Heiban

Heiban (: 海傍, Hǎi Bàng), officially the Monarchical State of Heiban (海傍君主國, Hǎi bàng jūnzhǔguó), is a country in southwestern Kesh. It is bordered to the west by the Iapetus Ocean, to the south and east by the South Kesh Bay, and shares maritime borders with Ramay and South Kesh; covering an area of 929,097 square kilometers (358,726 square miles) and with a population of 97 million. The country is a. Heiban's capital and largest city is Wangzuo.

Etymology
The official name of the country is The Monarchical State of Heiban (海傍君主國, Hǎi bàng jūnzhǔguó); its shortened version "Heiban" derives from the word Hǎi bàng (海傍, meaning seafront), from hǎi (sea) and bàng (near).

Geography
Heiban is located on the west of the Southern Kesh subregion between the latitudes X° and X°S, and the longitudes X° and X°E, surrounded on all cardinal directions, except north, by bodies of water, more specifically the Iapetus Ocean to the west and the South Kesh Bay to the east, also known as the Emerald Bay (Gouyu: 翡翠灣, fěicuì wān) by the Heibanese people. The country covers a total area of approximately 929.097 square kilometers (358,726 sq mi), making it the seventh-largest country in Kesh and the seventeenth-largest in Anterra.

Heiban's land is mostly hilly and sparsely forested, characterized by savannas and monsoon regions as the primary landscapes in the country. Heiban is essentially shaped like a massive valley, with higher elevations present in the northern and southern regions with a flat interior, east and west; the highest peaks in the country are located along the northern border, with the highest point being Mount Yúnfēng (雲峰山) at roughly 1,600 meters (5,249 ft.) above sea level, in the province of Caoyuan.

Southern Heiban consists of several scattered islands and peninsulas, consequence of the rough landscape and characterized by uneven terrain, particularly in the Shénbì Peninsula (神臂半岛), the largest in the country. Politically, this southern region differs from its northern counterpart in population and level of social and economic development, being the wealthiest and most advanced region in Heiban. This is attributed the name of Tǔdì duìbǐ (土地對比, meaning 'land contrast'), and reinforces the idea that the country's landscape acts as the main form of socio-economic disparity.

Many courses of fresh water flow into and from Heiban, and into the country's western, eastern and southern coasts, all of which act as the main spots for urban agglomerations, with the best example being the capital city of Wangzuo located on both sides of the Zhōngshuǐ River (中水河), the largest and most important river in Heiban, dissecting the country in two halves comparable in size. Some of this rivers also feed into the many lakes of Heiban, with the largest of them being the Báishuǐ River (白水河) located in western Heiban and considered one of the country’s holiest sites.

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Government
Heiban is a unitary state under an absolute monarchy comprising eleven provinces. The country's and '  is the Monarch of Heiban, who holds the title of either Queen or King; the ' head of government is the Royal Council, formed by ten members directly appointed by the monarch and drawn from the. The Constitution of Heiban is codified and it states that all political power and decision making is to lie at the hands of the monarch, while also dividing the government into three branches that shall always answer to the monarch: the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.

Executive
The executive power is vested in the Monarch of Heiban as the head of state, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Protector of the Faith and de jure head of government for life or until abdication. The title of King or Queen of Heiban is hereditary under a system of. The de facto head of government is the Royal Council, a ten-member body of government, appointed directly by the monarch for whom they work as advisors and counsellors. The members of the council will elect a Grand Secretariat amongst themselves, a semi-annual rotative position with the duty of overseeing government meetings and intervening in debates or ties in voting regarding different political matters. The Royal Council is renovated every five years - time by which all members would have held the position of Grand Secretariat.

Despite acting as the de facto head of government, the Royal Council cannot go against the Constitution of Heiban and will always hold less power than the monarch. In recent years, monarchs have passed executive decisions over to the council, which will then act through the monarch shaping certain aspects of government and politics. Nevertheless, the Monarch of Heiban ultimately holds power unbounded by the constitution, and is the only person in the country who can perform constitutional reforms, dissolve government, pass and veto laws, call for parliamentary elections, and declare war, among several other things.

The third and last entity in the executive branch are the ministries run by the ministers who are appointed by the Royal Council and must be approved by the Monarch. The ministers of Heiban are charged with the task of helping run the government by essentially dividing it into specific areas, known as ministries and secretaries. Like any other government official, the ministers of Heiban answer directly to the Monarch and must send weekly reports on their respective fronts; however, and by recent convention, the monarch will redirect said reports to the Grand Secretariat, oftentimes without reading them.

Legislature
The legislature of Heiban comprises a unicameral body that comprises the Parliament of Heiban, and meets in the Palace of Laws (法宮, Fǎ gōng). For parliamentary elections, Heiban is divided into counties, each electing a single member of parliament by single plurality, by all citizens over the age of 16 and with residence in the specific county. Some members of parliament can then be summoned to form the Royal Council by either former council members or the monarch themselves.

Parliamentary elections have a non-fixed six year term; this means that the monarch, despite being advised against it by the Royal Council, has the power to call elections whenever they see fit, whether it be before or after the six year period. Members of parliament can run for office a maximum of three consecutive times.

Judiciary
The highest form of authority in the judicial branch of government is His Majesty’s Court of Justice; judges for this court are called Ladies of Justice, of which there are nine, and it is the only position in government inaccessible to men, as stated in the Constitution of Heiban. Ladies of Justice are granted a lifetime tenure and are directly appointed by the Monarch of Heiban to form His Majesty’s Honorable Court, which is the name by which the Ladies of Justice are referred to collectively. HM Honourable Court is in charge of interpreting, defending and applying all law stated in the constitution and decrees made by the monarch across the entire country, as well as making sure all lower courts in Heiban follow suit.

The Judiciary of Heiban is a hierarchical system, atop which stands the Monarch of Heiban, followed in the descending order by HM Court of Justice, HM Courts of Appeal, the Province Courts, the Prefecture Courts and the Minor Tribunals or regular courthouses. All courts are classified into two types: courts of inquiry, which hear cases in the first instance, and courts of entreaty, which review specific contested decisions made by the courts of inquiry.

All courts of entreaty can be identified by the words “Her Majesty’s” or “His Majesty’s” (abbreviated to H.M. or HM) in their official names; no court of inquiry may include this designation as part of their name.

Administrative divisions
Heiban is divided into eleven provinces, all of which are subdivided into prefectures and furtherly into counties. Each province has its own capital and are usually geographically grouped together into three regions: the Borderlands, the Middle Lands, and the Peninsulas. The counties of Heiban act as the electoral districts for Parliament and are run under the jurisdiction of the prefectures they are a part of.

Demographics
As of 2021, the population of Heiban is about 98.2 million, most of whom live in the mainland. The remainder population lives in the islands off shore, particularly the ones along the southwestern border, with the largest island, Shajing Island, being home to nearly 100,000 people, earning it prefectural level status in 1997.

Population
The government of Heiban issued a report in 2019, stating that nearly 98% of its population were ethnically Heibanese. However, and due to Heiban's history and geographical location, anthropologists in the country consider there isn't such thing as 'Heibanese people' and that this ethnicity can be further divided into two major groups: Heibanese with ancestry in Eastern Kesh, and Heibanese with ancestry in Southern Kesh. Both groups divide the country almost completely evenly in half, with 51.7% of the population reporting ancestral ties to Southern Kesh, 46.3% to Eastern Kesh, and the remaining 2% being listed under 'Unknown/Other'.

Today, most Heibanese citizens live along the southern coast and around river basins, with only a few major cities located in the north of the country. Most cities in Heiban were built around river mouths to act as both ports to international waters, and to have access to the exported goods produced in the interior of the country by transporting them through the river. All ten largest cities in the country have access to the ocean whether it be direct or through rivers.

Language
The official language of the State of Heiban is Gouyu, written in the, also known as the Hui script, and spoken with a distinctive characteristic of the area. Being geographically distant from the Gouyu speaking countries of Kesh, the Gouyu spoken in Heiban adopted loanwords from languages of neighbouring nations. As the language used in trade in Southern Keh, Ramayan is considerably common in Heiban, having become a national language in 2011, with approximately 12% of the population being fluent and 25% being able to understand it in some capacity, particularly in eastern Heiban.

Religion
The Constitution of the Monarchical State of Heiban acknowledges and recognizes only one religion as official in the country and that is. The religion was introduced in Heiban during the 20th century through the colonies of the Samot-Seratofian Empire in former East Ramay, present-day South Kesh.

is legal in Heiban, however, only citizens born abroad can identify with a religion that isn’t Buddhism, whereas Heibanese citizens are required by law to adhere to the country’s faith or self-identify as, this identification is then added to each citizen’s national ID. Nearly 91% of the country identifies as Buddhist, with 7% identifying as irreligious, and a remaining 2% adhering to other religions - particularly and.

The State of Heiban has what are known as ‘core beliefs’, based on the Buddhist precepts and used to justify certain legal practices in the country; the core beliefs are the following:




 * 1) To abstain from onslaught on breathing beings: This includes the act of  of, ordering or causing someone else to kill another human being, , , , and in recent times it’s been used to promote the practice of  and  nationwide. Loopholes have been built around this belief in order to justify the , which can be dictated by the Monarch of Heiban or the Ladies of Justice. Crimes performed against this belief are punishable with the death penalty.
 * 2) To abstain from taking what is not given: This includes all forms of, , , , , , ,  and . Crimes performed against this belief are punishable with imprisonment.
 * 3) To abstain from misconduct concerning sense-pleasures: This includes, with the legal  being 18 years old. Crimes performed against this belief are punishable with imprisonment or the death penalty.
 * 4) To abstain from false speech: This includes the criminal offense of, , , as well as any form of defamation of the government and its ideology through written or spoken speech. All published material that doesn’t align with the government’s constructed image is banned or censored, and punishable with imprisonment or the death penalty.
 * 5) To abstain from alcoholic drink or drugs that are an opportunity for heedlessness: This includes the consumption and distribution, whether through selling or buying, of .  and  have been excluded from this belief for several decades. Crimes performed against this belief are punishable with imprisonment.

The Monarch of Heiban holds the title of Protector of the Faith and has the job of interpreting and protecting the country's national religion as well as deeming which practices are to be considered moral or immoral. Any religious order given by the Monarch is then reported to the Head Monk, head of the Grand Temple of Qiānliú (千流大庙) and the person in charge of spreading the religious teachings to the rest of the nation. In recent times, the sovereign has used his power as Protector of the Faith to shape and reinterpret Buddhist teachings as a way to justify changes in the Heibanese law, the most recent and well-known example of this is the creation of the aforementioned core beliefs in 1993.

Culture
Heibanese culture is a hybrid mixture of ancient traditions from eastern Kesh and the more recently adopted customs from southern Kesh, all of which have been influenced by the introduction of Buddhism and the government’s ideology. In the present-day, Heiban is a self-proclaimed 'Culturally Unified State' as declared by the government. This is due to the work of the country's Royal Guard of Traditions (Gouyu: 皇家傳統衛隊, Huángjiā Chuántǒng Wèiduì), a branch of the military created with the purpose of protecting and reinforcing the practice of Heibanese traditions and customs above all else, as an act of cultural protectionism, and in an attempt to ensure Heibanese culture won't be tampered by the influence of its neighbors.

Art, entertainment and literature
Heibanese people are very traditional and usually have a hard time embracing newer customs and innovations into the country, this stands particularly true with the royal family and the extreme upper class families who view the introduction of newer customs as a threat to the Heibanese nationalism and their ludicrous ways of living. This sentiment is reflected in the different arts, forms of entertainment and literature present in the country.



Dancing, music and painting are the most prestigious forms of art and are held to a higher standard than any other. Every upper and middle class child is expected to learn to play an instrument at some point, children of the royal and extreme upper class in particularly are all taught how to play the national instrument, the Yueqin (Gouyu: 月琴, yuèqín). Dancing and painting, though not as commonly praised as music, are also appreciated nationwide, particularly since both forms of art are available to every citizen regardless of class, unlike certain musical instruments.

Literature has been an intricate topic throughout much of the country's history, as the writing and publishing of literary material was reserved only to the upper class for until fairly recently. Today, though writing has been made available to all citizens, the publishing of books can be a tricky situation in Heiban, particularly since the implementation of Heiban's Core Beliefs; historical and political books that don't align with the government's principles tend to be censored or outright banned, all books under these two literary genres published today either fall in line with the national ideology or act as indirect propaganda for the government. Fictional novels and books that don't touch into the political aspect of Heiban will usually do well and will rarely get censored.

The seventh art, though relatively new, has been gaining traction fast among the Heibanese people and could be considered the only form of modern art to have truly found its way among the country's more traditional and conservative beliefs. However, this appreciation toward cinema is mostly directed toward foreign movies, as the national movie industry remains relatively small and new, and those who aspire to become actors or actresses are usually looked down, since those are still considered 'jobs of last resort' by the older citizens, who grew up valuing manual and intellectual work over a creative one.

All foreign material, particularly books and movies, and songs to a lesser extent, are reviewed by the Ministry of Culture to determine if censorship or a cultural ban are necessary.