Note: Xinguang is a proper noun that refers to the nation, while Xinguan is a nationality / adjective
One of the main nations of Novrand.
History
Ancient history (pre-Banishing War)
Warring tribes
Xinguang has been settled by ancient tribes for hundreds of years before the Banishing War.
These tribes were small and primitive (most of them less than 200 in population) and fought against each other over land and resources when they were not fighting off monsters.
Without a strong unified resistance against them, the threat of monsters kept growing, until it became too big to ignore.
Unification by Ardia
Some 50 years before the Banishing War, Ardia manifested Himself in one of the largest tribes, the Xiao, taking the form of a blessed sword-wielding warrior.
This physical manifestation of Ardia taught the Xiao tribe the ways of advanced warfare and marched across the land to unite it under one banner.
Any opposition to Ardia and the Xiao tribe was quickly extinguished thanks to Ardia’s inhuman displays of martial prowess. According to the legend, Ardia was capable of felling a hundred veteran warriors with one swing of his sword, without killing a single one of them. Such miracles were proof of Ardia’s divine nature and as a result, the great unification of Xinguang was almost bloodless.
Soon Ardia had united the tribes of ancient Xinguang, a never-before-seen wave of monsters began to wash over Xinguang, which heralded the start of the Banishing War.
Old history (Banishing War to 100 years ago)
Banishing War
When the Banishing War began, Ardia vanished from the physical world to do battle with Versa on the spiritual realm, leaving the defense of the region to the united people.
The war against the monsters was brutal and lasted for years. This was because humanity’s war effort was actively sabotaged by a lieutenant of Versa called Sha Zhe, or in common tongue, Shadow Weaver.
Shadow Weaver’s true form was never revealed, if it even had one, for this calamity operated by taking over the minds of its victims. While possessing the minds of military commanders, Shadow Weaver forced the army of ancient Xinguan to continuously commit strategic mistakes.
It took many months for the ancient Xinguans to even understand the threat that they were facing from within. Even when the existence of Shadow Weaver was finally discovered, it took over the mind of its current host’s executioner, allowing it to continue wreaking havoc without the people realizing that the threat was still active.
However, humans gradually grew wise to Shadow Weaver’s trickery while Shadow Weaver grew more and more reckless. The calamity was finally defeated by Bai Cheng, a leader of a scouting unit, who drank a vial of slow poison moments before ambushing and killing an entire platoon of her countrymen in a narrow pass. Bai Cheng’s testament containing an explanation of her actions was later discovered next to her corpse.
By sacrificing the platoon along with herself, Bai Cheng finally rid the ancient Xinguans of the calamity’s influence. This moment was a turning point in the war and it rallied people to victory over the monsters, who were scattered and driven away. The ancient Xinguans had won their own Banishing War.
Warring Nations and the Founding of Xinguang
The united nation stood only for less than 100 years after the Banishing War. The sudden disappearance of Ardia, along with the absence of a strong external threat, began to slowly unravel the nation from within.
Xinguang fractured into five smaller warring nations in a “war of succession”: Kongyuan, Mengshan, Laohe, Xuangfeng and Hanli.
After 200 years of warfare between the five nations, the nation of Xuangfeng emerged victorious and reunited the nation under its banner, although not without considerable bloodshed. The leader of Xuangfeng, Xun Xiuying, became the ruler of the unified nation, the First Emperor. After a hard-won victory over his rivals, the emperor was certain of his divine favor and renamed the nation Xinguang (New Dawn) in honor of Ardia and renamed himself Xun Tianming (Mandate of Heaven of the Xun).
Golden Age
300 years after the end of the Banishing War, the nation of Xinguang had finally found lasting stability under the First Emperor Xun Tianming.
The emperor surrounded himself with loyal advisors from multiple walks of life and with their help, began to steer the nation towards prosperity through societal reform, research and innovation.
For the next 600 years, Xinguang experienced rapid growth due to breakthroughs in medicine and agriculture. Most historians agree that during the first 300 years of this period, Xinguang was the envy of the entire world.
Recent history (100 years ago to now)
Growing Pains
Xinguan innovations in key areas made the country the most populous one in the world by far, but this growing population, along with access to modern technologies, presented the nation with new challenges.
Over the last 100 years, the rulers of Xinguang foresaw that with such a large population, dangerous and secessionist ideas can find fertile ground, if they are not pre-emptively weeded out.
Afraid of the Xinguan people slowly beginning to fracture into ideologically separate groups, the leaders of Xinguang opted to take drastic measures to keep the nation unified. While good-intentioned, over dozens of years these unification policies have slowly warped into tools of tyranny: control of news, censorship, and purges of minor religions and cultures.
Current day
The current ruler of Xinguang, empress Xun Zhen was the only child of the previous emperor Xun Xia. Xun Zhen’s mother Jiang My died during childbirth and when Xun Zhen was 10, the emperor developed a rare illness which, within a year, first took away his ability to move, then the ability to speak, and finally the ability to breathe.
Xun Zhen was taught by dozens of realm-renowned advisors in the ways of statecraft, the lessons of which she took seriously. Xun Zhen displayed all the signs of becoming the enlightened and just ruler that Xinguang desperately needed, but then a great tragedy struck.
Certain activist groups in Xinguan had longed for freedom from ever-creeping state control for years before Xun Zhen was even born, and they saw all autocrats, including the new empress, as a potential threat that they needed to remove while they still had the chance.
At age 20, Xun Zhen lost both her 2-year-old son Xun Wen and her 23-year-old husband Wen Cai in a failed coup attempt spearheaded by voidtouched assassins that sneaked into the royal palace. These assassins were later found to have Versa cultist tattoos on them. During the final moments of the attack, as Xun Zhen was holding her dying husband in her arms, her life was saved by her old mentor and the mother Xun Zhen never had. This woman, Mao He, a priestess of Ardia, threw herself in front of a poisoned dagger meant for Xun Zhen. It is rumoured that during his final moments, the priestess whispered something to Xun Zhen, but no official records support this.
From this point on, Xinguan state censorship and news control begins to really take over. There are two stories existing side by side: the official truth as given by the state and the commonly accepted truth believed by most common people who are not fervently pro-state.