Righteous armies (Niunkuet)

Righteous armies (Court Yin:, Yì bīng) were irregular military forces formed during the Wars of Zhenian Transition following the fall of the Zhu dynasty and the subsequent anarchy. Anti-Shindanese in nature, they were mostly formed by deserters from the fallen Zhu armies, but complemented by peasant rebels, monks, and even foreign mercenaries. They were formed by both Wei and Dan people, although as the wars progressed and the cause of Wei nationalism started to rise, their composition reflected it. Some righteous armies acted like groups of brigands, while others supported the various dynasties that tried to fill the void left behind by the Zhu, but they were united by the common cause of trying to stop the Shindanese invasion. As the war progressed, a considerable number of righteous armies were unified in their decision to support the Zhu loyalists that founded the Yin dynasty, and they played an important role in both the early establishment of the Yin, and the victory of the Yin in the Yin-Shindan War, confirming Niunkuet's independence.

Although the original righteous armies were disbanded following the end of the war, they became an important part of Yin nationalism, their spirit being called upon in all subsequent wars with Zhenia, and their legacy being claimed by the group of officers and soldiers who led the coup d'etat known as the Righteous Restoration. Afterwards, most of the resistance groups operating in the Zhenian-occupied Niunkuet continued to call themselves "righteous armies" and led a campaign of guerrila warfare that stopped the Zhenian military administration from ever permanently asserting its authority over the territory, which allowed the Imperial Banners to eventually organize the Great Liberation Campaign. Disbanded again after the war's end, the myth of the righteous armies has nonetheless endured, continuing to play an important rule in Yin culture, even if their legacy has been somewhat toned down as part of the Zhenian-Yin detente of the past few decades.

Etymology
The origin of the "righteous armies" name lies in the final decade of the Zhu dynasty, where as part of its campaigns of mass conscription in order to replenish imperial losses from the Second Zhu-Shindan War, the Zhu court began to metaphorically refer to the conscripts as "soldiers of righteousness" as part of a campaign meant to increase their morale in combat. Initially, the reaction to the name was overwhelmingly negative, as large parts of the Zhu population opposed the war. However, with the fall of the Zhu and the violence of the Shindanese invasion, in front of which these conscripted soldiers were often the only defense the local people had, the name quickly gained popularity and was adopted by the soldiers themselves.

Origin
At the beginning of its wars with Shindan, the Zhu dynasty was employing a combined system of hereditary armies and foreign mercenaries. The main Zhu force, the Harmonious Army, was built on top of a system of hereditary, self-sufficient forces, organized in military cities were families had to provide a certain number of their children for the army, and also to take care of their own food, with the Zhu court providing at least part of their equipment and naming the higher ranking officers. This system was meant to provide the Zhu with an always prepared military force of a considerable size and also to ensure the continued loyalty of the soldiers, but during the latter period of the Zhu, it was marred by incompetence, corruption, nepotism, and increasing issues with desertion and abandonment of the military cities, which forced the Zhu to also rely on foreign mercenaries, from Balakhaat cavalry, Jhanese archers, to even Azoran musketeers.

The defeat suffered by the Harmonious Army in the first Zhu-Shindan War proved the complete failure of the system, as a large Zhu force of nearly 200,000 men was annihilated by the smaller but more professional Shindanese force. The Zhu court immediately responded with attempts for reform, but the factionalism within the court ensured that several different reform plans were organized all at once. Together with the recruitment of more mercenaries and the establishment of contact with Azorans in order to buy more weapons and to receive military advisors, the Zhu court try to end the hereditary system altogether, but were unable to just end the Harmonious Army because of fears of rebellion. Instead, a second military force was organized through mass conscription, the Ever Faithful Army. Most of the conscripts were poor peasants, who were forced by Zhu officials to join or were bribed with promises of good pay. They were given an Azoran