Camian Kingdom

The Camian Kingdom (1703 – 1742) was the earliest period in Camian history after independence from Themiclesia. The Kingdom was dominated by a closed group of families, known as the Compact, that held oligopolistic powers through their pre-eminence in the administration. In the early kingdom, the Compact sought to harness the Colonial Army, maintain ethnic harmony, but reserve power for themselves. After 1725, Tyrannian merchants gradually rose to prominence through commercial connections and ability to supply the Colonial Army. In the late kingdom, infighting amongst the Compact, lobbying from nearby Tyrannian colonies, and doubt in the integrity of the throne led to the destabilization and dissolution of the monarchy, creating the First Republic. Due to the closed nature of government, historical record from the Kingdom is poor and controversial.

History

Independence

Due to the settlement history of Camia during the colonial period, the proportion of Camians descended from literati families is much lower than in Themiclesia, and there were large numbers of isolated communities led by veterans of the Colonial Army, who were effectively exiles, and by Tyrannian settlers. While Themiclesia formally divided Camia into counties in the 1500s, the counties directly answered to the central government without an intermediary, prefectural institution. There was thus no unified government of Camia during the colonial period. Inter-communal decision-making was incumbent on prominent families, and a limited number of them came to prominence through commerce and reputation, claiming descent from well-known Themiclesian dynasties, sometimes dubiously. The communities populated by veterans of the Colonial Army, though keeping to themselves mostly, were amenable to the leadership of "learned men" in civil matters as would have been the case in Themiclesia, only this form of consensual decision-making had far greater latitude than in Themiclesia, given the weakenss of local government. In the 1600s, these families formed a band of common interest in resisting higher taxation to fund the Colonial Army. While the latter nominally recruited from Themiclesia and served her interests, it is estimated that by about 1650 more than half of its ranks were Camian by birth. In 1701, by internal deliberation, M'ang, the patriarch of the Din family, was acclaimed "King of Camia"; two years later, with the Colonial Army in civil war over its allegiance, Themiclesia formally recognized M'ang as a ruler. Debate continues on whether this recognition was that between equal states or implied Themiclesian suzerainty; this ambiguity may have been intentional, according to the latest research.

Early kingdom

After Themiclesia ordered loyalist troops to cease hostilities in Camia, Din M'ang made several edicts that laid down the structure of the government, today known as the royal constitution. While this was not a constitution that defined rights and duties of individuals and functions of state organs, it implicitly placed the Compact in a dominant position and offered little channel for outsiders to participate in politics, even emerging clans. Nevertheless, the abolition of metropolitan taxes in support of naval campaigns in Meridia immensely reduced taxation on every class and made the new monarchy popular. With the exception of minor skirmishes in the interior, Camia encountered no military conflict during this period.

Late kingdom

In 1727, Din M'ang died, passing the thorne to his heir, Prince Kwang. While there had been no succession dispute, Kwang was, according to his contemporaries, "not a good fit for the throne". He was a private individual who preferred to spend time reading and sporting, using tax funds to build himself several new residences. Though generating only minor objection, parts of the Compact were concerend that he would become tyrannical; Kwang died heirless and unexpectedly in 1735, leaving his throne to his younger brother, the heir apparent, Gwreng. Under Gwreng, the concerns of the Compact redoubled, given his tendency to consort with the Colonial Army. While the Colonial Army was not politically active, the government had generally permitted it to retain its colonial-era privileges, such as some businesses and large tracts of land, but refrained from excessive interference with its training and staffing. Gwreng, however, decided to alter this policy by placing his allies in senior positions in the army, though also raising a special head tax for its maintenance, at the rate of one penny per capita per annum.

Government

The government of the Camian Kingodm is structurally similar to Themiclesia but, in operation, radically different. The implied basis of Themiclesian government, a sizeable, politically active gentry, choosing officials in competitive local elections, is largely absent from Camia. Rather than dozens of prominent, enfranchised families in each county, there was, by and large, only one or two such families in each country, whose administration is very reliant on the co-operation of the family that owns upwards of half of arable land in the jurisdiction. In Themiclesia, the non-enfranchised public could, through their tenancies, alter the balance of power between local magnates, but the sheer dominance of the Compact made this impossible in Camia. Furthermore, Themiclesia granted land in remote regions to first-time landless peasants to prevent landlords from turning tenants into serfs in densely-populated rural areas; this mechanism was also absent in Camia, as the Kingdom never properly surveyed land.

The Royal Constitution was intentional similar to the Themiclesian constitution, as it was drawn up by the Compact, which often emphasized their relationship with the Themiclesian gentry to impress legitimacy on their tenants and maintain the relationship between landlord and tenant that was usual in Themiclesia. To the military settlements, which were often autonomous and self-contained, the Compact also sought to appear in the guise of the Themicleian gentry, to capitalize whatever cultural and moral superiority that lingered in the minds of ex-soldiers that resided in these communities. While the Colonial Army had a vehemetly anti-landlord culture (the reward for service was a free tract of land), the social station of the educated landlord was, by-and-large, still recognized, especially in public affairs. The early Kingdom emphasized that Themiclesian laws and precedents, when not repugnant to their statutes, remained applicable. In general, there was a conscious attempt by the Compact to conserve social dynamics in Themiclesia and concentrate political legitimacy in itself.

These observations, largely written by social historians after the 1960s, have percipitated a significant change of attitudes in Camian historiography, complementing institutional-focused histories that solidly emphasized the similarities of the Kingdom to Themiclesia. These earlier histories are now thought to be popularized by the Junta's policy to denigrate the Kingdom and the two Republics before it. The Kingdom was institutionally castigated as corrupt and a crony to the Themiclesian identity and state structure, while the Second Republic was villainized as a puppet to Themiclesia. The First Republic was lauded for its war and victory over Themiclesia but still deemed an oligarchy that did not govern with the assent of the people. As a result of the Junta's attempt to divest Camia of any lingering trace of Themiclesian identity, it posited that only through the military coup in 1870 did Camia gain "true and complete independence", even though this was almost 170 years after Din M'ang was credited as an independent ruler by Themiclesia.

King

The King of Camia (昭昌王) was head of state and was largely expected to exercise the same powers as the Themiclesian emperor. Terms applied by Themiclesians to their sovereign, such as ngjon-slju’ and ndjang’, were applied by Camian literati to their king as well. He enacted laws and ordinances, appointed officials, sent and received diplomatic missions according to Themiclesian norms and was the head of the administration.

Executive

Nominally, all state business was transacted through the Council of Correspondence (尚書臺, zyang-sho-doy), which was a council of ministers, per the Themiclesian model. For the entire duration of the Kingdom, the Council of Correspondence consisted of six ministers, the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister, the ceremonies minister, the finance minister, the census minister, and the public works minister. Unlike Themiclesia, there was no war minister. The Privy Council (中大夫省, tiong-daih-pyo-sreng) was envisioned as a special committee for the extraordinary exercise of royal prerogative, also as in Themiclesia. The Council of Attendants (常侍省, jiang-zi-sreng) was meant to be a check on the power of the crown, as it limited the Themiclesian emperor's unilateral power to give assent to parliamentary legislation. During the early kingdom, there was an effort to keep the these institutions functionally separate; this was somewhat done under the reign of M'ang. By the end of his reign, however, the Compact had established dominance in all three. By the reigns of his sons, these three organizations virtually merged in everything except name. The merger was so complete that the new (non-statutory) term Council of State (政事省, ching-chrye-sreng) was used by contemporaries to describe it. Historians consider them an executive branch. During the last years of the Kingdom, amidst political instability, there were public voices to separate these institutions again, but they went completely unnoticed by the Compact.

Legislative

In Themiclesia, the limited democracy of legislative power is founded on two principles: that the bill must be presented by the Council of Protonotaries to the throne and that, that Council is composed of elected gentry at a fixed time and apportionment. Both processes are subverted by the political realities of Camia. As the members of the Compact effectively ran unopposed in the triennial local elections, the Camian Protonotaries were, in reality, a house of the heirs and cadets of the Compact. As the Camian civil service was much smaller than that of Themiclesia, new aristocrats rising from clerkdom were few and not accorded economic benefits that would, in Themclesia, allow them to rise to parity with established houses over several generations of service, but this is not an apparent issue as the Kingdom did not last long enough for it to become apparent.