Yu-Mai Ashawa

The Great Queen Yu-Mai Ashawa
Yu-Mai Ashawa was one of the greatest monarchs of her time. She was one of the few ruling queens seen in Bashurian history and she stood as an example for monarchs to come. She preferred to use her intelligence to play her enemies and prevent and/or win fights and was a master of deception. However, she was a competent fighter who was better trained than most kings in in her time and she could call on her training when she needed to. Her having to fight for the throne and her reign made her strong and gave her a fearsome reputation. She didn't fight for feminism, but for her family, clan and kingdom. She had to flee Bashur when it was conquered by the Berini, but she fought to free it eventually succeeded. She brought up her children to excceed her abilities in which she had some success, but she wasn't able to restore Bashur's strength (it was the best naval power in the gulf of shuban before Berlintini I's great coalition war) and the power vacuum was filled by Shuban and Ushar. Yu-Mai Ashawa died a few years after the war and was succeeded by her eldest son who enlisted the help of siblings to try to regain Bashur's former glory.

Early Life
Yu-Mai Ashawa was her father's first born child out of 15 children, she was born to the queen like her brother and not to one of the concubines like most of her siblings. Though she was a unique girl who was highly intelligent and well educated, her life wasn't really anything special compared to her other 14 sisters. when her only brother, the heir to the throne who was 2 younger than her died when she was just 15, her life changed forever. Her father, Do-Yu Ashawa who was the eldest, wanted to declare his youngest brother, Do-Han Ashawa who was just 1 year younger than Yu-Mai Ashawa, to be the new heir. Yu-Mai had none of it. She saw it as disgrace that her father's bloodline couldn't continue just because he doesn't have any sons to inherit his title, and that her uncle who was less competent than she was inherit the throne after her father. She convinced her father to hold a competition between the two in three years time to see would be the heir (Declaring your heir near the begining of your reign as king was common practice in the East Hu-Balai because there was always the fear of assasination and resulting anarchy as the children fought over the title of king. Hence the reason why Do-Yu Ashawa did this when he was young, healthy and strong.). Yu-Mai Ashawa trained very hard and very intensively for the competition, she learned martial arts, did a lot of physical training and learned the mechanics of how the court ran. The training was very hard for her and she wanted to give up many times, but she kept on training. She was fighting for what she saw as her father's honor. When the big day came, she had reached competent levels in her training, but she wasn't a master by any means. To become a master you need a lot more time and practice. Do-Han Ashawa had the edge when it came to physical strength and martial arts and weapons training partially due to the fact that he had been training from the age of 9 like all royal boys and partially due to the fact that he was naturally stronger. The competition was very close and Do-Han Ashawa was in the lead for most of the competition. Yu-Mai Ashawa's edge was her strong spirit and mentality of never giving up and her higher intelligence and education (he wasn't smart, but he wasn't dumb either). In the end, those were what caused her to win the competition which tested the mental, religious, spiritual, physical, intellectual as well as skillful abilities of the contenders. Yu-Mai Ashawa recieved her hard fought title and once more went through grueling training like before alongside her standard education. She did it it even to the extreme when she was tested on a high level of history while sparring whith her polearm training master and having 10 kilograms worth of sand filled bags tied to her body. This time however, her father was the one who instated it to her. He had a feeling that she would have a hard time ruling the kingdom because she would have all the difficulties of a standard king (except a spot few) as well having women's difficulties and that more people would dare to face her or challenge her because she was a woman. He taught his daughter to use her wits and her physical attributes because strength doesn't last forever and that wits win battles while strength merely assist them. These would prove as decisive factors for the rest of her life because it made her strong and calculating.

Early Reign
Do-Yu Ashawa's glorious reign came to an abrupt end when he was assassinated by Gurbazi assassins. The assassins, members or the Sikari order, were hired by the king of Gurbaz to kill Do-Yu Ashawa to destabilize Bashur and thus cause Shuban to be without it's most powerful ally. He knew of the tension between Yu-Mai Ashawa and Do-Han Ashawa and he neant to cause their fighting to delay Shuban of the naval support it needed from Bashur's powerful navy. The assassins, twelve in total, snuck into the palace with weapons. One of them snuck into the throne room with a loaded crossbow and managed to clear a successful headshot to Do-Yu Ashawa's head, straight through his left eye. He was eventually caught and arrested and he committed suicide while awaiting trial. Most of the other assassins got away (the alarm was sounded before they really got into the palace) while two more were caught during the attempt. The Nobility quickly crowned Yu-Mai Ashawa as the new monarch before Do-Han Ashawa could try to attempt to seize the throne first. Thus a war of succession was prevented before starting (though Do-Han would have probably lost it anyway since he didn't have much support or legitimacy). The young queen sent Do-Han Ashawa to the town of Humbari (norteast of Bashur a few kilometers south from the bank of the Yagruz) to command the garrison that guarded the the bridge that spanned the Yagruz. She also doubled the size of the royal palace guard from 200 Eunuchs to 200 Eunuchs and 200 Elite soldiers with confirmed loyalty to the crown. Her husband, who she married two years prior and had a very deep and dedicated relationship with (he was also one of most trusted people) served as her viceroy and assisted her in her duties she needed help (like when she was pregnant with her children or was recovering from giving birth or was sick). She was a very competent ruler even though she had a lot on her plate and managed to handle most of the problems she encountered without much help. Her training and advanced education in her early life gave her a vast amount of knowledge and tools she could use to run the kingdom and cope with a lot of East Hu-Balai, administrative especially court drama that plagued the kingdoms in the region (it was very stressful a lot of kings in the East Hu-Balai occasionally let their viceroys, viziers and siblings run their kingdoms at times of peace because of this). She ruled in a style that was uniquely hers. She didn't try to imitate anybody, but used whatever she saw worked best for her, and this made her a very efficient ruler. Because she was aware of the Berini empire's strong presence to the south, she strengthened her ties with Shuban marrying of one her sisters to the son of the aging Shubanese king and adopted one of his grandchildren as one of her own children. She also married off one her sisters to Eldanfan the outcast to tighten her hold on him and give him more incentive not to switch loyalties and she tried to keep him away from Do-Han Ashawa by making sure they were never deployed in the same place at the same time. In early 170 A.B Do-Han Ashawa fled from Bashur with a bunch of Bashurian desseters south into the Berini provinces in what used to be the Western Horde and asked Arquado (who was there on vacation) if he would put him on the Bashurian throne in exchange for the secret of making crucible steel. Arquado, who was shocked that someone was willing to provide the Berini empire with a method of making purer steel that could vastly improve the infrastructure and advance the technology in the Berini empire packed up his things and rushed the emperor Berlintini I. The emperor was very ecstatic about this and he appointed Arquado to fullfill the request and conquer some more land in the East Hu-Balai as well. In mid 171 A.B, Arquado arrived in the East Hu-Balai with the Entire First Campaigning Army (1.2 million soldiers along with 400,000 logistics personnel) and some 67,000 levied auxiliaries. The Berini army included a massive armada of Berini ships and expert engineers who knew how build siege equipment and fortifications. The Auxiliary troops included tens of thousands of Guntartar warriors (horse archers and horse slingers) as well as a few thousand Palii phalangitaes and a few hundred Usharasan ships. In late 171 A.B Arquado took 300,000 troops and 4,000 auxiliaries to besiege Bashur Itself. He built a large wall around the city within 16 days and blockaded the harbor. Bashur had been stockpiling food for 17 years since Do-Yu Ashawa was aware of the possible Berini threat and his daughter continued this preparation until the seige. While Berini were setting up camp Yu-Mai Ashawa started astrict rationing regime that gave slightly more food to the soldiers so that citizens would enlist to defend the city. She also had soldiers constantly harassing the Berini and had her engineers strengthen the fortifications and add large earthworks and ditches 500 meters from the massive city walls and even more earthworks 200 metres beyond those. the suburbs were leveled to be used as farms and people with questioned loyalty were evicted from the city. She also sent a message to Eldanfan to take his mercenaries and some 5,000 bashurian soldiers to harass the Berini from the rear and draw their attention eastwards so that when the EHBDP's troops will gather in a few months or years, the slow moving army won't be very far from the Berini forces and tension on the city will be relieved (more about this war and battles will be in an article I'll add later on). When the Berini army Broke through the walls of the upper city and started to pour in, Yu-Mai Ashawa started to prepare an escape from Bashur because after the upper city will fall the palace won't be very far behind. She took her husband, 75 of her guard, 10 horses and 5 mules, some food (there was barely any left in the city and people were eating their livestock (The city had around 500,000 inhabitants in it at the start of the siege)), 33 kilograms of gold and some of the most valuable treasures (including the crown and the royal scepter), her 4 children and her father's sword. She gave the orders to surrender a week after she leaves and she proceeded to the palace dock where her envoy snuck with her out of the harbor and through the blockade on a cargo ship. When Bashur surrendered, Arquado accepted it and placed Do-Han Ashawa on the throne as a puppet king.

Taboos
Walking around in public when her hair isn't covered like all the Bashurian kings and queens.

Family Ties
She belongs to the Ashawa clan.