Lein-Jichei Campaign

The Lein campaign into Jichei of the 33rd year of Sora, also known as the Vengeance War (Itrani: Krita Garusaimi), was the largest campaign ever launched by Emperor Sora, and one of the largest launched during the Lein Dynasty. It would also lead to the bloodiest war in the history of the Lein, though the contest was highly unequal: while around 53,000 Lein soldiers died, two-thirds from disease rather than war, it is estimated that around 4 to 5 million Jichei died during the war and the subsequent reprisal operations.

Background and causes

The Jichei kingdom was the most northerly, richest, and most powerful of the great array of northwestern kingdoms which Sora's army had mostly managed to destroy over two decades and several great campaigns; it would also have been one of those extinct kingdoms if Sora had had his way. During preparations for a campaign against them in Sora 23, however, the Meidorien River unexpectedly flooded its banks, devastating thousands of kirnon of prime farmland and displacing hundreds of thousands of people; because of this the campaign was shelved to deal with the disaster, and by the time the Empire had recovered Sora had also gained a more sober assessment of the formidably fortified cities in the Jichei kingdom. For these factors he instead declared a campaign in the northeast and sent envoys to the Jichei; and in the 10th month of Sora 26 a treaty was sealed, fixing the Jichei-Lein border and promising lasting peace.

Events over the next years would overturn the peace, however. In Sora 28 the King of the Jichei was deposed in a coup, and the subsequent struggle between his four sons and corresponding factions eventually led to the crowning, seven months later, of King Kupiri. Aged 22, he was well known to be a dissolute and weak ruler, quick to anger but often vacillating on state issues, and completely under the control of a group of court ministres. When, in autumn the following year, the Empress Areya passed away and the Lein Empire declared a one-year period of national mourning, the Jichei ministers were quick to take advantage of this period to attempt extending their control over the Lein border, aiming specifically for the port of Nasubar about fifty irinon south of the border.

Not wanting to break the mourning by declaring war, Sora was left with no choice but to seek peace and plan his retribution later; he sent several emissaries, as well as relaying instructions to the representative in Jichei, Purinzun Rusangel berAmira ne-i-Lein, to seek peace. The Emperor was even prepared to cede the port to them, as well as all coastal lands between the border and the port, if they so wished; however, at the subsequent meetings with the King, the stakes were raised: not just the port, but all four counties around the port which made up the north of the new province of Isoyara, was demanded. The prince flatly refused, and the meeting broke up.

The final straw came two days later, when on the orders of some ministers a group of assassins rushed the Lein residence within the capital city of Kanugar, and Rusangel as well as his family and all the emissaries within, nearly 70 men in all, were brutally killed. When the incident reached the ears of the Emperor he was said to have fainted in grief at the loss of one of his most capable nephews, and remained comatose for two days; when finally he awoke, he declared a period of mourning for Rusangel as well, but kept it to six months so as not to extend the total period of mourning. Meanwhile, even as the nation remained in a state without war, the army was already being geared up for the revenge intended upon the Jichei, while a subsequent emissary continued a policy of fake submission by ceding all four counties, as well as giving gifts to the Jichei King worth nearly 30,000 utanon.