YUJIN INTERNAL AFFAIRS:
NORTH SEORA
NORTH SEORA
Seora was a country plagued by strife and foreign occupation, with scarcely a hint of freedom or autonomy. No matter the form of the oppression: be it farcical despotic democracy in the North, or the imposition of foreign ideology in the South, the Seoran people ultimately had little claim to the idea that their existence was independent of other nations, and that their government represented them, and them alone.
North Seora held it's capital at the fair and ancient Yujin prefecture of Lelang, established as the new capital of North Seora - and ostensibly all of Seora - after the Great War, when the Yujin National Revolutionary Army pushed the Touzen Continental Army to the precipice of annihilation in the South. Unable to dislodge their foe, a treaty had been signed, and though the war had long since passed the gruesome reminders still remained. Headlines would often hint at the discovery of some new body found at the edge of a farmers field, or some peasant sowing seeds only to run his plow into decaying, undetonated ordnance. The tragedy of that war had shaped the society of North Seora in profound ways; no longer did the North hold out the hope to prosper and become glorious, but instead it had been transformed into a police state whose economy rested solely upon the backs of farmers, and whose existence was entirely to serve as a buffer state for some eventual and bloody war between Touzen and Yujin.
The government of North Seora was, on paper at least, a democracy. The President was chosen by the lawmakers in Yujin, placed upon a ticket, and those scum who needed to prove their loyalty voted for him in quiet approval of their secret police onlookers. There was no legislature, only citizen assemblies that maintained no power outside of making appeals to the local Army officer or the President. And even that was more to speak of than any notion of a justice system. The Army was the law, it's officers promoted by their fathers, who themselves were installed by their fathers; it was a corrupt agency replete with nepotism, lacking any skill in military aptitude or finesse. The rank-and-file organization of the Army was an enormous machine of peasants whose primary reason for serving their country was the promise of at least one square meal a day, and some form of shelter. They had rifles, however, and the authority to bash in the heads of protesters, and that was all that the Yujiner's felt was required to give.
However, Yujin high command knew that the Seoran Free Army would never survive against an assault by the Continental Army, and because of this Yujin NRA bases dotted the landscapes. They were beacons of economic prosperity, budding markets where what little hope for a future in North Seora had formed. Lelang itself was home to no less than four divisions of Yujin troops, and each of the main bases distributed contracts to private citizens for essentials products: wheat, water, and other necessities that both kept the National Revolutionary Army thriving, and ensured the livelihood of those who could fulfill such contracts.
Aside from farming, the harvesting of coal, iron, and copper were the principal industries of Seora, and only the lowliest of peasants, the most desperate of souls, and the most hardened criminals were forced to take these jobs. There were no benefits or coverage, and the materials used ensured that tunnel collapses were common. But the labor was next-to free, and the touted policies of laissez-faire economics did much to benefit the Yujiner overseers and their state-run energy and heavy industry businesses.
But all was not well. The President of North Seora, a man known as Park Kwang-Sun, had as a child been born into a world where the nation of Yujin fought to save his people. He had been born at the climax of the Great War, and he was respected for his experience and opinions both at home and abroad. Because of this, he knew that the dream he held in his heart - that North Seora could prosper and be independent - could only become a reality in his lifetime. His hands were clammy, but he knew that his Yujiner counterpart, Mr. Yang Wuyi, was his only hope to find some sense of lasting stability. His aides hurriedly prepared the various meals and drinks befitting a meeting among heads-of-state, and though ceremony and pomp would be respected and followed, both Presidents knew that this, their first encounter with each other, would determine the future relationship between their two states.