Taogakure

''Note: Confusion might occur since the country and the capital city have the same name. ''

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Capital (and largest city): Taogakure (population: 11 340 000).

Motto: "There is no way of peace; peace is the way."

Official language(s): Eastern basic.

Ethnic groups: 82% Taogakurian, 15% Kunihae, 3% other.

Native ethnic group: Taogakurian (originally Shourishan).

Demonym: Taogakurian.

Government: Absolute monarchy.

Monarch: Empress Koori III Guntai.

Area: 562,930 km2(water: 9,45%).

Population (July 27th, year 12 of Tao II): 104 649 350.

Currency: Taogakurian oukan (TOU).

Primary terrain: Grasslands, hills, forests.

Climate: Temperate.

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History
Nowadays, the 12th year of the second Tao era, the country and city of Taogakure still have a short history, only lasting for 110 years. The first time Taogakure was mentioned was when describing a fort built by the revolutionary Taoistic people of Shourigakure led by the young man Daifu of the Tao clan. Taogakure literary means "Village of Tao" in Eastern Basic, although the large size of the settlement today hardly can be called 'village'. The revolution began when the rulers of Shourigakure forbid any means of religious influence from other nations, and not even the state religion survived the decision of the government. A group formed of people believing in the Taoistic religion and philosophy, which for example says that evil should not be fought but accepted as a part of this world just as goodness. Or at least this is what the specific cult believed. The Imperialist government declined the demands of the rebels and took action immediately by purposely launching inaccurate projectiles against the primitive fort built by the rebels in case of combat would take place. The rebels charged back with a medieval samurai cavalry, that could quickly take out the Imperial artillery cannons and then escape back into the fort before the heavy Shourisha infantry would have a chance to advance. Realizing the strength of the rebellion, Shourigakure assaulted the fort with 2 000 men and made the most remembered scene in the first battle of Fort Taogakure. The assault was met by improvised defenses such as sharpened wooden poles, slippery ice (the battle was fought in the winter), boiling oil, and several traps in the forest. The attempt to raid Fort Taogakure failed and Shourigakure declared an open war against the "Taogakurians" (named after the name of their main base of operations). The revolutionary war mostly resulted in rebel victories before Emperor Shourisha I challenged the Taoist army into a field battle. The samurai of Taogakure charged upon the Imperial positions, and resulted in complete failure. The Imperial army had organized into effective firing lines with muskets and gunned down any enemy that came into range. Even though a few Taogakure soldiers managed to move to the Shourigakure defense line, they couldn't get close to the enemy infantry because of sharpened wooden poles in the ground pointing towards the samurai. While attempting to climb over the effective defenses, all samurai were killed by long iron pikes held by the Shourigakure heavy infantry. Eventually the revolutionary forced were assisted by a samurai known as Hitokiri (literary meaning "manslayer"). This warrior killed hundreds of enemies with ease and was said to be unstoppable, some people even believed that he was a demon. But the manslayer led the revolutionary forces to victory and founded the Independent Nation of Taogakure. It was difficult to establish a common government in Taogakure, and the young and unexperienced Daifu could not make Taogakure a peaceful nation before the Hitokiri war began and took his life.

The Hitokiri war
During the official Hitokiri war (47th year of first Tao era - 51st year of the Shourisha era), Taogakure was the second country to be targeted for annexation by the Imperialists of Shourigakure after Kunihae. In an attempt to prevent another revolution, the Imperialists allowed the citizens of Taogakure to keep their Taoistic beliefs but that they would respond only the the Emperor of Shourigakure as their leader. Officially the treaty was accepted by the Taogakurian Emperor with the demand that he would remain with power as a governor in Taogakure, but soon an organization of resistance fighters that would be known as the Hitogumi was founded. The organization had effective weapons but the soldiers had little or no training at all, and were therefore easily defeated when the Shourigakure army besieged the capital of Taogakure in order to defeat the resistance fighters. Since the Emperor of Taogakure didn't dare to turn on the Imperialists, he assisted the attackers from the inside by opening the city gates and pointed out the undercover agents of the Hitogumi to the Imperial army. The resistance was completely wiped out and the Emperor of Taogakure was greatly rewarded for his services to the Imperial army, but after a few years the resistance organization returned with a more well-trained army and started to commit assassinations of high Shourisha politicians or Imperialistic Taogakurians that had betrayed their country by assisting Shourigakure. While the police could not stop the assassins that soon would be known as Hitokiri, from the demon during the Taogakure revolutionary war who slaughtered thousands, Shourigakure soon recruited Hitokiri-ranked swordsmen to replace the police in protecting the government officials. The Shigai clan were one of these, and they caused much problems for the Hitogumi as well as the other Taogakure resistance groups which had grown since the cruelty of the Shourisha Empire increased. The Shigai clan were now used as a special military police to keep order in the street and take care of criminals that were too dangerous for the regular police forces to handle. This may appear an act of justice, but in fact the laws they followed was unfair and caused much suffering to the people of the country. The oppressed people soon revolted even more drastically than before and open battles between the revolutionaries and the police occured in the middle of the capital. For many years the city of Taogakure was a chaotic battlefield - dozens of buildings were burned to the ground and hundreds of corpses filled the streets outside the Imperial Palace. Eventually an army of the Alliance of Independent Nations, an alliance between Taogakure, Kunihae, Kaon Sabaku, and the Hitogumi, besieged the city using professional soldiers and advanced equipment. It took many months before the city fell - far longer than the time it took Shourigakure to completely annex the country. Peace was signed with the loss of all Imperial power in the foreign countries of the world. But after 5 years the new Emperor, Shourisha II, ordered a huge well-trained army to invade Kunihae, breaking the truce and causing a new multi-front war against the Alliance of Independent Nations, which now also included the alien Iseijin race and the Western country of Suuxe-den. The last mentioned country could not afford to send much military aid because of their own wars against the larger Western nations, but they proved to be a very well-disciplined and effective army despite the Northern lack of technology. But the new war was even more difficult to win than the first part of the Hitokiri war. Shourisha II was an excellent military commander and his reformations affected the army of Shourigakure with extreme enhancements. The Taogakurian army still hadn't changed since the revolution. They still used the same old firearms and they favored the use of samurai despite the new modernized weapons of the enemy. Some repeating rifles had been given to the Taogakurian army by the Hitogumi and there was nothing negative to say about their training. The city of Taogakure surrendered without a battle but since this caused extremely low public order in the city the Shourisha Empire promised the citizens of Taogakure that they would barely notice the change other than a garrison of Imperial soldiers in the city. This time the Imperialists kept their promise and another revolution was far from the thoughts of the Taogakurians. Only the Hitogumi kept fighting the Shourisha Empire with few notable successes, until the 49th year of Shourisha when the Hitokiri-ranked assassins and warriors of the Hitogumi reunited to fight the new threat. After a decisive victory for the resistance including the death of Emperor Shourisha II in the 51st year of Shourisha, another peace treaty was signed that would guarantee no more battles between the nations of Shourigakure and Taogakure. Still today this peace treaty is celebrated once per year in June as a memorial to the peace and freedom given to the entire Eastern world.

Modern history
In the modernized community of Taogakure few things have changed since the end of the second Hitokiri War. The government form is still absolute monarchy, meaning that a monarch has complete power over the country. Sagara Tao was the true heir of Taogakure, but abdicated quickly without even trying to strengthen his weak position on the throne. The Hitogumi decided that Koori Guntai, the sister of their most victorious general, should become the ruler of Taogakure as she was the only option that was of royal blood (the Guntai family is a sub-clan of the Yunaiteddo shogun's family). She gladly accepted her new role and turned out to be an excellent leader. As the first female leader for centuries in the East, she made sure to make a good first impression by cutting taxes in half, forbid any kind of slavery, and initiated new trades with the neighboring countries. Koori herself is a ninja specializing in a hidden elemental magic that allows her to control the movement of ice and in some cases water. She is the main source of modernization in Taogakure but kept the old ways of living by the Bushido and refused any diplomacy with the Western world, with the exception of a few countries (see "trading partners of Taogakure"). After the Hitokiri war Taogakure gained new lands from Shourigakure and the nation expanded into the most powerful empire of the East, although Kunihae remained the largest. Taogakure is still a basically small country compared to its neighbors, but as the modernization by Empress Koori was complete Taogakure gained better ships, weapons, and home technology than any other country of the world. Some of these superior technologies are the turret-equipped tank and the radio, along with motorized ships and land vehicles known as automobiles.