Rongaduan

Rongaduan, officially The Rongaduan Federated Republics of the not-Chams, not-Paiwans and Cagayans, is a sovereign state located to the Northwest of the South Kesh Bay, sharing land borders with the Heiban State to its Southwest and Cagayan Republic to its Northeast. The country itself is characterised by a distinction between a mountainous northern interior and a southern floodplain, giving rise to the federated nature of the nation. It is also from this divide that gave rise to two capitals, Placeholder as the northern capital and Ajiulok as the southern capital.

The territories that would comprise Rongaduan in the modern day has attested to have seen human activity since the Middle Paleolithic. In between various petty kingdoms and migrations of people, a distinct contrast the states of the southern floodplains and the mountain country would emerge. In the 13th century Zhou advisors would thus be invited to the courts of the various southern state to counteract the mountain polities, in the process also exposing the general South to gradual vassalisation and cultural homogenisation by the Zhou, a process which would continue up until their collapse in the 15th century.

The genesis of the Rongaduan federation stems from the immediate aftermath of Zhou capitulation, when a confederation of the not-Paiwans and not-Cham polities jointed to resist an uprising of the not-Qiangs in Upper Rongaduan, and an expanding Zhou pretender in modern-Heiban. Later this federation will be swelled by the inclusion of Cagayan princes of the Northern Valley, seeking allies from the increasingly disruptive incursions of Tiberican settlement. The Tibericans in particular would hold the Insertname Peninsula as part of the Viceroyalty of Cagayan until their eventual expulsion by Royal Title Alauchit during 1760.

Etymology
Scholarship regard the origins of the name "Rongaduan" as a synthesis of not-Qiangic "Rorn" (dry) and Plains Austronesian "gadu" (mountain/uplands), referring to the preeminent geography that dominates the country. The Chou-Zhou transliteration of the name 晾乾墩 (lit. dry mound) somewhat reflects this, although critics argue this was a retroactive name given in more recent decades

Prehistory
Compared to its neighbours in the bay region, scholarship generally agree that that human arrival to the area was rather late, with H. Sapiens entering the Lower Rongaduan Plains approximately 120,000 to 100,000 BCE. Midden sites along the breadth of the Rongaduan coastline would generally suggest for an extensive period the early settlers focused mainly on intensive fishing and shellfish collection.

Leading up to 6000 BCE purported descendants of these early coast cultures would move further into the upper reaches of the floodplains, turning to slash and burn agriculture as evidenced by pollen analysis of sites along the Ajiu River. Concurrently sites also attest to a separate megalith building cultures existing in the foothills northwest of the country circa 5000 BCE

Antiquity to Pre-Zhou
Over the course of the 5th century BCE to the 13th century the political landscape would be dominated by various petty kingdoms both north and south of the country, very often of non-intelligible ethno-linguistic groups. The not-Seqalu Kingdom would unite a large swathe of modern Rongaduan very briefly in the 2nd century BCE before their capitulation, signaling a return to the norm of various disparate polities dotting the country.

Early polities
5th century BCE-2nd century BCE

The not-Seqalu Kingdom
2nd century BCE-1st century CE

River states & not-Cham Hills Kingdoms
1st century CE-13th century

Zhou Influence
13th century-1540s

Early Confederation
With the fall of Zhou into seven constituent kingdoms in 1531, Kodeshi naval domination and by extension influence would also gradually wane in the South Kesh Bay. The regional vacuum from the weakening of the Zhou hegemony would eventually cascade into various events in the region, not least general unrest and conflict.

The not-Qiangs Rising
1540s-1560s

Conflict with Zhouguo
1550s-1600s

Conflict with the Viceroyalty of Cagayan
1660s-1760s