The Gardens of the Suzerain are massive and meticulously planned farms in Langkha. Constructed by order of the Eternal Suzerain during the days of the Sangiran Empire, the Gardens continue to feed Kea Racha even after the the imperial collapse.
Geography
The lands around each major river in Langkha have been converted into seemingly endless fields, the Gardens, with complicated systems of irrigation, levees, dikes, and dams running for miles throughout. The largest are east of the Kaaniral Hills, around the Phala, Wuhaya, and Laban rivers, but others can be found around the Blackwater and Racana rivers to the west.
History
After a centuries-long process of conquests and alliances Langkha fully came under imperial control in Y6190*. While at first the inhabitants of the region were allowed to maintain their own traditions and own governance as they saw fit, like other peoples of the empire were permitted to, it did not take long for the Suzerain and his priests to see the value of the land they now held. The opportunities presented by the bountiful land were obvious - with Langkha they could feed the entire empire and more, providing it a source of growth that would expand the reach of the Suzerain ever farther and further their millennia-long goals.
The first Gardens of the Suzerain were established around the year Y6260* near modern-day Prosperity along the Wuhaya River, but as with all the grand efforts of the Suzerain, these were not half-hearted endeavors. To support the Gardens on the scale required, Langkha would need to be shaped around them, and so shaped it was. Expansive systems of irrigation, dams, and more were built, stretching for miles upon miles along the rivers. For the labor required to work the Gardens, the Suzerain and his priests set about restructuring Langkhan society. Cities across the region were intentionally abandoned, save for those at the mouths of major rivers, as the population was directed towards new, planned cities centered around the Gardens. Though this process took hundreds of years, for hundreds more its success bore fruit, as Langkha become the agricultural core of the empire, fueling its growth around the Gulf of Timakal and enabling similar monumental projects elsewhere in Kea Racha.
Current status
Even after the collapse of the empire, and the beginning of Langkhan independence in {{Year|6631]}, the Gardens have largely continued to function as they had before. The people of Langkha had prospered through the reliance the rest of the empire had on them, and they saw little reason to stop their harvests or their export of foodstuffs - that they now sold their goods directly to other nations or to independent merchants instead of bureaucrats appointed by the Suzerain mattered little.
The Gardens still shape every aspect of life in Langkha, even for those who do not work directly in them. This is evident in ways both obvious and subtle, often unnoticed not only by outsiders but also by those who have lived in Langkha for their entire lives.
Most visible is the significant proportion of Langkha's population who maintain migratory lives as they move between the Gardens as each in turn requires planting or harvest. These people live in large, semi-permanent encampments, equal in size to some small cities elsewhere, carrying their entire community with them when they inevitably pick up and travel once more - by the time one harvest is done, the next in line is ready, and their work is required at another Garden. The encampments are not hastily set up or crude in design, however. Rather, they contain the full set of amenities that one might find in any other Langkhan town, with restaurants, taverns, libraries, theaters, apothecaries, and more; a large percentage of those in these communities make their livings not in the Gardens directly but rather by supporting those who do.
The construction of the Gardens involved incredible engineering mastery to convert the floodplains into wide and shallow expanses where food can be grown with great efficiency, supported by irrigation and dams, some of which are magically controlled. Yet the efforts required to bring them into being was more social than material. The Suzerain and their priests spent centuries altering Langkhan society to revolve around the Gardens even after their reshaping of the land itself was complete.
The Gardens are perhaps best known for their prodigious rice fields, but this is not the only crop produced within them. Peanuts and soybeans are grown as well, as are fruits, vegetables, and the like in spaces on the margins of the fields. Fish are often farmed in the river floodplains as well, though they are almost entirely eaten by local populations.
Langkha is economically almost totally centered around the Gardens of the Suzerain and the agricultural surplus they produce. This vast amount of food is preserved and sold across Kea Racha and even farther afield, including to Vaothan and other nations around the Gulf of Timakal as well as to various cities in the Kilche Sea. In the days of the Sangiran Empire imperial administrators handled the transportation of these goods, and the compensation given to those that grew them, but in the modern day various merchants and middlemen have stepped into this role instead, buying as much as their ships or caravans can carry in Langkha's ports then carrying it far and wide.