Sānjiǎozhōu wèiduì

Senior Tier

Rank 1: Zǒng Wèi (Commander‑General)
Supreme military authority for the Delta. Typically awarded to senior nobles or proven admirals with merchant endorsements.

Rank 2: Hǎi Jiàng (Grand Admiral) & Bǎo Duì Zhǔ (Bastion Marshal)
Operational command of naval or fortress branches. Typically awarded to veteran admirals or seasoned marshals.

Rank 3: Gōng Jiàn Sī (Engineers’ Prefect (Senior))
Oversees all military engineering (levees, siegecraft, powder stores) and manages military standards. Typically awarded to renowned halflings, those with technical specialties or with hereditary guild ties

Medior Tier

Rank 4: Rì Zhì (Senior Daywarden*) & Dàshì (Senior Veteran Captain)
Senior operational commanders for noon tribunals, large flotillas, or bastion brigades; manage cross‑patron coordination. Typically awarded to seasoned captains elevated for command breadth.
(*Daywarden is a religious title granted specifically to those who prove great loyalty and devotion to The Sun, a god of particular significance in Vush society)

Rank 5: Huì Dū (Guild Captain / Company Lord)
Direct command of merchant‑sponsored companies. Typically awarded to company commanders who combine martial skill and guild diplomacy. (Tied directly to a sponsoring guild)

Rank 6: Junja / Lieutenancy (Field Lieutenants and Specialist Chiefs)
Tactical leadership (junk captains, engineer foremen and scout leaders). Typically awarded to a NCO‑turned‑commissioned officer.

Junior Tier

Rank 7: Bàn Lǐng / Sergeants (Senior NCOs and Quartermasters)
Company-level logistics, drill, stores, training. Typically awarded to an experienced quartermaster or veteran NCO.

Rank 8: Qiāo Zhēng / Ensigns (Ensigns, Musterers, Specialist Apprentices)
Recruit officers, standard‑bearers, clerical rolls, watch captains and junior technical apprentices. Typically awarded to young recruits from halfling/dragonborn artisan families or sponsored youths.

Rank 9: Levies, Specialists, Mariners (Rank and File)
Core levy soldiers, marsh scouts, ship crews, and engineers’ labourers. Typically awarded to seasonal levies, bonded merchant crews, and local marshmen.

Command structure:

• Commander-General of the Jade Delta: civil-military appointment tied to the Commissioner.
• River Flotilla Admiral: oversees junks and river artillery.
• Fortress Marshal: controls limestone rampart garrisons and bastion infantry.
• Engineers’ Prefect: (manages floodworks, siegecraft, and gunpowder stores.
• Recruitment and logistics: Local levies drawn from populations supply light infantry and river crews; wealthier merchant guilds sponsor volunteer companies and artillery units. Fortified warehouses double as granaries and arms depots; merchant-financed gunpowder reserves are stockpiled for prolonged sieges.

Merchant-Patronage culture: Officer commissions often require sponsorship by a guild house; this leads to mixed loyalties where military officers must balance duty to the Commissioner, the Empress, and merchant backers.

• Admiral Lín Wi of the Jade Watch: legendary river admiral famed for routing corsairs at the Spice Auction approaches (retired, now an influential council adviser).

• Marshal Qiao Rùn: Fortress Marshal credited with the “Night Levee” defense during the Floodward Rebellion; pragmatic, scarred, and distrustful of merchant meddling.

• Engineers’ Prefect Mei Shu — a halfling innovator who devised quick-assembly floodgates and oversees the Guard’s gunpowder magazines funded by merchant tithe.

• Captain-General (ret.) Heshan “The River Fox” — folkloric pirate-hunter turned politician whose career path mirrors your player’s concept (career soldier → political actor), a living archetype for your PC’s transition from military to civic life.

Material culture and arms: Staple equipment includes lacquered river-junks with mast-sails and mounted ballistae, bamboo-and-iron protective shields for boarding parties, composite bows for river-bank skirmishers, and black-powder petards held in merchant magazines.

• Founding (ca. 5300): The Guard formed during the delta’s colonisation to secure trade routes against corsair raiders and rival river-clans; early campaigns were small-scale riverine actions and fortress sieges to hold key choke points on the Jade River channel.
• The Spice War (ca. 5500): A decade-long conflict between competing merchant coalitions seeking control of trans-delta spice rights; the Guard perfected amphibious raids and rapid boarding actions during this period, creating its hallmark river-junk tactics.
• The Floodward Rebellion (ca. 5650): Internal unrest by upland clans against merchant oligarchs required coordinated Guard operations to secure floodgates and defend granaries; the Guard’s engineers earned a reputation for rapid levee and weir construction under fire.
• Modern era stabilisations (ca. 5800): In recent centuries, the Guard shifted toward policing river traffic, anti-piracy patrols, and ceremonial duties protecting the Empress’s appointed Commissioner and the Council of Merchants in Xiāngchéng.