[I’m time-traveling here a bit; the changes here were set off by a course of events beginning shortly after the two famines.]

For all its horrors, war has nearly always borne fruit of some manner for the Hashas and their ancestors. The war for the old Tao-Lei homelands [previewed here] would be no different, though the fruits of this particular war would result more from necessity than from the material benefits of armed conflict.

In seeking to stabilize the lands of the mainland Tao-Lei (or at least that’s what the Hashas claimed their mission to be), the Hashas armies encountered foes unlike any they had faced in recent history. Those Tao-Lei who spurned the stability and guidance offered by Ershutisharu were, unsurprisingly, lacking in discipline and organization, but the Hashas quickly became aware that they were not occupying familiar territory despite their predecessors’ experience here.

First, the Hashas received a stark reminder of the degree of their cultural exchange with the Tao-Lei. Where the local terrain did not readily permit the use of siege rams to take down gates or batter holes in walls themselves, the Hashas-invented manaqelum became the most effective siege weapon readily available to the invading forces. Expecting the cities of this anarchy-stricken land to fall easily enough against these weapons, the Hashas instead found that the local garrisons, though small and manned by demoralized volunteers, enjoyed the protection of barbicans, double-walls, and other defensive features typical of Hashas strongholds. While the manaqelu (accompanied by proper siege rams) were occasionally enough for Hashas revolutionaries to overcome some of the cities in their own realm, these did not suffice under less ideal circumstances and in less familiar terrtory. The early battles in this campaign renewed the drive to devise ever greater weapons of war. Some of the early experiments with improved “field-slings” were less than impressive, but while one siege enginner watched a battering ram team working in concert, it occurred to him that the key to improving the strength of these “field-slings” was to enable more hands to contribute force for the launching of each projectile. Though the new and improved weapons needed substantially more setup time with closer supervision by experienced siege engineers, the first traction trebuchets¹ were frightfully effective in turning the tide of battle, greatly simplying assaults upon fortified cities for the Hashas armies. Siege engineers attempted even more ambitious designs involving complex machines, inventing differential gears [example] while doing so, but even with the infrastructure a captured city could provide, they did not have the means at hand to devise even more terrible weapons.

Not only were the Hashas found wanting for opportunities to use their famed siege engines; they were also repeatedly thwarted when they attempted to mobilize chariots in these lands. Apparently they didn’t recall the lessons Oduwesi the Subjugator had learned. In one harrowing incident, chariot-collapses induced by unforgiving terrain and a guerilla ambush left several noblemen and their company effectively stranded in foreign territory and badly in want of outside aid. Three scouts in the party’s company, having lost their own steeds during the fighting but seeing that the defunct chariots left several more horses out of work, volunteered to ride these beasts back to the nearest Hashas base camp. Taking their usual spears and other weapons with them, they took a shortcut, riding through the forests for about half a day before blindly running into a guerilla patrol. However, the would-be Tao-Lei ambushers, coming from a military tradition that had used cavalry for a couple of centuries, mistook these riders’ obliviousness for overconfidence and their weapons brandished in self-defense for one brandished for a charge. When guerilla warriors emerged from behind some thickets running away from the Hashas scouts, the potential merit of cavalry--as opposed to clunky chariots--in this land dawned on them. Within a couple of years, their story would be heard in many places, and Hashas armorsmiths would experiment with the first iron horse armor as their military’s first true cavalry were training.

As many settlements in the failed Tao state fell rather easily or did not resist at all, loot soon began to return to Ershutisharu in considerable volumes. Upon pillaging some of the first centers for rice agriculture, they observed that some of the rice growing in the fields here looked rather mediocre in size and yields compared to most of the rice seen in these places. Those Tao who were willing to converse with the foreign invaders (usually those promised wealth or security in exchange for turning back on their fellows) explained that, during the terrible drought that had oppressed the land not a generation ago, Tao farmers discovered that this seemingly mediocre rice endured the dearth of rain exceedingly well compared to the typically more productive cultivars. This drought-resistant rice cultivar was brought back to the Hashas homeland in sizable shipments and planted in upland rice operations. Not only did the Hashas have much reason to fear another drought, given the unpredictable nature of the last one, but botanists in their country were interested in seeing whether they might be able to hybridize this drought-resistant rice with more productive varieties at home, attaining the best of both worlds. Such experiments would not yield tangible results in short order, though.

The noblemen who rode in chariots and on elephants, meanwhile, were especially enamored with cultivated flowers they found in the first cities; these roses, known to the locals as azur-kahi, would soon find their way into the gardens of the temples and estates of the eastern Hashas country. The gardens themselves were valued not only for their aesthetics but also for their demonstration of the mastery of nature by Mawerhaadii’s faithful; these roses would not merely beautify the gardens further with their scent and appearance but also symbolize the Hashas hegemony over their southeastern neighbors.

¹ Sources trace the first traction trebuchets to China around 400 BCE at the earliest, with these being a much later introduction to the rest of Eurasia. I would argue that the Hashas and their ancestors have the longest history of siege warfare in Dawn, so I’m giving this a shot.