San Joaquin in the Sierran Civil War
San Joaquin was the first provicne to secede from the Kingdom of Sierra on April 13, 1874 following the Bernheim Revolt and was one of the founding provinces of the Second California Republic. The revolt is generall recognized to be the first major engagement of the Sierran Civil War and historians agree that it is the main event that instigated the conflict.
San Joaquin had played a crucial role in the Republican war effort during the Sierran Civil War as it was a major source of troops, weapons and supplies for the Republican armies and pro-republican militias as well as the political heartland of the republic where the provincial capitol of Bernheim served as the capitol city of the Second California Republic and housed the revolutionary government. San Joaquin provided thousands of trained soldiers, uniforms, textiles, weapons and other necessary supplies, equipment and material that was needed for the war and was also the main headquarters for various foreign volunteers that had flocked to Sierra in support of the self-proclaimed republic. A substantial amount of Republican soldiers came from San Joaquin along with many of the Republican armies' famous generals and commanders and also had a stabile interconnected railroad network which was exceptional in comparison to those of the other provinces within the Styxie. Having been freed from major combat until the late stages of the war, San Joaquin housed many prisoner of war camps and was also the only republican province next to Santa Clara that did not harbor enough pro-monarchist sentiment that tens of thousands of citizens had enlisted in the Sierran Royal Army with only 4,000 citizens of San Joaquin having enlisted in the Monarchist forces during the war.
San Joaquin was the native province of Isaiah Landon, the leader of the Sierran republicans, and had also been a bastion of both Landonism and Sierran republicanism which continues into the modern era well after the Civil War's conclusion. Towards the end of the war, Bernheim was subjected to a protacted siege and San Joaquin was the site of the final battles of the war such as the Battle of Indian Wells and the Capitulation of Isaiah Landon in 1877. The province was the last to surrender by the time the war had ended.
Background
Political background
San Joaquin had long since been a bastion of republicanism and anti-monarchist ever since the earliest days of the kingdom itself. In the 1858 Sierran federal election, the province had voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic-Republican Party and would continue to do so throughout the rest of the 19th century. The monarchy had recieved support only within cities and major urban areas, though Bernheim was the exception as there was a strong support for abolition alongside pro-monarchist beliefs. In the 1870 Sierran Senate elections, Landon was elected to serve as San Joaquin's representative in the Senate and lead as the Democratic-Republican Opposition leader in the Senate and was also a staunch supporter of Ulysses Perry, a native of San Joaquin, its chief representative in the House of Commons from 1858 until 1874, and founding leader of the Democratic-Republican Party. San Joaquin was a highly contensious province, especially how influencial it was (and still is) within the context of the Styxie, a region that held ardent republican views and was opposed to the Royalist Party with the latter only winning select few districts and cities while the Democratic-Republicans had won most districts in the provinces by large margins.
When the Democratic-Republican Party won its first parliamentary majority in the 1867 Sierran federal election, politicians and activits across San Joaquin and other Styxie provinces had called for the abolition of the monarchy and applied pressure on the Democratic-Republicans to pursue the monarchy's abolition and support Ulysses Perry, who had recieved major support within San Joaquin following Sierra's successful intervention in the War of Contingency from 1867-69. In 1870, Perry had planned what would become known as the Perry Act which would've abolished the monarchy, but was delayed after the Royalists regained control over parliament following the 1870 Sierran federal election, whose outcome was met with protests and riots in San Joaquin with attacks on Royalists and Royalist-aligned voters and groups such as the Sierran Jacobites. In the 1872 election, the Royalists kept their majority, but lost many seats and became the opposition party in the 1874 federal election which saw Perry take over as Prime Minister once again.
Abolition or secession
Support for republicanism was maintained by the San Joaquin Democratic-Republican Party who campaigned on protecting the province's republican and agarian values against what they called "royal tyranny". The Royalist Party was denounced as a corrupt and tyrannical party that was seeking to implement a royal dictatorship where the monarch would be the supreme authority. The majority of citizens had supported aboliting the monarchy, but some had called for San Joaquin to secede from Sierra completely and become an independent state under a republican government. The secession calls were relegated to only the fringe of provincial politics, but had picked up steam as more and more people called for the entirety of the Styxie to break away and form an independent republic free from the monarchy.