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.

Similarly like its neighbours in the bay region, the territories that would comprise Rongaduan in the modern day has attested to have seen continuous human settlement since the Middle Paleolithic. In between various petty kingdoms and migrations of people in the area, a distinct contrast of the peoples inhabiting the southern floodplains and mountain country developed. The South would be dominated by not-Paiwan lords ruling city states while the North would see various princes in constant strife. Thus in the 13th century Zhou advisors would 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, the process of which would continue up until their abrupt fall 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 expansion by the Heibanese Zhou pretender state and a not-Qiang rebel state in Upper Rongaduan. 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 also hold the Insertname Peninsula as part of the Viceroyalty of Cagayan until their eventual expulsion by Royal Title Alauchit.

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 by over-eager Republicans