This will be an AAR for Quinqiu, a Chinese state on the West coast of North America in my mod Divergences. This first post is merely an introduction to Qingqiu's history and vision of the world. Future updates will have less text, and a hopefully more humorous tone 
This AAR will be played with version 0.4.2 of Divergences, possibly upgraded later if saved-game compatible.
Quinqiu - On the Eastern edge of the world...
The treasure fleet that founded Sanbao
Sanbao, 1st day of the 400th year of the Landfall era. 1st January 1836, in the calendar of our feared neighbours to the south and east. Four centuries have passed already since the glorious winter morning when the great Zheng He sailed in Sanbao bay at the head of the largest fleet ever sent by a Ming emperor, claiming a whole new world for the Chinese throne. How grand were those days, when the entire world seemed to bow toward the Emperor in Nanjing, and China’s golden age never to end!
Alas, nothing ever last, and it was not long before the Manchu barbarians came down from their frozen steppes to plunge China in centuries of warfare. Poor country of our ancestors, torn apart at the seems, split even today between waring factions, the diminished Ming dynasty desperately holding out against the Manchus to the north, the Taiping fanatics to the south and peasant rebels to the west...
And so we were left, fifty years after the first Chinese settled the shores of this land, cut out from the Middle Kingdom - a few thousand of us, weak, isolated, clinging to the edge of a wild land. Many thought there was no hope for us but to pray for the return of the great Chinese fleets, return that never came. And yet we survived. What we lacked, we traded for with the local tribes, exchanging the products of our crafts for food and resources. We taught them our language and how to write it, we made friend with them, married their daughters and opened them to the teachings of the Buddha. We replaced the strength we did not have with persuasion and culture, and slowly the Ohlone and the Pomo joined us in the expending city of Sanbao.
Cut off from the Empire, the early settlers made the wise choice of electing a council to govern us, in the name of the Emperor beyond the horizon. Under their wise direction our young colony prospered and grew, and soon we started establishing new towns and exploring far inland this great continent. Now strong enough to resist hostile tribes, yet always willing to accept those keen to learn our ways, we turned from stranded survivors into a prosperous young state.
All that changed yet again a hundred and fifty years after Landfall, when rumours of strange white men from the east started coming to us through Indian tribes. Soon the news became more alarming still - the mighty though backward and bloody empire of the Aztecs had been conquered in just a few months by people described by the terrified refugees that reached our borders as “pale like ghosts, with fiery eyes, weapons like thunder - showing no fear and no mercy, and erecting tall crosses in the ruins of cities”. It did not take us long to realise that we were facing the white people from beyond the Muslim lands, in this new land of all places. The Earth was indeed round, and it was not good news.
It has been two hundred and fifty years now since we learned we would have to share this continent with the Christian nations, and so far we have managed to avoid major clashes, while warily watching the Spaniards progress to our south and the other European nations settle on the more distant eastern coast. Basking in their technical superiority, everywhere they went they drove off or killed the local populations, making it clear they were there to empty the continent and repopulate it with white settlers and black slaves. Until now, our lands were sparred their greediness - they knew we would fight back better than the Indians, and there was more empty land than settlers. But the plains are filling fast. Soon we will have to face them for our right to a future.
Quinqiu on the 400th anniversary of Landfall
The situation in North America, 1836
This AAR will be played with version 0.4.2 of Divergences, possibly upgraded later if saved-game compatible.
Quinqiu - On the Eastern edge of the world...
The treasure fleet that founded Sanbao
Sanbao, 1st day of the 400th year of the Landfall era. 1st January 1836, in the calendar of our feared neighbours to the south and east. Four centuries have passed already since the glorious winter morning when the great Zheng He sailed in Sanbao bay at the head of the largest fleet ever sent by a Ming emperor, claiming a whole new world for the Chinese throne. How grand were those days, when the entire world seemed to bow toward the Emperor in Nanjing, and China’s golden age never to end!
Alas, nothing ever last, and it was not long before the Manchu barbarians came down from their frozen steppes to plunge China in centuries of warfare. Poor country of our ancestors, torn apart at the seems, split even today between waring factions, the diminished Ming dynasty desperately holding out against the Manchus to the north, the Taiping fanatics to the south and peasant rebels to the west...
And so we were left, fifty years after the first Chinese settled the shores of this land, cut out from the Middle Kingdom - a few thousand of us, weak, isolated, clinging to the edge of a wild land. Many thought there was no hope for us but to pray for the return of the great Chinese fleets, return that never came. And yet we survived. What we lacked, we traded for with the local tribes, exchanging the products of our crafts for food and resources. We taught them our language and how to write it, we made friend with them, married their daughters and opened them to the teachings of the Buddha. We replaced the strength we did not have with persuasion and culture, and slowly the Ohlone and the Pomo joined us in the expending city of Sanbao.
Cut off from the Empire, the early settlers made the wise choice of electing a council to govern us, in the name of the Emperor beyond the horizon. Under their wise direction our young colony prospered and grew, and soon we started establishing new towns and exploring far inland this great continent. Now strong enough to resist hostile tribes, yet always willing to accept those keen to learn our ways, we turned from stranded survivors into a prosperous young state.
All that changed yet again a hundred and fifty years after Landfall, when rumours of strange white men from the east started coming to us through Indian tribes. Soon the news became more alarming still - the mighty though backward and bloody empire of the Aztecs had been conquered in just a few months by people described by the terrified refugees that reached our borders as “pale like ghosts, with fiery eyes, weapons like thunder - showing no fear and no mercy, and erecting tall crosses in the ruins of cities”. It did not take us long to realise that we were facing the white people from beyond the Muslim lands, in this new land of all places. The Earth was indeed round, and it was not good news.
It has been two hundred and fifty years now since we learned we would have to share this continent with the Christian nations, and so far we have managed to avoid major clashes, while warily watching the Spaniards progress to our south and the other European nations settle on the more distant eastern coast. Basking in their technical superiority, everywhere they went they drove off or killed the local populations, making it clear they were there to empty the continent and repopulate it with white settlers and black slaves. Until now, our lands were sparred their greediness - they knew we would fight back better than the Indians, and there was more empty land than settlers. But the plains are filling fast. Soon we will have to face them for our right to a future.
Quinqiu on the 400th anniversary of Landfall
The situation in North America, 1836
