Some points about Harchong

Going through the books, there are several facts about the Harchong Empire of note. This is taking into consideration the fact that Harchong comes off as something of an expy of Imperial China.

First of all there is the matter of Harchong's Government. Harchong's society is highly stratified with a large underclass of impoverished peasants, serfs bound to the land and out and out slaves and a very powerful nobility with a lot of power over their fiefs and not much in between. Despite that the nobility does not do much to actually run their lands, instead having most of the Administration being handled by an Imperial Bureaucracy that is efficient when properly motivated. To me this seems bit incongruous. There's two ways such a bureaucracy could be set up which i'm going to call the Edo system and the Sui system based off real world history.

The Edo system has hereditary offices in the Imperial Bureaucracy. A knightly house has among it's assets the office of Census Taker for a rural barony who is under the command of a regional census director who is from a Baron's family. The problem with this is that it means that the Bureaucracy is ultimately just an extension of the nobility and as such they are actively involved in the running of their country. Given that the nobility and the bureaucracy are two different entities this seems unlikely.

The Sui System has competitive examinations: an exam is held every year and the guys who score the highest get junior positions in the the Bureaucracy as new offices are created and to fill gaps by people who die or retire. This system does mean that the nobility and the bureaucracy are separate animals and would even explain partially why the government is so corrupt because you have bureaucrats who's income is a measly salary and want to help their families as much as possible (this is a big problem in modern India). The problem with this is that is the fact that such an institution would also allow social mobility and undermine a hard and fast class system. Some blacksmith's or merchant's son is as sharp as a nail, aces the exam and gets a position in the Imperial Bureaucracy. With that posistion he can protect his family from the whims of the nobility and one way or another give them some of the "spontaneous gifts" which imperial bureaucrats receive.

The reason for the names I chose for those systems comes from real world systems. That of Edo Japan and china's Sui Dynasty. In the case of the latter, said system was brought about by Emperor Yang of Sui specifically to replace the exiting nobility.

The second matter is the fact of the Harchong Navy. Unlike the Desnarian Empire, Harchong has overseas colonies in South Harchong. In taking and holding these colonies, the Empire would need to have some naval tradition to transport soldiers to South Harchong and deal with pirates harassing the flow of trade and taxes across the Gulf of Dolhar. The last thing that even the corrupt court nobles and mandarins would want is for those provinces to be severed from the rest of the Empire.

Zor

Looking at province names, and names in the books, I would say Harchong is similar to an amalgamation of China and Russia.

imperatorzor wrote:Going through the books, there are several facts about the Harchong Empire of note. This is taking into consideration the fact that Harchong comes off as something of an expy of Imperial China.

I think imperial Russia is at least as prominent a source of inspiration for Harchong as imperial China - at any rate, if you want to grab for historical perspective, keep both of them in your mental tool box.

First of all there is the matter of Harchong's Government. Harchong's society is highly stratified with a large underclass of impoverished peasants, serfs bound to the land and out and out slaves and a very powerful nobility with a lot of power over their fiefs and not much in between.

There's a danger, I think, in writing off what is between too quickly. First, there will be some professional class: smiths, cartwrights, carpenters, merchants, parish and specialist priests, etc. Not a powerful one, nor a huge demographic - proportionately, much smaller than in other realms, but not non-existent. Second, there's the poorer nobility, with a social standing vastly ahead of the serfs and smiths too, but with a tiny farm they're working themselves, for example.

Both of those are sources of recruits for the bureaucracy. Proportionately, they don't have to be a demographic remotely comparable to the serfs, though they're still likely to outnumber powerful nobles greatly. But an efficient-when-pushed bureaucracy that makes its money on bribes otherwise does not have to be large or rest on a large demographic. If it is efficient, it likely doesn't have much make-work or indolence; if it is run on bribes, it's got internal motivation to keep numbers of office-holders down, so that the remaining office-holders can draw more bribes.

Despite that the nobility does not do much to actually run their lands, instead having most of the Administration being handled by an Imperial Bureaucracy that is efficient when properly motivated. To me this seems bit incongruous. There's two ways such a bureaucracy could be set up which i'm going to call the Edo system and the Sui system based off real world history.

The Edo system has hereditary offices in the Imperial Bureaucracy. A knightly house has among it's assets the office of Census Taker for a rural barony who is under the command of a regional police director who is from a Baron's family. The problem with this is that it means that the Bureaucracy is ultimately just an extension of the nobility and as such they are actively involved in the running of their country. Given that the nobility and the bureaucracy are two different entities this seems unlikely.

It could still happen. If the bureaucrats are drawn from the nobility but have their own income based on bribes and whatever salary they get, they've got a set of interests that differ from their cousins outside the bureaucracy and so aren't a mere extension of it. Even if they could be recalled by their noble sponsors, they've got a different set of interests so long as they do not let those interests carry them so far from their patrons' as to get recalled.

The Sui System has competitive examinations: an exam is held every year and the guys who score the highest get junior positions in the the Bureaucracy as new offices are created and to fill gaps by people who die or retire. This system does mean that the nobility and the bureaucracy are separate animals and would even explain partially why the government is so corrupt because you have bureaucrats who's income is a measly salary and want to help their families as much as possible (this is a big problem in modern India). The problem with this is that is the fact that such an institution would also allow social mobility and undermine a hard and fast class system. Some blacksmith's or merchant's son is as sharp as a nail, aces the exam and gets a position in the Imperial Bureaucracy. With that posistion he can protect his family from the whims of the nobility and one way or another give them some of the "spontaneous gifts" which imperial bureaucrats receive.

Nothing in Harchong is incompatible with some sorts of social mobility, much less economic mobility. (The two aren't tied together in an aristocracy.) If being a bureaucrat candidate takes literacy, serfs are barred; if it takes some bit of social poise, so are a lot of the professional class. So it's social mobility only for those with a background already on the fringes of respectability - and if it doesn't get you into the hereditary nobility, well, it's only social mobility from the lower end of the "middle" class toward the upper end. It may do a lot more in terms of economic mobility, but then, so can trade if you can avoid (somehow) being robbed by the nobles or bureaucrats.

The reason for the names I chose for those systems comes from real world systems. That of Edo Japan and china's Sui Dynasty. In the case of the latter, said system was brought about by Emperor Yang of Sui specifically to replace the exiting nobility.

The second matter is the fact of the Harchong Navy. Unlike the Desnarian Empire, Harchong has overseas colonies in South Harchong. In taking and holding these colonies, the Empire would need to have some naval tradition to transport soldiers to South Harchong and deal with pirates harassing the flow of trade and taxes across the Gulf of Dolhar. The last thing that even the corrupt court nobles and mandarins would want is for those provinces to be severed from the rest of the Empire.

Zor

Probably some, yes, although it could have managed with, say, Trellheim mercenaries or paying off the would-be pirates. (Possibly paying off half of them to serve as mercenaries against the other half.) But like Harchong's army, its navy may have spent the last few decades resting on its laurels and growing soft. Or they may be practicing their drill to a balletic degree of artistry and grace - which no longer has much to do with military effectiveness.

Don't forget also that the Harchongese army is large enough to put down a slave/serf revolt, so it may indeed be very much more prepared than their navy.

**** Possible Spoiler below ***

Additionally, I doubt that they would recruit serfs to serve in it since it's first responsibility is to put down serf rebellions and the second to protect Harchong from outside incursions. Also I beleive that that was specifically mentioned in one of the snippets, or perhaps in one of the earlier books. In order to support the army then, there must be a moderately large supply of bodies in the middle/artisan/merchant class which can be drawn on to supply either a standing army or at least a large militia, and thus there is also a large group of people which can be drawn upon to supply the bureaucracy and possibly supply upward mobility options into the nobility. I seem to recall reading at one time that in China, it was about a 7 generation cycle for an ambitions family to rise from farmer to merchant to the top of the bureaucracy and then collapse back to farmer, but I can't provide the textev for that. (I think it was Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth", but reading it was a long time ago)

Keith_w wrote:Don't forget also that the Harchongese army is large enough to put down a slave/serf revolt, so it may indeed be very much more prepared than their navy.

**** Possible Spoiler below ***

Additionally, I doubt that they would recruit serfs to serve in it since it's first responsibility is to put down serf rebellions and the second to protect Harchong from outside incursions. Also I beleive that that was specifically mentioned in one of the snippets, or perhaps in one of the earlier books. In order to support the army then, there must be a moderately large supply of bodies in the middle/artisan/merchant class which can be drawn on to supply either a standing army or at least a large militia, and thus there is also a large group of people which can be drawn upon to supply the bureaucracy and possibly supply upward mobility options into the nobility. I seem to recall reading at one time that in China, it was about a 7 generation cycle for an ambitions family to rise from farmer to merchant to the top of the bureaucracy and then collapse back to farmer, but I can't provide the textev for that. (I think it was Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth", but reading it was a long time ago)

A few points; First, they absolutely recruit their soldiers from the serf population. This was said multiple times in the book. Not only that, but that is historically how such governments worked. Their officers, on the other hand, were NOT drawn from the serf population.

Second point, they COULDN'T arm, or support, their army... which was the reason the CoGA was having to equip and arm the Harchong serf army.

Isilith wrote:
A few points; First, they absolutely recruit their soldiers from the serf population. This was said multiple times in the book. Not only that, but that is historically how such governments worked. Their officers, on the other hand, were NOT drawn from the serf population.

Second point, they COULDN'T arm, or support, their army... which was the reason the CoGA was having to equip and arm the Harchong serf army.

Agreed on the first paragraph here. Obviously serfs were used when needed for cannon fodder.

Your second point is a bit more iffy. It wasn't that Harchong couldn't have made the weapons. It was that the money sent by the Temple was absorbed by graft. That is a bit different than saying that they couldn't do it.

Don

We know the harchong have the greatest population, i am wondering how much of htat is free and how much of htat are the nobility. What happens if the nobility is devestated by the war by losses? We are all expecting the harchong to take increadibly aweful losses. I can see peasant revolts going badley and making it seem what happened in the republic like a minor disagreement

SYED wrote:We know the harchong have the greatest population, i am wondering how much of htat is free and how much of htat are the nobility. What happens if the nobility is devestated by the war by losses? We are all expecting the harchong to take increadibly aweful losses. I can see peasant revolts going badley and making it seem what happened in the republic like a minor disagreement

Once Siddarmark annexes the borderlands, an Charis takes Silkiah, Harchong will be in 3rd place.

SYED wrote:We know the harchong have the greatest population, i am wondering how much of htat is free and how much of htat are the nobility.

Well, we can't say for sure, but comparing with real life, the percentage of nobility in society varied between 2 (England) and 10% (Poland). I guess with how overblown the bureaucracy in Harchong is, 5-10% would be a nice guess as to the number of people with "blue blood" and their families (in Japan, which modeled their nobility on China, one of countries Harchong was based on, it was 5%). As to slaves/serfs, their percentage in society of the Imperial Russia (the other country Harchong was based on) was 45% by the end of XVIII century. That would mean that the "freemen" make up between 50 and 55% of society.

Translated to numbers (taking Harchongese population as stated in FAQ at face value) this would make:
nobility:.........~9 700 000 (pretty absurd number - 1-2% would probably be closer to reality)
freemen:......~97 000 000
serfs/slaves:...87 300 000

Even with nobility being 1% of society, it's still nearly 2 million people, so I guess it wouldn't be that easy to finish them all off.

(edited to fix the numbers)

Kakai wrote:

SYED wrote:We know the harchong have the greatest population, i am wondering how much of htat is free and how much of htat are the nobility.

Well, we can't say for sure, but comparing with real life, the percentage of nobility in society varied between 2 (England) and 10% (Poland). I guess with how overblown the bureaucracy in Harchong is, 5-10% would be a nice guess as to the number of people with "blue blood" and their families (in Japan, which modeled their nobility on China, one of countries Harchong was based on, it was 5%). As to slaves/serfs, their percentage in society of the Imperial Russia (the other country Harchong was based on) was 45% by the end of XVIII century. That would mean that the "freemen" make up between 50 and 55% of society.

Translated to numbers (taking Harchongese population as stated in FAQ at face value) this would make:
nobility:.........~9 700 000 (pretty absurd number - 1-2% would probably be closer to reality)
freemen:......~97 000 000
serfs/slaves:...87 300 000

Even with nobility being 1% of society, it's still nearly 2 million people, so I guess it wouldn't be that easy to finish them all off.

(edited to fix the numbers)

Ok, let's say 1% then you have about 2 000 000 members of the nobility.

Remember that a big percentage of the nobility is likely lower nobility which would be a knight or the Harchongese equivalent and his two villages. That should be at least a million. I would estimate that each level above the number is decreased by a factor of 5 - 10 .

With a estimated average size of the direct family of 18 (3 generations with 3 children each = 2 grandparents + 3 children + 3 spouses + 3 x 3 grandchildren)
that's 100k knights,
about 10k barons, 1000 earls, 100 dukes, 10 arch-/grand-dukes and 1 emperor.

That's probably a reasonable number and totals about 2 million people. With a smaller redcution factor add another level of nobility like markgrave of marchess or something like that