The Haikei

The Haikei is the capital city of Daolin, and the historic capital of many of its predecessor states. Located along the Mailu River, the city was historically a refuge from the wars that ravaged the rest of the region.It is also the geographical and cultural centre of the Imperial Hai.

It is located at the confluence of the Zhaolu and Mailu Rivers, just at the base of the Dragon's Spur, a narrow sheer promontory dividing the two rivers just before they meet, and is thus pinned between the river and the spur, limiting its potential for growth. The city, despite neighbouring the 7 million-strong Zhaokon, has a population of only 50,000. There has been extensive land reclamation around the city, expanding outwards into the river, however land remains scarce.

Most of the land in the city legally forms part of the Throne's Own Palatial Estate, i.e. the grounds of the Imperial Palace, most of which in turn is held in trust by imperial bureaucrats and nobility as part of their pay for performing administrative duties for the empire. A smaller number of properties within the estate are leased directly by the Throne to small business owners in order to supply goods and services to the city's bureaucratic population.The entire southeastern quarter of the palatial estate is a dedicated military base and fortress, the Empire Citadel, playing a role both as the core of the city defences and the High Command of the Imperial Guard as well as the Forces of the Realm'''.  The city also contains the Five Bends, in which most of the empire's financial institutions are based alongside the headquarters of the Sovereign Company of the Dragon'''.

Other important sites include the Grand Temple of the Divine - a multidenominational temple dedicated to the Suka Faith, Hongyi Faith, Daolese Imperial Cult, and Beygul Imperial Cult - and the Empire University in the Haikei, one of the empire's foremost academic institutions. Both of these sites form part of the city's Coronation Park. The nearby Crown District is the most densely populated, a large hexagon of concentric ornate skyscraper towers, arranged in order of increasing height towards the centre.

Outside the limits of the Palatial Estate, on the eastern edge of the city where it is most open to the river, are the Floating District and the Docklands District. The Floating District is characteristic of the Haikei; they are elaborate wooden buildings and even towers built on stilts directly in the waters of the Mailu, such that there are no streets at all but waterways. The district takes its name from the large number of houseboats and pleasure barges, and the so-called "Floating Palaces", semi-mobile large luxury craft halfway between boat and building. The Docklands District is more practical in its design, but nonetheless its rusticated masonry is considered appealing. It consists of a number of boathouses and warehouses as well as stone piers, all contained on a single island separated from the rest of the city by a narrow channel.

A number of towns outside the Haikei proper fall into the Palatial Estate and thus the Haikei's local administration, these being the Red Steps, the Red Battery, Silkbridge, Xiafeng, and Daoyan. The Red Steps face the Haikei from across the Red Heart Lake, spilling down the steep slopes of the Mailu banks. They form an integral part the much larger of Zhaokon city geographically, but are governed directly by the Haikei due to historic links.

Similarly, large areas just north of the Haikei city bounds, on a small marshy habitable strip between the Dragon's Spur and the Mailu river is poorly planned slumland which floods regularly, which is governed by the Metropolitan Court of Zhaokon.

Private palaces of the Haikei
Though the majority of the Haikei forms part of the palace grounds, and thus most of the palace is open to the public, specific complexes within the city are set aside for exclusive use by the emperor and his administration.

Leisure Palace
The Leisure Palace is the working residence of the Daolese emperor, composed of three artificial islands linked by bridges and mostly surrounded by the Empire Citadel. It contains the Iron Pagoda, once the tallest structure in the city.

Courtly Palace
The Courtly Palace is where His Imperial Majesty's Courts are held, and is the administrative nucleus of the empire.

Palace of the Clouds
The Palace of the Clouds is located high up on the Dragon's Spur, surrounded by the scenic Yanzhu Forest, offering panoramic vistas of the city and the surrounding landscape. It integrates a number of open terraces and platforms into the palace architecture, secure in its isolation atop the steep slopes. It serves as a secure location to which the emperor may be relocated, as well as doubling as a military observation centre on account of its height, as well as hosting an observatory used by the Empire University in the Haikei.

Inner Palace
The Inner Palace faces the Coronation Park and is the centre of city administration, housing the city's Lord Mayor and hosting most of the emperor's public ceremonial duties.

Old Palace
The Old Palace was the original Imperial Palace and fulfilled in one complex all the functions of the current palaces combined. However it proved outdated to host these functions within a single complex as the years went on, so certain roles were relocated elsewhere to more suitable locations throughout the city. As the largest, oldest and most visibly imposing of the palaces, it serves as a symbol of dynastic continuity and imperial power, but in recent decades has fallen out of use and become neglected. It appears splendourous from a distance but is slowly gathering dust and rotting up close, only seeing use at large annual functions, and storing military equipment and imperial archives for the rest of the year. It is not unheard of for large wild animals to be found hibernating in disused buildings in the back of the palace. Some of the front buildings house offices of Beygul administration.

Empress Tower
The Empress Tower was built to mark the Huayu Emperor's (Yushui Yuhai's) marriage to Deisi Edun, located at the core of the Crown District as the city's tallest building. It is built of steel with a mixed stone and wooden facade, and incorporates tiered roofs and traditional window frames. It is topped by a large roof comb resembling the headdress of a Daolese empress, complete with free hanging flower-based ornaments. The Empress Tower holds public events but mostly employs bureaucrats that manage the throne's finances.

History
It was first ruled by Emperor Dishou, regarded as the first emperor of Daolin. He used the city's strategic defensive location between the river and the mountains as a base from which to ruthlessly conquer the surrounding lands. However, at his death, his tomb was built to cover the whole of the area formerly occupied by the city. The huge mound of earth, riddled with passageways and laced with poisons, became the foundation for the Imperial Palace many centuries later.

Despite the destruction of the old city, the region remained prosperous and populous. The shallow waters led to the construction of stilt houses around the tomb, later developing into stone houses built on the riverbed.

It was here that the rulers of the Jiang Kingdom had their winter residence built, on top of the tomb of Dishou. The old Jiang capital was destroyed by invaders from Khagira, so they moved their capital to the Haikei. Here they thrived on the trade up and down the Mailu, eventually being able to commission the construction of a series of walls near the city to provide further defences.

Eventually, the Jiang crumbled and were replaced by the Meishu Kingdom, who expanded the city's holdings outwards and became wealthier than their predecessors. Due to growing fear of the northern barbarians and expansive powers to the east and west, they commissioned the Zongdou Family with the building of even greater defences in a huge area around the city and its farmland.

The initially construction took a century, with two millennia of further improvement of the walls and the development of the Xinmai canal system. The Driakana people were responsible for the vast majority of construction. It would eventually become known as the Imperial Hai.

The Meishu eventually themselves crumbled, and after a long series of regime changes within the city, the Yuhai Dynasty emerged as the rulers for the next millennium. Having first secured approval from the respected Hongyi priesthood as well as clergy from the Suka faith, they built a strong cult of personality around their family.

Commoners could become among the most respected in the city by becoming one of the palace's eunuch guards, or the eunuch scholars at the University of the Haikei. Nobility eventually flocked to their cause in response to their huge wealth gained through the acquisition of several huge ships sent to gather treasures along the southern seas. They emerged as the dominant power in the south, and from there had the Imperial Hai developed to its current state, established the colony at Gaohra and territories throughout the south. The Haikei from here became the capital of the Lónghai Kingdom, which eventually came to rule Daolin as a whole. It briefly lost all of its holdings outside the walls of the Imperial Hai, in the Gonshu State period where the rest of Daolin came under the rule of a military junta, but remained as the rump State of Hai until it rose again and reclaimed much of its old empire.

Imperators
The Imperial Hai is home to Daolin's four imperators. They are the four most powerful nobles in Daolin, barring the emperor himself and members of the emperor's legal household, and are responsible for Daolin's military. Each has jurisdiction over one of the Hai's four gates. Zahrina rules South Gate, the base of Daolin's naval power, and so takes the title White Dolphin. Yam Maizu rules East Gate, and takes the title Lion. Sihao Bei rules North Gate, and takes the title Three-Legged Crow. Bai Chima rules West Gate and takes the title Black Crane.

Imperial Rim
The Imperial Rim describes the ring of urban settlements following the walls of the Imperial Hai, surrounding the rich farmland of the interior. Though not quite as densely populated as the banks of the Mailu, they form one of the most important urban regions in Daolin and are considered vital for manning the Imperial Hai's vast defences.

The Haikei and its hinterland
The Haikei falls roughly in the centre of the Imperial Hai, at the confluence of the Mailu and the Zhaolu rivers. A centre of trade and administration, it has been a target of migration for centuries and yet its capabilities for outward expansion are severely limited by geographical boundaries in the form of the river in which it lies. As a result numerous satellite towns have developed to accommodate the incoming migrants. These are, most notably: The Red Steps, the Red Battery, Silkbridge, Xiafeng, and Daoyan.

Banks of the Mailu
The basin of the Mailu River (and its tributaries) is, tying with the Southern Seaboard, the most densely populated region in Daolin. Together they form the "Daolese Bow", with the curving coast forming a bow and the river forming an arrow, in which over 70% of the Daolese population lives. The Haikei lies upon the Mailu but is by far not the river's most populous cities. The metropolises of Zhaokon, Nanmen, Tianzhi, and Daizu all exceed the Haikei in population. The largest of its cities, Luzhong, lies well outside the limits of the Imperial Hai, at the Mailu delta.

The Green Dragon's Belly
The Green Dragon's Belly is geographically the largest portion of the Imperial Hai but also the least populous. It lies in the regions between the Imperial Rim and the Banks of the Mailu, and is the site of intensive agriculture and organised settlement. It is here that most of the legal peasant entrants to the Imperial Hai are employed, primarily to produce rice for the cities of the Imperial Hai so that the region may remain entirely self-sufficient even if it were to be besieged. Massive irrigation schemes divert water from the Mailu and its tributaries into canals, and a complex system of locks allows the level of water in the canals to be adjusted such that it is possible to fill the canals to a depth that allows large ships by lowering the water levels in other canals. Its many rings of canals are typically filled to a quarter of their maximum depth at any given moment, but are periodically filled in segments so that theoretically any part of the Imperial Hai is accessible to massive ships with proper planning and scheduling.