress or relief payments and diplomatic missions for the government. L'jin, Gar-lang said, served on the Supreme Court bench for twenty "most unimpeachable" years. The Commerce Secretary, admitting the validity of Gar-lang's assessments, could only say that it would be "challenging to make all the marines appreciate L'jin's achievements, and their affection is a considerable value too in the defence of the realm." Gar-lang then suggested they appreciate instead "the 180,000 auric catties that L'jin's achievements are worth in the Treasury, 180,000 auric catties ever year."

Many modern historians have considered this a poignantly-negative legacy of the Lord of Gar-lang, whose motivations:

are frequently and romatically misrepresented in modern texts, in both popular and academic writing. He had no desire to improve the lot of the common people who suffered decades of excessive taxation, conscription, and other state-imposed obligations. Likewise, he had no intention to cause pain and humiliation to Long Lêt. Long is something of a martyr to the Themiclesian Marines, who allegedly died unrecognized due to political intrigue; conversely, many Themiclesians think the Marines have a bone to pick or an anti-democratic bent. Instead, Gar-lang had one objective—the unity of the aristocracy against the Crown's expensive wars, which was run by a divisive faction of sycophants and opportunists around the emperor. Gar-lang was the man who pulled the life support on the war-machine, and he clearly did not want anyone to remember fondly the war itself, or anyone who supported it, who are his political nemeses. He only cared about the common people inasfar as it was not a destabilizing factor in his administration.  

But other than a sinkhole for taxes collected from aristocrats, Gar-lang also pulled the plug on the ticket to fame and glory for many lower-class Themiclesians of the 17th and 18th centuries. Be that as it may, it was not Gar-lang's opinions on the situation. He saw this ticket to fame and glory as a giant carte blanche stolen from aristocrats' pockets, enabled by the imperialist faction through usurped powers and political rights, usurped from—whom else—the aristocrats. Gar-lang was not, as many imagined, a hater of the empire; however, in his view, the costs to uphold its military dominance was unfairly saddled on metropolitan aristocrats and their entitlements, and its benefits went into the pockets of a select group of aristocrats who sold their souls to the emperor.

Long rose from as close to nothing as possible, and if Themiclesia had been at peace, he would be nobody. He was someone who rushed into the crossfire and used the stock of his musket, plus a bagel, as a makeshift pillow. In 1768, he fought a dodgy battle for the Admiralty, and his fortunes made a turn for the better. In 1791, the imperialist faction at court selected him to general a small force to Camia for his eager and successful leadership against the Sieuxerrians early that year. At the same time, Gar-lang made all the news in the world about the imperialists "abandoning customs," in which certainly is included the old-fashioned aristocratic check on royal power. However unfamiliar Long was with the court, he would have understood that, under Gar-lang, a man like him could never amount to anything and so invested himself heavily with the belligerent imperialist faction and used what he knew best—fighting—to advance their standing.

Given political institutions of his time, Gar-lang could not afford to give any part of the aristocracy the impression that the war was beneficial, but there Long was, a man who benefited in every sense from war. If you asked him to fight again, he might just agree! To Gar-lang, Long was anathema, a most dangerous man that must be wiped from political existence. The admirals, arguing the very point that Gar-lang hated, namely Long successful campaign against the Sieuxerrians that aided the imperialists' position, buried [not intended] the chances for Long's state funeral. The Lord of L'jin, on the other hand, was a role model for Gar-lang's government—resolving disputes and economizing on expenses, was initially hesitant to join the war, and made foreigners less likely to dislike Themiclesia—and so it surprises nobody that he received the state funeral on the nod. This is what endeared him to Gar-lang, above what an aristocrat would, of right, enjoy in the minds of other aristocrats.

We should probably interpret Gar-lang's explanation of what state funerals are for as something of a veiled defence why he would not permit a state funeral for Long, but whether the admirals understood Gar-lang's cues, we shall never know. But we do know that Gar-lang was hardly opposed to awarding Long some dignity that he earned with his life and spilled blood—he never opposed private mementoes sent by the emperor, even at public expense. He was not a commoner-hating, soldier-abusing monster that some make him out to be.

Distinctions

• Long Lêt is, to date, the only Themiclesian marine to be appointed a general. Of the seven generals appointed during the Second Maverican War, he was the only one to rise from a commoner's background.
• In 1955, Long was posthumously inducted into the Order of Authors as an example of "a commoner who achieved dignity against all odds".
• In 1960, the Marines erected a statue in his honour; however, it was struck by lightning in 1962.
• In 1988, the Marines attempted to find out where his final resting place was, without success.

Assessment

A historian of the Maverican Wars argued in 1958 that Long's experience with the navy was bitter-sweet. Without it, he would probably never have achieved his positions of power, including being made a general as a commoner, the first time such an appointment had occurred in centuries. However, his early dedication to the fleet later became his achilles' heel when cleverly exploited by the royal counsel. According to the historian, many ordinary Themiclesian seeking social advancement fell into similar traps, relying on a single patron and suffering its consequences later in life. A tenable observation, therefore, is that many careers were limited by ignorance of court politics.

Apocrypha

• Allegedly, Long knew that the Lord of L′jin, his replacement as General of the West, had managed Colonial Army veterans' settlements in Norfeld, Maverica, with great success. Thus, when L′jin arrived, he asked if L′jin could arrange a farm for him to retire to, mentioning that he had no land to his name but a family to feed. According to this legend, L′jin replied that marines were not entitled to these benefits because that was one of the promises he made to the Colonial Army in exchange for their co-operation. This conversation is fictional in se, but it is held to reflect some iniquities of 18th-century Themiclesian military life and deeper divides and conflicts between Themiclesians that lived in different parts of its collapsing empire. Others believe this story was invented as a reflection of L′jin's later generalship, which harshness was hereby attributed to his earlier geneoristy (perceived as favourtism) of the Colonial Army's settlement demands.

See also

• Themiclesia