Second Stonish War of Unification
| Second Stonish War of Unification | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
,_1263.JPG) Depiction of the Stonish Army landing in the Southern Bīgōzōsī. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Flatstone |
 Ou Clan | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Bjarn Von Stone Harald Jensen Gert Koch Stefan Daugaard Sophus Kvist |
Kristen Ou | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 14,000 | Just over 1,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 250 | 800+ | ||||||
The Second Stonish War of Unification was a follow-up war to the First Stonish War of Unification that had concluded just a few months prior. Bjarn Von Stone, the first king of Flatstone, was well aware of his rapidly declining health, and so he took it upon himself to finish the process of unification throughout the Stonish archipelago himself so that his heir, Eirik Von Stone would not have to. This decision went against the wishes of the Ou who had signed a treaty of non-aggression with the newly formed Kingdom of Flatstone in 1232 following the end of the first war of unification.
The Kingdom of Flatstone had little time for economic recovery and political reintegration of the archipelago that it did control. The young nation was thrown into war once again almost immediately, this time with an enemy that was much more navally capable that it's predecessors. Despite this, the Kingdom of Flatstone held a number of advantages over the measly Ou Clan, one of which being Stonish control over the northern Bīgōzōsī islands, which had served as the foundation for Ou naval and trade dominance in the south of the Stonish archipelago. However, due to the fact that the northern Bīgōzōsī islands were surrendered to the Kingdom of Flatstone, subsequently resulting in an influx of Ou immigrants fleeing the islands to avoid execution, imprisonment, or the harsh taxes into the southern Bīgōzōsī islands, where the Ou capital was located. This caused confusion within the Ou navy, forcing it to remain in port for three months after the date that it had been expected to depart on, as well as slowing the mobilization of an Ou army, that had been disbanded after the end of the first war of unification. This gave the armies and navies of Flatstone time, valuable time that it needed to prepare.
The Fire at Port Kūmōnlān
In November of 1232, the Stonish Fleet arrived at Port Kūmōnlān, situated on the coastal outskirts of the Ou capital in Kūmōnlān. There, the Stonish made a crucial realization, this realization being that the Ou were not as prepared for war as Stonish nobles had expected them to be. When the Stonish fleet arrived in Kūmōnlān, they found Port Kūmōnlān to be a mess of merchant ships struggling to maintain the flow of traffic throughout and around the port as hundreds of locals attempted to navigate through the mess of scattered, foreign vessels that littered the ports' waters like discarded plastic. In response, the Stonish admirals did what any ambitious officer would do when given an opportunity such as this one; Fire. The decision was made to set fire to the hundreds of merchant ships clogging the port, looting, pillaging, and murdering their owners as the Stonish navy went from ship-to-ship, setting fire to anything that was thought to catch fire. The Stonish Navy lost a small amount of their own vessels in this process. However, in doing so, the largest portion of the Ou fleet was trapped in-port. This turned the battle at Port Kūmōnlān from a naval engagement into a ground battle, with the Szŧōnɉōnzī arriving shortly after. At this point, the Ou military garrison at Port Kūmōnlān hadn't even caught on to the arrival of the Stonish navy at the port, as they had been so busy attempting to manage the influx of Ou immigrants from the northern Bīgōzōsī and controlling the fire that they had assumed was caused by the immigrants. This lack of miscommunication caught them off guard, as they were slowly picked off one-by-one by the Szŧōnɉōnzī, who were now pouring into the city, taking the heads of Ou officers, magistrates and anybody who resisted. The Ou fleet fell into the hands of the Szŧōnɉōnzī after it's crew had failed to resist the Szŧōnɉōnzī horde, resorting to suicide in order to avoid capture or execution. Bjarn Von Stone would arrive in the city to oversee it's capture shortly after this, and the remainder of the city would fall into the hands of the Kingdom of Flatstone.
Ou Submission and Incorporation into the Kingdom
The humiliating defeat that the Ou sustained in Kūmōnlān resulted in the nations capitulation to the Stonish army shortly after, as the Ou possessed no other cities of considerable size, and they no longer had a fleet capable of standing up to that of the Stonish. A treaty was drafted by Bjarn Von Stone on January 1st of 1235 after one year of a Stonish occupation in Kūmōnlān. The treaty was signed by Kristen Ou of the Ou Clan, officially acknowledging the Ou's surrender and annexation into the greater Kingdom of Flatstone. This included Ou claims on the Mīdləŧūdī islands that had been discovered by Ou merchants during the First Stonish War of Unification. The southern Bīgōzōsī and the Mīdləŧūdī islands would be organized into a subdivision, becoming their own province under the Stonish Crown where the Ou people were granted a great deal of autonomy, receiving the right to implement their own laws, maintain their own language, and most importantly, decide the fate of religion throughout the Ou clan.
Vecism Split
Two years later, in the December of 1237, king Bjarn Von Stone of Flatstone would pass away, leaving his now united kingdom in the hands of his son, Eirik Von Stone. However, Eiriks inauguration would not take place until five months after the death of his father, giving a small amount of wiggle-room where Stonish absolutism was not enforced. The Ou Clan used this opportunity to go violate religious laws that had been put into place by Bjarn Von Stone, as he was no longer around to enforce them. Geologism, Flatstones largest and official religion, was largely practiced throughout the Bīgōzōsī islands. However, the Ou believed that Geologism was preventing them from using the autonomy that had been granted to them to the fullest effect. To counter this, Kristen Ou's successor decided that the only way to solve this religious predicament was to separate the Geologist followers in the lands of the Ou Clan from the Geologist followers in the lands of the rest of Flatstone. The Geologist church would be split into two when the Ou King negotiated with the local Əɉōm in Ou territory, convincing them to split from the Geologist faith and instead enforce their own denomination of the Geologist faith, known as Vecism. This Geologist split would divide the religion in two until 2022, when king Dag Von Stone would reunite the two religions using the absolute power granted to him at birth by his predecessor.