Zesmynia

Empire of Zesmynia Ⰸⰰⱄⰿⱔⱄⰽⱔ ⰲⰾⰰⰴⱌⰵⰲⱄⱅⰲⰺ Zasměské vladcevství
Flag
Capital	Katvan
Largest	Zlatikopet
Official languages	Kavacian
Recognised national languages	Zvonian, Pari
Religion	Costeny
Government	Absolute monarchy
• Emperor	Miroslav III
• Chancellor	Lubor Naidenov
Legislature	Imperial Senate
Population
• 2018 estimate	58,137,500
GDP (PPP)	estimate
• Total	$2.46 trillion
• Per capita	$42,400
GDP (nominal)	estimate
• Total	$2.24 trillion
• Per capita	$38,600
Gini	39 medium
HDI	0.913 very high
Currency	Zesmynian zlatý (ZSZ)
Time zone	UTC+3
Calling code	+05
ISO 3166 code	ZES
Internet TLD	.zes

Zesmynia (Kavacian: Ⰸⰰⱄⰿⱔⱄⰽⱁ Zasměsko), officially the Empire of Zesmynia (Kavacian: Ⰸⰰⱄⰿⱔⱄⰽⱔ ⰲⰾⰰⰴⱌⰵⰲⱄⱅⰲⰺ Zasměské vladcevství), is a sovereign state located in West Borea, bordered in clockwise order by Razaria, Volomeria, and Kheratia. It has a population of about 58.1 million, and is the 2nd most-populated country in West Borea after Luziyca. The capital city is Katvan while the largest city is Zlatikopet.

History

Prehistory and antiquity

Homo ergaster fossils have been found in eastern Zesmynia dating to about 1.1 million years ago, and the earliest settlements have been found to date to about the 8th millennium BCE. ??? culture and ??? culture sites have been found in Zesmynia, representing its major neolithic cultures, as well as substantially expansive presence of agriculture, pottery, and metallurgy. By about 2200 BCE, urban developments emerged on the Zasem river, driven by the efficient food production via irrigation that the river offered, and with it appeared the Zasem valley civilization. The civilization lasted only briefly before conquest by the Sepcans, a Monic people, in the 20th century BCE, and left little records of its culture.

As the Sepcans established an unified empire and began to settle, they founded new cities on the Zasem, and soon it became an important center in the Sepcan realm. The area was already heavily populated beforehand, and upon conquest most of them were rewarded to Sepcan nobles as serfs; this, coupled with acquisition of local leaders' property, drove the rise of Menew as nobles found themselves suddenly replete in resources of various sorts. The river valley correspondingly had a high concentration of fiefdoms. Khyual II's centralizing reforms in the 16th century BCE however confiscated most of these estates. The area was placed under first a system of prefectures overseen by appointed and supervised scribe-bureaucrats, and then a looser system of governorates known as rukens. However, ruken lords of the river valley area turned increasingly rebellious in the 14th century BCE, initiating a series of rebellions that led to the empire's eventual downfall.

After the collapse of the first Sepcan empire in the 13th century BCE, northern Zesmynia was largely still under the control of Sepcan elites, while the south saw the ascent of natives that was observed in most other parts of the former empire. The Kalian civilization developed on the Zesmynian coast, flourishing from the 11th to 4th centuries BCE in the form of seafaring kingdoms, before being conquered by the Lysandrene Empire. The Sepcan principalities upstream were gradually overthrown in the 7th century BCE after crippling natural disasters and famines, and replaced by indigenous elites, though the Sepcan population and presence was still significant. The Neo-Sepcan Empire, founded in western Kheratia, rapidly conquered the area in the 170s BCE in its rapid growth before sweeping south and conquering several of the old Kalian cities too, posing no small concern to the Lysandrenes.

The standoff between the Neo-Sepcan and Lysandrene empires manifested mostly through warfare on the Kalian coast, and control of southern Zesmynia constantly alternated. In the meantime, the Neo-Sepcan political and cultural core slowly shifted to the Zasem valley. This was unchanged after the Lysandrene empire's collapse and conquest of most of it by the Neo-Sepcans; the capital city of the now-triumphant Empire was practically permanently fixed at Brungun by the beginning of the 2nd century CE.

Early Cositene period

Statue of Ostromysl, major Cositene conqueror and ruler

In the 1050s, the Panoles plague began in Zesmynia, causing devastation through depopulating the area, and then the collapse of the Bibliocracy as well as Tastanism in general. This was concurrent with the Cositene expansion; the mass conversion of disgruntled peasantry, gentry, and nobility alike to Costeny and their consequent participation in the destruction of the Tastanic order sealed the fate of Tastanism and its institutions. Ostromysl was one of the first and most important nobles who converted to Costeny and spearheaded the destruction of Tastanic states in the Zasem valley area. Other nobles followed his example, to preserve their power as much as to demonstrate their piety.

By the 1070s the arrangement of states in Zesmynia was changed greatly, with the region now split between four main states: the Ostromyslovid Empire, the Pavakovid Empire, the Vladimirovid Empire, and the Eparchy of Namdania (the only obishty-republic among the four). Between them, they had ruthlessly and efficiently extirpated Tastanism politically and culturally. These states were ultimately rather short-lived however, being replaced in usurpations or absorbed by each other in a series of conflicts that were as bloody as the anti-Tastanic wars, waged as each of the rulers wished to attain a catholic dominance over the Cositene world as well as supremacy in the vein of the idea of Podslynitsia. Ironically the exhaustion of the Zasem valley, already depleted from the chaos of Panoles, from these wars made the importance of these states decline and the wars in the river valley never had serious regionwide implications as a result.

By the time the Investiture of Peregnevy put a temporary stop to the conflicts, Zesmynia was split between the Neo-Ostromyslovid Empire, the Premyslovid Empire, and the Kamosayevid Empire, and was economically exhausted, resulting in its eclipse by the Empire of Razaria as the Razarian Hegemony began. The rivalry between the three states was manipulated by Razaria to prevent any Zasem-based state from becoming too powerful. Devolution and other pressures of sualny split the three states into considerably smaller principalities both formally and effectively by the late 14th century. Although politically repressed, economically the reemerging prosperity of West Borea benefited the Zasem valley massively, laying the groundwork for its ascension in the 16th century.

First Empire

From 1528 to 1535, Myslivoj Blagoradov engineered the formation of Zesmynia through promoting a Sepcan-themed mandate to the Cositene community and Podslynitsia, unifying the Zasem valley. He instated the Chervenranovids, a 'blessed line' descending from both Great-Saint Zbyzlo and a Neo-Sepcan dynasty, as the 'emperor' of the river valley, but he and his Blagoradov family ruled in reality as 'Guardians of the Throne'. Blagoradov gained the support of most local rulers by preserving much of their autonomy under a sualnic framework, making the new Zesmynian 'state' significantly decentralized compared to its contemporaries. Fuelled by the Zasem valley's renewed economic prominence, the new Zesmynia ascended in the Zesmynian Hegemony quickly in the next few decades, defeating Razaria in the Berdovinian War (1544-47).