Chinese Playing Cards

Note: the following is mostly directly ripped off Wikipedia.

Playing cards are believed to have been invented in Ancient India. They were found in China as early as the 9th century during the Táng Dynasty (618–907), when relatives of a princess played a "leaf game". A Táng writer from the end of the 9th century AD stated that Princess Tòngchāng (?–870), daughter of Emperor Yìzōng of Táng (r. 860–874), played the leaf game with members of the Wéi 韋 clan to pass the time. In his Notes After Retirement, the Sòng Dynasty scholar Ōuyáng Xiū (1007–1072) asserted that card games existed since the mid Táng Dynasty and associated this invention with the simultaneous evolution of the common Chinese writing medium from paper rolls to sheets of paper that could be printed. During the Míng Dynasty (1368–1644), characters from popular novels such as the Water Margin were widely featured on the faces of playing cards.

Ancient Chinese "money cards" have four "suits": coins (or cash), strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), myriads (of coins or of strings), and tens of myriads. These were represented by Chinese characters, with numerals of 2–9 in the first three suits and numerals 1–9 in the "tens of myriads". Wilkinson suggests that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which were both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for, as in trading card games. The designs on modern mahjong tiles likely evolved from those earliest playing cards. However, it may be that the first deck of cards ever printed was a Chinese domino deck, in whose cards we can see all the 21 combinations of a pair of dice. In the Guītiánlù, a Chinese text written in the 11th century, we find that dominoes cards were printed during the Táng Dynasty, contemporary to the first printed books. The Chinese word pái (牌) is used to describe both paper cards and gaming tiles.

Bā 巴 and Tǔjiā 土家

Bā 巴 was an ancient state in the eastern part of Sìchuān (四川). It reached the zenith of its power between 600 BC and 400 BC.
The Bā Kingdom was invaded and conquered by the Chinese in the Warring States period (戰國). After the conquest, its inhabitants stopped constituting a separate ethnic group, and became thoroughly Sinicised. However, it is claimed by some that the modern ethnic minority Tǔjiā 土家 people (who speak an isolated Tibeto-Burman language) trace their origins back to the Bā people.
Under the Míng and the Qīng, the Tǔjiā were given an autonomous status within the Chinese Empire, whereby they were ruled by their own chieftains in exchange for providing troops whenever they were needed, to quell local revolts or to fight against the Wōkòu.

Asura

Asura are potent creatures from Vedic mythology: demonic and titanic spirits that are opposed to the Deva (the Indian gods), and in particular to Indra. There are four kinds of Asura, depending on their birth: born out of an egg, out of a womb, out of magic, out of water. Asura live deep in mountain caverns, in the underworld, and in the nether regions where the Asura architect-magician Maya has built them huge cities. Asura also live in the sea that surrounds Mount Sumeru.
In Buddhism, the Asura realm is the lowest of the six domains of rebirth. However the Asura are generally depicted as less evil than their Vedic counterparts; their behaviour stems from their karma: it is assumed that rebirth into an Asura is the consequence of having been a human being obsessed with force and violence, always looking for an excuse to get into a fight, angry with everyone and unable to maintain calm or solve problems peacefully.

Asura as creatures for a Celestial Empire game are described on p123 of the rule book. Depending on their birth, Asura may be further characterised as follows:

Egg-born Asura inhabit the flying fortresses that circle Mt Sumeru. They have huge bird-like wings which they use to glide down from their flying fortress when attacking the sky-realm of the Deva.
Womb-born Asura mostly live undergound. They are known for their armour and weapons, and in particular for their superior bows. They are mortal but their lifespan is still immeasurable by human standards. They are the most likely to strive for a better rebirth and hence lend an ear to Buddhist preaching.
Magic-born Asura shun the use of armour and weapons and prefer concentrate on the use of spells.
Water-born Asura are the most wicked ones. They have a craving for alcoholic drinks.

Chinese name: 阿修羅, Romanised as Āxiūluó

Hakka Fortified Villages

As mentioned on p19 of the rule book, the Hakka (Kèjiā 客家) live in fortified villages in the hilly areas of South China.


These walled villages are built to be easily defensible. Each village is made up of about half a dozen round or square fortified houses, called tǔlóu 土楼 ("earthen structures"). Each tǔlóu houses several related families and is internally divided into many compartments for food storage, living quarters, ancestral temple, armoury, etc.


The individual family quarters are built within the walls of the tǔlóu, whereas the common buildings are in the centre of the structure. Each tǔlóu has but a single heavy gate to communicate with the outside world.

Niǎn Rebellion

The Niǎn 捻 Rebellion is one of the many rebellions that brought economic devastation and loss of life at the end of the Qīng 清.

The uprising started with popular agitation brought about by a secret society, which may or may not have been linked to the White Lotus Society (see p94 of the rule book). The rebellion took place in northern China from 1853 to 1868; the most heavily affected areas were the provinces of Shāndōng 山東, Hénán 河南, Ānhuī 安徽, and Jiāngsū 江蘇 [roughly corresponding to the eastern part of "North China" and to the northern part of "Lower Yángzi" on the map on p28 of the rule book].

The Niǎn rebels sport long, loose hair, in open contrast to the Qīng-imposed Manchu hairstyle (the waist-long braided pigtail). The Niǎn are excellent horsemen who, after each attack against imperial troops, retreat into their fortified villages. The Niǎn — and this will be their undoing — do not have a precise political goal; they are mostly unmarried, dispossessed young peasants, ruined merchants, starving scholars: the aim of their attacks is looting.
The Niǎn seldom co-operate with the Tàipíng 太平. But after the defeat of the latter and the establishment of the Treaties of Tiānjīn with the western powers, the imperial government devotes its full military forces to quell the Niǎn Rebellion.