Red Robe Society

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Depiction of a Red Robe official on a tomb from the Middle Confederal Period

The Red Robe Society (Hua: លិឣត្សោច​ liab tsoos cov. Oroqic: උලඅන් උලම්ජ්ලල් ulaan ulamjlal) is the name given to the society of clerks and civilian officials who managed customs and other border controls. The Red Robe Society were charged with the monitoring of merchants and extracting taxation from trade, a role which granted them a high degree of political and economic importance. They were especially prominent in the Minghua valley, but became a common element of all of the native steppe states which grew large enough to support them.

They were inspired, partly, by the Tashuurin of the Later Uluuchigs, who used fortresses to organize and control the flow of trade. While the Tashuurin were limited to the collection of tributes from domestic parties, the red robes dealt with foreigners. For this reason, they often spoke foreign languages and traveled abroad to establish formal agreements with neighboring states. They were a rudimentary foreign service for the grassland's khans, which helped to spread their society quickly around the steppes.

History

The first red robes emerged in the Minghua valley during the Confederal Period. As the arbitrators of the Writ of Passage they formed the backbone of the Dawpruva system, which dominated the political and economic spheres within the Minghua mountains.While the issue of writs of passage has been traced to the emergence of the Dawpruva as a unit of societal organisation in modern day Tusing, the Red Robe Society itself emerged following the collapse of the Peshkal Khanate and subsequent rise of the North Minghua Confederation as the confederation delegated far more power to individual Mountain Princes than the highly centralised Peshkal state. The newfound importance of the Writs of Passage necessitated oversight, as counterfeit writs of passage soon circulated. This led to the adoption of the royal ledger, an official list of active writs of passage and their owners.

The Red Robe Society was founded in 936 as a joint project of the confederation, as a means of ensuring that customs would be processed in the same way across the Confederation despite the lack of a customs union. The use of coloured robes was based off similar societies within the Great Steppe, with red being the colour of the confederal government. The Red Robe Society was active for several hundred years, but grew increasingly corrupt and power hungry. This led to several Mountain Princes expelling the society from their dominions. This caused their rupture with the confederal government, leading to the Kentawcolu war and fall of the first confederation.

Elements of red robe administration remain such as the use of red uniforms for border patrols, the use of red-colored passports, and the continuing separation of customs from normal government revenue. Template:Great Steppe Topics