Yunxia

Republic of Yúnxià 云下民国 (Xianese) Yúnxià Mínguó (pinyin)
Flag Emblem
Location of Yúnxià (dark green) in East Ochran
Map of Yúnxià
Capital	Zhōngjīng
Official language Regional languages	Xianese Dongese, Manzinese, Beian, Kitaganese, Tsurushimese
Demonym(s)	Yunxianese
Government	Presidential constitutional republic (de jure) Military administration (de facto)
• Acting head of state	Generalissimo Fēng Zhīxīn
• Legislature	National Council (suspended)
Establishment
• Republic of Yúnxià	May 27, 1943
• Military administration	November 12, 1944
Area
• Total	1,096,990 km2 (423,550 sq mi)
• Water (%)	4.59
Population
• 2024 census	78,474,968
• Density	71.5/km2 (185.2/sq mi)
GDP (nominal)	2024 estimate
• Total	$856 billion
• Per capita	$10,905.31
Gini	51.2 high
HDI (2024)	0.68 medium
Currency	Fēn (¥) (YXF)
Date format	yyyy-mm-d-dd
Driving side	right
Internet TLD	.yx

The Republic of Yúnxià is a country in East Ochran. While ostensibly a constitutional republic, since 1944 the country has been governed by a military administration with devolved government along the lines of military districts and historic commandery districts. In practice, the regional governments are divided along cultural and geographic cliques, with significant warlordism beyond the core. Both reactionary and revolutionary elements exert significant influence across the country. The current head of the central government and the Jùntíng Army is Generalissimo Fēng Zhīxīn.

Through most of modern history, the country of Yúnxià formed the core of the Shénzhōu Empire, a preeminent power in East Ochran. By the early 20th century, the Shénzhōu Empire was reduced to a rump state in Yúnxià. In 1940, the Empire was overthrown and the Republic of Yúnxià was founded. Its first president was subsequently removed in 1944 by a military coup after an attempt to restore the Empire. Initially, the military administration had popular support. Over subsequent decades, the authority of the military administration based in the capital of Zhōngjīng has eroded in favour of local populist movements and militias.

The economy of Yúnxià is mixed both in terms of state interventions and development. In the vast hinterlands, a peasant agrarian economy is still commonplace. Closer to the capital, there is considerable industrial development with a focus manufacturing for an export market. The military administration has also designated a number of special international economic zones to promote financial services and foreign investment.

Culturally, Yúnxià is a multi-ethnic country, though the majority of the population belong to various Shen sub-ethnicities. The Xianese make up a majority with significant Dongese and Manzinese minorities. The Beian and Kitaganese make up more marginal regional minorities.

History

The historical Shénzhōu Empire stretched across a large portion of East Ochran, formed from various Shen peoples and states across the region. The first dynasty of the Shénzhōu Empire was formed semi-legendarily sometime in the mid-first millennium BCE and material culture recovered from that era attests the Empire was one of the first centralized states formed in human history. For the next millennium, the Empire existed in various forms with numerous dynastic changes often accompanied by periods of anarchy and warring provinces. Externally, the greatest rivals of the Shen were the Tsurushimese and the Kitaganese, who vied for commercial interests and territorial domination.

Emperor Biāo of the Shenluo dynasty, c. 1370 CE

In the mid-10th century, the Shénzhōu Empire came under threat from the Bayarids to the west. In the early 11th century, the Empire was ultimately conquered by the Bayarids and made a vassal state of the Khanate. The Bayarid Empire gradually collapsed over the 12th century and when the Shen reclaimed the Imperial throne, domestic historiography considered this yet another dynastic change.

By the 16th century, the Empire gained prominence as the terminus of the Jade Road, with trade flourishing following the stabilization of Uluujol to the west. This led to significant economic growth as well as technological and cultural exchange between Belisaria and Ochran.

Despite the size and power of the Shénzhōu Empire in the first part of the early modern era, the country did not industrialize on a broad scale and by the 19th century the Empire saw its sphere of influence shrinking. This culminated in defeat in the First Cross Strait War at the end of the century. When the Empire failed in a revanchist war in the 1920s and 30s, the stage was set for the dissolution of the Empire and ultimately the foundation of the Republic of Tianxia following the abdication of the emperor at the end of the Shen Civil War (1936-1943).

The Republic of Yúnxià was established on May 27, 1943, and Marshal Wú Kūn was acclaimed as the first president. Several months into his tenure as president, Wú launched a self-coup, refounding the Shénzhōu Empire with himself as emperor. On November 12, 1944, the Jùntíng clique toppled Wú and officially restored the republic, though a military government was instituted to restore order while the constitution was suspended. Since then, a succession of military dictators have ruled the country, interspersed with periods of instability and conflict between competing military and political cliques, including the recent 2012 Southern Conflict and the 1994 Yínhé War.

Geography and climate

The majority of Yúnxià's area is located in the Great Xia Plain, a large basin delineated by highlands in the west and alluvial plains in the east. The region was an early human agricultural centre, though soil fertility has declined over several millennia of human development.

Modern Yúnxià is marked by many rivers flowing through it which have both delineated its regions and served as major thoroughfares through the empire. In early-modern times, the Shénzhōu Empire was occasionally known as the Thousand River Empire.

The exclave of Nángăng is not contiguous with the rest of modern Yúnxià and is part of a separate geographic region characterized by coastal mountains.

Flora and fauna

Yúnxià is home to a large amount of biodiversity. Primates, and big cats are distributed across the southwest of the country, including Nángăng. Various species of mustelids are widely distributed across the entire country, including sables and wolverines. Gamebirds and cranes are common birds across the region as well.

In the northwest of the country, cypress and redwood trees are common in mountain and cold coniferous forests. Mangrove and deciduous jungle forests are more common in the south. Bamboo thickets are common throughout the country, but especially in the south and along the coasts where rainfall is heavier.

Climate

The majority of Yúnxià falls under a subtropical climate classification with wet-dry tropical climate in the south. The western highlands have both steppe climates and some areas of tundra in mountainous regions. Nángăng Province has a mountainous tropical climate.

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  Bend of the Hongse River in Shíshān Province.

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  Alluvial plain in Shāocăo Province.

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  Ngaam Sek Mountains in Nángăng Province.

Government and politics

Since 1943, Yúnxià has been a unitary presidential republic with a governing constitution guaranteeing civic and personal freedoms for its citizenship. Officially, all propertied individuals have suffrage, regardless of age or gender. The unicameral National Council was formed as the legislature to house 74 representatives, while the presidency was to be elected directly. Both the presidency and the representatives were to serve five year terms.

Despite the provisions of Yúnxià's constitution. The 1943 election of President Wú Kūn and the National Council has been the only election in Yúnxià's history. Following Wú's self-coup, the session of the National Council was vacated under the constitution, and while the Jùntíng counter-coup restored the constitution in 1944, it simultaneously enacted emergency powers and placed a military administration at the head of the government. While ostensibly a temporary measure, the military administration has remained in power ever since.

The Jùntíng military administration of the Republic of Yúnxià operates the government in accordance with the constitution, but with democratic mechanisms suspended. Instead, the commander of the armed forces takes the place of the president at the head of the executive branch and ministries. Legally, the National Council has no substitute as a national legislature, but the government has continued to pass laws by edicts, which may only be vetoed once the legislature returns to session. Along with the emergency powers granted to the commander of the armed forces, the judiciary is subject to martial law in addition to the civil law guaranteed by the constitution. In 1953, military and civilian courts were merged.

Administrative subdivisions

The National Council building in Zhōngjīng.

The Republic of Yúnxià is ostensibly a unitary state subdivided into 14 provinces, with each province subdivided into a number of commanderies and further into municipalities. Presently, the province with the fewest commanderies is Nángăng with only two, while Guīpíng has nine. The provincial system was first devised by the Zǐ dynasty in the third century BCE, though it was frequently modified and borders have been redrawn through history. Yúnxià's modern internal borders are generally the same as they were during the 19th century Huáng dynasty with some modifications from the 1943 revolution.

Historically, provinces were ruled by governors appointed by the emperor as direct representatives of the imperial rule. Following the revolution, governors were ostensibly elected democratically, though under the regime of the Jùntíng military administration, the roles of governors have been assumed by acting military officers. In terms of the divisions of powers, provinces each have their own court systems and economic policies which are still ostensibly determined by the central state.

Commanderies are lower-level subdivisions, historically based around conscription and taxation districts within a province. At present, commanderies maintain a similar purpose as military districts and local administrative units responsible for the administration of healthcare and education as well as the collection of taxes and census data. A commandery is administered by a castellan: a pseudo-military magisterial role appointed by the central government.

The lowest levels of subdivisions are municipalities: counties and cities. These subdivisions are primarily responsible for local zoning and infrastructure, but are ultimately subordinated to their commanderies. Counties are predominantly rural locales constituting a number of townships or villages with low population density. Cities are municipal districts with specific charters and allowances to accommodate infrastructure for dense population. Most cities have greater populations than a given county. Modern counties are administered by local magistrates while cities are often operated by an elected or appointed council.

Cliques and regional organization

The main organization behind the military administration of the Republic of Yúnxià is the Jùntíng clique, the civil war faction that overthrew Emperor Wú in 1944 to restore the republic. The Jùntíng clique originates from the Jùntíng Military Academy of the city of Jiāngsan in Lánzhŏng Province. The military academy's faculty and student body took a central role in the military resistance to the Imperial government from the early 1940s, ultimately leading the Siege of Zhōngjīng which ended the civil war. Since 1944, the Jùntíng clique has occupied the capital and maintained significant influence with the dean of the academy simultaneously presiding as the acting head of state of Yúnxià and commander-in-chief of its official armed forces.

Across contiguous Yúnxià, the Jùntíng clique is politically rivalled by two other factions: the Shíshān clique in the southwest and the Jīnhăi clique in the southeast. In addition, the Province of Nángăng is contested by the local Seunghói clique. In general, Yúnxiànese cliques are not divided among strictly ideological lines. In theory, the Jùntíng, Shíshān, and Jīnhăi cliques each profess liberal democratic beliefs and aspire to restore a united republic. Each clique advocates for a free market economy with protections for peasant agricultural workers and foreign industrial development in manufacturing. The Seunghói clique is unique in that it is explicitly a Manzinese separatist movement that seeks to expel foreign economic exploitation of Nángăng Province. In addition to the major four cliques, smaller movements maintain influence over the countryside as well.

Each of the major cliques are more accurately described as being in state of competitive jockeying for influence rather than open hostility. Aside from the Seunghói clique, the major three present a unified front regarding foreign relations, but local commerce is frequently disrupted across internal borders.

Foreign relations

Yúnxià maintains positive multi-polar relations with the world's strongest global economic powers. This has largely been facilitated through the special international economic zones along the east coast which provide foreign state and corporate entities with access to commercial and manufacturing centres with exceptions to tariffs and regulations. Yúnxià's foreign policy has not specifically aligned with capitalist, socialist, monarchist, or republican lines. Major international trading partners include Tsurushima, Belfras, Sante Reze, and Latium.

Aside from Tsurushima, Yúnxià maintains cooler relations with its regional neighbours. In particular, Yúnxià has a mixed relationship with Daobac which shares a maritime border with Nángăng Province. Post-Hanaki War, Daobac was granted access to resources in Nángăng Province as war reparations. However, both countries have cooperated in countering the separatist Seunghói clique in Nángăng.

Military

The armed forces of the Jùntíng clique are the largest official military in Yúnxià. The Jùntíng Army comprises 300,000 active service personnel, approximately two-thirds of which are members of the Ground Force. A further 150,000 personnel are members of allegiant military cliques and reserves. It is estimated that the combined numbers of the Jīnhăi, Shíshān, and Seunghói cliques are approximately 200,000.

The Yúnxiànese military forces are equipped by a variety of foreign suppliers, including Belfras, Sante Reze, and Tsurushima. The country has a small domestic arms industry as well.

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  A Jùntíng Army Ground Force tank during an exercise in northern Běijīan.

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  A Tsurushimese Type 81 tank in service with the Jīnhăi Army.

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  Jùntíng Army Air Force Mi-10.2 Taguate jet fighter in takeoff.

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  Jùntíng Army Maritime Force missile boat on manoeuvres.

Economy

Yúnxià's economy has three major industries: peasant agrarian activity, industrial manufacturing, and global post-industrial services. The country has a significant informal economy which is symptomatic of internal political tensions. With a gross domestic product per capita of approximately $10,900, Yúnxià is a low-middle income country. While the country continues to export resources on the global market, internal trade inefficiencies, stagnant population growth, conflict, and international exploitation have stymied economic growth over the past half century.

Extractive industry

A tea plantation in Yínhé Province

Agriculture continues to be a major mode of production across the majority of Yúnxià's geographic area, particularly in the west and south. While a portion of the agricultural industry is subsistence activity, the majority serves an export market for foodstuffs and cash crops. Approximately 25% of all agricultural land use is for rice cultivation. Wheat is the second most important crop, particularly in the comparatively arid northern plains. More recently, wheat cultivation has competed with cotton production for domestic textile industries. Factory livestock farming is one of the fastest growing industries in modern Yúnxià.

Other primary sector activities include logging and mining. Mining is the largest economic sector in the far west and Nángăng Province, with the majority of industry conducted by foreign mining firms. Bituminous coal and iron mining fuel local energy demands and steel fabrication. Sulfur, phosphate, zinc, and tin are exploited from contiguous Yúnxià. Nángăng Province also has significant cobalt extraction. While not as significant as in the classical era, Yúnxià is also still a significant jade producer.

Production

Northeastern Yúnxià is home to the country's traditional industrial region, the Iron Core. The Iron Core is primarily centered in Běijīan, Zhōngjīng, as well as eastern Guīpíng, and is the core of Yunxianese endemic industry. Key products from the Iron Core include refined metals such as iron and steel, construction materials like concrete and gravel, and timber products including paper. The Iron Core is also home to the Jùntíng government's major power generation through coal powerplants. While the Iron Core was Yúnxià's economic heartland through the early 20th century, it has been reduced in prominence by the development of the special economic zones.

Following the Shénzhōu Empire's practice of leasing land to foreign governments and corporations for commercial purposes, the Republic of Yúnxià created a series of special economic zones in the coastal regions of Hóngqiū, Lánzhŏng, and Shàngchén. The special economic zones have special charters permitting foreign entities to operate businesses in Yúnxià with fewer regulations and without incurring tariffs for bringing materials into the country. In theory, this practice has also benefitted local Yunxianese industry through convenient supplies for foreign corporations in the neighbouring special economic zones. Employment opportunities in the special economic zones have also driven rapid urbanization in the special economic zones over the past half-century. Critics of the special economic zones have noted that workers on the inside struggle with hazardous work conditions and that the special economic zones tend to exploit and extract wealth from Yúnxià more than it benefits the local economy.

Demographics

The Republic of Yúnxià has a population of 78,474,968 as of 2024. Between 1950 and 2020, Yúnxià had declining birth rates, low immigration, and significant emigration which cumulatively contributed to stagnant population growth. Within the past decade, however, Yúnxià has reported net population growth. Life expectancy has also fluctuated over the past half-century but is rising and is presently at 68 years for women and 64 years for men. Urbanization is at approximately 62% and is concentrated on the east coast. A significant portion of the population continues to live in rural areas.

Ethnicity and language

The major ethnic groups of Yúnxià are distinguished in cultural and linguistic terms. The dominant supra-ethnic group is Shen: an East Ochran Sinitic group. The Xianese language is the main lingua franca of Yunxianese governments. Ethnic Xianese make up a majority of the population of the whole country, though they are particularly concentrated in northeastern Yúnxià. The south of the country has a significant Dongese population, with a Dongese majority in several coastal cities. The Beian people also have a significant regional presence in the east, particularly in Shàngchén Province. In Nángăng Province, the population is majority Manzinese, though the government language remains Xianese.

Despite the fact that the Shénzhōu Empire had not controlled the Kitagan Peninsula for over a century prior to its dissolution, a significant Kitaganese expatriate population in Yúnxià as well. This population in concentrated in the capital region around Zhōngjīng. Other non-Shen ethnic groups have significant presence in urban centres. These groups include Tsurushimese, Rezese, Mutulese, and Belisarians.

Health

Nèishān District Hospital in Liúyáng Commandery, Shàngchén Province

State medical services were first made available in the Republic of Yúnxià in 1958, through partial acquisitions of private hospitals in the provinces of Zhōngjīng, Běijīan, Hóngqiū, and . These buy-ins created public-private partnerships which afforded coverage to individuals who are incapable of affording private healthcare. In general, private healthcare in Yúnxià operates on a direct payment model and beyond state benefits or welfare coverage, private health insurance is rare outside of the special economic zones. State expenditures toward healthcare in 2021 made up approximately 8% of the country's GDP.

Due to the fractious nature of state control over Yúnxià, state coverage does not extend uniformly across the country. In Jīnhăi Province, the local government maintains and independent single-payer health insurance scheme. In Shíshān Province and its outlying regions, the government has eschewed any formalized insurance or medical partnership schemes for a system of price regulations for private hospitals.

Poor air quality accounts for a disproportionate of health problems in the Iron Core region of Yúnxià, including respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis and pneumonoconiosis. Early childhood diseases and infant mortality rates are also elevated compared to neighbours. The leading causes of death nationwide are heart disease and liver disease.

Culture

Yunxianese culture is reflective of both the local characteristics of Yúnxià and the broader Shénzhōu Empire of which it was the heartland prior to its fall in 1943. Yúnxià's culture has also been shaped by the socio-political conditions of the past half century including strong currents of militarism and a conflict between regionalism and nationalism. Yúnxià also has a particularly global culture, with significant influences from neighbouring Tsurushima and the various international presences in the special economic zones.

From 1976, the Jùntíng government instituted the National Heritage Program (NHP) which has also been tacitly supported by other governments in the country. The NHP is an initiative to promote traditional Shen and Yunxianese culture within the country and on the international stage. To that end, the NHP promotes local media, cuisine, and tourist attractions that represent traditional values and promote a Shen national identity. Proponents of the NHP note the positive developments in domestic mass media and cultural capital since the late 1970s. Critics, however, have described the NHP as a program of propaganda that polices content as much as it promotes it. Notably, in both contiguous Yúnxià and in Nángăng Province, the NHP funds approximately 80% of mass media outlets - with funding contingent on compliance with the NHP's guidelines.

Art and media

Northeastern Yúnxià is provided television and telecommunication service by Yunxia National TeleServices (YNTS), a publicly traded company on the Zhōngjīng stock exchange. YNTS operates an effective monopoly on its services in the region, which include six radio stations, four television stations, a cellular network, and internet service. Outside the northeast, there are several other major domestic service providers including Minguo Voice, InterCell, and the National Communications Corporation. Pirate radio and television stations are unusually common in Yúnxià, particularly in liminal border regions between the firm control of different cliques in the country.

The city of Shàngchén is widely considered the media capital of Yúnxià. In addition to the headquarters of YNTS, the city has a number of domestic film and television studios. Shàngchén Province's special economic zones and dense population density have made it a cultural capital of the 21st century and an international city. In addition to domestic production, Shàngchén is noted as the gateway of foreign media into Yúnxià, with a number of studios making localizations and dubs to imported products to render them suitable for Yunxianese consumption.

Yunxianese visual art is considered conservative by regional standards, in part encouraged by the National Heritage Program. In Guīpíng Province, the Juānpíng Commandery is home to the Xiátāo School of Calligraphy: one of the preeminent artistic institutions in East Ochran. Běiguǎn performance is the national musical theatre in Yúnxià. While Běiguǎn is still played in its traditional forms, but it also forms a basis for modern fusion music featuring traditional instrumentation. Yúnxià also has a large market of adapted and translated (often without authorization) international pop music songs.

Sports

Cùjū and archery are the two traditional sports of Yúnxià, the former being a competitive team or individual game where players attempt to kick a ball through a hoop without letting it touch the ground. While archery has continued to be practiced as an elite individual sport, cùjū declined in the 17th century where it was eventually supplanted by pitz due to Mutulese influences. Despite this, the game of cùjū was reintroduced to Yúnxià by anthropologists in the 1980s and has since grown in popularity as a new national sport. Aside from pitz, Yúnxià regularly participates in international team sport tournaments for association football and ice hockey.

Yúnxià's sports culture, however, has traditionally favoured individual athletic events. Common individual sports include table tennis, wrestling, and mixed martial arts. The traditional Yunxianese martial art is quánfǎ, literally "the way of the fist", commonly called "Yunxianese boxing". Quánfǎ is still traditionally taught as a martial art and is used in training for military and police agencies to teach skill and discipline. Sǎndǎ, literally "free fighting", is the modern evolution of Yunxianese martial arts, incorporating more kicks and a less rigid format, and is the most major competitive combat sport in the country.

Cuisine

The national cuisine of Yúnxià has two broad schools: the southern style and the northern style. While each school has its differences, the two broadly share a base in certain ingredients such as pork, fish, and soy. Despite this, the varieties of fish used in each cuisine differ significantly between inland and coastal sub-regions. The southern style also makes use of broader grain types, including starchy maize, millet, and wheat while the north relies on the traditional Shen staple of rice.

The southern style is characterized by broad access and freedom of ingredients, but an orthodox approach to cooking methods. In the south, dishes can be prepared by flash-frying (often with corn flour), stewing, roasting, or boiling. Proteins are commonly served with a broth which can be light or milky. Most traditional southern sauces are vinegar-based and well-spiced. Dishes are further flavoured with scallions and peanuts. Steamed buns and breads are the common sources of carbohydrates and starches, instead of rice. Staple vegetables include cabbages, potatoes, mushrooms, eggplant, bell peppers, and seagrasses.

The northern school also has a number of distinctive characteristics. Simmer-frying, "hot pot", braising, and roasting are the orthodox methods of food preparation. Pickling is also especially common due to the harsher winters compared with the south. Rice is the north's staple ingredient, though in many places it has to be imported from the south due to a lack of suitable agricultural land in the north. Pickled cabbage, sticky rice buns, dumplings, and wheat noodles are all very common elements or dishes in the north. Common spices include cumin, caraway, and mustard. The northern style also features many different preparations of eggs including pickled eggs and tea eggs.

Across all of Yúnxià, rice wine (mǐjiǔ) and green tea are the staple beverages. Wine is typically served warm as an accompaniment to a meal or as an aperitif. Green tea, or unoxidized tea, is the primary source of caffeine in Yúnxià, dominating the market over coffee or other forms of tea. Semi-oxidized or wūlóng tea is common in the north as a winter beverage. Tea is also commonly employed in Yunxianese dishes as a flavouring or as a light broth for rice.