Uprising in Basistar
Uprising in Basistar was a revolt against the pro-Dardian government of Basistar, led by Molag Uusea in 1598-1599 SR. Started in the city of Mustief, the movement was able to take control of the city and forced Basistar to begin negotiations. The rebels, however, got sidetracked by indecision, choosing between a military operation against Basistar or a march towards Uuxea. Eventually deciding to march on Uuxea, they left Mustief, which was quickly reclaimed by Basistar. The rebel army never reached Uuxea and instead collapsed halfway, due in part to poor leadership and in part due to the hardships of the journey.
Key personalities
|
|
|
|||||||
|
Background
Basistar was the first polity to join Wewen, which was seen as Wewen's play against Kasar-Areia, which initially opposed the idea of a confederation under Wewen's leadership. Basistar's participation immediately made the confederation real, and Loullar joined Wewen and Basistar a month later. Kasar-Areia's Prince Durondo, who had been in power for just under two years and obsessed with Kasar-Areia's independence, rejected the idea of joining and sent messengers to declare war on Wewen, but was then swiftly removed from power. The new government quickly followed Loullar and joined Darda.
This made Basistar the smallest state in the young confederation, with a rapidly decreasing influence. Basistar attempted to use its status as the first joiner to elevate its standing, but when The Great Unity of Pesty began negotiations to join, the focus shifted heavily to Wewen and Kasar-Areia who were the more important players in defending New Dawn from Leykarya.
This created a rift in the population, with the idea of seceding gaining traction. The city of Wasil then seceded and formed its own state. Uuxea directed Basistar to lay siege to the city, offering them independence from Basistar, provided they join Darda as an independent state.
The uprising
It is at this point Molag Uusea, a carpenter from Mustief, started a movement to secede from Basistar, in order to exit Darda, which he believed levied an unjust tax on the working people, as well as undermined Mustief's own interests. His main claim was that Leykarya is not a threat to Mustief and that instead they should be focusing on defending their lands from the Great Turtle.
Although the movement quickly gained traction, Basistar's Prince Dareef did not pay much attention to it, until after the rebels upended the governor's office, forcing him to flee the city. With the majority of forces being thrown at the siege of Wasil, Prince Dareef opted to begin negotiations with Molag, in order to buy time.
These negotiations lasted for several months, while the movement's leadership became gripped with indecision. There were calls to abandon the negotiations and march on Basistar, taking advantage of its defenseless status. Others believed that occupying Basistar would put them between the two armies - the Basistar forces to the south, laying siege to Wasil, and the forces of Wewen in the north, which might be sent to defend Basistar. Thus, the march should be on Wewen, with the intent of destroying Darda altogether.
March on Wewen
The 7,500-strong rebel army left Mustief in the spring of 1599 SR. A Basistar regiment, led by the ousted governor, quickly reclaimed the city.
Uuxea and Mustief were separated by a jungle that made the trip difficult. It turned out that most rebels had no idea about the difficult terrain. They were unprepared for a journey in the dense tropical forest, their food supplies quickly began to rot and their clothing turned out to be mostly inadequate. Inundated by insects and rainy nights, they moved slower than expected. People began contracting malas and dying. Whole regiments would set up camps in the jungle, in order to wait out bouts of the disease and rejoin the army later. Molag also got the disease, but continued to lead his men, which increased his standing among rebels to a legendary status and for a while infused additional energy into the campaign. But conditions continued to worsen.
One of Molag's deputies, a woman calling herself General Leesar, eventually made the point that they should return to Mustief and instead march on Basistar, since it became clear that Wewen's army was as unlikely to quickly reach them through the jungle. Molag repeatedly declined to make a decision and continued leading his troops on Uuxea for three more weeks.
At some point General Leesar defied Molag's orders and turned back, with several hundred people joining her, while Molag continued north. Due to the swift spread of malas, Molag made the decision to turn back two days later and followed Leesar, assuming that her trail would lead them back to Mustief. Instead, they reached Leesar's encampment and learned that Leesar had made a mistake and they instead traveled farther to the west. Molag demanded to see Leesar, but she had left the encampment with a group of men and women, allegedely to search for an easier path back. In reality, Leesar decided to abandon the rebels and returned to Basistar with a close group of her supporters.
As the rebels stationed at the encampment, Molag suddenly got worse and passed away on the 23rd of May, 1599 SR. This was recorded by Nuy Bolfor, who along with a group of about 150 men was able to make it back to Mustief in July-August of the same year. He estimated that there were about 2,500 people in the encampment, which would suggest that around 5,000 people either died or got separated during the march. It is believed that scores of people have survived in the jungle well into the winter, but in the beginning of 1600 Leesar's camp was reported to have been uninhabited. There is reason to believe that some might have continued west and settled along the Tother river, since there was talk in the area about several families originally coming from the lands east of Tother. For decades travelers through the jungle stumbled upon abandoned rebel camps, some with skeletal remains.
Assassination of Prince Dareef
General Leesar and her supporters have been seen in and around Basistar in August of 1599. On September 14th the city celebrated the return of the army from the siege of Wasil. When the prince made a speech, Leesar assassinated him by climbing one of the pillars on the city square and killing him with an arrow shot into the chest. She was dragged down by some in the crowd and killed in the ensuing chaos.
Aftermath
Uprising in Basistar went largely unnoticed in Wewen, because Prince Dareef made an explicit decision to downplay it. He was at least partially right to do so, as he had limited understanding of what the rebels wanted to do. When they left Mustief to march on Uuxea, Basistar records suggest that Dareef was unaware of where they had gone and seemed to believe that they decided to secede by simply leaving. It is possible that had he known what they had planned, he might have taken the situation a bit more seriously. It is still not clear what the outcome would have been had Molag made the decision to march on Basistar.
The assassination of Prince Dareef did little to advance rebels' cause and had, in fact, made it worse: by this time trials of the 150 men who returned to Mustief were coming to an end, with most being pardoned. Assassination of the prince by General Leesar, who was quickly identified as one of Molag's deputies, led to the execution of more than a 100 men, including Nuy Bolfor whose diaries were later used to reconstruct events of the disastrous march on Uuxea.
