Distant Harbor

Biodata

Geography and Landmarks

• Natural harbor: Described as the finest natural harbor on the continent’s western coast, with the capacity needed for Kang De’s proposed overseas trade network 554.
• Underground access: An entrance to the underground world lies near the city, making the port a practical outlet for its products 553.
• Broken Isles connection: Aircraft cover the journey of more than a thousand kilometers between Distant Harbor and the Broken Isles in approximately one hour 744.
• Urban expansion: By the war with the Northern Council, months of expansion have produced new districts and an enormous square in the city’s north 860.

History

Origins and Commercial Decline

Distant Harbor grew from a small village into a walled port over hundreds of years. It became the birthplace of Goth’s maritime power and the first Goth city where the Cathayan fleet landed. The fleet’s scholars translated the city’s name by meaning rather than sound, establishing the name used on eastern nautical charts and official documents 539.

The first eastern fleet reached the city from Qilin Cape, opening trade between Cathay and Goth. Imported Cathayan goods subsequently flowed through Distant Harbor to the rest of the continent, and Cathayan histories recorded the city’s prosperity 740.

Its standing declined alongside Goth’s national strength. Rival interference helped the Broken Sea replace it as the western seas’ commercial center. The Broken Isles cultivated local power holders through gifts, shares, and private shipping arrangements, allowing influential families to profit even as Distant Harbor’s docks fell into disuse and commercial activity dwindled 553 573.

Battle of Distant Harbor

The arrival of elven, Imperial, and Arcane Council fleets caused widespread alarm. Foreign agents and Goth collaborators exploited the crisis by spreading rumors, inciting hatred of Kang De, and encouraging unrest 542.

Distorted dragons attacked the Imperial and Council fleets before threatening the city itself. Lily and Horus moved to intercept them, while Stella refused evacuation and ordered the defenders to fight. Kang De arrived through a Phase Gate aboard the Knight Astolfo, whose weapons destroyed the attacking dragons and secured a decisive victory 543 546.

Reports from the battle prompted foreign naval commanders to acknowledge that Kang De’s steel warship had surpassed their own naval technology. Its combination of propulsion, precision firepower, steel protection, automation, and magical engineering became a major strategic concern 546.

Takeover and Government Reform

After the battle, Kang De used his military dominance to assert authority over the city. He required the governor to provide manpower and accommodations for captured personnel from the three nations’ fleets. Stella’s orders closed the exits while searchlights, airborne detection equipment, rangers, and crossbow units prevented suspects from escaping 554 555 557.

A dispute over the riot conspirators’ sentences brought Kang De into direct conflict with the nobility. He rejected a verdict that reserved honorable hanging for nobles while imposing brutal executions on commoners, demanding that guilty nobles first lose their titles and face harsher accountability. Han Zezheng supported his ultimatum and publicized his offer to restore Distant Harbor’s maritime prominence 560 562.

A coordinated grain-price campaign then challenged Kang De’s authority across Azure Waves Province. Kang De opened the granaries, while Han Zezheng directed the economic struggle. Kang De subsequently declared that Distant Harbor would remain an independent city under his control and appointed Hong San to lead a replacement government 573 579 581.

Broken Isles Evacuation

Distant Harbor became the destination for people evacuated from the Broken Isles. Early recruitment promised ordinary laborers food, lodging, and work for their families, while wealthy evacuees were told they could leave after arrival under negotiated arrangements 591 592.

When sea monsters obstructed maritime rescue, Kang De ordered an aerial bridge and mobilized the city to provide supplies, shelter, medical care, registration, and security. He regarded the operation as the reorganized Distant Harbor’s first international undertaking as an independent force, while Hong San understood it as an effort to reshape the city’s character through collective service 610.

By 4:20 a.m., after more than ten hours of work, over 38,000 people had been evacuated to Distant Harbor. Four extra-long runways and overnight settlement construction supported the operation 634.

The deep-sea behemoth subsequently threatened to destroy the city. After eliminating it, Kang De returned, announced the danger over, and addressed the population. His victory speech credited the rescuers and invited upright, hardworking people of every nationality and race to settle in Distant Harbor 643 662 663.

Resurgence and War with the Council

After the Broken Isles’ destruction, Distant Harbor announced that it would assume their commercial interests and responsibilities. Tina’s Ministry of Unity contacted governments, powers, and chambers of commerce, offering naval protection for western-sea trade 684.

Relations with the Arcane Council deteriorated through naval confrontation, contentious negotiations, assassinations, and propaganda campaigns. A limited trade agreement for extraterrestrial materials proceeded, but issues including prisoners, responsibility for the conflict, and research cooperation remained unresolved 758 759 789 790.

Following the Tower of All-Seeing incident, Distant Harbor went to war with the Northern Council. Kang De rallied residents to defend their prosperity and dispatched troops through Phase Teleportation. Its legion ultimately won a decisive battle at the Goth border; afterward, Kang De demanded the Northern Council’s territory and ordered preparations for occupation and administration 860 911 920.

Government and Administration

Former Ruling Structure

• Interlocking offices and businesses: Nobles, merchants, officials, generals, and spellcasters often held overlapping identities and shared financial interests 569.
• Control of essential commerce: The governor’s family faction controlled the docks, while a wealthy earl dominated businesses including bakeries, general stores, and breweries 569.
• Justice Hall: The ruling groups used it to settle internal disputes and coordinate resistance to outsiders 569.
• Regional reach: Their economic network made hundreds of thousands of city residents—and more than a million people in surrounding settlements—serve their interests directly or indirectly 569.

Kang De’s Administration

• Executive leadership: Hong San governs the city under Kang De, assisted initially by Horus and young personnel brought from Valentan 581.
• Commercial oversight: The price bureau and other departments supervise all commercial activity, including noble-owned enterprises 582.
• Debt settlement: Indebted magnates must settle loans with property; the West Goth Company receives first-purchase rights 582.
• Public order: The Valentan Guards serve as the police force during refugee reception 610.
• Shogunate responsibilities: Dong Tianming argues that integrating refugees, providing jobs, and organizing their productive work belong to the shogunate rather than city hall alone 676.
• Punitive restructuring: Kang De orders the Garcia family’s public legacy erased, including renamed buildings, destroyed records, and a razed cemetery, alongside action against its branches elsewhere in Goth 581.

Economy and Development

• Provincial importance: Even during its decline, Distant Harbor remains Goth’s most important domestic shipping node. Its prices and commercial activity influence Azure Waves Province and the wider western coast 573.
• Trade strategy: Kang De intends to distribute products from both Earth and the underground world through the harbor, supported by his own trade network and naval superiority 553 554.
• Employment policy: After emergency free-grain distribution, Hong San prioritizes stable prices and enough jobs for residents to support themselves through paid work 582.
• Technology acquisition: The first Council barter shipment is specified to include military magical devices, tactical equipment, high-grade potions, supplies, and patented technical knowledge 759.
• Talent recruitment: Kang De seeks skilled artisans, experienced sailors, scholars in hardship, and capable veterans whose injuries have ended their fighting careers 567.
• Research development: Following the Broken Isles victory, Kang De orders an ordnance and research center and recruitment of scholars to study recovered materials 662.
• Mechanized agriculture: Visiting Council students observe combine harvesters working extensive farms as part of a program encouraging comparison with their homeland’s labor-intensive methods 800.

Population and Daily Life

Immigration and Citizenship

• Open settlement invitation: Kang De explicitly welcomes kind, upright, hardworking beings regardless of nationality or race 663.
• Refugee integration: He proposes a new urban settlement for Broken Isles survivors, with jobs and rewards for both newcomers and existing residents 663.
• Mixed population: The city already has a diverse port population before Kang De’s takeover; later immigration brings further mixing of peoples and races 797.
• Cathayan delegation: More than three thousand Cathayans join a citywide welcome celebration featuring fireworks, music, food, and drink 802 803.
• Civic identity: Residents express pride in local citizenship, including former Council subjects. Local slogans include “Distant Harbor is the Distant Harbor of its people” 797 798.

Services and Public Culture

• Volunteer compensation: Rescue volunteers receive pay, food, citizen-file benefits, and access to goods such as portable radios 614.
• Refugee provisions: Standard camp accommodation provides eight people per tent, three daily meals, and unlimited hot water without charge; private rooms and higher-end service require payment 617.
• Health screening: Evacuees remain in camps until checked for possible sea-monster contamination, regardless of whether they own property in the city 617.
• Medical care: Earth doctors and field hospitals treat Distant Harbor’s wounded and Council prisoners 877.
• Lighting and transport: Bright city lighting, automobiles, buses, and aircraft become visible features of the transformed city 741 803 857 895.
• Broadcasting: Radios and loudspeakers carry official announcements, interviews, and live reports. Named services include the Voice of Distant Harbor and the Distant Harbor People’s Radio Station 614 741 797.
• Public celebrations: Humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, and Yilan-Tai’er participate together while maintaining respect for differing customs 803.

Military and Security

Naval and Aerial Forces

• Knight Astolfo: Kang De’s silver steel flagship becomes both a major deterrent and a public symbol of Distant Harbor’s strength 554 584 902.
• Local defense: During the Broken Isles crisis, Kang De leaves four missile boats, the Guards Regiment, and dragon mercenaries under Hong San’s command, alongside the foreign fleets remaining nearby 594.
• Fast attack and patrol craft: Earth-built motorboats provide greater maneuverability than sail-and-oar vessels and carry heavy machine guns and high-pressure water cannons 697.
• Aircraft: Passenger and transport planes support evacuation, personnel movement, and operations between Distant Harbor and the Broken Isles 663 684.
• Combat airships: Armed airships cross enemy lines to deliver close-range bombardment during the Council war 892.

Ground Forces and Doctrine

• Command and mobility: The new army centers its warfare on superintelligent command links, hyperspace-jump support, and powerful magical war machines 787.
• Mechanized formations: Tanks, artillery, armored infantry, and airships operate together in the assault on the Council’s defenses 895.
• Hybrid technology: Mechanized magitech prototypes combine Dusk Moon technological foundations, Yilan-Tai’er civilization’s legacy, and Earth science 896.
• Magical weakness: Distant Harbor’s hastily assembled mage corps initially lacks the expertise and equipment of the Council’s elite formations. Specialized training and system design seek to compensate for that disadvantage 865.
• Enemy countermeasures: Concentrated spellcasting, Deceleration Fields, and elite assault teams allow the Council to break through Distant Harbor’s defenses and force an approximately eight-kilometer withdrawal 874.
• Support authorization: Access to powerful battlefield support depends on accumulated merit, training, examinations, promotion, and authorization. Emergency credit is possible but subject to later review 897.
• Reserve preparation: New exercises extend into reserve training, adult military instruction, recruits’ programs, and children’s summer camps 787.

Counterintelligence

• Surveillance network: Horus, the Traitor Suppression Society, neighborhood committees, and widespread “alchemical magic eyes” make infiltration exceptionally dangerous 860.
• Brotherhood agreement: The Brotherhood stops accepting contracts against Distant Harbor and agrees to five years of paid service. Its planned branch includes an assassin mentor, six master assassins, three hundred assassins, and one hundred and fifty support personnel 789.
• Public-information operations: Authorities distribute photographs, recordings, video, prisoner interviews, and frequent briefings to shape foreign understanding of conflicts 758.
• Defector protection: Distant Harbor publicly reunites cooperating Council operatives with rescued families, advertising its ability to protect people who change allegiance 790.

Foreign Relations

• Goth court — Distant Harbor’s independence and Kang De’s reforms strain relations with the duchy’s established rulers. Undercover Goth agents later attempt to provoke opposition to the Council war 798 860.
• Cathay — Historic trading partner and source of a large delegation of warriors, talisman masters, counselors, and artisans. Renewed contact is conducted through Twilight Moon as intermediary 740 797 809.
• Dusk Moon Dynasty / Twilight Moon — Kang De’s relationship with the Phoenix King provides strategic backing. He considers the possibility of joining Twilight Moon a deterrent against other powers pushing Distant Harbor too far 744 803.
• Dragon Island — Dragon mercenaries support Distant Harbor’s operations, while Lily acts as a channel to the Dragon Emperor 593 610.
• Arcane Council — A trading counterpart and military adversary. Negotiations over materials coexist with disputes over prisoners, naval clashes, sabotage, and eventual war 755 759 789 860.
• Star Palace — A central enemy behind threats to the city. Kang De later presents resources gained from the northern counties as support for the coming struggle against it 643 912.