The Hundred and Nine Years' War

The Hundred and Nine Years' War, also known as the Trunic Wars or Bysandine-Solician War, were a series of three wars involving the ancient kingdoms of Bysandium, the Holy Nation, and Old Hills. It started after the destruction of Fort Fuck Csgo from unspecified natural disasters and the death of prodigal diplomat Tarikkk Nasneed. It ended in the destruction and looting of Fort Nunghus, the widescale razing of Bysandine farms, the sack of Old Hills and the death of at least seven hundred thousand to one and a half million people. The war is said to be the eighth deadliest conflict in Realm history behind the Negromurian civil war of 1861.

Background
In 666 BE, Fort Fuck Csgo was destroyed, many tablets and epics state it was destroyed by a meteor, others say it collapsed in an earthquake, and few state it went up in flames in an accident. Several Old Hillian accounts, particularly The Bysandines and their lies, even state it was purposefully demolished by its builders saying, "Molten iron cannot possibly burn wooden beams.". All accounts agree that afterwards, most rubble from the fort fell onto the Bysandine canal, which took several months to unclog and halted all trade to upstream Old Hills. Bysandine scribes note eyewitness reports that across the canal, five Solicians were seen doing a ritualistic dance and posing in front of the collapsing fort.

Later that year, Solician marauders killed Tarikkk Nasneed, an influential Bysandine diplomat across the whole Realm, which was the final flashpoint in a long simmering conflict. Bysandine relations with the Holy Nation had been suspended for several years and several rival lords and cities were itching for conflict. The Spawnish side of Chuck's bridge was seized by the Spawnish army, not allowing entry to their territory from all kingdoms involved in the fighting. By the Bysandine Canals in the winter of 666 BE, an open conflict began between rival families for control of the bridges. Three Bysandine legions, each of around three thousand men, crossed the bridges and enforced free passage through them.

First Trunic War
The Emperor of Bysandium, Al Cheed, ordered the invasion of the Holy Nation in 658 BE. Two more legions joined the three and they made a beeline for Fort Nunghus, where the Solician Emperor retreated to. The legions faced resistance from several chiefs within the Holy Nation. A reinforcing army of twenty thousand Bysandines arrived to the siege in 657 BE, a total of around thirty-thousand soldiers surrounding the hillfort. An army of fifteen-thousand Solicians gathered as a relief force, an additional three thousand within the garrison of Fort Nunghus charged out in 655 BE.

Battle of Fort Nunghus
Roughly eighteen thousand Solicians attacked the Bysandine siege of thirty thousand after months of cut contact with supply trains and a deteriorating food situation. In the middle of the battle as the Solician forces began sustaining heavy casualties after a Bysandine shield wall was formed in the center, a flanking army of seven thousand warriors from Old Hills attacked the Bysandines. The battle was further complicated when the Hillian relief forces were attacked by friendly-fire from Solician chiefs employing the use of guerilla tactics.

The Old Hills army was routed and the remaining Solician army now numbering around four thousand retreated to garrison Fort Nunghus. The remaining Bysandine army of nine thousand retreated to Bysandium, losing nearly a fifth of their remaining force to guerilla attacks by Solician tribes and garrisoned forts along the route. A brief truce was held for a half a decade and the bridges across the canal were agreed to be controlled by a neutral party, the Spawn Empire.

Second Trunic War
Vowing to destroy the Sandesians in a decisive attack, the Solician emperor increased military spendings over the five years of peace. As soon as the truce was up, a new army of fifty thousand men gathered, from all Solician tribes and chiefdoms and even elite warriors numbering around twelve hundred and seven from Southern Solicia (AKA Soulicia). The bridge outpost of roughly five hundred Bysandines were slaughtered including diplomats and traders who happened to be there, no one was able to escape to warn the Bysandines of the coming attack.

The king of Old Hills sent forward many groups to skirmish with the Bysandines to distract them from the incoming Solician forces. The area of the capitol was not yet known by cartographers and attacking Bysandium with the Holy Nation was poorly coordinated. At the battle of Bysand, the capitol city, nine thousand Old Hillian warriors were repulsed by a relief force of twenty-five thousand men. The retreating forces were mercilessly hunted down to ensure Bysand's location would never be discovered.

40 Years in the Desert
The Bysandine desert was largely uncharted in most Solician cartography. Past the bridge, the lands beyond Fort Fuck Csgo were mountainous and harsh. The army continued to suffer losses from a poor supply line and constant attack from nomadic and herding groups. They would remain stranded and wander the deserts of Bysandium for forty years. After the initial invasion, the campaign began to taper off as both forces aimlessly wandered the vast uncharted Sandesian desert. Due to starvation, dehydration and desert fever, both forces took significant casualties in the first months of the campaign. Due to the sparsity of the settlements in these uncharted regions, the forces would often stop at oases for months or even years at a time, leading to the overuse and eventual evaporation of many lakes throughout the desert.

After about six months of wandering the desert, a schism occured in the Solician ranks with several thousand men wanting to follow Agosa, a charismatic junior officer that wanted to break away from the main group and go south to find the "Promised Land". This breakaway faction initiated yet another schism where a common soldier, whose name is now lost to time, proposed a different solution. This group differed from both in that they wanted to go back the way they entered and return to Solicia. A small amount of men from the "Return" faction escaped the desert years later with heavy casualties, arriving in a tribal village in untamed land. They were taken prisoner and worshipped as gods. This led to the Mambabian War of 631 where the Holy Nation freed the captive soldiers and conquered the Mambabwe tribe.

Men who stayed loyal to the leading general, Zoodus, regrouped and consolidated with supplemental forces sent from Solicia to reinforce the sapped desert forces. This group, numbering in the tens of thousands, survived off the pillaging of trade routes and the enslavement of various small villages. The final group, led by Agosa, were likewise never heard from again although there is some ambiguity as to their fate. No skeletal remains were ever found marking the large party if they had perished in the desert. On top of this, records from an Indus Valley city-state speak of "strangers coming from the northern deserts speaking foreign tongues" in the late 7th-century BE although this could be referring to any number and type of visitors in the timespan.

The Sandesian scouts sent out to confirm reports of a large Solician army suffered a similar fate of becoming lost and fracturing into various competing groups with their own ideas. Luckily for some of them, the small size and thus small material burden of their groups coupled with their superior knowledge of the terrain compared to that of their Solician counterparts allowed for better navigation and higher likelihood of a safe return. Some groups ended up deserting with a few even returning and settling down in their hometowns directly from the desert.

The men who found out where the capital of Bysandium was, had fathers who spent their entire careers capturing large swathes of scattered Sandesian villages. After finally subduing a major village, general John P. Mann extracted directions to the capital city. During this time, hundreds of farms were razed and looted as well as many herds of livestock killed. The Bysandine Emperor soon caught wind of the army, there having been several rumours of the invading force but did not take it seriously as they had to deal with the Old Hillians. At this point in 610 BE, the Solicians were in control of many Sandesian villages, mainly supply routes and those that had leverage over the enforcement of passage.

The army primed to besiege Bysand were now around forty five thousand strong. Although their force was large, a preliminary force of five thousand Solicians on horseback sent on a scouting mission was discovered while pillaging and terrorizing several villages in the outskirts of Bysand. A detachment of thirteen thousand Bysandines surrounded a village they had captured, killing the entirety of the horsemen as a massive spearwall closed in on the town. This was a major blow to both the morale and overall numbers and ability of the Solician army.

Attack on Zop Hill
A major Old Hillian general, Geeze Err, was captured by the Bysandines with the southernmost threat to the Bysandine army being neutralized for the time being. Zop Hill was the central base of operations for the Solician army occupying Bysandium. In 608 BE, a force of sixty thousand Bysandines lay siege to the hill. The minimal fortifications hardly stopped the incoming army. A force of twenty thousand Solicians defended the hill for three days until a massive breach in the walls gave way for the army below to rush the fort. Roughly twenty-five thousand Bysandine soldiers died and virtually every Solician within the fort was enslaved or killed. The attack on Zop Hill shattered Solician supply routes and pushed the Holy Nation's control of Bysandium back to the immediate lands around Fort Fuck Csgo.

Capture, Battle, and Siege of Bysand
A last ditch push to take the capitol was made on 606 BE. A force of fifty thousand Solicians gathered, many of which mercenaries, to make a direct push to take Bysand. They employed one of the first recorded use of total war, completely destroying entire villages and salting the fields. Bysand was captured by the Solicians with minimal force, most of the violence stemming from the looting and murder after the capture. This use of brutal warfare caught the main Bysandine force off guard, primarily only dealing with scattered revolts and the raiding Old Hillians barbarians up to this point. The siege only lasted half a year as there were massive crop shortages across Bysandium. The Bysandine emperor made no effort to negotiate peace. Three weeks after the capture, an army of eighty-six thousand Bysandines led by the Emperor Ammassed set out to retake Bysand. In retaliation, the entire army occupying Bysand began to destroy and sack the city, razing farms and burning buildings. It is recorded General John P. Mann Jr. personally stabbed the Emperor's dog, Carl, to death as part of a pagan Truist ritual. The entire army met the Bysandines outside of the city, expecting a smaller force. Eighty thousand Bysandines encircled the city walls. The Solicians attempted to rush a gap within the formation, initially achieving partial success but suffered losses numbering thirty to forty thousand with thousands more captured. The Bysandines suffered roughly twenty thousand losses.

The remaining army retreated to Bysand. A brutal siege raged on for a year and a half, it is noted some of the garrison resorted to cannibalism. At the start of the siege, eight thousand Solicians garrisoned Bysand. By the end, there were about three hundred within the city.

After this grueling and extraordinarily lengthy war, once the re-capture of Bysand by the Bysandines was formalized in November 604 BE, truce negotiations were started. This process was short and swift due to the massive public outcry and strained economies of all powers involved. A truce of at least 25 years, five times the length of the previous truce, due to the massive costs of the conflict. This truce would last ten more years than initially agreed upon due to Bysandium's slow economic recovery and the Holy Nation's equipment shortages.

Third Trunic War
A Solician scribe known as Ralbert Steinus wrote in 602 BE;

"I know not with what weapons a third War with the Sandesians will be fought with, but the fourth will be fought with sticks and stones."

On the day of Ralbert's passing, 569 BE, the heir to the throne of Bysandium, Franz Ferdanon and his wife were shot to death with arrows in their visit to the newly settled lands of Bygrassium. His killer was later identified as an Old Hillian loyalist. A separatist group arose from the ethnic Jackic natives of Bygrassium, aiming to become a vassal of Old HIlls, known as Grass Hills. A riot ensued the day after, opposing Bysandine rule, an army of twelve thousand men with extensive support from Old Hills, overthrew the Bygrassine government, even launching an amphibious invasion of Malta, a Bysandine owned island.

Siege and Capture of Fort Jannies
Thirty four Old Hills galleys surrounded the island of Malta, defeating the five Maltese and two Bysandine ships stationed there, even managing to capture one Bysandine treime. Roughly two thousand Grass Hills soldiers landed on Malta and laid siege to Fort Jannies for twenty nine days as negotiations were swiftly held. Taking this all as an act of war from Old Hills, the Bysandine emperor ordered the invasion of both Old and Grass Hills in 568 BE.

Battle of Kosovo
Under orders from their Emperor, thirty thousand Bysandine soldiers advanced to the mountain village of Kosovo, the capital of Grass Hills. As they advanced up the hill in phalanxes, five thousand Grass Hills horsemen attempted to break their formations, sustaining heavy losses. A unit of one and a half thousand slingers rained a volley of stones at one formation and gave way for seven thousand Grass Hills horsemen to successfully push back the force. The Bysandines regrouped and rushed the hill at night. The full force of the Grass Hills army came down the mountain, fifteen thousand soldiers and cavalry, into the invading force. By morning, Kosovo was successfully captured by the remaining seventeen thousand Bysandines and effectively most of Grass Hills.

Invasion of Old Hills
Bysandine naval commander Gung Ho managed to persuade coastal Negus Murien clans to lend ships to his fleet, in exchange promising the backing of the military to guarantee the independence of the Negus Murien lands. A fleet of one hundred and eight ships spread out in nine groups of twelve arrived at Malta. A force of seventy Old Hills ships along with nine Grass Hills galleys was consolidated to counter the massive naval maneuver.

The battle lasted for eleven hours, forty Old Hillian ships were sunk, the Bysandines losing thirty seven. It's unknown how many people manned the ships but the battle is estimated to have killed ten to twenty thousand men. In 1992 AE, the remains of an ancient Negus Murien ship was found near Malta, confirming the texts claiming the battle took place.

Recapturing Malta and winning naval supremacy, the Bysandines moved forward to Constantium, capital of Old Hills, with a force of forty five thousand men, leaving ten thousand to hold Bygrassium to garrison the rebellious and troublesome Jackic dissenters.

Bei Woyang's invention
Bei Woyang was a student of Ralbert Steinus and considered the father of alchemy. He introduced hundreds of medicinal products from his homeland in the Far East (thought to be Japan) to the Spawnish and Bysandine realm. Five years prior to the war, he wrote a manuscript describing his accidental creation of proto black powder mixtures, only telling the effects of it believing the recipe to be too dangerous for public use. Approached by the Bysandine Emperor himself, he was requested to direct the production of seven hundred kegs worth of the powder. He was allowed to ask for any reasonable quantity of supplies and workforce, of which from the military, he demanded.

Bei asked for vast amounts of powdered gold, claiming it played a vital role in the explosive reaction. By the time the war broke out, his production of the powder was complete and two hundred kegs were sent to the front in Old Hills. His contractual request to keep the instructions on how to create it a secret was respected, and after his death, it would not be discovered again for another eight centuries until a witch under the contract of Emperor Niggus created a slightly altered and more potent version for use by the Solician military.

Siege and capture of Constantium
With minimal resistance, the Bysandine army marched to the capital of Old Hills in 566 BE, intent on the complete destruction of the city and country for its spirited resistance of Bysandine forces. The Solician Emperor, Karl of the Blake dynasty, was cautious to send reinforcements, believing the fight to be hopeless and wishing to reserve forces for a final battle with the Bysandines. Nevertheless, an advisor to the Emperor, later revealed to be a Bysandine spy, advised him to sent a large force of 10,000 troops to assist the fledgling Old Hillian garrison. He relented and sent the force of ten thousand Solicians to assist Old Hills.

The Solician relief force took thirty-three ships to help defend Constantium launching from the shores of Ambrosia. Two ships were run aground after the large force sailed their heavily armored galleys down the relatively narrow Big Nig, attempting to reach open waters in the Bay of Nigs. Their galleys were also harassed from Negus Murien pirates although they were easily able to repel the unorganized attacks with their superior firepower and skill. After several days, they reached the open water they were looking for and sailed south towards Old Hills.

The now thirty one vessel Solician fleet met a Bysandine merchant escort fleet in the open waters near Malta and soon a battle started. After a brief skirmish, the three merchant ships and their two military escorts had been subdued with their contents plundered. The two military escort ships were added to the fleet to replenish their numbers back to thirty three although they were heavily damaged. After reports of a naval defeat for the Bysandines with driftwood being spotted on the shores of Malta and Bygrassium, rumors soon spread that a massive Solician fleet that destroyed a large part, if not all, of the Bysandine fleet and it was only a matter of time before the war was over.

This news inflamed a new rebellion in Bygrassium where the largely Jackic population rose up against the Bysandine garrison. Upon news of the revolt, Admiral Acktard ordered a course for Bygrassium to assist the violent revolution in overthrowing the Bysandine colonial government. The Bysandines also reacted to this news, sending five thousand troops as reinforcements from their invasion force to subdue the rebels. Amphibious landings of the Solician forces were made in Malta and Bygrassium with the former being repelled by a large Bysandine garrison supplemented by reinforcements. Bygrassium, however, was overthrown, in large part to the Solician Navy. After the successful revolution, the now even more bolstered Solician force of thirty-eight ships and now twelve-thousand men, they plotted their course to Old Hills to break the siege of Constatium and win the war.

The Solician navy attempted to navigate the Filmore Strait running between Bygrassium and Old Hills although this proved to be a fruitless maneuver as they could not find a suitable entrance to unload their armies. After this failure, they opted for a full frontal assault of Constanium. After two days of marching, the Solician army discovered the siege site and planned a surprise assault that night. 12,000 Solician troops, two thousand of which were Jackic rebel fighters recruited from the revolt, descended upon the camp of over 40,000 Bysandine troops, most of which were sleeping. Although this surprise attack proved wildly successful at the outset, the lack of coordination and therefore lack of aid from the Hillian defenders proved to be disastrous. The initially shocked Bysandine forces swiftly regrouped and used their numerical advantage to make quick work of the Solician attackers. By morning, the assault was repelled. Using the last reserves of the initial two hundred barrels of black powder, Bysandine forces shattered the last line of walls defending Constantium and a full on storming of the city began. The starved and overwhelmed city was quickly captured and the Bysandine Emperor walked in the streets by evening.

Completely unexpectedly, only minor looting took place, as the Emperor met with the King of Old Hills, Claudius Southbarc, in a diplomatic meeting. In exchange for peace, the Old Hillians agreed to switch sides and put their armies under the direction of the Bysandine high command as well as give tribute to the Sandesians for their past crimes against them. The Bysandines would also agree to help protect Old Hills from raids by the neighboring Jackic tribes, the Yuighurslavs and Georgans.

The shattered Solician invasion force retreated desperately back to their ships, losing many men to pursuing parties. They boarded their ships but soon found themselves enveloped in a freak storm that destroyed more than half of their fleet, leaving only the most battle-hardened of men and the most damaged of ships. Further galleys were lost in their journey up the Big Nig as they worked desperately against the tide. Only after several days were the tattered remains of the invasion force left in Solicia as the final stage of the war approached rapidly.

Failed Invasion of Soulicia
In late 566 BE, a treaty with the Bygrassines was signed, immediately after news the Spawn Empire now guaranteed their independence, a white peace which was agreed to last until the death of the Bygrassine King Steiny Viscus III. Trade was reopened between Bysandium and Old Hills and their combined navies began constant raids of Solicia. An invasion force of 4,000 Old Hills mercenaries and 14,000 Bysandine forces largely failed to gain any important foothold in the desert lands, suffering defeats similar to the invasion of Bysandium.

Capture of the Canal
With only a few captured villages in the coast of Solicia, a proper invasion began by the canals in 563 BE. Spawnish peacekeeping forces surrounded the Bysandine side of the major bridges, threatening to damage bridges or get the Spawn Empire involved in the war. When the peacekeeping leader Aren Trudd and several of his men beside him were threatened by Emperor Freeman and his guard with a sword, Aren Trudd said "Blasphemy... This is madness! We have diplomatic immunity!", to which Freeman said "Diplomatic immunity? It has just been revoked!"

Immediately after, Freeman himself kicked Aren Trudd into the depths of the canal as the Bysandine army flung a rain of arrows that according to surviving accounts "blotted out the sun" into the three hundred peacekeeping forces thinly spread out attempting to defend the Smoked bridge, securing the route of invasion to Solicia.

Invasion of Solicia
Dozens of Bysandine detachments spread out into the Solician countryside and few battles were fought as they swiftly captured several villages, encircling most minor fortresses. It is noted in antiquity this part of the war was often nicknamed "The Iron Axe Conflicts" due to the intense shortage of raw materials the Bysandines had for continuing the war effort, soldiers reportedly using modified farm tools. It is thought the Spawn Empire did not get involved after the Canal incident because of motivation to profit from supplying both sides with munitions. By 555 BE, several Solician warlords had defected to the Bysandines or acted independent of the Holy Nation. After the battle for the fort of Berstein, the final bastion of the Holy Nation sat at the massive hillfort of Fort Nungus.

Siege of Fort Nunghus
The Emperor of Solicia, Jolof Blackler, had been holding out at Fort Nunghus for an entire year, from around January 555 BE to Februrary 554 BE. Repeated attempts to use explosives failed as bomb planting crews were harrassed by a downpour of arrows and stones from the bisiegers. Despite this, the situation for the defenders seemed bleak. The final solution, as it were, was to have General Steiner come out from his hiding in the tunnels dug underneath the foot of the hill and use his forces in addition to the combined manpower of Jolof's men to inflict intense losses on the besiegers and turn the tide of the war. However, Steiner's army had already attacked in September of 555 BE, being completely snuffed out as Bysandine explosives caused the tunnel complex to collapse in on itself. Not having enough men to continue the assault for Jolof's garrison intervene in the battle, Steiner paid off all of his men and fled to the Spawn Empire.

Receiving word from advisors who had held on the news for months, Jolof ordered all of them to be thrown from the walls onto the cliffside. The fate of Jolof Blackler is unknown to this day, with several historians speculating he committed suicide. There is a theory he had escaped to become the King of the Confederate tribes and establish his new dynasty there, theorists noting the simalarities of ancient mosaics depicting him as well as accounts describing the Confederate King Jan Hus, who had come from a foreign land and united the tribes with his army.

The bisiegers began to prod for weaknesses after discovering the bodies of the executed advisors several days later. An unforunate side effect of the explosion of the tunnels for the Bysandines was the fact that it cut off a possible entrace point during an attack. A final assault was ordered by the Bysandine Emperor with over 20,000 men attacking the dilapidated and isolated Fort Nunghus.