The Han Peninsula has long been a source of conflict for Asia. Home to the ethnically unique Han people, the peninsula is characterized by rugged mountains, grassy highlands, coastal plains, and dotted with craggy rivers and forests. To the north lies the Russian Federated Republic and to the west, across the Inter-Asian Sea is the People's Democratic Republic of Zhongguo. The peninsula was first settled by the Han people in the Stone Age who developed into a series of city-states throughout early-modern history. The territory was finally brought together politically as the Kingdom of Han in 1732 following a series of unification wars between city-state powers of Haya, Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo which saw the territory unified under the Joseon dynasty. The Joseon ruled Han as an absolute monarchy until 1883 when the whole of the south and central territories of the peninsula were invaded and occupied by forces of the Taisho Empire, a militant people from a series of islands to the east of the peninsula. This occupation lasted until the end of the Great War in 1919 and was a period of great suffering and exploitation for the Han people.
Following the end of the Great War, the Taisho were compelled, by international agreement, to leave the Han peninsula and restore domestic rule. Despite these agreements, the Taisho attempted to install a puppet in the form of a long and far removed descendant of the Joseon dynasty, who, coincidentally, had never previously set foot in Han prior to his installation as monarch in 1920. The nominally restored Joseon dynasty lasted for less than a decade before being overthrown in a nationalist military coup in 1928. As the Taisho became occupied in a colonial war with Zhongguo, and with the global economy on the brink of a great depression, the Han state was left to its own devices and finally united under a democratic-federal system with the voluntary end of the military dictatorship in 1930 and the declaration of the Han Federation that same year.
Though far from perfect, the Han federal period ushered in a new age of economic expansion and global reach that saw the Han nation become a close military ally of the United States and its Trans-Atlantic Defense Compact during the Cold War. Flush with US military and economic aid, the Han Federation pursued an industrialization strategy that consolidated power and capital into the hands of a small clique of oligarchs and left many parts of the peninsula's rugged north and agrarian south lagging behind the coastal cities in quality of life. While their military (supplied by the US and modeled after American forces) and heavy industry flourished, light industry lagged behind, leaving many Han lacking for the modern luxuries that were continuing to propagate in many western-allied states. This economic divide created the seeds of revolution that were finally brought to fruition by Colonel Pak Hon-yong, a nationalist and secret communist who led a revolt or rebel military units and citizen revolutionary militias in 1973 in an attempt to overthrow the Han Federation.
Backed by forces from the Russian Soviet Republic, communist rebels lead by Pak overran every major city in the northern half of the peninsula, and drove south toward the old federal capital of Syole. Within 2 months, it looked as if the Han Federation was doomed to collapse as Syole fell and surviving units of the Han Federal Armed Forces prepared to make a last stand at the southern port of Sacheon.
Flag of the Bukhan Peoples Social Republic
It was at this time that substantive reinforcements and modernized equipment from the United States began to arrive to support the surviving Han Federal Forces. From 1973 to 1977, a civil war raged across the Han peninsula with brother fighting brother and American forces continuing to flow in to try to undo the communists strides in the country.
Finally, in 1977, representatives from both sides and their Cold War patrons met at the small town of Uijeongbu to sign a cease-fire agreement that allowed for the division of the peninsula and an end to the hostilities. From this uneasy peace rose the Bukhan Peoples Social Democracy in the north; a hardline Soviet-style communist one-party state led my Colonel Pak Hon-yong (who retained his military title as a show of solidarity to the armed forces that brought him to power). To the south arose the US-client state known as the Republic of Namhan, based in the old federal capital of Syole. Between the two lies a demilitarized demarcation zone that strides the width of the peninsula that is to notionally separate the formerly waring parties.
Even now in 2000, the Han Civil War has never officially ended. While the agreement signed at Uijeongbu brought an end to active fighting, neither the Bukhan central party nor the Namhan goverment in Syoul recognizes the legitimacy of the other and both make claim as the rightful rulers of the whole of the Han peninsula. Throughout the previous two decades, the two states have grown radically apart culturally as well as economically while sporadic firefights and ambushes continue to plague the forces both sides have stationed along the DMZ. Will the fragile peace last or will war return to the fraught Han peninsula in the new millennium?