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Description

Historically roads and infrastructure have been one of the primary means by which imperial governments have exerted their authority and power across vast regions, emphasized best by the Roman and Chinese empires which extensively built avenues of commerce and transportation that made it all the easier for them to control continent-sized territories. Road networks did also exist in the Americas, but most often were footpaths worn by common traffic. In only two instances were examples of purposefully constructed and maintained roads observed, those being of the Inca and Yokoch Empires in the north and south respectively. For the Yokoch, roads (known as pil) were important methods of ensuring consistent transportation across the disparate biomes and terrains that the empire covered, and were so important as transport networks for the Empire that a number of the roads have continued operating as major transport corridors to the present day.

Unique among North American civilizations, the Second and Third Yokoch Empires had a form of a "public works division" in their governments which were held as perennially responsible solely for maintaining infrastructure across the Empire, consisting largely of the canals, aqueducts, reservoirs, and of course the roads. The means by which the Yokoch built and maintained their roads is well documented. As recorded, the Yokoch constructed roads in a specific order of steps: first, the road bed would be cleared of plants or trees, after which hoes would be used to cut up the ground and tear it up. The work crew would then stamp it flat, and on the most important roads a giant cylinder of granite rock brought all the way down from the Pauwalu Mountains would be rolled over it to compact and flatten it fully, after which tree trunks were laid along the sides. Although unpaved, the hard-packed surface and subsequent foot traffic would serve to keep plants from growing up through the surface of the road and keep it crushed flat.

The Yokoch constructed a number of roads in every part of their vast empire, of varying scales. Far and away the most important of the Yokoch roads was the Yamak (a name derived from the Yokoch phrase yax mak', "let's go"). Being the primary road which stretched along the floor of the Twin Valleys, the Yamak passed through the largest Yokoch cities and was the main artery of commerce and travel in the Empire, augmented by a number of roads which extended throughout imperial territory into the mountains and down to the coast to further facilitate the movement of goods and people throughout the empire. The longest single road in North America by strict length, the Yamak was and is so important to movement through California that even today the route of the Yamak continues to serve as the primary route of California National Road 1. Part of the Yamak remain preserved and the old route has been preserved as the Yamak Historical Route as part of the modern efforts by the Californian government to preserve its history.

A number of other roads were built and maintained by the Yokoch Empire, and such was the scale of it that "exterior roads", though clearly continuations of the roads built by the Yokoch, were lesser in scale and maintenance. Most often the main roads outside of the Empire were built by the Tongva Empire, which similarly used roads to project its power across its territory, while in the north only a single road known as the North Way (Khushin Pil) extended into the northern coast into the lands of the Wiyot Kingdom. The nature of the roads was such that despite the extreme variations in climate, topography, and ecology, California as a region was considered unusually "integrated" by modern standards, to the extent that trade goods and people moved freely across the region and created highly integrated trade networks that produced an early example of an economy of scale, where the mighty Yokoch Empire was able to draw wealth into itself from surrounding states and diffuse that wealth back into the surrounding states.

The extent of the roads and their sufficiency was such that when the Spanish came in 1521 they described the roads as being akin to those in any other European nation, well-marked and maintained, and as the Yokoch Empire was subsumed into the Spanish colonial empire those same roads were used to facilitate Spanish conquest and infiltration of California. Alongside the Yamak, many of the roads which connected the cities of the Empire have had their routes maintained as major roads throughout the core of the modern United Republic of California. Infrastructure has always been considered key to the power of a state, and by understanding and analyzing the way that the Yokoch used infrastructure a greater picture not just of the ingenuity of pre-Colombian Americans can be gained but of the ways that nation-states separated by time and geography can all independently but convergently develop similar means to maintaining and projecting their influence over their dominions.

Description

Historically roads and infrastructure have been one of the primary means by which imperial governments have exerted their authority and power across vast regions, emphasized best by the Roman and Chinese empires which extensively built avenues of commerce and transportation that made it all the easier for them to control continent-sized territories. Road networks did also exist in the Americas, but most often were footpaths worn by common traffic. In only two instances were examples of purposefully constructed and maintained roads observed, those being of the Inca and Yokoch Empires in the north and south respectively. For the Yokoch, roads (known as pil) were important methods of ensuring consistent transportation across the disparate biomes and terrains that the empire covered, and were so important as transport networks for the Empire that a number of the roads have continued operating as major transport corridors to the present day.

Unique among North American civilizations, the Second and Third Yokoch Empires had a form of a "public works division" in their governments which were held as perennially responsible solely for maintaining infrastructure across the Empire, consisting largely of the canals, aqueducts, reservoirs, and of course the roads. The means by which the Yokoch built and maintained their roads is well documented. As recorded, the Yokoch constructed roads in a specific order of steps: first, the road bed would be cleared of plants or trees, after which hoes would be used to cut up the ground and tear it up. The work crew would then stamp it flat, and on the most important roads a giant cylinder of granite rock brought all the way down from the Pauwalu Mountains would be rolled over it to compact and flatten it fully, after which tree trunks were laid along the sides. Although unpaved, the hard-packed surface and subsequent foot traffic would serve to keep plants from growing up through the surface of the road and keep it crushed flat.

The Yokoch constructed a number of roads in every part of their vast empire, of varying scales. Far and away the most important of the Yokoch roads was the Yamak (a name derived from the Yokoch phrase yax mak', "let's go"). Being the primary road which stretched along the floor of the Twin Valleys, the Yamak passed through the largest Yokoch cities and was the main artery of commerce and travel in the Empire, augmented by a number of roads which extended throughout imperial territory into the mountains and down to the coast to further facilitate the movement of goods and people throughout the empire. The longest single road in North America by strict length, the Yamak was and is so important to movement through California that even today the route of the Yamak continues to serve as the primary route of California National Road 1. Part of the Yamak remain preserved and the old route has been preserved as the Yamak Historical Route as part of the modern efforts by the Californian government to preserve its history.

A number of other roads were built and maintained by the Yokoch Empire, and such was the scale of it that "exterior roads", though clearly continuations of the roads built by the Yokoch, were lesser in scale and maintenance. Most often the main roads outside of the Empire were built by the Tongva Empire, which similarly used roads to project its power across its territory, while in the north only a single road known as the North Way (Khushin Pil) extended into the northern coast into the lands of the Wiyot Kingdom. The nature of the roads was such that despite the extreme variations in climate, topography, and ecology, California as a region was considered unusually "integrated" by modern standards, to the extent that trade goods and people moved freely across the region and created highly integrated trade networks that produced an early example of an economy of scale, where the mighty Yokoch Empire was able to draw wealth into itself from surrounding states and diffuse that wealth back into the surrounding states.

The extent of the roads and their sufficiency was such that when the Spanish came in 1521 they described the roads as being akin to those in any other European nation, well-marked and maintained, and as the Yokoch Empire was subsumed into the Spanish colonial empire those same roads were used to facilitate Spanish conquest and infiltration of California. Alongside the Yamak, many of the roads which connected the cities of the Empire have had their routes maintained as major roads throughout the core of the modern United Republic of California. Infrastructure has always been considered key to the power of a state, and by understanding and analyzing the way that the Yokoch used infrastructure a greater picture not just of the ingenuity of pre-Colombian Americans can be gained but of the ways that nation-states separated by time and geography can all independently but convergently develop similar means to maintaining and projecting their influence over their dominions.