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Sajal War
A common Mutulese soldier during the Sajal War
Date 1828 - 1839 Location Mutul Result Royalist Victory Capitulation of the Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale Reunification of the Mutul Beginning of the Itzamnaaj Reformation
Belligerents
Mutul	Template:Country data Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale
Commanders and leaders
Itzamnaaj B’alam	Bolon Chan Witz

The Sajal War, also known as the War of the Frightfuls or Terrifying War, was a civil war that opposed the Ilok'tab Dynasty of the Mutul and their loyalists against the Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale. It lasted from 1828 with the murder of the Divine Queen Ik'skull and the proclamation by the Sajal Holpop of the Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale.

Origins

Since the rule of Balijaj Chan K'awiil I in the early 18th century, the powers and authority of the K'uhul Ajaw kept being limited by the ever more powerful merchant-aristocracy of the Mutul. Local and national assemblies became permanent legal institutions whom obtained a de-facto say on the Divine King's politics after much political troubles. The weakening of the Mutul's position in the West after the Tsurushimese revolution of 1750 only exacerbated a conflict between a weakened monarchy and its nobility whom, inspired by both local and foreign thinkers, especially from Sante Reze developed a more liberal approach to both the economy and politics.

In 1819, the Second War for Kahei started, threatening some of the merchant-aristocracy's positions in Ochran. In 1820, Wahlam B'alam V died in K'umarkaj after a decade long semi-exile ordered by the Sajal Holpop, the Nobility's Assembly, who had taken over K'alak Muul. His young son, Wahlam B'alam VI, was brought back to the capital to be crowned and ruled as a puppet king for the Sajal Holpop. The same year, he died of illness and was succeeded by his elder sister, Lady Ik'skull. Ik'skull tried to restructure the Divine Throne bureaucracy and to limit the powers of the assemblies like the Sajal Holpop. In 1828, a conspiracy of Mutuleses aristocrats managed to murder the Divine Queen and her body was pushed from the balcony of her palace. This trigger a series of events that led to her husband fleeing the capital with their son, the future B'ailjaj Chan K'awiil II, and the Sajal Holpop proclaiming the end of the Mutul and the creation of the Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale.

Combattants

Ilok'tab Loyalists

The current Flag of the Mutul was created by Monarchists militias during the civil war

After his escape from K'alak Muul, Itzamnaaj B'alam, king-consort of Ik'skull gained K'umarkaj, the traditional base of power of the Ilok'tab Dynasty and enthroned his son as B'ailjaj Chan K'awiil II while he himself took the position of Regent. He amassed around him an inner circle of friends, family members, and clients, and built from there his resistance to the Noble Republic. After a few months he moved his base of operation further east, as he gathered there the Divine Army, which had globally remained loyal to the Ilok'tab, alongside various loyalists militias he trained and organized into what would become the core of the Royalist army.

The leadership of the Loyalists was thus made of the Ilok'tab Dynasty and all associated lineages. K'iche and Mam people had remained heavily tied to the Ilok'tab, tjeir countries too distant from the main hub of international trades with either Ochran or Sante Reze to lose their dependence toward the central authorities. They would form the bulk of the troops and officers of the Royalists armies.

The Chibchans also became prominent in the Royalists armies. The countryside of the eastern regions was thorn appart by the heavy social changes that led to the creation of the Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale and had been especially plagued by riots or protests in support of traditional social organization and against the transition from the old Market System, directed by the State, to the more liberal system of self-governance of the Merchant-aristocracy promoted by the forces that formed the Republic. Itzamnaaj spend the early years of the war exploiting this divide between the new middle class that had appeared since the 1700s and the countryside. It's this work of "recuperation" of the Chibchans and Lencas regions, and the promises made at the time, that layed the basis for the future Itzamnaaj Reformation, post-war.

In the Xuman Peninsula and the central regions, support toward the Royalists or the Republicans changed from town to town, from family to family. Old rivalries and dynastic conflicts came to feed the civil war, from local ancestral vendettas, to mistrust toward the Tatinak and Yokot'an aristocracies who were the main backers of the Noble Republic. Ultimately, these regions would become part of the Noble Republic of Northern Oxidentale, but would remain plagued by insurrections and protests the Royalists were able to turn into pro-Ilok'tab movements. The current flag of the Mutul, the Yax-Sak-Kan, was notably created as a pro-Ilok'tab flag by K'ol militias.