History of Furnifold
(Work in Progress)
Pre-Great Expulsion
Native indigenous people first inhabited the area of Furnifold in various tribes, which were eventually consolidated into one Gwexhai people. The area was previously under control of the nation of Iassath, a mercantile imperialist nation with lofty ambitions. In the 17th and early 18th century, the area Furnifold occupies was just beginning to be explored for resource exploitation, but every exploration met stiff resistance from the Gwexhai people. When the natives started to get sick and die due to not being inoculated against the explorer’s diseases, it began to force them out of the region. The Gwexhai were able to defend their lands for a time, though as time went on, Iassath was able to overcome the Gwexhai and remove them from much of Furnifold proper. By the 1720s, the last bastion of Gwexhai land was in the Gwexhai Jungle. With the natives gone, the explorers were free to colonize the land, though they never got a chance to.
The Great Expulsion
In the early 1730’s, tragedy struck Iassath and the nation collapsed, leaving behind the settlers and no link to the previous government. Out of necessity, the people decided to establish a system of multiple governments that were feudal in nature, with separate administrations that composed the large farms and mines of the region. There was no central system of government, and only those who retained land or owned businesses were allowed to have a voice. Essentially it lacked any unifying presence. Those with land were wary of those without land, given that they had not received any information about the causes of Iassath’s collapse and were nervous about the lack of security. Because of this, the feudal society was oppressive towards those who did not have land, leading to much resentment from these people. Those without land had a much more fluid method of communication and were unified in ideology, and their leaders plotted a popular insurrection to overthrow their feudal bounds and seize the land. The event of the 1748 uprising is where the account of what happened diverge, and it is challenging to determine which actually happened.
Royalist’s Account
The Royalists, those with land, found that some sympathetic or opportunistic members of the Bilards, those without land, tipped off the Royalists about the impending overthrow. Knowing that they could not successfully defend themselves against such an onslaught, the Royalists in the government engaged in a great rollback of oppressive policies towards the Bilards. These included allowing them to engage in government by electing representatives, opportunities to receive land if they make enough of a living, and other measures. The Bilards were extremely vindictive and carried out their revolution anyways, invading feudal lands and overthrowing their governments in the course of one month. The Royalists were left homeless, and only allowed to retain one of their possessions, which in most cases were the books from their libraries. The Royalists migrated south and met up with others who were left in similar predicaments. They finally ended up in the area of where Auburn is today, an area with suitable climate, a water source, and soil for them to establish a settlement.
Bilard’s Account
The Bilards believe that the Royalists had paid off people to snitch on their plans, but the measures the government put in place would suffice for the time being. But, anarchist elements in their wing wanted to seize control, and were able to carry out their plans. When it was discovered that one of the Royalist governments had been stockpiling weapons to use on the Bilards, they seized the weapons and brought them to the Bilard leadership, who decided that all the Royalist governments needed to be investigated. Over the course of one month, the Bilards went from government to government and found similar weapons stockpiles. However, towards the end of the month, they would see Royalists on the road heading south carrying only their libraries of books, but the weapon stockpiles in the government centers that should have been there were not. No one was checking the fleeing Royalists, leading many in the Bilards leadership to suspect the Royalists of carrying weapons in their libraries. The Bilards, at this point lacking the same ideological unification, let the Royalists flee south without offering rehabilitation, and the Bilards settled the region to the north of Furnifold.
The Settlement of Auburn
Auburn was the first settled establishment for the Royalists in Furnifold. They were able to set up some rudimentary foraging and hunting measures, until they stumbled too far into the Gwexhai Jungle and ran into the Gwexhai people. A little over a generation ago, these people had moved back into the jungle after being decimated by the Iassath hunters and forced to flee. The Gwexhai decided to assist the refugees, helping them till the land with more established tools, and showing them the fertile area farther west by the Branwell Plains. A fledgling economy and town was built. Because the light from the sun reflected off the trees from the Gwexhai Jungle in such a way that made the ground appear red, the Royalists decided to name the area Auburn, after the color. Once the Gwexhai helped them get started, they retreated back into the jungle, with a warning that they would not be so friendly if the Royalists attempted to trek into the jungle.
Moving south
In the early 1760s, the town of Auburn had grown greatly, due to a higher number of births and other people migrating from the old Iassath lands. Remembering the warning of the Gwexhai and not wishing to expand into the jungle, the chief magistrate of Auburn, Furnifold McLendal, tasked Royalists Jeremy Boone and Janet Carson to head south by foot to find other areas to settle. The two of them and their small teams took supplies and headed south along the Ayx River, making sure to skirt the Gwexhai Jungle. Boone was able to effectively map the extent of the Gwexhai Jungle, which is still in use as a delineator of the jungle line.
Splitting up
Once the explorers reached the area just to the east of the Branwell plains, Carson wanted to stop and explore west, believing the area to be of good fertile land. She also knew there was a sea, and she wanted to meet the coastline. Boone was looking to travel farther south, as he had previously seen the territory of Iassath and believed there was a lake somewhere in that vicinity. It was at this point that the two explorers and their teams decided to split up, and it would also be the last time that Boone and his team were seen alive.
Carson set up a stake in the area, and sent one of her team to travel back up to Auburn for a report on the locale, then took her team west into the Branwell Plains. Named after the agriculturalist of the team Branwell Bront, the plain was proven early on to have fertile land for farming, as the fields had corn and okra growing on them before even being settled. As settlers moved south towards where Carson had put a stake, she and her team kept moving west, eventually reaching the coastline. They decided to follow the coastline south, and by 1764 reached the Carrington River delta. It was there that they stopped their southward expedition, and moved back east along the Carrington river.
Boonefield
By early 1764, her team had grown weary of exploring, after over a year of exploring. Their original expedition was supposed to end once they found a suitable settlement area, but Carson was determined to meet up with Boone again, who she believed would also be trying to make it to the coastline. She eventually did, but unfortunately not in the way she thought. She was traveling up the north of the Carrington River, when she saw an area that previously looked like it had been settled, with the structures burned, worn out or destroyed. She and the team crossed the river using floatation devices and rope, and set about looking for signs of settlement. They found several noticeable signs, some that looked like people had been there just three months ago. There looked to be a fire that was started at that time, given the burned structures. The explorers looked in the burned out structures, and Carson found six bodies on the floor, unmistakably Boone, his wife Carrington, and his team, in one of the buildings. It looked like they had died of asphyxiation, and there was a struggle to open the door, as scratch marks and knife cuts were all over it. Luckily Boone’s diary was intact, and though it did not document how they passed away, it did document his travels down the Ayx River and east. According to Boone, this area was settled by farmers from Iassath, but had moved elsewhere due to Gwexhai interference in the 1600s. Right along the river, this area was a great location as a stopping point along the river to the coastline. Carson put up a stake, then decided to name it Boonefield, after the dedicated explorer Jeremy Boone.
1770: The War of the Bilards
By the turn of the 1770s, the Royalists had expanded and settled into a small outpost that Janet Carson had established, and begun to expand into farming the area in the Branwell Plains. Pioneers had also moved down to Boonefield to establish and build a town. The rivers and a system of trails were the established method of travel and communication between the three towns. Auburn was still the largest town, but being so close to the northern limits of the Royalist land, it was not easily defensible. This was put to the test when the Bilards attacked the country.
The lead-up
Relations between the Bilards, who were struggling to start their own country, divvy up the land in their egalitarian system, and establish rule of law, and the Royalists were frosty to say the least. There was a good amount of trading going on between Auburn and southern-most towns in Bilard, the unofficial country-name of the northern land, but both nations refused to open diplomatic talks. Furnifold McLendal, the magistrate of Auburn and the highest-ranking official in government, sought to change that. In 1766 he sent an envoy to Bilard to request an open discussion with the country, so as they could learn from each other about what each wanted. Bilard accepted, and a meeting was arranged in Auburn in late 1766.
The talks went very well at first, but then they went downhill when the officials from Bilard wished to discuss returning the arms that were smuggled out of the government centers during the Great Expulsion. The Royalist officials were outraged at such a bold accusation, fiercely believing that these weapons were stolen from them. What the Bilards wanted was essentially to go to the Royalist residencies and take their weapons, disarming them. The Royalists did not have any production capabilities to make higher-grade weapons, so they had been using more primitive gunpowder-based weapons as well as pikes and halberds. The Bilards, believing it was in their rights, decided to act by seizing the Royalist citizens who lived in homes north of Auburn, north of the 15th parallel. These citizens, seeing an armed presence on their land, warned them but then opened fire on the Bilard soldiers. The Bilards returned fire, killing them and destroying their home. When the Royalist government was made aware of this, they were outraged, and talks were stopped right there. The Bilard officials were expelled from Auburn, and the Royalists called up their Guard to defend Auburn from an attack. There were trenches drawn up along the 15th parallel and troops stationed there, but no side fired upon the other for years.
1770- The Guesthouse Ignition
One ominously chilly morning (by Furnifold’s standards) on the 15th parallel, two Royalist soldiers were stationed near one of the Royalist residencies along the 15th parallel when they saw a large conglomeration of Bilard forces marching towards the residency. The Royalist soldiers called out a warning, telling these forces that if they crossed the property line the soldiers were to open fire. The Bilards crossed the line, and the soldiers, knowing they stood no chance if they fired, continued to call out a warning as they knocked on the door of the residency, and were let in. From there, the Bilard forces surrounded the residency, and one of them called out for the occupants to surrender their weapons. The occupants would not agree to these terms, and made way for the guesthouse through an underground wine cellar. They made it to the guesthouse, but by this time the Bilards had forced their way into the house and were ransacking it. Knowing it would only be a matter of time before the guesthouse was searched, the Royalist soldiers sent the family out of the guesthouse towards the Royalist garrison, and made noise to attract the Bilard forces to the guesthouse. The Bilard forces moved towards the guesthouse, then seeing the shine of the metal weapons, started firing upon the Royalist soldiers. The Royalists returned fire, but both were slain in the salvo. Some of the gunpowder from the weapons ignited a lamp, setting the house on fire, causing the Bilards to flee the scene. When the Royalist forces arrived at the residency, the guesthouse was ablaze and unsalvageable. The Royalists contained the fire, then moved into the residency to check for Bilards. Seeing none, they reported the events to their commander, who issued a shoot-to-kill order on any Bilard who crosses the 15th parallel or into a Royalist residency.
First Royalist Charge
No less than one week after the Guesthouse Ignition events, a Bilard force moved to commandeer another Royalist residency. This time, the Royalists prepared for this, and had garrisoned soldiers at this location. They also had set up effective communication measures to the central command along the 15th. So when the Bilard force moved in, the Royalists fired upon them from the house with no warning. The Bilard force was decimated before it could even return fire, and the forces who were still alive fled. Knowing that this is when they were most vulnerable, the commander issued a charge on the battalion of trenched troops on the left flank, believing that the Bilards would split up their forces thinking that they were being attacked from the residency on the right and from a charge on the left. The tactic worked, and the surprise charge along with the splitting of reinforcements to both flanks caused a bend in the left flank. The forces were forced to retreat to the row of secondary trenches, and the Royalists moved forward to take the rest of the trenches along the 15th parallel. This was the start to the Royalist-Bilard War.
Second Royalist Charge
The Royalists held on to the trenches for a few days, but then were beaten back by the Bilard counterattack. Better strategy could not face-off against better weapons. The Royalist forces, knowing this, decided to target a more appealing location, the makeshift armory of the Bilard forces along the 15th parallel. The same day they were beaten back, they mounted another charge; however, this one was not nearly as successful. The Bilard forces had fortified this area, which was right in the middle of their trenches along the 15th. The Royalists charged, but met a stiff wall of resistance, and were forced back to their trenches. The commanders of the Royalists realized that if they could not approach the armory this way, they would need to find a way to sabotage the armory’s connection to the rest of the forces.
Targeting of supply lines
The Royalists decided to hit supply lines of the Bilards, and attempt to target the armory. In a pincer motion, Royalist forces moved around the trenches, under heavy fire by opposing forces, to the checkpoints to the armory. Behind enemy lines, and still under fire, Royalists rolled balls filled with gunpowder and set with a fuse towards the armory. When these makeshift grenades exploded, the Royalists charged through the smoke to assault the armory. Realizing there was still heavy resistance, the soldiers made the decision to destroy the armory, so that both forces could not procure the weapons. They lit the rest of their grenades and threw them into the armory, where the explosions coupled with more gunpowder lit the place up. Most of the Royalists who assaulted the armory were killed that day, either during the initial run or during the sabotage and the Bilard counterattack. However it was seen as a success, as the two sides were essentially stalemated in terms of weapon strength.
The Gwexhai become involved and the end of the war
In 1771 the war appeared to be a stalemate. Both sides attempted to breach each other’s trenches, but neither side had the same success that the Royalists did at the start of the war. Furnifold McLendal realized that in a war of attrition, the Bilards would win, as the Royalists’ backs were against the wall and their support system was easily disrupted. The Royalists just did not have the resources to be able to outlast the Bilards. McLendal decided to petition the nearby Gwexhai for help in the war, hoping that their years of not associating with each other would assist in their allyship. The Gwexhai found McLendal and his envoy in the jungle, waving a flag of peace. The Gwexhai remembered their warning, but decided to hear these people out, as they clearly were looking for the Gwexhai. McLendal engaged in the hardest set of diplomatic talks he had ever done, but by the end, was able to convince the Gwexhai to assist their cause. The Royalists had to make some concessions though, including tribute to the Gwexhai people in the form of both resources and able-bodied men and women to work off the allegiance debts. The Gwexhai people, who were masters at camouflage and surprise tactics, went to work right away with disrupting the supply routes of the Bilards.
The combined onslaught of Gwexhai and Royalist on the Bilard forces was powerful, but the Bilards were still able to dig in and defend their trenches on the 15th. This stalemate continued until finally, in 1773, the Royalist forces, weary of war, sent an envoy to discuss a drawback of forces and a peace treaty with the Bilard envoy. The Bilards, also weary of war, obliged, and engaged with the Royalists.
The Gwexhai Treaty
With the Gwexhai acting as mediators, the two sides reached an agreement. First, there was to be no military buildup on the 15th parallel. Lines between countries would be drawn up there, and the area was to be demilitarized for a span of 10 kilometers. Second, the Royalists were to allow the Bilards to seize some of the weapons that the Royalists had, to bolster what they had lost in the war. In exchange, the Bilards would send reparations in the form of raw materials to pay off the destroyed properties and homes along the 15th parallel. Finally, both countries would meet annually to engage with the other in culture, sport, and recreation, to foster better relations between countries. The treaty would be known as the Gwexhai Treaty, for the successful end to the War of the Bilards would not have been achieved had they not mediated.
Settlement of McLendel
In 1776, the final year of Furnifold McLendal’s reign as Magistrate of Auburn, he tasked a commission to establish a location for a capital city, as it was determined that Auburn was not located in a good area for a centrally-administered government. Plans were submitted, and some of the options were to put the city along the coast, in Boonefield or Carson, the newly-named town south of Auburn, or even in the jungle. Instead, what McLendal decided was that the capital would be in a location where the Carrington River and the Ayx River meet, for ease of defense and transportation. Surveyors and developers were sent out, and in a great rush, descended upon the area from locations all across Royalist, and Bilard, land.
For two years, the government structures were built. In 1778, the Royalist government was set to move into their new capital. They traveled together down to the new town, with McLendal as well, who had retired but was given an honorary role in the founding of the government, given his impact on the Royalist land. McLendal’s, who was sick at the time, health took a bad turn and he unfortunately died before he could reach the new city. Once the members of government settled in, they issued two acts, the first being the naming of the capital to Mclendal, and the second being the establishment of the new country, whose name would be Furnifold. Both of these votes passed the legislature 99 to 0 to 1, with the one abstention being the successor to McLendal in memoriam of him. Thus the founding of Furnifold began, with its anniversary in the year 1778.
Military Growth and Expansion
By the 1800s, Furnifold had been long established with a great bounty of food production in the Branwell Plains. Surpluses were regularly brought north for trade. The country needed another route to trade, as the land route was long and inefficient. It was determined that the sea would be useful for trade and for more exploration. Thus began the growth of Hafre as an export city. A relationship developed between the cities of Carson, Boonefield, and Hafre. Agricultural goods would be transported to Carson, then floated down the Ayx River and packaged at Boonefield. Then they would be moved farther west, and loaded onto ships at Hafre. When steam power was introduced to Furnifold in the 1840s, the rail line at Hafre connected multiple cities, and also served to connect with the southern beachfront city Ato.
Furnifold also began to build up its navy, as a projection of naval power. Blessed with a large supply of materials, flourishing trade with the area up north, Furnifold by the 1830s possessed 100 frigates and a naval troop count of around 52,000. Primarily consigned to the Yasterian Sea, the Royal Navy had a few harrowing adventures over this time. The city of Hafre and the city of Ato served as the main ports for the naval vessels.
Meeting the Sahibu
Ato was settled in 1811, and was a built as an import terminal for trade as well as for the large population of Sahibu people that lived south of the Carrington River. When traveling south on the Ayx River, travelers met up with a mainly agrarian population of people, who called themselves the Sahibu (“Comrades”). These people were peaceful, and did not associate with the Furnifold explorers. However, in this age of expansion, when Furnifold expanded its borders to the Chonvor River, there were plenty of discussion as to what the Sabibu people wanted. They did not seem to be desiring of independence, so the government of Furnifold decided to allow them to become citizens of the country. At that time, the Sahibu population was about three times greater than the population of Furnifold, so by the 1840s there was a serious strain on people of the country to produce and export food. A real emphasis was placed on producing food and feeding the people, and technological advancements went into agriculture, at the expense of other industrial practices. This period was also the time when the Royalists adopted the Sahibu description of their race, Kifalme (“Royal”).
Furnifold’s Decline in Power
Furnifold’s naval and trading power waned steadily through the first half of the 19th century, until about the 1850s, when the emphasis was placed on feeding the large population. Furnifold’s navy and naval ambition was largely scuttled, and, beginning in the 1860s with Kuthernburg declaring Furnifold a friendly nation, the nation was in the middle of a tug-of-war between powerful regional neighbors as well as colonial and imperial empires. There were at least four or five powers that influenced Furnifold for about 100 years. While Furnifold continued to exist as a nation, its autonomy ebbed and flowed with whichever nation was in control of it at the time granting or taking away powers.
Furnifold Achieves Full Autonomy
The turn of the last half of the 20th century saw a real decline in colonial empire-building, and a release of most of the holdings of the former empires. Furnifold, a protectorate of Kuthernburg for some of the 20th century, was swept up in this releasing. Its protector gave it more and more autonomy, until the 1970s, when Kuthernburg officially released Furnifold as a protectorate. Furnifold at this point had a minuscule economy, largely subsistence and very light manufacturing. Its trade system was robust, as it exported most of what it produced in manufacturing to Kuthernburg.
The Green Revolution
In the late 1970s until the early 1990s, Furnifold’s leaders embarked on an ambitious mission to build up its agricultural base. It invested heavily in agricultural technology and education, took out many loans from foreign governments, and engaged in industrial espionage to secure technology in agriculture practices. This resulted in Furnifold’s Green Revolution in the early 1980s. Furnifold developed practices and technological advances to increase the primary productivity of its land. No more than two years since the beginning of the Green Revolution, Furnifold was able to produce a surplus of food for the first time in over 100 years. Its export profile grew very quickly throughout the years, and became an agricultural exporting powerhouse in the late 90s to the turn of the millennium. Furnifold’s population grew from four million people in 1990 to fifteen million people by 2015. Its economic growth rate took a little bit longer to start up, as infrastructure improvements in agriculture took a while to begin. By 2000, Furnifold crossed the 10 billion SHD mark in GDP, and by 2015 its GDP was over 35 billion.
