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<HEAD><TITLE>600</TITLE>
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<h3>600 — The struggle for Eretald</h3>
For a century Cuzeians and Caďinorians struggled to push back the <b>Munkhâshi</b>, and had some sucesss; the Scadrorion states of Sisos and Sciael pushed them well away from the Svetla, the Monkhayu of Leziunea reoccupied the Mišicama coast, and the Cuzeians cleared the left bank of the Svetla of Munkhâshi, reorganizing it as Lācatur (‘Northland’); it had been so depopulated by Munkhâshi terror that most of its new inhabitants were immigrant Caďinorians. The Monkhayu of the Kešvareni plateau rebelled in 550.
<p>Around 575 the ktuvoks took the offensive again. They reduced Sisos and Sciael in two years, moved on Eleisa but were fought back, and retook the mouth of the Svetla in 581. After this they suppressed the Monkhayu rebellion, and retook some lands in the east which had been eaten away by the Qaraus.
<p>Cuzei was alarmed. The general <b>Mairoūsias</b> believed that unity against Munkhâsh should be pursued above all other goals; his speeches were met with only theoretical agreement. In 590, putting his program into effect, he invaded Dācuas. He continued with campaigns against the other Little Cuzeians; by 600 he had succeeded in uniting all the Cuzeian states except Nayas, and had even conquered the Caďinorian states of Cayenas and Duvondos.<font size=1><sup></sup></font><font size=1><sup></sup></font>The latter state (modern Duvon) didn’t appear on the last map; it lay between Nayas and Sciael.</sup></font></sup></font>
<p>In 601 he deposed the <i>narrûos</i> and named himself <i>zîtenarrûos</i>, or Emperor. But surely it did not please Iáinos that Cuzeians fight Cuzeians in the shadow of Munkhâsh, nor that free Cuzeian cities and Houses be subject to a general made emperor. Cuzei was at the height of its power, but it had fallen. Mairoūsias’ coup is taken as the end of Cuzei’s Silver Age.
<h4>In the south</h4>
No such unity plagues the <b>Skourenes</b>, who have continued their expansion into the Littoral and into Feináe to the east, exploiting their trade-rich treasuries, their new mastery of iron, and the weakness of their neighbors. Their trade routes now extend to the Axunaic states, to the coast of Luduyn, and to the Jei Union. (The Jei had a dim view of competition, but their options were limited: Skourene ships are now better than Jei ones for both transport and war.)
<p>The ideal Skourene state was a free city with an empire (and bad luck to any cities that happened to be part of your empire). The original Šinourene cities are still going strong; but now cities in the Littoral such as Guṭḷeli, Kolatimand, and Śiḍḍi are if anything bigger and richer.
<p>In the <b>Axunaic</b> realm, this is the <b>Age of Many Kings</b>— many kings, presiding over squabbling lords and a declining infrastructure. Unlike the Jei, who believe in nation-building, the Ezičimi are still plunderers at heart. They had acquired their civilization by conquest, and still saw mere administration as beneath them— the extensive Wede:i irrigation works were maintained by a privileged class of slaves, while priestcraft and estate administration was left to younger brothers. The business of the lords was war— with the remaining Wede:i kingdoms, with other Ezičimi states, with other lords. The lords generally didn’t bother to learn to read; their only intellectual avocation was genealogy, as careful consideration of lines of descent was important in making alliances, marriages, and claims on weakly held estates.
<p>The <i>nive</i> or king organized interstate war, alloted booty, collected taxes, oversaw the irrigation works and the temples, and administered justice. If he was strong, this gave him power a level above those of his lords; if he was weak, he was little more than chairman of a rowdy council of warlords, and could be displaced by one of them.
<p>The slave class was by now only a minority, largely replaced by a larger number of peasant Ezičimi, whose lot was not much better, but who had more rights. (Poor Ezičimi had the right to stay on the estate where they were born, the right not to be killed except for cause, and the right to keep their women. And they only had to obey their own lord; slaves had to obey any Ezičiz they encountered.)
<p>The Jei and the Skourenes began colonizing <b>Jecuor</b> at about the same time. (The name of the island derives from Wede:i <i>De:ijubori</i>, the island of the De:iju or Eastern People. By now these people’s language was quite unintelligible to the Jei.)
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