Jingye City

Biodata

Geography & Defenses

• Jingye City lies a little over ten li from Wu Village and faces the uninhabited Wasteland to the north; demonic creatures emerging from the Wasteland are the region’s principal external threat 13 91.
• Its walls are at least ten zhang high. The city gates are guarded daily by armored soldiers who inspect entrants for wanted criminals and infiltrating demons 13.
• The city itself contains over one million households 158.
• The territory centered on Jingye City includes scattered villages, towns, sect-controlled lands, spiritual grounds, and outlying strongholds across hundreds of miles 91.
• The Quicksand River flows past the city; a broad dock several li away supports a riverside settlement 45.
• Following the Wasteland anomaly, Yong Kingdom completed a nearly ten-thousand-mile defensive wall three hundred miles outside the city, enclosing Jingye City and other border cities 273.

Defensive Lines

Governance & Law Enforcement

The Cautious Punishment Division is Jingye City’s principal force for internal order. As a directly court-controlled martial agency, it governs the city’s public security and manages tens of thousands of martial artists; its Division Master is effectively the nominal city lord when the Demon Suppression Bureau’s master is absent 31 104.

• The Division commands the City Guard, numbering at least several thousand in ordinary deployments and tens of thousands in the near-city defense force 31 91.
• It can seal the gates and search the entire city when necessary 31.
• City law distinguishes commoners from martial artists: a common night thief receives forty cane strokes, while a martial artist is sent to the mines 49.
• Martial artists who unlawfully kill civilians are sent to the mines for fewer than three victims and executed for three or more 49.
• Killing any imperial court official is a capital offense, giving Division personnel legal protection even from major sects 49.
• During the Wasteland’s earth-shattering change, acting Director Wu Ming imposed martial law and authorized immediate execution for those arbitrarily disrupting order. His subsequent crackdown halted criminal activity across the city within days 158.

Major Powers

Jingye City’s six dominant factions are collectively called the “One Alliance, Two Divisions, Three Sects.” Their interests overlap and are not cleanly divided 12.

Districts & Urban Life

Inner City

The inner city is quieter and more refined than the outer districts, with permanent shops rather than street vendors. North Orchid Street leads to the residences of established clans and newly risen dignitaries, including Chen Manor 85.

• Chen Manor was founded more than a century earlier by Chen Ji, a Fourth Blood Forging martial artist 85.
• Major families and departments within the Cautious Punishment Division maintain competing and sometimes openly conflicting interests 85.

North Street

North Street is the northern district’s most mixed and disorderly area, known for casinos, brothels, food stalls, gang members, martial artists, wealthy heirs, and service workers 37.

• Street vendors primarily sell pastries and food to patrons of the gambling and pleasure establishments 37.
• Tingxue Pavilion is a costly entertainment venue on North Street where courtesans perform music rather than work as prostitutes 59.
• Theft and robbery remain common enough that businesses such as Chen’s Apothecary employ armed guards despite the Cautious Punishment Division’s presence 29.

History

Jingye City was established no later than the founding era of the Black Fiend Sect and Profound Jade Sect, both of which claim to have contributed to the city’s creation and retain court-recognized mountain sects within its territory 12.

In its early modern power structure, the Seven Martial Alliance rose from a low-status organization into a major force through extensive recruitment, while the Two Divisions remained the city’s highest official authorities 12.

As demonic activity intensified from the northern Wasteland, Jingye City relied increasingly on layered defenses, City Guard patrols, scattered strongholds, and cooperation between the Cautious Punishment Division and Demon Suppression Bureau 91 128.

The Wasteland’s later spiritualization and earthquake destabilized the region. Northern villages were relocated, northern spiritual lands were forcibly acquired or closed to cultivation, and the city itself endured a major quake 152 156 158.

More than twenty years after Wu Ming left, the city’s buildings had changed, but its six-power structure remained. Wu Manor became an untouchable residence protected informally by officials, sect elders, and even a Blood Blade Pavilion assassin because of Wu Ming’s reputation 248.

Notable Events