Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

ATP · Dec 26, 2022

Imperator Pax said:
In the English's case, thats a basically due to how victorian parliamentary ping pong worked. Not just prime ministers but also the changes in the late victorian era and the FSO as a result. The British fundamentally wanted a 'do not rock the boat' foreign policy internationally and yes part of that goes to Napoleon III overreached and had to contend with a fight he then proceeded to lose, but in losing that fight he definitively killed the existing concern of Europe that had defined the post Napoleonic wars order of thing as a result Parliament plays dumb games but this comes out of basically late victorian conditions

we take it for granted today that in the 20th century that Britain and Germany were enemies that wasn't implicitly true in 19th century when most policies were fermented. In the Victorian age the Prussians and the Swedes were still considered allies (I mean technically Sweden provided iron and timber to England even into this period, this is actually referenced regarding iron prices earlier) but any annoyance the British felt at the Germans during the latter half of 19th century was almost always overshadowed by the Russians or the French. Particularly for India, but also the French attempted to instigate a war over Egypt (and thus the suez canal which in particular threatens British trade empire) and in about 1900 that was still apparently on the mind of the public now to be fair what quickly happens is the Germans go from annoying to well you have the Boer war (which Kaiser Bill decides to shove his nose in) you have the Russo-Japanese War, and Tirpitz Naval league (and the subsequent bills) on top of things like the Moroccan crisis. [Also that Edward Gray was very pro French, and was a shrewd political operator, Asquith and Lloyd George could be considered also part of this francophile wing in parliament]. Wilhelm the second just repeatedly makes a mess of things antagonizing British sensibilities

This goes to British foreign policy of deterrence, the British did not like spending money on the army. and the Boer in particular had repeatedly been the embarrassment of the British army who otherwise had significant colonial victories (as a result result the British leadership especially after 1902 when the second boer war ends, never mind memories of the Crimean war in terms of cost (and particularly how that made British leadership feel about journalists and talking about the war to the public at home)) were very loath to get into any kind of stand up fight with another major power [As an example of this the Japanese alliance required that if Britain or Japan were engaged in war, the other part would be neutral, unless a third party intervenes at which case the other party enters the war] the British made an agreement and stuck to it because of a policy of what can be described as incrementalism, you very very rarely see revolutionary changes in British systems or policies in this period.

Its like watching grass grow, change is very slow and WW1 is where most of those big significant changes take place but compared to WW2 its war cabinet is very small very very different compared to the one in ww2 (and again this goes to the changes in the British system of parties in parliament due to ww1)

Especially in this period, Institutional Inertia thy name is the United Kingdom.

EDIT: I hate touch screens.

Poor bastards.They had good theory/Built coalition to beat anybody who could unite Europe/ but fucked it by keeping to old targets instead of those who could unite Europe now.
And,after 1871,it was Germany,not France.

P.S Fearing cossacks invading India was stupid,too.

Imperator Pax · Dec 26, 2022

ATP said:
Poor bastards.They had good theory/Built coalition to beat anybody who could unite Europe/ but fucked it by keeping to old targets instead of those who could unite Europe now.
And,after 1871,it was Germany,not France.

P.S Fearing cossacks invading India was stupid,too.

Fear isn't always rational. and yes by 1871 the writing was on the wall, but in 1871 Britain was neither particularly interested in the contintental affairs (versus its colonial affairs) and Bismarck presented (in contrast to Wilhelms erratic 'weltpolitik') the opinion that he supported and would hold the consensus together the reason France continued to be perceived as the peer rival hostil power was because of the French decision to try and mess with British interests in Egypt and Africa more broadly, while also after 1871 cozying up with the Russians who again the Great Game. Now we know with hindsight Cossacks in India is a silly fear, but back then Britain didn't really want a repeat of the Crimean war (even though they won, and yes theBritish assumed they would win, but they didn't want to fight in the first place. It was not a case of winning so much a case of being put in a pyrrhic victory scenario of a cost (and this is in relation to India, which Britain would have fought very hard to keep as in like the Royal navy would have ended up sailing into the neva or bombarding petrograd (because those are things the Royal navy talked about doing in summer campaign plans)) but again the question remained does France come to Russia's aid against britain where as Bismarckian Germany was neutral if not potentially an ally in the 1880s in those war plans.

Ultimately speaking those never came to pass because France didn't have the resources to push England into a war over Egypt or Africa, but French belligerence and nationalism in the late 19th century was very much annoying both England and the US (again mostly in Africa but 19th century US not happy about that whole Mexico thing during the civil war) and the French got upset when the US comes to visit its oldest continuous ally (Morocco) over a legitimate US concern for its citizen's well being because the French assume the US is going to want a naval base (and presently France is angling up to muscle spain out and colonize morocco)

With hindsight yes we know that the alliance system all but assures that France and Russia fight Germany Austria at some point. The ANglo Russian agreements of the entente are only considered in 1908 and the ANglo-Japanese Alliance (well alliance trumps entente, regardless of what the French during this period seem to think) and even then it takes the French a lot of mediating within the entente to keep Russian chicanery from pivoting the whole thing on its head, and if there had been a change in government in Germany and the army had gotten into power pushed an army budget that cut the navy back in exchange for British neutrality or alliance even the British of 1911 would have actually ratified that kind of naval agreement and that would have scuttled the entente's original naval basis of north atlantic and western Mediterranean security framework. (Again, thats not what happened, the naval race peters out, but there isn't a subsequent reapproachment that occurs, so that when 1914 rolls around it still takes Ed Gray threatening to crash the British government (he threatens to resign) to force the cabinet into war on the continent, a war that the British army is not ready for in 1914, but then really no one else in the continent is either, because of the scale of what ww1 becomes in the first two months of the war)

People question where US isolationism comes from, it comes from the British and their own myth of splendid isolationism and of making bilateral agreements on the basis of make trade not war and that its a navy and a trade fleet that is important over a large standing army, but again Britain doesn't have any land neighbors and America has Canada and Mexico. Also this goes to England's response in this period of the late 19th century where the English response to Europe finally industiralizing, and the declining trade balance of competition with for example Germany in heavy industries (chemicals and what not) is not belligerence, its isolationism, the British turn towards turn back towards trading restrictions, tarriffs and policies that are not free trade but thats all we see really as British policy because the British want an internal market that is status quo

Unik · Dec 27, 2022

Pax how much does Allen pay his soldiers? And is it in silver dollars? Or in dollar paper? Or just Yuan? Cause maintaining an army is not cheap. Does he give pensions? And do the families of the dead soldiers receive them?

Imperator Pax · Dec 27, 2022

Unique said:
Pax how much does Allen pay his soldiers? And is it in silver dollars? Or in dollar paper? Or just Yuan? Cause maintaining an army is not cheap. Does he give pensions? And do the families of the dead soldiers receive them?

At present or at least in 1916 it'd probably be in the chinese silver dollars issued by the Customs and Import office these were very common in North China because they were issued by the British with guarantees on standard and were prefered to copper cash (since heavily devauled, taxes were to be paid in silver value) or provincial currencies, I don't think I ever mentioned it explicitly. Xian doesn't start issuing its own paper currency until 1920, there is probably some degree of scrip issuing going on because that was common in this period where the value of a paycheck could be redeemed in corporate stores for goods

EDIT: There are probably some troops who are probably being paid in US dollars, at least in 1913 as there is a reference in my white wolf notes (I don't see it mentioned here in a thread on a flip through) of troops being paid in greenbacks, and the new year bonuses going out in Mexican silver dollars (which I know that scene isn't in thread) but thats also a very common currency.

Pensions are not formally a thing yet. Those won't be put into place until 1920 with the formalizing of the Xian constitution which will have a pension specifically mentioning the army, because that is a major issue of government.

The family of a KIA receive a year's salary upfront during this period. That ranges anywhere from probably two hundred dollars for a buck private (A quick glance through Jowett, suggest this would two and a half times what 1917 pay in the Beiyang army would be) to versus if Colonel Shang was killed in action his widow would receive over four thousand dollars. They also can expect assistance beyond that from the benevolence society, meaning assistance with housing and employment within cadre institutions. [This is based off of a mix of the Japan, the USA, technically also Britain, and the British East India company as well in the 19th century]

Part of this income is that China [I don't have my notes on period GDP per capita but China is roughly half of Mexico's during this period, and Mexico shouldn't be very far behind Japan right now] isn't being hit by the wage increases effecting Europe (wartime manpower shortages), and of course related to that is that Xian provides housing and three square meals along with in the case of the army regular medical care the latter of which is not readily available to corporate employees in for example mill work because they're army doctors (Medical personnel). That's still a lot of money to spend on a single expenditure, which is going to mean in the future Xian start needing to actually implement an income tax once the cadre moves towards governing, and collecting taxes once its on that level of procurement. That expense is also why the Cadre was against going to three divisions earlier than this, but is moving towards that.

Xian will eventually go to paper currency, moving away from silver coinage in direct circulation but in the immediate time frame they're probably using accepted currencies based on local conditions which means they're probably paying out in some kind of silver dollar.

I am almost certain (again I don't have my notes handy) that the Cadre's current force costs them more than what Shaanxi or Shansi's Dujun spend on their troops certainly accounting for the value of domesticially built weapons at real value. The trade off is Yan Xishan does have more troops to his name in 1917, Zhu Zhibao certainly had more troops on paper but his budget is complicated and I don't have those numbers in front of me.

EDIT: note I use the word Dollar here generically if they're being paid in the exchange dollar or the mexican silver dollar its value its not a parity equivalent to the USD of the period

Unik · Dec 27, 2022

How much did Yan Xishan spent for his army? I can't seem to find it.

Imperator Pax · Dec 27, 2022

Unique said:
How much did Yan Xishan spent for his army? I can't seem to find it.

According to Van de ven in 1916 Yan Xishan's (as dujun of Shanxi province) total military expenditure was 300k yuan (which seems really odd) given two years earlier his budget was 3.2 million yuan and I don't honestly think its a case of Van de ven putting the decimal point in the wrong place, because the provincial military budget in 1912 is estimated at half a million.yuan.

So I don't know, and I'm going to need to double check some other sources and try and fine either 1917 estimate or 1922 to check what they are

EDIT: for comparison Shaanxi's budget was in 1916 3.6 million yuan, which makes sense to me. I don't know why Yan budget is that small

Unik · Dec 27, 2022

How did you find the information on the internet? Did you use the Google scholar cause I would be very interested. When I try to search for the information it's either a book to buy or going the a website to view it for a cost.

Imperator Pax · Dec 27, 2022

Unique said:
How did you find the information on the internet? Did you use the Google scholar cause I would be very interested. When I try to search for the information it's either a book to buy or going the a website to view it for a cost.

I have a JSTOR account (https://www.jstor.org/) I've used them as a my default research tool since I was in undergrad. If your school doesn't count (for regional reasons, I wouldn't assume they do that, but it does strike me as a possibility), you can make a free account I think its like a hundred articles a month

ATP · Dec 27, 2022

Imperator Pax said:
Fear isn't always rational. and yes by 1871 the writing was on the wall, but in 1871 Britain was neither particularly interested in the contintental affairs (versus its colonial affairs) and Bismarck presented (in contrast to Wilhelms erratic 'weltpolitik') the opinion that he supported and would hold the consensus together the reason France continued to be perceived as the peer rival hostil power was because of the French decision to try and mess with British interests in Egypt and Africa more broadly, while also after 1871 cozying up with the Russians who again the Great Game. Now we know with hindsight Cossacks in India is a silly fear, but back then Britain didn't really want a repeat of the Crimean war (even though they won, and yes theBritish assumed they would win, but they didn't want to fight in the first place. It was not a case of winning so much a case of being put in a pyrrhic victory scenario of a cost (and this is in relation to India, which Britain would have fought very hard to keep as in like the Royal navy would have ended up sailing into the neva or bombarding petrograd (because those are things the Royal navy talked about doing in summer campaign plans)) but again the question remained does France come to Russia's aid against britain where as Bismarckian Germany was neutral if not potentially an ally in the 1880s in those war plans.

Ultimately speaking those never came to pass because France didn't have the resources to push England into a war over Egypt or Africa, but French belligerence and nationalism in the late 19th century was very much annoying both England and the US (again mostly in Africa but 19th century US not happy about that whole Mexico thing during the civil war) and the French got upset when the US comes to visit its oldest continuous ally (Morocco) over a legitimate US concern for its citizen's well being because the French assume the US is going to want a naval base (and presently France is angling up to muscle spain out and colonize morocco)

With hindsight yes we know that the alliance system all but assures that France and Russia fight Germany Austria at some point. The ANglo Russian agreements of the entente are only considered in 1908 and the ANglo-Japanese Alliance (well alliance trumps entente, regardless of what the French during this period seem to think) and even then it takes the French a lot of mediating within the entente to keep Russian chicanery from pivoting the whole thing on its head, and if there had been a change in government in Germany and the army had gotten into power pushed an army budget that cut the navy back in exchange for British neutrality or alliance even the British of 1911 would have actually ratified that kind of naval agreement and that would have scuttled the entente's original naval basis of north atlantic and western Mediterranean security framework. (Again, thats not what happened, the naval race peters out, but there isn't a subsequent reapproachment that occurs, so that when 1914 rolls around it still takes Ed Gray threatening to crash the British government (he threatens to resign) to force the cabinet into war on the continent, a war that the British army is not ready for in 1914, but then really no one else in the continent is either, because of the scale of what ww1 becomes in the first two months of the war)

People question where US isolationism comes from, it comes from the British and their own myth of splendid isolationism and of making bilateral agreements on the basis of make trade not war and that its a navy and a trade fleet that is important over a large standing army, but again Britain doesn't have any land neighbors and America has Canada and Mexico. Also this goes to England's response in this period of the late 19th century where the English response to Europe finally industiralizing, and the declining trade balance of competition with for example Germany in heavy industries (chemicals and what not) is not belligerence, its isolationism, the British turn towards turn back towards trading restrictions, tarriffs and policies that are not free trade but thats all we see really as British policy because the British want an internal market that is status quo

In 1878 we almost had WW1 over Russian war with Turkey.England defended turks,Germans were their allies - and,as result,both France and A-H would fight for Russia.
British was planning to provoke another polish uprising,too.And hungarian if they could.
Good for us,that it not happened.

And british supported free market only as long as it suited them - when germans started outproducing them,they changed their minds.
Another proof,why supporting Prussia in conqering germany was stupid idea.
But - british had many stupid ideas,fortunatelly for them others suffered from results of it.

Unik · Dec 28, 2022

Imperator Pax said:
I have a JSTOR account (https://www.jstor.org/) I've used them as a my default research tool since I was in undergrad. If your school doesn't count (for regional reasons, I wouldn't assume they do that, but it does strike me as a possibility), you can make a free account I think its like a hundred articles a month

Trying to get to med school here.

Imperator Pax · Dec 31, 2022

August 1917
Barrel making machinery had been fully relocated now that the British contract ... Anzac, it didn't matter who ended up using the guns, had been completed for the Pattern 1914... or whatever they were being called now, and turned towards manufacture of Lewis guns full scale. To go along with that they'd moved the project to a newer building attached to a larger ammunition factory, that was also turning out mortar ammunition for the same broader contract.

"Percy I am going to ignore that you said that to me," Allen commented, he had gotten between the two men before the Texan who was foreman of the imaginatively named State Military Works could defenestrate the Englishman. Keeping Percy from getting thrown out the window was important, "A million germans fought in the war between the states, and I expect as least as many 'huns'," To use Percy's term, "will fight in the Federal colors to put Kaiser Bill down." Even in the Philippines, much as in grandpappies day the basic languages command, rank, file, and breaking camp had still occasionally had the instructions given in vulgar German even in squadrons and and companies of men who wouldn't otherwise have used the language.

Zhang Xun's Manchu Restoration, farcical as the attempt had proven to be had turned up a supply of Mexican silver dollars, and had turned into accusations that those silver dollars had been paid out by german agents to try and keep China out of the war... which seemed a little silly. There had been rumors previous of course, and both England, and the states had thought something had been going on, but it was more about the accusations being used as a cudgel now that was the real problem rather than whether german agents had been spreading around money to cause trouble.

Making sure to keep between the Texan, Allen continued, "Loretta," Swartzentruber's wife, "and Jacob here have been with us, and were at the CFA since 1911, you want to take an issue with his promotion, or his involvement, you missed the train on that one, Jacob has been on the floor since we took the first contracts of the war." Single shot remington rifles for Russian rail guards in the crunch of 1915.

All the same the texan went back out of the office, and to the floor of the works, past a corporal at the door, and that left him to make his way behind the desk. The third story drafting room was laid out like most of the other buildings. It was larger than the CFA building number 1 drafting room reflecting its newer construction but was almost identical to the other new arsenals. They had relocated all of the British projects to under one roof, that would be no confusion between 303 and 8mm production... and if that happened to mean that they could keep an eye on the British themselves well that was fine. "So the Lewis guns?" Percy was carefully settling back into the chair.

"The machine tooling was installed before... any of the troubles," they hadn't started the current batch until late last month after things were settled, which on the plus side had given them time to finish the reshuffling that had contributed to the drama today, "You want to test the new guns that's fine,"

"No, no that's quite alright,"

Percy didn't do weapons testing in person there were ordinance sorts from Australia, and the Imperials munitions who proofed the almost eighty guns a day being turned out since the twenty first. "I just wanted to know it was being done, there is a chance we will be posting the ANZAC troopers to Russia."

The British had been moving their colonial troops around trying to find everyone the right fit... though to be honest he suspected that there was some truth to the notion that since they couldn't rely on just the 'martial races' of Indians and had to do with 'sub par specimens' to meet quotas they didn't want the Bengali sort used to shooting pale faces. Letting the hindis shoot mohamedans didn't seem that much preferable given grievances in the 'jewel of the British Empire'... but it was a bad situation all around.

--
He thrummed the door shut harder than he had meant to, but no one noticed. The cadre was supposed to be a hundred men. A number that had been the original hundred share holders of the company back when they'd come together to build that first rail road for the Qing... and it had held that way for a bit... but after 1914 the shares of the company had started to accumulate. Other responsibilities, age, or other developments like the war in Europe had sent other members on their way. So the voting shares had steadily accumulated even as the capital pool in the company had grown larger.

"The training is done." and where six months ago it would have been a debate on the floor and in the books whether or not they should, it wasn't that, they should expand further. "Leaving aside all that silver. Szechwan is a bloody mess. It is a god damn miracle that Shan didn't have to fire a shot down there." The cavalry remarked his hat on the table, but he had thrown a look at Cole before speaking. "and the bastards aren't the only problem." That was true too, because they weren't dealing with one province they were dealing with Shansi, and the western provinces as well... and of course there was the prospect of a rail line over the border into Kirghiz... and what that would mean.

"We're officially at the point where where Chen just isn't in the province enough," And as he was officially both Dujun, as well as civilian governor his absentee status was a point of talk... and had been for a while now. Shensi's declaration of independence from the republican parliamentary government had been issued from Tietsin for god's sake. That he had marched the modern Beiyang independent brigades then to go participate in the liberation of Peking was not really an issue, that was comparatively understandable to your average person, his absence in general though, and the Gansu brigades operating nominally on anti bandit operations in the south and west though was much harder to justify, and compounded by his perennial absence from the province. A province that was very much changing quickly.

... but then without Yuan Shikai the whole country was changing. Feng had already started to talk about how they should just get rid of the parliament forget the southern provinces and just focus on protecting the north... or what he appeared to consider 'real china' if that meant leaving provinces like Yuunan, Canton, and Szechwan well enough alone that was fine by him. So far as Feng was concerned that would allow everyone to focus on the actually important provinces, and if the southerners wanted to have anarchy... well then they could just kill each other, no great loss if a bunch of bandits and malcontents did that.

Duan didn't want to hear of it. Not because of the callousness of it, but he wanted to keep the empire together... and part of that was probably money, part of it was that if they started writing off places it would be potentially hard to stop. A larger stronger market would have more influence with the English after all.

The inevitable result of the next three hours of threshing of ideas was to be a longer running conversation, that would culminate in the eventual constitution of 1920... really 1919 but officially as would be eventually known Year 1 would be 1920. In August of 1917 though, even as the war still raged in Europe, problems were focused closer to home. The consensus of things was that divisions still needed to be nine battalions, the triangle. As opposed to the square, a small portion of the Cadre had wanted the square staffed by a regiment of class B recruits in reserve as guardsmen but that had quickly been shot down.

Three divisions of Infantry. That wasn't a problem man power wise, Xian by herself had the population to provide that. The city was growing as the industries grew to export goods to feed the war, and also to the steel mills that were turning out the bar stock, and metal for rail and engine in addition to cannon and gun.

Brigades would be separate independent commands in the new system. There was quibbling over whether to keep the system of attaching company level, batteries, or not to complete battalions that wasn't going to be settled any time soon. The general outline in principle was agreed to by the afternoon that each division should on paper have an authorized strength of some fifteen thousand men, but that the basic unit, the 'active' would remain the regimental command, who direct battalion units at their garrisons, and with company barracks below that level.

The army... which was what it was and the broader security question could not exist without looking at the matter of industry. Diversification into agriculture had started early. Farming had diversified itself into staple crops, and cash crops and from there. Food for people, fodder for animals, cotton, and tobacco as well... and they could focus on export, but in the long term. It didn't matter how much they mechanized the farm, just exporting a cash crop wouldn't be enough. Commodities were all well and good but king cotton had been a damned fool of an idea.

That created the final part of the triangle.... or what would be eventually called the triangle. There would be overlaps in what each corner / point did or was responsible for. In a gross simplification the points were an army, a civilian side administration ... civil service to manage some things... and the private sector of corporate administration and organization of agriculture and manufacturing and to manage others.
--
Notes: I'm apparently missing at least one section what has probably happened is its on a flash drive but deals with the aforementioned taxes that would go to the capital, because the Qing emperor had frozen taxes, and remitted some taxes back to the government but the last time a Chinese government had been capable of conducting an actual national level survey for taxable means was during the reign of the first Ming Emperor... and no one was able to carry another one out, and even purely local tax surveys often ran into severe resistance at all levels. [In fact I speculate that it is this which played a major role in fermenting resistance against Yuan Shikai, because he tried to implement one and then had to back down in April 1916 (likely because of northern provinces in Fengtien who were otherwise part of the core of his clique), thereafter all land taxes became provincial matters, leaving things like the salt gabelle nominally still a central government matter and not everyone followed that, but even in 1916 that tax still brought in 96 Million Yuan in revenue making it the equal of the lucrative land taxes taken in that year (or at least those reported)]

I'm still looking for that content I'll need to check my travel gear , but its that lack of information which impacts how Xian goes about setting up its own tax collection later on. I also need to consider rebalancing August 1917 is a little unbalanced in its pacing

Unik · Dec 31, 2022

You wrote clique in this chapter, is the clique here the Cadre or is it the warlord clique they are under? And how will this affect the people's perspective. Keep in mind this looks a lot like the East India Company Reborn with American flavour. Will the normal Chinese people be loyal? Will America bring Freedom to China because there is oil there? And how will this affect the company.

ATP · Dec 31, 2022

Imperator Pax said:
August 1917
Barrel making machinery had been fully relocated now that the British contract ... Anzac, it didn't matter who ended up using the guns, had been completed for the Pattern 1914... or whatever they were being called now, and turned towards manufacture of Lewis guns full scale. To go along with that they'd moved the project to a newer building attached to a larger ammunition factory, that was also turning out mortar ammunition for the same broader contract.

"Percy I am going to ignore that you said that to me," Allen commented, he had gotten between the two men before the Texan who was foreman of the imaginatively named State Military Works could defenestrate the Englishman. Keeping Percy from getting thrown out the window was important, "A million germans fought in the war between the states, and I expect as least as many 'huns'," To use Percy's term, "will fight in the Federal colors to put Kaiser Bill down." Even in the Philippines, much as in grandpappies day the basic languages command, rank, file, and breaking camp had still occasionally had the instructions given in vulgar German even in squadrons and and companies of men who wouldn't otherwise have used the language.

Zhang Xun's Manchu Restoration, farcical as the attempt had proven to be had turned up a supply of Mexican silver dollars, and had turned into accusations that those silver dollars had been paid out by german agents to try and keep China out of the war... which seemed a little silly. There had been rumors previous of course, and both England, and the states had thought something had been going on, but it was more about the accusations being used as a cudgel now that was the real problem rather than whether german agents had been spreading around money to cause trouble.

Making sure to keep between the Texan, Allen continued, "Loretta," Swartzentruber's wife, "and Jacob here have been with us, and were at the CFA since 1911, you want to take an issue with his promotion, or his involvement, you missed the train on that one, Jacob has been on the floor since we took the first contracts of the war." Single shot remington rifles for Russian rail guards in the crunch of 1915.

All the same the texan went back out of the office, and to the floor of the works, past a corporal at the door, and that left him to make his way behind the desk. The third story drafting room was laid out like most of the other buildings. It was larger than the CFA building number 1 drafting room reflecting its newer construction but was almost identical to the other new arsenals. They had relocated all of the British projects to under one roof, that would be no confusion between 303 and 8mm production... and if that happened to mean that they could keep an eye on the British themselves well that was fine. "So the Lewis guns?" Percy was carefully settling back into the chair.

"The machine tooling was installed before... any of the troubles," they hadn't started the current batch until late last month after things were settled, which on the plus side had given them time to finish the reshuffling that had contributed to the drama today, "You want to test the new guns that's fine,"

"No, no that's quite alright,"

Percy didn't do weapons testing in person there were ordinance sorts from Australia, and the Imperials munitions who proofed the almost eighty guns a day being turned out since the twenty first. "I just wanted to know it was being done, there is a chance we will be posting the ANZAC troopers to Russia."

The British had been moving their colonial troops around trying to find everyone the right fit... though to be honest he suspected that there was some truth to the notion that since they couldn't rely on just the 'martial races' of Indians and had to do with 'sub par specimens' to meet quotas they didn't want the Bengali sort used to shooting pale faces. Letting the hindis shoot mohamedans didn't seem that much preferable given grievances in the 'jewel of the British Empire'... but it was a bad situation all around.

--
He thrummed the door shut harder than he had meant to, but no one noticed. The cadre was supposed to be a hundred men. A number that had been the original hundred share holders of the company back when they'd come together to build that first rail road for the Qing... and it had held that way for a bit... but after 1914 the shares of the company had started to accumulate. Other responsibilities, age, or other developments like the war in Europe had sent other members on their way. So the voting shares had steadily accumulated even as the capital pool in the company had grown larger.

"The training is done." and where six months ago it would have been a debate on the floor and in the books whether or not they should, it wasn't that, they should expand further. "Leaving aside all that silver. Szechwan is a bloody mess. It is a god damn miracle that Shan didn't have to fire a shot down there." The cavalry remarked his hat on the table, but he had thrown a look at Cole before speaking. "and the bastards aren't the only problem." That was true too, because they weren't dealing with one province they were dealing with Shansi, and the western provinces as well... and of course there was the prospect of a rail line over the border into Kirghiz... and what that would mean.

"We're officially at the point where where Chen just isn't in the province enough," And as he was officially both Dujun, as well as civilian governor his absentee status was a point of talk... and had been for a while now. Shensi's declaration of independence from the republican parliamentary government had been issued from Tietsin for god's sake. That he had marched the modern Beiyang independent brigades then to go participate in the liberation of Peking was not really an issue, that was comparatively understandable to your average person, his absence in general though, and the Gansu brigades operating nominally on anti bandit operations in the south and west though was much harder to justify, and compounded by his perennial absence from the province. A province that was very much changing quickly.

... but then without Yuan Shikai the whole country was changing. Feng had already started to talk about how they should just get rid of the parliament forget the southern provinces and just focus on protecting the north... or what he appeared to consider 'real china' if that meant leaving provinces like Yuunan, Canton, and Szechwan well enough alone that was fine by him. So far as Feng was concerned that would allow everyone to focus on the actually important provinces, and if the southerners wanted to have anarchy... well then they could just kill each other, no great loss if a bunch of bandits and malcontents did that.

Duan didn't want to hear of it. Not because of the callousness of it, but he wanted to keep the empire together... and part of that was probably money, part of it was that if they started writing off places it would be potentially hard to stop. A larger stronger market would have more influence with the English after all.

The inevitable result of the next three hours of threshing of ideas was to be a longer running conversation, that would culminate in the eventual constitution of 1920... really 1919 but officially as would be eventually known Year 1 would be 1920. In August of 1917 though, even as the war still raged in Europe, problems were focused closer to home. The consensus of things was that divisions still needed to be nine battalions, the triangle. As opposed to the square, a small portion of the Cadre had wanted the square staffed by a regiment of class B recruits in reserve as guardsmen but that had quickly been shot down.

Three divisions of Infantry. That wasn't a problem man power wise, Xian by herself had the population to provide that. The city was growing as the industries grew to export goods to feed the war, and also to the steel mills that were turning out the bar stock, and metal for rail and engine in addition to cannon and gun.

Brigades would be separate independent commands in the new system. There was quibbling over whether to keep the system of attaching company level, batteries, or not to complete battalions that wasn't going to be settled any time soon. The general outline in principle was agreed to by the afternoon that each division should on paper have an authorized strength of some fifteen thousand men, but that the basic unit, the 'active' would remain the regimental command, who direct battalion units at their garrisons, and with company barracks below that level.

The army... which was what it was and the broader security question could not exist without looking at the matter of industry. Diversification into agriculture had started early. Farming had diversified itself into staple crops, and cash crops and from there. Food for people, fodder for animals, cotton, and tobacco as well... and they could focus on export, but in the long term. It didn't matter how much they mechanized the farm, just exporting a cash crop wouldn't be enough. Commodities were all well and good but king cotton had been a damned fool of an idea.

That created the final part of the triangle.... or what would be eventually called the triangle. There would be overlaps in what each corner / point did or was responsible for. In a gross simplification the points were an army, a civilian side administration ... civil service to manage some things... and the private sector of corporate administration and organization of agriculture and manufacturing and to manage others.
--
Notes: I'm apparently missing at least one section what has probably happened is its on a flash drive but deals with the aforementioned taxes that would go to the capital, because the Qing emperor had frozen taxes, and remitted some taxes back to the government but the last time a Chinese government had been capable of conducting an actual national level survey for taxable means was during the reign of the first Ming Emperor... and no one was able to carry another one out, and even purely local tax surveys often ran into severe resistance at all levels. [In fact I speculate that it is this which played a major role in fermenting resistance against Yuan Shikai, because he tried to implement one and then had to back down in April 1916 (likely because of northern provinces in Fengtien who were otherwise part of the core of his clique), thereafter all land taxes became provincial matters, leaving things like the salt gabelle nominally still a central government matter and not everyone followed that, but even in 1916 that tax still brought in 96 Million Yuan in revenue making it the equal of the lucrative land taxes taken in that year (or at least those reported)]

I'm still looking for that content I'll need to check my travel gear , but its that lack of information which impacts how Xian goes about setting up its own tax collection later on. I also need to consider rebalancing August 1917 is a little unbalanced in its pacing

1.Germans in USA - there were so many german settlers there,then i once read about proposition of making german,not english,official USA language.Dunno if it is true or not,but could you imagine how it would change world?

2.When british made soldiers from normal hindu,it was not always good idea.I read novel about WW1 when they sit in trench doing notching for few days,and later charged without orders without firing their rifles,take german trench/mostly dying and process/ and when asked why they did so,answered that after being schoot for few days they decide to fight,but spears they get were too short to be efficient.
They got rifles,of course.
Again,dunno if true or not.

3.9 battaliaons in dyvision,but still brigades? would you replaced regiments with brigades?

Imperator Pax · Dec 31, 2022

Unique said:
You wrote clique in this chapter, is the clique here the Cadre or is it the warlord clique they are under? And how will this affect the people's perspective. Keep in mind this looks a lot like the East India Company Reborn with American flavour. Will the normal Chinese people be loyal? Will America bring Freedom to China because there is oil there? And how will this affect the company.

Should be cadre, though technically they could be considered synonyms, but it should be Cadre in that part.

As for the oil Standard Oil (and then Standard Oil of New Jersey) was very active in China up into, and even after Uncle Sam made them subdivide to the point that culturally the little red standard oil can Standard Oil used for everything from Kerosene to petrol are still the associated 'oil' item in popular culture. So no Freedomizing (though before the communists won the civil war) part of the Pacific basin equivalent of the Marshal plan in OTL was an oil development component [but then the communists won the civil war, the US demobilized the army, and the state department started playing games with Truman because he wasn't prepared to be president] but the oil thing here has been set up in the woodwork for a while its just now only coming online

Yes, the East India Company is entirely intentional, like when we get to Britain's perspective in the twenties, specifically MacKinder but also other parts of the FSO they pointedly try and go the long way around to make Prussia comparisons just to avoid admitting how much the Cadre looks like the east india company well:

The gathering of men with their cigars, and their brandies was comprised of men of Oxford and Cambridge, and they hobbed and they knobbed around as if these were still the grounds of Eton. "Here, here," There was a toast of agreement to the speakers call, and the foreign service's secretary stepped up, thanking his introduction and beginning his speech.

"Yes, yes" He started to sway, "we often talk about Asia in European terms. Xian is Prussia, after all the Qing were the answer of the occidental Holy Roman Empire. Looking back they weren't particularly chinese, and they weren't an empire given how autonomous the provinces got," There was a tittering, and polite applause. "Xian's madness isn't that their state is appended to the Army. Surely we think of that way, that they're an army in North China with a state around, its that their Junkers would very much like us to think that they're American businessmen still."

It had been night with flowing drinks, spirits aplenty, and the sort of speech talking about things that might have been done behind more securely barred doors to a crowd, especially with England in a depression since _.

"MacKinder tells me, and I think he's right, that the Junkers don't have a Kaiser. That their Bismarck doesn't have Kaiser Wilhelm talking about Weltpolitik."

The undersecretary must have been more drunk than he realized. There was a slight slurring to the statement, but it was clear the foreign service man hadn't seen him come in. The King's honors gathering was an absurdly packed event and it seemed entirely plausible that their ridiculous comparison to Bismarck meant they might well have thought him to be some much older man with gray or shock white hair.

Either way the undersecretary was clearly drunk. Allen turned to glance at one of the Japanese naval attaches coming to visit the Royal Navy's aircraft carrier thing...

Imperator Pax · Dec 31, 2022

ATP said:
1.Germans in USA - there were so many german settlers there,then i once read about proposition of making german,not english,official USA language.Dunno if it is true or not,but could you imagine how it would change world?

2.When british made soldiers from normal hindu,it was not always good idea.I read novel about WW1 when they sit in trench doing notching for few days,and later charged without orders without firing their rifles,take german trench/mostly dying and process/ and when asked why they did so,answered that after being schoot for few days they decide to fight,but spears they get were too short to be efficient.
They got rifles,of course.
Again,dunno if true or not.

3.9 battaliaons in dyvision,but still brigades? would you replaced regiments with brigades?

Brigades are being retained as specific specialist units and then they'll go to combined armed later, I think I mentioned this, and basically this a historical holdover in some militaries, and the US largely discontinued the use of the Regiment after ww2 in favor of smaller brigades

Unik · Dec 31, 2022

What are the Chinese opinions of him? You said northern China looked to him like Charles Gordon, so a liberator? Or one of those Chinese cultivators of Qi in those crappy(no offense) Chinese novels.

Unik · Dec 31, 2022

Also what are his soldiers salaries?
And what is the dividends received by the shareholders?
Also did the Qing gave him the power to legally create a judiciary as well as a civi service? I can't just imagine it.
Will the Chinese people under him respect his rule or his government?
(My ramblings) I'm from a country where the railways are state owned and maintained(thanks to socialism and profits for government) but we pay less taxes and also things like private military contractors and gun ownership are not quite known. Gun ownership is strict. No one wants to join private military cause there is no culture of it. And the only private military type I know are gangs.

(Apologies I got so many questions )

ATP · Dec 31, 2022

Imperator Pax said:
Brigades are being retained as specific specialist units and then they'll go to combined armed later, I think I mentioned this, and basically this a historical holdover in some militaries, and the US largely discontinued the use of the Regiment after ww2 in favor of smaller brigades

Smart thing to do.I read,that they basically made regiments as flexible units,dependent on situation one particular battalion vould get to this or other brigade,and brigade could have from one to 5 -6 battalions.And,in next fight,it could change.

Imperator Pax · Jan 2, 2023

Unique said:
What are the Chinese opinions of him? You said northern China looked to him like Charles Gordon, so a liberator? Or one of those Chinese cultivators of Qi in those crappy(no offense) Chinese novels.

Not so much liberator, Gordon's period reflective attitude seems to be more force against chaos, which better describes Allen than liberator would. A lot of Gordon's positive propganda was that he represented good governance, tradition, learned excellence, values that could be construed in the light as being civilized (and again this is because especially by the end the Taiping were not nice people and were in their own civil war within a civil war). Allens fundamental basis of good relations with the general public (people not employed or by proxy) is that he represents law and order, he's against banditry. he's militarily successful (and thats important) the ability to get things done the association with beijing and nominally working in the system (if this were set earlier Allen or some of hte older senior members of the cadre who would have been in the late qing eligible for Mandrin status for the kind of recognition of public works and good as perceived by the dynasty this was a status that the late Qing conveyed on foreign officials involved in diplomacy, education it was their equivalent of sorts to a British knighthood to put it in a contemporary comparison)

[ALso, lol cultivation novel, thats funny that you say that I actually did a mostly spitballed idea of what if Autumn of Empires timeline was a cultivation novel instead of a mostly grounded Alternate History that will probably one day see the light of day in my scraps]

Unique said:
Also what are his soldiers salaries?
And what is the dividends received by the shareholders?
Also did the Qing gave him the power to legally create a judiciary as well as a civi service? I can't just imagine it.
Will the Chinese people under him respect his rule or his government?
(My ramblings) I'm from a country where the railways are state owned and maintained(thanks to socialism and profits for government) but we pay less taxes and also things like private military contractors and gun ownership are not quite known. Gun ownership is strict. No one wants to join private military cause there is no culture of it. And the only private military type I know are gangs.

(Apologies I got so many questions )

I will get to your PMs probably tomorrow, maybe the day after, the holidays are exhausting for me and don't have a lot of my notes. Which when we move into the next chronological period, in the twenties I'm probably going to have to start including excerpts from primary sources because the 1920s and after involves a bunch of people holding a lot of zany opinions there is this 'madness' after the first world war in terms of public opinions, that effects leadership in various countries to avoid future wars, which ulimately proves detrimental to that end goal, there are ... well everyone's reaction to the soviet union springing up, there are the soviets internal antics (and the Russian civil war in general), but it would behoove me to quote a bunch of people's actual speechs, their diary entries of the period to encapsulate that this was an odd duck time period

Privates probably make between 15-18 dollars a month (yearly salary comes about to 200 dollars), again assuming Jowett's data is correct, thats about two and half times what a beiyang soldier make during this period. [and that runs into the issue of conversion rates, and ot having my notes (Northern Federal troops made about 80 Yuan a year, and this was during a period where the Beiyang government was coherent enough that salaries were regular, which couldn't be said for down south)]

Technically speaking the way the qing judiciary worked is that your convening authority (whether this was a village headman, or an actual magistrate) were supposed to refer cases back to the capital, particularly for capital offenses, but this resulted in the 'retrial system' where appeals automatically were supposed to go to Beijing in practice they didn't normally do this it ussually went to the next rung up the ladder. So to answer your question regarding a judiciary, no the Qing didn't issue Allen a liscence to convene courts, what they expected was that he'd go grab the nearest police officer or even a magistrate and make it their problem (Historically, this was not a great solution to the Qing's issue of the day, because in practice this meant that the complaining authority i.e. the industrial, religious, other connected entity usually had a disproportionate amount of sway on proceedings). So officially it would have been the local magistrate is presiding over proceedings but with effectively a predetermined outcome [and I need to double check the late qing rate of magistrates to the populace at large because it is very large disparity, one magistrate per capita type disparity IIRC]

Shansi, Shensi, and the western provinces will, and prior to the second world war they're the ones Allen is concerned with and thus there is an effort to be publically receptive to those provincial need. In the long term, long term national unification of china the very far (post ww2) future of this timeline ultimately ties into the succession of leadership in the following generation, and the one after that. This goes to successes on and off the battlefield but also the limitting of territorial ambitions. In this period, in North china especially there is very heavy military culture (its not as prevalent in south eastern china during this period barring Yuunan, who have Indochina and the French right next door) and a lot of territorial militia traditions during this period.

There were two principle routes to success in the qing dynasty both of which could be construed as roughly equal you take the civil service exam (the nominally more prestigious for being traditionally confucian) becoming junfa, or you take the military degree exam and rise through the ranks (and this is what Yuan Shikai did, he failed the civil service exam several times (not unusual) and went into the army apprenticing for an uncle who had adopted him as his heir (IIRC) and worked his way up through the regional army under Li Hongzhang but I digress ). Its important to point out that the Beiyang Army was not originally a 'federal' or national level military unit, it was originally just a unit built on modern lines for Zhili province that then after demonstrating its modernity the Qing court decided to approve expansion (but even then its expansion was a national guard, the provinces responsible for the units) with funding coming from the provinces and the central government. Its not the same as for example, the State artillery unit of the boers, or the modern British Army. Shandong province for example had a historical 'martial character' in Chinese provincial such that was where you went if you wanted to recruit soldiers for the army

Unik · Jan 2, 2023

Thanks for the info. And apologies for my too many questions, it's not necessary to answer them right away so take your time.
Also the Cultivation part, in the Wikipedia page the Chinese people thought Gordon could harness Qi because he seemed invincible and impervious to bullets. Which I kid you not seems highly unlikely but then again it was Imperial China so that's why I mentioned that part.

Imperator Pax · Jan 2, 2023

Unique said:
Thanks for the info. And apologies for my too many questions, it's not necessary to answer them right away so take your time.
Also the Cultivation part, in the Wikipedia page the Chinese people thought Gordon could harness Qi because he seemed invincible and impervious to bullets. Which I kid you not seems highly unlikely but then again it was Imperial China so that's why I mentioned that part.

I forgot about that story actually, I actually had to go double check.

And now that I think about it, originally this timeline was not cultivator (which in this case I mean Xianxia in genre) but had more fantasy / low magic / wuxia elements it was a more pulp fiction esque timeline, most of that has in this thread largely been dropped.

To go back to the army thing, to reiterate, China during this period had a lot of private militias this ranged from the yamen having private security to various villages (or individual villages) furnishing their own militias, to local gentry, and literati establishing provincial units, which varied widely in quality, training , discipline, and this is really one of things that made townsend ward and Gordon stand out is that emphasis on drill and unit discipline (which of course is also a trait shared with the Hui units that were brought in from out west)

Unik · Jan 2, 2023

Thanks for the info. I just can't imagine that the emperor would tolerate that. I mean soldiers not under the control of the central government means high chance of civil war. I mean did the government allowed that? Also militia under the command of the gentries isn't this a recipe for disaster? Its like anyone can raise an army. Also did the forward-thinking literati hire foreign instructors to train there troops or they could not?

Also just a global question: was the spread of military science and industry not as curtailed as it is now in the past? I mean I don't usually see countries asking Vickers-Armstrong for a new battleship or asking for new artilleries from Krupp. And I don't usually see Private owned Arsenals springing out here and there. And I don't usually see British or German officers getting hired by foreign powers. And I don't see any soldiers turned mercenaries fighting for foreign powers.

Imperator Pax · Jan 2, 2023

Unique said:
Thanks for the info. I just can't imagine that the emperor would tolerate that. I mean soldiers not under the control of the central government means high chance of civil war. I mean did the government allowed that? Also militia under the command of the gentries isn't this a recipe for disaster? Its like anyone can raise an army. Also did the forward-thinking literati hire foreign instructors to train there troops or they could not?

Also just a global question: was the spread of military science and industry not as curtailed as it is now in the past? I mean I don't usually see countries asking Vickers-Armstrong for a new battleship or asking for new artilleries from Krupp. And I don't usually see Private owned Arsenals springing out here and there. And I don't usually see British or German officers getting hired by foreign powers. And I don't see any soldiers turned mercenaries fighting for foreign powers.

Frankly the Emperors basically after Qianlong (and frankly even before him) simply didn't have the centralized control to enforce that, there was significant corruption within both the banner armies particularly those in the south, where it was functionally impossible to maintain large standing cavalry forces in the napoleonic era. So as opposed to militantly rejecting this, the empreror would coopt these local militias with personal approval and sanction (ussually by siccing them on rebels the next province over) because the Qing were dealing with a significant number of small local rebellions. (Between 1905 and 1911, there are more than a hundred rebellions in different parts of china, and during the 1860s there are a significant number of other rebellions beyond just the really big one that is the Taipings).

So basically yes, the government allowed it, in no small part due to both lack of central power projection but also, we're used to strong central governments but that is a development from ww1 that is built off of a modern (transoceanic) communication capability where, you can telegram (or by 1914) make trans oceanic phone calls to someone thousands of miles away with instructions. And as to technology yes, the technological gulf of complexity is compounded by material science, other chemistry factors, and toolmaking. Also, in the 19th century, yes german offiicers, and British soldiers in foreign service were fairly common, it was fairly common european trend its nationalism of the latter century that really kills that off than anything, but even after ww1 its still happening German mercenaries were in China in 1920s the weimar did not want Vorbek (among a couple of other high ranking generals) to go to China and be soldiers of fortune because it was perceived as embarrasing to the weimar democracy (it didn't stop other germans going, and some of those men had the official of Weimar but then Germany in that period is in a messy place)

Krupp prior to ww1 (and then after the war through subsidaries) was a major arms dealer and subcontractors they had show rooms, sales agents and catalogs and if you had money. Vickers armstrong was the same way [Most of Japan's fleet was British built, predominantly by vickers, and yeah there was some bribery involved in that, but Japan didn't have the yard space prior to ww1 to build the IJN or the money the 88 plan was well beyond what Japanese finances could support and they knew this]. DWM, there is a major french distributor that did business everything from machine guns and artillery to bicycles and typewriters before the war that shipped into africa and did business in China as well. In this period, as the cliche nobel prize goes this was an era where your major industrial firms very sold modern technology whenever there was a profit to be made and while there were attempts in 19th century to restrain this it is not until ww1 that really serious attempt to restrict the flow of technology outward for 'national security'

the literati brought predominantly prussian advisors other germans, British or french, Americans, [The Japanese do the same thing during meiji and indeed still have British advisors in the navy in the early years of Taisho, but thats more a British-Japanese alliance facet] the qing brought in russians from time to time (the qing russian relationship is weird, over its entire history its weird). This is one of those things that in 19th century especially this was just the world as it was, and this continued to a diminished extent after the war (plenty of mercenaries were active in central and eastern europe in the immediate aftermath of the first ww1, there were wars of independence, there was the civil war in russia) there were the bananna wars the US was caught up in in Latin America (that will be touched on in this timeline), the French and belgians made use of mercenaries in africa in addition to official state troops. It is a very messy time after ww1, but the government changes, and the economic consequences mark a fundamental shift in how governments worked and effectiveness before the war versus after.

ATP · Jan 2, 2023

Imperator Pax said:
Frankly the Emperors basically after Qianlong (and frankly even before him) simply didn't have the centralized control to enforce that, there was significant corruption within both the banner armies particularly those in the south, where it was functionally impossible to maintain large standing cavalry forces in the napoleonic era. So as opposed to militantly rejecting this, the empreror would coopt these local militias with personal approval and sanction (ussually by siccing them on rebels the next province over) because the Qing were dealing with a significant number of small local rebellions. (Between 1905 and 1911, there are more than a hundred rebellions in different parts of china, and during the 1860s there are a significant number of other rebellions beyond just the really big one that is the Taipings).

So basically yes, the government allowed it, in no small part due to both lack of central power projection but also, we're used to strong central governments but that is a development from ww1 that is built off of a modern (transoceanic) communication capability where, you can telegram (or by 1914) make trans oceanic phone calls to someone thousands of miles away with instructions. And as to technology yes, the technological gulf of complexity is compounded by material science, other chemistry factors, and toolmaking. Also, in the 19th century, yes german offiicers, and British soldiers in foreign service were fairly common, it was fairly common european trend its nationalism of the latter century that really kills that off than anything, but even after ww1 its still happening German mercenaries were in China in 1920s the weimar did not want Vorbek (among a couple of other high ranking generals) to go to China and be soldiers of fortune because it was perceived as embarrasing to the weimar democracy (it didn't stop other germans going, and some of those men had the official of Weimar but then Germany in that period is in a messy place)

Krupp prior to ww1 (and then after the war through subsidaries) was a major arms dealer and subcontractors they had show rooms, sales agents and catalogs and if you had money. Vickers armstrong was the same way [Most of Japan's fleet was British built, predominantly by vickers, and yeah there was some bribery involved in that, but Japan didn't have the yard space prior to ww1 to build the IJN or the money the 88 plan was well beyond what Japanese finances could support and they knew this]. DWM, there is a major french distributor that did business everything from machine guns and artillery to bicycles and typewriters before the war that shipped into africa and did business in China as well. In this period, as the cliche nobel prize goes this was an era where your major industrial firms very sold modern technology whenever there was a profit to be made and while there were attempts in 19th century to restrain this it is not until ww1 that really serious attempt to restrict the flow of technology outward for 'national security'

the literati brought predominantly prussian advisors other germans, British or french, Americans, [The Japanese do the same thing during meiji and indeed still have British advisors in the navy in the early years of Taisho, but thats more a British-Japanese alliance facet] the qing brought in russians from time to time (the qing russian relationship is weird, over its entire history its weird). This is one of those things that in 19th century especially this was just the world as it was, and this continued to a diminished extent after the war (plenty of mercenaries were active in central and eastern europe in the immediate aftermath of the first ww1, there were wars of independence, there was the civil war in russia) there were the bananna wars the US was caught up in in Latin America (that will be touched on in this timeline), the French and belgians made use of mercenaries in africa in addition to official state troops. It is a very messy time after ww1, but the government changes, and the economic consequences mark a fundamental shift in how governments worked and effectiveness before the war versus after.

Krupp in China - i read,that they delivered ammo for chineese 2 battleships in war with Japan/1894/
Both ships were germans,survived battle thanks to good armour,but failed to sink anything becouse Krupp schells were mostly duds.

Mercaneries in Europe - i read memories of fin mercanery who fought for whites and later poles against soviets.
He meet gerans here,according to him,every time soviets mede german or finn mercs they run almost without fight.
He hear 2 germans serving as HMG crew - one said to another,that they arleady killed 200 soviets,and when they kill another 100 they would come back to Germany.
They did it as kind of serving cyvilization/and for money/ but decided to retire at some point.

Imperator Pax · Jan 2, 2023

ATP said:
Krupp in China - i read,that they delivered ammo for chineese 2 battleships in war with Japan/1894/
Both ships were germans,survived battle thanks to good armour,but failed to sink anything becouse Krupp schells were mostly duds.

Mercaneries in Europe - i read memories of fin mercanery who fought for whites and later poles against soviets.
He meet gerans here,according to him,every time soviets mede german or finn mercs they run almost without fight.
He hear 2 germans serving as HMG crew - one said to another,that they arleady killed 200 soviets,and when they kill another 100 they would come back to Germany.
They did it as kind of serving cyvilization/and for money/ but decided to retire at some point.

THe problem with Krupps naval shells is that (and this is wht I've been told) is that filler they used basically is asphalt, so if improperly stored rather than burning then going boom it solidifies into a block of inert material (which is perfectly fine for non naval use because the shells aren't being exposed to sea water, and the changes in temperature) I'll have to double check that, and of course this is also a period where quality control on shells is b ad, so your high explosive shells in naval guns you might have litterally a couple hundred rounds out of a thousand fail to detonate for any number of reasons

your filler might not detonate, nevermind the fuse or cap, or any of the other moving parts in a naval shell being exposed to the conditions on a ship This is the reason the USN navy develops during this period IMR as a powder is to increase reliability in naval gunfire, where as Germany did not during this period have a large naval tradition, Krupp was very probably going 'we've built artillery for years how hard can this be?' and as it happens conditions at sea (never mind shipping the guns and the shells all the way to the pacific) are very different than build a batch of shells for the army or even coastal artillery

ATP · Jan 2, 2023

Imperator Pax said:
THe problem with Krupps naval shells is that (and this is wht I've been told) is that filler they used basically is asphalt, so if improperly stored rather than burning then going boom it solidifies into a block of inert material (which is perfectly fine for non naval use because the shells aren't being exposed to sea water, and the changes in temperature) I'll have to double check that, and of course this is also a period where quality control on shells is b ad, so your high explosive shells in naval guns you might have litterally a couple hundred rounds out of a thousand fail to detonate for any number of reasons

your filler might not detonate, nevermind the fuse or cap, or any of the other moving parts in a naval shell being exposed to the conditions on a ship This is the reason the USN navy develops during this period IMR as a powder is to increase reliability in naval gunfire, where as Germany did not during this period have a large naval tradition, Krupp was very probably going 'we've built artillery for years how hard can this be?' and as it happens conditions at sea (never mind shipping the guns and the shells all the way to the pacific) are very different than build a batch of shells for the army or even coastal artillery

Those battleships had 280mm main battery - the same like heavy coastal batteries.Which probably woud fail,too - if chineese in Porth Arhur do not surrender after short fight.

Imperator Pax · Jan 4, 2023

ATP said:
Those battleships had 280mm main battery - the same like heavy coastal batteries.Which probably woud fail,too - if chineese in Porth Arhur do not surrender after short fight.

Yes, this is true, however even by september of 1915 the British were still suffering a failure shell rate (that is duds) of between 20 and 25 percent of all shells fired

and that fact, and comparable failures by French and German crews in the war is why I I'm loath to either overly criticize Krupp's failure as unique, yes shells failed but Vickers-Armstrong was known to produce duds, and its also why I tend to take claims that corruption within the chinese government / chinese artillery bureau was to blame at least not exclusively. I don't have data on the Japanese side of things in 1895, but I wouldn't be surprised if Japanese shell fire (given their problems ten years later in the Russo-Japanese war) didn't suffer similar rates, but the Chinese problem with their 28s was that this was the primary arm of any Beiyang (Navy, not army) action and thus their failure creates this notable embarrassing issue

ATP · Jan 4, 2023

Imperator Pax said:
Yes, this is true, however even by september of 1915 the British were still suffering a failure shell rate (that is duds) of between 20 and 25 percent of all shells fired

and that fact, and comparable failures by French and German crews in the war is why I I'm loath to either overly criticize Krupp's failure as unique, yes shells failed but Vickers-Armstrong was known to produce duds, and its also why I tend to take claims that corruption within the chinese government / chinese artillery bureau was to blame at least not exclusively. I don't have data on the Japanese side of things in 1895, but I wouldn't be surprised if Japanese shell fire (given their problems ten years later in the Russo-Japanese war) didn't suffer similar rates, but the Chinese problem with their 28s was that this was the primary arm of any Beiyang (Navy, not army) action and thus their failure creates this notable embarrassing issue

That,and fact that other China Navy ships were old and need relatively few hits to get down.Their torpedo boats were slower then Japaneese cruisers!
When those two battleships soaked everything what Japan throw at them as if it was nothing.

Imperator Pax · Jan 4, 2023

ATP said:
That,and fact that other China Navy ships were old and need relatively few hits to get down.Their torpedo boats were slower then Japaneese cruisers!
When those two battleships soaked everything what Japan throw at them as if it was nothing.

This is what I would argue is more important than shell failure rate, that and doctrine. The Japanese had by this point had already adopted their version of Mahan and knew they they were going into a close range knife fight. The Beiyang fleet did not, they did not have that doctrine the Japanese were fully prepared to take serious losses by closing but were aiming for a knock out fight (this is descisive battle theory)

This goes to Japan is an island nation with the Navy as the primary military service the Royal Navy is providing advice, there are adivsors there are observerers aboard Japanese ships (just as there will be in the Russo Japanese war) and these are ships either constructed at British yards or with British engineers assisting while it is not perfect it allows a much more effective integration of modern doctrine as well as what the Japanese fleet of the day had in terms of real resources.

Imperator Pax · Jan 7, 2023

August 1917
The wide fan slowly turned in the high ceiling above his head.

At least as an opinion he held, maybe it wasn't empirical, but it certainly seemed like the thousand 'men around town, journalists of note in Peking wanted to model themselves after yankee muckrakers... and certainly that wasn't a bad thing at least not universally. On the other hand they weren't the only sort. The morning article attributed to Zhong Yin was preaching the latest Beiyang talking points about the war.

Tokutomi had no interest in aping the journalists of Boston or New York, or those who wrote for the Tribune. That was a game for younger men, and in his mid fifties now Soho wasn't that man anymore. He was probably going to nag Nakamichi to death though with an uncounted number of questions all the same.

Allen turned, "We can expect questions, but Nakamichi will keep him mostly busy."

"Just as well, Nishihara's and Cao Julin's bank people have been busy." His body posture shifted, and Bert nodded, "Yeah, that was my response since Reinsch made sure it got to the papers the first time... what do you think?"

"Lansing and Ishi are talking. It sounds mostly like Lansing is agreeing in principle to the Anglo-Japanese agreement."

Bert nodded again, "That's good right?"

The notional agreement was that between the nations involved that they would respect the operation of high signatory nationals to conduct business and construct industry, etc etc, within the region, but fundamentally the US recognized the same special status previously established in Manchuria. All that was fine. "The problem is the situation in Europe winding up. France is certainly going to complain. They complained about Siems Carey, and frankly I don't trust the French not to backtrack on this Trans Siberian business..." he trailed off, "Lansing and Ishi will work something out, that should put this business with the 21 demands idiocy back behind." Hopefully Terauchi's government could actually make good on it all, and they could start looking at other ventures.

The word at least preliminary wasn't any thing of a surprise. He'd seen the Trans Siberian during the Ruso-Japanese war and... decrepit was a good enough descriptor for parts of it... and he doubted that it had much improved in the three years the Russians had been at war. Bert grunted, "Well we have the bank drafts from Tom Boyle, and Powell has things at Urumqi ready." The eagerness had nothing to do with the job so much as leverage to handle motions within the cadre. Powell was aiming to support reforms in both the military as well as for the Middle Amerika venture and given absence this was about showing he was still here.

... the fact that he had actually called it 'the military' showed he'd been gone. Powell had seen what the signal corp had already been getting involved in with air planes... but that would be in the future. "Tell me about the banking situation?" or what had developed.

"Julin is," Bert paused, "Has Sam talked to you about public finances in this country." From his tone he clearly hadn't meant it as a question... and that he wouldn't have to be the one to address whatever was the bee that had crawled up, "Anyway Julin is absolutely going to be the center of any kind of funding, collateral for loans."

Cao Julin was a lawyer, by education. His father and grandfather had both been on at Kiangnan Arsenal. They had tried to get Julin to go into railway but instead he'd decided to study at the English Law School in Tokyo... what had since been rebranded Chuo University and was currently rebuilding from a recent bout of arson. Julin had no military experience. He was a conservative politician who had had a role in the old Qing bureaucracy and then had been in the Beiyang apparatus. Julin had been one of those Yuan had named to drafting a modern constitution for China in 1913... but that had ultimately failed to go anywhere... and well Cao had been running a bank since the previous year as a result of that.

"Zhang Xun is retiring yes?"

He paused before affirming the answer, "He is,"

"Whats his involvement?" Allen paused to glance back down from the bannister of the hotel resturant, "Given his stake in the Communications bank?"

"So far as I can tell none. He owns the stake, but," That made some degree of sense. The pigtail general had never been particularly hands on to begin with when it came to his stock ... why he had even bought shares in the bank on opening was somewhat of a mystery since he had probably never bothered to show up at any of the board meeting. Bert perked up and a little noisier than he had meant, "Are, do you think," He quieted, and leaned forward his elbows pressing down on the stained wood, "Does Zhang Xun, he has the specie of the bank?"

"I don't know," But it would have made since that Zhang had the hard currency. Still the truth was he didn't know one way or another about that. There had never been a reason to ask about it... but Bert wasn't prepared to let it go.

"But what about the silver dollars?"

"I don't know, Bert." He just thought it made sense. People were playing games. People were always playing games. "Alright Nishihara is offering a second loan, do we have a figure?"

"Twenty Million Yen, closing in about a month." That lead to the questions of the banks, "Chosen and Taiwan have both confirmed, we have that independently. IBJ is the last of the three." The Industrial Bank of Japan, which was interesting in itself, "Loan seems boilerplate, they have an advisor for restructuring on the board." Bert paused, "if they weren't so damned circumspect about talking about it I wouldn't think anything of it."

... but they'd been quiet about it with the first one... which had been smaller ... a fourth of the present loan and that had been enough for Reinsch to go running his mouth... "I want you to go ask our counterparts, see what they're short on. In particular, don't come back and tell me they're short on everything."

"They are." Bert replied sitting back on the stool, "Coal, iron, cotton, tobacco, wool, and wood. Steel, and if its on the market, oil and gold." Some of which was then be sold to Europe for the war with the benefit of the maritime trade ties of England and Japan... there were ships from South Africa to the Mediterranean flying the rising sun banner to free British ships for the Atlantic. "Food as well. Do you know how much money is in rubber? There is a big market right now, if anything food prices are too high." The production simply wasn't enough to keep up with demands for the goods... which was the scope of things... Bert blinked, "Oh, there is going to be another one coming down, once Ishi and Lansing hash things out on investment."

"If the state department is serious about the Russian far east, then Lansing and Ishi need to work something out and that means the Russians out of the game entirely."

"The French aren't going to like that."

Allen simply shrugged, "they," Neither hte French, nor the Russians had the capital to sustain an objection... not without hte British agreeing. "don't have the cash for it. If we get settled into Russia that likely means a tripartite agreement with Japan and England on the broad pacific... and potentially that could mean free trade between all of us,"

"That assumes Wilson can get that through the senate."

"Lets focus on here and now, let me know about any moves on currency, but Powell should be able to start work as soon as he's ready."

"Why the currency?"

"Because there is no way Chosen or Taiwan have that kind of capital on hand, the Industrial bank, sure, but I want to know who is actually putting Taiwan's share up because that should foreshadow what in Manchuria they're planning to invest in." Timber and gold were pretty likely candidate but there was coal, and iron too... and if Bill was right and that there was oil in the north ... that could be interesting.

Bert paused, "How do you know the Bank of Taiwan doesn't have the capital?"

"Because Akashi told me he wanted them to support his hydroelectric plan but they'd loaned out money to england their shareholders didn't want to overstretch the bank's equity." Britain was good for the money, but there was no way that their currency reserves had replenished... and Akashi was looking at the Diet to put up funding for electrification. "Also what's this about Julin getting a million yen from Mitsubishi?"

There was a small shrug, and a shake of his head, "I have no idea. It would have been the eleventh, fighting was basically done by that point so I can't see why the money would have been needed. Do you think it coincided with him becoming minister of communication?"

He mirrored the smaller man's shrug, "I don't know. It was just odd given the timing." He shrugged again, and wrapped his knuckles on the table, "We'll figure it out Bert, in the mean time we have other things to do."

Bert banged on the able at that and the wider man smiled, "that's exactly what I wanted to hear. I know but the Federal reserve has done a lot of good, when they're listened to." He shrugged, "Aldrich and Wilson did a good thing. Even if they hadn't the local banks," Meaning the old qing era financial institutions in Shansi "took a hit, we need a scientific policy in Xian. Its the consensus, a central bank, whether its modelled on the bank of England or the IBJ or yeah the Reserve. It would help us. Not everything is a mechanical problem an engineer and rivets and steel fixes."
--
And the truth was of course that the European war had created no end of ventures. The British were paying for the war, and that had meant loaning money to the French for the French, and the Russians both to turn around start buying other goods. The comment on food prices stood out.... especially with word from the states... Wilson was trying to contend with things, by involving experts from all fields.. but they'd have to see how these things would really work in practice.

Thankfully the Virginian was an ocean, and a continent away.

The agreements with the Qing laid out extensive matters of land rights, their use, and responsibilities. There was a reason that Old Man Ma trusted them to deliver his tax revenues to Peking. The old confucian general didn't care that Duan was in charge, the fixed sum of money really wasn't that much. The trust though was important. The demonstration of it.

The railways were the first things to be built, because they conveyed land rights... or they had conveyed land rights from the Qing, and then continued by Yuan Shikai, and now nominally speaking by Duan... but frankly. The agreements were in practice common law of sorts. Whether it was mines or mills what followed were the public works of housing for workers. Mess halls served food ... and that would keep food down because that food was coming now from company farms or otherwise from bulk purchases the company conducted. The construction of schools had followed, and then they needed mess halls, and that was that. It had expanded.

It was what Jun summarized as 'benevolent governance' in the modern day. She folded the newspaper over and looked at him. "What is it?" He asked.

"You are doing what with the army?"

"Sam is going to take the 2nd Regiment and his own staff and establish a second division." He replied thumbing through the papers. It was more complicated than that, but the general idea was that from there 3rd Battalion 1st Regiment would establish the 4th Regiment of Infantry's Headquarters and training battalion. 2nd Regiment would loose it 3rd Battalion to establish a training battalion as well for filling out the ranks of 2nd Division other regiments as well.

"No." She replied flatly.

She didn't clarify more than that other than she had meant something else. He kept thumbing through the paperwork, and then found Banzai's request for the steam casing work. It would have been so much easier if they hadn't forwarded it, the request, so many times... there were phones now, but the request had circled around and it should have really just been included in the gearing box work. Someone had probably broken something. Cracks in the steam case were usually easy enough work, a day or two with a good crew but even with your average yard hand it took a couple hours to strip it out and then braise the casing let it sit overnight check it and then put it back in... or someone wanted an excuse for keeping a train out of circulation... which given the lengths that the railroad had gone to keep their trains from being used to move troops south they might have still been playing that game. "How are things in Kirin? Have you heard anything?" To the best of his knowledge Ae-sin hadn't written anything to Hina, but she also proving a little more tempestuous than usual.

Jun paused over the question, "Nothing beyond the usual banditry among the forest dwellers, and hill folk. When tigers fight monkeys hide and watch."

He paused and put a letter from Noguchi aside. It would take some asking around regarding the bank of Taiwan, but Noguchi might have some insight into whatever Keiretsu was putting the money up through Chosen. He might even have the answers to both, but it would be something to ask. Shitagau was making a tidy prophet manufacturing the explosives going into naval gun shells by using the hydro electric power the dams he had built generated to make fertilizer or rather that had been their original purpose before the war... and with the IJN having cruisers in the Mediterranean, well he probably had new friends in the Japanese government.

Allen knew that the war was having an impact on the whole system of international trade. Europe's consumption of goods seemed to know no end. It was voracious... and that raised questions of production, and for the British whether American banks would continue to support the war effort... it was to that end no surprise the British had passed on the Zimmerman telegraph... but the British political system had not prior to Lloyd George been prepared to make certain steps. The Munitions ministry had a special sort of thing going for it.

The had to be fought to a knock out. That was a position that Lloyd George might still have issues with in dealing with Wilson... and there was only an ocean between the PM and President.
--
Notes: Historical though I believe it does receive a brief mention, it bears stating that the US federal reserve only came into being in December 1913 what occurs in June of 1917 is changes to how the US Gold Standard was applied, as part of plans to finance the war the US was now party to. The IBJ is as stated in this segment is the Industrial Bank of Japan and arguably the most modern and certainly most reliable bank that Japan had during this period. The Nishihara loans were quintessential 19th and 20th century Monetary Diplomacy right down to a government official going to a friend in the banking sector to advocate and underwrite loans to advance national policy.

The problem with the Nishihara loans was the optics of attempting to pursue the 21 demands that Terauchi government had for the most repudiated when they came into power as foreign policy. Now [and I'm speculating here] had Terauchi been in power in 1914 and advanced this policy to Yuan Shikai and then Duan Qirui after as opposed to the original 21 demands there would have probably been less controversy just in terms of optics of the action at the time.

The original Japanese 21 demands followed after a table of demands issued by the russian empire and that was probably the driving impetus to their sudden issuing and the perceived secrecy. Indeed as the US state department observes there was little point to the demands because outside of the last section it gave Japan nothing they didn't basically already have, and at the cost of significant good will with their Ally (great britain), and pissing off her major trading partners, and neighbors (US, China, Russia) because it looked like (and was) blatantly extortion-ary threatening. [and of course the irony is that the demands were not issued by militarists they were drafted by men with no military experience, and the idea of using monetary diplomacy came from a career army officer who had little political experience and was largely looked on as kind of an oaf]

Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

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