A History of the Kurowashi Domei
Sugawara Tadao, a successful merchant, united a number of smaller merchant
families into one organization, the Kurowashi Domei (Black Eagle League), in the
closing years of the Abe Ascendancy.
As the time changed, Tadao saw a great opportunity (and risk) to advance the
League's fortunes. He secretly allied himself with the Ogawa clan when they
started to oppose the Abe rulership. The Kurowashi Domei passed much valuable
information regarding the Abe to the Ogawa clan, providing them with a strategic
advantage. In addition, the Sugawara family was responsible for creating and
maintaining supply routes to the army, and even, on a few occasions, maintaining
the Ogawa forces with his own funds. When the Ogawa clan seized the throne of
the east, the Kurowashi Domei received extremely favorable contracts by the
Ogawa clan and some of his vassals.
The League continued to support the Ogawa clan, and when they reunited all
Zaidan lands into a single realm the League's influence and power increased, its
area of influence increased as several merchant families that joined the League,
to the point that they came near to holding a monopoly on the trade throughout
the old eastern realm.
However, when the Yamashida clan rose up and defeated the Ogawa, many of the
League's contracts were canceled by the new rulers, weakening the League's
position, which weakness was exploited by a coalition of others merchant
families, that chose that moment to launch a concerted attack the near-monopoly
possessed by the Kurowashi Domei. With the loss of contracts, market and trade
routes, many smaller families withdrew from the League, fearing it's total
downfall.
With the collapse of central authority in the "Kyogo Ryoshu no Toshi" era, the
Kurowashi Domei profited greatly by buying ore and selling arms to the
principal armies, all the while carefully avoiding any kind of lasting alliance.
The League managed to stay neutral for the most part of the era, happily coun
ting their money and making their deals. However, as the time passes, the trade
decreased greatly, there where to many soldiers in battlefield and too few
people to keep a regular production to be sold.
With the ascension of Sugawara Hina to the head of the Kurowashi Domei, in the
end of the “Kyogo Ryoshu no Toshi”, the merchant league started to actively
venture into the political sphere. Hina married her daughter to the heir of the
Takagi clan of Hinohara, whose lands had suffered greatly during the wars. With
the influx of League capital the Takagi regained full control of their lands and
embarked on a diplomatic campaign under Hina's direction, that resulted new
trade routes and new trade partners to the Kurowashi Domei, expanding the
League's holdings into new areas, a process that has continued to this day.
Original by Tudor.