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The Great Famine
The Great Famine was a major catastrophe in Rokugan in the seventh century. It was a decade of starvation, disease, and open and total warfare, exacerbated by a tyrannical Emerald Champion and a weak Emperor. [1] The Order of Longevity was founded to provide healing to people suffering it. [2]
Starvation[]
From the year 660 to the year 665, Rokugan was subjected to a period of relentlessly bad weather: intense drought broken by bursts of torrential rain, compounded by heavy snowfalls during unusually long and cold winters. These climatic extremes ravaged the Empire's crops, resulting in one poor harvest after another. By 662, food stocks were badly depleted, and famine spread among the clans. Exacerbating the mounting troubles, Emperor Hantei XX bestowed arbitrary and dramatic favor on the Lion and Crane Clans, ensuring that these two clans received adequate supplies of food by increasing taxes on the rest of the Empire. [3]
Wars for Food[]
Riots[]
In 662, riots erupted in the City of Lies in Scorpion lands, the City of Remembrance in Phoenix lands, and even in the Imperial Capital, Otosan Uchi. The Imperial Legions, bolstered by Lion and Crane troops, ruthlessly crushed the insurrection. This threw fuel on the fire, prompting riots and sabotage to spill from the cities and into the surrounding countryside. Disaffected commoners, and even many samurai, loosely organized themselves into the People's Legion. This ad hoc army established itself in the northwestern portion of the Empire, in what would later become Unicorn lands, but they were eventually obliterated by the Imperial army. [3]
Dragon-Lion War[]
The already-poor Dragon Clan had asked for a lien on their yearly taxes to stave off starvation. In response, the Emerald Champion levied further fines upon them, and refugees streamed from the Dragon lands into those of the Lion in search of food. [1] In 662 a Lion Clan delegation crossed the Drowned Merchant River to confront the Dragon Clan because it had done little to stem the flood of starving refugees driven southward into Lion lands. The Dragon Clan Champion, who was in meditative seclusion, refused to meet with the Lion commander, General Akodo Masaumi. Enraged, Masaumi marshaled an army and made to march into the Dragon lands, [3] to confront the Dragon over their failure to act. The incensed Dragon Champion, Togashi Toshimasa, led an attack into Lion territory, seizing great amounts of food, the beginning of the Dragon-Lion War. [1] The ensuing Battle of Drowned Merchant River raged on for several days. The arrival of a Phoenix Clan force finally convinced Masaumi to parley with his opponents, leading to a truce. The Lion withdrew and provided some assistance to the famine-ravaged Dragon; the Dragon, in turn, agreed to curtail the movement of refugees into Lion lands. [4] The Dragon refugees were allowed into the lands of Shiba and Isawa's clan. [1]
Rice War[]
When Crab Clan Champion Hida Tsuneko appealed for aid for her clan in the Imperial Court, she was derisively dismissed, particularly by the Crane. In what became known as the Rice War, the Crab and Crane Clans engaged in an intense trade dispute over rice other foodstuffs. As the dispute escalated, Tsuneko and the Crab invaded the Crane lands. Initially the Crab prevailed in battle after battle, but the timely arrival of several Imperial Legions stabilized the faltering Crane. Finally, just outside of Lonely Shore City, with their food stocks exhausted, the Crab were forced to plead for peace. They accepted a treaty that included a range of severe punitive measures, included reparations to the Crane to be paid in coin, food shipments, and other resources the Crab simply could not afford. [4]
References
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