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Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

Summer 1919
Summer 1919
Allen surveyed the papers in front of him. He had already tossed the North China Herald to Percy.

"You know historically Parliament wasn't paid. It was the expectation that as a gentlemen you were capable of sustaining yourself and your household without burdening the government."

"Yeah," He replied, and put the paper up, "Its also why we got the sandwich." He added.

"Pardon?"

"Lord Sandwich wasn't a particularly wealthy man." He licked his fingertips and separated a sheet, "Never mind that, what brings you?" The war was over... well the war in the west was over, and given the unpleasantness with John Jordan over his fool arms embargo things had been tense the last couple of months.

Percy dithered, not responding immediately "As you might well be aware certain details of certain acts of gallantry," He looked over the edge of the steel report, that Allen had picked up leaving the Shanghai paper aside, "have been reported upon in the papers, and in society, but also well the reports of certain Bolshevik schemes, and other grave crimes perpetrated by the likes of Lenin and his conspirators. It has, those publications of the intention to murder not simply Nicholas the second but his entire family and their household and the intention to conceal it has the attention of both our own people as well as those of our allies."

Allen leaned back... a moment considering if the dithering was a shot back for the sandwich comment or if he was just running off at the mouth in order to try and read the papers on the table or something else entirely. "What's eating you, Perce?" He reached for his mug of tea.

"John Jordan has been apprised of your war gaming plans, and the exercises expected to accompany them."

"Yes?" and, he shook his head, "What else?"

"You haven't expressed a notion towards demobilization. The war is over."

"No Percy, its not. France and Germany might have stopped fighting, but Szechwan is sixty five million people," Probably, give or take some "split about six ways depending on who all is in charge of any given area this month." Never mind all the little small slivers of the province that were oh so helpfully on the frontiers, which made keeping track of who all was supposed to be in charge a headache.

Szechwan was too fragmented to make easy predictions of, and if something did give and coherent leadership developed they were going to need to be able to rely on regular infantry to defend approaches into the provinces. That meant inexpensive reliable rifles, artillery, and machine guns, but it also meant more divisions based along defensive frontage designed to stop any swarm of manpower that the likes of say Chen Xialing or Xiong Kewu could throw. There was a reason they had 3rd​ under Lee facing Chen who was sitting is the szechwan marches.

Percy wasn't readily prepared for that, but it didn't matter.

The 'real problem' with the legation wasn't really the exercises per se. It was that from John Jordan's perspective that the Xian's military forces were not readily being constrained in their growth by his boneheaded attempt to interfere with global trade... and if Allen were to speculated he suspected that someone in Guandong and someone in Harbin were probably beating their heads on the same wall.

Then of course there was Duan's WPA getting Japanese rifles, in clear obvious flaunting of the Japanese agreement or at least whoever at the legation who John Jordan had brow beat into agreeing to the document back in may. John Jordan's problem was he was trying to keep surplus arms flowing and was just artificially inflating their prices... or also just encouraging domestic manufacture.

Domestic manufacturing which had been nurtured by the European war.

The British problem was well John Jordan expected to be accorded the he had said it so it must be right because he was the British minister sort of position with no regard for actual conditions on the ground. Jordan was just too old, that was clear, the war had taken its toll on him. He was out of touch, which was a pity but it would just have to be worked around until he retired.

"The war between France and Germany is in intermission Percy, but all you have done is kick the can down the road, and the bolsheviks," For all Lenin's professions of friendship with the peasants... the same peasants whose grain he'd steal at first opportunity... well the bolsheviks were almost certainly going to try, Trotsky believed the nonsense he was spouting and fanatics were dangerous because you never knew when they'd do something tremendously stupid.
--
"He doesn't get it does he?"

"To be fair, I don't think anyone in Europe," Maybe anyone at all, "Really understands the amount of money that went into the war." He replied as the sheets circulated around. Unlike the England of Queen Elizabeth China had plenty of forests still... it was just that well there were bandits in hill and dale to deal with... but China didn't lack for coal either... and they had over the last ten years worked out pretty well how to prepare it for coking and then for steelmaking.

In 1915 exports to Europe had no longer been inexpensive trinkets, or luxury ceramics... not that they'd really been involved in the later but that was the change, the voracious demands of the war had seen treasure pour out of France, Russia, and England to sustain them. They had never taken the position that the pound was worthless, but it had been rather clear that given even what they'd purchased before the war, that if England was being loaned greenbacks, it was better that England pay them in dollars.

The English ... were well finicky about the reality of needing to buy things, and about spending money... but they had all figured that congress had to have gotten that from someone and parliament not want to talk about the sundries of finance made sense. That the Chinese had had their own equivalent in textiles to the putting out system had been taken note of but perhaps the reason it had never made the transition was that it dealt in silk and not cotton or woolens... the demand for textiles to equip an army, the increased demand for metals.

Both of those all factories meant an increased demand in industrial sectors, and power generation, electrical power. That had been part of the reason they had hoped to turn to hydroelectric power, and to build dams because... well it would have been a means of river control to partially address problems with the canal system to the east.

"That's true." There was a glance around, "But we are in recognition of the facts?"

There were no objections from the men who actually had the original shares.

Incomes were going to decline, because there were going , they were already exporting less goods to Europe. There just wasn't the demand now. Domestic consumption, in house consumption for new construction would make up some of that, but they were going to have to reduce production. That wasn't just about keep prices moderated, because reducing production would increase overall cost per volume in some cases. They needed to avoid depressing market prices by excess supply.

They'd be able to excuse some of that by taking mills off line for overhaul and upgrading, especially with access to European and experts from the states particularly for looking at automobile production, but that also went to they'd be spending more in the short term.

Domestic production of the rails and the engines had been a cost, and time consideration, even before the European war had driven overseas prices of those assets through the roof. Yuan had wanted business assets like a steel mill in Zhili but it had taken time to set that up. Ironically Yuan had gone into retirement as governor of the province after the old buddha had died, and then come back the Qing prime minister just in time to see the end of the Empire by the time they had finished that first mill.

As they had attempted to be clear on, the principal advantages were structural. Technology, Expertise, and Capital. That hadn't changed. The difference now was that since 1914 there had been a developing Chinese managerial class who had come up from the ground floor who had seen the build up of the firms' newer factories.

... "Then the last thing is final drafts, and we finish with the lawyers we aim to get Ford's people over here and then interchangeable parts and mass production." Peace, prosperity through industry that was the idea, that was the byline to talks. That was the message on internal papers talking about moving to domestic production and improving quality of life for the inter urbans on the expectation that the military challenges were largely limited to the southern frontier with Szechwan and that that could be managed.
--
Notes: So by about July of 1919 we do start seeing complaints out of the legation in Tietsin from Jordan, and Reinsch's offices respectively that people are ignoring the embargo set in May. The firms who in particular did this were Japanese purchasing agents who went to Europe and turned around and sold weapons into north and south China. The French, the Italians would also do this, Vickers would come in latter (I haven't seen anything that early state Vickers was involved yet, but they did start doing it and that started a row in the FSO, which is its own comedy), but the embargo, and specifically Jordan as head of the import commission made it annoying enough that very few people were willing to get involved given there were still some war time restrictions on shipping and that most shipping went through british or american merchant number 3 being Japan.
 
Well,they need to find clients for sometching else then weapons.No big problem till Wall Street crash.Later....well,making weapons for bigger army would do for few years.
They want expand to 10 dyvisions,yes? there is many things that must be made for such army.

P.S Trocky really was fanatic,and Lenin really plan to steal from peasants,but died before get chance for that.
Sralin genociding farmers only did what Lenin wanted.
 
Well,they need to find clients for sometching else then weapons.No big problem till Wall Street crash.Later....well,making weapons for bigger army would do for few years.
They want expand to 10 dyvisions,yes? there is many things that must be made for such army.

P.S Trocky really was fanatic,and Lenin really plan to steal from peasants,but died before get chance for that.
Sralin genociding farmers only did what Lenin wanted.
Lenin got to steal plenty of shit, its just in comparison to Stalin, Stalin was all like "NO excuses we're doing it." and full on damn the consequences and honestly even in 1918 Stalin shows signs of that thats kind of the reason Lenin is moving away from Stalinin the early twenties is because he's doubling down on the rhetoric. (Lenin wasn't shy about blood, but he made some compromises to reality, Stalin was just like 'fuck it we'll lie about it until we make it')

The post war economic situation can be loosely summarized with in the short term the textile market, there is a boom in productivity, (to Japan, to the US, to the anglosphere, to latin America) that doesn't really get screwed around with, the US and Japan and China all did historically a lot of textile trading , what really disrupts this is the advent of in particular Nylon coming into the market but synthetic silk really hurts the Japanese and Chinese bottom line but there is a fashion craze that comes in in the market post war where textiles is a market where people go out and buy stuff (and the Japanese capitalize on this luxury market by making counterfeit goods, and some of those goods are manufactured in China) they get exported to Australia, and the US because there is a demand for luxury goods which lasts up until really the stock market crash (and smooth hawley occurs after the crash and that makes the crash worse, the Roosevelt admin and congress made the depression worse)

We're going to touch on the economic stuff, and I was actually looking at the rest of 1919 in relation to the wider world and I am strongly considering doing stuff for latin america, and the US as interlude content because there is a lot going on. A look at the change in the value from perspective of currency values from pre war to 1916 to summer 1919 i.e the franc compared to the yen is relatively which is quite stable. There is a reason the French slap export tariffs on british and american goods and there is a reason that pisses the british and americans off, especially since the French then the French turn around and start talking about building an entirely new fleet program with new battleships. But thats getting off topic somewhat

The immediate international market is complicated but the US in the post war a valuable market to export to, particularly for textiles, and ceramics. Alcohol is out of the question Prohibition is a thing, but a significant portion of the post war trade (and China's exports historically) went to the US and UK, and the overwhelming majority (3/4s+) of Chinese trade by 1921 was conducted between the US, the UK (Just the UK not the British as a whole) and Japan (Japan is roughly 1/3 of Chinese trade) and Chinese exports as a market actually continue to grow in volume until basically the onset of the second sino japanese war (yes the depression reduces that rate of growth, it declines to just under two percent IIRC, but there is still export growth to the major partners)

So in short yes the export market for machinery is basically just latin america (theoretically there is the Philippines), colonialism in Africa especially french colonialism is a captive market there is an export of some machinery to Latin America, there is still some raw material ore going out for steel manufacturing though that will eventually get hit by protectionism down the road.

High Export Growth is from 1920-1927 really but certainly finishing in 29 with the crash there is a pretty decent triangular trade going on, or spoke and wheel, and why I say 27 is the Showa financial crisis with the bank runs in Japan is preamble, a warning of what will happen two years (and change) later in the US because of the run on US capital that causes the crash and global trade takes a huge hit.

*and yes Latin America is ironically also a good market for weapons, because of among other famous conflicts the Chaco war happens which here gives Xian or the MAK a nice excuse to sell exports and expand the build up ahead of time. But also the post war value of the USD makes it a bad option for Latin America to buy machinery especially light machinery from due to the US having gotten used to the war time production and costs
 
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Lenin got to steal plenty of shit, its just in comparison to Stalin, Stalin was all like "NO excuses we're doing it." and full on damn the consequences and honestly even in 1918 Stalin shows signs of that thats kind of the reason Lenin is moving away from Stalinin the early twenties is because he's doubling down on the rhetoric. (Lenin wasn't shy about blood, but he made some compromises to reality, Stalin was just like 'fuck it we'll lie about it until we make it')

The post war economic situation can be loosely summarized with in the short term the textile market, there is a boom in productivity, (to Japan, to the US, to the anglosphere, to latin America) that doesn't really get screwed around with, the US and Japan and China all did historically a lot of textile trading , what really disrupts this is the advent of in particular Nylon coming into the market but synthetic silk really hurts the Japanese and Chinese bottom line but there is a fashion craze that comes in in the market post war where textiles is a market where people go out and buy stuff (and the Japanese capitalize on this luxury market by making counterfeit goods, and some of those goods are manufactured in China) they get exported to Australia, and the US because there is a demand for luxury goods which lasts up until really the stock market crash (and smooth hawley occurs after the crash and that makes the crash worse, the Roosevelt admin and congress made the depression worse)

We're going to touch on the economic stuff, and I was actually looking at the rest of 1919 in relation to the wider world and I am strongly considering doing stuff for latin america, and the US as interlude content because there is a lot going on. A look at the change in the value from perspective of currency values from pre war to 1916 to summer 1919 i.e the franc compared to the yen is relatively which is quite stable. There is a reason the French slap export tariffs on british and american goods and there is a reason that pisses the british and americans off, especially since the French then the French turn around and start talking about building an entirely new fleet program with new battleships. But thats getting off topic somewhat

The immediate international market is complicated but the US in the post war a valuable market to export to, particularly for textiles, and ceramics. Alcohol is out of the question Prohibition is a thing, but a significant portion of the post war trade (and China's exports historically) went to the US and UK, and the overwhelming majority (3/4s+) of Chinese trade by 1921 was conducted between the US, the UK (Just the UK not the British as a whole) and Japan (Japan is roughly 1/3 of Chinese trade) and Chinese exports as a market actually continue to grow in volume until basically the onset of the second sino japanese war (yes the depression reduces that rate of growth, it declines to just under two percent IIRC, but there is still export growth to the major partners)

So in short yes the export market for machinery is basically just latin america (theoretically there is the Philippines), colonialism in Africa especially french colonialism is a captive market there is an export of some machinery to Latin America, there is still some raw material ore going out for steel manufacturing though that will eventually get hit by protectionism down the road.

High Export Growth is from 1920-1927 really but certainly finishing in 29 with the crash there is a pretty decent triangular trade going on, or spoke and wheel, and why I say 27 is the Showa financial crisis with the bank runs in Japan is preamble, a warning of what will happen two years (and change) later in the US because of the run on US capital that causes the crash and global trade takes a huge hit.

*and yes Latin America is ironically also a good market for weapons, because of among other famous conflicts the Chaco war happens which here gives Xian or the MAK a nice excuse to sell exports and expand the build up ahead of time. But also the post war value of the USD makes it a bad option for Latin America to buy machinery especially light machinery from due to the US having gotten used to the war time production and costs

South America - you could sell weapon to everybody there,even those who do not fight anybody.Well,almost everybody,if you sell a lot to Argentina,Chile and Brasilia probably would not buy from you.....

And,about FDR and crizis - he fucket it with his socialist program,which,to be honest,was almost exactly the same what Hitler did.

If there were no WW2,crizis in USA would never end.Maybe we would have communist USA as result?
i remember some fiction,where Russia kicked out Lenin ,get strong and wealthy,and USA ,when revolutionists run,become commie hellhole.

Forget both title and author,as usual.
 
South America - you could sell weapon to everybody there,even those who do not fight anybody.Well,almost everybody,if you sell a lot to Argentina,Chile and Brasilia probably would not buy from you.....

And,about FDR and crizis - he fucket it with his socialist program,which,to be honest,was almost exactly the same what Hitler did.

If there were no WW2,crizis in USA would never end.Maybe we would have communist USA as result?
i remember some fiction,where Russia kicked out Lenin ,get strong and wealthy,and USA ,when revolutionists run,become commie hellhole.

Forget both title and author,as usual.
Even without the war in Europe which by 35 I think was too far gone to stop, we'd have still had the pacific war, which would have required building up for the navy (and as Marshall joked, mr president can you please stop referring to the navy as us, and the army as them) and that might have been enough to kick start the economy by pouring money into the steel and oil, industry for manufacturing it wouldn't have been as effective as both theaters, because demand was so high, but what made the US unlikely to turn to communism was it lacked broad social legitimacy in the United States even with the great depression the US did not have the same British cultural mores at most levels that created the same kind of labour party where marxist avocation for the revolution is viable (48 states, and a strong supreme court and justice systems is a pretty powerful institutional check against what facilitated the Bolshevik revolution institutionally there just isn't the same frame work of institutions that would result in that, the Bolshevik revolution in russia had strong external factors as well as internal history, the sparcticist revolution in Germany similar had external dimensions as well)
 
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Even without the war in Europe which by 35 I think was too far gone to stop, we'd have still had the pacific war, which would have required building up for the navy (and as Marshall joked, mr president can you please stop referring to the navy as us, and the army as them) and that might have been enough to kick start the economy by pouring money into the steel and oil, industry for manufacturing it wouldn't have been as effective as both theaters, because demand was so high, but what made the US unlikely to turn to communism was it lacked broad social legitimacy in the United States even with the great depression the US did not have the same British cultural mores at most levels that created the same kind of labour party where marxist avocation for the revolution is viable (48 states, and a strong supreme court and justice systems is a pretty powerful institutional check against what facilitated the Bolshevik revolution institutionally there just isn't the same frame work of institutions that would result in that, the Bolshevik revolution in russia had strong external factors as well as internal history, the sparcticist revolution in Germany similar had external dimensions as well)

War was impossible to stop,but in 1936 when Hitler take Rhineland it would last week if France moved,and in 1938 maybe month.Even in 1939 France could win,but it would be more costly.
World war happened,becouse France do not moved when they should,and capitulate quickly when germans come.
But,considering trauma of WW1 loses,i could undarstandt them.
My mother was in some small Brittony town,where almost all people send to fight during WW1 died.And,when usually it was better,it still was bad.
 
War was impossible to stop,but in 1936 when Hitler take Rhineland it would last week if France moved,and in 1938 maybe month.Even in 1939 France could win,but it would be more costly.
World war happened,becouse France do not moved when they should,and capitulate quickly when germans come.
But,considering trauma of WW1 loses,i could undarstandt them.
My mother was in some small Brittony town,where almost all people send to fight during WW1 died.And,when usually it was better,it still was bad.
I'm going to be honest, I don't think France could win by 39, I honestly believe France should have if it had wanted to win needed to start preparations war in 36 at the latest, if it didn't have British or American backing, and that wasn't going to happen at that point (France was in default for billions of dollars to the US by that point and was just refusing to pay), and part of that is that French ego was insisting on spending money to get into a naval race with BOTH Italy and Germany, honestly Italy is the bigger more competent navy at that point. France's decision to waste on the Marine National had the exact same problem as the Naval Acts on Germany in WW1 and in all honesty were probably more damage for France. France should have objectively moved sooner, by 39 the Army just doesn't have enough time to prepare for an offensive thrust into Germany before the German population base can be mobilized defensively and also if France hits first there is a good chance that it will severly harm any UK US support, who will look at this as a repeat of 'French Aggression' Chamberlain will probably throw them under the bus if this is before the war in poland.

But France mobilizing might very well force Germany to scrap the invasion of Poland all together and return the wehrmacht to the western border, but again the problem with the french high command is they're not ready for offensive action (and realistically it might well spark draft riots on the French left with the socialists because they had spent the whole interwar time argue for less and less conscription). and well to be honest Stalin probably then starts the war in the east early because he sees everyone distracted was planning Soviet-Polish 2.0 [which lets be honest given the state of the red army would go poorly to say the least but it would be a debacle in western politics]
 
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I'm going to be honest, I don't think France could win by 39, I honestly believe France should have if it had wanted to win needed to start preparations war in 36 at the latest, if it didn't have British or American backing, and that wasn't going to happen at that point (France was in default for billions of dollars to the US by that point and was just refusing to pay), and part of that is that French ego was insisting on spending money to get into a naval race with BOTH Italy and Germany, honestly Italy is the bigger more competent navy at that point. France's decision to waste on the Marine National had the exact same problem as the Naval Acts on Germany in WW1 and in all honesty were probably more damage for France. France should have objectively moved sooner, by 39 the Army just doesn't have enough time to prepare for an offensive thrust into Germany before the German population base can be mobilized defensively and also if France hits first there is a good chance that it will severly harm any UK US support, who will look at this as a repeat of 'French Aggression' Chamberlain will probably throw them under the bus if this is before the war in poland.

But France mobilizing might very well force Germany to scrap the invasion of Poland all together and return the wehrmacht to the western border, but again the problem with the french high command is they're not ready for offensive action (and realistically it might well spark draft riots on the French left with the socialists because they had spent the whole interwar time argue for less and less conscription). and well to be honest Stalin probably then starts the war in the east early because he sees everyone distracted was planning Soviet-Polish 2.0 [which lets be honest given the state of the red army would go poorly to say the least but it would be a debacle in western politics]

Germans had ammo for one-two month of war,and in 1939 practically do not have any real troops on West.And their bunkers there were not finished.
So yes,France could still win.
About soviet-polish war - soviet army was shitty,but polish army had ammo for 3-6months depending on guns,so after that they would win.Unless british somehow manage to deliver ammo through Baltic,but i doubt it.

About french fleet - funny thing about their new carriers - they wanted their own planes for that,but,aside naval version of D.520,was unabke to mass produce anything,so they buyed bombers from USA.Even planned to buy naval fighters,becouse their own version of D.520/D.529,i belive/ had some problems.

Brits buy a lot of naval planes from USA,too,becouse their own,at least in 1940,sucked.
Their naval fighter,Fulmar,sucked so much,that was massacred by french fighters in Syria/1941/,and in 1942 japaneese D3 dive bombers could shoot it in dogfight.

Interesting,why nobody in Europe could made good naval planes/german one sucked too,as far as i could find/
Well,Italy had relatively good ones,but - they used only fighters for everything,including dropping bombs.Re-2001 if i remember correctly/
 
Late June 1919
Late June 1919
It bore in mind that culturally northern china was more homogenous at least of sorts, that the north had been the cradle of the Chinese traditions, and that as a result or perhaps not there would be arguments wherein provincial origin was less important than it was in the south. That wasn't to say it wasn't important, but the truth was in the north there was a greater emphasis on other factors ... and in a way that was why what was coming still came as a shock even though the writing had been on the wall.

For Xian though, the urban renewal of the war years marked a steady development of city and the county administrators alongside the industrial work force of the factories, and mills. The administration though was turning into the provincial administration and also the the cross provincial railway and postal administration... even if technically they hadn't actually ratified the final constitutional draft for Shansi.

... that delay was presently just a holding action and waiting to see what happened, if anything gave on the international scene. The provincial constitution for Shansi, and Shensi while similar to one another in broad scopes were just that provincial constitutions. Whatever Hamilton had written, whatever he had argued for relating to protectionism that wasn't feasible in, or for China. It was no longer the end of the 18th​ century, and divorcing a country from the international market was absurd, especially given the success that the war had brought to domestic manufacturing.

That didn't mean Hamilton was entirely wrong either. There were lessons from the 19th​ century that could be taken going forward. That got back to Smith, and the issue of public goods that were usually better left to a competent apolitical bureaucracy than to industrial concerns looking at long term profitability.

"We are generally agreed," Waite muttered looking around, "That there should be limits on military spending outside of emergencies, and a general cap on the army's size... but we are agreed that we shouldn't make the mistakes of forbearers in Washington, yeah?"

The was a rumble of agreement. Shellman looked like he was about to talk, but then stopped himself. Just as Allen had based a lot of the organizational drafting of municipal county, and then provincial level assemblage on Yamagata's work... Percy had seen Shellman's inspiration in Bismarck's welfare reforms, and the englishman was probably on the mark.

"We're going to undertake the census. That and the provincial constitution together should let us look forward. Five years hence we will figure what the largest weaknesses are, and what needs to be addressed, and we will work on that for the five years following."

That was the agreed upon situation. That they would look at what they had right now, and where they wanted to be and plan for getting there. There would be no jumping around. The quality control established with the new factories of the war, the 'english standards' needed to be maintained as they expanded.

"Preliminary, estimates ahead of the census from Sam's office puts us at roughly the population of France, counting out west." He meant the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Xinjiang, and the rough estimates derived from Tibet... the bulk of the population were really Shansi and Shensi... but everyone agreed that the Ma needed to have their provinces have their own constitutions even as the old man sent his remittances to Peking on the railway. "The way it breaks downs that a little under half of where the states were in 1910." The Virginian remarked. "I do want to bring up we're getting migration in. Frank tells me that Xinjiang and the Ma were getting refugees before this but with the rail line open into Transoxiana we're seeing people come in, and technically there is the migration we expect from trying to convince people from Europe but we're seeing movement already."

It wasn't just them. The migration from the west of Russia east, was filling in Kirghiz as Cossacks moved east, Manchuria, under Zhang, was settling people into the maritime provinces... and so to were Russians fleeing the war in their country to go to western Europe, or board ships for America or England. That was going to have be seen too.

Whether it would spark an argument with the minister it Tietsin or not they had objectively defined democracy as equality under the law. They had not go so far as to take that directly into 'self-interest rightly understood' but the fundamental basic line put forward was to counter anarchists and to establish a foundation for the average man on the street who had no political education. Specific legal terms and understanding were to be spelled out in the constitution.

Even that was bound up in groundwork of institutions that did derive from the army to build up a civil service as well. This would have been unthinkable as a step forward when Yuan Shikai had been alive. Then again they hadn't had anywhere near the manpower involved or the labor force in factory jobs. The latter had been expanding by the time Yuan had passed away, but the peak of the war demand still hadn't quite hit... and Yuan hadn't seen the entry of either China or the States into the war. That had all happened in 1917... and in 1917 that had also marked the turn.

There was no way, in 1919 to go back to the way things were. It was always forward.
--
The signing of the Versailles treaty was hanging over them, as Shellman was telling him as the drill went on. It wasn't going to go away. To be fair it was all the papers could find to talk about overseas, and thus it was all the occupied the telegrams from the states, and from the offices abroad, and thus it overshadowed everything else.

They had to dance around the issue. Versailles had torpedoed Duan's government ... which assuming things played out as they had, that meant he'd probably be out of office until the fall, but it didn't change the fact that Wellington Koo had been told not to sign the treaty either.

... Wellington should have known on the face not to sign the farcical treaty, but it didn't matter. They had to limit how they talked about the thing, because a lot of context was going to be lost. The machine guns chattered. From what Allen understood the Army, the US Army, had lightened the M1917 creating the air cooled M1919 to supplement the water cooled gun... but intended to use both. They had made modifications to the 1917 in the form of simplifications but they were for the time being retaining the water cooling.

It was those guns that 5th​ Division was currently firing on the range.

He stopped watching, and turned to look at the staff officer holding the telegram, "A circular from Wu Pei-fu, general."

He bit down to ask if it was another one, it was indeed that. "Thank you captain." He replied turning back to read the message. Wu's complaints well were unusual in that he was breaking from the current espoused anti Duan position within the Beiyang officers circle to oppose a Federal style government. Feng had criticized Duan for trying to amalgamate too much power personally... sound frankly like one of those old Qing court impeachments... he had always suspected that the whole point of those denunciations was to try and get one or both parties to get so worked up they embarrassed themselves in public and thus 'lost face' by losing their tempers in public.

Whatever the case today's complain was aimed at Hsu Shu-cheng appointment to the bit grandiosely named office of the supervision of frontier affairs... which was hypothetically the National Frontier Army Headquarters, which was what the WPA had been rebranded as with the intention of deploying those troops to Siberia to fight the bolsheviks...

... they hadn't gone any further than Harbin from what Allen under stood, and Hsu's reputation wasn't precisely stellar. He resigned himself that he would probably be reading more of these , more frequently as Wu lambasted Duan and his clique, but there wasn't much to do about it.

Duan wasn't currently the Prime Minister... and really the only one who might be able to get Wu to pipe down was if Cao Kun asked... and right now it didn't seem like Duan and Cao were on the best of terms. The whole election thing last year had backfired and had failed to yield a satisfactory result. The National Assembly was treading water, as the people looked for promises of stability security, peace and prosperity. The failure of the government to deliver the embarrassment of the Versailles negotiations the state of the treasury... the list of 'shames' went on.

Versailles might have been the latest public air of complaints, but but there was little they could do on the messaging, and as Wu's telegram circular demonstrated it was far from the only thing people of means could find to complain about.

Shellman took the telegram, "I wrote something like this up." The Navy saw bones remarked as Fifth Division repositioned their water cooled guns. "I was having a talk with Bill, and there is a lot to be said about how the Europeans have done it." Shellman had been opposed to Sykes Picot when it had gotten out, so he hadn't been favorably disposed to a lot of things, "The treaty is designed to enrich France at German expense, its designed to extract steel and coal from them at below market prices, and there is no excuse for the damn champagne thing either."

"Did you write the senator for your Alma Mater?"

"France is moron."

Allen took the telegram back and tucked it into his jacket, and then glancing at the staff officer, "The US Naval Academy is in Maryland, Captain, the doctor who is a senator for the state, is named France." The joke explained, he turned back to their doctor, "Still, I was under the impression the Senator opposes the treaty?"

"He does."

All joking aside that did settle things at least so far as he considered. He gave the order to pack it in, and prepared for the division for a light, brisk walk of a couple miles to finish out the day. That Shellman had somewhat understated either his conversation with Bill, or his 'something like this' wouldn't really come back into play for another year. The doctor had drawn explicit parallels between Versailles and the idea of unequal treaties. It wasn't an anglophobic paper that had ended up in Shellman's personal archives but its contents could easily be read with existing opposition to indemnities and other financial burdens.

Shellman stretched, "What about you, did you write Medill, he wrote enough puff pieces about your adventures in the Phillipines didn't he?"

Allen followed suit, "Yeah, his brother is talking to Daniel," The two had been fast friends on Black Jack's staff. "He wont agree to the treaty,"

"Because he's against foreign entanglements?"

"Splendid Isolationism sound nice to him, yeah." He replied, before moving to the officers of the division preparing to fall the men in for the run.
--
Notes: So first and foremost I have DnD tonight, but I'm going on vacation Thursday till monday, I will still be posting, this will update again on Saturday and BT will update on Sunday but I hadn't realized quite how much we still had to go.

[I had thought we'd be moving to 1920's opening three part prologue, but regardless posting this today simplifies my update schedule for the rest of this week]

EDIT: And I think I've said this before, if I had more time every two two&half months could easily generate eighty k words from the outline, but it would be very much early 20th Century West Wing [quite frankly because there would be a lot (more of) X talks to Y about Z project or policy, and that would General Staff, Corp of Engineers, or their explicitly civilian personnel]
 
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July 1919
July 1919
Allen's particular marital situation would have prompted the wagging of tongues at home, but here it was nothing too unusual. The lack of children before Augustus's birth in 1914 had caused complaints with Jun's family, but Hina had never really struck him as wanting children in the first place. Akira's birth had changed that. Jun's family had taken Augustus's birth well, more than well. It had been a relief, never mind that he was a healthy boy, which was of course a more significant matter itself.

Cullen shrugged at the matter, "Mother Mei's family was never a matter." Allen blew out a breath, but didn't tell him that didn't help, "Its the truth, I can't give you advice there brother John. Papa made sure she was looked after in Shanghai, the kids went to the British school while he was off."

The states had actually recalled the old man back to the 4th​ for the Philippines, but then again they had also called old Wheeler up as well... and maybe that was for the best given old man Lawton had been killed in action by a filipino with a mauser reported at a distance in excess of five hundred yards the week before Christmas 1899.

That would be twenty years ago come December.

Allen waved the matter away. At the end of the month Augustus would be five.

The conversation turned to the states and the 18th​ amendment. Prohibition. The prohibition of 'intoxicating liquors' still needed appropriate enforcement legislation and that was what Congress was presently dithering over at home. Once it managed to get through the house it'd then have to be worked out in the senate, which Shellman said might split the Republican party in for an against, but enough states had signed on there wasn't much question that something would be done this year.

"They did wait till the war was over." He observed.

"Yeah, they did." Cullen snorted, "Powell has some silly idea to get around prohibition by encouraging people to tour the tropics. He says after four years of war that people will want to get back into foreign trips, back to normal."

"He's probably not wrong." Back before the war there had been discussions about the hotel business, but it had never reached a major consensus in committee leaving things to individual development. Back before the war though Hirst had penned Foreign Travel writing about the Hindenburgh America line's travel packages from New York to Europe through Suez to India then China, Japan before returning to the States via San Francisco.

An article written, and a travel package provided before the panama canal had opened. "Where's it leave us?"

"Perhaps that's best left to Shanghai," Zhili was one thing, but Powell was probably on to something so far as beaches and rum drinks for the travelling inclined middle class, "As for liquor, honestly we need the tax money, and even if we didn't we can't waste the manpower on such a fool thing." There had already been discussions of food and drug inspectors to avoid any sinclar-ian problems it was better to make efforts of prevention than have to go in an fix the problem later. "I find it funny that given the situation the states won't ratify French protectionism outright, but they'll basically do it because they can't hold their liquor."

It wasn't worth complaining about domestic problems back in the stat that they couldn't hope to do anything about; that was the general consensus, "It'll be bad for the farmers back home."

"Probably so," He agreed, and the midwest in general, but being an all around poorly thought out idea it still wasn't their problem. "The congress has passed poorly thought out bills before, but our purchasing committees need to be focused on what we can actually effect."

Even if prohibition didn't go through they wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it, they needed legal currency to trade with. Powell might be on to something with inviting tourists to enjoy sand and surf but the MAK bottom line was still developing. Its course of development would be different than theirs even as they continued to work together

No one in 1913 had realized all the possibilities of 1914, and of what colossal changes it would write upon the world and history. Now that the world was over a chapter had ended. A book had ended. The long 19th​ century as it would one day be called was over.

--
"The Europeans have all but guaranteed there is to be another war," Dawes hissed... for what was probably the hundredth time... and while everyone basically agreed with the idea in principle they didn't necessarily want to be hit with it at the start of every meeting. Dawes today wasn't banging on about the money, so much as the threat the Bolshevik's played abroad. That a distracted Europe would let the bandits in Russia manage to get lose, and make an even bigger ruckus.

The Whites and the Reds were still fighting but there were other factions involved. Peasants and Anarachists, the greens and blacks as it were, attacked all sides faced with the interminable conditions of the war ton country around them. There were also no shortage of bandits loosely affiliated or not with either side.

The Whites had the problem of lack of clear leadership, and that they were having issues of desertion. It was one thing to not like Lenin and his ilk, but another to march a thousand miles from home when the whole reason a man had signed up was to oppose the communists near home, and who gave a shit what happened in Petersburg. Then of course there were the logistics of those kinds of marches, and moving whole families across country. That was something else they were seeing, and MacKinder and his aides were seeing the same thing, and couldn't ignore it even if MacKinder was complaining that the desertion was a matter of 'short sightedness'.

... whether or not Lloyd George wanted to hear that or not was besides the point. Trotsky was making the argument that the Whites were tools of the Anglo-Japanese Imperialist Capitalist ... whatever and that seemed to be working in Moscow, and Petersburg but those city's were already the centers of the Bolshevik power.

That was so far as Dawes was viewing the problem. It didn't matter the average factory worker had never read marx, what they most likely really cared about was the doubling, and doubling again, the rampant inflation of food stuffs and essentials like fuel since the war had begun. The proletariat of Russia, the industrial working class were maybe three perhaps four million people, but the industries they worked in by and large were confined to the great imperial cities. That gave Lenin and company a disproportionate influence in the industrial centers of Moscow and Petrograd.

The hundred and thirty something million peasants were too disorganized and too spread out through the country side for a fragmented opposition to organize.

Dawes unfurled a list of tables, and maps, "Production peaked in 1917," Everyone knew that, "In 1918 the States were fully committed to spring offensives this year," Offensives that never manifested because of the November Armistice, and now here they were with the peace dictates of France, and England... and Dawes's prophecies of the one to come, "Russian expansion of industry always created a housing problem." it was the problem of a top down government directed industrialization, that had been clear when the French had built up their tenements as well in the previous century. "We have the material on hand, and this is the rail trunk," The rail line in Transoxiana that the had already built, it left China and moved through the old silk road what Dawes was proposing was nothing new.

To follow the old northern route to run from Xian through the Gansu Corridor through the Tian Shan all that had been done, but to go ahead and extend that further westwards in a series of branches, with telecommunications lines telegraphs and telephones as they constructed housing.

The real goal such that there could be said to be one was to keep people busy, use up stock that would otherwise depress prices at market, and to knit together central Asia from the south effectively removing the importance of the trans-Siberian connection while potentially alleviating agitation or reducing pressure. They wanted to take pressure from the trans Siberian line which was having issues with bandits in the middle section and arguments ... bickering really from the frankly middling US presence the Japanese, and the British along with the sporadic and complicated White political factions.

The only argument against was the notion of sending those materials to middle America... and that wasn't feasible. Not right now, the shipping was the bottleneck, and the MAK needed time to set up warehouses, and to work on the expansion of the harbor and dock system. They would have to export some steel, some of the other products that would go to that, but the reality of war shipping controls meant that they didn't expect to have either British, or American cargo carriers for a year or two to send what they needed, in the quantities needed.
 
July 1919
Allen's particular marital situation would have prompted the wagging of tongues at home, but here it was nothing too unusual. The lack of children before Augustus's birth in 1914 had caused complaints with Jun's family, but Hina had never really struck him as wanting children in the first place. Akira's birth had changed that. Jun's family had taken Augustus's birth well, more than well. It had been a relief, never mind that he was a healthy boy, which was of course a more significant matter itself.

Cullen shrugged at the matter, "Mother Mei's family was never a matter." Allen blew out a breath, but didn't tell him that didn't help, "Its the truth, I can't give you advice there brother John. Papa made sure she was looked after in Shanghai, the kids went to the British school while he was off."

The states had actually recalled the old man back to the 4th​ for the Philippines, but then again they had also called old Wheeler up as well... and maybe that was for the best given old man Lawton had been killed in action by a filipino with a mauser reported at a distance in excess of five hundred yards the week before Christmas 1899.

That would be twenty years ago come December.

Allen waved the matter away. At the end of the month Augustus would be five.

The conversation turned to the states and the 18th​ amendment. Prohibition. The prohibition of 'intoxicating liquors' still needed appropriate enforcement legislation and that was what Congress was presently dithering over at home. Once it managed to get through the house it'd then have to be worked out in the senate, which Shellman said might split the Republican party in for an against, but enough states had signed on there wasn't much question that something would be done this year.

"They did wait till the war was over." He observed.

"Yeah, they did." Cullen snorted, "Powell has some silly idea to get around prohibition by encouraging people to tour the tropics. He says after four years of war that people will want to get back into foreign trips, back to normal."

"He's probably not wrong." Back before the war there had been discussions about the hotel business, but it had never reached a major consensus in committee leaving things to individual development. Back before the war though Hirst had penned Foreign Travel writing about the Hindenburgh America line's travel packages from New York to Europe through Suez to India then China, Japan before returning to the States via San Francisco.

An article written, and a travel package provided before the panama canal had opened. "Where's it leave us?"

"Perhaps that's best left to Shanghai," Zhili was one thing, but Powell was probably on to something so far as beaches and rum drinks for the travelling inclined middle class, "As for liquor, honestly we need the tax money, and even if we didn't we can't waste the manpower on such a fool thing." There had already been discussions of food and drug inspectors to avoid any sinclar-ian problems it was better to make efforts of prevention than have to go in an fix the problem later. "I find it funny that given the situation the states won't ratify French protectionism outright, but they'll basically do it because they can't hold their liquor."

It wasn't worth complaining about domestic problems back in the stat that they couldn't hope to do anything about; that was the general consensus, "It'll be bad for the farmers back home."

"Probably so," He agreed, and the midwest in general, but being an all around poorly thought out idea it still wasn't their problem. "The congress has passed poorly thought out bills before, but our purchasing committees need to be focused on what we can actually effect."

Even if prohibition didn't go through they wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it, they needed legal currency to trade with. Powell might be on to something with inviting tourists to enjoy sand and surf but the MAK bottom line was still developing. Its course of development would be different than theirs even as they continued to work together

No one in 1913 had realized all the possibilities of 1914, and of what colossal changes it would write upon the world and history. Now that the world was over a chapter had ended. A book had ended. The long 19th​ century as it would one day be called was over.

--
"The Europeans have all but guaranteed there is to be another war," Dawes hissed... for what was probably the hundredth time... and while everyone basically agreed with the idea in principle they didn't necessarily want to be hit with it at the start of every meeting. Dawes today wasn't banging on about the money, so much as the threat the Bolshevik's played abroad. That a distracted Europe would let the bandits in Russia manage to get lose, and make an even bigger ruckus.

The Whites and the Reds were still fighting but there were other factions involved. Peasants and Anarachists, the greens and blacks as it were, attacked all sides faced with the interminable conditions of the war ton country around them. There were also no shortage of bandits loosely affiliated or not with either side.

The Whites had the problem of lack of clear leadership, and that they were having issues of desertion. It was one thing to not like Lenin and his ilk, but another to march a thousand miles from home when the whole reason a man had signed up was to oppose the communists near home, and who gave a shit what happened in Petersburg. Then of course there were the logistics of those kinds of marches, and moving whole families across country. That was something else they were seeing, and MacKinder and his aides were seeing the same thing, and couldn't ignore it even if MacKinder was complaining that the desertion was a matter of 'short sightedness'.

... whether or not Lloyd George wanted to hear that or not was besides the point. Trotsky was making the argument that the Whites were tools of the Anglo-Japanese Imperialist Capitalist ... whatever and that seemed to be working in Moscow, and Petersburg but those city's were already the centers of the Bolshevik power.

That was so far as Dawes was viewing the problem. It didn't matter the average factory worker had never read marx, what they most likely really cared about was the doubling, and doubling again, the rampant inflation of food stuffs and essentials like fuel since the war had begun. The proletariat of Russia, the industrial working class were maybe three perhaps four million people, but the industries they worked in by and large were confined to the great imperial cities. That gave Lenin and company a disproportionate influence in the industrial centers of Moscow and Petrograd.

The hundred and thirty something million peasants were too disorganized and too spread out through the country side for a fragmented opposition to organize.

Dawes unfurled a list of tables, and maps, "Production peaked in 1917," Everyone knew that, "In 1918 the States were fully committed to spring offensives this year," Offensives that never manifested because of the November Armistice, and now here they were with the peace dictates of France, and England... and Dawes's prophecies of the one to come, "Russian expansion of industry always created a housing problem." it was the problem of a top down government directed industrialization, that had been clear when the French had built up their tenements as well in the previous century. "We have the material on hand, and this is the rail trunk," The rail line in Transoxiana that the had already built, it left China and moved through the old silk road what Dawes was proposing was nothing new.

To follow the old northern route to run from Xian through the Gansu Corridor through the Tian Shan all that had been done, but to go ahead and extend that further westwards in a series of branches, with telecommunications lines telegraphs and telephones as they constructed housing.

The real goal such that there could be said to be one was to keep people busy, use up stock that would otherwise depress prices at market, and to knit together central Asia from the south effectively removing the importance of the trans-Siberian connection while potentially alleviating agitation or reducing pressure. They wanted to take pressure from the trans Siberian line which was having issues with bandits in the middle section and arguments ... bickering really from the frankly middling US presence the Japanese, and the British along with the sporadic and complicated White political factions.

The only argument against was the notion of sending those materials to middle America... and that wasn't feasible. Not right now, the shipping was the bottleneck, and the MAK needed time to set up warehouses, and to work on the expansion of the harbor and dock system. They would have to export some steel, some of the other products that would go to that, but the reality of war shipping controls meant that they didn't expect to have either British, or American cargo carriers for a year or two to send what they needed, in the quantities needed.


About Peace - french monarchist Jacques Baiville in his "The Political Consequences of Peace", 1920 warned that such peace lead to another war started by Germany,and only way to avoid that would be return to free german states before Bismarck conqest.

Unfortunatelly,nobody listen to him.

Prohibition - as far as i knew,it was WASP try to stop italian,irish and jewish minorities from getting more important,and it not only failed,but lead to italian,irish and jewish mafias ruling bigger cities.

Building housing for train workers - you could hire poish engineers who did it before 1914 for tsar.Well,white russians,too.

About russian proletariat - they started strikes when they discovered what commies really mean,and get CZK treatment.Survivors learned to shout how much they love comrade Lenin.

Maybe if whites had CZK,too....
 
July 1919
July 1919
Day to day, military life was a lot of repetition. You did one thing, a lot. You did another thing a lot. There was expectation that you would this till the point it was rote and that was what peace time, what garrison time was so that you'd have the understand you could repeat over and over again.

Not exactly in the same way as the factory floor, or the miner, but there was repetition in a soldier's life. This was most clear with the training field. Less clear with the ideas of tactics, and objective orientation that governed the Rifle Divisions, and their parent sub units. A line infantry command had a much narrower scope of what it was suppsoed to do, the reservists were not expected to conduct aggressive assault operations. 1st​ and 3rd​ were supposed to hunt down and engage the enemy if it was called for.

3rd​ was limitted by its terrain responsibilities as its name stopped being strictly about its lighter guns and more about where they were most frequently posted. The tibetan mountains, just the border with Szechwan was not ideal terrain for motor vehicles. There were simply limits on the trucks that they had.

It was the usual identified weakness to whenever they pulled 3rd​ Regiments off the line for analysis. The adoption of rucksucks better reflected the enviroments they were working in. The bergen had been available before the war, and Norway had stayed out of the war and of course Norway had also done what they had done in interacting so it hadn't been hard to exchange ideas.

For the Infantry the british style packs they were already producing were the better option. There would be some overlap in equipment with an emphasis on common canvas durability, buckles and so forth... but as with the British doctrine the Infantry divisions were largely only using their bags when moving post to post. Rifles were going to be carrying through brush and the up and down of hills and mountains.

That meant a lot of wear on shoes.

They planned, trained for the plan, made clear what the objectives in anexcercise were, and expected the younger men, the younger officers, to be able to respond to the plan. Platoon leadership needed to be able to trust and push that down to the sergeants to actually accomplish the objective.

The excercises were important. You didn't get a second chance against a real enemy so you came back knowing what appeared to work, and what equipment might have failed in the field. That meant the rifle regiments came in, took seats at the school and detailed what they had observed.

"Percy is getting the nth degree from Jordan," But that was probably also because Jordan was getting push back in the FSO ... part of it was cause he was too old, now, there was pressure now that the war was over, and people wanted his job... including a somebody on MacKinder's staff who had expected to have Jordan's job. "Reinsch is also probably not happy either."

Jordan had no legal authority to make that he'd stuck his oar into the matter, and frankly it was suspect that the May 4th​ protests were anything other than a fig leaf, but he was now several months down the line facing push back from the FSO. Jordan was pushing back complaining that he had been brought back to China at the PM, and all that, but the commission and omission of various statements from the legation were painting different picutres to different higher authority... both in England and in the States. That constituted confusion, in already confused executive, and legislature... and that was going to be a headache because Wilson had burned a lot of bridges with the recently installed congress.

Whatever war time fraternties had existed had broken down by this point. The consequences of that in the long term were still to be seen. Officers of the Phillipines postings and others from the US were quick to point out that divisions in the chinese sense were smaller than their american counterparts... as if this somehow was an indictment that they weren't 'real divisions', that they weren't square divisions meant they had less men.

There had been an initial hope as those reports had come that Reinsch would take them at face value and drop it. He hadn't, arguing that that wasn't the point he was complaining about, and then more or less going on to complain that the HQ Phillipines wasn't treating this with appropriate seriousness... which of course got back to Lansing and the state department professionals who had responded in the expected manner.

"Yeah, well from the sound of it Reinsch can't be much longer for the office either."

"That ain't as good as it sounds," George grunted, "If he runs for the senate we'll have a headache on our hands for sure." There was some grumbling of agreement. That was the problem, the disolution of the 'wartime consensus' or at least the willingness to come to a consensus for the sake of the perceived necessity of the war was going across the belligerents. The States, and the British, and that included in the dominions which were now no longer engaged in the fighting of the western front... though there were other problems. Canada, Australia, South Africa, India, and so on all looked towards the future and to an extent with their own versions of 'splendid isolationism' from continental affairs.

How long would it be until Australia demanded the Anzac be withdrawn from Siberia?

"We're getting ahead of ourselves, where do things sit right now?"

"In tietsin? Honan is the biggest problem, as long as there is fighting down there, I think we're too far away. Japan is making noises about Fukien, but thats no surprise, but thats well the usual suspects, Terauchi is trying to shut them up but -"

But the marshal probably couldn't wrangle it. He'd been a compromise candidate for prime minister's office in the first place, and things were tense in Tokyo. The diet was a mess, and inflation due to the war was a problem. It was no stretch to expect Terauchi's government to fall, and Lloyd George wasn't necessarily in too hot of a position.

"Suffice to say we could get unwanted attention, but I get the feeling once Reinsch and Jordan are gone most likely whoever replaces them won't be an issue."

Assuming that they were career service officials not political appointees went unsaid. The problem still remained that that both men were what was interfering with purchasing war time stock. The US had cut back on its procurement, and now would have been ideal to snap up orders and if Jordan's embargo held then that would stop them from access to other surplus arms.

"So what happens if we get the usual summer bandit war this year?"

That was to be the question.

In the mean time, the excercise on the field needed to be halted to evaluate whatever had been done down there since the examiners on the field had started running flags up. "Think one of them managed to get on the objective?"

"That or managed to wipe an entire company out, and the proctors are unhappy about it." Waite replied, and that was true the US's rules for wargaming generally disdained 'getting lucky', but every now and then at West Point some one managed to get a unit in the back end somehow and catch an opposing force with their drawers down.

With almost five years of war gaming here on this field they'd seen it happen, and it would probably become more common as division wide summer drill became the norm.
--
Without Standard Oil getting broken up, it might not have taken them so long to get the oil derricks in Shensi going. Instead of having to share the profits though, the deal had fallen through, and while there had been talks in 1914 Bai Lang's rampage had scuttled that and they had moved further west into Shensi. Then having driven Bai Lang off from Xian, and then running his bandits down had cemented their prescence in the western provinces from Shansi all the way to Xinjiang and even Tibet.

That prescence had expanded as the army expanded, but more importantly as British purchases expanded industrial prescence far faster than they had originally envisioned. Xian had thus changed significantly from 1914... where in 1914 there had still be the ruins and damage of the fighting from the Boxer rebellion, if not remnants of even earlier fighting from the lack of an effective municipal and provincial government due to the disruptions of the provincial financial apparatus.

Stability made people comfortable enough to engage in commerce, and trust the system.

Bert rested his hands on his midsection as he recline in the office chair, "We're good?"

"If this is accurate we're better than good," They were going to bring over as many germans and austrians as they could... anybody with technical skills or a university degree in the sciences to be honest... and well they'd sink money in other businesses. There was too much stupidity in the world to not try and keep improving machines, it wasn't about just reducing labor as reducing the cost of the machines you produced to do the work. "Something else eating you?"

There was a pause, "Well I got to talking to Yan, and you know know we agree on most of stuff, but well he wants Shansi to stick to literary Chinese,"

Of course Bert wouldn't have argued with the bayonet doctrine issue, and frankly that was a free concession to make. The production of bayonets didn't really cause them any issues, and they already the sword pattern arisaka style bayonets anyway. Whatever his,Allen's, personal feelings about the bayonet were, they had proven that sometimes they were useful, "I know... and its his home province," And Yan was a confucian gentleman, "and if Old Ma had been more hands on, I think the Ma clique would have probably agreed with Yan's position about school's needing to teach in literary than vernacular," as spoken day to day, "language. But we agree with everything else Yan's reform platform has, so language is where we can afford to disagree," And the common vernacular chinese as a written language was still under the works, it was shaped by newspapers here in town, it was shaped by popular literature.

That was actually why Yan preferred literary chinese, in that vernacular chinese didn't have a standard that was accepted by everyone.

As for the rest, Yan's platform went for compulsory education, scientific education, education of both sexes, ending foot binding, medical practices to fight disease.

"And the automobiles?"

"Like I said Bert this is good, I'll be happy to meet these fellas." They wouldn't be able to just rely on what Ford made... not that Ford didn't do good work, but the Model T had limitations that was clear, they would need other vehicles. "As for that, can you keep it up, or you going to join Powell?"

Whether Bert did or not would remain to be seen, the likely case would be to send him and young carter to the English mission for the post war rotation. They needed to have a pulse on Europe, and while plausible to shuffle blame on distant France and irridentist delusions of granduer the old newspaper lion was only half the entente leadership. It had been sykes and picot after all ... that and if Jordan was going to retire best to be forwarened if their were any shake ups in the foreign office.

What it would ultimately result in would inevitably be the review of the blue books of the 19th​ century. The cadre's initial consensus was that Bernstein's so called revisionism, as the Marxists called it, had been correct. It was impossible to fundamentally square Marx's so called sciencetific dialectic of history and of capitalist exploitation with the self evident paper facts. Quality of life was improving universally, workers worked less, and worked in better conditions, and so on all in stark constrast to Marx's predictions of how a capitalist society worked. That the great war had erupted and shown that no a German Labor Union was Still a German labor union and a Frenchman was a Frenchman further demonstrably disproved Marx's concept of universal alienation.

What actually came about from the review of the blue books and specifically the blue books that had been used to write Kapital simply underscored the existing position. Kapital had been written from the cherry picking of the data from the British Civil Service reports; the blue books. The first volume had been published in 1867, and the other two posthumously completed by Engels as Marx had been able to scientifically prove Capitalism was doomed. More to the point though was that even the blue books of the 1850s showed that real wages, and hours worked by the proletariate were respectively increasing and declining, while workplace hazards were declining.

In short even sitting in the British library Marx had to have been staring it point blank in black and right even his own sources were showing what was self evident to anyone with eyes that lot of hte working class was improving with things like electrification.

But even if that had been all written up in 1919 it wouldn't have mattered, but it was true it represented a hardening across cadre lines, and ultimate what would be Xian state lines to the mess that was becoming the Russian situation to their north, and west.
--
Notes: Yan Xishan's opinion on modernizing Chinese isat this point in time still in flux, on the one hand he wrote, and expected his officers to know literary chinese, but he also expected, perhaps in pure spirit of practicality wanted his magistrates to publish in the vernacular ... but this was also specifically in the local dialect of Shansi so a universal or Shaanxi dialect wouldn't be quite the same but literary chinese would have been understood in writing by educated literati.

So his position is simplified here, this is a case of regionalism.

With regards to the concluding portions on Marx, this is actually accurate, Das Kapital (Capital) volume one would not have survived modern peer review, and it is very likely that Marx knew he had a problem. This is explicitly why he could not vol 2 & 3, and why that fell to Engels, Engels was less concerned about 'science' and more finishing his friend's legacy, and this is part of the issue that does lead into Bernsteinian Revisionism (Bernstein is actually still alive and lives until 1932) because it created quite a stir in orthodox marxism in the pre war period (ww1). Marx used he was in exile in England at the time, the British reports on the state of industry and cherry picked his sources, but even at the time of writing the condition of the working class in England was improving and that flew in the face of Marx's predictions of what 'was certainty'. Economists / Social Scientists cannot predict the future, and another issue is besides cherry picking from his own chosen sources these reports ran into the issue of being relatively in scope yes England was the major industrial power of the time, but it didn't address or compare other industrial development. Admittedly Marx was in exile he couldn't go back to Prussia, and he'd been kicked out of belgium and france by this point, on the other hand the British blue books were / are a great primary source for compiled statistics. (There was no German equivalent at this point because Germany didn't unify fully until late.)

Speaking of Britain so the Anglo-Japanese Alliance? Why did it not get renewed? Canada. Canada's PM apparently raised such a fuss the British let it lapse, probably in part on the weight of well Japan didn't send troops to fight in Europe so we need the Canadian troops more than this naval alliance thing, and besides Japan is a reliable ally even if we're not legally allied any more. The result of a lot of bad planning, but its Canadian objections to the alliance that seems to be the factor within the empire that causes the problem coupled with the wildly optimistic believe that peace would be lasting (in spite of tons of people expecting that that versailles would directly cause another war). Anyway that was interesting enough to share.
 
Speaking of Britain so the Anglo-Japanese Alliance? Why did it not get renewed? Canada. Canada's PM apparently raised such a fuss the British let it lapse, probably in part on the weight of well Japan didn't send troops to fight in Europe so we need the Canadian troops more than this naval alliance thing, and besides Japan is a reliable ally even if we're not legally allied any more. The result of a lot of bad planning, but its Canadian objections to the alliance that seems to be the factor within the empire that causes the problem coupled with the wildly optimistic believe that peace would be lasting (in spite of tons of people expecting that that versailles would directly cause another war). Anyway that was interesting enough to share.
Another reason why Canada wanted that alliance gone is that it was 100% directed against the USA. And Canada really really didn't want to go to war against the USA. With good reasons. And even then there were people expecting some riff raff between the Japanese and the US...
 
C&Rsenal Remington Model 8 Minute of Mae


Minute of Mae short from youtube, there is a full length documentary, and as she says here in both reference to the straight wrist of the original american Model 8, and that they'll cover the FN (European market) model at a later, this is not one to one to what is frequently in this story referred to as the Model 8 the cadre and then Xian's military call it remington but they're building them off the FN patent but you know americansims.

EDIT: Huh you can't embed shorts wtf
 
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True about Marx,he really was wrong from the start.
And about infrantry - if you want fight in mountains,copy italian alpini,they really were the best in 1918.
And,for infrantry without trucks - copy bersalieri,they were good ,too

P.S i found useful engineer for your China.Here:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...usg=AOvVaw1b80QWCbR6NSLgARNz_nLX&opi=89978449

Tadeusz Sendzimir,pole from Lwów who was taken by russians east,run after revolution to China,and made factory in Shangai in 1922,go to USA and later Poland in 1929.
Here,you could keep him in China - making better steel would certainly help you.

In OTL he made big money in USA after 1937,here he could be rich in China.
 
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July 1919
July 1919
The circular telegrams were simply part of how society had developed in response to technology. They were really it had to be recognized part a natural adaption to the telegraph system. It allowed rival political to impeach other groups, it was free speech.

Waite's take on Wu Peifu's latest telegram circular was a little rosy... but on the other hand there were few people who could have told the confucian gentleman to pipe down. The bigger problem, arguably was the rabble rousing as concerns about Russian agents continued to cycle in. Part of that was almost certainly Duan's people maneuvering to leverage commitments with both his since rebranded 'WPA' in an attempt to secure leverage.

Zhang wasn't going to talk about rabble rousing and the bolsheviks in the papers. It just wasn't his way of doing things and the Manchurian clique had other things they were doing.

The problem was the dismissal of the government, the central government back at the start of June... but after China's refusal on the 28th​ to sign on to Versailles they had expected some of the steam to left off.

"Tell me you told Guo," a major in the 7th​ Infantry Regiment's Headquarters, "He couldn't publish that..."

"Oh I told him, he really wasn't happy about it." Bill replied to the army doctor.

"Its incendiary."

Sam turned to look at the protest, then he snorted shaking his head "So who gives a damn. Its not like he's wrong."

Guo being not simply in the service, and an officer at the staff level was fluent in English. His paper which, Allen had read, was in vernacular characters cited Wilsonian principles and derived not simply European secret diplomacy... the major had gone on to cite things like Sykes-Picot being discussed in the original time frame. Everything he had written about was accurate, and worse was privy to their understand of chatter in the back rooms... which yes the Bolsheviks had published so it wasn't secret those treaties had hit the press... but if it Shanghai's presses well... incendiary was right.

"Cullen?"

"He's not the only one, one of my group commanders is fully prepared to throw the French in front of the train. He's got copies of every time the French asked for Japanese troops... and their considerations to sell cochina to the Japanese to cover the expenses of French debts to Japan from the war and ..." Cole stopped and blew out a breath, "Well, I've sat on it for now, but, If 1st​ and 3rd​'s officers aren't writing papers they will be, its how they've been brought up." Cole stopped and turned to Bill, "Who?"

The Texan shrugged, "I think you can guess, and he's not wrong, and besides," He started to protest the looks regarding's 3rd​ Division's leadership, "Its Duan's fault anyway for sending that fool telegram back in May to everybody yapping about this league of nations thing Wilson wants."

At the time... Duan's telegram hadn't ... well at the end of March it had been one thing... and then Yunnan had started getting mouthy again. Not that they had ever really stopped but... "Alright, what then, we tell him to wait, publish them all in one journal? Oh we can bind it and send it to Reinsch," He didn't say it , but almost said it'd be great fun to watch the professor since Guo pointedly had noted that the utility of the arms embargo would in fact make bandits more effective not less... not the least of which was because Guo had cited Japanese arms in Manchuria, and Yunnan, and the flow of French arms into the south as well.

That Duan had taken receipt of a not in-substantive delivery of Japanese rifles for his WPA delivered in June had been missed by precisely no one who was paying attention... including Zhang, or the dujun of the provinces south of the river. "I was..." Waite paused, "I was gonna say the Confucian gentleman thing to do, would be to actually write papers of our own, on what we do know... and publish then let them go to the press after us."

"Are you out of it?" The ex navy doctor asked, "Don't you think the brits, and Reinsch would go through the roof if we did that?"

"I'm not alright with saying they can't publish."

"Neither," Bill replied. "Al, he's right we let 'em publish together. We need a journal thing anyway, thats been talked about besides what are the consequences? A boycott of French goods, british goods maybe?"

The british had gotten a short lived boycott, but that hadn't lasted long during the strike in Shanghai ... and really it had probably been the strike but it had upset people. "Shifting blame on to the French, isn't gonna help us, but if well if it gets published in Shanghai," Cole paused, "It'll get to south to Indochina and if the French have riots down there who knows what 'll happen."

"That's none of our business." Bill snorted.

"We could allow them to publish without including rank. None of them are colonels, except Lee."

Bill snorted, "I'll put my name with his, if Reinsch wants to make hay out of it, let him come talk to me."

They were getting no where, and to be fair this had been a long time coming probably. Too much of the telegraph chatter... or even just the publication of the Russian Foreign Ministry documents that had hit the guardian might have done it. "Lets step back just a minute, what about the elected officials?"

"What about them?"

"Senate, and the assembly have our people said anything yet?"

"I don't think so,"

There was some other mumbling, "Well then we'll ask them, and see what they think. The election was important."

Waite drummed his pen on the table beside his copy of the Shangai based China Times, "Yeah, we should get their opinion."

--
History, especially ten fifteen years down the road, would make their weighing of the decision going back and mediating the response look so much better planned than it would be in reality. The paper publishing was a question of what to do, and later after moods were calmer the involvement of bringing other opinions in looked more like how policy drafting was being done on the regular by that point.

They weren't really the same thing. More importantly it gave them time to breath and look at what the officers were looking at when they wrote in the wake of Versailles, and ultimately that gave them time to develop a framework of what and how and when publishing was appropriate for officers.

"There are going to be consequences, but we can probably weather them." Cole remarked leaning back in the chair. Duan's call for National Assembly elections probably hadn't given the man the results he had wanted but it had let representatives from the western provinces be voted on and at the time in 1918 that had been all Waite had wanted.

Elections. The Franchise was limited to the income tax above a certain threshold that wasn't unusual, there was an age requirement and an educational requirements... but for a European derived system it was something.

It was political engagement, and as a result it was the engagement which prompted bringing the officers in question into the review process for finishing the drafting of the constitution... Lee had been on the list anyway.

Allen glanced at the copies of the work, "Bert's going to England soon, he's taking Carter."

"Yeah, I get that... you know Percy says you need to visit England, seeing as you and Bill did ride into Russia."

That was the problem, that might be the case, but the invitations in question were him and Bill... but none of the rest... it would have pissed him off more if it had been extended to Ellenburg, not that the doctor hadn't done his part... but it was obvious the British invitation was overlooking enlisted and junior officers.

Su stuck his head in the door, "I have finished my draft regarding rejection of the treaty... and the material based on secret treaties during the war." Su had not planned to write anything; not initially. Yan had already basically threated to turn apoplectic, the truth being that he had assumed that a lot of the rabble rousing had at first been the Research clique and as a result there had been confusion.

Su's paper was itself was more moderate than Lee, but they came to the same conclusion. Duan Qirui's state was too week, and too riven by political factionism... though they had come to that conclusion from two different directions... to be effective at accomplishing the duties of the government. Su was being a little more charitable to Duan's position because he did think the rabble rousing in Beijing was used as an excuse by Jordan to force the arms embargo but that was at best a faint concession from the senator.

What would ultimately stop them from picking sides was not that the fractures in the Beiyang army leadership didn't have points. It was that all of them insisted on making stupid fucking concessions. Duan made his share of mistakes, but Feng well did to... there for what would happen was Feng's federalist model was more appealing but still had its problems.

That was a year in the future. Whether or not Cole's 1918 pamphlet, or any of the supporting publications by affiliates had anything to do with it was debatable too. The truth was Bolshevik extremism was new to China, and most far left intellectual thought was anarchism... and attempting to discredit his ideas was based on looking at events outside of the country, and thus to appearances of the officers was a comment against external enemies that the cadre was already acting against vis a vis rescuing the tsar ... and to some extent in certain circles as part of China's participation as part of the war effort more broadly.

Lenin was purported to be in German pay, certainly he had accepted and cooperated with the Germans to get to Russia, and he had levied for Brest Litovsk to be signed for the Chinese public he had effectively sold Russia out to the Germans to end the war.

"I don't like some of the talk coming out of the states." He remarked putting the paper aside... cognizant that his own paper worked from Burke and others and that publishing it would be putting his name into a discussion that they'd been caught off guard for. "I don't see Reinsch moving, and you know how the British feel about ever admitting one of their people screwed up, they'll use the letter as written rather than as intended... if Reinsch gets in the senate he'll start banging on as it was intended."

"He has to get elected first."

"I want you to cable the Swedish office, and the Swiss one, and frankly I think we should be more proactive in looking for people in the central powers. More proactive," Europe after four years of war was a mess, and now they were in the space between the last one and the next.
 
Lenin was nobody till germans hired him,and if Wall Street do not send Trocky who was famous after 1905 revolution,he would accomplished nothing.
Since he die quickly,it is not important yo consider what he wanted,only what Sralin who replaced him wonted.

I remember some cute soviet picture from Sralin era,when Lenin is showed as pupil of Sralin who explained him what revolution mean.
And Trocky,of course,do not existed.
P.S except mentioned Tadeusz Sendzimir you could use other engineers who was in OTL China,both poles and white russians.
And,Sendzimir made rotary planetary mill to made better steel cheap,he could invent it for you before WW2.
Here:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...usg=AOvVaw2GFXg16wDG5zpeIOp0HCHY&opi=89978449
 
Lenin was nobody till germans hired him,and if Wall Street do not send Trocky who was famous after 1905 revolution,he would accomplished nothing.
Since he die quickly,it is not important yo consider what he wanted,only what Sralin who replaced him wonted.

I remember some cute soviet picture from Sralin era,when Lenin is showed as pupil of Sralin who explained him what revolution mean.
And Trocky,of course,do not existed.
P.S except mentioned Tadeusz Sendzimir you could use other engineers who was in OTL China,both poles and white russians.
And,Sendzimir made rotary planetary mill to made better steel cheap,he could invent it for you before WW2.
Here:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjirdq24c2CAxWRSPEDHW53DwAQFnoECBYQAQ&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Mill&usg=AOvVaw2GFXg16wDG5zpeIOp0HCHY&opi=89978449
That is a good point, he would in Shanghai right now too.
 
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That is a good point, he would in Shanghai right now too.
Then Sendzimir could work for China here for rest of his life,with many other engineers.In OTL brits and others paid good money for his technology,now that money,except for Sendzimir of course,would go to your China.

You would not send engineers to USA to learn how to made better steel anymore - americans would go to your China to learn.
 
August 1919
August 1919
There was a stack of telegrams that had come in and very little of it good news.

He really didn't like some of the chatter coming out of the States. There was little to be done about it because the people didn't want to hear the truth. The war in europe had been European irredentism fought for nationalist reasons fought for driven by the middle class. It was emotional, it was illogical... and big business had been utterly caught flat foot by the demands of government leadership to provide for their 'short victorious war', but it was easier to shift the blame than recognize that young men had been queuing up round the block for a chance to fight for king and country.

The reality though was that the Europeans had been so tightly woven together by trade war was a fundamentally an act of self harm. Had been an act of self harm. Lenin was delusional, in more ways than one. Colonies weren't productive markets for finished goods. They were fundamentally carved out because France wanted to compete with England, because France thought it was entitled to being England's equal and the scramble for Africa had become a grand game of European prestige between France, England, Germany, Belgium and the lot. But France wasn't capitalist, it was an Imperial power sure, but France was not cut from the same cloth as England or its colonies, or the United States.

... and in the coming decade it would be ironicaally the french who coined the neologism Eurocentric to highlight the issue at hand.

Allen put the pen down, with summer wearing on in China there was more to do, and more importantly they were going to have to prepare for a fresh possibility of bandit aggression over the frontier as pools of labor in Szechwan were freed from village rotas. That was in itself an excellent lesson, an excellent demonstration of how paramount industrialization modernization was. Seasonal work and poor prospects and an excess population created a body of men who had few other prospects than to turn bandits and jump the border to attack the other side.

That was the other thing. Modernizing institutions operated all year around, the school year was compulsory, the factories operated on the clock regardless of the season, the mines too, even firm operated farms rotated crops and had scientific work undertaken throughout the year where as the family plot would have down time for other chores.

Of course that was another issue Szechwan produced as a result of its climate and geography produced more rice, where in the north it was grain. That of course didn't change the family farm as drastically of course, but the steel industry provided better farming implements and goods that rendered other changes. There would be still others by all the things he took for granted, and all the new things that were still to come from the modern world... but Szechwan still had one foot in the middle ages and that meant bandits and spear chuckers coming out to try and raid homesteads... it was more like the New Mexico territories than Waite wanted to admit.

Hell to an extent they might as well have had one foot in the previous century... and that would probably be what he would phrase it as, in hopes of having it be considered more... they had to fix it.

That meant posting regiments on the border, and it meant scheduling drills for the men... and that was what the plan was.
--
It was eleven o'clock in the morning. The four battalions of 7th​ Infantry Regiment were deployed on the field including their 3inch rapid firing battery, and their most recently delivered Model of 1917 water cooled Machine Guns.

Each infantry man was carrying a fighting load of two hundred rounds. What made today distinct was that the mortarmen, the red legs and the machine gun crews were engaged in the excercise. That distinguished it. Because if it came to it the men here could be resupplied by train and could be deployed to reinforce the 4th​ Regiment sitting on the border with Szechwan, or for that matter 3rd​ Regiment garrisoned presently at Urumqi to the west, or another of 3rd​ Division's constiuennt divisions such as the one deployed in railhead in eastern tibet.

Percy coughed slightly, "Which one is your firebrand?"

"The major is entitled to his opinion, for the record he's with the artillery," he gestured to the bank of field telephones where the staff officers were handling fires coordination.

"So, if the notion is you have bandits to concern with why not bring your huntsmen? I would have expected the 1st​ to be up and at them."

He gave a shrug, "most of them are busy elsewhere." Percy tilted his head, "We have a brigade in western Zhili that is standing up, and they're occupied with that." A brigade that was also receiving 1917 machine guns, but while that probably annoyed the Legation it wasn't what would really get under their skin.

"Oh, oh. Yes. I can see that would be important." He paused, and when no explanation was elaborated on, "Brigade is what you're referring to -"

"As a unit of combined arms of specialists, and aggressive action of course." The intention was to integrate mechanization, and the introduction at higher levels where the brigade would test and evaluate, "The idea is to integrate the airplane as a spotting element for our artillery at this level"

"Those austrian birds of yours." It wasn't a question

"Yes. We have a time table in place, but it'll be next year before we're fully confident in readiness." There were complaints in the cadre that was b eing conservative, that the austrian planes should have been subjected to further more rigorous testing and that they should be pressing forward... but that might well have been a nascent little cabal of men who wanted an independent air force of all things... they weren't there yet. "So Griswold has 1st​ for the time being while they're with the ETS." It was temporary duty of course. That didn't expect to last but for a couple months, but that was also due to expectations of when bandit activity might come and when it might wane.... but 1st​ division could theoretically be mobilized for offensive action if they had a problem.

It would have been preferable they had other options... but they didn't. The army was of limitted size, and it was a matter of good financial health. The war was over, and while the overheating of production had reduced considerably they had to look at the budget.

"So what then?"

"2nd​ divisions regiments will maintain at active readiness. The 4th​ and 5th​ divisions will remain as guard units and will have their monthly drill outside of their core units which will function as active units, and training units and will rotate on station as needed If," He enunciated, "John Jordan doesn't like that then we stand at an ireconciable division."

"I've seen your prelimary documents, John Allen, and if you'll pardon this. You know as well i that that army will grow. If you intend to count where you are now, I will remind you that in 1860 there perhaps not even 20 million prussians, that is less than half of the purported united provinces population. Or more correctly, to use your comparison, France is equivalent population."

"Uneven development. We're playing catch up." They were behind. The conversation ended as the guns opened... and Allen saw no reason to inform Percy that as an officer who'd gone through the general staff officer program, Guo had access, and had refered back to cadre meeting minutes.
--
Notes: Something that should have been mentioned last week since it was touched on is the vote, and those rules were written under the qing, and were modelled off of German advice, and that was the same advice by which Japan had been given. In the present, Xian is still operating under what is the contemporary Chinese system for the vote in terms of a provincial constitution and no one expects in a year there is the going to be the Zhili-Fengien conflict.

Xian doesn't change those laws or standards for a long time. The franchise is limited to enumerated criteria, so as a result on the one hand Xian in the interwar period has a developing politically active voting population, but that is limitted to criteria that were written up in 19th​ century. Education, Income, but not gender in Xian's case. As a result Xian doesn't pass universal suffrage for a while and this will also impact other political factors, such as wartime mobilization. I should point out that the renewal of the SSA in the US and the passage of the Selective Service Act was very close and very controversial renewal of the SSA was by one vote. All of the original cadre were volunteers, the army of the spanish american war, the phillipines, the boxer rebellion were all volunteers. The cadre's RPF, and wolf hunters (in 1914) were all volunteers. The present (c1919) army in Xian, are an all volunteer force. There is just not sufficent support for a draft, and war mobilization in Xian is unique to national characteristics. Part of that is that as a distinct northern chinese state by 1940 (where you have an entire generation that has grown up with compulsorary standard education) the social contract is different, especially since the generation in question will have grown up more or less on the doctrine of a defensive territorial state that has never known a unified chinese state. Xian strategically is focused ona defenseive conflict and in 1940 is preparing for an offensive using an all volunteer army which has certain requirements.

Which of course then Germany decides to invade the Soviet Union (Barbarossa in June of the next year) and then Japan launchs the attack on all the pacific basically that winter (7 December) so that brings in the Anglo-American alliance against Japan and then Hitler (despite not being legally obligated to do so under his treaty with Japan decides to be a dumbass and declares war on the States, not helped by the Kriegsmarine channeling the WW1 Navy and telling him 'nah man we totally got this' spoiler they don't got this.) but this is absolutely awesome news for Xian because well it diverts massive manpower from their current enemy (Japan) and it consumes massive attention from the Soviet Union so no worries about the Russians feeling adventurous plus it insures British and American support. Thats WW2 and thats a ways off still.
 
Volunteer army? good idea for recruiting would-be -bandits.You need factories,too.
Considering rising bandit problem - made more light infrantry with lot of LMG and mortars.And add local hunters,i read that in Rhodesia white light infrantry with black hunters keep in check local commies till decide to surrender.

About bandits - in Poland soviet send bandits to our territory till we created secial military unit/KOP/ to counter that in 1924.They woud try that against your China,too.

Albatross - sadly,Austria produced only/very good/ fighter
Here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatros_D.III
When you need some recon and ligt bomber plane.I bet,that germans produced something which you need,and your factory could do that.

P.S Do not forget about dude who made engines !
 
Volunteer army? good idea for recruiting would-be -bandits.You need factories,too.
Considering rising bandit problem - made more light infrantry with lot of LMG and mortars.And add local hunters,i read that in Rhodesia white light infrantry with black hunters keep in check local commies till decide to surrender.

About bandits - in Poland soviet send bandits to our territory till we created secial military unit/KOP/ to counter that in 1924.They woud try that against your China,too.

Albatross - sadly,Austria produced only/very good/ fighter
Here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatros_D.III
When you need some recon and ligt bomber plane.I bet,that germans produced something which you need,and your factory could do that.

P.S Do not forget about dude who made engines !
Actually gets name dropped in the following segment.
 
Actually gets name dropped in the following segment.
Thanks, i checked german prototypes and planes which could be used for recon and bombing,and only plane which could take 100kg bombs was this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DFW_C.VI

Others could take up to 60 kg or none,so maybe better do not bother.

I was wrong ! Albatros C.V could take 180kg bombs,and was arleady mass prduced with 2HMG.
Here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatros_C.V
 
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Yeah the albatros cv was what i was already looking at.
Good,you do not need anything better till 1930.But,still hire Otto Heronymus for making engines and Julius von Berg for planes - both worked for A-H in OTL,and either died/Otto/ or not worked for anybody important after WW1,so hiring them would change notching for rest of the world.
And,Julius plane/fighter Aviatik D1/ was not only good,but also cheap and easy in production - and your China need just that - planes easy to production.

Maybe hire Seversky later,in OTL he had problems in USA,here he could made P.35 for your air forces before 1937.Good enough till 1940 where Zero come,but then you would have P.43.
 
August 1919
August 1919
Some forty three hundred men were actively involved in the exercises most of that of course was the 7th​ Regiment but there were of course supporting personnel and instructors brought in from other units in small numbers. The beyond those actively involved were the various observers, of which Percy wasn't alone.

It had been a good call, and not just for financial gains, to start winter gear manufacture early. Last year had been a surprise... and not just for the sudden end of the great war in Europe, but that had pulled the rug out of the brits for their legal justification for involvement in Russia. Had they better prepared perhaps they could have made a stronger argument that Lenin's Bolsheviks were German allies and and had they been more resolved to throw Lenin and his malcontents out... but that was not the situation. The commonwealth... the dominions were now making noises and it was even worse with Wilson. Something was going to have to give.

That was precisely why they were pushing to provide supplies into the north, whether that was Kirghiz or Siberia proper. Some of that was British money some of it was coming from Terauchi's government before it had collapsed due to the rice riots over inflation. He would have preferred Japan to have kept the bald marshal as Prime Minister, but he supposed Hara wasn't an awful choice even if he was indecisive and too scared of doing something that might offend anybody.

With eleven months in his tenure Hara just wasn't impressive at all.

It was less humid today, which was to Percy's benefit, and the mercury only read eighty two. With a lifetime in China, Percy really should have been used to it, but he wasn't, "The Bolsheviks have crossed the Urals, there is no doubt that they'll make to drive on Omsk."

Which would take them months to reach. Siberia was too open an expanse. There weren't enough developed towns, the infrastructure was shit. It looked bad. "I've heard," Iseburo had sent cables out, and the Japanese army was leveraging to bring a fourth and fifth divisions out to the field but Hara was waffling.

Even if he allowed it, and the diet approved the funding... Hara would never allow a real mobilization and the money wasn't likely to be there with problems at home.

There needed to be a larger anglo-american commitment but Wilson was rushing to bring the troops home which was sure to have problems, but worse than that were the appropriation bills in the congress. Had the British Empire with all its dominions relocated its troops into European Russia maybe, then maybe they would have succeeded.

That was to always be the historical question that lingered.

The contribution, the sale of, supplies to the White Russian cause, the Japanese presence, Zhang Tsolin's contribution to the war in the east, and the Imperial British contribution took the form largely of clothing, and packs, but also to the sale ammunition and machine guns as Iseburo purchased 8mm Mauser machine guns. That would probably drop off in terms of the actual guns as unlike them he could purchase surplus machine guns from Europe, but Iseburo had the railway system more or less now under control as it ran from Irkutsk to the Japanese Garrison at Vladivostok. Irkutsuk to Omsk was almost as far as Vladivostok was from Irkutsk given the railway conditions about 1500 miles, to maybe 21 to reach Vladivostok.

... and if there was anything to be said for Hara was that he accepted the need for brining in civilian investment... but now wasn't the time for that.

"Omsk?" Percy questioned.

"Who's asking,"

"MacKinder, not Sir John in this case," He didn't reply immediately, so Percy continued, "The commissioner is committed to our present struggle against bolshevism. Given the influence your Transoxiana line entails and its growth you have a stake in this."

He snorted, of course he had a stake, "We have no intention of connecting the line further north," With the Don and Kuban cossacks withdrawing into Kirghiz and hundreds of thousands of them or russians or whoever pouring into the Kirghiz, into central Asia, "Especially with Orenburg's fall."

"Yes, the bolshevik offensive."

"There is a consensus," Which Percy would have probably insisted was largely him and Iseburo, "That the rail line going to Omsk from the west should be torn up entirely and the defensive line consolidated there, if you won't do that then the Whites will keep fighting over empty space, and it will keep bleeding troops since the local regiments have no investment in expeditionary warfare."

He had already heard how the British had recognized that in the Baltic with what was apparently a very good Karelian rising but as a regiment its leadership and its men were adamantly opposed to leaving the peninsula. That made them reliable for defensive operations in their homeland but the British couldn't convince them to march.

--
Percy took the austrian knotwork on the staff uniforms more or less alright... though he had mentioned that the US had formally dropped the knots on dress uniforms two years earlier... Allen didn't care. The changes in regulations to full dress was a bit of useless trivia.


"Well what is he wearing, you'd think it was bit of sport."

"Its a wind breaker Percy," What would come to be called a field jacket.

"Its a bit flappy isn't it-" Percy went quiet as the scout fired prompting a ring at one of the distance targets.

"Its a jacket for the field, not mess dress." He replied. "That's why its more green," The instructor being borrowed from 1st​ Regiment was unique in that he was wearing the loose fitting jacket. It might not have seemed like much but the attire was unique or special dispensation for the uniform allotment of graduates of the Regimental Scout Sniper program... though regimental was perhaps misnomer being that the school was run from higher authority. Whatever the case for the school, he didn't specify to Percy.

The wind breaker was a piece of civilian jacket popular back in the states. Men's outdoor wear, hunting, warmer than a sweater, and could be taken on and off in the woods back home as needed. If you didn't want to spook a whitetail, well it worked for two legged sort of game as well.

"Zhang Tso-lin doing well for himself by the way. I know the two of you are competing for Austrians to come along." How funny it was that the Russian position in Manchuria, before the war with Japan, had been perceived by the British so unassailable that it was seemingly inevitable to the British it was to be Russian territory.

Zhang, "He likes fast cars."

"Your man," Percy paused to pinch the bridge of his nose, "Otto, shares a name with that dutch painter."

"Hieronymus,"

"Yes, he's a racer."

"He is, I think we've picked up a couple of those. It seems to be a popular past time with the people we're talking to,"

"de Haviland," Allen shrugged. Airco, the company the man was designer for wasn't in the best of circumstances. A lurch due to the war ending. Percy nodded, "Ah, well you we be I think pleased to know that while John Jordan's embargo upon arms, should have no legal effect what so ever on the aircraft trade, after all they're not rifles, or cannon are they?"

Allen raised an eyebrow as another piece of steel rang in the distance. That was the beginning of it... a couple of months, and the FSO had started to undermine Jordan's harebrained idea by offering aircraft into north china... it was funny... and sort of sad for the old man.

It wasn't even business, it was politics.
 
Thanks !
I hope,that Hieronymus do not die in car race here like in OTL,at least not before teaching locals how to made engines,and finding some successor.

Siberia - till at least 1935 it was simply not possible to send any bigger forces there,so they could easily hold.According to books i read,even now it is terrible road.
In 1919 it was impossible to cross for any bigger army if you destroyed only railroad there.

About brits - i read "A ride to Khiva" ,by Fred Burnaby british officer serving in India,wroten in 1876/of course,polish translation made recently/ ,and he wrote book about recently conqered by tsar Kirgiz,becouse he feared that they would go after India.
According to him,russian junior officers openly said,that they would "liberate" India from brits.
War over India really almost happened in second half of 19th century at least twice.

Here,brits could keep their puppet state precisely to avoid it - at least till 1941,when Japan could attack them.
Interesting,what would happen to them after 1945 - would brits abadonn them,or not?

P.S about Seversky - i rething that,you should not hire him,becouse he made metal planes and your China would have problems with that.
Better continue making wooden planes - dutch Fokker D.21 was good enough till 1940,and since then you could produce french Arsenal VG33.
Here:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj9qKf5huCCAxVGQPEDHYxtDK4QFnoECBAQAQ&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_VG-33&usg=AOvVaw1_GiD1x7ImSo_2fEarjVZV&opi=89978449
They were slighty better then D.520,and better then Me 109E below 5000m/germans compared them after capitulation/
Their development,Arsenal VG 39 would be good enoug against both Japan and soviets till 1945.
 
Thanks !
I hope,that Hieronymus do not die in car race here like in OTL,at least not before teaching locals how to made engines,and finding some successor.

Siberia - till at least 1935 it was simply not possible to send any bigger forces there,so they could easily hold.According to books i read,even now it is terrible road.
In 1919 it was impossible to cross for any bigger army if you destroyed only railroad there.

About brits - i read "A ride to Khiva" ,by Fred Burnaby british officer serving in India,wroten in 1876/of course,polish translation made recently/ ,and he wrote book about recently conqered by tsar Kirgiz,becouse he feared that they would go after India.
According to him,russian junior officers openly said,that they would "liberate" India from brits.
War over India really almost happened in second half of 19th century at least twice.

Here,brits could keep their puppet state precisely to avoid it - at least till 1941,when Japan could attack them.
Interesting,what would happen to them after 1945 - would brits abadonn them,or not?

P.S about Seversky - i rething that,you should not hire him,becouse he made metal planes and your China would have problems with that.
Better continue making wooden planes - dutch Fokker D.21 was good enough till 1940,and since then you could produce french Arsenal VG33.
Here:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj9qKf5huCCAxVGQPEDHYxtDK4QFnoECBAQAQ&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_VG-33&usg=AOvVaw1_GiD1x7ImSo_2fEarjVZV&opi=89978449
They were slighty better then D.520,and better then Me 109E below 5000m/germans compared them after capitulation/
Their development,Arsenal VG 39 would be good enoug against both Japan and soviets till 1945.
Production of metal planes is actually less of an issue by the early thirties, if there is an extant automotive industry making cars, also we've started to touch on this previously stampings, but north china is a pretty good source of aluminium the planned 'asiatic marshal plan' called for China (a theoretical non communist china) to have its existing aluminium industry expanded (both in a combination of reparations from Japan, and influx of US capital), and the stampings that already exist in this timeline could be expanded from the boiler casings, and bar stock for rail usage (end of ww1) to automotive production (the 1920s) and then to much heavier stamping weights for turnig out aircraft bodies. It would have to be after 27 but it is theoretically feasible its less of an issue by 33. you would still use wooden aircraft de haviland is name dropped here for a reason down the road, but that is also in the case engine theory and production

re Britain in 45 once atlee comes to power would probably throw them under the buss, Atlee wanted out thats my read.

I have a couple of good books on the RUssian campaigns in Central asia, and I'm drawing from Morrison's Russian conquest of central asia, and Adeeb Khalid's history of Central Asia among others, and yes in the junior officer corp of the Russian empire there were very public belligerent demands fro an expansive foreign policy that created a direct, and frequent challenge to Great Britain particularly after the Crimean war, but especially after 1873 and some of that is off of Jomoni in terms of political military theory some of it is just expansionist ambitions among the young military class
 
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Production of metal planes is actually less of an issue by the early thirties, if there is an extant automotive industry making cars, also we've started to touch on this previously stampings, but north china is a pretty good source of aluminium the planned 'asiatic marshal plan' called for China (a theoretical non communist china) to have its existing aluminium industry expanded (both in a combination of reparations from Japan, and influx of US capital), and the stampings that already exist in this timeline could be expanded from the boiler casings, and bar stock for rail usage (end of ww1) to automotive production (the 1920s) and then to much heavier stamping weights for turnig out aircraft bodies. It would have to be after 27 but it is theoretically feasible its less of an issue by 33. you would still use wooden aircraft de haviland is name dropped here for a reason down the road, but that is also in the case engine theory and production

re Britain in 45 once atlee comes to power would probably throw them under the buss, Atlee wanted out thats my read.

I have a couple of good books on the RUssian campaigns in Central asia, and I'm drawing from Morrison's Russian conquest of central asia, and Adeeb Khalid's history of Central Asia among others, and yes in the junior officer corp of the Russian empire there were very public belligerent demands fro an expansive foreign policy that created a direct, and frequent challenge to Great Britain particularly after the Crimean war, but especially after 1873 and some of that is off of Jomoni in terms of political military theory some of it is just expansionist ambitions among the young military class
1.Good for them,but even if they fail to do so,wooden planes would be still good enough against both Japan and soviets till 1945.

2.Then either that white Russia fall after 1945,or your China save them.Toi be honest,they should do so in their own interest - better have relatively weak neighbour who need your help,then soviets.
Becouse problem with soviets was that they would break any agreement if they belive that they could conqer you.

3.I forget source,but i read that when Russia take Pamir mountains on China bordere in 1893 it almost lead to war with India,becouse brits feared that it mean coming attack for India.

Another occasion was when russian take some oasis in Afganistan.

P.S When Soviets started collectivisation in Kazachstan,they genocided 30% of population,but some run to China before that.Here,there would be more refugees running to your Siberia.
 

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