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Space Marine Chapter Articles ---

Jade Knives 玉刀
"The art of war is a pursuit of vital importance to matters of our Imperium. For it is war that that defends our borders from those who turned from the light of the Emperor. War that drives back the Xenos savages, war that cleanses the stars of the foulborn warpkind, and war in which an Astartes is ascendant. In war we may practice our grim art of death, let our dao be the brushes we wield and blood be our ink, as the precise strokes we write upon our enemies carve through those who would bring ruin upon the Khagans worlds, we shall mark our enemies with our calligraphy of blades. Strike in the way of the Primarchs writ itself. our art made as our strokes intertwine and support each other, we dictate the battlefield as it yields to us. For we apply pressure and force to our enemies like a brush dictates the flow of its ink. But any art must have discipline and strength, both within and without, the lack of such discipline would make us beasts, like the bloodhounds of Angron. nothing more than honourless weapons awaiting their death. For only in death may our duty end, and only in death may we rise to the Eternal Hunt."

- 1st Zhāichāo: Fadian Zhu

Damocles Gulf Crusade
During the Damocles Gulf Crusade, the Jade Knives would be deployed alongside several other imperial guard and space marine chapters to attack vital tau sept worlds, the most notable being the Tau Sept homeworld of Dal'yth.

The Sundering
The chapter would be torn in two after the death of their chapter master Jalair Sakhat, with the First Captain and Sakhats protege Tarkhut taking reigns as a leader, retreating to his inner sanctum. For days, returning with a script known as the Fadian Zhu, a huge series of overwhelmingly radical reforms to the chapters structure and battle doctrines, with such tenets as the abolishment of dreadnoughts and a byzantine and complex set of honour codes. The attempts to implement this would lead to a brutal civil war known as the sundering, as secessionists led by captain Zhelan Dai broke away, after sabotaging the armouries and stealing much of all heavy vehicles, terminator suits, and devastator equipment, the war would be a stalemate, only ending when the paladins were officially reclassified as their own chapter.

The Age of Fire
Devastated from the sunderings grinding death rate, the Knives would find themselves in peril once more as Zhongqian was attacked by Tau forces, unable to stop them alone, their distress beacon would be answered by the Dragons sanguine and Terras Roaches chapters

Chapter Homeworld
Compared to the other planets in the system, Zhongqian is a comparatively giant planet, with a history dating back to the great crusade, it would be a stiff resistor of early attempts to be integrated into the imperium, due to the heavily aquatic landscape of the southern hemisphere and large variety of hostile apex predators, like the Zhonqian dragon and Azure Serpent. with the failures of the imperial army to secure it, the task would fall to 4 legions to pacify it, the white scars, World eaters, raven guard. and death guard

Formerly an honour world of the White Scars, chosen to become a chapter world in preparation for the Damocles Crusade.

Zhongqian is only permanently habitable st the equator because (research reasons why the poles both freeze over)

The human population ranges from modern cities, in the equator, to industrial kingdoms, and roving steppe tribes in the plains. The tribes of the world emigrate to the equator every 5.3 Terran years often led by chapter scouts, as is a tradition when the poles freeze. This marks the start of every new year

It's only properly populated in the equator. It's effectively just nomadic tribes people and feudal emperors in the north ruling over mountainous and valley passes but the closer that you go to the equator, the more modern it gets, slowly. so you go from tribes, to settled empires, to like on the outskirts of the equator where you get to early industrial civilisations and "modern day tech" and then the equator itself which is a massive hivesprawl stretching around the entire planet that looks like super futuristic space beijing

The chapters Literati documenter serfs classify the northern hemisphere into the following classifications:


 * The North Steppes - The most remote area of zhongqian, this area is populated by various nomadic tribes of a feudal tech level, as a result the local population is mainly occupied with its own inter tribal wars, which has prevented them from doing much more than having various dynasties rise and fall amongst each other with little to no impact on the wider planet, although some tribes are known to be allied or even directly controlled by the emperors of the southern dynasties.


 * The Great Kingdoms - Comprising a large area in the north, this area has a wide range of geographical biomes, from mountain ranges to temperate valleys and desert, as a result the region is split into innumerable kings sworn to various great dynasties who empires rule vast swathes of land. most feudal kings have only the technology to create crossbows and other non explosive weapons for the most part. with the empires they swear fealty to possessing the ability to make early black powder weapons like fire lances and crude artillery and using these in combination with polearms to create bizarre but effective "gunglaives" capable of delivering percussive explosions from barrels attached to the blade with the dominant qo dynasty wielding crude las weapons such as the laslocks amongst the Emperor's personal guard, how they acquired these is unknown, but many theories exist ranging from a stolen shipment of guard weapons, a gift from the chogorian dynasty of the same name, or a strategic decision by the white scars in the days of it being an honour world, to ensure a ruling power could maintain their dominance


 * Outer Equator - Technically part of the central cities, these are the first areas to not possess a feudal tech level, operating at a somewhat modern democracy comparable to frontier outposts, there is no discernible border where these end an the inner equator cities start, due to the slow advancement of technology the closer to the equator here


 * Inner Cities - Literally China. That's it.


 * Core Cities - A vast cramped hivesprawl acting as a trading hub between the north and south. the jade knives fortress-monastery Tianshang Baolei is situated here upon a huge mountain protruding above the city spires.

Chapter Recruitment
Scouts ride to bring the tribes of the north into the central areas of the planet during the times the poles freeze not only for tradition but to assess potential inductees, a scout sergeant being send to lead a tribe almost guaranteed they are of very high importance to the chapter for multiple men worthy of induction amongst the core cities, highly educated citizens can be chosen to act as the chapters mortal staff and record keepers

Notable Campaigns

 * Damocles Gulf Crusade - Jalair dies, Tarkhut writes the Fadian Zhu.


 * The Sundering - The paladins don't like the Fadian Zhu. A brutal civil war ensues, the frontlines are drawn as ships fall to either side, distrust is rampant among both sides, and with lacking leadership amongs the scattered knives the paladins are able to coordinate the frst battles to their advantage.


 * Battle for Zhongqian - the forces of tau septs Va'nu and Xe'Voh strike against the knives homeworld of Zhongqian, with the chapter still reeling from the sundering, with] many of its forces displaced, the chapter is made to call aid in the form of the Terra’s Roaches and Dragons Sanguine Chapters who alongside the Xi'anse 10178/63 regiments of Astra Militarum would drive the tau back out of the planet. the first of many attacks against the world, setting a precedent for the world as a thorn in the sie of the T'au empire for years to come

upon his victory, Zhelecao would take the talon of his enemy as a personal piece of wargear
 * A Clash of Claws - Zhuhou zhelecao would engage a brutal war of blunt force against the Chaos forces of the word bearers, upon the world of Amonicaeus and wider sector, the chaos forces would be routed from their world after the captain was able to lure the vanguard of heretic forces into a trap, utilising local civilian population suspected of harbouring heresy as bait, believing the vain apostle commander of the force to contact them personally, and dscending upon the group alone. the cultists would soon become embroiled in a maelstrom of viscera and gore, as they threw themselves against the duelling blades of the captains power axe "Scaleclaw", and the dark apostles Lightning claw "divine talon"


 * Battle of the broken stars - the 8th company of Zhuhou Zhelcao are ambushed in a warp nebula, by a force of orks utilising the powers of their weirdboyz as psychic concealers, allowing them to hunt within the warp fissure undetected. zhelecao would be killed and the orks would emerge victorious, despite heavy losses and the destruction of the psychic technology the orks had created, the ork warboss wuld escape, leaving his ship and crew stranded in the rapidly emerging warp storm.


 * Balten Crusade - A meeting of the will breakers against the forces of Khagor the warlord, former son of Horus and his Lupercii. The Rongyu are formed after the shouru simply are shown to be inadequate as guards against veterans of the long war. Shourus role is upheaved


 * Plague Wars - the Primaris warriors of the Jade Knives would be sent south upon their arrival to the chapter, lead by Zhuhou Baihu and the fifth brotherhood, instead of directly defending the planets of Ultramar alongside the ultramarines they would use the teachings of the khagan to counter the death guard, striking from outskirts and stalking death guard ships, luring the glory-seeking sons of Mortarion into engagements where they were outmanoeuvred and crippled. this lightning war culminated in the purging of the Fortissimus.

*After Action Report- The purging of the Fortissimus Reported By- Sitan Li, head literati serf Location: Subsector 24- north Ultramar

Forces Deployed: Intercessor squads- Geom, Chang, Byeongae, Hwasal. Reiver Squads- Kal, Dangeom. aggressor squad- Taepung.

Resistance Encountered: Hostile machine sprit and automated ship defences, Daemons of Nurgle, Corrupted Gellar field serving as a warp conduit.

Losses: none

Full Summary: Recon Group Khagan's Fist identified barbarosi distress signal at 0300, cruiser Josan sent to reconnoitre. Visual contact confirmed that the signal emitted from the uncorrupted death guard derelict cruiser relentless, contained in the    artificial gravity well of the fractured plaguecraft fortissimus. Visual indicated the larger plagueship was attempting a corruption of the cruiser, by pinning in place with "tentacles" and attempting amalgamation through the growth of fleshy tissue to  seal the hulls together. cruiser relentless observed to have resistance to the fleshy growths attempting to envelop it

Intercessor squads Geom and Byeongae boarded from the dorsal loading bay, chang and hwasal deployed alongside squad taepung to take the bridge of the relentless Due to its abnormal resistance, reiver squads Kal and Dangeom deployed to the relentless to i identify the possibility of non-corrupted wargear and extract any potential specimens. Upon entering they would find automated weaponry, IFF regarded them as "friendly" despite primaris identifiers unknown to heresy era technology. Turrets were noted to fire on stray lesser daemons of nurgle, and automated systems would close and open doors to lead the the teams to converge on one point The prevalent theory remains the machine spirit of the ship was benevolent to the marines, and led them towards the ships reliquary.

Upon finding the reliquary, squad kal confirmed the presence of 17 cataphractii suits of tactical dreadnought armour, 35 mark iii suits of power armour, and assorted small arms bolters. the vault containing these items was hermetically sealed by maglocks, with dataslates confirming it was unable to be opened while under prolonged attack to prevent potential attackers from being able to access the weaponry, again showing the ship did not regarded the primaris as invaders.

Squads Gyom and Byeongae encounter heavy resistance increasing as they approached the Gellar field generator. all groups would then redeploy receiving intel from the reiver squad about the armoury. advancing on the engine bay to overload the ship, they would instead find a warp portal consuming the generator, with fleshy veins pulsating across the ships hull and several Gellarpox Mutants in the Gellar field bay. summarily destroyed by massed bolt fire and krak grenades. upon its the destruction the veins were observed to recede and shrink away, in conjunction the tendrils pinning the ships together faded away, and the flesh growths were observed to liquefy and fade away, separating the two ships.

Recovered armoury contents were as described in the armoury with two items unaccounted for in the dataslate: sicaran battle tank and a storm eagle transport ship

instead they were driven to vigilus by simple vengeance, and an unavoidable call for blood. The hunter company of Zhuhou Zuolin dedicated itself to the eradcation of those who had stained the honour of the chapter, enemies who had survived the wrath of the chapter, and those who had laid its champions low with their blades
 * Vigilus-The jade knives would be relatively early to join the vigilus conflict, not out of any duty of loyalty or sense of strategic importance, indeed the planet was a far reach from the eastern fringes of the chapters homeworld, far from their usual area of operations.

in this, the company had but a single goal, to rend the skull from the foul greenskin warboss Goffsmasha 'Eadchoka, who had bested the former captain of the 8th company. Captain Zhelecao, the lord of shining blades. duelllng and killing him inside the machinations of a greenskin stompa, his blood staining its command deck


 * the shadow over devotio

Chapter Command

 * Jiangjun - Chapter Master.


 * Zhuhou - Captain.


 * Yuwei - Chapter Champion.


 * Jiangjun Jian Fei


 * Jiangjun Jalair Sakhat - Now interred inside a Contemptor Dreadnought.

Companies
The chapter deploys four specialist companies as laid out in the Fadian Zu. Each is named for a different beast of Zhongxianese mythology and is known for their specialisation in a specific battle doctrine:

01 -Jiaolong: Scale Dragons (Terminators)

02 -Brotherhood Of The Tempest (Fire Support)

03 -Brotherhood of the Falcon (Hunter Company)

04 -Brotherhood of the Dragon (Homeworld Defence)

05 -Brotherhood of lightning (Fast Attack)

06 -Brotherhood of the claw (Close Support)

07-Yinglong: Winged Dragons (Fast Attack Elites)

08-Qiulong: Horned Dragons (Melee)

09- Brotherhood of the Skies: (Siege)

10-Chilong: Hornless Dragons (Scouts)

11-Shouru

12-Rongyu

Specialist Ranks

 * Shouru-Marines - Shouru-marines who have fallen lax of the strict honour rules of the Fadian Zu. Sentenced to serve in this dishonoured company until they redeem themselves through heroic actions. Usually attached to captains or deployed as kill teams on high risk operations. Currently led by catain yama

During the reign of Jian Fei, the rongyu would be an elite force of jump pack infantry, equipped with storm bolters and power blades, however with his death to a chaos lord during the battle for Xian, they would be retired in this iteration Feis successor would restructure the rongyu as Elite corps of primaris veterans, functioning more as a personal company of the chapter master than the elite shock troops of the previous iteration, more fitting of Sejongs reputaton as a more cold and calculating commander.
 * Rongyu-marines who have never fallen lax of the honour code of the Fadian Zu. Led by Qi Tianshi, they formed the guard of the current Jiangjun after the defeat of the Shouru at the First Battle of the Balten Crusade.

"we come together as warriors. From this day forward, we shall join forces for a common purpose: to save the troubled and to aid the endangered. We shall avenge the emperor above, and serve the citizenry below. We seek not to be born on the same day, in the same month and in the same year. We merely hope to die on the same day as one blood."
 * Sworn Squads- every captain is given the honour of assigning men in his company to his favoured squad, in doing so they become members of his command retinue and sage advisors to him. shedding the livery of the chapter upon their left pauldron and in its place taking the honoured sigil of their captain. alongside the oath they swear to their captain, this marks them as sworn brothers to their captain.

Combat Doctrine
The Jade knives are known to eschew the traditional fast attack doctrine familiar to the sons of Jaghatai, instead preferring to attack in melee and close assault formations. however, the chapter is known for their discipline and their grace in close combat, with the martial arts of the chapter involving a fluidity and grace uncommon among Astartes.

Chapter Beliefs
a core spiritual belief in the chapter is the concept of the four dragons of Zhongqian, four mythical beasts who gifted civilisation upon the world,

Deathwatch Service
captain zhang yi- sent to deathwatch after betraying the chapter during the sundering gunnery recruit Hwarang- sent to deathwatch

Notable Members

 * Jiangjun Jian Fei - Former Chapter Master.


 * '''Yi Sejong (courtest name Lichezhong)- Current Chapter Master.


 * Chapter Champion Han Xin


 * Master Chaplain Qiong He


 * Master Apothecary Li Shizhen


 * Honoured Dreadnought Jalair Sakhat


 * Stormwarden Wu Xi'an


 * Scout Captain Chen Long


 * First Zhuhou Tarkhut


 * Chapter Ancient Xun Huizhong


 * Veteran Sergeant Tian Da


 * Second Zhuhou Zhang Yi


 * Shouru Zhuhou Yama


 * Shouru Lieutenant Xie Bian


 * Shouru Lieutenant Fan Wujiu

Chapter Fleet

 * Mandate Of Heaven (Battle Barge) - Command vessel of the Chapter High Command and the Chapter's flagship.


 * Namjong Balachang (Battle Barge) - Command vessel of the hunter company

Dragonfang
A large relic blade, forged in the shape of a polearm similar to a power lance. The blade acts as a symbol of office among the chapter being wielded by all three Jiangjun of the chapter in its history, the blades design is seen as highly ergonomic, with it being used to equal effectiveness by all three Jiangjun in their different fighting styles:


 * Sakhat's Way of the Long Blade - Keeping an enemy away from a striking distance with the weapons long range and striking at the enemies defence with suppressive fire between strikes to disrupt the enemies composure


 * Tarkhut's way of the Clawed Mark Aggressive close-up slashes with full use of the blades long handle to maximise the force of thrusts, combined with his chainfist allowing for the use of blindingly powerful, destructive strikes to exploit gaps in enemies defence from frantic attempts to defend, a purely melee fighting style with devastating effect


 * Fei's Way of the Flowing Tide - Like the clawed mark, the style focuses on aggressive attacks to disrupt the enemy, however unlike the slow brutal attacks, the flowing tide focuses on movement and evasion, taking influence from the way of the long blade, interspersing the flowing and agile movement of the blade with his wrist-mounted bolter, and martial close combat techniques.

Divine Talon
a lightning claw taken from a dark aposlte by shuhou zhelecao, now posessed by his sucessor

Purple Hare
a bike mastered by Zhuhou Shaoxue, made famous after he slew a tyranid bioform, and lashing its head to the front of the bike. as he rode the bulk of the Tyranid forces made pursuit, drawn to the pheromones in the thick purple ichor that had oozed from the head and coated the jade livery a deep purple the tyranid force would pursue the captain into a deep valley, where the bulk of the chapter had deployed en masse. amd unleashed a fury of heavy ordnance, levelling the Tyranid threat.

Allies

 * Will Breakers


 * Omni Legion


 * Order of the Baroque Chalice

Enemies

 * Heirs of Lupercal


 * Jade Paladins

Notable Quotes
Feel free to add your own

By the Jade Knives
"They are curious...Are they not? Underneath all the twisting machinations of the ruinous powers in their souls, you can still feel the shadow of the Fenryka lurking under them. Perhaps, they are a window into how the Great Heresy could have progressed had Horus turned his attention to the Wolves instead of the Sons?"

- Wu Xi'an, Chief Librarian of the Jade Knives

Feel free to add your own