Royal Guards (Themiclesia)

The Royal Guards (衛士, gwrjaih-sdrje) are military units of Themiclesia stationed in palaces and charged with their defence. Historically, the Royal Guards were selected from regional militias in one or more regiments in each palace, though the only surviving units today are the Left Guards and Right Guards. Since most active palaces today are in Kien-k'ang, the capital city, the Royal Guards are often confused with the Capital Defence Force. While they are now integrated with the Themiclesian Army, their ceremonial commander is the Marshal of the Guards, usually a retired minister.

Name

The ancient glyph for "protect", Gojun-era bronze inscription (c. 15~14th c. BCE)

The name kuninkaanvartija was first used by Hallian visitors to the Themiclesian court, who noted that the palaces were defended by troops apart from the normal militia musters present in the capital city. When Anglians followed, they translated the Hallian term into Anglian directly to give the modern name Royal Guards. This, however, is not a literal translation and introduces some nuances that are not present in the Shinasthana term. The word "Royal" implies a connection to the monarchy, but the institution of the Royal Guards is not exclusive to the monarch himself; there are guards, under the same category, protecting his consort, his mother and grandmother, and his heir. Secondly, in the Themiclesian view, the guards defend the palaces and not the monarch (or any of his relatives) directly. Given that palaces were very heavily fortified (the Hian-lang Palace had walls in excess of 12 meters thick) and possessed numerous military installations, the Royal Guards were expected in the first place to man the fortifications, rather than to protect the monarch's person, which was the proper jurisdiction of the Gentlemen-at-Arms. The pictosemantic word gwrjaih (衛), though coined millennia before Royal Guards were active, depicts four feet surrounding a circle, interpreted to mean pacing around a settlement in its defence.

This distinction, though trivial, can be enlightening when analyzing its behaviour before the modern era. The Royal Guards regiments typically never left the palace in which they were stationed, even if its occupant left it; when the emperor left Hian-lang Palace, the regional militias along the pre-arranged route would marshal in his defence when passing through their jurisdictions, and when he arrived at a different palace, it would already be defended by the Royal Guards there.

History

In the military policy of the early Meng dynasty, after which a large part of the Themiclesian establishment appeared to have been derived, each prefecture was responsible for keeping its own militia, which possessed specializations such as infantry, crossbowmen, cavalry, and chariotry. These militias were locally stationed unless summoned away for duties on the border or abroad. The palaces were, however, not defended through the local militia; rather, they possessed their own defence forces, which answered to a specific minister in the central government. This system was inherited by early Themiclesian governments, which actively emulated the Meng state's organizational principles. The Sje-mra Clan (司馬氏), which nominally unified Themiclesia in 265 under the Tsjins dynasty, maintained the separate defence structure for palaces, and subsequent Themiclesian dynasties have generally upheld the same. After the arrival of the Meng monarchy in 542, the Royal Guards were viewed as part of the heritage and legitimacy derived from the Meng dynasty and therefore exempt from intensive reforms.

The Royal Guards have been viewed by historians as an institution that has very little character or history. Their placement as defensive troops in palaces have very effectively shielded them from active conflicts, which have generally occurred on border regions. Since the capital city, Rak-lang, and Drjang-'an, where most palaces were located, were a considerable distance away from sources of hostility, the Royal Guards as an institution, for the most part, have been inactive in Themiclesia's wars. However, during crises, exceptions have occurred. When Maverican nomads incurred in the 6th century with cavalry, regional militias could not be summoned in time to marshal at the capital city, and thus the Royal Guards were ordered to defend the city. In the Siege of Kien-k'ang in 1385, the Royal Guards also took to battlements, against Menghean forces laying siege. During the Pan-Septentrion War, they were deployed to the front, in a time when general strikes and politial uncertainty undermined the Army's recruitment campaigns. Despite these facts, the Royal Guards were wholly absent from pivotal conflicts such as the Battle of Sgrjem-tju (1198), which heralded the recession of Themiclesian power in Columbia, and the Maverican Wars (1765–67; 91–96). These facts "support its characterization as a purely defensive institution", in the words of B. Larter (1904).

In view of its absence from major conflicts, historians have tended to take the "institution chronology" approach, studying its relationship with the broader Themiclesian government and military, its expected role, and external commentators' views of it. Continuing the Meng dynasty's tradition, each Themiclesian palace possessed one or more regiments (校, krawh) of guards. During the earlier dynasties, when palaces were few, this was tenable; however, their number swelled to over 20 in the restored Meng dynasty, which created an unprecedented pressure on local militias to remit troops for guard duty, their strength regularly about 20,000. This was not a problem for the Meng government, as it imposed conscription, but in the following Dzi dynasty, when militia service was voluntary, the govenrment resorted to moving regiments periodically between palaces. Eventually, several palaces were abandoned to fund military activity in Columbia, and the discharge of the guards at those palaces appeared to be a minor saving. This seemed sensible as each palace was defended regardless whether in use or not, though by custom the emperor, empress, crown prince, and empress dowager(s) each occupied one palace.

List of former and current units

This list covers the fate of units active in 1800.

• Hian-lang Left Guards
• Hian-lang Right Guards
• East Foot Guards (renamed South Guards 1916)
• East Horse Guards (disbanded 1881)
• Middle Left Guards (now the 134th Middle Brigade)
• Middle Right Guards (now the
• Gweng-hljuns Left Guards
• Gweng-hljuns Right Guards (merged with Gweng-hljuns Left Guards in 1872)
• Gwreng-ngjars Left Guards (disbanded 1904, refounded 1916)
• Gwreng-ngjars Right Guards (disbanded 1881)
• Dzrjung-tek Guards (disbanded 1854)
• Dais-'an Guards (disbanded 1912)
• Gwrjiang-gar Guards (disbanded 1804, refounded 1936, disbanded 1942)
• Blem-hme' Guards (disbanded 1821, refounded 1936, disbanded 1945)
• Mjeis-lang Guards (disbanded 1803)
• Drjang-nglakw Guards (disbanded 1814)
• Drjang-snjings Guards (disbanded 1855)
• Brjiang-'an Guards (disbanded 1807)