---
title: "Suiren Makinami"
nativeTitle: "真希波 水蓮"
type: "character"
nation: "nichirin"
infobox: (19 rows)
---
**Suiren Makinami** (真希波 水蓮; born March 31, 1894) is a [[nichirin|Nichirian]] naval officer and government official serving as Marshal-Admiral of the Maelstrom of the [[nichirian-navy]] (元帥渦潮提督, *Gensui-Uzushio-Teitoku*) and Senior Shogunal Advisor under Shogun [[masashi-miyamoto]]. She previously served as interim Minister of Foreign Affairs from December 1924 to March 1928. Makinami is notable for her rapid ascension to Marshal-Admiral at the age of twenty-one following the death of Admiral Nobumasa Kurosawa during the Attack on [[naginomiya]] Harbor, one of the youngest officers to hold supreme naval command in modern history. Before her combat record, she served on the 1913-14 NCH Fubuki Hyperborean expedition, one of 22 survivors from a crew of 42. Her reorganization of Nichirian naval forces following Kurosawa's death and her subsequent victories in the Valtherian theater against the Xing Empire established Nichirian naval dominance and secured critical supply routes that proved decisive in the conflict's outcome.
## Early Life and Education
<figure class="float float-left" style="width:320px"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/suiren-makinami-2.jpg" alt="Makinami family portrait, c. 1899"><figcaption>Makinami family portrait, c. 1899</figcaption></figure>
Suiren Makinami was born on March 31, 1894, in Tynemouth, [[elvester]], the daughter of Nichirian naval officer Shinsuke Makinami and Elvesterian writer Cecelia Sunderland. Her father's posting in Elvester was the circumstance of her birth; Tynemouth was a port city, and the household was effectively Nichirian in its internal organization despite its location. Shinsuke enforced Nichirian as the language of the home, making Makinami bilingual in practice but uneven in both directions.
In 1900, Shinsuke was reassigned to Nichirin. Makinami, then six years old, returned with him, while Sunderland remained in Tynemouth, though mother and daughter maintained correspondence through Makinami's childhood and into her early naval career. Makinami arrived in Nichirin speaking Nichirian imperfectly, with an accent her classmates noticed, and her father spent the following years working to correct it. She holds dual Nichirian and Elvesterian nationality.
Shinsuke Makinami retired from the Nichirian Navy at the rank of Junior Admiral in 1908. Makinami enrolled at [[chukyo|Chūkyō]] Naval Academy in 1909, at the age of fifteen, a decision consistent with a childhood spent in proximity to naval operations and an apparent indifference to the civilian alternatives available to her. She graduated first in her class in 1912, completing the program ahead of the standard timeline at 18 years old.
## Naval Career
Following her graduation from Chūkyō Naval Academy in 1912, Makinami was assigned to the armored cruiser NCH Heitetsu as her first posting. She served aboard the Heitetsu for approximately one year before being reassigned to the research and survey vessel NCH Fubuki in preparation for a Hyperborean expedition departing in the autumn of 1913.
### Fubuki Expedition
<figure class="float float-right" style="width:320px"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/suiren-makinami-3.jpg" alt="NCH Fubuki photographed by a relief vessel upon its discovery in April 1914."><figcaption>NCH Fubuki photographed by a relief vessel upon its discovery in April 1914.</figcaption></figure>
The Fubuki expedition set out in September 1913 with a crew of forty-two. Its objectives were a geological and cartographic survey of coastal [[hyperborea]]. The expedition encountered conditions that led to the progressive loss of crew members over the following months, and Makinami was among the 22 of 42 survivors who returned in February 1914 at only 19 years old. The full circumstances of the expedition remain classified; she has not publicly discussed the experience. Following her return, Makinami was promoted to the rank of High Sea-Adjutor for “exemplary conduct during the crisis” and reassigned to active fleet duties.
### Attack On Naginomiya Harbor
The outbreak of war in [[evria]] in 1914 drew Nichirin into conflict with the Xing Empire in the Valtherian theater. Makinami was assigned to the armored cruiser NCH Nyumetsu at the time and participated in a series of engagements against Guandongese naval forces over the following year. Her conduct during these skirmishes was noted in fleet assessments as consistently effective under adverse conditions.
On July 25, 1915, a Guandongese naval offensive struck Naginomiya Harbor in a major coordinated attack during a naval conference, killing Marshal-Admiral Nobumasa Kurosawa and several other senior Nichirian naval commanders. The attack left the Nichirian Navy without effective high command at a critical stage of the war. Shogun Masanori Miyamoto personally selected Makinami as Kurosawa's replacement. She was twenty-one years old, held a junior rank relative to several surviving senior officers, and had only been in active naval service for three years. Naval historians have noted that the surviving senior officers were either implicated in the command failures that allowed the Naginomiya attack or carried factional ties that Masanori was unwilling to import into the naval command at a moment of crisis. Makinami had neither, and she was promoted to Marshal-Admiral on July 25, 1915.
<figure class="float float-left" style="width:320px"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/suiren-makinami-4.jpg" alt="Shogun Masanori Miyamoto promoting Makinami to Marshal-Admiral of the Maelstrom, Naginomiya, July 25, 1915."><figcaption>Shogun Masanori Miyamoto promoting Makinami to Marshal-Admiral of the Maelstrom, Naginomiya, July 25, 1915.</figcaption></figure>
### The Great War
Makinami's first action as Marshal-Admiral was to reorganize the surviving Nichirian naval forces into a coherent command structure. Her tactical doctrine centered on massed battleship engagements supported by destroyer screens, exploiting Nichirian advantages in gunnery range by crossing the T formation to maximize broadside firepower while minimizing enemy return fire. She supplemented this with aggressive fleet maneuvers to achieve favorable positioning before engagement, often using night approaches to gain tactical surprise at dawn. She assumed command of the aircraft carrier NCH Fudō during this period, reflecting an early interest in carrier-based naval operations as a complement to the battleship doctrine she was simultaneously developing.
The Battle of the Rensei Islands in late 1915 was the first major engagement under her command; Nichirian forces repelled a Guandongese amphibious assault on Ayanami. The First Battle of the Bay of Serica followed in early 1916, resulting in significant Guandongese losses without achieving a decisive outcome, while the Second Battle of the Bay of Serica in early 1917 inflicted further damage on the Guandongese naval capacity. Finally, the Third Battle of the Bay of Serica in mid-1917 crippled the Guandongese Navy as an operational force, completing the Nichirian naval dominance in the Valtherian theater that the preceding engagements had been building toward.
<figure class="float float-right" style="width:320px"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/suiren-makinami-5.jpg" alt="NCH Fudō during the Battle of the Rensei Islands, c. 1915."><figcaption>NCH Fudō during the Battle of the Rensei Islands, c. 1915.</figcaption></figure>
For the remainder of the war, Makinami organized and commanded Entente convoy escort operations across the Arctic Sea, the Hyperborean Ocean, and the Eastern Panthalassan Ocean, defending allied merchant shipping against Alemannian submarine warfare. Naval historians have credited these operations with maintaining supply corridors, helpful to the eventual Entente victory.
## Political Career
Following the armistice in November 1918, Makinami oversaw the transition from wartime operations to peacetime fleet administration. She assumed command of the newly constructed aircraft carrier NCH Gōzanze during this period, the flagship of the post-war fleet rebuild under her direction.
In 1921, she took a leave of absence from naval command to enroll at [[shinkeisei]] Polytechnical University, where she completed a Bachelor of Public Administration in 1922. She returned to naval command following her graduation. On October 2, 1923, she was appointed Senior Shogunal Advisor by Shogun Masashi Miyamoto alongside General Mayu Kitta, Chief of Staff Hideki Otonashi, and Chief Historian [[kanade-tachibana]].
### Night of Falling Stars and the Sangai Operation
While Shogun Masashi Miyamoto was attending the Second Tripartite Conference in Veynach, Arlbern, Princess Keiko Miyamoto launched a military coup against his government on the night of March 4, 1924. Makinami, who had publicly declared naval neutrality in any succession dispute, broadcast Masashi's response from Arlbern on a counter-signal that overrode Keiko's compromised proclamation broadcast, breaking the communications blackout Keiko's forces had established and declaring the navy's support for the rightful Shogun. The coup collapsed within hours.
On March 6, Makinami accompanied Masashi's convoy to the southern bank of the Haguregumo River, where Keiko's body had been recovered following her execution by Minister of Foreign Affairs Yuriko Okamura. When Okamura fired on Masashi at close range, striking him in the right eye, Makinami extracted him under fire and coordinated his emergency evacuation.
Makinami commanded the naval blockade of Sangai's coastline as part of the coordinated operation to capture Okamura on December 8. The blockade was established under the cover of routine patrol rotations and held until Okamura's surrender at Shichidaika.
<figure class="float float-right" style="width:320px"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/suiren-makinami-6.jpg" alt="Makinami speaking during the Fourth Tripartite Conference, Mizuhara, 28 December, 1927."><figcaption>Makinami speaking during the Fourth Tripartite Conference, Mizuhara, 28 December, 1927.</figcaption></figure>
### Minister of Foreign Affairs
Masashi appointed Makinami as interim Minister of Foreign Affairs on December 11, 1924, the day of Okamura's execution, a position she held concurrently with her existing offices as Marshal-Admiral and Senior Shogunal Advisor.
Her most significant achievement in the role was her leadership of the Nichirian delegation at the Tōhara Conference in March 1926, at which Nichirian and Guandongese delegations negotiated a framework for normalized relations following the Great War. The conference produced agreements on mutual recognition, trade protocols, and joint border administration in the autonomous prefectures of Eastern Manshu. She was succeeded as Minister of Foreign Affairs by [[nariyoshi-miyagi]] on March 20, 1928.
### Assassination of Hideki Otonashi
On January 1, 1930, Makinami sustained a gunshot wound to the left shoulder during the assassination of Chief of Staff Hideki Otonashi on Tenjin-dōri in Shiomachi, Shinkeisei. Otonashi, walking alongside her at the time of the shooting, was killed instantly by the same round before it struck her. The wound did not damage bone; she was hospitalized and discharged after several days.
## Personal Life
Makinami is an active attendee of jazz performances at venues across Shinkeisei and is known to maintain a broader interest in the genre. She is an active competitive shooter, having participated in naval marksmanship competitions throughout her career, and she swims recreationally in open water year-round, including during Shinkeisei’s winter months. She plays the [shamisen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamisen).
Occasionally, she delivers guest lectures on naval strategy and maritime history at universities in Shinkeisei. Makinami is in a relationship with Senior Shogunal Advisor and Chief Liaison Officer [[akane-shikinami-hoffmann]], with whom she shares a residence in Shiomachi, Shinkeisei.
