Sagara Nagara
The Beacon of Hope
Demographics
Sagara is the largest city in the post-Kalyugi world, being spared from the worst of the monster invasion. The vast majority of its massive population are located outside the city proper - nearly 4 out of 5 people are farmers, fishermen, or some other kind of laborer, and many of them only enter the main city to sell their surplus. About 50,000 people live within the city's walls, and most of these are merchants and scholars. Sagara maintains a full-time military of roughly 4,500 soldiers who are tasked with defending the outlying villages and ports from Monsters.
Government
As one of the only cities to survive The Kalyugi, Sagara has continued the standard form of government as when the Zamzian Empire still ruled, minus the Emperor. The main source of funding for the local government is through steep land taxes on the vast amount of farmlands surrounding the city, which are usually city-owned and granted to individual farmers. In return, their fields are protected by the state and they can sell their goods at the largest marketplace in Zamzara.
The most important aspect of the Sagaran government is the traditional entrance examination, heavily based on the Imperial Examinations that appointed judges, governors, and ministers to the Heavenly Bureaucracy. In fact, the Heavenly Bureaucracy only exists in Sagara as of the current day and is just as mired in procedure and quantification as ever. They pride themselves on being the only vestiges of old Imperial culture and take it very seriously - even the simplest of laws are changed or added, on average, once or twice a year.
Before the fall of the Zamzian Empire, Sagara was a mere county on the most far-flung edge of the Empire - built to be an important port city, but far from reaching that goal - it was administrated by a magistrate of the Heavenly Bureaucracy. After The Kalyugi, the magistrate suddenly found himself at the top of the legal hierarchy and, out of loyalty to the now-dead Empire, established the laws that would define his office and stand the test of time:
- The magistrate would be appointed by a newly-created department: The Ministry of Purity.
- The Ministry of Purity sets and changes the magistrate's salary according to annual performance reviews.
- The magistrate is responsible for the maintenance of the city's infrastructure and must raise the taxes & labor to do so.
- The magistrate is in full control of the legal system, but may appoint lower-level judges to handle the mundane matters of city affairs.
- The magistrate oversees the appointment of officials to the Ministry of Rites, but cannot directly interfere in the affairs of the education department.
There were other duties and responsibilities of the magistrate, such as regularly and personally meeting the elders from the outlying villages to involve them more closely with the city, but as time went on, these were repealed or simply ignored and forgotten.
Defences
The walls of Sagara, while large and imposing, are not its true defense against the wild hordes of Monsters lurking in the wilderness - they barely held back the worst that The Kalyugi had to offer, but only through a desperate gambit were they able to do so. Before the fall of the Zamzian Empire, Sagara was one of the largest producers of black powder - a necessary component in the fireworks trade - and used it to great effect, blowing Shadow Monsters away with heavy ordinance from the safety of the walls. Seeing how effective it was, a great deal of effort and research went into developing it for further military use, and to this day, the cannons of Sagara keep the city safe from attack. Within the past 5 years, scholars have been nearing completion of handheld cannons, to be given to the standing army for defensive and peace-keeping purposes.
Industry & Trade
Sagara is the trade hub for all of Zamzara, being the largest, most prosperous city on the continent - almost anything that is traded either makes its way to Sagara or passes through it to get elsewhere. Ships are constantly sailing in and out of the harbors, distributing goods and resources wherever they can find buyers. The city is the chief producer of luxury items, such as telescopes or Pokeballs, and has tons of raw material imported to keep up with production.
Much of Sagara's sea trade is done with Minato Nagara and the nearby Island of Shaanti to the north, although the trade ships of Sagara are known worldwide for their "adventurous" dispositions. It wasn't until very recently that Sagara extended out to land trade in a similar capacity - there had always been merchant caravans who would stop to sell at the city before moving on, but there was no large-scale organizational drive in the way they pushed into the sea. In a joint effort between the cities to bolster the quality of life for all involved, Sagara Nagara, Patrala Nagara, and Nastor began work on a new form of transportation: a railroad that passed through Cape Hope and Green Gullet to connect the cities in a way unseen since the rule of the Zamzian Empire.
Infrastructure
Sagara has been built up over the previous 600 years into the most formidable port city known to mankind. As the city was built late in the life of the Zamzian Empire, it had over a thousand years' experience of urban planning put into it, and much of it shows: The entire city is built from north to south along a grid in a levelled fashion to facilitate easy travel and features very wide roads for carts of good to be moved along. Each aspect of the city, from the size of its districts to the orientation of its temples was determined through rigorous mathematics to evoke a sense of heavenly harmonics. After The Kalyugi happened and the city became flooded with refugees, the government began to enforce building codes on villages outside of the city walls that were still close enough to be easily controlled.
Alternative Name(s)
Mariport City
Type
Large city
Population
500,000
Inhabitant Demonym
Sagarans
Location under
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