Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

Indeed.And, even with supplies going for soviets,they would hold there/and lost Malaya in 1943/.If they have average capable general there.
With supplies for soviets going to Singapoore,they would win.

England truly pulled defeat from jaws of victory there.

Click to shrink...

I'm going to be honest, I don't think they would win. I think Japan would pull off a pyrhic victory, and I say this because the IJA and IJN in 42 (so in the following year maybe early spring) would waste resources on that potentially even replacing Yamashita to do it, that Singapore would fall but we would be talking a hundred plus thousand Japanese casualties in three four months of fighting, and a significant amount of material expended, for not a lot gained. Denying the IJN the fuel bunkers significantly reduces Japanese operational activity in 42 and 43 and the loss of that manpower significantly reduces what Japan can do further afield, but I expect that the IJA and IJN would expend those lives to take Singapore in a hope that Britain would come to the negotiating table but just denying them the fuel bunkers would severely curtail the IJN and IJA's ability to move forces for potentially the rest of the war.

And I base this on in particular that even into 44 and 45 the IJA was of the opinion 'man if we throw a million men at the problem and we'll win and then they'll have to surrender come to terms' so I would fully expect that Japan would pursue their teppodama strategy against singapore casualties be damned

 

[ATP]

I'm going to be honest, I don't think they would win. I think Japan would pull off a pyrhic victory, and I say this because the IJA and IJN in 42 (so in the following year maybe early spring) would waste resources on that potentially even replacing Yamashita to do it, that Singapore would fall but we would be talking a hundred plus thousand Japanese casualties in three four months of fighting, and a significant amount of material expended, for not a lot gained. Denying the IJN the fuel bunkers significantly reduces Japanese operational activity in 42 and 43 and the loss of that manpower significantly reduces what Japan can do further afield, but I expect that the IJA and IJN would expend those lives to take Singapore in a hope that Britain would come to the negotiating table but just denying them the fuel bunkers would severely curtail the IJN and IJA's ability to move forces for potentially the rest of the war.

And I base this on in particular that even into 44 and 45 the IJA was of the opinion 'man if we throw a million men at the problem and we'll win and then they'll have to surrender come to terms' so I would fully expect that Japan would pursue their teppodama strategy against singapore casualties be damned

Click to shrink...

Sadly true,they would win on mountain of corpses,but in 1943 or 1944.And,as a result unable to attack Birma or take more land in China.
Czang could win cyvil war thanks to that.

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1918
Unlike the war in Europe there was no aerial component, but it was otherwise a very bloody modern war to be had. Much of the fighting had devolved into defending fortified positions as they covered a ninety mile rail course that moved south. When the railway was done, they'd allowed the labor corp to pile down and then they'd set the concrete. It was march now so it was warm enough that they could pour seventy to eighty cubic into blockhouses and that was was to be the beginning of the yard houses.

They had returned from the front as planned, rotating back as the advance settled and anchored their lines, and engineers extended rail to the junction. In a couple of days the Spring Conference would start... and this one was going to be different than previous... not the least of which was the changes in the war.

The proposal itself was undated, and the fact that attached separately the usual spiel about concentrating the army's forces and maintaining momentum it was clear what direction the response was supposed to go. It was a memorandum in the Staff Letterhead Format for English publications of the Imperial Japanese War College. Nakamichi clearly hadn't written it, but on the other hand he'd been the one to deliver it... and he was antsy. "Who else did this circular go out to?" Allen asked... Pershing maybe, god never mind that Black Jack might have, and what if they'd sent this to General Wood...

Nakamichi didn't admit to sending it to the States, but that didn't mean someone else wouldn't have... Shinbei maybe... and if not him any of a dozen intermediaries who kept the lines of dialogue open, "I am aware that we have requested British consultation of the proposal." He replied, which was probably true, almost certainly true but was also a clearly evasive answer... and well... he knew that Balfour had run off at the mouth to once of Ishii's subordinates and the Japanese were concerned.

There was nothing particularly novel about the paper's conclusions. It was evolution not revolution. First and foremost it reiterated the great expense and difficulty that mobilization entailed... same verse different year. Allen completely sympathized with the complaint that congress didn't give the army enough money for everything that the congressed asked the army to do, but he also had to see the other picture. That their cash register only had so much money coming in as well to cover those expenses.

Old Man Yamagata wanted fiscal responsibility, and he wanted Japan to be reliable in her debt payments, and her ability to extend loans to her allies when she could and that sentiment was broadly shared among the old gentlemen of the Meiji era. It might not have been popular, but the old men had a point.

"First and foremost, mobilization is expensive," That was an understatement, god, that was an understatement they had all seen the estimates for the amount of money the British needed for six months of fighting, "and forty divisions for an active war time army is certainly the minimum." It was a nice conservative agreement with the papers put out since 1914... and weighing carefully his next words, "The Bolsheviks, are not going to be like the Boxer Rebellion," He thought of the Winchester Rifles that Zhong Tidao's troops considered themselves lucky to have in the fighting to the south, "This is not going to be the sort of thing that sending fifth division in will suffice, and frankly sending two divisions won't cut it." Their conversation turned to an excepted table of measures of divisional frontage, and there were a series of back and forth about what could be done ... on the cheap as it were in order to secure the Diet's approval but withot compromising the ability to do things.

Maybe it was the mathematics, maybe it was to be geography perhaps the diet had been just needing the excuse or was being performative and had planned to agree all along maybe it was that Terauchi had given his blessing for Iseburo to take a railway crew not just to preside over Manchuria 'for the emergency', which itself would have provoked some disagreements anyway, but that he could engage in the 'international railway mission' as the British Charge d'affaires to Tokyo had described to the Japanese PM.

Whatever actually tipped the scales, later in the month Japan's would approve a contribution to allied intervention to total five divisions. Certain members of the Diet would complain, but they could do little when Terauchi approached not just Duan Qirui, prior to his return to the premiership even, but also Zhang Tsolin in Manchuria about cobelligerent contributions to fight but that would be a couple of weeks...

In the mean time. The door thrummed open one slamming into the other side the other being caught as it swung by the officer who just managed to avoid be knocked flat. Percy was about gassed from the excitement. "The Bolshies have made peace with the Germans," He managed stumbling in and almost knocking Nakamachi down. "its terrible. Pardon, me sorry there,"

The documents were crumbled, and a mess but Percy's demeanor was a greater descriptor than any single word like terrible. Brest Litovsk was a fortress. The most immediate thought was that the Germans had bound themselves to the land. There was no way the Germans could readily reallocate forces with all this lost territory... but all the same the creation of German protectorates, ceding lands to the turks, the loss of the baltics... on the other hand

...he drummed his fingers, and looked around the room, searching...

on the other hand Allen had to move over to an almanac that was six years out of date dated 1912, and thus referred to production years earlier still. Forget the financial indemnity, he ran down the proud charts, the pride of Russia's attempts to modernize, "The bolsheviks just signed away the majority of their steel and iron." Which of course to be sure Percy had to know... the peace of Brest Litovsk signed away the French Sphere of Influence in Russia to Germany, and the British one to the Ottomans, and then some. He licked finger to page through the book he hadn't opened in probably three years.

He started so suggest that Nakamichi use the telephone, but the office line started to ring... and it seemed as if the whole lot of the shit started to roll down hill. The bolsheviks had made peace with the central powers, and faced with that the English began to scramble for solutions, and that had meant telling their allies.

What Lenin had agreed to was not the sort of peace Wilson had had in mind. It was not a peace without victors, and for France and England the notion that such a peace might allow the Germans to force a similar one on them in turn upending the table... and also that he doubted that the French and English were happy about having their 'bits' of influence in russia abrogated by the Bolsheviks was a feather ruffling experience as well.


No one pointed out to Percy that a decade ago no one would have fathomed dividing up Russia into spheres of influence like what Kerensky had agreed to last year.... but now White Hall and Paris were acting as if it was darkest Africa and such. In looking back the reason such objections probably thereafter dimmed was not Russian status France's counter weight but because how the Japanese and US might have taken such talks... or Italy.

And the phones would buzz and ring for days. There were to be other factors as well as word came by other methods, as in November of the previous year when it had been none of their business to care the Kokand peoples in central asia had declared independence. Central Asia taken as a grand whole was actually fewer people than Shensi, about 11 million people estimated... but in a riot of the draft in 1916 the Hui had become involved and Xian by proxy after the fact. The Ma clique would hasten to characterize the February massacres and the Basmachi resistance that followed as akin to Bai Lang's predations. That was that the red guards were bandits.

The Ma Clique wanted access to the railway lines to go in, and send off some of their young braggarts to get fighting experience. That was the excuse, in all likelihood Allen suspected their were other incentives, or encouragements... or just as likely that potential competitors within the clique were being sent abroad in anticipation that they could either not be around during a succession or that they could prove their bonafides. More importantly the changes in western China introduced the ability for the old Ma clique to interact in away that hadn't really been possible since the Dugan revolts of the late 19th​ century... something that the British may well have intended to take advantage of.

They also could do recruiting as well. The Russian Civil War would prove ripe recruiting grounds for experienced hands.

 

[ATP]

Central Asia was taken by tsar about 1876 if i remember correctly,and Russian going further almost manage to start war with England over India at least twice.
Interesting TL to write.

But,there was peace - and people who after WW1 try to become independent,but get crushed by soviets.Here,they could get their own state,if somebody deliver modern weapons.
Russian captured Chiwa in 1876,becouse they fought with modern rifles and artillery agaist muskets.

About costs of mobilization - if tey decide to made cheap dyvisions to hold front with rifles and little artillery made from conspricts,and few elite uits on trucks with lots of artillery,then they could get
working army relatively cheaply.

Not all dyvisions need to be stormtroopers,after all.And well trained farmers with rifles and showels could hold the line well enough.

It would be as if you have only SS and Hitlerjugend mixed with Volksturm !

 

[Imperator Pax]

Central Asia was taken by tsar about 1876 if i remember correctly,and Russian going further almost manage to start war with England over India at least twice.
Interesting TL to write.

But,there was peace - and people who after WW1 try to become independent,but get crushed by soviets.Here,they could get their own state,if somebody deliver modern weapons.
Russian captured Chiwa in 1876,becouse they fought with modern rifles and artillery agaist muskets.

About costs of mobilization - if tey decide to made cheap dyvisions to hold front with rifles and little artillery made from conspricts,and few elite uits on trucks with lots of artillery,then they could get
working army relatively cheaply.

Not all dyvisions need to be stormtroopers,after all.And well trained farmers with rifles and showels could hold the line well enough.

It would be as if you have only SS and Hitlerjugend mixed with Volksturm !

Click to shrink...

Here the current working draft is Cossacks migrate into Imperial Central Asia to get away from the Bolsheviks and the Central Asian population of c. 1916 IIRC is about ten million total, so that migration out Ukraine and the don in the east is fairly noticeable to set up a white russian, that is opposed to the 'red' bolsheviks, with nominal English support (This was actually an idea the British thought, but like many things suggested to contain the Revolution never went anywhere because it wasn't practical and there was opposition in government to boot) and even here that mostly boils down the British support is Lloyd George dumping a bunch of surplus weapons in their lap and going make the best of it in the twenties

--

And in many respects what you're hitting on is comparable to how Xian organizes her National Guard Infantry Divisions like 2nd. Class B recruits, standard training, standard long rifles, Maxims to anchor supported by artillery to hold positions, with Engineering battalions at Division level overseeing fortification construction. Rifle divisions 1st and 3rd are basically expeditionary warfare units for maneuver warfare. Everyone gets a shovel, but not everyone is expected to do this 3 day ruck across country.

 

[ATP]

Here the current working draft is Cossacks migrate into Imperial Central Asia to get away from the Bolsheviks and the Central Asian population of c. 1916 IIRC is about ten million total, so that migration out Ukraine and the don in the east is fairly noticeable to set up a white russian, that is opposed to the 'red' bolsheviks, with nominal English support (This was actually an idea the British thought, but like many things suggested to contain the Revolution never went anywhere because it wasn't practical and there was opposition in government to boot) and even here that mostly boils down the British support is Lloyd George dumping a bunch of surplus weapons in their lap and going make the best of it in the twenties

--

And in many respects what you're hitting on is comparable to how Xian organizes her National Guard Infantry Divisions like 2nd. Class B recruits, standard training, standard long rifles, Maxims to anchor supported by artillery to hold positions, with Engineering battalions at Division level overseeing fortification construction. Rifle divisions 1st and 3rd are basically expeditionary warfare units for maneuver warfare. Everyone gets a shovel, but not everyone is expected to do this 3 day ruck across country.

Click to shrink...

Pity,that it not worked in OTL.And even here,once soviets start mass producing tanks,those Cossacks would have problem with surviving.

Xian dyvisions - seems sensible.In 1935 in Poland general Kutrzeba,our best commander,was asked by HQ how to deal with german tank dyvisions.
He proposed few lines of light fortyfications on roads which germans must take/polish roads was bad for trucks,and tank dyvisions need them/ ,small motorized AT units to slow them more,and gathering best units on flanks to attack them.

It was never accepted,dunno why.Poland would fall anyway,but after 1-2 moths of additional fighting.

By the way,that is what your China could do here - i beat,that there are few roads which could be used by bigger armies - just build few lines of light bunkers there.Relatively cheap,and would gave you time for reaction.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pity,that it not worked in OTL.And even here,once soviets start mass producing tanks,those Cossacks would have problem with surviving.

Xian dyvisions - seems sensible.In 1935 in Poland general Kutrzeba,our best commander,was asked by HQ how to deal with german tank dyvisions.
He proposed few lines of light fortyfications on roads which germans must take/polish roads was bad for trucks,and tank dyvisions need them/ ,small motorized AT units to slow them more,and gathering best units on flanks to attack them.

It was never accepted,dunno why.Poland would fall anyway,but after 1-2 moths of additional fighting.

By the way,that is what your China could do here - i beat,that there are few roads which could be used by bigger armies - just build few lines of light bunkers there.Relatively cheap,and would gave you time for reaction.

Click to shrink...

This is going up in spoilers, anyone wants to read it constitutes the broad chain of events from the arc conclusion and its knock on effects along with other changes this an abridged version.

Spoiler: the Russian Civil War

So when this arc concludes it concludes with the dispatch, with the snippet series that went up a couple years ago now of Lloyd George's government to support an expedition ahead of the main White Force to rescue the Tsar this is forthcoming in July of 1918, its success its mostly a propaganda victory. No one really wants Nicholas II to resume his throne but he's a useful figurehead against the Bolsheviks, and preventing the death of the Tsar and his family before the Whites seize the city is one more propaganda mark against the Reds. Additionally there are more and heavier capacity rail lines operating or being constructed.

One of those is the Central Asian line, but in order to get around the Diet's attempts at restrictions Terauchi is able to establish a Japanese railway concession in the far east of Siberia with Yamagata Iseburo as nominal chief engineeer and operating officer, which conveys to it satsuma military cliques and thus greater political support at home. Terauchi's government will still fall due to inflation, and the rice riots, but its not sufficiently discreditted to allow the succeeding administration to withdraw from the Terauchi governments commitments especially not after the Red Cavalry is defeated in detail at Irkutsk, and that is domestically at home what saves the Japanese Intervention in the 'far east' politically is a Japanese victory

That victory is made possible and that support is shored up by other factors in the east.

The Tsars eventual withdrawl to the UK, the Czech legion side of thing and others involves more than just Japan. So As i've mentioned there is an attempt aimed at Nicholas II during an English post war honors ceremony that results KGV taking a bullet to the shoulder from behind. Its not fatal, it will contribute to George the Fifth's deteroriating health and thus Edward and George VI coming to the thrones sooner respectively but it creates for the UK additional anti-soviet political pressure that allows the English and the French to offload more surplus weapons post war to anti-soviet belligerents, to provide other aid

Additionally the Soviets never recover the Tsar's gold reserves. Czech legion is able to buy passage out through Central Asia's rail line, which the US State Department claims credit for but its really the Czech commanders going 'we have all this gold, if you get us the fuck out of this country, we can make a deal'.

Lenin dies a little sooner, complications of him shot in a train station, high blood pressure leading to his historical series of strokes, and a weaker soviet position overall. Lenin dying sooner means the soviet in fighting intensifies. Stalin still comes to power, but thats mostly on comrade notecards ability to organize his people which while less glamorous he's also banking on failures by others. So Stalin while able to hold the old Russian heartland is stuck in wars in the west, and cut off from former eastern possessions. The end result is that by the late twenties Stalin's foreign service has to make the decision to accept a League of Nation position that requires them (for now) to accept the post Imperial borders as part of the overall peace settlement.

The result is the survival of a White Russian Kirghiz / Central Asia, a Japanese Puppet state in eastern Siberia, and unfavorable borders in the west with Poland and the Baltics much as historically. The Soviet Union going into the thirties is starting to recover but its less financially able historically and thus the Soviets don't have the ability to make good on recovering the far east or Central Asia before the Nazis invade. Realistically to the Soviets, and to the Imperial Russians the Polish territories were always more important in terms of economic productivity. There is more population, its more developed its better connected to Europe fighting in Asia is about prestige, and while Stalin wants the old sphere of influence back he doesn't get the chance to act on it before Hitler shouts surprise

Motorized AT units are really the big thing thats new in that thinking, Fortifying the roads, classic strategies are still valid, they don't have to b e huge they just have to slow the other guy down for you to have time to maneuver. Thats time you can redeploy and make him bleed more, and if you concentrate the best units on the flank, you could theoretically turn it. If I had to guess it probably got rejected for cost

In China. With Xian's geography, there are very few good roads that link what Japan would be able to hold once the railways going from the coast inland are torn up. It will in WW2 take Xian years to be ready to launch a counter offensive, but it can at least stop the Japanese at their limit of projection, and with Japan's chronic supply issues. Yeah it has to trade some land, it loses western Zhili, Zhengzhou and Shijiazhuang falls, but Shensi and Shansi are protected by geographic means that it really bogs down into WW 1 style western front fighting that Japan is not supplied to fight in 1940. [Even IchiGo was highly dependent on both the navy and the coastal rail]

And honestly I would like to do at some point a timeline where the soviets can be realistically headed off at the pass, but I can't see a way looking at Wilson's papers to convince his dumbass to see reason, to in short someone needs to replace him and commit while there is time an combined anglo-american force supporting a russian force with the logistics to take both petersburg and moscow, and in 1918 that is a big ask. In a world without superpowers, mind control and super tech thats hard to swing I just can't see a realistic institutional way towards that.

I mean if the soviets go full stupid and trotsky does try to bridge to Europe some shit? Frankly I see him overextending and the attack crumbles, but no body getting together to plant an axe in his face so thats why thats not an option here.

 

[ATP]

This is going up in spoilers, anyone wants to read it constitutes the broad chain of events from the arc conclusion and its knock on effects along with other changes this an abridged version.

Spoiler: the Russian Civil War

So when this arc concludes it concludes with the dispatch, with the snippet series that went up a couple years ago now of Lloyd George's government to support an expedition ahead of the main White Force to rescue the Tsar this is forthcoming in July of 1918, its success its mostly a propaganda victory. No one really wants Nicholas II to resume his throne but he's a useful figurehead against the Bolsheviks, and preventing the death of the Tsar and his family before the Whites seize the city is one more propaganda mark against the Reds. Additionally there are more and heavier capacity rail lines operating or being constructed.

One of those is the Central Asian line, but in order to get around the Diet's attempts at restrictions Terauchi is able to establish a Japanese railway concession in the far east of Siberia with Yamagata Iseburo as nominal chief engineeer and operating officer, which conveys to it satsuma military cliques and thus greater political support at home. Terauchi's government will still fall due to inflation, and the rice riots, but its not sufficiently discreditted to allow the succeeding administration to withdraw from the Terauchi governments commitments especially not after the Red Cavalry is defeated in detail at Irkutsk, and that is domestically at home what saves the Japanese Intervention in the 'far east' politically is a Japanese victory

That victory is made possible and that support is shored up by other factors in the east.

The Tsars eventual withdrawl to the UK, the Czech legion side of thing and others involves more than just Japan. So As i've mentioned there is an attempt aimed at Nicholas II during an English post war honors ceremony that results KGV taking a bullet to the shoulder from behind. Its not fatal, it will contribute to George the Fifth's deteroriating health and thus Edward and George VI coming to the thrones sooner respectively but it creates for the UK additional anti-soviet political pressure that allows the English and the French to offload more surplus weapons post war to anti-soviet belligerents, to provide other aid

Additionally the Soviets never recover the Tsar's gold reserves. Czech legion is able to buy passage out through Central Asia's rail line, which the US State Department claims credit for but its really the Czech commanders going 'we have all this gold, if you get us the fuck out of this country, we can make a deal'.

Lenin dies a little sooner, complications of him shot in a train station, high blood pressure leading to his historical series of strokes, and a weaker soviet position overall. Lenin dying sooner means the soviet in fighting intensifies. Stalin still comes to power, but thats mostly on comrade notecards ability to organize his people which while less glamorous he's also banking on failures by others. So Stalin while able to hold the old Russian heartland is stuck in wars in the west, and cut off from former eastern possessions. The end result is that by the late twenties Stalin's foreign service has to make the decision to accept a League of Nation position that requires them (for now) to accept the post Imperial borders as part of the overall peace settlement.

The result is the survival of a White Russian Kirghiz / Central Asia, a Japanese Puppet state in eastern Siberia, and unfavorable borders in the west with Poland and the Baltics much as historically. The Soviet Union going into the thirties is starting to recover but its less financially able historically and thus the Soviets don't have the ability to make good on recovering the far east or Central Asia before the Nazis invade. Realistically to the Soviets, and to the Imperial Russians the Polish territories were always more important in terms of economic productivity. There is more population, its more developed its better connected to Europe fighting in Asia is about prestige, and while Stalin wants the old sphere of influence back he doesn't get the chance to act on it before Hitler shouts surprise

Motorized AT units are really the big thing thats new in that thinking, Fortifying the roads, classic strategies are still valid, they don't have to b e huge they just have to slow the other guy down for you to have time to maneuver. Thats time you can redeploy and make him bleed more, and if you concentrate the best units on the flank, you could theoretically turn it. If I had to guess it probably got rejected for cost

In China. With Xian's geography, there are very few good roads that link what Japan would be able to hold once the railways going from the coast inland are torn up. It will in WW2 take Xian years to be ready to launch a counter offensive, but it can at least stop the Japanese at their limit of projection, and with Japan's chronic supply issues. Yeah it has to trade some land, it loses western Zhili, Zhengzhou and Shijiazhuang falls, but Shensi and Shansi are protected by geographic means that it really bogs down into WW 1 style western front fighting that Japan is not supplied to fight in 1940. [Even IchiGo was highly dependent on both the navy and the coastal rail]

And honestly I would like to do at some point a timeline where the soviets can be realistically headed off at the pass, but I can't see a way looking at Wilson's papers to convince his dumbass to see reason, to in short someone needs to replace him and commit while there is time an combined anglo-american force supporting a russian force with the logistics to take both petersburg and moscow, and in 1918 that is a big ask. In a world without superpowers, mind control and super tech thats hard to swing I just can't see a realistic institutional way towards that.

I mean if the soviets go full stupid and trotsky does try to bridge to Europe some shit? Frankly I see him overextending and the attack crumbles, but no body getting together to plant an axe in his face so thats why thats not an option here.

Click to shrink...

1.Probably That,and in polish army we have problems with making final decision about almost anytching - for example,when they finally decided which new trucks we need,and start building factory,it would start working in 1940.I would be not suprised,if it worked for germans later.
Even about what get from France for their credit - we could get 200 Ms 406 in OTL,but unfortunatelly initially decide to wait for D.520,and when we changed our minds,it was too late.
Pity.Bad decision is still better then no decision at all.

2.Very probably,Japan logistic sucked.It is kind of dark miracle,how they manage to take so much in OTL.Well,british intelectually challenged geniuses in Malaya helped,but still....

3.There is one possibility - after we crushed them on Vistula,Wrangel proposed cooperation,and France&USA promised war materials and money/no troops/,when Romania actually promised few dyvisions,Hungary,too.

If we agree,it would be end of soviets.Unfortunatelly,our commander,Piłsudski,rfefused,probably becouse his hate for Russia.
Or mistaken belif,that Western powers would never made deal with soviets,so it would be better to keep Russia red.
When they could sell us to whites.

But,it could be avoided - Piłsudski un OTL resigned as commander 12.08.1920,and go see family,come back 17.08.1920 and was reinstalled as commander.Premier hide it,but if he made it public ,sacked him and asked some french general /or american/ for leader of anti-red Crusade,it would worked.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Minor short Fragment Notes

This is a kind of distinction between European politics in Zemo, Distant Thunder, and AoE

In Zemo WW1 basically starts as scheduled. Zemo doesn't have the time or ability to get away from it. In Thunder there is a large european war there is an equivalency to WW1 but it s actually more messy in the current draft (We will get to that when I eventually get around to start posting more of that content here it is being brought up because of the Naval and industrial repercussions it has on the timeline). In AoE (the primary timeline of this thread since I don't update 1632 as frequently as I had planned to originally) WW1 unfolds and opens much as per history with the cadre being economically invested in an entente victory.

So from the top Zemo is Central Powers victory, AoE is historical Entente Victory. Thunder is a fractricidal mess because not only does it start earlier its multipolar because the short answer is Blame Russia, but also its the naval race that takes place in that timeline, its the integration of the anglo-american industry and the Japanese relations in the pacific basically here the Russo-Japanese war and the moroccan crisis come too close together on top of other events in the early 20th century so you get a naval shooting fight in the med that no one wanted and no one wants to back down from and thats the short answer. Zemo is the least naval timeline and the most compact in its current form but also because Zemo is a combination of working from geographic realities of the conflict, having both Marvel Zemo supervillian abilities and 21st century back knowledge of the conflict prosecutes the war differently. AoE is mostly economic involvement, Xian is not a full fledged government until 1920, and its latin american counter part doesn't fully stand up until later than that.

So Zemo first foremost is the intelligence / psychological operations of the war, I've already teased part of this portion of the timeline with the reference to cartoons, and propaganda but among other things Zemo has agents in the United states public, particularly in the midwest and in the south arguments for things like Cash and Carry, statements about which ships historically are not only carrying arms and ammunition but also carrying more than they are declaring they're carrying (shipping companies were for insurance reasons supposed to declare for safety reasons these things, because its a hazard especially in port), but also commenting on the war effort, on how American loans are being used for France to buy up wheat futures and that is driving up the price of grain and thus effecting Chicago's bread prices for example and a host of other multi pronged psychological operations aimed through US media through different agents but also for dropping large bombshells like revealing sykes picot, banging on about '17 french war plans', slandering Edward Gray with rumors. At the same time German operations for the intelligence war are aimed at portraying the french negatively again targeting the reputations of people like Edward Gray, hitting Lloyd George in certain circles, but also on the front lines by emphasizing a focus on the French forces.

Now on that Zemo has limits to what he can do. Falkenhyn sends him east but still plans Verdun, and that sucks in the majority of the French Reserve while Zemo is in the east, and that culminates in the eastern front Zemo relying on both foreknowledge of strategy and the geography for example galicia to wipe out planned concentric offenses and carry out things like Albion that directly threaten the Russian capital. In the grand scope of the timeline thats really what secures Zemo's political leadership in the wake of Romania jumping into the war is Wilhelm II loses his nerve when Romania jumps in and then the Russians surrender shortly thereafter (lenin is dead by that point, von Kroenen goes to Geneva and takes care of that problem on Zemo's behalf, Trotsky is still around and Stalin but thats for later) and Zemo pretty heavily relies on the political frontage of the Catholic Center Party to feel out political considerations with the United States and leveraging motions to get Wilson to cut the tap of war efforts

So by the time the Somme offensive is brought forward Zemo comes back to the west, blunts the offensive, by taking most of the troops who were in the east leaving that side pretty wide open, but then encircles and destroys the majority of the French army that is already over committed by that point, and thats the war because he is defacto in charge of the German Army and the German state, and with France broken as an army he has hollweg publicize a German interest in a white peace along wilson's lines. Not because he expects the french and british to accept that but because the British have six weeks left of liquid cash reserves to run operations on, and no significant reserves (because the Russians never sent there gold reserves). The end result is that Russia basically loses pretty much all of their non core. Baltics, Finland, Poland regain independence, Japan gets a telegram saying "If you want Tsingtao thats fine, but you know Siberia is open now if you want it." its a political divide and conquer strategy based around taking individual forces off the field, but its also neo realpolitik because Zemo wants his NATO/EU equivalent to insure Russia doesn't get back up again as well as rebuild europe as a reintegrated economy but with Russia out of the war and no US intervention forthcoming the CP wins. Thats anabridged summary as I said early its the least naval of the timelines, Zemo is very distrustful of the navy and so is the political faction that grows up around him. That includes a non neutral Belgium, it includes a belgium that has a walloon speaking government in the German sphere of influence with German troops and a german alliance post war.

Thunder as a timeline. France and America spend the last half of the 19th century dickering over colonies. Imperial America also gets into it with Spain, there is an off an on Spanish-French entente but the result is that there are a handful of political partnerships. France loses to Prussia in short order, but Napoleon III frames it as a Protestant versus Catholic war in rhetoric. the north German confederation has to back off from including Bavaria, there is a more divided central Europe as a result there is a greater german movement within prussia aimed at denmark and the baltics which creates tensions with Russia. Also Franco-Russian relations are friendly this reduces the ability of a three empires or four kingdoms alliance further. Italy and Austria are in a constant struggle, Italy and France are still in a constant problem. The Med is uncomfortably tense by the time ships likes Dreadnought and South Carolina hit the water in the current draft they're going directly into a war.

This effects how the multi pronged fight goes. French versus US, Anglo versus Russian, Japanese versus Russian. Italian and German wildcards and this is initially just a naval conflict and its largely based overseas the flash points are from the central centers of power but the rhetoric escalates and eventually in 06 and 07 mobilization begins of land armies. Central Europe is a powder keg with no real strong central governments so there is a lot of maneuver warfare that follows. Thats not a war plan that the Americans or the British were prepared for, and that means the bulk of the fighting on the continent starts with their mobilization, and it takes everyone else to catch up.

AoE politically we're moving into the conclusion of the war. Xian is fast approaching where it is going to have to start addressing the victor's peace, because its known about sykes picot for a while. Its known about the backroom negotations of the French and English and their double dealing over the division of territory, and when Versailles is dropped there is unrest, and there is also the 1920 depression that begins and that forces political and economic changes but also forces XIan to start contending with the reality that Peking no longer is the de facto able to organize everyone. Fengtien Zhili, Anhui are all vying among Beiyang affiliated forces to be in charge but its just continuing to divide the north and expend resources and that forces change. Xian as a result begins a process of distilling down lessons learned from WW1 Xian's universal short rifle is a mauser action but its along the lines in the 1920 configuration of the patern 1914 or the model 1917 just in 8mm this is about economic production of the rifle at scale because Xian is still growing its army as the warlord era intensifies there is a necessity to increase troop numbers but at the same time XIan as a government policy is to produce more consumer goods, to expand housing and education domestically now part of that is to get around the trade war that France starts in the 20s with all of the form Entente and everyone then proceeds to respond tit for tat and the result is no one wins that one.

But in AoE ww1 is the opportunity that facilitates the growth of business and manufacturing both for domestic needs and for export because all of Europe's collective production is getting redirected towards the war effort and its still not enough.
--
And since we're on the subject of primary service rifles if only briefly even by 1917 the German Army in Zemo's timeline is still largely fielding 8mm Mausers this is despite the mass adoption of submachine guns, and intermediary caliber rifles in this timeline because masses of the army in Jan 17 are the land reserve forces. In Thunder America and the Japanese, and the British are all running initially variations of the Remington-Lee Rifle with England, and the America adopting versions of what might be recognized as the Pattern 1913 as a war simplification . Xian is using a heavier 200gr 8mm Mauser, and will make the jump from a 98 pattern variant to shorter barrel Pattern 1914 / model 1917 style rifle as again a cost expediency

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1918

Before the Qing Banking Crisis of the 1900s Shensi had had its share of powerful family controlled banks... but there had been provincial disputes, some of that went down to things in Canton, some of it went to changes in banking in Shanghai... and some of it was entirely honestly a fault of Peking's inability to maintain federal control... and to maintain the infrastructure. To maintain the locks and the levies that made the canal such a marvel... and also kept the rivers from blowing out over their banks as had happened with Tietsin last year.

Since banks tended to be involved in loans to agriculture, here and in the states, and since China was a largely agrarian country crop failures had had repercussions on banking clans just like they would have had on banking corporations back home.

That wasn't the singular problem Shensi faced. There had also had, after the banking collapse, as part of the Xinghai revolt its share of revolutionary violence... and grievance settling masquerading as revolutionary violence. It was telling though, at least in John Allen's opinion, that Xian as an urban municipality had not seen disturbances after the onset of the so called 2nd​ revolution... but having been four years since Bai Lang had been defeated at Xian's eastern boundary... four years had proven to be a long time when one factored the economic growth that demand for goods had created... and that had changed the city.

It certainly hadn't helped that there had been a general policy of mostly benign neglect from the old government apparatus. That wasn't unique to Shensi, neighboring Shansi had had the same problem, worse even since Yan had a serious problem keeping the best and brightest of his province committed to working local that was easier for a larger city like Xian to handle compared to Taiyuan.

Because Xian was comparable in population to New York there was a population and demand for goods and services that needed to be brought in that coincided with electrification... or even beyond it. That meant branching out. To use Soho's example the Cadre were the old firms, and there were new firms coming in to answer new market conditions created by demands in the market, but all could be considered Zaibatsu. Soho knew his Adam Smith.

That meant encouraging banking apparatus, but making sure that there were safety measures in place. The sort of thing they could have applied by differing means two years ago, hook or crook, carrot or stick so to speak because they had city in being... but now as de jure and de facto together governing body there were other options. The Constitution wouldn't go into effect for another year and a half, but the basis for its organization, and rules ... its skeleton of sort were already going into effect and that went beyond delineating a new organization township county and the provincial side of things.

Waite looked at the parties assembled in the civic center... the very new civic center... then he blew out a breath, "Guess we drew the short end of the stick, Bertie getting to run herd over the school debut." With Bill tagging along with him, but the truth was they needed more primary schools, and sooner rather than later. "We should be fucking glad though that the war has meant everyone has an income tax, makes things a lot easier to point to."

Taxes were going to be unpopular.. but it was necessary. If they were going to be government there were certain public goods that needed to be paid for, "Schools are going to be one of those things, and unlike the Juren they'll be no class restrictions."

"They won't be iron rice bowls neither." Waite replied. "I'm not opposed to lifetime employment but the Qing's scholar system had other drawbacks, much as I think we need to promote men from off the floor to running shops where we can." Efficiency was best figured out by knowing what needed to be made, and where you could change the process to speed things up while keeping quality up there... and just as much keeping the tooling up to date. "The Qing system was broken before we got here." The eight legged essay had been gone well before they'd started laying railway tracks, never mind started braising steam cases for locomotive engines... never mind before steel mills had started turning iron ore into bar stock and pig iron. "But that's getting up and ahead, Bert's got to do his bit," Waite stretched, making a show of cracking his thick neck side to side, "And we've got ours." The intention here was diversification of market to expand and encourage to expand the wealth by encouraging hands idle, or underutilized to take up trades and options that were in demand but not being satisfied.

Since the men were paid in the customs dollar, which was easy to convert from either British Pound or the American dollar, they'd have a stable currency to purchase goods from without any of the uncertainty of ... well the previously issued provincial currencies or the for that matter Copper 'dimes' which were still commonly in use and had been locally minted during the Qing era. There were plenty of currencies that didn't even use machine minting in circulation, and there was little the Qing had been able to do about it, and even less that Peking today could do. Eventually though Xian's lender of last resort, the central bank would get to the point of issuing its own currency, but that would be later. That would be well after provincial state power had taken on more national characteristics and after the last vestiges of Peking's legitimacy had faded.

--
There was a slight hum from the machine and its light, and Shellman adjusted the dials on the machine.

The film didn't mean anything to them, best summarized as Bill hunched forward and squinted at the produced image of black and white, "What the hell is that?" He demanded in a pronounced Texas drawl highlighting his annoyed frustration.

"Its an Xray." The Navy doctor replied. "Of what should ordinarily be a young man in the peak of... the scarring of his lungs as a result of the pneumonia from complications of grip. They are extremely atypical. I've never seen this before... and certainly not in a boy of twenty three."

There were glances around. "And?"

"Yeah, what do we do?"

The muttering at the saw bones continued, and then died out... and then the speculating started. In 1913 the flu season had been bad enough to warrant a mention in some papers, but not for people to go around talking about biblical proportions... and Europe hadn't been at war either. Travel had been normal and San Franciso to Shanghai was a standard pacific line.

"Reckon it must have started in Brussels," He meant Belgium as a country, "1914 there are field hospital reports and then men invalided back to England." The navy man replied, "We think it jumped in a ship rode down to Australia and probably South Africa. It must have gotten worse somewhere along the way. Still... its why the port cities are getting the worst of it, it gets in an army camp and then can be passed around." He paused again, before getting down to the matter which had probably been the entire reason the cadre had been convened.

Money... specifically money for education, money for medicine programs, but also for quarantine, facilities, abilities to place restrictions on rail traffic along the lines, and other things. There wasn't anything in writing... not officially but it was a play to put a plank down to what they were responsible for, to set policy or at least start writing policy for the future.

It was ultimately two different requests for 'public capital' or public goods. Education spending, and Government involvement in public health. They needed no reminder further that 'Imperialism', was that the word was neologism coined by some smartass with a pen readily taken up to offer social criticism but described phenomenon that were not ancient, but wholly modern. The word had only entered use as the boxer rebellion had sprung up after all

A distinction existed within the idealist and realist camps of the Cadre. It was not the only axes, or division in thought that existed inside a body of hundred men with influence and it created packets of of dispersion. The US Senate was only ninety six members after all... and though Reinsch had made that same observation and though the minister thought it good that the Cadre's body of new members who were Chinese he objected that they were military officers from within the company's ranks. Not a lawyer or churchman in sight.

Reinsch disagreed with that, but it didn't make the cadre a monolithic block. This conversation though did further build on the three principles that Xian would establish on what governments should involve themselves first and foremost in. Those Public Goods.

Such conversations, such consensus were to be the bedrock to building an apparatus that at its foundation was an organization not dependent on singular individuals to operate. Personal relationships were all well and good but there also needed to be bureaucratic and institutional knowledge that could build up from those individual connections.
--

 

[ATP]

Spanish flu,which,as you mentioned,in fact not started in Spain.Well,as long as they do not use aspirin,like in USA,they should be fine.

Education - ancient China had sophiscitated education - but,they need modern one.China fell,becouse they decide that they arleady knew everytching,and rest of the world should kowtow to them.
We all knew,how it ended for them.

As long as it would be not german style schools,which turned people into cogs in machine,it should be fine.
Use missionaries,both catholic and protestants,they had good teachers.

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1918
He found himself in something of an uncomfortable position. Allen had no idea what the most recently seated cadre members thought about all this.

God knows, a decade ago the idea that they'd be carrying on like this... it would have struck him absurd. Still, they had to sit through it, and so did the proxies and make what they would of the stump speeches. That was they were for all intents and purposes. Stump speeches... and ones that were looking beyond just the province... people had gotten up and talked about the war too, and the mess it had made of everything.

He knew for a fact that had resulted in some unplanned changes to what people had planned to say, but more than that this gathering was different for other reasons. It hadn't helped that they'd opened at this least this part of the conference to allies, and associates from outside the province. Instead of informal dialogue, smoking room fireside chats in the morning or evenings over whisky or in open floor circulars instead they'd had every take turns at a podium for speeches.

This year had been formal floor speeches. So maybe with an itinerary that made it clear that the topic of this morning had been intended to talk about the situation of bandit suppression... maybe hongkui had a point... maybe it would have been better he used terms like forward basing instead of sphere of influence... but maybe just as well he'd called a spade a spade.

The truth was geography played a big role in Szechwan's situation, and that the province's original leadership were being replaced by more and more fractured local leadership.

Some of the noise started to dim. The loudest people the originals, and a line between camps. The Ma Clique was looking at more than just bandit suppression there was money to be made, and maybe grudges to be settled that went back to the Dugan revolt... and probably before.

"Oh shit." Cole had sat up, and Allen recognized that Waite was heading to the podium next. Allen had not intended to speak at this and was high up in the back right row.

There was a cough, "The Tsardom is gone, does anyone disagree with that? This war has killed by my reckoning three empires. A fourth to come? The arrival of the Federal Army on the shores of western Europe is the doom of Germany."

Allen rubbed the bridge of his nose. Cole bit down to stop himself. He sounded like Colonel Wood at the forefront of young men in cadet uniforms in New York.

"It is true that the Congress of the United States has been loath to supply the necessary funds to prepare the army, but the army is now in Europe, whether it lasts a year or two. The landslide is coming down. Russia though, is gone. The sick man of Europe is all but broken, the Austrians were as the Germans themselves observed a shambling dead weight handcuffed to them. The Germans have killed an entire generation of frenchmen, but the math does not lie. The Entente spends something to the order of a half billion dollars every six months. Over four billion dollars has gone out to insure that France can buy food and weapons, that England, and Russia can. That's what the war costs. London has been supplanted as global financial heart of trade." By New York.... by wall street, by the trading houses like JP Morgan. "Washington has yet pledged more."

This would have been a speech better made, tailored to an American audience... and indeed one largely of educated southern gentry and adventurers of their generation or even their fathers' generation, but Waite continued his hands resting on the podium as he spoke of structures, and of history... and of what had allowed the US to take such a role. The factors of gradual construction, of evolution not revolution as Waite tended to quip, which was in itself a contagious catch phrase he probably had gotten from some Englishman.

... and speaking of Englishmen Percy was nervously squirming as the speech carried on. Not the least of which was when Waite highlighted that there had needed to be a transition from the British acting through Morgan to having actually sent a treasury delegation to Wilson in person. He wasn't likely to turn the conversation to the necessity of military resources, which might further disturb Percy at the moment... instead turning to Russia's descent into anarchic bloodletting as the Bolsheviks focused on seizing power for themselves and purging their rivals... and the famine that such disorder would predictably bring.
--
He watched the staff gathering, as the pipes played. The march had put an argument about their current force arrangement.

Cullen shrugged as another cadre man to the right of Bert and Dawes regarded and then turned, "The kilts are one thing, but swords really?"

The Commandos were in their dress uniforms, which now included basket hilted swords. "I've six companies of the fellas," Cole replied, "Besides the point of the sword on a gentleman's uniform is to look sharp... and they match." He added after a minute.

Allen paused to sip his coffee. The kilts weren't quite Campbell colors. They'd clearly been done from the same wool stocks as the uniforms were worked in. That was from a green mountain boys line off of the spanish merinos. They were machine stiched, and machine dyed, and the green was therefore dark and uniform and made the red stand out a bright near to blood color.

"You're doing this just to tweak the limeys." A twangy voice put it.

"I wouldn't do anything of the sort Seamus." Cullen protested to the South Carolinians comment, "I planned the uniforms a while ago, its just it took time." He said to the others... and it did sound believable. "I put a lot of work in those uniforms. Fellas deserve to look good."

It was believable.

Certainly it was the same thinking that allowed dress uniforms for staff officers to include Austrian knots on gray uniforms... which the British probably weren't all together thrilled of either.

The labor corp had been formally retired as a name after the Bashan fighting and their fortifications as the transition completed with the body folding into either the Corp of Engineers or the Interior Ministry. Ministry had been a compromise to Chinese sensibilities on the naming of things. They had considered Department of the Interior ... well Interior Ministry sounded better... it was hard to argue there.

Public Works was a good name for civilian side of things.

"Cole." He called.

"Yeah?"

"I want those bandits in Bashan cleared out. Take your first battalion and get it done."

Cole clicked his tongue and smiled, looking to a veteran of 7th​ Cavalry with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "Yeah, I'll handle it." Carter down the table started to protest, "He can come with me, I'll need some red legs along, yeah?"

"Of course he's going with you." Allen replied, and the younger man shut up, "What? I'm reinforcing the front Carter. I ain't mad at you. Szechwan is big country, the corp of engineers will do what needs to be done, you do your job, Cullen does his, and Hongkui will handle his. There is enough food at the banquet for you all to fill up."

The Gendearmes 1st​ Regiment on the deck marched well... but they fought better still. Cullen was right maybe the distinction of them with kilts and basket hilted swords was a merit of distinction that did warrant it. Later when it was time to hunt they'd trade dress uniforms for ghillie suits and remington and mauser rifles.

Cullen leaned back, "There are other bandits that need killing John."

"There are always rats in the field." He agreed.

Bandit... as they had learned years ago, years ago now, had much harsher connotations in Chinese than in English. It was true that Bai Lang had had his ideals. That he had had his beliefs that he had looked after the people in at least his home county with the proceeds of his raids... but that hadn't extended to the neighbors never mind what he'd done to the hui as he'd worked his way west four years ago.

Never again would bandits be allowed to cross Shensi's borders, that was the intention. To accomplish that they needed to to grow and expand. People were less likely to turn to banditry with better prospects, and no famine. There were always the bad sorts... but that was what the law was for... and if Hongkui was serious about projecting a sphere of influence into the north western frontier region of the province... well then yes they'd just reinforce the foothold as Gansu units filed in.

--
Griswold had been giving him dirty looks much of the previous afternoon, and it didn't look his mood had improved. Part of that were the speeches from yesterday. JP was all but fidgeting and Waite looked like he wanted to be elsewhere as well which suggested the Georgian may as well dragged them in by their ears.

He spared a glance at the clock, "Don't you have a meeting with Waller, and Simmons now?"

"See I told Sam just that." JP burst out.

"It can wait." Griswold declared, "Look I needed the four of us in the same damned room and I can rustle Dawes if I need to, but," He wagged his finger, then stopped, "Alright its like this the times are a changing. The filibusters have gone off yeah well thats fine, but we're short on people, we are still on schedule, but with everything going on something is going to have to give. Lewis's gun takes an awful lot of machining. Its a lot of hours on my fellas."

Allen nodded. JP nodded. Waite shrugged, "Yeah. We all know what. I mean come on, those fins sucks down wind, a vacuum like." There was some shop talk between the trio of exactly what it was like, but then they dropped back.

The jist was that production needed to throttle back. "I'll be honest. We've been running full tilt for the Anzac order, and from the feelers we're getting look I think we need to step back and refurbish the machines. We're making a lot of guns a month. The barrel making is starting to show problems..."

"Not the Mausers?"

"We replace the bits on the Mausers more frequently anyway," Waite answered the question, "I know what he means there, and with the Lewis it has been different but, if we had machine tooling from the states more regularly this wouldn't be giving us trouble." But the situation was, that Waite had a point that the war was till ongoing and thus machine tooling replacements were basically non existent. "Towards that end we need a solution to look for it, preferably before the Japanese Army starts seriously asking for 8mm guns."

"Nakamichi was serious about that?" JP questioned suddenly, "I thought he was just, I mean." He trailed off, "Its just a few hundred guns." And that statement in its lonesome highlighted how much things had changed. A few hundred guns. A few hundred [machine guns]. It was not longer 1914. Yuan Shikai was long dead, and things had changed quite a lot since then, never mind since the Qing Dynasty had crumbled away.

They were beyond, well beyond the early days where industry went up piecemeal. They still were licensing technology, they would license things from Kodak after the war ended, there would be other technologies to license and bring in. For 1918 though a few hundred machine guns as a contract it didn't warrant much of a look. "I think Nakamichi found some spare change somewhere, or one of his friends did. I mean the Japs probably have an ETS equivalent, but they've said nothing about airplane models." Waite replied, "if I had to guess they're going to move on Vladivostok, and if they can find the money-"

"Nakamichi's request for input?"

"Uh huh," He grunted, "Five divisions, he's looking to pad out the number of machine guns. Of course, with the war," Waite paused, "I don't know how much the Japanese army has kept up with trends. Tsingtao not withstanding." Allen hadn't had to watch the assault on Tsingtao at the start of the war, they'd been camped far away from the coast in Xian ... making sense of the post Bai Lang situation of the country side, and contending with what the European war would mean... but he remembered the human bullet attacks of the Russo-Japanese war. At Mukden, the Japanese had had less than two hundred machine guns and that had been spread across in packets in the five field armies present... but that had been way back in 1905

"Speaking of five divisions."

"Not this shit again." They had had this argument yesterday.

"Damn it John Allen. We had this argument, Nakamichi made the observation that three divisions was a good idea, and put it off." In 1916, and they had taken time to do that. "Yeah, I agree that in 1913 that would have been silly. The British had what six plus the horses." It wasn't a real question, and it wasn't 1913. "We can stretch it out, but we need to be clear with the men what we're going to do."

In 1913 the British Empire, not hte Empire at large, but the British Army the BEF had been six infantry divisions and an over strength cavalry division. The reasoning behind it was it was a frontier force designed to operate in marginal border zones across the empire... that hadn't been where they had gone to fight in 1914. Unlike the British though Waite's logic behind the divisional expansion reflected territorial boundaries, and answers. 1st​ and 3rd​ were expeditionary units built similar to the US 15th​ Infantry where as 2nd​ and the presumed 4th​ and 5th​ would be Infantry Divisions intended for staffing by reservists and as a body for maintaining order.

The compromise was eventually to be had with the establishment of a national guard bureau based on the American model that would be staffed by initially three provinces. Western Zhili, Shansi, and Shensi. It would take time, after 1920, to go ahead expand that to stand up and recruit from the western commanderies, Xinjian, the gansu corridor and also tibet, but the ground work reflected the changes.

British estimates placed the number of soldiers in China in 1915 at half a million. That would have been fine, if, if that had still all be under a nominal Beiyang chain of command, but it wasn't any more. The president and the prime minister hadn't even evenly divided the armies. Percy's estimates suggested there were over a hundred thousand men in the south under arms predominantly under the control of the Yunnan clique and its army. The expectation would be ther would be in excess of a million men next year.

He wasn't even sure if Percy was counting their three divisions and the four brigades. He wasn't yet counting plans for the WPA's nominal force of the same volume not yet. Duan Qirui had yet to announce his plans for that force's size and organization, much less make anything towards how he intended to equip it to fight in Europe. Not that the War Participation Army would actually ever go to Europe.

 

[ATP]

March 1918 - they still had time to prepare people in Switzerland for grabbing technology from A-H and Germany when they fall.
And you need only one plane factory,and one engine factory for them.
First - do not really matter,as long as it would be made from wood,not metal.
Second - chose A-H dude who later died in car accident - notching would change in Europe,and he was making stronger engines anyway.

Artillery - either Krupp or Skoda prototypes,do not really matter.

P.S Who get kilts and swords,Commandos or gendermeres?
do not matter,brits would be angry,and your troops would be cool.We do not need more !

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1918 - they still had time to prepare people in Switzerland for grabbing technology from A-H and Germany when they fall.
And you need only one plane factory,and one engine factory for them.
First - do not really matter,as long as it would be made from wood,not metal.
Second - chose A-H dude who later died in car accident - notching would change in Europe,and he was making stronger engines anyway.

Artillery - either Krupp or Skoda prototypes,do not really matter.

P.S Who get kilts and swords,Commandos or gendermeres?
do not matter,brits would be angry,and your troops would be cool.We do not need more !

Click to shrink...

The Commandos are 1st Regiment Gendarmes

I'd also argue that arguably you want one or two engine factories simply because thats the bottleneck of production in terms of complex machinery also because at this stage in aircraft they're ussually multiuse engines or perhaps more accurately a factory to assemble the plane, laminate wood, plywood you want to call interwar plane body, and then probably two lines producing engines. If you're manufacturing a v8 you want engines but you also want spare parts

 

[ATP]

The Commandos are 1st Regiment Gendarmes

I'd also argue that arguably you want one or two engine factories simply because thats the bottleneck of production in terms of complex machinery also because at this stage in aircraft they're ussually multiuse engines or perhaps more accurately a factory to assemble the plane, laminate wood, plywood you want to call interwar plane body, and then probably two lines producing engines. If you're manufacturing a v8 you want engines but you also want spare parts

Click to shrink...

Sensible idea,as long as you do not hire Mr.Porshe for that.His engines made for A-H overheated easily.
And,if you hire him,germans could actually win war later....

 

[Imperator Pax]

April 1918​

In terms of military organization there developed an argument over what should have been done, which had been probably a long time coming. This things had happened before, and they were likely to happen again. First and foremost was that while the ETS was capable of evaluating new units in the small scale the resources of spare parts simply weren't available, nor were there sufficient numbers of armored cars and trucks to mechanize a large infantry formation. "If we lose any of those trucks its gonna be a pain in the ass."

"Yep," Allen agreed simply as he made another mark on the paper. There was no sense contesting that, "But Cole is out best option for instilling some sort of civil order in Bazhong if Hongkui is intent on holding the city." Which certainly seemed to be his intent. That had potential repercussions if they acted like a garrisoning army, so the Gendarmes needed to be there.

"You say that, but we'll be lucky if we start getting new trucks in a year and a half." He was referring to a notification that the war production act, and the board Wilson had put together was allocating priority for exports and that that had the potential to delay orders for the sake of the European war. It was one more reason to get their foot in the door with Ford as soon as the fighting was done, and set up domestic manufacturing... and also to get as many people out of war ravaged Europe for that matter. They'd need to encourage immigration, of the permanent sort, as well as shorter term contracting gig work for the company. "And by that point demand is going to be high as a Georgia kite."

He glanced at Dawes, "I figure you're leading somewhere with this?"

"Changes to the brigades, once the cutting in Europe is done." The initial proposal was to take guns that had previously been under Phillip. Phillip had of course not taken 2nd​ Brigade with him, that would have almost certainly been a good way to lose the guns to someone else one way or another. The idea though was to turn 2nd​ Brigade into a combined arms element of its own, which called for a distinction in doctrine usage versus how normal Rifle Infantry Officers were calling for the Mechanized force to be used.

"Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves."

"I'm not, I'm just going to say that, while Lewis's gun is useful for a lot of things. It has limits, but we do need to replace our existing Maxims as well whatever we do. " The idea was that while the Vickers did work, and had worked well, that they would be better off swapping to the M1917 and building that for their 200gr Mausers.

"Why?"

"We need a new machine gun, and we need a new heavy machine gun in particular. Also to be honest the gun is licensed for the war we can leverage state for production of it without a problem... and from what I understand most of the people trying to produce are having trouble standing to."

"You think we could undercut them?"

"I think so, but really we do just need a new gun." The war would ultimately end before Dawes's scheme to do what they had done for the Lewis gun could be initialized, but by 1920 the 8mm version of the M1917 Belt Fed Heavy Machine gun had to the consternation of Minister Reinsch and Sir John Jordan had reached ten thousand.

The guns wouldn't be in service and useful until after the war, because state had provided the license during the war, before the armistice and certainly before the May Fourth fiasco the arms embargo never touched the production. So that when Ford's engineers came to build the first assembly line automobile factory in China it didn't take a rocket scientist or very long at all that Ford armored Cars started rolling off the line a few years down the road. Production of trucks would lead to production of heavier tractor engines, V8s that could be used domestically in other things, and export as well as domestic consumption.

The production of automobile, truck, tractor, and all the other things the engine could go into spawned from the war, or at least was made possible by the economic growth of the war. Its take off would insure new growth in supporting industries, and while the Ford V8 lineage lead to other things it also contributed to the manufacturing side of production for other engines.
--
Spring had come, but there was little time to enjoy it. Duan had come back into the premiership while they'd been having the spring conference... but frankly it changed so little there was no point on mentioning at the time. The truth was they had other things to contend with. The 2nd​ and 5th​ Infantry Regiments both apart of 2nd​ Division had been placed on the border with Szechwan, the last of the division's infantry regiments was formally standing up its garrison at Ankang... but that was just as much to keep certain people on their side of the fence from starting trouble.

Shan had actually refused a promotion to division command of 2nd​ wanting instead to wait for a slot in either a volunteer brigade or as commander of 3rd​ which was currently held by Bill's XO. Now General Lee was presently at Urumqi with his divisional headquarters alongside the 3rd​ Rifle Regiment. The 3rd​ Regiment, 3rd​ Division of theirs, had taken up headquarters at the railhead at Urumqi and was being supplemented by additional Kansu troops. The Ma Clique had expanded Hui troops to account for an estimated eleven thousand men. That had been a surprise. Hongkui's Independent Brigade still formed the bulk of that force but it was a cordon of extra bodies stretching west... and in theory it might keep fighting across the border limited to attacks into Szechwan.

The gears turning in Percy's head were almost audible. "And these are at strength?"

They were, he acknowledged. In 1898 the US Army had expanded from a meagre twenty seven thousand men, to a high just short of 210 thousand. Admittedly the growth and rapid reduction in the army had continued annually but it had never returned to that pre war with Spain low. With three divisions in the field Xian was not likely to drop below that number either. Not when the entire point of posting the 5th​ Infantry Regiment in the Bashan Defensive Cordon was to insure they had some experience... but Percy would have done well to understand that this was not the United States, if that was his thinking, and that manpower was more abundant relative to actual demand. Of course 5th​ division was also planned to be posted to Zhili and Shansi with Regiments drawn from western Zhili and Yan Xishan's province as part of collective security. As such the 4th​ and 5th​ Divisions were planned to be modelled on 2nd​ Division.

... and if it came to it, then well they'd decide what to do from there, but there were arguments about whether or not 8th​ and 9th​ Regiments 1st​ and 3rd​ Divisions respectively shouldn't be looked at as the future cores of Rifle Divisions of the same number.

"I don't believe I've met your General Lee, is he from Virginia?"

Allen glanced up from his papers, "He's from Zhili," Though only because his father had been posted to the capital in the last years of the Qing dynasty, and that was complicated. Lee's presence in the company had originally been for railway development. When the shooting had started in Shijiazhuang and the family loyalty to Yuan Shikai as political patron... it hadn't been much of a stretch to go to the RPF and then to forces arrayed against Bai Lang. "We needed someone to command 3rd​, he was up for rotation." Then after a moment in which he weighed the remark, "I suppose I could have pulled Klein from the training rotation and let him have the rifles."

"Yes, ha ha, very funny."

It wasn't. Percy's distrust of the West Texas German community had created tensions over the last two years, and while none of them sat on the cadre... barring occasional proxy seating even so they had other ways of complaining ... almost nearly as much as the Irish-American gallery and that had been bad after the Easter rising, though some of that had boiled off. "No you're right even if Klein was in the rotation there's too much else going on. I assume you're here about the rail line." He got up and walked over to the tray at the end of the desk. Percy looked at him, and Allen collected the papers, "Well?"

"Actually... Nakamichi's request, for Lewis guns?"

"Yeah?" He replied.

"Its been passed up to the cabinet," He almost immediately asked if that meant John Jordan had a problem with it... "There is support for it."

He shrugged, "I wasn't aware the war-"

"No-," he bit down at the outburst, "Yes, we are coordinating what I meant was this is coming from the Japanese Cabinet, from the Army Minister, and Prime Minister Terauchi."

"Yamagata, makes sense with Iseburo involved as well." What would follow was the problem of the war in general... feeding all the different rifle sorts. The British had as a decision had to compromise on who received 303 rifles in the standard cartridge. The French, and the Russians each had their own cartridges... the states had 30 Government and the Japanese who while not fielding land forces up to this point had supplied rifles in their own service cartridge. The limits on machine gun production had meant most sides had ended up buying from outside manufacturing concerns. The French arsenals simply hadn't been able to keep up production. BSA had tried but had fallen behind. The story was the same, especially as air power had taken a more prominent role.

War planners had expected a rehash of the Russo Japanese war, a quick war. They hadn't expected airplanes to take off, no pun intended, or for them to need machine guns of their owns.

"The Prime Minister, the King's Prime Minister and the munitions board wants to insure that the ANZAC units are competently equipped."

He didn't immediately show overt interest, and flipped through the in tray. Some one had slipped a mention that Duan was talking about holding parliamentary elections to the Legation in Tietsin... that was interesting, but, "Alright, so competently equipped what are they needing?"

The idea was to keep the Eastern front open of course. In 1918 the idea was not to wage a war against the Bolsheviks. Lloyd George would come around too late to that idea, and there simply wasn't support in the cabinet for that while contending with the situation in the west, but there were other factors within the small coalition cabinet managing the British Empire that were in play.

"Machine guns principally. Lewis Guns, Vickers, mortars yes, it would be a continuation of the orders you were filling for the troops operating in the Middle East. An expansion we don't need to worry overly much about anything, just, you know an accommodation."

He wished Percy hadn't brought up the Middle East... they'd known about the backroom deal between the French and English before hand, but the 'Bolshies', as Percy had taken to calling them throwing it out into the public papers that had caused a headache all around.

 

[ATP]

LMG - wait for Czech,or french/1926 and 1924/, both were good.
Armored cars - i read,that reds in Spain produced about 300 copies of soviet BA-10 on some cyvilian truck chasis,you could do the same.
Heavy armored car is as hood as light tank - and tanks from 1918 was famous for getting easily damaged.
Trucks chasis would be better.

Spoeaking about trucks - what about using steam trucks? at least in USA it was done.Could be cheaper to get cola then oil for them.

P.S Accidentally i found brtish good semi-automatic rifle produced in the end of WW1 - you could copy it.
Here:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...usg=AOvVaw1DaRXjfXxoyCGDU5S5ma9q&opi=89978449

 

[Imperator Pax]

LMG - wait for Czech,or french/1926 and 1924/, both were good.
Armored cars - i read,that reds in Spain produced about 300 copies of soviet BA-10 on some cyvilian truck chasis,you could do the same.
Heavy armored car is as hood as light tank - and tanks from 1918 was famous for getting easily damaged.
Trucks chasis would be better.

Spoeaking about trucks - what about using steam trucks? at least in USA it was done.Could be cheaper to get cola then oil for them.

P.S Accidentally i found brtish good semi-automatic rifle produced in the end of WW1 - you could copy it.
Here:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwio847-o-7_AhXn-yoKHbrTBrIQFnoECA4QAw&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farquhar%E2%80%93Hill_rifle&usg=AOvVaw1DaRXjfXxoyCGDU5S5ma9q&opi=89978449

Click to shrink...

Steam trucks work okay for civilian side use they have other problems, like they're fine for urban usage, or coal mines, but they're not ideal for military this proved out in testing (this is why they failed out under US cavalry evaluation) they're less reliable as opposed to catching fire like (gasoline) the boiling vessels tend to explode violently, they rupture there is a lot of high pressure steam, and the US cavalry did not like that as possibility so it basically was why the US didn't move forward, its a niche civilian usage outside of certain industry.

For the LMG, and this goes to the farquar hill. Lewis's Assault Phase Rifle was chosen for upgradability, specifically because it is a piston action, and because its the distant forerunner of other designs. Now in this timeline the CZ 26 will end up benefitting from magazine design that goes into the Lewis Assault Phase Rifle. Here unlike in the US Ordinance isn't around to squash the APR in favor of the BAR for political reasons but the principle reason for the Lewis Gun derivatives is that its a non barrel recoil semi automatic capable gun that is successfully designed in 1916 suitable for 8x57. The Lewis Machine Gun will as a result survive with modernizations until the 30s when it will be superseded probably in its role by a belt fed gun.

This is really the 1st generation of LMGs, and SMGs and leads into GPMGs . The reason to not introduce the ZB 26 is that its a tilting breachblock gun, and the reason not to adopt the 24/29 even assuming the French would liscence it would be its not a quick change barrel (and it would have to coverted for 8 Mauser).

Farquar Hill, its a caliber thing, its a 303 gun, its originally driven gun (ala the Bang, or Liu rifle or the Remington 35/BrowningFN1900) it has a gas version, but in practical machining terms its easier to manufacture the Assault Phase Rifle. The reasons for the British not adopting it still hold in this timeline, and thus its unlikely to be adopted and 303 is a much lower operating pressure than 8mm Mauser. The Lewis Gun here has a strong action, and its gas system is more mature. You can ditch the cooling shroud and that greatly will simplify manufacturing and you won't b e dealing with a helical mag feed issue ala the Hill magazine (which that magazine is fine for the Flying corp, but you introduce to a swap, or desert sand and it didn't do well, which the British viewed it as a potential failure for service in the colonies)

Also the Lewis has in terms of its pistol grip and controls better ergonomics than the Hill or the 24/29 or ZB26 as a shoulder fired rifle. Its not a FN MAG but its less clunky or cludged together balance wise.

 

[ATP]

Steam trucks work okay for civilian side use they have other problems, like they're fine for urban usage, or coal mines, but they're not ideal for military this proved out in testing (this is why they failed out under US cavalry evaluation) they're less reliable as opposed to catching fire like (gasoline) the boiling vessels tend to explode violently, they rupture there is a lot of high pressure steam, and the US cavalry did not like that as possibility so it basically was why the US didn't move forward, its a niche civilian usage outside of certain industry.

For the LMG, and this goes to the farquar hill. Lewis's Assault Phase Rifle was chosen for upgradability, specifically because it is a piston action, and because its the distant forerunner of other designs. Now in this timeline the CZ 26 will end up benefitting from magazine design that goes into the Lewis Assault Phase Rifle. Here unlike in the US Ordinance isn't around to squash the APR in favor of the BAR for political reasons but the principle reason for the Lewis Gun derivatives is that its a non barrel recoil semi automatic capable gun that is successfully designed in 1916 suitable for 8x57. The Lewis Machine Gun will as a result survive with modernizations until the 30s when it will be superseded probably in its role by a belt fed gun.

This is really the 1st generation of LMGs, and SMGs and leads into GPMGs . The reason to not introduce the ZB 26 is that its a tilting breachblock gun, and the reason not to adopt the 24/29 even assuming the French would liscence it would be its not a quick change barrel (and it would have to coverted for 8 Mauser).

Farquar Hill, its a caliber thing, its a 303 gun, its originally driven gun (ala the Bang, or Liu rifle or the Remington 35/BrowningFN1900) it has a gas version, but in practical machining terms its easier to manufacture the Assault Phase Rifle. The reasons for the British not adopting it still hold in this timeline, and thus its unlikely to be adopted and 303 is a much lower operating pressure than 8mm Mauser. The Lewis Gun here has a strong action, and its gas system is more mature. You can ditch the cooling shroud and that greatly will simplify manufacturing and you won't b e dealing with a helical mag feed issue ala the Hill magazine (which that magazine is fine for the Flying corp, but you introduce to a swap, or desert sand and it didn't do well, which the British viewed it as a potential failure for service in the colonies)

Also the Lewis has in terms of its pistol grip and controls better ergonomics than the Hill or the 24/29 or ZB26 as a shoulder fired rifle. Its not a FN MAG but its less clunky or cludged together balance wise.

Click to shrink...

Thanks!
Any chance for making copy of MG34 before WW2?
And do not forget 20mm AA Oeriklion - preferabyly,in cheaper Polsten version from the beginning!

P.S Strange,that nobody did it before WW2.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Thanks!
Any chance for making copy of MG34 before WW2?
And do not forget 20mm AA Oeriklion - preferabyly,in cheaper Polsten version from the beginning!

P.S Strange,that nobody did it before WW2.

Click to shrink...

So with the Oerlikon, the caliber changes for it seem to the main rason the Polsten didn't occur to anyone sooner. The best way to get that sooner would be to set out design requirements of we want to throw 4+ ounces of HE and then demand that the caliber the shell has to be able to do that. That is probably the direciton I'm going to go, the forebearer to the Oerlikon and its API system exists so most likely in the twenties dealing with Bofors (RUAG or whatever sales rep) due to some previous experience someone will ask 'Hey we need it to throw this much HE minimum' + 'the initial version can't meet that requirement at velocity to maintain a sufficiently flat trajectory.' Bam hey figure out a shell weight and a muzzle velocity that will let it do that probably get to the finalized shell design and thus barrel length and you can start simplification.

The MG 34, it'll be adopted it was commercially available out of switzerland, but the big change over would be going from the original magazine version to a belt fed so if that happens it would be a transition to US style linkage ala a browning system so, its possible I might do that especially given FN will be the liscensure for Xian's Browning 50 cals in the interwar years so the link design is there.

Some of this stuff is hindsight is 20/20 and some of it didn't occur because General, or Colonel whoever had political beef with someone or frequently enough couldn't get funding approved for it

 

[ATP]

So with the Oerlikon, the caliber changes for it seem to the main rason the Polsten didn't occur to anyone sooner. The best way to get that sooner would be to set out design requirements of we want to throw 4+ ounces of HE and then demand that the caliber the shell has to be able to do that. That is probably the direciton I'm going to go, the forebearer to the Oerlikon and its API system exists so most likely in the twenties dealing with Bofors (RUAG or whatever sales rep) due to some previous experience someone will ask 'Hey we need it to throw this much HE minimum' + 'the initial version can't meet that requirement at velocity to maintain a sufficiently flat trajectory.' Bam hey figure out a shell weight and a muzzle velocity that will let it do that probably get to the finalized shell design and thus barrel length and you can start simplification.

The MG 34, it'll be adopted it was commercially available out of switzerland, but the big change over would be going from the original magazine version to a belt fed so if that happens it would be a transition to US style linkage ala a browning system so, its possible I might do that especially given FN will be the liscensure for Xian's Browning 50 cals in the interwar years so the link design is there.

Some of this stuff is hindsight is 20/20 and some of it didn't occur because General, or Colonel whoever had political beef with someone or frequently enough couldn't get funding approved for it

Click to shrink...

Bofors - you could made big deal buing 80 and 40mm AA guns.
And,instead of buing 37AT,follow hungarians,who in OTL made Sweden made for them 40mm AT version,which used the same ammo as AA.
All to cut costs.
Thanks to that,Hungarian AT guns during WW2 could target infrantry,mission impossible for 37AT Bofors.And sometimes had chance against T.34!

MG34 - yes,buy it,and turn into MG42 before WW2 start.

By the way - in OTL Japan invaded,becouse China was weak.Now,when they would face 10+ modern dyvisions with good weapons,they could not attack at all.
Soviets till 1938 was better target,becouse they could not deliver enough supplies for their armies in Syberia using train only.
To be honest,even in 1938 Japan would win,if they do not fight China at the same time.

Why that not happened? very good soviet spies delivered to Japans plan of powerpuff soviet army in Siberia,which do not existed in reality,and Japan buyed it.

P.S Even if notching change,fighting China army,air forces and their tanks mean,that Japan would built better tanks and planes till 1941 - which mean tougher war on Pacyfic.

Speaking about planes - dutch D.21 fighter seems as nice,cheap and efficient plane till 1940 against anytching Japan or soviets could throw at China.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Bofors - you could made big deal buing 80 and 40mm AA guns.
And,instead of buing 37AT,follow hungarians,who in OTL made Sweden made for them 40mm AT version,which used the same ammo as AA.
All to cut costs.
Thanks to that,Hungarian AT guns during WW2 could target infrantry,mission impossible for 37AT Bofors.And sometimes had chance against T.34!

MG34 - yes,buy it,and turn into MG42 before WW2 start.

By the way - in OTL Japan invaded,becouse China was weak.Now,when they would face 10+ modern dyvisions with good weapons,they could not attack at all.
Soviets till 1938 was better target,becouse they could not deliver enough supplies for their armies in Syberia using train only.
To be honest,even in 1938 Japan would win,if they do not fight China at the same time.

Why that not happened? very good soviet spies delivered to Japans plan of powerpuff soviet army in Siberia,which do not existed in reality,and Japan buyed it.

P.S Even if notching change,fighting China army,air forces and their tanks mean,that Japan would built better tanks and planes till 1941 - which mean tougher war on Pacyfic.

Speaking about planes - dutch D.21 fighter seems as nice,cheap and efficient plane till 1940 against anytching Japan or soviets could throw at China.

Click to shrink...

The bofors 40 & 80 will be showing thats been in the cards for a long while.

Yeah the soviets put a lot of propaganda effort into the myth of the red army for everyone, then stalin starts the great purge followed by invading finland and everyone side eyes him. I think this is part of the reason why the Soviets doubled down on the propaganda surrounding T 34 and the red army it is certainly why Stalin ordered the concealing the total volume of the Red Army's casualties in 2 in the immediate aftermath of the war.

The Japanese problem is that the decision to go to war, was made by majors and colonels, the young officers, making generals and ministers as fait accompli, and those young officers didn't care about the facts. The staff college repeatedly ignored or changed their own war gaming rules when it gave them results they didn't like it in the lead up, and compounding that previous war materiel studies conducted by Japan was classified and unavailable to the majority of officers in order to preserve the official history of the Russo-Japanese war, for example, regarding military success.

To that end the reason Japan attacks northern China begins in the early 30s, or actually really with the second banking crisis that damaged the government's political standing, in about 1927/28 the clique of young officers in northern china (manchuria) demands tokyo do something, tokyo tells them to pipe down, a young major in the clique is very offended by this so he and a couple of his friends get together and what happens is they start running the Manchurian Concession at the time as in many respects their own little fiefdom, they collect taxes they organize their own procurement system, well eventually that becomes not enough so a then lieutenant colonel decides he's going to bypass Tokyo entirely and he starts a crisis that eventually culminates in Japan leaving the league of nations.

Said junior officer in this story is one Hideki Tojo, rather than being punished for repeated and blatant insubordination he gets promoted and eventually becomes PM. The problem with Japan's tank units as a result is that (and we will see this to an extent) is actually the shipping logistics of Japan moving and organizing those tanks. When Japan tried to stand up its original tank brigades for example part of their problem was they created a bunch of battalions from the units they already had, and for example (this is the thirties) they would staff some of these with Renault FTs because the Navy kept telling the army no 'we need the steel for ships' so the only manufacturing of tanks would probably have to be done by Mitsubishi in Manchuria in order to not have to ship them from the home islands and to not have to fight the Navy for procurement. [I will go more into depth on the tanks of the Japanese army organization later]

EDIT: Also with Japan, there isn't just two big army factions at this point there are four or five in the twenties plus the divisions within the civilian government. Such that post war, the entire second generation ultranationalist movement is largely born out of the anti communist pro US alliance Army wing that was sidelined from politics or even the anti-war factions of the pre second world war.

 

[ATP]

The bofors 40 & 80 will be showing thats been in the cards for a long while.

Yeah the soviets put a lot of propaganda effort into the myth of the red army for everyone, then stalin starts the great purge followed by invading finland and everyone side eyes him. I think this is part of the reason why the Soviets doubled down on the propaganda surrounding T 34 and the red army it is certainly why Stalin ordered the concealing the total volume of the Red Army's casualties in 2 in the immediate aftermath of the war.

The Japanese problem is that the decision to go to war, was made by majors and colonels, the young officers, making generals and ministers as fait accompli, and those young officers didn't care about the facts. The staff college repeatedly ignored or changed their own war gaming rules when it gave them results they didn't like it in the lead up, and compounding that previous war materiel studies conducted by Japan was classified and unavailable to the majority of officers in order to preserve the official history of the Russo-Japanese war, for example, regarding military success.

To that end the reason Japan attacks northern China begins in the early 30s, or actually really with the second banking crisis that damaged the government's political standing, in about 1927/28 the clique of young officers in northern china (manchuria) demands tokyo do something, tokyo tells them to pipe down, a young major in the clique is very offended by this so he and a couple of his friends get together and what happens is they start running the Manchurian Concession at the time as in many respects their own little fiefdom, they collect taxes they organize their own procurement system, well eventually that becomes not enough so a then lieutenant colonel decides he's going to bypass Tokyo entirely and he starts a crisis that eventually culminates in Japan leaving the league of nations.

Said junior officer in this story is one Hideki Tojo, rather than being punished for repeated and blatant insubordination he gets promoted and eventually becomes PM. The problem with Japan's tank units as a result is that (and we will see this to an extent) is actually the shipping logistics of Japan moving and organizing those tanks. When Japan tried to stand up its original tank brigades for example part of their problem was they created a bunch of battalions from the units they already had, and for example (this is the thirties) they would staff some of these with Renault FTs because the Navy kept telling the army no 'we need the steel for ships' so the only manufacturing of tanks would probably have to be done by Mitsubishi in Manchuria in order to not have to ship them from the home islands and to not have to fight the Navy for procurement. [I will go more into depth on the tanks of the Japanese army organization later]

Click to shrink...

Soviets were not purged enough,like WW2 showed.From 1941 till Kursk their tanks advanced without infrantry,and infrantry without tanks,when artillery fired in enemy general direction,when they had observers..Things which should be obvious for everybody,but not for soviets.

And their air forces....Rudel,german Ju87 ace which destroyed 500 soviet tanks,attacked them during day till his units was out of fuel in 1945.Imagine what would happened,if he try that against americans....

Japan - yes,they sucked in controlling idiots there.But,consider tanks - if they started working on Type 3 in 1938,they could have it in 1942 or 1943.
Which would change notching,but gave them some chance against Shermans and T.34.


P.S about difference between T.34 and Shermans - after war soviets checked how many reliable tanks they had - and it was ONLY Shermans and Valentine,becouse all soviet made tanks was manufactured so shitty,that they would break after week of using.

Stalin demand numbers - and get them,but in shitty conditions.And,since soviet tanks usually burn in second or third fight,it do not mattered anyway.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Soviets were not purged enough,like WW2 showed.From 1941 till Kursk their tanks advanced without infrantry,and infrantry without tanks,when artillery fired in enemy general direction,when they had observers..Things which should be obvious for everybody,but not for soviets.

And their air forces....Rudel,german Ju87 ace which destroyed 500 soviet tanks,attacked them during day till his units was out of fuel in 1945.Imagine what would happened,if he try that against americans....

Japan - yes,they sucked in controlling idiots there.But,consider tanks - if they started working on Type 3 in 1938,they could have it in 1942 or 1943.
Which would change notching,but gave them some chance against Shermans and T.34.


P.S about difference between T.34 and Shermans - after war soviets checked how many reliable tanks they had - and it was ONLY Shermans and Valentine,becouse all soviet made tanks was manufactured so shitty,that they would break after week of using.

Stalin demand numbers - and get them,but in shitty conditions.And,since soviet tanks usually burn in second or third fight,it do not mattered anyway.

Click to shrink...

Yeah with the soviet doctrine they didn't practice like there was an explicit 'oh we're a socialist country we can't be defeated by a capitalist country and all the soldiers will together know how to fight' (and that kind of talk really reminds of lysenko-ism in agriculture, in the vein of 'everything is fine because marx is magic SCIENCE, we just have to clap our hands and believe) the other problem is what spare parts, always chronically short, so even if you had a mechanic how was he supposed to fix

It was the same problem with QC control in the factories where the drive was make X volume with Y materials and what you get is slag more often than not, but you get to say on the report X AMOUNT OF STEEL 1, and with tank combat first round to fire generally wins this is why early on 75mm millimeters continue to be useful because the good thing about the Sherman in my opinion is the glass. The optics in the tank work, you have radios to talk with your infantry, you can talk with your artillery

With soviet GDP like a quarter of GDP was courtesy of the gulag system

 

[ATP]

Yeah with the soviet doctrine they didn't practice like there was an explicit 'oh we're a socialist country we can't be defeated by a capitalist country and all the soldiers will together know how to fight' (and that kind of talk really reminds of lysenko-ism in agriculture, in the vein of 'everything is fine because marx is magic SCIENCE, we just have to clap our hands and believe) the other problem is what spare parts, always chronically short, so even if you had a mechanic how was he supposed to fix

It was the same problem with QC control in the factories where the drive was make X volume with Y materials and what you get is slag more often than not, but you get to say on the report X AMOUNT OF STEEL 1, and with tank combat first round to fire generally wins this is why early on 75mm millimeters continue to be useful because the good thing about the Sherman in my opinion is the glass. The optics in the tank work, you have radios to talk with your infantry, you can talk with your artillery

With soviet GDP like a quarter of GDP was courtesy of the gulag system

Click to shrink...

They even had gulags for scientists - real one for genetics/they mostly die/ and working place for those who was supposed to be useful.
Not only that - they even had gulags for military inventors - dude who made Tu2 bomber/forged name/ was working in one.

And,in case of factories making artillery pieces - they had old cadre of engineers who remain in soviets as russian patriots.Almost all was murdered in 1937,and replaced with party members - who was murdered later,when they could not work as well as old dudes.

But,Stalin ALWAYS get numbers - even when it mean soviet Yak fighters losing wings during dog fights ,becouse of bad workers.

 

[ATP]

Yeah with the soviet doctrine they didn't practice like there was an explicit 'oh we're a socialist country we can't be defeated by a capitalist country and all the soldiers will together know how to fight' (and that kind of talk really reminds of lysenko-ism in agriculture, in the vein of 'everything is fine because marx is magic SCIENCE, we just have to clap our hands and believe) the other problem is what spare parts, always chronically short, so even if you had a mechanic how was he supposed to fix

It was the same problem with QC control in the factories where the drive was make X volume with Y materials and what you get is slag more often than not, but you get to say on the report X AMOUNT OF STEEL 1, and with tank combat first round to fire generally wins this is why early on 75mm millimeters continue to be useful because the good thing about the Sherman in my opinion is the glass. The optics in the tank work, you have radios to talk with your infantry, you can talk with your artillery

With soviet GDP like a quarter of GDP was courtesy of the gulag system

Click to shrink...

I just accidentally discovered,that China knew perfect drug for malaria named ginghao,made from Artemisia Annua,from at least 400BC,when it was descipced in some bood by GE HONG.
Everybody there used it,but european doctors do not look at it.

Commie China "discovered" it in 1972/drTu Youyou/ but hide from rest of world till 2000.

How made it? take some Artemisia,throw into water,/not boil it!/ then extract juice,dring 2 liter of water and you are good.

Work for everybody,and damn parasites always die.When modern drugs stop working.

You could made your China use it.And more herbs,too.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I just accidentally discovered,that China knew perfect drug for malaria named ginghao,made from Artemisia Annua,from at least 400BC,when it was descipced in some bood by GE HONG.
Everybody there used it,but european doctors do not look at it.

Commie China "discovered" it in 1972/drTu Youyou/ but hide from rest of world till 2000.

How made it? take some Artemisia,throw into water,/not boil it!/ then extract juice,dring 2 liter of water and you are good.

Work for everybody,and damn parasites always die.When modern drugs stop working.

You could made your China use it.And more herbs,too.

Click to shrink...

Yep, its called sweet wormwood, we won't actually see it until the 20s though after Fengtien war starts, and global medical trade is 'somewhat' disrupted by the war with Japan, but it is mentioned in the next arc as part of the medical section that grows out of the response to the influenza epidemic

Because yeah the cadre's area of operation is basically China's 'Zone 2' & '3' of Malarial risk, and given the sheer neglect of the water ways, the canal system there is a malaria problem in China that effect Gansu province, it effects Shaanxi, it effects Sichuan (obviously), and malaria season lasts the majority of the year (typically its six to eight months with the peak in august and october) and zone three constitutes the rest of Shaanxi, Shansi, Gansu and Xinjiang with as much as a third of the population being potentially at risk.

For veterans of the Phillipines this would be a pretty big deal, water way control would be a pretty significant factor as would the again post Influenza Epidemic thats a government responsibility so into the 20s

 

[Imperator Pax]

Dominion of the Baltic Sea​

May 1628 Second Week
The Campus front had a series of immaculate carefully cultivated plants. It was a subtle reminder of political connections, and old family money. Aunts this, grand father that, great grand fathers. Distant cousins galore... that was colonial Americana.

Three hundred years.

Not quite long enough to be sure that Viridian City's colonial forebearers ... not that Viridian had been chosen that had been a post reconstruction branding decision... were in the New World... but it was something that had to have crossed the historical societies mind. Much as it had crossed his own...

He couldn't worry about the timeline changes. That was a headache for the philosophy majors to deal with, he had other things to do. He had practical, engineering things to do. He pulled the door, and listened to the AC going... someone had changed the settings... again... despite the sign saying not to. The inside did not need to be set to sixty five it was bad for the machinery, but people complained and did it anyway.

It didn't surprise him at all.

"This place is pretty nice, boss." The marine non com declared.

His brother was not quite as keen as on the full battle rattle the non com was wearing. Viktor was not wearing the combat gear... having decided to compromise with something more akin to what he worn on executive force protection operations for the unit.... that was to say a low visibility plate carrier that didn't come festooned with molle and toe clckers...

... grenades would have been nice... but they didn't have those... to the sergeants disappointment.

... no he was wearing a suit, and he had a compact sig rifle in the eberlstock on his back. It was in a mud and green colored camo, which he ordinarily still wouldn't have brought to the University... it might have been hunting camo but it was camo, and it still had molle on it. It was a bit too tactical. He had told uncle Lloyd he'd keep a rifle handy though, so he was going to do that... even if he thought it was a bit much. That was part of the reason why his thoughts were on the founding families.

He was wondering if he was overthinking things, and from the look he'd been tuning out the other professor, "Anyway," Stewart said taking a minute to scratch the back of his head, "what I was saying was we're really going to run into a problem with hard currency. Gold and silver coinage."

"Yeah. There aren't any central banks yet." Not in the national banking apparatus that could be depended upon to print up stable currency. If this had been a hundred years ago, well pre Roosevelt there likely would have been other problems but gold and silver would have been more available... though there were probably some gold and silver reserves in the banks... but modern banks didn't tend to that kind of thing it was mostly digital outside of big reserve banks... and they didn't have one of those. "If the the ring of fire had been different we might have gotten the gold mine to come along." The Confederay had mined gold to the north of them, though after the war there had been less financial incentive to mine it relative to more productive sites, and it had remained a quaint historical place to occassionally go find gold nuggests... it hadn't been in the county so it hadn't come along... no easy natural sources of extractable hard currency.

He wondered what the geology department was thinking of. It wasn't a really big department, and he wasn't even sure if they'd all be swept up by the ring of fire... johnny cash jokes aside they really needed to figure out what they were going to do. He wasn't surprised by the riot in town, some degree of civil unrest was normal... cities historically were prone to civil unrest it was probably a psychological facet of population density along with lots of other group behaviors. That was beyond his area of speciality it wouldn't do to overly speculate... and his problem wasn't the atavistic root but so much as minimizing or preventing damage.

It was... he stopped before he started making comparisons that didn't need to be made.

They had problems they needed to find solutions to those problems. He pulled a series of books and looked over at the marine standing at the window. "We have a little bit of time."

The Stewart brothers both turned, "You, are you talking about the currency?"

"In part, but I meant that we can probably buy more time for ourselves, but Europe is small. Think about it we drove eight hours to western Tennesse for your cousin's wedding two years ago." Yeah they'd carpooled for that, but the drive crossed a timezone moving across three US states. "The other thing is well cities are tiny in this period." Some people ascribed too much of that to the plague but really by this point the population had recovered from the Black Death... no it was more the logistics of it. China's combination of canal system and the arrival of New World Crops, coupled with improved wet rice agriculture meant that its eastern cities were 'full size' but most places didn't have that kind of confluence of factors... and China was currently under the Ming dynasty who could barely control their frontier provinces without risking a peasant revolt... which was going to eventually lead to the Qing coming to power... and of course then the Qing would have the same problems... but China was a world away . "I need you to go next door and get me one of those boxes that printer paper packets come in," He raised an eyebrow and gestured to the small mountain of books.
--
Viktor blew out a breath. They were running numbers. Statistics, but they already weren't great numbers. Part of it was the reality of how late cold war technology had changed the everyday shopping experience of most people even if they didn't realize it. The first graphical interface units had been developed in California for the Navy back in the second world war. Not a big commericial application, but they and then the liscening out of LEDs and the development of the transistor had coupled with material sciences had lead to a replacement of not just vacuum tubes but more effective, more work efficent number crunching power.

Computer mini computer terminals eventually to the emergence of the PC in the eighties, and the networks to keep them talking to one another. First in the realm of major shipping ventures, and then by the late eighties into your local service merchandise and other shopping centers.

Travis was a sandy blond haired man a couple years younger than he was. He was an air force vet, and the ME for the county. His original plan had been to go to med school ... well things had gotten complicated. The Global War on Terror had been ... had already begun Travis hadn't been in that first chute of joining up. He'd only come in later after Iraq, after the surge. That had been the war's high water mark before things had gotten worse.... but they had left that world behind.

The thing about Travis though that made all this feasible was he wasn't going to bullshit them when it came to the prospect of shooting their way out of the situation in anything other than short term. Viktor turned around, and caught the blonde man looking at him. "What do you have for me?"

Uncle Lloyd was currently organizing the communal cookeries for the perisphable stuff from the stores which was in part trying to keep everyone on side and foster the community spirit, but also to avoid wastage. The reality was that the county homes that were powered either by natural gas, propane, or the TVA Roosevelt Era hydroelectric would largely be homes that had more than one freezer and probably spare space to store freezable food.

They weren't counting those. They were counting from the printouts of the stores of what had been in stock in inventory in the system when the ring of fire had happened. Which meant that some of that material was likely already gone, spoiled, looted, or whatever before the former sheriff could lay hands on it for his county wide pot luck.

"the good news is immediate famine is unlikely. I would even go so far as to say the Colleges might be able to feed their student bodies over the summer on what they have," He paused, "If their numbers are what they say they are."

The problem was going to be winter... which of course had always been the expectation. The problem was the math going into it. It was the city that was the problem. The city center specifically because of course the urban growth and build up post ww2 hadn't been built with everything in mind, and while there had been some gentrification the reality was the supply side of next day delivery or right on time stocking meant the margins were tight for getting through the summer months by themselves.

That was going to be a problem. It was a known problem. The unknonwn known problem was where the suburbs were going to sit in all this, the gentrified areas to. The food.

"We've got power thats a good sign. We need power restored everywhere though," That had to be the priority because the gas wasn't going to last forever, and that meant bread wouldn't last... which meant they'd need a supply of grain. That meant local suppliers, and in the 30 years war that lay to the east.

... but that was going to run into the same problem on a much smaller scale as feeding France during WW1. Grain was bulky... and they didn't have ships for it, and they didn't have a port even if they did have ships... and while rail might be a possible solution the question was how far could they actually build a rail to? Right now probably not very far. It would have to be by boat, and that would meant baltic grain being redirected from the Netherlands, or the united provinces or whatever the fuck they were called right now... they meant they needed to make a better exchange method. Something that would out bid the Dutch, and make up for their looming shortfalls.

Tony looked at the nine volume collection, "So what are those?"

"An Army buddy of mine did his doctoral on the TVA, thats the full work." Viktor shrugged, "There are a lot of moving parts, and its not maybe its not the best place to start but we're also not back in the stone age." Mikey across the kitchen island raised a beer to that one. "I've got Koistinen complete set, and some other people in that field but a lot of that is the organizational," the political economy, "Side of things." And that was the problem with a lot of doctoral work. It was what it was, they didn't need to be able to make vacuum tubes, but he could see them in a position where they might be benefitted by simple transitor radios... given a couple of years.... but not right now.

He wondered if in the grand scheme of things they even counted as meeting the Shelter requirement, but that was probably to go down the rabbit hole of over thinking things. They had clean water, that was a silver lining he assured himself... but that merely turned to the consideraiton of keep the water clean... of needing to concern themselves not just with human waste, but industrial run off... there was going to be waste generated by anything they did.
--
Notes: So brief update for this one, ATP will probably like that in the next update steam trucks do get mentioned. They don't show up yet, but their strengths and weaknesses are brought up in the first half of the next update... whenever that next update actually goes up.
Other than that ... I opened 1632 Bavarian Crisis probably should go back and reread Baltic its been a minute since then but regardless I'm not sure if it is addressed later, and if it is I'll post a retraction but Edelweiss is litterally a song from the fifties. So Anna Marie of Austria should not be humming it at all frankly even if the up timers had somehow exposed her to it.

Thats my annoyed complaint for the day. The comment on the Qing and Ming is relative to later books in the series, but also tat the EIC has actually opened Canton to trade (by force, in part due to macao being blocked to them by the Portugeese) during the late Ming dynasty... of course before they could capitalize on that the Ming (who as I pointed out were a weak dynasty) were invaded by the Qing and the EIC was distracted by other events and didn't come back for like a century, and as i've mentioned we will eventually get to naval stuff.

 

[Imperator Pax]

April 1918
The receipts only told him what they'd already been aware of. It was mathematics. It had been the arithmetic of a decade now. Yuan Shikai had invited them into western Zhili at the behest of Qing desires for that first railway stretch. Then of course there had been other interests, he'd been the governor of the province and within a year of the old Buddha's death they, the original cadre, had enough work for four thousand men. Yuan had been trying to bob and weave around Russian pressure at the time while also modernizing his province, trying to make it a model for the rest of the country.

That was where it had all knit together.

Once you had vertical integration and skilled work crews building railroads was easy to get going, and putting down. It was when you stopped that problems crept up, and it was when you didn't have production going to at least some level that problems developed. There had been no shortage of rail work to be had either in 1913 or in 1915, or in the preceding year of 1917. It hadn't been hard to look at British proposals and work them out... the biggest hurdle had always been rolling stock. You needed engines, and you needed cars others wise you just had the rails.

With an American Mission to the Trans Siberian now stalled due to lack of a long list of needed resources to make such viable, but not really impossible there were other factors to contend with. That best demonstrated b Wilson's generous contribution of ten thousand box cars, and three hundred engines that had only recently arrived from Harbin.

The British had made clear that they planned to land troops in Vladivostok of course, but they also intended to send the Australians up to garrison other cities using the link into Central Asia.

Admittedly that was something of a change. A year earlier Percy had couched such transfers through Central Asia as war materiel. He wasn't going to argue the point that the passage of troops from the dominions wasn't quite what was on the paper. He recognized that things had changes, and besides the Ozzies were transferring to an existing Russian spur to make the final ride into Omsk. The fact that those troops were transferring from the end of their line at Semipalatisnk, and that line had ended up being larger and longer than originally called for... but the British had still paid for it... he wasn't sure how that mistake had been made in the original draft... but it wasn't the issue.

No, the issue as with most things, the problem came from Washington. Problems, plural of course. Washington's many fold responses to things. Wilson had entered the war as a cobelligerent. Percy should have done well to remember that during the Moroccan crisis French ships had pointed their guns at Americans ones... and that had been subsequently over shadowed by King George's Navy arriving with all its pomp and circumstance. There was no reason to suspect that the US cared a whit for French territorial aggrandizement, and the Bolsheviks had published Sykes Picot and Guardian had dutifully reported it in November. It had been too late by that point for Wilson to do much about it but the Virginian wasn't happy. Of course, Wilson didn't seem happy about a lot of things.

It wasn't just the president though. Lansing of course had known about the treaty, the State had been sitting on those details because it would have potentially kept the states from entering the war. It would have damaged the preparation movement by weakening public support if it got out the French were slobbering all of themselves of potential spoils while the Germans were kicking their heads in on French soil. If perception of the war shifted in the states that this was just a great imperial conflict the Irish and German lobbies would be able to out vote the British one damn JP Morgan's seemingly unlimited stack of greenbacks.

The British, and their recent, convention of their Eastern Committee was sure to be a further point of contention, but for today there were other things. "The Legion is currently moving eastwards."

"So the British have said themselves." But they were still months away... and there were arguments ongoing. The French wanted them shipped immediately to Europe, god damn whatever herculean logistical exercise that was to be for whoever had to actually do the shipping which certainly wouldn't be the French. The British would have preferred appealing to the more radical czech legion officers to remain in the east, playing on sentiments hostile to the Bolsheviks after the reds had signed Brest-Litovsk... but even that was a gamble. The British hoped they could use the Czechs to batter down the red governments if nothing else, but were already planning to levy for American participation in the intervention, officially just for keeping the pathway open from Vladivostok and the eastern front against the Germans open, but there were noises for more from some people. "It'll take them time."

"The State Department is aware," Allen rolled his eyes, he couldn't help it. The State Department was also having to respond to Congress. Congress was in turn under pressure from grass roots efforts in the cities, both Cleveland as well as soon to be Pittsburgh agreement would put pressure on both the congress and Wilson to do something.

The problem was that Wilson only wanted a limited intervention, and the British were not having it. Only part of that was the calculus that the rail line in central asia would let them move faster, part of it was also that Lloyd George probably was under pressure to be seen as a decisive leader in this new crisis. That meant putting pressure on Japan, and that was in turn probably buttressing Japanese interests in participation.

Wilson would of course ultimately drag his feet, protesting time and again until finally he agreed in July to send a paltry US force from California only after he'd been soundly browbeat by all sides to even that compromise. The result of such a small US force would pressure Anglo-Japanese concerns to levy for additional ones... and so Zhang Tso-lin looking for distinction would step forward in Manchuria in exchange of course for new modern weapons that somehow managed to continue to arrive despite the 1919 poorly thought out arms embargo proclaimed by the diplomatic body in Tietsin the following May.


Now though with things in the East, and with the Russian Civil War underway the US apparatus was looking for its leverage.
--
Allen watched the long serpentine body of the train move westwards. There was another matter that needed to be contended with. "this is a fucked up mess." Bill observed.

"Too late to get out now. We finished the rail line and we got paid."

"Yeah, I think everyone recognizes it. Waite can blame, rail on Sykes Picot all he wants, but we can't afford bandits in Kirghiz than anyone else. People on empty bellies are desperate," And desperate people do damned stupid things. "So ... there needs to be something like the thing with Belgium."

There would not be an attempt to do what the Japanese would eventually do. At the time there simply wasn't the thinking, or the apparatus the political will to do that. The Whites never could come to agreements about fighting the revolution as a concerted effort they were too divided. Reds, whites, greens, blacks the Russian Civil War was well underway, and so different regional governments would rise and fall. In much the same way this splintered British attempts to organize the resistance, which would itself lead to lessons learned when eventually two decades in the future when the SOE would have to be sent to organize the fractious infighting of the marginal French resistance... but in 1918 there was no such experience to work from.

The British assistance was to be based on purely local and regional concerns each theater acting independent of each other, and really to an extent independent of London save for a theoretical overarching concern for trying to support the war against Germany in some way. Japan was only to be slightly different. Terauchi's government had to contend with a fractious fight in the Diet, and had to find the money to pay for things. Money that would eventually be approved by what amounted to horse trade with the British and would see that the Diet would eventually yield from a two division limit on forces to the deployment of five divisions.

Five divisions, deployed as a single army group separate from the Kwantung army command, and Manchurian support would meant hundreds of thousands of personnel which meant supplies. That meant money, and loans, but also popular support at home. The result was expenditure and support for a jointly recognized series of states in the east. Kirghiz's Cossack leadership assumed control of Central Asia crushing the Bolsehviks, and a nominal Green Ukraine would be bolstered through out Siberia.

Wilson would not be happy... but he'd have a stroke and be crippled long before he could even hope to do anything. The Soviets wouldn't be invited to Versailles and the Russian question would remain... but all of that was more than a year in the future.

In April of 1918 China's newspapers were more concerned about the situation in their south... and specifically Zhang Tsolin's actions the month previously that had brought about the dismissal of the Yangtze province dujun in the south in exchange for supporting Duan Qirui's return to power... including his mistakes of naming a senior Beiyang officer, another Zhang no relation, instead of rewarding more competent commanders. That would cause problems later on for Duan, but for right now the newspapers were too busy reporting on Zhang Jingyao's misdeeds and incompetence and it didn't help there were other rumors going on.

The whole of the Hunan campaign had never been intended after all to last this long. It had supposed to have been completed months earlier not have dragged on or exposed the growing political rifts within the Beiyang army officers. Rifts that were not to Shansi, Shensi, and the western territories all that apparent, or all that of a concern. Later thinkers would summarize this as the lack of a political community, but more accurately it was the difference between having a state identity and the formation of national identities.

Provincial and regional loyalties largely ran along north south lines, every time a northern army went south all real democratic discussion went out the window and military power re-cemented itself as the determinant of political power. Every time Sun, and his Guomindang party officials left the country the work turned to increasingly regional military officials to resist first Yuan, and then Duan's attempts to weld the country back together.

The consequences of that would not be a southern military victory, but rather a schism within the north over whether it was worth all that. Duan had burned enough bridges, and wasted enough political capital by this point that Feng's supporters were finding new allies who had previously supported the 'southern pacification campaign'... and in 1920 things would finally reach their boiling point.
--
Notes: This is a transition section because again this is coming up on the end of the arc, we are approaching things that in the long term will have butterfly effects on the timeline at least in Asia, they don't effect western Europe all that much. They're predominantly centered in marginal, or border areas between the empires fighting ww1.

In April 1918 Brest litovsk was a mentioned because it was the surrender and loss of prestige to the Russian empire and thus since the Bolsheviks were surrendering to the Germans it was not a socialist victory . It was not a step back to take two forward in the public consciousness (and this was true even in Russia Trotsky wasn't convinced, nor was Bukharin) it was oh the Russians have lost, because the socialist and left wing in China were predominantly anarchists , there were marxists but the chinese communist party only gets founded in 1921 after Versailles, and that's important because its not just Versailles as a treaty it is also what happens in China in the spring of 1919.

Ho Chih Minh's man crush on Lenin specifically originated out of his existing French political marxist socialist background, a background that was not common in China in terms of political outside of Shanghai. Ho Chih Minh would join the Commintern but he already had the political education before that.

Once we get to 1919, once the war is over there is going to be a transition in the business, and economic side of things. There is no longer war time demand so the income streams need to switch over to peace time production, so that is something in the next arc but also between the end of the war and the break between Zhili Anhui cliques that ends unified northern authority there are other things in the timeline that need to b e dealt with. So at the start of the next arc running from basically Spring 1919 until the outbreak of the Zhili Anhui war is a large transitional period before we move into the years of high warlordism and then the gradual coalescing of China into regional power blocks before we move into the late twenties. Of course once we get into the twenties is some of the culture clash between the vestiges of the Qing era versus the various modernization movements and of course without the war there is more local slice of life

EDIT: Also I have misplaced my map of the Russian Civil war belligerents (that is the within russia separatist and autonomous governments map) 1918/1919 I need to find that and put that up it would be relevant to the eventual territorial settling out in the twenties

 

[ATP]

Dominion of the Baltic Sea​

May 1628 Second Week
The Campus front had a series of immaculate carefully cultivated plants. It was a subtle reminder of political connections, and old family money. Aunts this, grand father that, great grand fathers. Distant cousins galore... that was colonial Americana.

Three hundred years.

Not quite long enough to be sure that Viridian City's colonial forebearers ... not that Viridian had been chosen that had been a post reconstruction branding decision... were in the New World... but it was something that had to have crossed the historical societies mind. Much as it had crossed his own...

He couldn't worry about the timeline changes. That was a headache for the philosophy majors to deal with, he had other things to do. He had practical, engineering things to do. He pulled the door, and listened to the AC going... someone had changed the settings... again... despite the sign saying not to. The inside did not need to be set to sixty five it was bad for the machinery, but people complained and did it anyway.

It didn't surprise him at all.

"This place is pretty nice, boss." The marine non com declared.

His brother was not quite as keen as on the full battle rattle the non com was wearing. Viktor was not wearing the combat gear... having decided to compromise with something more akin to what he worn on executive force protection operations for the unit.... that was to say a low visibility plate carrier that didn't come festooned with molle and toe clckers...

... grenades would have been nice... but they didn't have those... to the sergeants disappointment.

... no he was wearing a suit, and he had a compact sig rifle in the eberlstock on his back. It was in a mud and green colored camo, which he ordinarily still wouldn't have brought to the University... it might have been hunting camo but it was camo, and it still had molle on it. It was a bit too tactical. He had told uncle Lloyd he'd keep a rifle handy though, so he was going to do that... even if he thought it was a bit much. That was part of the reason why his thoughts were on the founding families.

He was wondering if he was overthinking things, and from the look he'd been tuning out the other professor, "Anyway," Stewart said taking a minute to scratch the back of his head, "what I was saying was we're really going to run into a problem with hard currency. Gold and silver coinage."

"Yeah. There aren't any central banks yet." Not in the national banking apparatus that could be depended upon to print up stable currency. If this had been a hundred years ago, well pre Roosevelt there likely would have been other problems but gold and silver would have been more available... though there were probably some gold and silver reserves in the banks... but modern banks didn't tend to that kind of thing it was mostly digital outside of big reserve banks... and they didn't have one of those. "If the the ring of fire had been different we might have gotten the gold mine to come along." The Confederay had mined gold to the north of them, though after the war there had been less financial incentive to mine it relative to more productive sites, and it had remained a quaint historical place to occassionally go find gold nuggests... it hadn't been in the county so it hadn't come along... no easy natural sources of extractable hard currency.

He wondered what the geology department was thinking of. It wasn't a really big department, and he wasn't even sure if they'd all be swept up by the ring of fire... johnny cash jokes aside they really needed to figure out what they were going to do. He wasn't surprised by the riot in town, some degree of civil unrest was normal... cities historically were prone to civil unrest it was probably a psychological facet of population density along with lots of other group behaviors. That was beyond his area of speciality it wouldn't do to overly speculate... and his problem wasn't the atavistic root but so much as minimizing or preventing damage.

It was... he stopped before he started making comparisons that didn't need to be made.

They had problems they needed to find solutions to those problems. He pulled a series of books and looked over at the marine standing at the window. "We have a little bit of time."

The Stewart brothers both turned, "You, are you talking about the currency?"

"In part, but I meant that we can probably buy more time for ourselves, but Europe is small. Think about it we drove eight hours to western Tennesse for your cousin's wedding two years ago." Yeah they'd carpooled for that, but the drive crossed a timezone moving across three US states. "The other thing is well cities are tiny in this period." Some people ascribed too much of that to the plague but really by this point the population had recovered from the Black Death... no it was more the logistics of it. China's combination of canal system and the arrival of New World Crops, coupled with improved wet rice agriculture meant that its eastern cities were 'full size' but most places didn't have that kind of confluence of factors... and China was currently under the Ming dynasty who could barely control their frontier provinces without risking a peasant revolt... which was going to eventually lead to the Qing coming to power... and of course then the Qing would have the same problems... but China was a world away . "I need you to go next door and get me one of those boxes that printer paper packets come in," He raised an eyebrow and gestured to the small mountain of books.
--
Viktor blew out a breath. They were running numbers. Statistics, but they already weren't great numbers. Part of it was the reality of how late cold war technology had changed the everyday shopping experience of most people even if they didn't realize it. The first graphical interface units had been developed in California for the Navy back in the second world war. Not a big commericial application, but they and then the liscening out of LEDs and the development of the transistor had coupled with material sciences had lead to a replacement of not just vacuum tubes but more effective, more work efficent number crunching power.

Computer mini computer terminals eventually to the emergence of the PC in the eighties, and the networks to keep them talking to one another. First in the realm of major shipping ventures, and then by the late eighties into your local service merchandise and other shopping centers.

Travis was a sandy blond haired man a couple years younger than he was. He was an air force vet, and the ME for the county. His original plan had been to go to med school ... well things had gotten complicated. The Global War on Terror had been ... had already begun Travis hadn't been in that first chute of joining up. He'd only come in later after Iraq, after the surge. That had been the war's high water mark before things had gotten worse.... but they had left that world behind.

The thing about Travis though that made all this feasible was he wasn't going to bullshit them when it came to the prospect of shooting their way out of the situation in anything other than short term. Viktor turned around, and caught the blonde man looking at him. "What do you have for me?"

Uncle Lloyd was currently organizing the communal cookeries for the perisphable stuff from the stores which was in part trying to keep everyone on side and foster the community spirit, but also to avoid wastage. The reality was that the county homes that were powered either by natural gas, propane, or the TVA Roosevelt Era hydroelectric would largely be homes that had more than one freezer and probably spare space to store freezable food.

They weren't counting those. They were counting from the printouts of the stores of what had been in stock in inventory in the system when the ring of fire had happened. Which meant that some of that material was likely already gone, spoiled, looted, or whatever before the former sheriff could lay hands on it for his county wide pot luck.

"the good news is immediate famine is unlikely. I would even go so far as to say the Colleges might be able to feed their student bodies over the summer on what they have," He paused, "If their numbers are what they say they are."

The problem was going to be winter... which of course had always been the expectation. The problem was the math going into it. It was the city that was the problem. The city center specifically because of course the urban growth and build up post ww2 hadn't been built with everything in mind, and while there had been some gentrification the reality was the supply side of next day delivery or right on time stocking meant the margins were tight for getting through the summer months by themselves.

That was going to be a problem. It was a known problem. The unknonwn known problem was where the suburbs were going to sit in all this, the gentrified areas to. The food.

"We've got power thats a good sign. We need power restored everywhere though," That had to be the priority because the gas wasn't going to last forever, and that meant bread wouldn't last... which meant they'd need a supply of grain. That meant local suppliers, and in the 30 years war that lay to the east.

... but that was going to run into the same problem on a much smaller scale as feeding France during WW1. Grain was bulky... and they didn't have ships for it, and they didn't have a port even if they did have ships... and while rail might be a possible solution the question was how far could they actually build a rail to? Right now probably not very far. It would have to be by boat, and that would meant baltic grain being redirected from the Netherlands, or the united provinces or whatever the fuck they were called right now... they meant they needed to make a better exchange method. Something that would out bid the Dutch, and make up for their looming shortfalls.

Tony looked at the nine volume collection, "So what are those?"

"An Army buddy of mine did his doctoral on the TVA, thats the full work." Viktor shrugged, "There are a lot of moving parts, and its not maybe its not the best place to start but we're also not back in the stone age." Mikey across the kitchen island raised a beer to that one. "I've got Koistinen complete set, and some other people in that field but a lot of that is the organizational," the political economy, "Side of things." And that was the problem with a lot of doctoral work. It was what it was, they didn't need to be able to make vacuum tubes, but he could see them in a position where they might be benefitted by simple transitor radios... given a couple of years.... but not right now.

He wondered if in the grand scheme of things they even counted as meeting the Shelter requirement, but that was probably to go down the rabbit hole of over thinking things. They had clean water, that was a silver lining he assured himself... but that merely turned to the consideraiton of keep the water clean... of needing to concern themselves not just with human waste, but industrial run off... there was going to be waste generated by anything they did.
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Notes: So brief update for this one, ATP will probably like that in the next update steam trucks do get mentioned. They don't show up yet, but their strengths and weaknesses are brought up in the first half of the next update... whenever that next update actually goes up.
Other than that ... I opened 1632 Bavarian Crisis probably should go back and reread Baltic its been a minute since then but regardless I'm not sure if it is addressed later, and if it is I'll post a retraction but Edelweiss is litterally a song from the fifties. So Anna Marie of Austria should not be humming it at all frankly even if the up timers had somehow exposed her to it.

Thats my annoyed complaint for the day. The comment on the Qing and Ming is relative to later books in the series, but also tat the EIC has actually opened Canton to trade (by force, in part due to macao being blocked to them by the Portugeese) during the late Ming dynasty... of course before they could capitalize on that the Ming (who as I pointed out were a weak dynasty) were invaded by the Qing and the EIC was distracted by other events and didn't come back for like a century, and as i've mentioned we will eventually get to naval stuff.

Click to shrink...

Steam trucks should work well.You could probably made airship with steam engines,too.Sadly,not planes.
Not famine - possible.And here we could have no genocide of indians in North America.Which happened,becouse they were conqered by faitful protestants beliving to be New Izrael,and indians - New Caananities.
So they did with indians what jews was supposed to do with old caananities.

When catholic spaniarrds could enslave some indians and kill others ,but not genocide them.

Fun thing is - jews probably never killed caananities,but assimiliated them.....and later made story about fake genocide.

About 1918 - Brest-Litowsk was soviet failure,but they win in the end - thanks to russian parties.
Germans hated working with soviets,and tried to find any replacment for them.
But ALL russian parties declined to abadonn their Allies and made peace.
Poor fools died for dudes who later betrayed them,and made deal with soviets.