Khotan



 "Forwards Unto Eternity"

Khotan, officially the Eternal Empire of Khotan, is a major sovereign nation in northwestern Aquila. It is the largest country in the continent of Zetia and the second largest in the world by area. With its history easily traceable back to the first peoples in Aquila, Khotan is arguably the oldest continous civilization in the world, maintaining roughly the same political climate for thousands of years with little upheavel until recent years. It is governed by a ruling body of 28 Premiers alongside an executive President Shih Enlai - the leader of the transitional government which took power after a bloodless coup near the end of the devastating War of the Sunflower. Its capital is the Golden City in southern Zetia.

Geography
As the northernmost nation in Aquila, Khotan experiences a frigid polar climate throughout most of the year across the vast majority of its landmass. Life thrives, however, in and around the bountiful hot springs dotted throughout the continent, where ancient magma chambers deep below the overworld provide enough heat and biomass to sustain entire ecosystems. The large cluster of warm geysers which stretches from the heart of the nation to the south coast known as Shangri-La supports the vast majority of the Khotanese population, with the rest of the populace concentrated amongst smaller hot springs in the north or on the temperate eastern coast, which hosts a vast tropical rainforest as an as-of-yet unexplained quirk of the world's formation many generations past. The Golden City, the largest city in Zetia, serves as the nation's tranquil capital, surrounded on nearly all sides by tall geysers which make land invasion difficult. Also vital to the nation is its center of commerce, the prosperous Hamamitsu in the east. Most of Khotan's agriculture derives from the spring range of Shangri-La, where massive fields of wheat and potatoes comprising Zetia's breadbasket more than provide for the continent's nutritional needs apart from intermittent periods of famine - created through the wrath of nature, bureaucratic mismanagement of resources, or a combination of the two.

Politics
The Eternal Empire is composed of 13 oblasts, three autonomous republics, a special economic zone, and a federal administrative district. The oblasts exert minimal political influence as their minute populations reduce them to mere peripheries of the larger regions. The autonomous republics, however, have some semblance of actual political independence from the central government, maintaining their own legislatures and even constitutions; they are the Republics of Nemiro, Xiantung, and Hamamitsu, with their individual capitals sharing their namesakes. Hamamitsu also has unique status as the nation's sole "special economic zone" in which foreign merchant guilds and corporations may operate with virtual freedom from government oversight. The nation's capital, the Golden City, is governed directly by the Empire's all-union legislature as an administrative district.

From early antiquity until quite recently, Khotan was ruled by its absolute monarch, the Immortal Emperor, with his inner circle, the Celestial Council, serving in an advisory role. The Empire's unexpected defeat in the War of the Sunflower caused confidence in the divine mandate of the Emperor to plummet, however, allowing a political bloc known as the 28 Premiers to assume power in the wake of his assassination by Alliance forces. The so-called Premiers all came from influential families within the autonomous republics, especially Hamamitsu, where trade interests were continually hampered by the all-seeing eye of the monarchy. Confidence in the rule of the Premiers was uneasy initially but is steadily climbing, with their interim president, former potion-brewing magnate Shih Enlai, indicating an intent to transition to a legitimate constitutional republic modeled after Dreiton's council system.

Economy
Khotan maintains a semi-planned economy. Economic agenda begins at the smallest unit of the village, where democratic councils, usually dominated by farmers or workers within small-scale industry, collect the economic data of their community and compile a list of surpluses and deficiencies to be sent to larger bodies across oblasts. These cross-regional economic councils then deliberate upon necessary agricultural and industrial measures based upon the needs of the villages and send their findings to the central government. Previously, the Immortal Emperor would take unilateral action based upon his own wisdom to implement these economic measures, but after the coup, these decisions are now deliberated upon by the 28 Premiers themselves. Taking into consideration feedback gleaned from both the oblast councils and similar economic boards from the autonomous republics, the Premiers then legislate economic plans to be implemented by the component states, with their progress overseen by appointed industrial commissars. The effectiveness of this decentralized planned system has varied across history. In the past, it was the Emperor's job to periodically purge the bureaucracy to curtail corrpution within the system, but with the rise of the coastal republics and the emerging capitalist class, the real economic liberty of the oblasts and the average worker is on a steady decline.

Nevertheless, the imperial economy is rapidly growing, with the fiscal shock therapy of the post-War government doing wonders to quickly recalibrate the economy. The special economic zone of Hamamitsu in particular has raised more wealth in the past year than the entire gross domestic product of Occa's past century, owing to unprecedented capital flight from the trading centers of Nova Aquila in the wake of aggressive nationalization by the totalist government.

The largest sectors of the Khotan economy are wheat, coal, beef, wool, and brewing materials - 90% of the world's spider eyes and ghast tears derive from the state's monster-hunting trusts. There is currently a national deficit in iron and redstone, which it imports vast quantities of from Nova Aquila and the Free City of Dreiton, though President Shih has indicated upcoming plans to orient the economy towards the fledgling mining industries.

Military
Khotan's army and navy are in a state of disrepair after their humiliation in the War of the Sunflower. Prior to the conflict, the Empire boasted the largest standing army in the world with millions of reserve infantry, along with a fleet of airships to rival the combined navies of the Alliance. Its present ground forces are estimated at around 50,000 warriors, most of them equipped with leather armor and iron swords; smaller elite of legions of iron-armored pikemen are still present to some degree, along with an impressive paramilitary force of rural oblast cavalry to be roused in times of national emergency.

The Khotanese navy is near non-existent, with practically all of its combat-ready airships scuttled. However, large fleets of steam ships have recently entered production, potentially providing a stepping zone upon which the Empire may slowly rebuild its once-proud naval forces.