Dog Beach

Pantai Anjong National Park, cultural heritage site and area of outstanding natural beauty.

Dog Beach (also Pantai Anjing) is a small national park located about 20 km north of Kyusigai, Sokoku; just south of the mouth of the river Deguto. Apart from its outstanding natural beauty with small sand dunes and sand stone cliffs surrounding a lush, treelined bay, Dog Beach is mainly known as the meeting location between two rebel groups and representatives from Fisks islands and the Kakuri community in 7XXX, which generally is seen as the starting point of the decolonisation process that led to the formation of Sokoku as a nation state.

Meetings at Dog Beach

During the Pan-Stoldavic War (7584-7591) the Vittmarker member states of Fisks islands and the Kakuri community developed a plan to interfere in the civil war that had been going on on the nearby island of Shuuen, at that time a Häverist colony of Helreich. Schangtienrand had been in a civil war like situation since several years and the idea was that intensifying this colonial conflict would keep Häverist forces occupied in the tropics, so that they would not be available for war efforts in Stoldavia.

In order to start coordinating rebel attacks, a joint command for the native forces needed to be established. Up until then, small rebel groups had operated as individual cells and on occasions involved large amounts of local people in riots. Those attacks were however hardly coordinated and mainly aimed at disturbing the efforts to build Schlung as a colonial capital and Häverist urbanate.

The Kakuri had a liaison in the half built urbanate, in the form of Midori, a former Nokumo Nobono member speaking Stoldic and posing as a Shuuen native. Through coded telegram messages to the hotel she was working at, a meeting between a delegation from Fisks islands and the native rebels could be arranged. With the smallest of Fisks cargo steamers, the Kolmila, the delegation would travel together with a shipment of hardwood timber towards the colony. Under cover of the night, a dingy with 12 people set sail to the coastline. Two lightly armed scouts landed and took positions on top of the sandstone cliff, while the other 10 waited in the small vessel for the Hueiwei rebel group to arrive.

Instead, the landing was witnessed by an Iztomal militia, entering the beach with four men. The delegation left the boat and waded through the water towards the coastline, but did not make landfall. They waved a Kakuri and Fisks banner, indicating that they were not part of the colonising forces. But when they didn't respond to the delegation's request to make landfall, delegation member Kirisaki from the Kakuri community tried communicating in the local Chi language being used by a different ethnic group on the Fisks islands. Despite the languages differing from each other, the four militiamen understood that the intruders were supporting their cause, supported by the symbolic action of not leaving the water without approval of the reluctant hosts and not putting the delegation flags on the ground.

Two militiamen left the beach in order to gather a larger company from their local rebel group. After nearly an hour, the other rebel group arriving from Schlung showed up at dawn. The joint Kakuri / Fisks delegation waded back into the water again and asked the newcomers permission to enter the beach. With Midori and her Vittmarker liaison Turhild present in the Hueiwei delegation, the procedure was a lot more simple. The whole company moved away from the open beach into the forested dunes for more cover.

Both delegations established ways of communication, with the Fisks traders promising providing transportation of weapons, ammunition and food, but also troop movements; in return for the rights to establish warehouses, shipyards and manufacturing facilities in liberated areas. When the Iztomal delegation returned with a larger, armed rebel group, the Stoldic speaking liaisons Midori and Turhild could explain with the help of Kirisaki what the meeting was about. As such, the four parts were now able to set up a joint communication enabling coordinated and streamlined attacks against colonial forces.

Since the meetings had taken much more time than anticipated, it was impossible to withdraw the visiting delegation without a huge risk of getting detected and as such jeopardising both rebel groups. So the entire company hid in the dune forest the entire day with joint patrols securing the perimeter.

Aftermath

The entire operation created an insight in several operational tactics and routines of all parties involved, but it also led to a deeper understanding between the Kakuri and Fisks partners as external elements. The highest Fisks representatives, Astrid and Martin Fisks used the experience to prepare for a take-over of power within the Fisks community, firmly establishing the common future of the Fisks settlers and Kakuri people.

Turhild and Midori continued as the on-location agents for the Fisks and Kakuri communities in Schlung, coordinating what now had become military operations against Häverist forces. Two months later, a joint Iztomal-Hueiwei rebel attack temporarily took over a harbor complex in the town of Inuno, after which the Fisks cargo vessel HMS Blåker entered the port and loaded about 900 rebels in order to take them for an attack to the urbanate of Neuwelsen. That city was liberated thanks to the sudden influx of rebels, which established a foothold of local government for the native population. From Neuwelsen two cargo vessels transported rebel forces to the outskirts of Schlung, where they successfully conquered several military facilities, leading to the fall of the urbanate a couple of weeks later. Since the inland of Shuuen hardly had any colonial forces, a corridor between Neuwelsen and Schlung could be established, cutting the island in two halves.