Daikyotei

The Order of the Divine Champions (Imperial Cedarinian: Daikyotei Jingmei Huanyisaki), commonly known as the Divine Champions, the Order, or simply and most commonly as the Daikyotei, were among the most famous of the Kanzoist military orders. The organization existed, intermittedly, within the Central and Western Kensalan cultural sphere from the 47th to the 65th centuries. At its height during the Age of Diplomacy, the Daikyotei functioned as a separate social and military class within the Kensalan world, particularly in Yuhan and Zajiang. There they divided into two main groups, the more religious in Western Kensalus (Yuhan and parts of Genais) and the more secular in Eastern Kensalus (Zajiang). While their power waxed and waned throughout the centuries, they were finally eliminated as a class during the 65th centuries in their last bastions in Zajiang and Yuhan.

Origin
Originally formed by a group of Yuhanese Great Wars veterans with spiritual leanings in 4654, the group was officially integrated as a part of the Cedarinian army in 4666 and became their own elite unit. Becuase Daikyotei members were often from Yuhan (and soon eventually from other periphery regions of the Cedarinian Empire, such as Zajiang) and had strong ties with the local Kanzoist Church there, the Daikyotei functioned as a semi-independent branch of the Cedarinian military. With their distinctive extra-heavy armor and heavy melee and crossbow weaponry, the Daikyotei were among the most skilled fighting units of the Great Wars.

By the end of the Great Wars, the Daikyotei had evolved into a military class of their own within Cedarin. The original core group had evolved into a class-based military order, with different - and independent - subgroups established throughout Cedarin. Many of the Daikyotei members had important posts in the administration or military from Yuhan, Zajiang, and nearby regions, and they constituted a small but powerful faction within the Cedarinian court. Thus, even after the Daikyotei had lost their original purpose with the end of the Great Wars in the 50th century, the Order continued to play an important role in various Kensalan conflicts, internal and external.

Division into Western and Eastern Branches
The divide between the religious Western and the secular Eastern Daikyotei were already apparent from as early as the later stages of the Great Wars, around the late 49th century. While the Daikyotei had already split into Western, Eastern, and Southern branches within two decades of their founding (the Southern branch being absorbed into the Eastern branch following the loss of Aidis), an ideological split only evolved following the decline of Cedarinian fortunes in the later stages of the conflict, due to differing circumstances on the eastern and western fronts of the wars. The eastern front, being more fluid and chaotic than the western front, saw the development of a political vacuum with the continuous deestablishment and reestablishment of regime control. The Daikyotei stepped into this void as the de facto  political representative and administrators in lieu of the official Cedarinian government. In time many Daikyotei received official administrative titles from the government, solidifying their position as a more secular, political force.

Yuhan religious because of political vacuum from little political stability -> also leads to Genais (somehow)