Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

1914 Part 1​

Bai Lang had not remained idle, in a surprise pivot he had departed his wintering camps in Honan shifted east, recrossed into Anhui, where he had been campaigning in November and commenced to a pillaging well in excess of what he'd been up to before. That should have actually been a relief as far as news went, even accounting for Percy's warning regarding guns flowing out of Canadian cities like Vancouver and Victoria to support the White Wolf. It wasn't, among Bai Lang's latest victims were a French spy... well officially he was 'just a catholic priest', but it wasn't as if Allen hadn't known the man was a spy... Whether or not Bai Lang had known was debatable, but since it was known to the US and the British, Hayashi had probably known so it wasn't impossible that such had passed to the brigand. He probably hadn't, but it didn't matter.

It didn't matter if he knew or not. It didn't matter if he had been a spy. The public didn't care. A French national, and a member of the clergy, was dead and that was enough to put the French into a furorious clamor (and demand further concessions of course), and spook the missionary community just as they had been starting to settle back down. So, no this shift and pivot back into Anhui was not actually good news.

"Do we tell the state department?" about the French sneering to Yuan behind the scenes...

"I'll mention it, I'm more leery about telling Jordan... or Japan for that matter." A pause, "Everything going on and all,"

There was the shuffling of feet, "Speaking of ongoings with England and Japan," Griswold muttered, "This business in the papers,"

"The army is investigating,"

"Thats gonna be great," Someone to his left muttered, and Allen had to agree. Obviously the Navy had just been caught with its hand in the cookie jar so to speak, but with Navy Prime Minister, and Siemens having explictly admitted to bribery over the telegraph of all damned things this was going to get messy... or rather already had.

"Mitsui is involved too," Another member of the Cadre added stirring the pot. Not that it needed stirring, but the whole thing was a great way to start the year, "I mean they had to be given their siemens's side of things." The man continued rambling on as looks were exchanged. Not that bribery was unheard, far from it. The British might have had laws against making such overtures, but it was no secret that it happened, and as long as it stayed out of the public eye the English had been lapse... well selective about enforcing it. There was no telling though how Berlin would react to this.

... realistically if it had been an army scandal telling Japan about the French machinations on rail development they'd probably raise a fuss, "I think we should go ahead and tell Shinnosuke, if he passes it along he does." It was not the sort of thing to put in the telegram, but if it was passed to the Army headquarters in Korea and then on to Tokyo well then that was that.

"Should we really be getting involved in the Army Navy game?"

They were involved. By participating as a foreign observer in the Russo-Japanese War Allen had defacto picked sides, and realistically the Japanese service branches had a tendency to transpose their associations to other countries the same. If you were army, barring select distinctions, generally assumed to be at least sympathetic to the Army's political objectives. The bigger issue was getting involved in the factional cliquish tendencies that sub divided the army, and this might have been easier if Taro hadn't gotten the cancer. "We tell Shinnosuke, he does with it what he will."

"And assuming your pops hasn't heard," Bill interjected leaning on the table, "We'll tell him. He can tell the new guy," Not that Reinsch seemed like to do anything about it... "Be easier if Rockhill was still in the job, even if he'd be partial to Paris's position."

He'd rather Hayashi not been ambassador to Japan. It was so much easier to abide agreements between gentlemen when you didn't want to shoot the son of a bitch, Allen nodded, "The Beiyang are scrambling the divisions under Qirui, but the move back into Anhui have taken them by surprise, and its going to be expensive." Which if the French were angling for more concessions in exchange for money would still have likely set the English off, even if the French were angling under the misunderstanding with the bankers of London and Jordan late last year. "We didn't expect Bai Lang to do this, and doubt anyone else did either, but he can engage in the whole sale looting of Anhui to feed his army." Which besides allowing Bai Lang to rampaging through the countryside would make Yuan Shikai look bad, and probably piss Yuan off, which was probably the point.

--
He tossed the Tokyo paper on the desk, and shook his head. There would be a Diet inquiry, but that was no surprise... it didn't help the Navy had been preparing to ask for an even bigger budget of course so that had been latched on to as well.

Cole snorted at his expression, turned popped the latch on the trunk to inspect the delivery.

"Did you want self loading rifles or not?" He demanded.

"I'll take them, but the business of the matter is always going to be keeping them clean." Cole shrugged, "I'll have the commandos start with them immediately, but the fact that its designed to switch to a bolt action still irks me."

"Please don't let Perce hear you use that word," Graves would go into conniptions, or have the vapors... or both. He was already leery of Cole's volunteers when they'd been strictly mining and other technical experts, never mind when they'd been armed during the Xinhai as part of the Railway Protection Force.

"Don't see why he's so finicky Dennys is pretty well rehabilitated. England letting them have self government and all," A snort as he worked the bolt of the rifle open, "If you ask me Graves is just putting on airs." Which could very well be true, but that wasn't the point, "I'll have the guns taken to my 'gentlemen volunteers'," Eye roll, "And the sporting club will evaluate the guns from the perspective of amateurs engaging their favored hobby."

"Alright, go on then."

Cole passed the elder Forrest on the way out, "The vickers guns?"

"Indeed. The Spanish contract order, as well as the guns the Mexicans decided not to pay for from Neuhausen."

A nod. "As to the other business, it doesn't matter about the priest's other activities. Washington doesn't like priests getting killed, and the papers back home are already clutching their pearls over the matter. As to the French machinations on Kwangsi," He reached inside his jacket and pulled out an envelope, unpacked the papers and laid them out, "Reinsch likely hasn't time to get through them, with all of his sight seeing, but when he gets back it'll probably upset him nearly as much as it will Grey." Though for different policy reasons of course, Open Door versus British Sphere of Influence games. "We will see how that plays out."

He did wonder what Reinsch's response would be though to such a flagrant French violation of the existing status quo when the secret agreement was put out... of course Yuan's government hadn't agreed to anything yet, but they probably would... and of course Kwangsi to Yunnan was one thing. "What?"

A set of second papers appeared, "As if the French weren't agitating enough with that, they also want to run a rail into Szechwan which will certainly put the English up in arms."

It was all southern China, and well beyond his own sphere of influence... but this... "The second of the opium wars, China was able to drive the French out of the province then,"

"Lest you forget, the game is the game." The elder Forrest replied, "And they have a point, The British inability to get the proposed linkage of a single line running north south has proven an issue," Never mind pesky little things like rebellion that had made such difficult. "That is ultimately just a fig leaf to trot out, and the Brits will just turn to bang on the law, and then to just make things more complicated is Japan's interest in Hankow."

That was still far enough south he was uncomfortable trying to reach down there. They just didn't have the resources, and Washington was to prone to being pulled in too many different directions. "So it is," He agreed, and quieted lamented the habit of endlessly litigating disagreements that such disagreements so frequently resulted... which of course would then be ignored entirely if one side thought they could get away with, which was almost surely going to be the case here. He had been ordering his thoughts but the old man spoke up.

"What are the chances this will cause Bai Lang, or that he is already in the process of, making another pivot south."

He considered, "I think that would predicated on if this news," if it came out to the general public, "stirred something along the lines of the Huakuang Railway debacle," That which toppled the dynasty as John Jordan called it. "You disagree?"

"The British are opposed to any further expansions, 'encroachments' as they would say, into the sphere of influence into the Yangtze basin. France and Russia have agreed to support one another's existing conditions in the valley, but," The Russian coal and iron works were hemorrhaging money and had been for a few years now, and not in any small part to being out competed by Japanese competitors, and Japan who wanted more say there, "Japan will inevitably push for more influence... I don't think they could afford the foreign entanglement at the moment... in that respect the scandal is useful... if only that it buys time. Now would be an ideal time to promulgate whatever economic machinations and planning you have in Shansi."

"We're already in the process of that, besides petroleum prospecting, and new mines, coal in particular will start to switch from replacing imported sources," And China had imported vast volumes of coal simply because the inefficiencies of the domestic mines largely still labored as if it were the middle ages with only limited use of dynamite... and that was ridiculous. The country shouldn't have been imported some two million tonnes. "And we'll increase exports to Japan commiserate over this year, and next. Iron and then steel will likely follow suit," or would have since the principle consumer would have been Japan's domestic shipyards, which was something of an uncertainty if the Navy was being investigated.

A nod, "I would get that out there, given the other mission to Europe that's running." He half expected that to turn into a crack about five year plans for corporate expansion and development, but it didn't come. There were no comments for or against moving towards acquiring aircraft, or even a pivot towards more machine tooling from the state... just the matter of what was sure to bring in or at least look at whatever new developments in arms Europe had invented.
--

--
Commentary: So it is now February of 1914, this starts the last stretch of chapters leading into June and then the epilogue that will conclude the period of the timeline basically prior to Yuan Shikai's death, with all of the effects that will have on China. Obviously the epilogue as I've said is the news that Europe is now at war, that what will be the first world war has begun with everyone mobilizing. The next part in this timeline will open after the fizzling out of the national protection war after Yuan Shikai's death in 1916; so sometime in late July 1916 after Duan Qirui has taken up as prime minister in Peking. Yuan Shikai's death, and Qirui's power struggles mark the separating out from national authority, and also comes at time where not only is world war 1 going on but also that as a by product of that and the internal struggles there are a lot of external pressures.

[White Wolf should be somewhere of the ballpark of about 100k words, 1916-1918 will probably be shorter than that, but not substantively so.]

As I mentioned in the Follow on extra when the Manchu Restoration happens in 1917 is what marks the transition to autonomous zone or region, and this change in status coincides with other events internal and external, but is important for what happens in 1918. Never mind 1919, when on May 4^th the riots break out in response to Versailles, or on May 5^th when John Jordan and the diplomatic body introduced the Arms Embargo.

As is often quoted Stimson who will be heading State at the end of the decade would go to say that 'Gentlemen do not read each other's mail.' Which of course is utter poppycock the US had been intercepting cable traffic, and reading mail since at least the civil war, and the intercepting of mail by post occurred during the revolution (and quite frankly probably before, given the colonial sentiments in the 1760s and 70s, but that's harder to prove.) The idea that we weren't, or shouldn't read other people's cables may have been intended as we shouldn't read our allies, but given the context I think Stimson was probably just out of touch with political reality. And yes, historically Russia didn't encrypt most of its communications until well into the first world war, and that was intermittent at best at times. This would go on to plague both the Reds and Whites in the civil war where it was relatively lackluster and this only really changed in the late twenties where most countries began to make the cryptographic improvements that world war 2 often talks about.

To sidebar back to population, Chirol stated that China had a population of some eight hundred fifty million inhabitants (compared to fifty million japanese) though it does seem like he didn't write everything in one go given his essay has some time matters. (Specifically 'august 12 last' referring to the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which means that the completed paper was probably published no earlier than 1912, yet I don't recall any mentions of the Xinhai revolt having taken place. This is interesting because most of the British distrust of Japan began to circulate after the rebellion, and only really began to build up in British East Asia policy wonks following 1916. (Also its hilarious to read British versus American perspectives on each other.)

 

1914 Part 2​

They had a business to run... technically he supposed the proper term was conglomerate... especially with the mass of lateral movement. Thus he wasn't sure Percy's comment on East India Company was quite a complement. He certainly hadn't appreciated the remark either.

The was a shuffling of papers, "I got to wondering if we're wrong."

"Huh?" Bill looked up from his inventory of ... whatever mine or exploration the drilling equipment he was working on at the moment.

"About our wolf problem, what if yeah he wants a capital, but if he's trying to steal a march on Nanking? And, say that's what all this is about."

Allen paused and considered it. Could they have? Yuan Shikai had managed to take the one time Ming capital twice now... but then how many failed rebellions had Dr. Sun been a part of. Had they misjudged their opposition, certainly the departing winter lodging and marching back into Anhui suggested he was up to something.

Bill spoke up before he could compose his thoughts, "Then Duan puts paid to him with his guns. Everything we've seen Bai Lang has no significant artillery," and while he did have a few machine guns they were few and far between in every instance being employed to give a bandit force a force multiplier and weapon of terror against unprepared provincial troops who were at best outfitted with 88 Gewehr. "Shit he's been run off once."

Griswold, "That's my point Bill, we assumed he was moving to Nanking to support the rebs," No one commented to the irony of the usage, here "That is probably what he was doing, but Sun has been run off. He's in Japan. Bai Lang has the last army in the field, and the only one from 1911 still opposed to Yuan Shikai."

Which was something a stretch given Bai Lang had run off in 1911 to hide back home, but he had been girding his strength, or building it and recruiting people for his army ... and for a time at least in 1912 he had been ... he had been, "That might be," Allen paused, "We need to get this finished though, Qirui is in Anhui with a sizable enough force," A couple divisions, so there was nothing they could have done, "I'm more concerned with what all Bai Lang was involved with before this whole mess boiled over. Bai Lang never agreed with Song Jiaoren politically,"

"Song getting shot in the train station definitely makes me think Bai wasn't going to moderate any further than he had been."

Allen had never really expected Bai Lang to moderate any further. The vendetta with Yuan Shikai ran too deep, Bai Lang blamed him for his mentor and patron's death... that would take blood to resolve... but for 1912 or part of it at least Bai Lang had been relatively civilized. He had been a more genteel sort of bandit as one paper had called him, and plenty more had been comparing him to Robin Hood... some still were. It had been possible to sit down and drink with the man before all of this even if Jun had never approved.

The more he thought about it though... it was actually appealing if their read had been wrong, "If he is about to try a march on Nanking, if that is what this is, then that's good for us. Xian is going to be a massively lucrative market. The new rail line gives a direct link to the east," There had been talk for years of bringing in foreign investors to try and overhaul China's aging canal system that had languished under the barren conditions of the Qing era finances as money had constantly gone to other projects after all, and they had money for it. He leaned forward and began rifling for the paper work from line, ran a finger down to the sums, "Fourteen thousand dollars," He frown, "Per kilometer, why is this in kilometer?" He grimaced at Bert's office notations in the corner of the paper, or more likely one of the man's subordinates, "Is revenue. That's the average of the quarter." They were going to have to change the kilometer measurement before the numbers were put out to the rest of the cadre, and sent to the others.

"Expenses?"

"Just under fifty eight hundred dollars," He replied mechanically. "Line isn't at the point where we need to make any improvements, once we get to full steam,"

"Sixteen to eighteen," Bill replied, "More if oil prospecting turns out, but coal certainly, iron and steel working in a couple years."

This was the sort of thing to which they should have been dedicating their time to. The railway, and the industries in a city of a million people. Clocks, and drills and every other sort of modern tool to make the work day... "If we're wrong and he's marching on Nanking that means the city can be focused on without having to contend with fighting Bai Lang, and if he's just distracted this gives us more time to fix damage done to the city."

There were some nods and comments to agreement of that. "Where is he now?" Griswold asked.

"Liuanshow last we heard. Whether he's made it to Hefei," What had used to be called Luchow, "hasn't been said one way or another, but that was the direction he was heading, and the papers have said he's sent runners and criers to distribute flyers. Down with Yuan Shikai and all that."

"Best guess is he means to loot the city, take what supplies he needs to march on Nanking then." Griswold shook his head, "He'll try and stir up whatever support he can, and let his younger hot heads run rough shod over any resistance to try and get them some seasoning.

That was possibly true, "Bai may be able to take General Ni in a fight, but only if Qirui doesn't get there fast enough," And if he did beat Qirui there if he couldn't take the city, and hold defensible ground Qirui's guns would be unmatchable advantage even if they did keep the red leg to a rather sedate march compared to a predominantly cavalry force. "I don't know where Qirui is though, and with the way the rails are all tied up and crisscrossed," and never mind all the varying gauge sizes to contend with, and the problem that made for stock in that part of the country in particular, "He might have to go north and then come back down to get to Nanking." Qirui, especially being in the field, had to know that of course.

He returned his attention back to their more mature lines noting that this collection of accounting documents were correctly settled in a final draft per Mile of track for reporting. The older lines despite the need to be improved on or other expenses were of course more productive per mile, or kilometer when converted. They had also generated more revenue over a longer period of time, but they were talking a more complex network stretch which had other factors in the long run.

Xian was going to be great, lucrative, especially once they branched out into banking, and insurance over time. They just needed to be sure they could hold it if Bai Lang did decide to again suddenly jink course and return to his native province and then from there head west.

Griswold swiped for the new line reports, "Any thoughts on Kokonur?

"I know Cao Kun has been asking." He replied, "Cao has been talking with Will Straight, and there is talk about the banking side too. Williams over Far East thinks that would be good, but the President of the United States doesn't like money lending." Cao's position was understandable for a lot of reasons, "The Ma clique hasn't said anything publicly yet but I suspect some of it is coming from Cao's inlaws, and the appearance of showing the rewards of loyalty."

"The Russians going to get prickly if, 'in we go to far north."

He wanted to scoff, the Russian Asiatic bank was constantly short on capital, but always quick to bluster about wanting to build new railways including long talked about line from Harbin to wherever its new alleged terminus point would be without anything ever happening. The Russian lines were fine, and the ones that were up and running employed a hundred plus thousand 'Imperial Subjects' as the Russian Minister was prone to banging on about when the question of territorial rights of the Empire north of the great wall came on with anyone. He had a tendency to get loud about it so that everyone around could hear him vigorously defending the Tsar's rights, and the rights of the empire. It was one thing Allen didn't want to be on the receiving end of.


After a moment's consideration he answered, "Kokonur could be useful, but you're right I don't want the impression given we're going to trample over them, we'll figure out where the line is first," And build for a little bit of safety margin if it came to it, "If the Russians are interested they can build down to wherever and meet us, or they can refuse to bid at all," At which case legally they'd entertained their first right to bid in their sphere and passed... "Not that I like trying to rely on the 1910 agreement, everyone seems to hate the damn thing," And it was easy to run a foul of its lines with all the other mess of agreements. IT made Manchuria such a headache to try and plan for. "Realistically though that's a body wide exploration." And not something that would be settled on a February afternoon... it would take months of examination and they probably wouldn't get anything in writing until at least September. "Not Kononur specifically, but we could run a line north from the city into Shansi, Taiyuan at the least, or even further north and still run foul of the Russian treaty limits." And if in the future they did get any kind of leverage to further north then hard west along a straight line," Or as straight as they could cut with fill and dynamite. "It requires a map and a lot of engineers though. Until Cao Kun actually comes round to blunt ask the matter or something comes across in writing lets keep Kokonur tabled. Its a little far west right now with us just having finished the Xian line."
--
Commentary: Thankfully Siems-Carey will all occur off screen during the time skip, and of course the french side of it would be too far south, and Allen has already set he's not touching a peking to canton direct line with a ten foot pole, so much of the French and English complaints to American line building post raised in 1915 16 plus in those 'spheres of influence' aren't applicable... despite you know there being a war in Europe on. Ah that clusterfuck was interesting to read about... I really wish I could find the Russian Empire's position on that, rather than just what Britain and the US said they said. [Cause like the British foreign ministry notes, and US state department records don't quite line up regarding the events of 1916. There are some discrepancies, which there are a lot of going on regarding events in china during this period.]

In any event I'm lookingforward to monday I've got a pathfinder thing going up in the misc thread which I'm interested to post.

 

1914 Part 3​

He tossed the endicott letter into the try of what remained of his actual engineering load. He glanced at the flickering electric light overhead, and Bill shrugged from the desk in the committee room.

Allen's drafting shop, the floor he had just left, looked more like his grandfather's office than it did Griswold's tool room... but then he supposed that was because they did different things for the corporation. Allen recognized that especially since 1911 had moved him largely from field engineering towards the managerial side... which would likely have been the role he found himself had he stayed in the army... it had been moving that direction.

In 1890 the US Census had used punched card computing for the first time... if the Qing hadn't collapsed the plan had been to try and organize a plan to implement modern statistical programs... so Yuan Shikai could actually implement more effective tax collection of course. The 1909 census had been an utter mess, but quite typical. They'd never even gotten past the planning phase for the province never mind promulgating a draft for a national census.

It had been one of the projects that had been shelved. They had largely forgotten about it in favor of finishing the outstanding products... more practical products really, after all the census had been geared towards tax purposes for Yuan Shikai to help fund further modernization of his Beiyang Army. Provincial contributions that would then be matched by the Qing Army Board and Finance ministry ensuring that Yuan's protégés would have more modern weapons... and now that Yuan was president it was less of a concern.

A provincial census anyway. At some point Yuan was going to have to run a national census... sooner rather than later if Reinsch was to be consulted on the matter heedless of the conditions south, and hence the two pronged pressure to revisit the proposal.

He had other things to do, and truthfully while it probably wasn't a terrible idea it was contracting work for a government that bluntly didn't have the money for it. With the US currently not wanting to participate in the banking consortium it was unlikely that the Brits would want to fit the money for it without an incentive. Reinsch though seemed to think that doing it would help build up the nation. He had so many other things to do, "Bill fancy this?"

The texan looked at it and then him, "Hell naw, I'll be busy enough with oil." Which would probably take two to three years before they started anywhere in terms of production, but this way at least it would be domestic. Standard Oil of New York just didn't have the same interests as the original great giant did, or the capital to throw around... and Bill had a point in opposing bringing anyone else in either. It wasn't as if they really needed the capital now anyway. "You really gonna let Sam go to Europe this summer?"

"He's been needling to go look at automobiles for an age," Allen replied, "I've got to wonder how much it would cost us to pay Ford to set us up a factory to make Model Ts." Or really just set up a factory and make them for a few years to create the institutional knowledge of how an automobile factory would work and the tooling involved, "He wants to go touring." France, Italy, Austria-hungary, and so forth.

"Last time you let him go, he came back with those howitzers."

He had been admittedly supposed to come back with Krupp liscences because they had already known they'd be able to get them. The larger field guns had been the part planned out. It wasn't as if he could ask Edenborn to mind Griswold's spending either. The earnings report for the railway was still fresh in his mind, and truthfully they had the money to make investments... "We do need to modernize." Hangyang was a government arsenal, but in economic terms Yuan Shikai opposed a French arsenal system. Maybe it was his Germanophile inclinations but he had wanted a Ludwig Lovre type institution what was now DWM, he wanted that or at least a Walther as well, it was all well and good to have a Springfield equivalent, but Winchester and Colt were the things he saw as necessary for a strong domestic industry. "Yuan will support Hangyang's upgrades, but they can already make eighty eights they don't need Hartford made tooling." And maybe as part of the upgrades he'd want Hanyang to start making 98 pattern Mauser rifles... or 1907s or whatever he could produce... which would be nice to say the least... but that would require capital that given the last two failed rebellions and the ongoing mess with Bai just wasn't available.

Bill picked up the paper again, skimmed it, "Look at the dates on these," He remarked, "But you'll get another round of these, this was all sent out before Zhao keeled over on the crapper." The governor of Zhili province had either been poisoned or gotten some kind of stomach bug as Bingjun had been found dead in his lavatory. The newspapers said poison but an autopsy had yet to be conducted from the find Friday morning.

"Not likely Zhu is a royalist, and of public manchu leanings in particular, I don't think Reinsch's new fangled ideas will get much traction with him." He just wasn't the sort of deputy to sign on to changing the civil system unless his superior thought it was a good idea... and Yuan had better things to do now. Zhu was unlikely want to pursue any kind of systemic reforms without orders, and wasn't likely especially to go along with Reinsch's ideas of what China needed regardless of the ministers good intentions. "I'll be honest Reinsch had a meeting with Arthur, and with him coming up from Shanghai, that smells like some kind of game is a foot." And of course Percy, well all of Vickers were currently all hands on deck due to the scandal in Japan. He wasn't even sure if Percy was still on the mainland, or if he'd taken a boat down to Hong Kong, or Japan to try and help out. "As for any further requests, Zhu's appointment will probably only become official after I've left for Xian, how unfortunate."

Not that Reinsch's modernization proposals were the only reason. Heading west out beyond Zhengzhou, their previous largest rail station, would keep the elder Forrest from too many requests. With Percy tied up, John Jordan wasn't likely to have too many requests either, but there was another reason still to the matter to push it. "So its confirmed."

"Estimates put Bai Lang at a division strength. Two brigades," Four Regiments, "Operating on what seem to be something akin to the Japanese model," Or at least as it would have been for the Russo Japanese war, "And right now at least Qirui hasn't been able to catch them in battle."

"Nanking?"

"Last stated he has manchu troops troops garrisoning the city," Which may or may not have been a good idea, "I suspect that they were supposed to be reserves but using them as garrison may discourage a revolt from forming in their back end." But it also kept those troops from being able to close Bai Lang into a cauldron, and destroy him. "Qirui shows no signs of being able to catch him, and we know Bai Lang has reserves in Honan still. In Bai's position, I'd have already withdrawn back, if the goal was to take Nanking too much risk of, I suspect Feng will burn the city rather than let be taken."

"Ya think?" Bill raised an eyebrow.

A shrug, "All I know is I'm getting on a train to Xian and I'm going to start overseeing the installation of those guns." And taking the tractors to do it, "I'll make sure the newspapers take plenty of pictures and circulate of when break ground on the business side of things. If the wolf takes the bait, then he does. If not, there are other investments to make." but he was banking on the fact that Bai Lang hadn't been able to take Nanking, and that he'd have to withdraw or face increasing numbers of northern divisions in the field. That was why Cole had already been sent west ahead of him.
--
He'd spent much of the afternoon twisting and turning the numbers with JP like it was back at the academy or the Phillipines. It wasn't just the rails though, or grading for, or stretching a span over a river. It wans't the matter of steel to make it, it was the expansion phase. Pyrometers in the steel mill and in finishing improved performance that had gone without saying, and John Paul now had it into his head that since Griswold was going to Europe in the summer for automobiles that maybe it was time to start moving in that direction. So they had spent entirely too long on that tangent.

Jun was the sort of woman who attracted words like peerless beauty, and goddess and so forth. The comparison to jade didn't mean green really so much as unblemished skin. "Are you alright, you look a bit piqued." He observed sitting down.

She moved slightly in a more unusually guarded gesture, and her expression bore something a moment of heat. "I look pale," Jun corrected sitting up, "I'm told my mother had the same problem when bearing me." The comment, never mind that Jun had a younger brother and she hadn't specified him, was added with a hand resting on her stomach. The maid was pointedly stoic at this, even as he sat down, and he didn't ask for a drink... though he supposed that would have been what was generally expected."We can no longer really avoid it though, there is a war coming to usher in an end to old empires."

It wasn't the first time he'd heard the old woman's warning. It had been one he had dismissed as just nonsense. He had half expected the problem with conceiving had been his, but the doctors all said it was just bad luck. The miscarriage in 09 had really just been enough to put a halt to purposefully trying for children. "The qing have already fallen, dear." He pointed out.

"Empires was plural, husband." She corrected snappishly. "You've heard the poem in its full length,"

Autumn so on and so forth, and he touched the jade knicknack on his desk before pulling back, "Alright sure, war is coming," It had already been coming, but sure, "I'm going to Xian with any luck Bai Lang will over commit and that will be that. If he doesn't, we will go from there." It was all he could really say, there was no point to arguing about the prospect of war.

--
Commentary: One of the things that ended up on the cutting room floor for this story is the whole Song Jiaoren whodunnit, his murder and then the subsequent accusations and so forth. Similarly while Siemens-Vickers 1914 Scandal gets passing mention it also ended up on the cutting room floor. The next chapter though is Xian, which takes place in spring of 1914 with Bai Lang having begun his western march. The 'western campaign' mini arc of chapters, which will besides Xian, cover Shanxi, and the Ma Generals.

There is one scene that has been left out of this chapter, we'll call it the news scene, that may be added in Monday. Its not currently ready but will be appended to this segment, but due to my schedule this weekend I have been able to get it written to where I want it, but it is relatively important domestically. Technically this segment is the very end of February 1914 early march the same.

 

The Ancient City
Xian Part 1​

He put the letter to the side, and looked at his office. The pang in his stomach was unusual. A portent his father assured him was well normal given the news.

Divination was hardly the sort of thing he cared for, damn the vagaries of fate, but was war actually coming/ it seemed silly to worry about Europe had avoided plenty of conflicts, talked others aside, and backed away without shaking the world. The Xinhai conflict had been a joke in terms of real fighting... this just passed second revolution just as laughable. Nothing that had come anything close to the war between the states, never mind the scale of something like the Taiping rebellion.

... yet he was here, wondering what lay ahead. The Xian office, and they wrote it 'XIAN', though Percy's letter has post marked it 'Sian-fu' for the city, which had just not been something he had realized, was wired for telephone, telegram, and electric lighting. The maps inside resembled the ones back east showing the sprawling expanse of railways, but those wall mounted map boards were overshadowed by rolling boards filled with maps of the surrounding countryside.

They had run plenty of surveys since 1910, and no one had so much as thrown them a sideways glance at running yet more of them even with the main trunk finished into the city. Excavations were marked off which ones that were done, which ones were planned still in a different color, and delays in yet another on the rolling maps. From the outside looking in anyone watching the city would assume there was a much larger investment going on... were that that actually the case. The dykes on the river, the canals nearby all needed work. The greater canal system of China had needed an overhaul and more than just semi frequent patching for thirty plus years now. Railways made them somewhat less necessary for transport of goods, but there was still the role in flood control, and spring was coming. He was cognizant of that as what were entrenchments designed to break any demonstration of 'elan vital' by Bai Lang's troops in mounting a head long charge.

Some of the barbed wire lines were already being stretched, and emplaced. Indeed to maintain something of a fiction they had corralled in cattle, and made temporary holdings to feed and see to the animals, even though they were on the wrong side of the rail line. Qirui had failed to catch Bai Lang, and the report ranging from Honan and Shensi had come that Bai Lang had planned a great march west to regroup... that not all of his captains believed was the most prudent. Some had declared they'd hold in Sow gorge ... which was where Qirui was supposed to be marching on with overwhelming numbers.

As a graduate of west point he would have found that painful to contemplate, but most powers still longed to mount the glorious charges of cavalry across the field. It took reminding himself that it had only been in the last century that the modern great powers of Europe had industrialized after the English had worked out most if not all the kinks of industrial measure. The Europeans had only really had their colonial adventurers to see the effect of modern war until those fool things in the balkans as the Ottoman's slipped further into their dotage. It seemed likely that Bai Lang would mass for a front assault hoping that his numbers and courage would take the centuries old city walls.

Walls that he had carefully painstakingly modelled, and whose previous historical defenses he had studied. The provincial guard, and city militia, under Fenghui had a handful of blackpowder cannons that would have been old during the boxer rebellion, but they did seem to work, but Fenghui's infantry ranged from single shot cartridge rifles up to a very small precious number of eighty eights. They had no modern artillery, and certainly no machine guns. Shaanxi was not allocated a Beiyang division of its own. It wasn't once of those provinces in the Yangtze river basin, and not part really properly he supposed a part of North China. Yuan had only gotten around to establishing a Shensi based Beiyang Division relatively late in the Qing after all, and that had been something of a mess because it had its share of radicals in it once the Xinhai revolt had kicked off that had gutted the division with desertions before it had really been complete. The money had never been there of course for more after, and for the Qing settling on the eighty eight had been a decision that had made sense, after all it wasn't as if the Belgians didn't use a rifle much similar.

The matter of rifles drew his attention from the tools of his office as a staff officer to the weapons of the field. The rifles and guns that rested in the room with their bandoliers, and magazines of ammunition. His personal weapons stood there, and then his attention flitted back to the matters of staff, to the division of labor for the battle to come. Of what weapons were allocated to which units, to volumes of shell for batteries especially.

--
There was a certain sort of grumbling going on as march had dragged on. It was not discontent per se, but something of an oddity in the mood of officers and enlisted men. The conversation ongoing was just an example of the wider matter. "Going to be awful queer having to explain dying in gray to grandpappy."


The comment caused Shan to glance at him inquiringly. They were all in gray uniforms modelled after Prussian uniforms. The only true difference with the Beiyang army uniforms were the deletion of those horrible epaulets... and he supposed the crushed hats of the men.

Dawes who's look was far away, and not focused on his heavy guns nearer afield shook his head to JP's comment. The older man looked aside, "Today might be as good as any to die, but its not our turn." He turned fully. "I should say let 'em come. Their mettle will be found wanting beneath the thunder of our guns." There was solemn tone, an edge near supernatural to his words that steeled the others as much as it might have them uneven in its tone.

John Paul shook his head as Dawes started barking to his red legs, or the spotters all along the walls with their charts. "Why is he like that today? It gives me the chill." Allen almost reminded the other man that it had been his choice to come along to this, that he could have stayed at the arsenal where he might have done more good. They stood though together in an ancient city preparing to defend her, from storied walls, against a great horde of bandits.

Cole snorted, "At least the old man spared us his death vision this time, god," He shook his head, "The Cheyenne hate it when old folks," Dawes really wasn't that old, "start chasing death like he's doing."

"He'll be with the artillery," Allen replied, Dawes wasn't going to go charging off on some fool cavalry maneuver looking to achieve some grand break through.

"Good, there is no san juan hill to charge up." Cole snorted in agitation, glanced at the horizon, and then to the mix of the men. He didn't comment that they were the hill as his eyes craned back to the river southwards of the city. Visibility was good. It was a pretty day soon to be spoiled by what loomed on the horizon. The Jia, the pennants of the various battalions fluttered distant. "He better be right, sure are a lot of the bastards."

Not that they hadn't expected that. He thought back to the comments months earlier. About ... about Rorke's Drift, and about lessons learned watching Russian and Japan bloody each other almost ten years ago now. "Sure are," He agreed. This would be a battle of true armies. Thousands of men on either side... many thousands on one side.

They had the defensive ground, as prepared as they were going to get it. Every man was a volunteer, and even the least drilled volunteer had months of learning behind him, and had been issued as much ammo, and with pistols as a contingency. A contingency that was more about reassurance than anything, the idea of having to go to that wasn't a pleasant one.

This was going to be to be interesting.

He did not lament that he had been hoping that they would had more time. That maybe more of Bai Lang's horde might have hoped to fight Qirui in home terrain. They were here, and this was now... they were committed. "how's it?" Cole questioned in brief.

"We're going to hold," He reminded him. The guns at Arthur, seven hundred miles odd as the crow flew, had had ranges in miles in indirect fire. Dawes' could have opened the barrage now Bai Lang's banners were well within eight kilometers of the city. "I can't be for sure that that's not a smokescreen to make it look like he had more men on the front than he does."

Cole gestured to one of his corporals and sent him down the stairs of the ancient city walls. The rifle clubs had been a European introduction to the ancient kingdom, hunting clubs had sort of existed in the Manchu kingdom of the Qing, but it wasn't the same. The needs of the Railway Protection Force had opened up the club that served as the drill ground for Cole's 'gentlemen volunteers' to officer recruits... ensigns cornets lieutenants whatever they were to be called and now served as a finishing school for sharpshooters and scouts in a way that just hadn't existed in the Federal Army.

As the man moved to return to his own unit's line the wind began to pick up from about four miles an hour to close to eight, but that was unlikely to mean anything. Bai looked like he had halted his troops, and was waiting to see what they would do... there were occasional flashes of glass from his side, and Bai's horsemen could probably see the flashes of glass from theirs as they searched.

If Bai's men were looking for artillery they wouldn't see them. Those had been tucked well back of their own lines, and Dawes connection to each of the batteries was being coordinated via field telephones that were wrapped with color chords to signal which of them it was talking to by sight. Each of the batteries had colored dyes to mark where they landed and they were very literally going to be painting the horizon in the next hour or so if the wolf decided to huff and puff.
--
Commentary: This is a three part which is almost entirely going to be the actual battle for the city, its currently sitting about fifty four hundred words and should finish up on the sixth with the last bit of bloodshed. This is going to be a very 'modern' battle in many respects, colored dyes in guns were done, early and then dropped due to as industrial warfare spun up you just couldn't have that option in a war suddenly requiring millions of tons of shells delivered to tens of thousands of guns, and it did return in particular in Naval combat in for example world war 2, but also field telephones, barbed wire other stuff.

In terms of this battle and particularly the story that opens two years later in 1916. This is important as Fenghui will be actually be relieved as military governor of the province in June of 1914. His successor would declare 'independence' from China or at least Yuan Shikai's Beiyang government in spring of 1916, but doesn't really seem to have done much. Shaanxi largely kept business as usual in terms of various internal business. (From 1914 to 1916 in particular there was a lot of US investment, oil, rail, canals, more investments in agriculture both cash crops and food stuffs) and Lu gets replaced by Qirui's guy Chen (this is a member of the Anfu club, or anhui clique) historically, and he'll make minor appearances in the following story.

Xian though was largely neglected in terms of capital politics. Chen allegedly spent more time in Beijing than he did in the capital he was military governor of. (Though admittedly being part of the Anhui clique he may have had other titles between 1916-17 that I've missed.)

 

The Ancient City
Xian Part 2​

Red, Green, and White smoke plastered the battle ground. "Five Nines, Rounds complete." Someone to his right declared, before relaying adjustment for the guns to lay into the mass. Bai Lang's first wave had gallant as it had looked at the youths with their silks, and rifles atop their ponies had been an attempt at intimidation. A sallying forth onto the field to show thousands of cavalrymen probably with the intention of demanding the city throw open its gates. They had come in waving banners which a man with binoculars had read out declared them the 'Army to Punish Yuan Shikai.'

They had been allowed a thousand meters near to the city wall, before the old black powder guns had been allowed to open up from the city walls. Those guns which would have been by Chinese standards considered modern in the Taiping rebellion had been a distraction even as they poured black powder driven shot and even explosive shell bounding into pre measured killing fields to which the cavalcade had helpfully charged into. They were just antique guns though and they had made big billowing clouds of white smoke from their positions that the city folk and Bai Lang's troops had pointed to.

The dashing brigands had turned and disengaged fleeing beyond the range of the old black powder guns and settled back to stamping and stomping at where they had started.

There had been no counter battery though. NO duel of artillery had commenced, and while it wasn't unthinkable Bai Lang did have machine guns they hadn't seen any. The real force, on their side had been divided into three concentrations forces. A, B, and of course Cole's Van deployed in the defenses outside the city wall. It would have been nice to have a dedicated force of reserves, but they didn't have the numbers for that. At the top of the hour Bai Lang had mounted another cavalry charge hoping to force the gates. A force of dismounted infantry with smokeless rifles had been advancing behind them had followed up trying to suppress the gun crews on the wall by at the very least making things at the ramparts a little more exciting.

Cole's Van Force, and the defensive frontage had allowed the cavalry to get close before they had opened up from prepared firing positions... trenches and reinforced timber covered firing lines with razor wire stretched and staked in front of them. The chatter of Vickers guns and had raked the field, and Bai Lang had replied with an expected gallant sortie of his host.

The depth of the battlefield was John Allen estimated about five kilometers. Bai Lang seemed to have kept all of his best troops in reserve choosing to mount the bloody frontal attacks with fresh recruits and young unproven bandits eager at least to win glory. White smoke from the lighter modern guns had focused on the core of the offensive thrust. Red and Green from heavier fifteen centimeter 'field howitzers' were only throwing to about half of their actual reach but were landing 'splendidly' as Dawes had described it across the back lines of the enemy force.

This was more complicated than the Missionary Battle... what was worse than that was all of those who were coming to the ramparts, eastern and western to watch from the walls at the great butchery carrying on. This was as a modern a battle as central China had seen in living memory he reckoned, and Bai Lang's recent carrying on as he crossed the border had won him no new friends. The word had come since they had left Honan of a systematic canvasing of taken cities where they would thoroughly strip a place of valuables and rape and murder to their content. No doubt Bai Lang was hoping to blood his newest most untested recruits for a stand against government forces if it came to it, but it could well have been the Bai Lang's targets had since crossing the border been predominantly been Hui merchants as well.

So thus here they were standing at the command post with unoccupied parts of the ancient walls having turned into gallery seating. "I wish they'd go home." They had planned for the possibility of this carrying on overnight. Flare shells had been allocated to the guns, and he could only guess how that and the arc lights they would use to light the walls and illuminate the ground in front of Cole's forward line would be taken by the locals. For now though it was as if they were at the greatest show on earth.... but he supposed the turnout of picnickers for Bull Run and other early battles of the war between the states had happened too.

JP nodded, "Me too, John Allen." He lowered his field glasses. "Those aren't peasant soldiers out there. He's tried, you can tell to instill some level of drill into that nest of rats. I don't see anything that could be this 'Shansi Revolutionary Corp' though, and there has been no sign of Bai Lang's personal banner."

Any further chatter was silenced as John Paul clicked his mouth shut as fresh rounds began to cycle from behind them as the howitzer crews made their adjustments. Fresh splashes of Gree n smoke appeared left exploding into high explosive scything shrapnel through the enemy ranks almost two miles across the southern plain from the wall. They were far enough that he couldn't see the individual men fall, only the gap as shells opened the already riven earth. "What's he doing?"

"Signaling for another attack I think." The afternoon was wearing on, and as the day had worn the wind had picked up through out the day, "I'm counting, one," JP Counted, "Six Jia east to west moving forward of the line. That's, at least a brigade of men." He muttered. It wasn't as if they hadn't know that Bai Lang had more men than he knew what to do with.

"Anyone we know?"

"Just a moment then," A pause as he tracked the massive sixty power german spotting optic, "far right of the force, think its one of his cousins." JP declared, A nod was given to one of the telephone operators, and he began to carry on through the line that ran down to Cole's forward command post to ask what they could make out. "He's the one who hit Lokoku, right?"

"If not him than one of his lieutenants," Allen agreed, the wind made it difficult to catch the long streaming banner. The newspapers had reported that the raid on the factories in the town had entailed some seven hundred rifles... and he wondered if when they surveyed the bodies if that Jia would be carrying American or British arms made at Lokoku's arms factories. Or Arisakas a nasty voice in his mind added, Bai Lang's most elite troops through this whole affair had often been those of family and family friends his cousin was probably leading at least some of the wolf's best troops to try and force the great gate.

This was at least a known threat though. The Shansi, the neighboring province, Revolutionary Corp had been a recent bit of news. Supposedly defectors from the Beiyang Army, and lead by officers who had studied in Japan that were purported to have linked up with Bai, and made common cause... but Allen had yet to lay eyes on them. He wasn't quite sure he'd recognize them. Bai Lang had other Beiyang deserters in his army, and if they were still wearing the uniforms would they even be recognizable from each other. The reports from down south was that opposing forces some still wearing the uniforms issued under the Qing at the turn of the century had simply taken to wearing armbands, apparently that had been the case at the Woosung forts, and Shanghai.

Useful only in spitting distances, he mused thinking of Bureaugards sentries shooting down Stonewall Jackson in the night as he rode.

"Weather looks like its starting to turn," JP observed how much of the darkening skies were the day wearing on, the wind, or even the cannon shells bursting, was debatable. Whatever factor or combination of factor, the first gollup of rain hit his hand. The fields were already churned by the thrash of hooves as far as the eye could see and men following after hadn't made it any better, now the spring rains were to come as well, turn it all into an even bigger mire. This meant nothing to the bulk of the forces they had arrayed to defend a city of a million people. Their own... from an organizational perspective brigade had the city walls, and the old Manchu district to base from and an abundance of buildings and structures. The forces forming the defensive cording forward of the walls of the city had some exposure to the elements simply because you could only dig so deeply in an amount of time, and to tell the truth they had wanted to maximize as much an element of surprise as possible. "I sure hope Cole graded those fighting lines right if this turns nasty." Xian's soil had a layer of hard clay down under a lot like back home, that ... well for railway construction was one thing, but field fortifications, and breastworks was an added chore. Really it was just a matter of time consuming labor that didn't work when you had a division bearing down.

The fortifications were still already deeper than what would have been feasible in most of the Phillipines because this wasn't swampland, the challenge was dry hard packed soil here. If the thunderstorm here would have come maybe a few weeks earlier than it might have done some good for the defenders. In spite of the stirring thunderstorm though it seemed Bai Lang hoped to make one more charge even as the rain began to pick up. "Here he comes."

The cavalry battalions swept forward as a mass preparing to mount a charge that no doubt they expected would let them break through. That they would be able to get under the elevation of the guns and through the defenders outside the walls and could then find a gate they could force.

"He's got infantry moving up as well." John Paul declared abruptly calling. "Far to the flank, make eight hundred meters left side. Thats got to be two thousand men."

"Shan signal Force A, hold fire until they are within five hundred meters of the companies' positions."

 

The Ancient City
Xian Part 3​

Charging entrenched guns was a heavy ask. The Philipinos had had limited artillery, but the Spanish professional troops had had modern guns for the time. That fighting had already been done of course by the time Allen had arrived, but there had still been the trouble of clearing other prepared defenses with rebels... even most often what that really entailed was supporting or advising one group of Philipinos against another. The moro conflict had largely been fought by moros on both sides and only the surprise attacks and willingness of moro tribesmen, frankly on both sides, to charge a prepared defensive fortification had been rife for chattering in the papers.

Elan Vital... or Kokutai as it had been described most recently by Japan was the strategic expression of doctrine that moral rectitude would allow a force to in the attack overcome the defenders.

Bai Lang had some twenty thousand men outside, and he felt that whatever losses could be inflicted wouldn't be enough to break his attack.

They would see.

Force A was the first and second companies of first battalion... and technically Allen supposed the headquarters element. That was two companies of four platoons. Any similarity the US 15^th infantry ended with the machine guns pushed down to company level. The comparison of his own force though made him see what it was Bai Lang was in the process of attempting, "This is like the Boxer Rebellion."

"What," John Paul's head had snapped to the side to look at it, "IN case you ain't noticed we both got modern rifles and a distinct lack of magic talismans."

That wasn't what he had meant, "No, this is a repeat of Fukushima's Fifth Division, and its attempt to force Peking's gates," Just with more cavalry in the forward, which explained why Bai Lang was willing to soak losses like this. Fukushima had insisted on carrying the day, damn the consequences and been hailed for it.... well that and Fukushima had probably had the best drilled troops among the relief forces... at least according to some. How much of that was the fact the Japanese hadn't acted like the Germans and Russians had probably impacted 15^th Infantry's records, and the opinions of her officers, or for that matter the Brits even as looting had taken place. "He's-" The explosion of dynamite from somewhere to his left, to far forward of the gates to have done anything, someone had probably lit too soon and and not thrown far enough to make it into a firing line... or they'd fumbled the throw.

Machine guns chattered away at the attacking line from Cole's positions as the Vickers opened back up in sweeping fire. As with the artillery the machine guns were operating at only a fraction of their range, rather than reaching out to two thousand yards, or even sixteen hundred given the worsening light, they were sweeping cordons of fire at a fraction of that.

JP glanced back into the optic, "We gonna have to crank those arc lights on sooner rather than later, what do we do about this. If he's doing what you say he's going to do we can expect night attacks." Not that they hadn't expected night attacks. "Might be why we haven't seen the Shansi boys show yet."

Yet was the operative word. Bai Lang presumably knew if he didn't take the city, and couldn't cut the rail line that Cao Kun, or Duan Qirui would, if not both of their divisions, get sent by Yuan Shikai and the massed Beiyang troops would catch them in a pincer. Even if Bai Lang could cut the rail and take the city that didn't necessarily assure he'd be able to hold it, but Bai Lang was probably banking that Yuan Shikai couldn't spare enough cities to contest hold of such an interior city without risking another revolt down south breaking out. How exactly committed Bai's rank and file were to Revolution, well that Allen was somewhat skeptical of, but it didn't matter if Bai Lang won, or so long as Bai could keep paying his troops.

Force B consisted of Volunteer soldiers rather, which was itself a stupid distinction. Everyone was a volunteer, but the two battalions of 'professional' troops were distinct from the larger number of second line drill... but even second line wasn't really accurate. Guardsmen wasn't accurate either, even though he supposed in comparison to the US Army that might have fit the pieces he had.

Force B wasn't truly a reserve force though it was comprised of those drilled units organized to provide the men for walls as a whole. A thousand man battalion was the core of Force B, divided into its companies along the cardinal facings not covered by Force A. It was doubtful of course that the northern approach could be actually assaulted, especially as it was from that direction that their rail line entered the city, and it was as a result the most heavily laden observation and communication network constructed in the most permanent fashion compared to the field lines. Additionally to bear consideration any attack from the north would force Bai to contend with the geography there of risking whatever force he could get up that way its own encirclement against the boundaries of natural surroundings. In a similar manner Bai attempting to swing wide west and come round would have potentially allowed him to encircle, assuming he had enough troops to conduct such a broad maneuver, but would have exposed his troops to protected and accurate rifle fire from elevated positions. Force A and B were both along the city's walls, or within the old city, such as the brigade postings in the former tartar city within that now held the rail depot. Van Force, as calling it Force C would have been silly, was the only one outside those protections and had excavated its fighting lines as a result of it only on the southern facings. They were effectively a defensive projection, basically a salient projecting forward into the terrain of the city. That was Cole's force were a screen to allow Force A to shoot at an angle, and keep enemy troops from getting directly under the city walls.

Bai's infantry force behind his cousin's cavalry had moved forward and looked now to be in the process of setting up what were most probably Maxim guns of some caliber. Whatever round they might have been firing, and it certainly did not have the report of eight millimeter mauser, sounding smaller, though that might have been the deadening of sound from all the rest of the din, including the rainfall. The bigger issue of the snap thunderstorm was it reducing already diminishing daylight, and JP was right they were going to have to crank the lights on sooner rather than later.

"He's got more infantry moving up."

"Another brigade?"

"No, maybe half of one." Which begged the question where was the other half. "They look like they're dispersed Bai has started spreading his columns, think he's cotton'ed on to the notion standing to march is bad with artillery around."

John Allen moved to one side and glassed the enemy position, taking a moment to adjust the optic even if the enemy ranks looked like a mound of little black ants. JP's observation was correct though it was near to impossible to make out individuals as little more than specs someone down there had to be running and directing them to spread out for a ground covering advance. It wouldn't be as fast or as coordinated but it would keep a single shell burst from cutting down ten men a square meter.

--
The fact was they had planned to use arc lights, and put Bai Lang's troops under star shells all night anyway. That had been pre planned, and the illumination had been factored in in how they had provided for the shelter of their own troops bedding down for the night. As far as avoiding the stimulation of the light it had been a simple matter of black out stretches of canvas, but one had to lob those shells, and arc lights or the generators for them weren't exactly quiet either. Allen and Company A had been exposed to the ruckus at the mission down south, but JP looked like he hadn't slept a wink. John Paul was currently surly and snapping at Cole who was taking it in stride though as he cleaned the fourth or maybe fifth Mondragon rifle of the morning.

Bai Lang had stretched his troops along the horizon, dispersing them wide enough and far enough apart that any single artillery motion would be ineffective. No one had accused him of being stupid at least in terms of military acumen, and his staff organization talents were wasted on banditry, but if he did want to make another attack he was going to have to concentrate and get moving. He was probably sitting down to breakfast in front of a map table with his own officers even now wondering how close he needed to get before he could safely mass his troops up again.

Bai Lang seemed though to be intended to take a long breakfast, and Dawes was still in the process of thoroughly cleaning his pieces of artillery in expectation for literally tons of shells needing to be fired against a dispersed foe throughout the day. "Any idea as to casualties?"

"Just the twelve dead," At yesterday's evening call, "The rest the wounded have been invalided back to the Hospital as a precaution." Some of the twenty or so wounded among Cole's van force would have been walking wounded, but they had been ordered to hospital all the same.

"And Bai Lang?"

"No counting the shots in the night," the other Georgian replied, "Total losses from yesterday, I think the guesswork still agrees he probably lost a thousand or so dead, and probably double maybe triple that wounded. Two thirds of all that from Dawes's guns, and maybe, just maybe that might have buried some more of them that we didn't count."

It was guesswork of course, short of plowing up the fields there would be no way to know. Combat losses of an attacking enemy at range were also always prone to being inaccurate. Dawes artillery batteries could very well have done more damage, but probably hadn't done less.

There was an audible ker chunk as Cole finished another, dropping the bolt on, Mondragon. "Have you warmed to them then Cole?"

"Hell no, tell Griswold to make more of those Remington this time in seven mill and we will have a fine self loader."

"I like them," JP protested, "Recoil is much more manageable than Browning System." Shortly before John Paul had left the army in 1907 he had purchased... for a hundred dollars ... one of the Hanael semi automatic rifles. That rifle was currently at the arsenal that bore their names because of its ammo, and JP was currently sitting next to his own Model 1900, that was to say the very same system of action used in Griswold's mauser caliber project guns.

"Too much machining for this," He gestured, "These conditions, I'm surprised mud hasn't forced us to use them as bolt actions yet. "Too damn expensive too. Outfit the army, rifles that are seventy five dollars a rifle. Congress would try and lock us up in the asylum. That's assuming Griswold could make them in 30 Government and not have the price go up."

"I didn't say in 30." JP complained defensively, "The future of weaponry is in smaller diameter self loading."

"You preaching to the choir," Cole interrupted, "But trying to sell 'em stateside, I mean shit we liberated Cuba mostly with black powder rifles for god's sake. I'm fine leaving you to make the guns but there are times you forget some things."

Any further quibbling was cut off as a klaxon started. One of JP's lieutenants offered him a handset, but the message from the Klaxon's wail had been clear enough, "Movement spotted from the observation posts." JP reported, and that was the end of breakfast. They divided to their respective posts Cole heading out the gates to rejoin his commandos who'd been posted for the morning watch while the rest of Van force took morning chow.

The rain had cleared, even if the ground wasn't dry, but it wasn't especially bright either. He made a mental note to return to the mission and to investigate the condition of the ground there to see how it was after that spat between them and Bai's uncle.

A murderous slog of ruined earth mired a zone about three hundred meters wide beyond which on either side were other pockmarks. It was not yet hot enough or been long enough for the bodies of yesterday's dead left in the no man's land to ripen but flies and carrion birds were already present in swarms and droves. Did that stop the onlookers? The spectators? Not at all, far from it the numbers were probably even more than they had been yesterday.

He suspected that was in part because most of the fighting was to those onlookers nothing more than noise and smoke. The advent of smokeless powder had resulted in a fascination of the theoretical capability that sights were graded out to two thousand or more meters, despite the fact that you'd be luck if one in a thousand men had the eyesight and the skill together for that kind of shot. You certainly wouldn't make that shot on a target in a rank of men regardless of what the French and Prussians had expected thirty years earlier as they had been racing to put smokeless powder into use.

Most of the observers, hell even to JP there was a disconnect with observing the situation. There was a disconnect of not seeing things up close. None of JP's specialists of wire layers, and telephone operators were at any risk of being caught out front, as so far only Cole's Van Force had really been exposed to enemy fire. "Bai Lang knows he can't keep this up. He has to take the gate, or he must abandon the attack..." Or at least such was the strategic thinking... the logical thinking... but there was the nagging feeling that Jun was right... that Bai had taken the bait and would commit himself to his honor, and would press this into a final decisive battle. "Ring Dawes, I want to know if those howitzers of his are ready for the recital."
--
Commentary: This has been abridged, in the original draft Bai Lang manages to drag the 'siege' out to a third day and manages to burst one of the gates with dynamite concealed within an ox cart and insert a force from the Shansi Revolutionary Corp into the Hui quarter of the city, prompting some urban street to street fighting as a demonstrator of events during the wolf hunt as we approach June of 1914.

It is overall a relatively minor change in terms of what it happens, and is actually kind of a flip flop on my part as this is going back to an earlier draft version involving the adoption of the Dragon Banner and the use of the red dragon.

 

The Hunt, and the Banner
Part 1​

Allen had taken his boots off, which was near to a breach of army discipline even though he was off duty. Off duty, that was a problematic concept. Technically speaking Bai Lang had been driven back, but it wasn't impossible he might attempt to make a second attack, doubtful as that was. Not with all the newspapers squawking about Xian as a conflict... the damned telegraph had meant all sorts of crowing to the coastal cities, and in particular missionaries cabling their embassies.

The committee of economic advisors a fancy and self appointed title to a sub unit of the cadre had drafted their recommendations for Xian reconstruction already. Reconstruction made it sound like there was more damage to the city than there really had been due to the recent fighting. The truth was that Manchu portion of Xian had never been rebuilt, or properly cleared from the arson of the revolution, and it was probably risky to play up as if Bai Lang had done more damage than he had. The report though already outlined a policy of clearance, and grading for the district.

What had been Force B would be remaining in the city. Commissioner Gao had been dismissed by Peking after Zhang had complained to Yuan, but it wasn't as if, at least according to Cao Kun, that Yuan was thrilled with either members of the provisional government... of course Yuan was apparently ticked off at Duan for not managing to pin and break that 'flea bitten mongrel' either. So the battalion would be staying on.

Thinking back now to the war-games of New Years he regretted having taken up the position of Gordon against the Frenchman. In part that was because of the economic report in front of him that was no small part a roundabout insistence that they return to the matter of creating economic growth, that was to say productivity and the manufacture of goods either for export or for domestic consumption. The question of what we will produce, and how they would produce it, the question of distribution was easy, they had the rail.

The Qing's financials had long contributed to a devolution of imperial authority down to the provincial level, mountains high emperor is far away and all of that had been a thing before then, but the Xinhai revolt had only further weakened Peking's ability to make policy in the provinces. That didn't mean Peking didn't want to, and frankly as Sun demonstrated in his brief tenure in charge of the railway portfolio he had been more concerned with actual results rather than the agreements the Qing had made with the provincial elites. Not that his year roughly in the job had been all that effective, Jun had had a point there, but if there was anything to be said of the muckraking that Adams was doing for the legation, what money had been raised had largely gotten tied up in complicated unproductive expenditures that had born out little in the way of new rails being laid down. Frankly, most of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in repair work was probably half graft anyway.

On the other hand Liang, and Cao Kun both had confirmed that part of what had delayed Duan Qirui had been Bai Lang dynamiting turnpikes, and switchbacks but thankfully no bridges. Bai had also firebombed a portion of hunan's rolling stock too just to make things difficult... but the general consensus now was that Bai Lang and his forces were now driven from the province.

That was progress of a sort at least.

He glanced up, "Been standing there long?" Allen asked.

Jun sat down without answering. He hadn't heard her open the door, but he was relatively sure he had left it unlocked and the outer door beyond it open. "more arguing?" She asked drilling long fingers along the header of the report. "More arguing? You have a city now." She observed.

Truthfully he didn't expect her to understand. So much of Jun's view differed in how she saw the world. The arguments about reprioritizing away from 'military adventurism' to focus on commercial market cultivation, "Abandoning the hunt now would only weaken your position, Qirui's constitution fails him, and for all the bluster of lesser officers the wolf is too far beyond their grasp to chase. He's been allowed into the western frontier where is unlikely to find succor and thus have no need to restrain the more base urges of his lackeys."

"And where do you think he'll go?"


"All across the western frontier, wherever he can blunder and loot of course. As far as the Jade Gate perhaps, north to lay siege to Taiyuan, or even further to encamp at Baideng." That would put him near the contested areas of influence of the Tsar and the Japanese. "You have to pursue him."

--
Parts of Bai's army had pivoted hard and through the Gansu corridor at the end of April, and as predicted had found little support among the Hui, Uighurs or Tibetan folks of the western provinces. The Old Ma family generals in the west had moved to get people out of the way, choosing to trade space and deny Bai Lang's men resources rather than directly confront a bandit horde armed with modern weapons. That wasn't stopping Bai Lang from plundering anything he could get his hands on, but he was getting less and less. The proviso, description of being, bandits with politics was falling away to just being bandits.

Not that the newspapers really cared. He was too far west for any real notice to be paid to matters. Maybe if he went even further and marched into the Tibetan steppes to both British interests there would be more of a comment but even then that was doubtful.

"You think Jun's right?" Bill questioned, "He circles back tries to take the city a second time?"

Allen leaned back, "Its possible. He divided and scattered his forces through the provinces because he presumably couldn't keep them fed any other way." Xian was the largest city in the region, the biggest single concentration of wealth... "But she's right he could pick somewhere smaller, Taiyuan has an arsenal, he could raid it for arms and ammunition."

"Can't say I like that idea." The texan replied, but this also wasn't Texas, running off into the frontier was a good way to end up dead... and they both recognized that. "Don't get me wrong, Al, Bai needs to be stopped, but we're going to be tying down two thousand men here. There is now way all of first battalion can be spared, and certainly not to go running after him,"

All of first battalion... "Bai Lang has too many troops I know that." And realistically Cole was going to be needed elsewhere. "But if we don't do something,"

"I won't be able to do any exploratory drilling. That hadn't escaped me, but even if he doesn't think we baited him into attacking Xian, or that we had at least laid a trap he's not going to try that a second time." Bill finally reached for his whisky, "If Shanxi then Yan, if Gansu then the Old Ma... and if he runs down to Tibet... well fuck him, then it ain't our problem." If only it were that simple, "At least with Taiyuan we were going to take a railine up off the Zhengzhou trunk and run it up that ways. That wouldn't take so long either, and would be much closer to their own factories, and smelters.

"Be realistic Bill, what are the chances I could stay out this way?"

"Nada," The Texan drawled draining the glass. "You're needed back in the big city, bigger city." He amended, "And I'll remind your old man thinks we need someone in Tokyo as an observer to what sure to be the raking of Siemens and Vickers over the coals." A military court had been convened to try Prime Minister Yamamoto and another admiral along with members of the navy procurement board.... and at the very least they were all guilty of conduct unbecoming so really it was just a show trial and everyone knew it. Even the Brits had admitted Vickers should have known better and that what they were doing was illegal under British law, which was to say that Vickers should have known better than to get caught. "Yamamoto has resigned of course so I expect he'll get a smack on the wrist."

"A couple of captains will probably get dinged, and most of the blame will be shuffled off on Siemens and Vickers, until they've given Taro's party enough time to vent." Realistically even if Taro hadn't died, they were going to have to keep working with Siemens, and Vickers... Vickers especially... the Navy just was going to insist that was how it was going to be. The Royal Navy was as big as its next two rivals, and her shipbuilding industry was as a result second to none. "As for boarding for Tokyo, I don't think that Reinsch will go for that." and realistically Wilson's ambassador to Japan was unlikely to go for it either. "Unless Washington has said?"

"Not that I've heard, but you know how Bryan gets, or House, if they decide something is good for the country I reckon Reinsch will end up with a call directly." Or House showing up in person if he could manage that. "But no I ain't heard anything but its back to Peking."

Which was ultimately when you got down to it just a few hours by train, really. A day of travel and then back to the capital... and the same was true for coming back.

--
Commentary: The Wilson State Department again as I've mentioned involved a lot of executive actions from advisors to Wilson often going over the heads or without concern for the Ambassador's position. Not that the British didn't either Gray was a very authoritative figure in British foreign policy, and for that matter John Jordan had his share of office drama so to speak. Wilson had a very idealistic foreign policy, which was pursued by ambassadors like Reinsch. This is often over simplified to 'banking and militarism are bad' or Wilson's view on Christianity and missionaries and etc or just drowned out entirely by WW1 coming to the fore. Wilson was however willing to listen to his advisors, who often had a more belligerent, or in the case of both state and the war department imperial or great power ambitions. This is also pre ww1 where sending executive agents (as was the term House liked) to observe foreign politics was done and that was very often not professional members of the civil service but people of means and who you knew.

But anyway, this will be heading into May of 1914, with a brief continuance to Peking before the depth of Bai Lang's final rampages become apparent, then we get dragon banner and the rest of the conclusion of the rebellion.

Other than that the Baron Zemo!SI saves Imperial Germany will remain in the Misc thread for the first couple of updates until I'm confident it should be brought over here.

 

The Hunt and the Banner Part 2​

Peking had largely calmed, and settled. The university still had some broadsheets circulating, and some of the newspapers talked big, but the city hardly seemed under any sort of tension. The city at large at least. The international portion though was unhappy that Bai Lang remained at large. "Was he actually there?"

"We think so, but he never would commit fully." If Bai hadn't been present it would have made more sense for whoever was in charge to commit fully.

"Suspiciously timid of him." The elder Forrest muttered, "What spooked him?"

"Probably the howitzers. We might have used them too early." That was only really a consideration in hindsight. "It tipped that we we're more dug in."

"Japs or the Russians would have kept coming. French, or Germans too."

... and probably England, "I am not sure how confident he was in his troops being able to stand the withering of machine gun fire either. Realistically I think he knew he didn't have time to dally. At the very least he had to know that Qirui would fix the rails in Honan, or go around them someway and would keep going."

"Yes, indeed... Yuan isn't happy, and sounds like all this running just stirs the rabble up."

"The city seems fine. Did something happen?"

"Here, goodness no. Down in Shanghai though, there have been a series of escalations in public demonstrations, and broadsheets. Not that the Japanese really needed the excuse for wanting more of their marines to police the city." Apparently policing now included breaking into and busting up newspaper printing machines... but he supposed that wasn't really a surprise. No one had gotten shot at least. It had technically occurred in the international settlement so it was really John Jordan's place to complain, and he was conspicuously quiet on the matter. "No. My concern is, the concern of Washington." The older man stated straightening and fixing him with a look, "Is that this is a precursor to Bai Lang taking more desperate actions. There have been a number of abductions that the state department has been apprised of in Shansi, and Shensi, and there is no telling how many have happened elsewhere. Whenever we do learn of them, it will just mean more pressure from Wilson to do something about it, while at the same time expecting us to walk the tight rope. The best way to play the game is to have a degree of separation, I'm sure the Brits will be coming to call for much the same reason."

Of course how unsurprising. "So I should turn down any invitations to Tokyo?"

"Barring Yamagata's direct invitation or the like, yes, this is certainly more important." Allen bit down an acerbic response. He supposed he should be grateful for any sort of caveat or exception to the standby for a ridiculous errand. The moment was already past, "The only way to bring cavalry to bear would be cavalry to catch them, and then to break them in place before they can run for it." It was purely an academic commentary, if Cavalry didn't come to you, chasing them with infantry was often impractical and the Federal Army's doctrine recognized... though as mostly an excuse that the Cavalry continue to receive funding in Allen's opinion. The older Forrest finished his lecture, "if he can't be bottled up and brought to battle he'll just keep slipping away."

Deciding now was as good of a time as any, "What about Bai Lang's southern force the one the was cut off south of Nanking? What happened to them?"

"They fled south, skirted Fukien and entered Yunnan where they took service."

"And they've just been quiet since then?"

"By all accounts."

"Something you want to share?"

He shook his head, and reached for his own untouched glass, "Not at the moment. It might be nothing, but I'll need to run a lead down before I can say for sure. I'll send you what I have by courier if I can't bring them myself." His father nodded, and didn't press the matter. "It doesn't make sense that they'd stay quiet. I'd have expected," The more likely they would have fragmented and turned into just bandits.

"Cai E is still in house arrest here, most likely one of his lieutenants is keeping them in reserve while he's a hostage to their good behavior."

Perhaps so.
--
Like all would be modern armies the Beiyang had taken a long hard look at the results of the Franco Prussian war, and the German victory. The limitations placed on it during the Qing though had prevented it from being able to truly follow on the many developments out of Europe. Allen took the 1907 Model Mauser rifle checked the weapon and returned it.

The railway was the lifeblood of everything they did. It was what allowed them to do business, and spurs from the trunk lines could be built straight up to factories or mines to load them, but men still needed to be able to march, which seemed to have been a problem for the provincial divisions of the Beiyang who simply didn't have the funding to support a baggage train to let them march quickly... the individual soldier might have had standard issue shoes as part of his uniform but the sum of the army and funding was concentrated on its fighting power not feeding the men. That more and more explained the failures in Honan.

"And Bai's spate of failures as well." Was the agreement in English as Cole returned a 7mm Mauser with a scope to one of his corporals. "He's switched a general policy of trying to burn the Hui out of house and home, and taking what he can from their businesses to support his armies." Railways had been built in tandem with telegraph lines and the cables brought news faster than a car could bring troops. Never mind that as he moved west the telegraphs had outstripped the rails, but regardless the general consensus was that Bai Lang had likely divided up his forces and was foraging for sustainment.

Something that could be in no way sustainable even if he had broken down his formations to their sub units... and they all knew that. Allen glanced over the drill field, as a portion of Cao Kun's third division arrived to take time with their 88s. The entire Beiyang army were recruited volunteers not conscripts which distinguished itself from the broader Chinese Republic's army including the provinces. Yuan Shikai wanted Prussian style military education and compulsory service, but the budget just wasn't there. Not that that had stopped provincial armies like Hunan from basically tripling in size after the revolution had ended, and without hostilities to fight in had been dismissed... or were supposed to have been dismissed as Yuan hadn't wanted to pay for their upkeep... and...

"You have that look that numbers in the ledgers aren't right." That wasn't an incorrect comparison. The numbers didn't add up, and it was one thing for Yuan's government to run a deficit. Bai Lang was making up his shortfalls by banditry... "Something your pops say to you?"

"That's part of it," He muttered, "But Shinozaki is passing along material from Shanghai as well where the Kempentai," Both the Army and Navy versions who were for whatever reason distinct, "and other parts down south." Shinozaki hadn't said anything about the busting up of print shops and Allen hadn't commented on it. No point putting the younger man in a position, and they weren't in the city to say one way or another what was what... "And the numbers don't add up. The incomes can't possibly sustain pre revolution expenditures never mind whatever those real expenses are now in the provinces." It had nothing to do with Bai Lang, except that it might be why he kept calling for a third revolution. "Chinese Civilization was born in the north, but it relocated south because the south supports better agriculture," And with that agriculture, and sericulture, a thousand plus years of rice and silk had allowed increasingly large cities, "But you can't support a modern state's budget with growing rice, or taxing salt or any of the other medieval taxes." ... and Chinese tariffs were under foreign control... had been for years. "And about the only thing the Qing did that was universally popular was to freeze taxes at where they were in the eighteenth century, "and yet the provinces keep trying to retain large armies despite not possibly being able to pay for them."

"Doubt its a conspiracy, John," Cole replied, "Think about it. The Qing got upset that the provinces weren't moving fast enough with railways, and decided to hell with it, and nationalized the project. Obviously the plan was to distribute the projects and get actual rail lines built, protesting doesn't work, so a riot breaks out. Army shoots the rioters everyone backs off until that bomb explodes in Wuhan" and suddenly the local garrison mutinies cause all their dirty laundry is out in the open and then a domino of other rebellions fall into place. "It takes a provincial professional army," What the Beiyang had been for the province of Zhili at the beginning, "To start forcing order back,"

He picked up the line of thought as they gave third division the space to shoot at the hay bales, "The beiyang wins its fights with modern weapons but only has so many troops." And of course what had started the whole mess with Bai Lang in the first place was that the expanded army had included other provinces with officers who weren't considered reliable.

"Right so the only way to keep the central government from taking over the rail lines," Or other income, "Would be a big army." He shrugged, "Not that that changes our problem, Bai Lang running around is our problem. Looks like he's Cao Kun's as well, the Ma brothers have kept sending telegrams to him after all, and not just to pass on to Yuan Shikai." Which if Cole was reading the mail chances were the British, Japanese, and so on all were as well.

These would be the last days of spring, and what would follow in early summer of 1914 would be overshadowed by the events in Europe, but for a brief moment in the seasons the wolf hunt would turn into a rush through the countryside.
--
Commentary: Part 3 returns to the field as we touch on a brief glimpse of Bai Lang abandoning his attempts to play robin hood to keep his forces together, and grudges needing to be settled all the while setting for the conclusion of this.

As a sidebar the Beiyang army was as a military formation partially funded by provincial taxes, and partially by the Qing government. Effectively during the Qing period as viceroy of Zhili Yuan Shikai put up funding for the army (really then basically a brigade, and then later a division in size) and the Qing Army ministry would match that. That worked out largely fine, until the Boxer rebellion happened. Qing taxes had been subject to a rate freeze, and had largely relied on the government monopoly on salt to provide revenues from 1722 on, which was a stupid policy, but made possible as that the Qing at the time those policies were made had no major military expenditures, and weren't planning any. Best laid plans, which completely went awry, because England had already begun the first industrial revolution by this point, and the first opium war would start about ~ twenty years into the 'second, or continental European, industrial revolution' and this would be part (the industrial revolution) of the reason France would go on to instigate what is usually referred to as the second opium war. (France felt the need to escalate for a multitude of reasons but thats complicated and beyond the scope of the story). French intervention escalates what might have resolved diplomatically into a second fairly lengthy conflict (lasting officially until 1860.)

Japan unlike China took note of industrialization and began its own part in industrialization, which would at first be modelled on the French, but then switch to Germany (well Prussia originally) after the Franco Prussian war, and the switch of preference wasn't just limited to just Japan. France's defeat severely damaged its international prestige as a world power.

In China's case though there was a desire to modernize but was impeded by Cixi, and this would result in the end of the hundred days reforms which Yuan Shikai only nearly avoided being caught up in that coup because he was too busy being involved in army stuff. However Yuan Shikai did opt to ignore the Empress Dowager during the subsequent boxer rebellion, and that is probably the reason he was pushed into retirement by the court a few years later and the Beiyang army was expanded, which would result in among others the various revolutionary corp officers getting positions in the army in the interim such that in 1911 some purges ended up needing to be carried out (either by the Wu Wei corp, or the beiyang army commanders directly, and while very intertwined these were distinct formations. The Wu Wei corp would eventually end up subsumed into the Beiyang Army. Zhang would even by 1917 have switched from the original black uniforms to the standard Republican gray uniforms for his poorly thought restoration attempt.)

China was running a major deficit on spending, tax reform was unpopular, and infrastructure was getting progressively worse. Also bad weather, crop failures and so forth were complicated by the fact that railroads are a substantially better method of bulk transit than canals this also created other social unrest... and well the Qing had already been suffering many many small revolts (something like a hundred minor rebellions between like 1902-1906 by some some counts). Japanese victory against Russia only further added pressure... and well by 1910 something had to give, and well the result in 1911 turned what was initially taken to just be another minor revolt into Yuan Shikai convincing the court to abolish the monarchy.

That didn't come close to fixing all of the systemic problems and nor could it. However when the 'warlord era' opens up in 1916 (that is to say the following story to this) we will be touching on the move from corporation with developing military wing, to being effectively being now a provincial government to by the end of ww1 a nascent autonomous state. We are wrapping up here, there are a couple minor battle scenes , well skirmishes would be the correct term.

As for the army thing, not only were provincial militaries bad about running deficets, they often inflated the number of troops they had with people who didn't have proper weapons, weapons at all, or just to claim they had troops on the roster who didn't exist as a way to fleece money to pocket... which was something that the British, the soviets, and the US complained about in WW2.

... anyway tomorrow we will update the cimbri inspired battletech fic, at this point I think any other battletech stories won't go up until the new year. I'm still working on figuring out December's update schedule but I think in the new year standard updates will probably change up some. In the new year obviously Autumn of Empires will be carrying on into the more nation building portion of the story with the warlord era part of the timeline

 

The Hunt and the Banner Part 3​

May of 1914 had brought with it heat, and dust storms. The snap thunderstorms that rolled through fast and hard after lunch time every week or so might have ordinarily broke up the monopoly but it all looked as if summer was going to be hot... and that was nothing compared to the rapacious actions undertaken by brigands flying Bai Lang's banners. Still largely equipped with black powder the Mohammadens of the Gansu corridor could mount little in terms of effective resistance, but it didn't stop them from trying. Local clerics had pronounced fatwas against Bai Lang and his men at the urging of the Generals Ma. The generals and their braves were the only other modern rifle force in the region, but had pushed back to Lanchow after meeting a substantively large and hungry force of bandits. That resistance though been enough to run whichever of Bai Lang's cousins was in charge back east desperately looking for provisions.

It wasn't the collection of bandits they were looking for. They had caught only briefly glimpses of Bai's new, newly joined, Shansi Revolutionary Corp with their gray beiyang style uniforms and their Arisaka rifles. There was a thunder of hooves as the bandit princeling attempted another circling, his cavalry having danced out in the distance trying to churn up dust either to try and intimidate them or convince them that there were more of them than there were. Allen wasn't having it, and for the moment they were holding their fire. No sense in wasting ammunition even if they were on a rail spur it was still two hundred miles west of Xian.

Unfortunately the rail meant that while it had been easy to come this way the same was true for the adventurous sorts. The rail line had been the compromise point inside the cadre to going along with this hunt, but really he suspected that this whole phase of western rail line expansion had been in discussion for at least as long as Adams had been being a nosy busybody sonna of a bitch. The muckrakers would have to be dealt with separately... but the bigger issue was this push to expand investment into a scheme that professed an intention to build double and then some a length of rail that they'd already built. That kind of money would distract anyone, or infuriate them in the case of how the Europeans would see it.

For the moment though there were eleven hundred screaming scoundrels waving sabers in the sun, "Sure would be a shame if the sky opened up and drenched them." Bill observed.

That or a relief given they must have been thoroughly drenched in dust and sweat from all the carrying on, Allen mused, but before he could say something the horsemen had jinked and began a b line towards towards them, "I guess they've committed." He commented.

"Bout time." The texan drawled.

Their backs were to the Wei River, or really the rail line that they had built that ran along the old road. The little town one more two thousand years old village out of touch with back east, never mind the rest of the world. The news that China was now a republic hadn't really made it this far west, not that the word meant anything to them. Their greater concerns the bandits in front of them, not the complaints about Yuan Shikai... 'whoever that was'... being strewn about by Bai Lang's runners.

Up over their shoulders the heavy machine guns mounted in the train's body rotated and trained as the natural curvature of the hills opened into the small river plain that the town had been erected on.. in the short the hills filled in around the time creating a box that was funneling the cavalry down. The Maxims began to chatter away before the infantry was given the direction to fire. He had seen too many times the aftermath of one of these young bloods actually being allowed to ride into a town at full tilt.

Not today though. They'd ride no one down today... possibly ever again. Bill craned a head towards the train's sides to look at the guns.

"Would have been nice if we had the cars."

"Yep," The Texan agreed. Those sheet steel draped cars though were back in the city still waiting to be fitted with search lights, and there was no being sure they would do as well out here in the field... of course horses would need to be provided fodder and so for now they were confined largely to the rail lines... but of course those meant trains to haul equipment and thus the firepower to stop foolhardy cavalry adventures like this.

Eight hundred yards became five hundred and the rifles joined the echo of the machine guns, the hail though had done most of the job already in tearing a ragged mass from the center leading horses and riders dead upon the ground. The modern course of battle of attackers assaulting a fortified defensive line was broken with incongruous pops of pistol fire... far far too close to be from the enemy before them.

The pistols were abruptly answered by the bark of automatic shotguns from the train station's wardens. Station was probably too grandiose a term for the platform as it presently stood, but it was what they had always called it everywhere else. It still would have been the sort of place where there might be plenty of things worth trying to steal. Dynamite came to mind, or just the assumption the payroll might be in the safe somewhere in the ramshackle building. Money, or even provisions could have justified someone making a run at it. He could understand that, even if it wasn't the precise reason they had their flank guard there.

"Think we missed some of the spies?"

"Probably." Was his curt response, these were bandits, and while Bai Lang had done as much as he could to give them approximations of military structure and order how much of those lessons actually stuck was always in question. The merchants did actual merchant things of course, and bought and sold goods while also spying on choice targets ... or at least that had been their prevailing suspicion... but he'd never heard of them mounting an attack like this... unless this was sheer desperation. The pistol fire continued though, and then joined by the reports of mausers from the force on the flank of their column, but no reports of incoming rifle fire. That was less of a relief as the first traces of black smoke began to trail up suggested the side force in town had started to firebomb the thatched roofs of stalls, shops and homes. "Sergeant, inform the madsens they may engage at will." The swoll manchu nodded perfunctorily and moved down to the second row of trenches where the four fire teams of men sat waiting comprising a company of men in their own right. His accent stolid as he barked orders to them.

Cole had intended for the unit to have horses to mimic the Federal Army's cavalry weapon troops... but actually training the men on horses, and so on just had escaped them in the sense of time that they had. The abrupt addition of eight additional machine guns slew down the last of the momentum the charge had still had... not that plowing through the line of barbed wire staked forward of the line would have done much good. The few hundred men in the left flank, the most coherent of the enemy wing had discarded their swords to fire a mix of winchesters and what might have been kropatcheks of some sort at the defenses. Allen turned to them leaving the field glasses resting on his chest, and didn't have to give the order one of the train's Maxim guns swept right into them from its elevated position.

"Modern warfare."

"Take and hold the most favorable ground was the direction in the war between the states."

"Yeah but generals were having to buy gatling guns out of their own pockets in that." Bill paused, "Which I reckon is what we're all apparently still doing." He finished after a moment pushing back to straighten as he stood. The texan turned to one of his lieutenants and pivoted towards town, and hopefully the fires they'd be able to contain before they spread further.