Grand Empire of the Shield

Overview

The Grand Empire of the Shield was the political entity that held sway over what is now called Iansisle from 1697 until 1952. The Empire was a multinational state in which the culture of Shadoran, one of the historic Seven Kingdoms of the Shield, was imposed over the other six.

Foundation

The Empire grew out of the Wars of the Shield, a series of off-and-on conflicts that grew from the collapse of the Sentrian Empire in 1091. The Sentrian Empire, which has largely been lost to history, was the first pan-Shieldian political body, though it was not Shieldian in and of itself. The Empire - whose native name no longer exists - started on what is now called Sentry Island because it stands at the exit to Troobodia Bay. The warlike natives there spread from the capital city of Analia and annexed large parts of the Great Shield and Tharia. It ruled through native proxies from roughly AD 550 until 1091, when a pan-Shieldian force under the Prince of Mansbár defeated a Sentrian host and forced the Empire from their homeland.

However, the camaraderie was short lived. Mansbár itself was overthrown in 1147 by his southern neighbor, Prince Pánoa of Laughlin, and the two thrones were combined into the Kingdom of Mansbár-Oeseld (Weshield). It was also at this time that English began to replace Ancient Shieldian as the predominate language.

By AD 1487, the seven kingdoms - Shadoran, Vesshampton, Wyclyfe, Weshield, Mansford, Thortraia, and the Foothills - were well established. However, it was not long before Shadoran and Weshield began to eclipse all the others. Weshield, as the first and - for a time - largest of the Kingdoms took an early lead in exploration. Their primary efforts were focused to the south, where they discovered the Empire of Tharia, the nomadic tribes then living around the Golden Quarry, and even made it all the way to Gallaga. The Shadoranites went north, around Cape Deliverance, and mapped the Noropian coast. In 1523, a Shadoranite merchant made contact with the Pater’s court in Effit. The result of these explorations was that money started pouring into the southern Kingdoms, to the exclusion of the northern ones. Several inconclusive wars were fought, primarily between Shadoran and the Foothills.

In 1593, a Shadoranite merchant found a route to the east of Borneo, circumnavigating the dangerous and Weshieldian-controlled South China Sea. The East Gallaga Company of Iansisle was formed, with a royal charter of 1599 granting monopoly status in Gallaga, and founded the New Shield trading post in the Ganges river valley. Shadoran began to pull away from the other kingdoms in terms of wealth.

Starting in 1665, the Javian king of the Foothills made a desperate last alliance with the northern kings of Mansford and Thortraia to attempt to curb Shadoranite power. A host of Foothillsmen moved at will through the north reaches of Shadoran and its ally, Vesshampton, defeating several southern armies. The royal fortress at Dûn Shadoran was almost sacked in 1667 and King Michael V of Shadoran was killed during the siege. His six year old son, Ian, inherited the throne. A cease-fire of 1672 delayed the main action but did not end it.

In 1683, when King Ian IV of Shadoran dismissed his regent at age sixteen, he set about turning the tide. Dûn Shadoran was abandoned and a new court was set up in the brand new dark, dank fortress of Dûn Ádien off the coast. Shadoran’s main power had always been her navy, and Ian used it to maximum effect. The great triple deck ship of the line Royal Standard was sent with a fleet to intimidate the Weshield king at Dûn Editraequás, who in 1685 proclaimed Ian to be his overlord. Wyclyfe followed soon after.

King Edward of the Foothills attacked in 1686. He sacked Dûn Shadoran in 1690 when Ian’s army refused to defend it. Realizing that his prey now sat offshore, Edward began building a fleet to invade Dûn Ádien. However, Royal Standard and the fleet soon returned and fired with grapeshot into the Foothills army, which ran inland. There, Ian and the army met Edward on the field at Pentonbridge and routed them. Elsewhere, southern arms triumphed. The King of Mansford swore fealty to Ian in 1691, the King of Thortraia in 1695, and the King of the Foothills in 1697. Gathering all the nobility to him that year, Ian proclaimed himself the first ‘High King of the Grand Empire of the Shield.’

History after 1697

The first task of the new High King was to create a sense of Shieldian nationality. Although Ian died only eight years after his triumph, his descendants carried on the great work. By 1750 wars of conquest against what remained of the Sentrians, the Tharians, the Noropians, and the Gadsani had helped to forge, through an ‘us versus them’ mentality, a sense of unity on the Shield. In 1785, the Empire suffered the first Effitian invasion, which was barely beaten back and forced everyone closer together.

In Gallaga, the company started to take on more the role of an independent government than that of simple traders. The New Shield trading post became the New Shield colony and modern arms from Iansisle helped a Company army rout the neighboring Nawab of Bengal in 1742. From there, the Company started to extract treaties from surrounding princes. However, in 1750, High King Ian III was persuaded to rescind the charter and curb the growing power of the Company. Iansisle took on the governance of Gallaga and expanded its borders to roughly their modern extent.

But when High King Toto I died in 1772, his liberal son James took over. James, who had been educated in France and fell under the influence of the ‘’philosophies.’’ He returned to ‘barbaric’ Iansisle with a plan for enlightened monarchy. In 1773, James reformed the Company. In 1774, he formed a parliament of the great nobles. This liberal tradition was carried on by his heirs, who found that the mob tended to become unruly unless new freedoms were granted them, until Iansisle resembled nothing so much as a modern constitutional monarchy.

In 1910 Dianatran, one of Iansisle’s contiguous colonies, revolted for the third time in five years. High Queen Jessica I realized that Iansisle would never be able to hold on to all of her possessions with her small army. Rather than force greater conscription on the people, Jessica devolved the contiguous (and predominantly white) colonies into a series of Dominions. These Dominions remained tied to Ianapalis, the capital of the Empire, in matters of foreign affairs but were allowed independence for domestic affairs. This policy worked; there were no major revolts in Dianatran until the Iansislean Civil War of 1938.

The Empire became entangled in its first major foreign crisis when it agreed to help the new Kingdom of Victoria and Salvador, which had broken away from mainland Beth Gellert. Most of the Iansislean fleet, however, was wiped out at the Battle of Salvador. Later, after the Civil War, Iansisle became entangled in the German-Chiangese War of 1942-1947, which ended with an essential stalemate in all theaters except Africa.

After the war, workers in the Empire became increasingly self-aware and began protesting the corporate excesses of the Empire. Royal Mining and Manufacturing seized control of the government to help it put down strikes in a period that became known as the Corporate Yoke. The Yoke didn’t end resistance, however; it only accelerated it. This was the death knell of the Empire. On 3 August 1952, Charles Bradsworth hauled down the Cross of St Patrick (flag of the Commonwealth) and the Cross Ádien (flag of the Empire) and put up a single Gull Flag. The Empire was declared defunct and a new ‘United Kingdom of the Shield’ rose in its place.