Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

Week 1 (A)​

The dusty bin was a pelican case. It had been scuffed, and scratched, and vinyl stickers added to. The inside were peltor com tac III wires to interface for the Harris radios. It was clear though that Mikey didn't have a clue what the fuck he was looking at. His brother, the senior enlisted man did know what the Army Civil Affairs man didn't.

"So?"

"Luke has been paging through that book," In between some snarling about histiography and something about academic interests and something else the older Stewart brother hadn't quite parsed, and then cleared his throat, "Anyway, he's right we're really fucked on fuel in the short term so if you guys are going to the university then carpool." Biking was out of the question, walking was out of the question, even without the security concerns...

Which was the problem.

"Whats in the book?" His brother gestured to the blue cover that was flipped up on the counter top.

"A bunch of guys in stupid costumes, and tin suits." He grunted untangling the wires. "Tin suits who want to shoot us with really big lead balls." He shook his head, and threaded a line through the guide, "Walter makes it sound like there is trouble in town."

Michael paused and exhaled contemplating the third leg of the demographic problem with the county. There was the county seat and the smaller surrounding towns, and the rural spread, but the county seat was home to the university, and that meant a significant population of kids who ordinarily would have been going home for summer and leaving the dorms if this... whatever this was had happened closer to the end of the month. "I ... I, there are a lot of people scared right now, and don't know what's going on."

"You went to Afghanistan the same as the rest of us."

Mike started to shake his head in his older brother's comment "Under the individual ready reserve. And just for the one time, and nothing really happened where I was." He clipped his mouth shut. Tony had left for Paris Island as soon as he'd finished his senior year, and had been near through a contract when the towers had fallen. "This isn't the same thing?"

"Far as I can tell it kind of is." Tony replied with a snort tossing the plate carrier onto the heavy oak table, "The guns are different, sure, but its us, and them," He didn't have an immediate response to that, "Look," They stopped talking as a sweaty pair of former marine officers came back in.

Walter leaned over the box, and pressed a tan box, and glanced at the house's owner. There was a wrinkled expression of disapproval.

"Its the older model. I know its not the latest and greatest." Luke grunted. "Thankfully it does take the newer rechargeables like yours." The batteries of the radio... well they hadn't been great in the desert heat, and if they were in north germany it would be interesting to see how they handled the weather here, but it would probably be less of a drain on performance. "I don't know if we will need it right now." It was monday afternoon.

"You're going to the school tomorrow."

Not because he was teaching. Michael had technically had monday classes but the school had cancelled them. There had been an emergency staff meeting that Luke had missed, but frankly Mike got the impression from the dark greens and browns, and more pointedly the large caliber rifle that ... presumably whatever he'd been doing might have been more a hair more important.

"Fuel, batteries too," When the ring of fire had first hit they had left the the ren faire and hit the agrarian retail store and even without access to cards had paid in cash... admittedly probably a good time for that sense taking cash to the faire had been something of the norm for years... "In all honesty looking at the well, it doesn't seem to have effected the water table." Which was obviously good.

"Ok so tomorrow?"

The university had been bequeathed the old mill building, and indeed everything that had gone along with it at the end, so there was some of the machinery for the engineering and history departments to squabble over in terms of... and it was going to be probably horrifying to see what all exactly the warehouses had been stuff with over a century and a half of collection the school had gathered up through such bequests.

The conversation derailed as Michael glanced out the window, "Uhm Luke... there is a cow."

"Yeah."

"You don't have cows."

"Its one of the McCullochs they've used the south pasture for-"

"Fucking ever. Was there ever a time they didn't." Walter interrupted as glancing out the window, "Like hell a hundred years?"

"Longer," Luke replied, "The McCullochs have always been our neighbors, Fergus McCulloch fought in the revolution," alongside the Gunther ancestor who had progenitated Luke's own paternal line, "and I think they've always had cows," He paused turning from the historical anecdote, "And I think Leroy actually bought the families dairy equipment when my great grandfather got out of the trade."

"Would they still have that?"

"... In a barn somewhere, maybe, I know Patrick," The current McCulloch patriarch. "Upgraded all of his pasteruization, what six seven years ago."

"Its more than one cow though."

"Michael, cows are stupid but they do occasionally find ways out of their pens, in all honesty with everything we can go out there in a minute and make sure its nothing."
--
It had been nothing. The cow had found a spot where a cypress tree had been blighted and had finally given way into a fence and had decided to trundle through said gap out of ... what was now the 'north pasture' and explore ... the heifer had probably been wondering what the fuck was going on.

Luke pulled the yellow electric chainsaw and slotted a battery in, and took it off safe. Chopping the cypress took about a half hour dividing the labor between him cutting and Tony piling. "Yeah see it hit there. This won't even be hard to patch." He pointed to the gathering other cows who had started to congregate at the nose and were now eyeballing the humans as if they were asking 'what the fuck are you doing'. "We just need to make sure they get nosey and want to come over here."

There was a moo.

"Luke."

"Yes Mike?"

Luke turned, and looked at the juvenile bull. "Him, he's going to be a problem." The juvenile was a little over a year old, he was tan, almost russet with a head that looked disproportionate on his body... despite the latter being stacked. A prize specimen of the breed, and back up time worth a lot of money... he was also currently knocking his head against a post impatiently. "I'll go get Mr McCulloch just leave him alone." Luke tossed a look at the dimming sky... and they probably weren't going to get this done today.

Walter piled into the shotgun of the polaris off road vehicle, and they headed down towards the cattle gate,

"So is Tony in the bunk house?"

"Nah I was letting him stay in the lake house." There was a pause, "I mean he was only going to be stateside for so long." Which of course... now they were back in the 17th​ century... and if Luke was honest, at least he would have known what to expect being back in Afghanistan.... or hell Iraq, Libya even... going into Mali with the French would have been a known unknown... not this unknown, unknown, "We're here and we'll just have to make the best of it."

"Yeah you said Wallenstein will try the farms."

He leaned forward on the wheel, "Yeah, property rights are a keep what you can hold thing in the army. Wellington's army of scum wasn't exactly a lie." He said referring to the Napoleonic wars.
--
Notes: Due to having caught covid, this is shorter than the original plan, as I had planned to append a revised scene onto this with edits, but with the headach that goes along with the covid i'm having to minimize the time I use the computer.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1 July 1917

It was a madhouse this morning. There was no two ways about, and they were lucky that they'd been here and not in Xian, but it was July and well... there had been plans for finances, and looking at steel numbers coupled with a long over due conversation as they prepared to deliver to Tietsin the Australian's order.

A warning telegram had gone out before midnight. Something had been going on in Peking for the last couple of days, but it hadn't seemed like anything more than the backroom deals that had been going back and forth since march.

Then over a period of about eight hours the pieces started to fall into place. The President of the Republic had signed his name to a piece of paper that endorsed a new constitutional order... the restoration of the last Qing Emperor, the pipsqueak who lived in the forbiden city. At four am the Wu Wei corp troops secured the city, and with the help of the capital police began the process of informing by placard and criers the announcements of Imperial Restoration.

The five thousand Wu Wei Corp Troops in the capital had little trouble taking control of the city apparatus. No, the problem wasn't Peking. It wasn't even the south. It was trying to assert and ascertain authority. Who was in charge, who had the ability to exert power.

That was where the shooting started, at least so far as the shooting that made the news. Percy had managed to get in the door somehow, but he was late. "John Allen."

"Not now Percy." He shouldered past the smaller man with the rifle slung over his back, and another in his hand along with one of the tin boxes. Men all around them were girding for war. Cartridge belts slung over chests in a way that evoked another conflict.

"John Allen." The englishman protested.

"Move," Another American voice grunted and Waite shoulder checked Percival Graves out of his way without a pause. The engineer had a Lewis gun in both hands. "We got fighting to do." He snarled. Percy straightened his uniform, and seemed to slow down enough to look around at the seventy or so men in the office were busy with guns of their own.


"What are you doing?" Percy asked before realizing he was being left behind followed them back to the elevator he had presumably come up, "John Allen, Zhang Xun has positively lost his mind." The englishman's hands shook.

"Yep." Allen agreed shifting the Browning rifle he was carrying in his other hand to avoid having it smack another man with a Lewis.

"What do you mean Yep. Thats not a response." A couple of grayback ncos and officers alike turned slighted. "That's not a response John Allen. He's gone crazy."

"Pretty much." He agreed. Percy shook in growing display of ... was he losing his nerve.

"The ... the capital."

"Peking isn't our problem, Percy. Zhu is my problem."

Percy's face was starting to discolor, but he slowly processed the words, and maybe that was enough of a line for him to reel himself back in, "Well what did he do?"

"He," Or admittedly more likely someone under his command really, "Made the mistake of shooting at Cole, and the lads over there." There was a thud as the elevator came to rest on the ground floor and opened back into the foyer of the big build. "Sounds like they had an argument, we've got a couple of wounded already. I mean to make him regret that." Allen moved out with the rest following he took a right and followed that side of the building all the way to the waiting Quads with their large beds, and then looked up the color sergeant supervising the loading. "Wang how are we on time?"

"Another hour." The NCO looked apologetic. "Still gassing some of the fords, and loading ammunition."

"Get it done."

"Sir." A salute, and then the NCO commenced to yelling at the enlisted.

He moved on. Percy followed until they hit the raised platform. "What are you going to do?"

"Near as we can figure Zhang wants to control the railways to the capital, the Capital Guards look like they mustered to try and seize the northern line." that seemed like the most obvious situation. "We're going to cut the line going south before those troops get here, or they can get down to reinforce Zhu's boys in Zhengzhou, then we're going to swing and relieve Cole."

He nodded, "You're going to swing, and relieve Cullen-" He trailed off as a tractor lumbered up the ramp onto a flat car, "Oh heavens what are those."

Percy's surprise was a little absurd the transition from hydro spring recoil to hydro pneumatic shouldn't have been that much of a shock, "150 mm howitzer improved model." There were four of the monstrous guns. Descendants of the guns that had broken Bai Lang's attack on Xian three years earlier fitted with modern recoil, and new trails. Each of them had a tractor to pull them and two more tractors just for carrying wagons of ammo waiting for their turn to mount flatbeds and be tied in.

"That's them." The artillery man swung up, the red leg looked happy as he'd been. "We're gonna put some work in." Dawes slapped the englishman heartily on the shoulder. "Cao Kun is furious at Zhu Jiabao, you should hear that boy swear."

"And third division?"

"Mostly in and around Tietsin," Dawes shrugged. "he swears Duan's trying to get more people, but so long as Zhang has the eastern rail..." Then there was little way Cao Kun's main force could cross the province to the west... for any of a number of reasons.

Had Zhang known he was going to have to do that... they had really misread this whole mess. "Get this engine finished loading," He barked, "I want a phone line to the southern garrison to fill Colonel Shan in at the Bashan base area." Then there would getting ahold of the rest of his staff. "I want a meeting of the staff officers comprised on the car as soon as we are underway." Runners went to run, someone would have to phone the southern command... and then have to wait for the duty officer there to fetch... "Percy if you're coming, go find a seat on the train. I have things to do." There was too much to do, the excitement around the yard reminded him of when they had shipped from New York heading for the west, or even when they had departed San Francisco bay for the Philippines the first time... or when he'd stood on the train with the Japanese to observe their war with the Russians... he'd been here before.
--
They had stowed Percy off, two cars down, it had been almost tempting to ship with the second train, but the risked a bigger hullaballoo. "I'm taking a battalion from second," Waite stated and using a pointer to move along the map, "Cover this frontage here, if we don't make contact immediately, I'll drag up breastworks along this eight hundred yards, we'll dig in and throw along barbed wire and that should stop a charge."

"You're thinking cavalry?"

"Most likely. Still with the Wu Wei corp included if the capital troops have swapped over there must be close to eleven thousand troops going along with this 'Restoration'." He replied, and that was just the troops they knew were involved "I don't know what Zhu thinks he's doing."

The report of lancers was, borderline absurd in this day and age, but there was the chance Zhu intent was to show the flag and not actually commit to some fool expression of gallantry on north china's plains. The cherry wood table in the dining car had had one of the survey maps thrown over it, which had the advantage of up to date, and modern scaled topographic coverage of Zhili and the surrounding countryside.

"I've the question whether Zhu is slow, or if just doesn't know what he's doing?"

Allen turned to glance to Dawes, "How do you figure?"

"What I'm saying is the shooting in Zhengzhou started, what two hours ago. Zhang started throwing banners up at four am this morning, and he put his Wu Wei corp on the eastern rail line that stops anyone from coming in from tietsin." There were nods of acknowledgement, which seemed to have been the general disposition of troops that they knew for sure were under Zhang's direct command command. The old Qing style battalions though, who had admittedly been quick to side with Zhang's manchu restoration had started acting a couple hours later... but they hadn't been as fast to move anywhere, at least not until after daylight.

As nominal civilian head of the province Zhu had battalions under his command, and had attempted according to the wire to seize the rail line. "It looks like they're trying to secure the approaches to the capital."

"Right, which is what it probably is." Dawes agreed, "I think Zhu is aping what he thinks Zhang is doing without understanding why Zhang does it." The artilleryman swept a couple wood figures around the map, "He has moved his maxim guns and tried to cut the rail line, now Cole doesn't think he was after the mortars or other stuff we're shipping to the Australians, but Zhengzhou's way south of anywhere else that Zhu can order troops."

... and if he had tried it then he would have probably started a row with either Cao Kun ordinarily... or since Cao was in Tietsin, one of his subordinates in 3rd​ division. ... but of course Cao had taken his division with him to Tietsin. "I suppose the real question really boils down to the disposition of the penny packets Zhu has spread out." There were infantry battalions, really more like large companies at Zhengzhou, there were the reported cavalry at Baoding. "What about your redlegs?"

Dawes pointed to a hill to the northwest about four miles behind Waite's proposed breastworks, "I"ll encamp my people there, and we'll run lines, and dig the howitzers in, the battery will have elevation to cover the approaches and we can swing to."

That, that was the beginning. Four company sized formations comprising a battalion to deploy in the north, and the battle lines had been drawn.
--
Notes I take the position that it was more likely that Li was coerced by Zhang Xun to signing his name to the restoration than that it was a forgery, particularly because Zhang allowed Li to resign and leave for tietsin the morning of. I expect Li claimed Zhang forged it to try and save his already damaged reputation from further harm. That is the interpretation presented here in regards to the legal fiction surrounding the restoration of Puyi. Historically on the 1st​ of July there were some minor skirmishes but for the most part no serious battles between troops in Zhili province as most units within the area of the capital somewhat danced around one another in apparent confusion over what was going on.

Indeed here that confusion is what actually causes the fighting to break out. Zhu Jiabao attempting to emulate Zhang's seizing of the railroad instigates a brief exchange escalating to the conflict here rather than both sides backing off and not getting into a protracted firefight with each calling for reinforcements from their respective sides.

For reference a Qing Territorial Defense Battalion (infantry) was nominally 504 men on paper, but were often either a result of graft or just problems with retention were single company formations under the command of local literati or gentry. This became pointedly worse in the republic as local elites were given honorary command of groups of men, that they would then enhance by declaring their unit to be a size larger for the prestige, without actually increasing men under arms. And again to refer back for comparison to pre-xian rifle battalions, they're roughly equivalent in manpower to Qing Regiments in strength (as by the end of the White Wolf Rebellion they're equivalent in size to a British Rifle Battalion's number of men)

 

[Imperator Pax]

1 July 1917
There were no sign of the capital guard's horses, either as a formation a horse, as scouts or even as messengers. They had most likely dismounted if they were still present, but it was equally possible that they had ridden for elsewhere.

It was possible they were fighting as dismounted infantry. There had been sporadic reports from the left flank of rifle fire from a hill that seemed to be equipped Mausers instead of the pattern 88 rifles, but at the same time some of the territorial defense battalion had Schonausers instead of those.

It was clear that these were Qing holdover units that Zhu had kept on the payroll from the civilian governorship's purse... without being units that Yuan had wanted to spend money to receive newer more modern arms, thus Zhu had probably bought what he could get. Zhili had no shortage of such outdated infantry, and it was clear that these weren't Yuan's last attempt at forming modern battalions... but most likely those troops were with Cao Kun as military governor of the province, which meant they were stuck on the wrong side of the province as Zhang sat on the eastern approach to the capital.

... which was another problem, but not theirs.

The troops in front of them represented almost forty years of attempts to modernize the green standard bearers of teh Qing. Rong Lu, long before Yuan Shikai, had tried like those who had succeeded him to time and again downsize and demobilize the outdated troops and provide a replacement with modern guns. Forty odd years of stop start hemmed in by conservative sinecures, and near feudal hereditary entitlements to paid positions had stymied the provincial troops, and thus even last year the official number of battalions still on the books had numbered more than eighty.

Not that it was likely even a fraction of those were close to their paper allotment. The financial limits of the province, the myriad of tax exemptions, carve outs, and of course other expenses, never mind questions of political reliability, had meant the battalions were provided for by different provincial officials including magistrates who received commands of their own, but without real expectation of seeing a battle. That must have been a sure shock when the Boxer rebellion had broken out almost twenty years ago. Only the modern Gansu braves under the Wu Wei corp had really proven their mettle finally departing the field when faced with a superior force as the arrival of a full strength Japanese Division had arrived and demonstrated the intention to mount a reckless bayonet charge through their ranks.

That was the irony of course the Wu Wei corp had survived the boxer rebellion. Leaving aside that the corp had fractured and fought on both sides depending on geographic location, the Gansu troops under Ma had quit the field withdrawn eventually to Xian before ultimately returning to their home provinces after the protocol was signed... but for the territorial defense battalions most had largely scattered in the face of the advancing alliance forces after the forts had been taken.

Rifle fire echoed in packets, but that was normal. The new sound were sounds that hadn't been heard before, the shriek and whine of mortar bombs descending as noon day approached. "Any chances they'll crawl out of those dykes before we get the three inches in them?"

There was a pause as another stokes battery lobbed towards the irrigation works that had been appropriated for fighting positions. "Can't say."

Allen glanced at the line, pulled his sleeve back to look at the watch. "We're not getting anywhere with this." They were burning day light as it was, and they needed to push the battalions back north in order for Griswold to stretch his breastworks to either side of the railway, "Those dykes are on the map, I'm going to see if Dawes can lay them out."

Which was really more the question of had Dawes gotten his battery dug in. "You think Dawes is serious about making fifteen miles?"

"I don't know, but this should only be twelve, the old guns will do that." They had the advantage of known ranges. This may as well have been the backyard... and it seemed as if they were the only ones who had brought artillery. "Either way I want those infantry backed up, if you can bottle them back," the fifteen miles back up the line to Baoding then that would be plenty. The battalion only needed to dig in and hold here while the rest of the regiment prepared to deploy along the western Zhili salient once the rest of second was dismounted Shijiazhuang would be safe from approach from the northern rail, and then the first could take the rail line down to Zhengzhou leaving the second to anchor the division's northern most positions in the west of the province.

Once the regiments were settled into place and their center battalions dug in that would be it. The actual travel time by the railway would mean less, because the troops would be committed. That was the hurdle the paper thin margins of spare troops.

As if reading his mind Waite shrugged, "I can hold. I don't fancy trying to take the town," But then that wasn't the objective. Baoding didn't matter. Keeping Zhu from turning this into a fight over Shijiazhuang behind them was the goal, keeping the rail line open and running from their town to its southern, and western terminus stations was their objective. "Not with the numbers being what they are, but with the rest of the regiment," a total of about thirty seven hundred men, "I can probably stretch our frontage to watch about five miles, and there are some rivers to the east which should make an advance from the east trouble."

Zhu wasn't likely to try that. It was a little too adventurous for the mandarin. They were banking that he'd try and hold Baoding over trying to break through, but just in case there was artillery. "I'm still not comfortable with them that close to our line."

"We could ask them to leave."

It hadn't escaped him that that was a potential option. Parley, and see if they were willing to fall back to their main lines nearer to the city to the north? It might work. Allen checked his wristwatch again, and looked up at the sky, "Do what you think his best, its your command, I'm going to get on the train and see about the loading for the first, and then see about getting to Zhengzhou and dug in before five o'clock."
--
In historical terms though there was very real fighting the reports that made the circulars, and reached western newspapers were penned in almost dulcet tones and with verbiage that evoked a long bygone age. Europe had been at war for nearly three years now, and yet on the first of July 1917 the attempted restoration evoke the same clamoring discussions of foreign conflicts by observers present for previous conflicts.

For all the silly flowery language it is to be irrevocably modern conflict. Zhang Xun's Wu Wei corp within Peking are armed with modern rifles, and equipped with modern german style cartridge belts and uniforms. The five thousand troops of his division sized force are even to be reported wearing the standard gray of the regular beiyang army, though some of his supporters still wear older black uniforms of the Qing Gendarmes and old wu wei corp. Nearly all of Zhang's men have the manchu queue despite being overwhelmingly ethnically han in composition.

Duan Qirui who will eventually command fifty thousand troops in the eastern Zhili plains is also a modern general. An artillery officer, whose infantry where the same gray uniforms of northern china's first modern army. It will ultimately be Duan's political maneuvering which secure together the beiyang troops to swell his field army to its peak, and secures the nominal support of at least three times that which will ensure that this little summer war lasts only half the month... but even in its first day Tietsin's would be poet laureates of the conflict are quick with pen and paper.

Percival Graves sitting in the train car makes no distinction between provincial, never mind the municipal rivalries of troops. He occasionally quips about some rivalry between one division in the beiyang army having with another, which is generally expressed by separate clubs or social institutions determined by their commanding officers. For years the beiyang army has been the firmament that has kept China together, and ultimately this will be the beginning of the end of that as this conflict between the modern army will send splits into the organization, and turn those different officer clubs into defined basically territorial kingdoms.

... but that isn't apparent on the first of July. Zhang Xun, the pony tail general, still seems convinced that his fellow Beiyang generals are just playing their parts, and surely that they'll come around. At lunch he sends out circulars denouncing the southern parliamentarians and espousing the usual royalist party talking points. The goal of this is on its face a constitutional monarchy, and that Zhang Xun wants heavily derived from Prussia.

... and of course that certain german styling and the sudden seizure of power is enough to make certain western observers nervous... but those accusations will rear their head later, after the fighting has largely petered out, and when its convenient to make them.

The wide tracks are varying the first regiment south at breakneck speeds. With good steel tracks, and well built carriages its a comfortable ride, and Percy's gold embossed pen is one of several hastily busy scrawling away.

Percy isn't the only one writing, and nor is he the only one not in field gray. The difference is his English khakis are overshadowed among that sea of gray. Of a lounge compartment repurposed to hold the regimental staff he's further distinguished by the Webley... he's the only man in the room still carrying a revolver in this day and age.. Nakamichi, always busily writing, has a pearl gripped colt automatic, though in a thirty caliber compared to the larger models of 1911 that are the predominantly represented browning artifice. Like Percy though Nakamichi isn't travelling with a long gun, Percy doesn't mind, he's an officer of the King of England... and what not, and he's just here to observe... and help where he can. Both of them and a few others in a neighboring, and somewhat less martial car, ready purposed as an expansion to the doctor's surgery, are here to help take stock of wounded, and foreigners caught in the middle of all of this 'unpleasantness' as Percy's termed it already. The two men were present for other reasons. They were a link to their respective governments, and in turn to the other end of telegraph lines that could tell them what was going on in the neighboring northern provinces like Anhui.

--
Notes little bit of a varied transition as we move into the evening of the 1st.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1st​ July 1917
The summer meant there was still daylight in the sky, but as a precaution large arc lights had been pulled out and set to a dynamo in order to dismount. If they needed them to keep digging in and grading the fighting positions then they were there, and then after wards they'd mount them in the direction of the enemy to sweep through the night, but that would mostly be looking for scouts that might not even come in the dark. It was a quarter to five now, they had a couple more hours of daylight.

The three odd hour train ride had been made possible by the wider gauge tracks supporting higher speeds from the powerful locomotives... and the fact that when they'd built the line running the length they'd carved, graded, and dynamited the whole course way flat and straight... a feet of engineering that had taken most of 1911. That had been six years... and the RPF to protect the railways against bandits, against Bai Lang.

Zhengzhou was at the heart of it all. It was why 1st​ regiment's artillery batteries were all drawn from the light artillery brigade while 2nd​ had Dawes's heavy guns. The truth was he didn't want to have to be put in a position where they had to bring the 3 inchers up, but they'd be less destructive, and easier to maneuver in a direct fire role if it came to that being what needed to be done.

A ford angrily honked as parts of a motorized scout section dismounted narrowly avoiding one of its siblings. Its steel bolted on upper carriage forming a sloping gun shield similar to the Krupp's, to provide some measure of protection to the men manning the Vickers gun. The armored cars weren't intended to to dismount the heavy machine guns, it was possible to do so but not 'field expedient' the way the larger quads had been set up... but then different purposes, and they didn't have the provisional mechanized rifles.

These were not bandits. Zhu's militia looked good on the parade, and now Allen supposed they'd find out how well Zhili's territorial defense battalions fared in actual fighting. Zhengzhou had another potential problem, that could turn this into a three sided sort of fiesta. Percy and Nakamichi were both standing in the forward of the depot, near the large posted map of the city that had been centrally administered since the Qing. The Qing had hoped in some of their early reforms to be able to run centrally administered railways, and they had failed miserably ... there had been other problems that had hampered that 40 years ago, beyond just not understanding the engineering, and not having the capital. The next turns which had knotted everything up had been the schizophrenia the manchu court had been prone to in its waning years, especially after Japan had kicked the Qing into the dirt. The dynasty had survived the humiliation, but at a cost the Old Buddha seemed to have finally plunged off the deep end enough to side with the boxers.

... And that had divided China into three geographic distinctions of sentiment. The North. The Center, meaning the Yangtze provinces. The south... like Canton. "What about the western station John Allen?"

"2nd​ Battalion from Xian rolled off ahead of us to reinforce the company already at the yard." He replied, but the station in question, the rail yard where they normally stored products from Xian's factories before they were loaded up and shipped on to Tientsin or weihaiwei or wherever were cut off by the larger problem.

That put them loosely on a map at right angles. 1st​ Battalion 1St was currently north of the city proper dismounting in the yard. The rail line had been built offset of things and north of the old city even though all the rail lines passed through the city proper. The central junction in the city proper was a tangled mess where the Belgian line, the attempt provincial line, and the British line all sort of jumbled on running around. Their own line went south, and then veered to the west. The Belgian line went east towards the coast. The British line kept south. The provincial which really had never gone anywhere, nominally also went south but didn't leave the province of Honan. Its course took through a couple of other towns. "What about your calls?" Cole and his gendarmes were stuck in the middle of the city that the Qing had insisted, at the time, the stations be built... which had made a certain sort of sense.

The two men looked between each other, "Anhui." Nakamichi beat the Englishman to it. "The old Qing armies have declared for Zhang Xun's restoration."

"Yes, well, they say that, of course but at the same time they're not actively firing on Duan Qirui's garrison troops, on the other hand they are blocking the rail south," Along the coast.

Probably to stop any attempts to exploit the crisis from the south, but if the Anwu army did decide to move in force that might shift the balance of power against Duan... or not. It could make a mess of things in the province if they all moved as one, but that wasn't a sure thing. Anhwei was also far enough away as to not be their problem. "What about the coastal linkage?"

Percy grimaced at Nakamichi for a moment. "There are Japanese troops garrisoning the line in Shandong, but everything north of the Yangtze is probably in rebel hands." There wasn't really a good way to get over the river going south in the east. There were no bridges to speak of.

"Nothing to be done then." They'd have to find out more if there was any chance of the Anwu army coming west via the Belgian route, or if Honan's gentry and the Hongwei Army that was a hold over to what their forbearers had originally organized to resist the Taiping decided to make a move. There was a thunk as a campaign table was set down, and the ruffling as large wall map of the city and its environs was stretched out over it. It was relatively recently printed, a few years old with all the primary features, but Zhu's battalions had scurried into the old city and were not stuck between the center and the northern part of town.

As things were, he wasn't sure if Zhu, or whatever battalion commander was on site in town, was prepared to commit. Cole's staff had reported that the territorial militia had maneuvered, coming to right order line in ranks. The successive formation deployment from column had prompted their opening up of the Gendarmes madsen guns, but without Artillery the actual damage from short bursts had probably been minimal.

He stuck a pin in where the Battalion had originally attempted to form their point du appoi, and then measured back to where they'd been pushed. The lack of any sort of bombardment, preparatory or otherwise suggested that neither initial formation had access to artillery. Either way the fighting had cleared most of the streets, with the affluent having withdrawn to their walled compounds. That would keep them out of the fighting of anything short of artillery unless someone deliberately forced a gate. The concentric city walls that the local gentry had argued so heavily to keep even after the Boxer rebellion had been breached in several places by various modern construction, but there were still parts where long stretches of old ramparts remained. They were militarily useless though and the gates that still had horse and coolie drawn litters come through would be little impediment to either side trying to go through.

"Do you expect to do much fighting today John Allen?"

Truthfully no. Percy had not been especially thrilled when 2-2's mortars had opened up to suppress enemy infantry in the farms close to their lines of departure... and likely would have been even less thrilled to have the heavy batteries put into action from the western hillside. "We're going to dig in fighting positions," They had the Yellow river to their backs, to the north of them, and a good rail bridge across the bastard, that meant their supply lines could run to western Zhili. They wouldn't be able to link east without securing the town center, "We'll start probing against the Zhilu in the morning," The little arched bridges that had been built for a thousand years going back to the song criss crossed the smaller river south of the Yellow. "Push through the suburbs, and into the town proper," See what resistance appeared. He was curious to see what Zhengzhou's populace thought... it have been five years since the Qing and plenty of queues were common among northern chinese... but that didn't mean they would support Zhu...
--
Nakamichi adjusted his glasses as he loomed over the teletype printout copy "The lack of manpower creates a problem." It was as close as he got to saying I told you so. The mildness of the statement was still accurate. They had the manpower to recruit from, the income arriving, and of course the truth was Bai Lang had caused them to buywhat arms they had been able to source at market... before the Europeans had gone to war at the end of that summer.

"Yes." He agreed.

He wondered what the Germans would have done if Mauser had still had the guns that the Qing had originally ordered, only to then have the dynasty toppled and the money to pay for the order not be there. He had never broached the topic with Percy. Like as not the money which had gone to Mauser for the 1907 guns had been spent towards the war against France, maybe, but it was ten thousand some guns fewer that the Germans had not had in inventory to use at the onset of European hostilities.

Zhengzhou as a junction of railway hubs was decently sized, made important by history, agriculture, and now the rail, it was about a half million souls. Percy was right, typically the Chinese peasants did usually stay out of the way while armies ... handled martial affairs... which meant they normally came out to watch, and picnic, which might be a bit more dangerous with fighting in the city. He spared a look to the glare cast in the distance thrown towards the sprawl of the north end of the town.

Zhengzhou had gas lighting, and even a small trolley car system the belgians had installed that had run regularly since 1910. That was unlikely to be useful, but the line was there and electric lights were not magic, but those lights harsh and unnatural in their brightness were likely to be useful in disorienting any potential night skirmishers... and to highlight them before they hit the barbed wire.

Percy cleared the office threshold of the depot having returned from the battery of telephones.

This office was no suited for staff work, and thus the company commanders had been briefed outside and he had retired her after dinner to consider the map.

Nakamichi pushed the teletype, and sat back. "The good news is that their battalions are roughly a third of our own."

"A third. How do you figure we should be outnumbering them two to one I think."

The Japanese electrical engineer adjusted his glasses owlishly, "Nothing shows that their battalions at strength. Regimental forces are at paper strength, or more with added units." He paused clucked his tongue like a schoolmaster, "It is not to say we are not potentially outnumbered if they were concentrated, but each of their battalions are," he searched for the word, "Detachments."

That might well have been true, and and seemed to have been similar to Cole's report this morning, and what he'd seen with Waite at lunch. "Do we know anything about Zhu's officers?"

"Your usual collection of gentlemen." Percy replied, "Most of them are Chinese scholars," He paused unnecessarily to clarify what the three of them all knew he had meant, "landowners who passed the exams," Before the exams had stopped. "Scarcely suspect any of them have serious experience, unless they were involved in the Boxer rebellion." That had been the last real conflict to touch this far north, to involve standing units. The northern territorial guards had been loyal to the ancient regiment.

It was doubtful Zhu had anyone who could command all the battalions never mind use the small units aggressively enough to attack, but they were in the city, and the water ways while narrow were still enough to potential hamper movement around them.

He had hoped that Percy with so long in Peking might know something about the now enemy officers, but nothing that could be used. They would have to see in the morning what news came out of Peking, and what was going on
--
Notes: We move into July 2 next time, but yes Zhengzhou like most of eastern China really really took a beating in the second sino Japanese war and early communist rule, its population dropped to something like 150 thousand people by the end of the Chinese Civil War. Obviously in this timeline the rail hub at Zhengzhou is a lot more built up than it was historically, by this point the dutch were already exploiting what was described here as the Belgian line because... well Belgium didn't have the capital being under German occupation but that will crop up laterr.

Next time we get into some mild urban combat, and the beginning of mechanized, or at least armored car warfare and such.

 

[Imperator Pax]

AoE Timeline notes, Events 9-8-22

So as is probably, rather obvious, this is fairly British Foreign Policy 'engaged' story particularly because this story opens in the years before the Empire sustains 'its great wounds' and watches the decline of the Empire. With the death of Queen Elizabeth the Second there are certain factors I need to discuss , provide warning to. In this timeline George V, the founder of the House of Windsor (1917), is one of those figures who in this timeline dies slightly earlier. This leads to the Edwardian crisis (His son, Edward the VII) because those had been a long time concern of George V as well as the British in general, and then to a slightly earlier ascension of George VI, the father of QE II, as a result of that.

Now while I have done outlines of significant events for the cold war what has not been definitively established is the subsequent does KGVI die per OTL or does ascending earlier result in QEII Succeeding him sooner given both him and KGV suffered long term health problems compounded by stress, though the argument can be made that historically George the sixth made it through the leadership of the second world war a couple years on the throne more early shouldn't hurt him.
--
And while not definitive a couple of pieces of primarily British developments (Probably updated periodically) to reflect this, I know I have plans for late inter war aircraft that were commercially available to British partners through aircraft firms just ahead of the war breaking out, but for the moment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_8-inch_Mk_VIII_naval_gun This is a direct outgrowth of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, and makes a pretty good railway gun.

Post Chiang's (so in 29 really going into 30) marks a second phase of modernization. Leading to yes, the eight inch above, and development of late interwar tank development (Vickers introduces the 3 man turret during this period) and proceed eventually to development of things like Mk 1 Hurricanes in the mid thirties

 

[Imperator Pax]

2nd​ July 1917
Allen sipped his coffee with the company officers deployed around the map. The trench lines they'd dug in yesterday had not been particularly deep, but they didn't necessarily need to be, two feet down, and barbed wire affront that formed into a rough v. He'd gotten up before dawn... if Percy was right he doubted Zhu's gentlemen had stirred yet. The depot needed to be held, and they were going to have to following the northern line down the city, because the objective was to secure the rail station in the town center.

The idea of an armored train wasn't so ridiculous in a situation such as this, but as the Monday began he could pick up the cracks of rifle fire in the city. "The 2nd​ Battalion relays that they have not been engaged."

He put the tin field cup down on the edge of the map, almost squarely on Anyang to the north. It was possible Zhu's commander didn't know about 2nd's deployment. It was possible he simply didn't care because they were a few miles beyond the city center and it possible he didn't think they could do anything to him.

There were a lot of possibilities. "What's Cole doing?"

"The company commander reports that they've sandbagged across this street here, there have been emplacements of their heavy machine guns," Vickers in 7mm that had been in Cole's inventory since they'd been received from the British during Bai Lang's raid, "deployment of cars here, and here." He indicated intersections with small flags, and then a pair of brass figures, "Madsen guns holding the junction."

The ultimate result was the Gendarmes had a narrow salient projection abutting the city market. And that his main lain were arrayed along the railway going north. Pickets, and skirmishers fanned along the east and western approached with of course the western approach being the stretch of rail that cut through the city and reached the western depot.

So far it didn't seem as if the machine guns on either side had engaged. There was the possibility that in an unfortunate measure found to the aristocracy, and educated gentry the world over whoever was in charge over their might see the digging and the works and order a fool charge because 'digging was peasant work' or whatever. On the other hand penny packets charging machine guns, or hell the dug in light guns would make today go so much faster.

They had graded all of this five years ago, so there was no high ground to speak of, and while they could dig in for elevation, or swivel to traverse using the carriages it was unlikely to come to that unless the enemy were precisely known. Repeating Chunking was not on his list of things to do.

"I want the cars readied to cross the river, bring abel company up in behind them to recointer in force, and secure the bridge in particular." He meant the rail bridge. They were going to keep the battalions third rifle company behind for the moment. The current intention sat to have the rail line held with the platoons of Charlie maintaining pickets, and insuring that their field telephones remained open. The battalion's artillery would remain in the depot, but the battery were connected to tractors and could be redeployed relatively quickly, if it came to that.

The scout cars were as close to cavalry as they had. The fords were never really used to go much beyond the boundaries, even though their suspension would let them handle what passed for roads in the countryside, really they never went more than ten fifteen miles at the most of the city boundaries, or the nearest railway. The rail was the link of communication, and maneuver. Rail lines were run parallel to telegraph and phone and field lines could be linked in. As a result and in conjunction as engine production for tractors had up ticked particularly over the last few months for their limited needs, the pack horse had diminished reducing the need for fodder.

Had they followed Nakamichi's advice the previous year they'd have been dependent on the age old beast of burden... but maybe that would have been alright. Allen contemplated the broad map, "Abel will follow the cars," He reiterated to the company commander, "Be prepared to deploy your Lewis guns, " Baker had Madsens, having not yet received the newer guns, but Charlie had older potato diggers, another reason to keep them slow rolling and in reserve to guard their flank. He picked up the icon for the battalion headquarters, the small brass rook represented forty five men. The Regimental Headquarters was the same size, but comprised the colonel who held ordinary command. Then there was his somewhat smaller general staff... "And act aggressively to contact with the enemy." He turned to major Hao, who was a young man in his late twenties but prematurely balding, the brass rook represented him and his staff. "Forward line of communication, redundancies, and preparations for the artillery."
--
Unlike the heavy steel bridge that had been sunk to cross the yellow river north, there was little need of that for the smaller river that flowed north of the town, between it and the big bastard of north China. The railway crossing though had not been their first choice, not yet, they had caught sight of one of the enemy columns first.

The Ford threw itself forward hopping a little as its suspension sprang under the added weight to clear the last lip of the little stone bridge. The Vickers gun was erratic under the motion skipping high, and then low as the man up top overcompensated. "They're in double columns."

It certainly appeared that way, Allen admitted looking on at the company. In the history books Zhengzhou would be scarcely remembered and not in particular as much. Not in comparison to the fifty thousand Duan marched on Peking, or more flashily his use of aircraft Yuan Shikai had bought for China's Air Force to drop leaflets, and also sticks of dynamite nearish to Royalist positions.

The lumbering of ground traversing war machines was not wholly novel any longer. There had been armored cars used by the Beiyang defenders at Shanghai, several years earlier during the so called second revolution.

Allen cleared his throat at the ding as the machine gun in the scout car murdered a helpless street lamp... but it was keeping the enemy's head down. They were disorganized and had been moving and now didn't seem to be able to get organized to return fire at the steel beasts. The battalion commander two hundred yards, and half way to the bridge started ordering Abel's commander to push the brightly painted arches over the water. Captain Wu must have had his first sergeant appropriately close at hand as a figure moved towards the platoon officers and their ranks and within a few moments the infantry's machine guns opened from one side of the river pouring hot lead in the general direction of the left column. The north market was empty of people the coolies had fled and the merchants locked up behind their shops, and walls as both gray clad formations had stirred this morning. He had seen the occasional peeking out from heavy doors, and looks from over the walls, but people were waiting to see what would happen.

Platoons started coming on line, and braced against the stone fixtures. Within a minute or two Mausers started to bring accurate fire from their base zeros. Infantry in columns didn't take well to precision fire at close range in the open, never mind when you were in the middle of a town's plaza with no where to go.

Hao signaled for another of his runners, and another platoon diverted towards the railway bridge. The rifle squads of the unit leap frogging past one another one across the spans of the small bridge until they were spread across their bridge. Their gewehrs opened up neatly in an elevated enfilade as the bridge had been built to allow river boats to pass under. That was enough to support the sharpshooters, who moved to prone, and kneeling positions.

The machine guns started to chatter again. The rattlers snapped raking into the mid section of the column at angle, more accurately this time. He turned away, and towards the arriving officer. "2nd​?"

"Informed, we have made contact, but we have a message from the center that Manchu," AN irony since Lang was himself Manchu, but the RPF officer didn't seem to consider that, "seem to moving on the Preparatory school." Lang decided to volunteer either his own speculation, or someone elses who he might have concurred with, "They may be looking for southern collaborators."

... it was a monday morning after... admittedly... of course there had been no reports that the farming college had been molested... and of the two schools if you were looking Guomindang sympathizers... yeah it made a certain sort of sense... on the other... was now really the time for that? Allen nodded, "Put it on the map." He ordered one of the staff lieutenants. Calling it on the map was a bit inaccurate they had notes but this close to the front there was no actual field table and map.

The companies were deploying, and the battalion commander needed to be allowed to direct the troops, and correct any mistakes without too much mother henning. It would be different once they had the city center, and had linked with the second. Then it would be regimental directing. That could potentially tomorrow, or on the fourth.

The scout cars lumbered, and bounced forward the right column backpedalled harder.

As the two cars evened out into the north end of the market the vickers stabilized to come across the front of the column's numbers. The company was now hardening into a formation that was firing across the river, and into the side to cover platoons looping across the trestle bridges leading to the market. The division of labor and materiel being what it was... it was a pity they didn't have Stokes, the battalion commander could have used them from back here to plaster the market's plaza ahead.. a facet of modern war.

The Lewis guns would suffice... for today anyway. This was fire and maneuver as US doctrine intended... but more machine guns to spare at this unit scale... in part due to Bai Lang, the European war... and of course just the fact it was the singular division to which equip. Abel Company's assets initiated a second line suppressive fire, and the backpedalling continued towards the column's baggage. From where he was standing 2nd Platoon looked to have fixed bayonets as they crossed the bridge advancing towards the cars.

There would be papers written, and lessons learned when this was done. "The market will accommodate the battalion's artillery." Said battalion's commander remarked. "The enemy has likely entrenched themselves behind walls, that we'll need to bring down."

Probably so. "Make it so, Colonel. Once your pickets are in place you may deploy the battery as you like." He responded... the artillery had to be moved forward, but he wasn't comfortable using them indiscriminately.

--
Notes: Freaking august, this about the only thing I'm still ahead on. Anyway so like I mentioned above a lot of this timeline had been outlined, there are / is scenes, and content which have been written through the cold war, and of course butterlies to some extent but for the most part its broadly similar in terms of war course, and succession, and political leadership.

Spoiler: Spoilers, misc thread content

So the conclusion to this ['portion' of the timeline, whatever one wishes to call it] is the Romanov Rescue and the end of the European war, and we pick up (most likely) with the consequences of Versailles, and John Jordan springing the Arms Embargo of May 1919 on China with no warning.

The Romanov Rescue of July 1918 results as the name implies the rescue of the Tsar and his family, and as mentioned in the timeline notes in the misc thread results in a botched shooting in london (in the prescence of then heir to the Japanese throne Hirohito) in 1921 of KGV which while not fatal does cause the king injury and exasperates his existing health conditions. The actual intended target of this was the king's cousin Nicholas, regardless this will eventually result in George the Fifth dying a little earlier and causing the edwardian crisis to happen a little earlier and installing George the Sixth a little sooner.

And well all of this is related to the broader relations in terms of, including or especially the attempt aimed at Nicholas, with the relations the British Empire has. That however is a ways in the future.

 

[Imperator Pax]

2nd​ July 1917
Their boys had proven their starch. An aggressive advance to had put second platoon of the first right and forward where they could see the whites of the enemy still in a frayed column. Fifty men and five rounds rapid at close order was a shock action that rippled through the ranks, and was enough make Percy resemble his namesake, and seemed to impress Nakmichi. The two men had arrived on scene. "Cold steel now," He remarked, "My grandfather would be impressed."

A still stricken looking Englishman nodded absently, and after a breath resumed what he'd been preparing to address, "There was some talk, they said something about black shirts, do you think it could be some of Zhang's troops?"

Allen suppressed a curse. He hadn't heard that, but Percy and the other 'advisers' had been in the back end... and black uniforms didn't mean shit because that had been what Cole had thought would be clever to put their gendarmes in.

Ignorant of his inner turmoil Percy continued, "They'll be better armed than this lot for sure." He declared as the rifle squads of another platoon joined the second, as the last of the platoons of the company fired into other column from the railway bridge. There was a pile of bodies beginning to develop as the Lewis, and Vickers, and the Mausers did their work.

He was already considering how this might have played had they approached the bridges with the enemy already in place... the guns. Most likely the Battalion's battery in direct fire, coupled with placed machine guns... and that was assuming that they didn't have to storm the railway bridge or have the engineers check it. The bridge certainly didn't appear to have been messed with, and he wasn't sure that would have occurred to the civilian governor.

Whatever might of been, wasn't. They had caught the enemy at maneuver, and they'd been faster to move to engage. The cars first, and then the company deploying. If the enemy was moving, and expanding their position then they needed to be faster still, and capitalize on the situation. To that end there wasn't time to unfold the railway map and set the campaign table out. The company needed to be across the river. The railway bridge crossed and provided road access to the market square, and since it was empty would make a sufficient park for the artillery.

Allen turned to his right, "Colonel, signal the battalion, we're about seven miles north Cole's position, I want the artillery limbered." The lighter guns wouldn't be able to reach that whole span, but there were no tall buildings here except those built with foreign capital, and the sales of stocks and bonds on European and American markets the previous decade before the Qing had fallen. They could rotate and present for elevation with the current trails would give just under, about six and a half miles. That would have to be enough.

"Should I direct additional forces over the bridge?"

He shook his head, "No, let the major learn the trade." Putting the artillery on cars would take an hour and bringing them down here and offload, by then the fighting would be done, given what was going on across the river.

"Oh, oh they've broken, they're running for it." Percy remarked leaning slightly forward.

Loath as Allen was to admit it, it was the bayonets really that had started the route, something visceral there of contending with their enemy up close like that. The enemy morale had been shaky as it was, but once the second platoon had started to yell that had been the start.

Running was too late now. The difference between an infantry machine gun squad, and a truck with a protected machine nest in a turret was that the latter could carry ammunition and a water cooled gun further, and faster. Lewis's magazine fed snake was a charm, but the heavy machine gun had a different tactical niche.

The problem was the size of the city, and its surrounding environs. They were going to stretch their line far, and even then it might not be enough. There were going to be gaps. The older manchu officer was already getting the regimental engineering company on the horn. A few minutes later the regimental communications had simply called Cole's command post at town center train station to find out what was going on... which struck Allen as surrel in the midst of two presumable regiments fighting over the city... but that the phones still worked.

"And that is their report." The staff officer concluded. "Mortars abeing used to suppress what are believed to be the enemy's maxim positions." Which suggested that Zhu's machine gun brigade, or however he had arranged them were very close. "It does appear that , yes an effort to take the preparatory school."

"Details?"

Nothing solid, really could be ascertained. There was no explanation as to why Zhu considered that a priority enough to redirect troops. The most generous interpretation was of course the civilian governor of the province as so terrified of revolutionary sentiment, or foreign aligned sentiment he viewed the school as a primary point... but that was insane on the face of hard contacts, and facing resistance in the city center.

The advance over the river was the priority, and a second forward staging position though, that was the immediate priority.
--
The day wearing on allowed them tom pack and move machines, and men... which of course brought other issues, "John Allen you can't do that." Percy protested.

Apparently the moving up of the surgery cars connected to the train engine should have been done separately of the flatbeds redeploying the battalion's artillery. Thus instead of having time to break for lunch Percy was giving him the nth degree for some faux pas against European sensibilities that Allen hadn't even realized he must have made. Percy had been increasingly prone to fits since coming, back... he hadn't been like this before he'd shipped off to Switzerland after the war had begun. "And what by god, am I not supposed to be doing?"

There was a long shuddering sigh, and Allen ignored the melodrama to look at Nakamichi equally perplexed... thankfully they were spared any of the other 'observers' most of the scandinavian ministers and the handful of midwestern Americans had remained at North Station. "John Allen it violates the treaties governing war to transport hospital and weapons of war together."

"Percy the damn cars all came down together."

"Yes, but we're actually engaged in combat now, you can't move medical personnel alongside, they're protected by the laws of war where as the artillery are a combat arm."

... and thus were fair game "Nakamichi?"

"I believe Graves-san is referring to the Geneva convention."

Allen nodded, glad that he'd asked rather than just smarted off that the states hadn't agreed to turn war into a sporting competition by not signing the St Petersburg convention. Some dickering back and forth followed, and the jist of it became apparent that Percy was holding the matter out as if England's unique interpretation of the treaty conventions were the definitive understanding. "Whats your take?"

"I do not disagree that between treaty powers that would be a conservative, and cautious reading of the agreement. I do not think that the treaty applies to police actions." Nakamichi sipped from the field cup, "This is an internal matter in contending with an attempted coup d'etat, not one between signatories, thus Zhu Zhibao's troops can't really be considered -"

"That's not the point at all." Percy declared loudly, "That!" He pointed back to the train car, "Clearly has signage on both sides, saying hospital. It is clearly marked with a red cross. You can't use them the same as deploying artillery, or other troops the front."

He didn't need this headache. Oh he understood the sentiment behind it just fine. In 1913 the British army had had been half a million men split in half between their reserves equivalent, and the regulars. It was all fine for King George to talk about having trains for this and that, and never the twine should meet. "Well what would you suggest Percy. I suppose we could take the crosses down, would that satisfy you?"

The Englishman's mouth clapped shut like a steel trap, "Well, that would be legally sufficient, but really you could just keep them separate." He said that as if that were an easy thing. There were limits to the number of engines in the fleet, and track space. Zhengzhou was a medieval city which had had the modern world grafted on to it. There simply wasn't room.

He was spared further discussions on the finer parts with the arrival of additional dispatches ahead of the hour turning. That let him retire into the radio car of the train with a couple of staff officers, and enlisted men manning the telegraphs, and telephones. In normal days, when people weren't shooting at them, these cars were used to coordinate the engineers usually as they strung lines parallel to the tracks, or while they conducted repairs to existing railway bridges in the spring. The radio in the car was new, the actual train car had been designed to run the wiring into boxes that you could then connect in field lines.

He looked at the measurements that the radio broadcast had been used to calculate their position. Three known points in town from each of their stations gave them an answer of unknown location. A pin had been placed to signal where the market was, and the distances written out on the black board. They would have to offset that to accommodate that the market was to the eastern side of the rail line. A second pin, lacking numbers, indicated the equivalent train car attached to the battalion headquarters of 2nd Btn of the first regiment, though it was just as likely the lieutenant colonel commanding the battalion could have directed from the western station. The river they had crossed had a long bend in it, if you went west, the course was flowing northward to the point that the rail bridge in the west spanned the same river before the line made it to the central station. The difference were the 3 inch guns on the western side could stay on the other side of the river.

They wouldn't need to be relocated over the river, once deployed their battery could reach easily to town center, while the infantry defended the river approaches, and advanced. If this had been Sun's lot then they would have probably had the option to withdraw south all the way to Hankou... cutting Zhu off from north and west though raised questions about how he might try and disengage. Further into the province seemed unlikely, especially with the disposition of the gentry still an unknown, even so there was the possibility they would fall back east to Kaifeng, but proceeding down the rail to Shandong... seemed unlikely ... but if they then that would been them well afield. Only railway made that sort of retreat possible, but Zhu's forces hadn't withdrawn last night, and he doubted they'd yield tonight and retire. That would no excuse not to post pickets as they closed the linkage as the two battalions converged with Cole's nominal one. In force terms, on paper there was a single Infantry Division, there were two brigades of artillery, and the gendarmes was in organizational name a brigade but truthfully even with first pick of graduates were a single battalion force of companies.


--
Notes: This is a fairly expansive timeline, and I mentioned last time various people die over hte course of it, and those deaths are often inopportune, for example historically, in the first half of the 20th​ century, lots of influential people die as a result of car accidents (I've made the crack that if I'm travel back to kill hitler, I 'll just use a car, no foul play will be suspected, whoops failed austrian artist get smacked by a porsche friends mourn, world goes on... and presumably we still have a big fight anyway), or who die of natural causes.

The timeline is modelled broadly out into the cold war, but as an example had Yamagata Aritomo, and Akashi Motojiro survived in this timeline, perhaps even with Akashi making prime minister what we might potentially have seen is in the mid twenties a north China-Anglosphere-Japanese anti communist alliance against the soviets. Now that would be potentially a result of other factors, that are a result of events between 1917-1921 that haven't yet been posted. The loss of certain people results in different steps in some cases. Yamagata, and Akashi weren't identical in political views but were in a position to better control things than Hayashi Gonsuke, or Terauchi or Inanzo Nitobe (and Nitobe in between apologies in the thirties was still supporting an anti-communist alliance, but by that point he was something a joke since by thirties you had a certain colonel running roughshod over Tokyo's orders in Manchuria, but that's down the road).

The other thing is that, it is a myth, even if its a key tenant of marxist propaganda, that China (or for that matter Imperial Russia) were regressing or stagnant. Modern research basically confirms that Imperial Russia was nicely recovering, and growing economically... before ww1, and China had a large volume of foreign investment, and that resulted in real income actually increasing up to the period of 1937... when Japanese attack and Mao's government and associated corruption and inefficiency basically ruined a lot of the foreign built heavy industry and resources. Deng when he comes to power in the late 70s does dumb things to, but he's really the reason China is the industrial power it is because Mao really devastated China beyond just the mess that Japanese invasion of the coastal sectors had done. This is best demonstrated in the twenty year period of the 'warlord era' 1912-1932 (right before Manchuria was annexed) per capita increases by ten percent (which in economic terms is pretty huge).

 

[Imperator Pax]

3rd​ July 1917
He had come back in to take a seat at hte railcar's map table after observing the situation that lay between them and the end of their line going south. He had seen plenty of the time being.

Cullen in what was probably either brazen arrogance, or intentionally done so as to shake enemy morale had his nominal 'brigade's' pipes committed to his forward line of contact. The bagpiper wasn't actually in the line of fire, but the noise was distinct from the rattle of Lewis guns, or the mix of 351 and 35 caliber Winchesters, Remington along with the occasional close in delivery of Browning shotguns defending the low wall which surrounded the far end of the square.

He'd been here in the spring, and Cole's troopers had turned it into a killing field. In what was not really a surprise the other black clad troops had a fancy banner emblazoned with characters. In this particular case the catchy branding they had declared them the 'pacification army' if he had read it right through the spotter's optic. This had become in a way Fredickburg assault against the heights in miniature. Not a comparison he liked making since while they held the heights in that analogy Zhu had the numbers to weather a situation of comparable losses, especially against Cole's force.

The Gendarmes were specialist light infantry in a combat role. Cole had reorganized parts of the anti-bai lang force that had been under his command, and been able to reallocate their 7mm Mauser rifles in inventory following the same reasoning that they'd given those weapons to his command in the first place. Logistical reasons, not having at the time enough reserves to be comfortable with in the standard larger 7.92 caliber... especially given the war. That would have changed in the coming year simply because they had more tooling ... would have changed, but hadn't yet.

That might end up being a good thing in this case. This wasn't the southern mountainous divide between Shensi and Szechwan. There had been skirmishes with some of Bai Lang's bandits who had fought as well bandits, though irregulars would be accurate, and that had taken place in the flagstone streets of old towns and cities similar to Zhengzhou, but not on this scale. Zhengzhou was positively ancient compared to Hanzhong in southern Shensi... there were other components. So far as the men were concerned this was different than fighting 'southern ruffians' and other 'poor troublemakers', the cultural expectation sat they were fighting other professional soldiers... and well so far as Allen could see professional might have been stretching the old Qing era and styled formations.

It had taken him time to figure out, but part of the reason the enemy were floundering was they were fighting like this was the 1870s. There were no squads, he wasn't even sure there were platoons as anything other than ad hoc groups of men. Zhu had come into this with men who might have been prepared to fight the war between the states, but not the fight they had actually found... a fight they probably hand't even been looking for.

Even if that was the case it didn't change the situation they were in. "They're pinned in," He commented not looking up at the other men, "Or at least these ones are." The black uniforms presented a problem. The 'Pacification army' had similar uniforms in cut to their own, but were black, because they were ultimately based on German jackets, and trousers... there were hold overs that the 'PA' had that theirs didn't ... but expecting to look for epaulets or at another fellas shoes was a stretch... and going by a lack of breast pockets might end up with their own men shooting each other for missing them.

It was already nearly eleven in the morning. The slow clearing advance of city streets given their manpower had forced them to move slowly, and the further south they moved the more spread out their rear guard became, field telephone be damned.

"The burning building we saw is a newspaper office." A staff officer reported. The major tentatively voiced the news.

That was a waste, it was nice modern building with good sightlines a couple men with mausers up there could have slowed them coming down the street never mind if you could have put a maxim or a lewis up on the cast iron railed balcony. "IS the fire at risk of spreading?" He inquired neglecting to voice the criticism even as he reached for the pen to note down the burning building's details.

"Not immediately, so far as we can tell."

Allen nodded, acknowledging the hedge of the statement. They didn't have time to organize a fire brigade... and whatever he might have thought of muckrakers taking a torching their workplace when you were in actual battle seemed... down right ridiculous. Even accounting the possibility that the Pacification Army had some reason to believe that the office was some anti-qing / restoration resistance which wasn't impossible they clearly had more important things to worry about facing a north south converging line. "So," he paused to consult the map and the pins stuck in it. There were a lot of them with two days of fighting to process, "They've invested the school, and the south market, but they didn't make it to the Hankow line transit station." The Belgian line was also clear, "We think their here?" He reached down to inside the overlap of two silk circles.

"Yes, general." An artillery captain replied stepping forward sharply. The red stripes on his trousers notable, pressed and clean.

"Color charges and ranging from both batteries?" He asked.

"Ranged," They lacked third battalion, and her battery, "Red smoke is ours, and Green for second. Standing by for the fire mission." Neither lieutenant colonel had issued his batteries to fire, and clearly the colonel of the regiment hadn't.

"Double check your math, see what fear you put in them with the ranging... and then given two minutes of continuous fire when you're sure." Allen replied. Hoping he wasn't about to flatten a bunch of the wrong people by accident.

The captain saluted, but didn't immediately step back as if he was weighing speaking up, but before he could be queried, gave a crisp acknowledgement right turned and marched from the staff room.

Allen glanced to the others, then flipped through his notes. Dawes's office had noted that the rate of fire for the regiment's three inch guns was ten rounds round sustained. Two hundred rounds of your choice in five minutes. They were going to call thunder down... in a city that had probably never heard modern artillery. He looked at the clock, and expected he'd have to ask for someone to give them something to work on.

The red legs must have been waiting for something to do as the batteries both north and west opened up nearly simultaneously. It would have been nice to have been able to actually see the colored smoke for the batteries. The red legs, probably after dickering over it, then executed their batteries tasking as the clocks gave the hour, impossible to hear as eight guns drummed.

"I want Baker to swing facing west, signal 2nd​ Battalion to come inward and into contact with any remaining enemy infantry." Infantry seemed to be what the enemy had besides a small detachment of maxims. "The objective to have second form on our western flank. Then we'll concentrate on removing the enemy remains to the east."

The second Battalion had crossed the river wholly uncontested and while the battery was over the river the colonel of the battalion had brought over his infantry companies, as well as his pioneer section so they were basically fresh, and the pioneers had already confirmed the rail line so the battalion supply could be brought over by engine. If he was going to make those sorts of aggressive deployments then he could come east in force.

Baker would have to screen the battalion flank until the 2nd's companies joined them. They wouldn't be able to effectively close the encirclement... and well since Belgium didn't seem likely to get out from German occupation any time soon pushing them east towards the Belgian financed rail line seemed effectively the best solution. He wanted them out of the city more than he wanted the Zhu destroyed after all.

Zhu had after been a pretty solid neighbor in various posts he'd occupied over the years. "There is another matter."

Finally, Allen mused, and glanced to the Regimental Staff Officer, "Chiang, I assume." Chaotsung had actually carried out the dissolution of the Chinese Parliament and most likely was commanding the Beiyang garrison, his normal position, and the command to which nominally speaking the Capital's Horse Guards belonged to. Paper attribution didn't necessarily mean anything for sure in a network of patronage that made spider webs look simple... but Chiang had put himself front and center in the political arena... and worse... "He has friends at the legation." The American one.... he probably had friends at the British one, but the American ties were the larger problem

... and on the third day of fighting if Reinsch didn't figure something out to do then someone was going to cable Washington. Then for certain there would be a whole other headache to contend with.
--

 

[Imperator Pax]

3rd​ July 1917
It was late in the afternoon as the five companies of infantry formed what was on paper a right angle, but on paper that missed the nuance town buildings made of of the field.. Their left side shored up with specialist units of the regimental level, but he would have been lying if the presence of more leg infantry wouldn't have been a reassuring thing. The red legs were bored now, they hadn't gotten much action, and there wasn't as much maneuver they were used to in pursuit of more mobile foes... that had been part of the whole reason for the combination of investing in tractors for the lighter guns as well as the universal cannon mounts... though economics played a role in both.

He looked over the top of the ten foot wall he was standing on to survey the front. All the while suspecting this was why some men smoked tobacco. "The red legs are chomping at the bit." He declared.

"Yes sir." The colonel responded, "Should I direct the sweep to begin?"

"That's your call, are the men ready?"

The colonel straightened, rod like, and saluted... and that was it. The objectives had been laid out. There were a few thousand yards between Abel and Cole's Van Force, which was how he had designated his forward most company in contact with the enemy. There were probably about three or four hundred men in between them. Part of this 'Pacification Army' black shirts protecting a Chinese fortune's worth of machine guns in what the eastern portion of the city.

He had half a mind to orient 1st​ battalion's artillery and have them clear out the park they were nested in with canister. Canister because high explosive risked damaging the canal and dykes even if the risk was slim. Making up his mind, and cognizant of the social repercussions he signaled to the artillery officer. "Range it. Make sure to use a lot of smoke." He paused, and glanced to the the regimental signals officer, "Have Abel ready to repulse them if they brindle."

"You're thinking they'll break, then?" The major questioned a little wide eyed, and crazy looking at the prospect of it coming to a shock action at the company level. As insane as it sounded sometimes when men broke under artillery fire, particularly fires they couldn't see, they moved forward into enemy contact and that was disorienting.... and disorienting was dangerous and had propensity towards the men injuring one another.

He shrugged, "Its possible." Allen replied and looked at the markings in his notes of where his left flank was positioned adjacent to Abel. The park wasn't flat ground, but there were a couple buildings north of it, and he was pretty sure that the 'PA' had emplaced in some of the other buildings south. He looked at the scratched out map. The offensive plan was to concentrate in the west and come across massing to turn concentrating their rifles to push the enemy east so they could bring Cole's gendarmes into close order.

Second Battalion's battery would, if it wasn't already moving, likely go ahead and limber to cross the river by train and come up... but it was possible their tractors would just drive down the street to support in close order direct fire. That would be the colonel's decision based on how he read the orders outlining the objective to link with their center force.

That was the question. As tightly packed as the rows of building were the... situation in Chunking in a real fight made sense. Plenty of these houses were fragile to fire as it was, it was why the Qing penalty for arson was what it had been before the judicial reforms had just made it a hanging offense. Artillery turning lose would have been enough to flatten entire neighborhoods and clear sightlines at a cost to the civilian body... he'd never understood Elliot's restraint in 1840, the prohibition on canister and shot still seemed ridiculous, but he was willing to make allowances for some of the man's other tactically foolish decisions at the moment.

The red smoke was visible in the distance, from the ground, never mind once it started drifting up. There wasn't much wind at the moment. The canals were a tactical impediment to movement giving the defenders in the park good protection. If they were going to attack they'd almost certainly have to come west and then attack north. The new gun mounts could traverse relatively quickly if it came to that, but they'd have a narrow margin to do anything. At least if they wanted to avoid the housing.

There was the possibility of bringing the regimental scouts in and hem them in place so that they'd either have to abandon the park and fall back to the south as the rifle infantry companies came. Like the gendarmes the 'wolf hunters' were specialist light infantry. The regimental unit recruited from experienced class A veterans with two or more years of service and excellent marksmanship scores to fill out a company element with scoped mausers much as Cole had organized his specialists, and corporals during the quintessential wolf hunt of 1914.

The problem was the railway, if they broke out of the park it was a mile at best to the rail line... because well that was just how they had laid the tracks and in those years ago he hadn't expected to consider the military ramifications in favor of stretching wide rails that would support a fast travelling steam locomotive carrying goods.

The reality was they were probably going to have to mount an assault to force those black shirts from the park. He didn't see any other way to make sure they weren't in the rear when Abel advanced to press the other forces south, to link with Van... and there was the fact Cole was deployed probably almost four miles deep in places if you counted scattered skirmishers in multistory buildings... which he was sure he would get the nth degree for from Reinsch of military expediency... and possibly the Belgian consul, and the French... and whatever others....

The dispatch arrived informing him that second battalion was in four thousand yards of Cole's western most pickets. Two miles and change. The infantry was swinging to advance to them and form on the western line to the station. The question now stood whether there was enough daylight left to push them or if on the fourth of July if this would continue. He wondered if defending a largely static defensive line if Waite and the Second, regiment, were having nearly as much trouble with manpower.

He frankly doubted it with batteries pulled from first brigade Waite had ... frankly probably more men than they'd Xian with against Bai Lang's substantively larger force than what they had presently seen from Zhu... which raised the question of of whether Chiang would be coming down with more men. There had interestingly enough b een no comment from Peking. Zhu Zhibao had not made any official overtures, and they hadn't heard from Duan Qirui in a direct capacity... though Cao Kun had made some mouth noises about 'good works' and stuff.

Percy was suspicious that Duan Qirui was more worried about losing Anwei to Zhang Xun's allies to the south of his position and what that might mean both for his supporters and resources, and in particular what and how Britain might respond.... of course it was also Percy talking so his emphasis on the British position was to be expected. Anwei wasn't the only concern. Zhejiang, and Jiangsu were also of course. Hangzhou, and Nanking, as well as the international settlement of Shanghai were potential seats of unrest that would likely be hostile to either Beiyang faction regardless of who was winning.

... but all that was two hundred miles east, and not their problem... and that distance was greater in real terms of travel than the ease to which they could ride a train to Tietsin. Anything south of the Yangtze might as well have been another planet, but he had promised to Nakamichi an attempt to keep the line Qingdao open if they could ... admittedly not entirely altruistic since with Zhang Xun's Wu Wei parked on the rail lines east of Peking Qingdao was access to the sea.... and of course access to Shandong meant Weihaiwei which of course was of interest to Percy. Nakamichi had assured them that just holding the rail line to the border would be enough, Percy would have preferred they went the whole distance till they were in sight of Royal Marines... Percy was gonna have to make do.

He turned to glance at Shang heading up his staff officers contingent. The Manchu colonel had collected the other dispatches, and had leafed through them. The time tables were the best they could manage. "Can we set the roadblocks?"

"2nd​ Battalion has spare trucks," Allen nodded at the statement, knowing that was a mix of Quads, and Fords bought about this time a year ago, "we can emplace the remaining regimental machine guns, and armored cars." He answered, and flipped a page showing a different sketched map, indicating the lines goings over the rail, and the main thoroughfare in the 'modern' city center where the southern most company would come abreast of Cole's fords, a few hundred yards north of the rail line. "The machine guns are having to break charges in close distances, but the streets are only so wide." Bayonet charges didn't work against drilled and dug in defenders, especially ones with machine guns. "We can pour spotlights into the night forward, but I do not see how we could move on the school."

Allen didn't either. He wasn't about to issue a night time raid... no they'd probably have to talk Zhu's troops out rather than carry an assault on the school. "I'll tell Percy he can talk to whoever Zhu has put in charge over there, and bottle them up." He tapped the map, where a hash mark indicated a known enemy machine position, "Are you sure this machine gun here is isolated."

"Yes, sir." It had some supporting infantry but somehow or another the suspected maxim gun had been left in a salient that was in the north facing 1st​ battalion, it was basically in the middle between where Abel and Baker had advanced to. "There is no way it can be reinforced by the enemy." Which wasn't necessarily true, a force could have relieved it with sufficient numbers... and there was the chance that...

"If its still there in the morning Its going to need to be silenced."

"Mortars?"

"That'll do it." The older manchu colonel saluted.

--
Notes: One thing to note here versus for example with draft two of this story is the much more obvious manpower difference. In the second draft of this story, when the Manchu Restoration happens is that Shang as senior most colonel is commanding an entire infantry brigade (six battalions) in the Western Zhili Action. In that version cadre forces are significantly larger to reflect a scenario where they did actually vote to move to three divisions (at the time of two brigades each, and then later moved to brigades as independent specialist 'Regimental Combat Team' esque structures, like we will see here, with divisions being three regiments, and historically the US had been using these kinds of organizations since the Mexican American war, in the Civil War the regimental level combined arms unit is called a legion).


Here, Xian has less men under arms in 1917 but has made the doctrine change over earlier and is preparing for an expansion, they just didn't expect 'surprise the monarchy is back on!' to happen in the following summer. In both versions Regiments remain as the principle Xian unit of large organization. Brigades and later divisions are organizational units by and large, up until really 1927... which ironically is provoked by a battle over Zhengzhou as a city, and who's strategy is dictated by previous lessons.

Xian's units in 27 move to deploy south of the city to stop an advance so that they don't have to be in urban combat. Here its very slow moving, because neither side has that kind of large volume of manpower, you have lots of roads and streets, you have lots of river crossings. The city of the period had lots of small bridges, lots of parks, lots of temples, old buildings, walled compounds, big open air markets a built up suburban area , and also a big 'modern area' with the railways and telegraphs, shopping centers and coffee shops being scrunched into the old city... and Henan gentry were not one hundred percent on board with that. (Neither were a lot of gentry, you had lots of protest about home rule, again in Zhengzhou particular case the central government had come in basically grafted the city into Zhili under direct administration due to national interests, its actually kind of surprising that Yuan Shikai chose to build the Kung Sian arsenal near Kaifeng and not in Zhengzhou the only explanation that I can think of is that probably it was a measure of reusing existing Qing military apparatus but that is a guess on my part.

 

[Imperator Pax]

4th​ July 1917
The trains had issued resupply of ammunition to the battalions... and that did seem to be one of their advantages was that they had access to ammunition. The supply train also served as expanded bivouac and maintenance. It was hospital, chow hall, chapel, and the like, necessary for men who were getting their first taste of committed battle..

Stokes' three inch might not have had the legs for distance work but they were useful for suppressing machine guns dialed. The black shirts manning the maxim though were tenaciously holding on. He frankly doubted that these were the civilian governor's troops... more likely this was a detachment of Chiang men, or more likely still Zhang Xun sending wuwei corp troops.

The Maxim's gunners had attempted to open back up as 1st​ battalion had started to advance that morning. It was independence day 1917. There tenacity was to be commended even if they should have fallen back... and so the mortars went thump thump thump as the tubes launched.

With the attack underway there was nothing to do but to step back and let the platoon commanders, and company commanders, and their senior enlisted do their job. The two battalion commanders should have adequately laid out for their men the mission objectives expected for the morning. There were other issues to contend with. "Our next objective will be to secure the city." He commented, perhaps unnecessarily to the assembled officers as they began to the process of the motions needed to be undertaken to do that.

There were two distinct personalities foremost among the potential problems. They were Honan's military and provincial governors. The first, Zhao Ti, had declared independence at the end of march, publishing a declaration to the effect from Peking... but he hadn't acted on the city. There was no indication he was going to, but he also hadn't moved against Zhu either. The civilian governor had held the other job previous. Tian had troops at Kaifeng, and was by all reports garrisoning the provincial arsenal... though there had been similar reports that Zhao was as well... so it wasn't cler if they were working together or if the one or possibly both reports were wrong... but the Kung Xian had been only operational for a little over a year now. Yuan had set aside funds for it to supply Beiyang army units... and while it probably didn't have any rifle production is housed... an estimated two million rounds of rifle ammunition.

Enough ammunition to have whichever of Honan's local troops well supplied with bullets... which was the problem, because there was no clear third person on the roster. The hongwei battalions were lead by local gentry from a tradition going back to the taiping fighting and while they were doubtless any closer to full strength than Zhu was that wasn't a fight he looked towards getting into.

"Zhang Xun's troops?"

"That is what it seems like." He replied after the pins had been put in. Allen spared a glance to the car window, the train was stationary of course. The surgery was in use, and the expanded cars occupied with wounded. He couldn't garner the losses Zhu's forces must have taken from the artillery. They were behind the lines. Artillery in indirect had wiped out whole city blocks, termed whole buildings into splinters as high explosive charges ripped through. "I suppose Zhang must have assumed he needed someone with some spine." A spine they needed to snap... any realization that queue wearing black shirts were holding would make Zhu's troops more stalwart even in the face of artillery fires reigning. "We'll sweep them from the side was the second brings its south flank inward."
--
The Regimental scout company that took their name from the 1914 bandit hunt were quite literally proned out on top of the train cars sitting on the line, that the park was itself in something of a sloping depression gave them a little extra height as they overlooked the enemy.

During the war against Spain the official directive from the war department had been that a division should be three brigades of three regiments... lack of readiness and available manpower, and lack of sufficent modern arms had stymied that organization. At one point there had been an entire army corp that had barely eight thousand men in the detail. Allen exhaled the breath and took up slack on the two stage trigger until he felt resistance.

... that was he supposed why they had graduated his class early.

There was a clean break, and the gun boomed, recoiling into his shoulder. The Federal Army back home would have considered it unthinkable in peace time to have command level officers engaged in such things... and most likely Washington had detailed some lickspittle to keep Pershing from from the front and from participating in the fighting. Black Jack would not be allowed a place on the front no matter how much he brindled... and that would probably make him more aggressive than less when he landed in France.

It was unlikely that Wilson had consciously considered that, but Lansing probably knew damn well what it would do.

John Pershing and the Secretary may as well have been a world away.

There was a grunt, "A little left." The RPF man in sergeant stripes observed. "Not enough to miss," He added adjusting the glass.

Allen affirmed the wind call as he looked over the park's low wall. The four magnification of the german glass was clear enough at this distance he could just make the hazy shape of a hand in the grass near the long shadow of what probably the man's rifle.

In the war between the states sharpsshooters, snipers, jaeger, and a whole slew of other terms had been employed to refer to formations of men on both sides across the entire war equipped and engaged to fight as specialist riflemen. These had ranged from independent companies, small units of men, all the way to nominal brigade strength formations. The organization of all varied from one another, and in the subsequent Federal Army such marksmanship training was a matter of regimental discretion.

The enemy were looking this way now though. The other rifles started to open along their salient projected south following along the rail line. The regiment was designed to operate as a self contained unit, and the nucleus for sub operational units... serving as headquarters and direction, logistics, to the battalions.

The division had existed in the war with Spain though had basically after simply existed on paper. The War Department had directed the army to promulgate tables for the army. Tables dated from may had reached the 15th​ infantry division in Tietsin. There were similarities of course, but the new American Line Division for the American Expeditionary Force was a massive beast, comparable in size to its Japanese equivalent. And rather than size down, they were talking about adding a few more men to it.... to the tune of twenty eight thousand men.

If the European theater divisions reached that allotment they would be double the paper strength of their division. It would be a ponderous giant comprised of a teeming mass of rifles... but Black Jack could probably wrangle it.

He racked the bolt home and moved towards one of the manicured trees that was now painted blue from the signaling charge of a ranging shell. The man behind the branches took the round into his side and tumbled over.

They had discarded the brigade as part of the division, but the regiment was roughly the same manpower as a US one. As soon as they got home they were going to have to start new classes, fresh recruiting cycles. Every flea bitten mongrel in south china could smell blood, and another fight would be on the horizon.

"Sir?"

He felt more than saw the sudden flank, but he also heard the pipers play. Cullen's Van Force was committing its Madsens as they leapfrogged up to the south western garden wall of the park. "Tell Abel." He ordered.

They needed to wipe out this pocket, and quickly. There was the preparatory school as well, as if Percy hadn't reminded him enough about that. That would be negotiated out though, they just needed Zhu out of the city and away from the rail lines. Whether or not Percy could talk them into departing remained to be seen but leaving a garrison here to bottle up and besiege a position, regardless of how poor he suspected the Royalist supply was, ws already a subject that had been discarded from discussion. The priority was to secure Zhengzhou and stabilize the division in the event something else went wrong... which was a problem since they were presently sitting on a shipment of weapons Lloyd George had ordered for the Australians that would need to be delivered to a port and put on a British ship... Allen suspected that the Legation in Tietsin knew that the shipment was in Zhengzhou's central station, and were alarmed at the prospect of the royalists potentially getting their hands on them.

... especially given Percy's outlandish notion Zhang Xun was pro Germany in his foreign sympathies.
--
Notes: this is somewhat shorter, but directly leads towards the August recruitment initiative and the forthcoming meeting in the coming week with Yan Xishan over political arrangements, both of which impact the creation of 2nd​ Division and the broader National Guard as institutional body.

Regarding snipers, US sniper doctrine varies between the USMC and USA (and then the Navy, and to a lesser extent the Coast Guard, and Air Force are weird) and for most of US history US marksmanship/sniper/sharpshooter programs were unit local (ussually the regiment), the US has a history of these programs, but probably due to the emphasis of rifle marksmanship and the impact that had in service rifle development the modern US Army program is a late cold war program. The previous programs were cancelled for various reasons usually after the completion of hostilities (i.e. Whoever were fighting with at the time, Germany, Germany, Korea, Vietnam). So institutionally in the US its historically a regimental association, 'get me the best riflemen in the regiment', which generally meant you were pulling hunters, or other specialists from all over the formation and throwing them together with their own rifles and this lasted from 1820ish at least to into Vietnam instances, were your regiment basically decides to shove a scoped rifle, now by the time 1960s the army has learned some of the lessons of Korea and the fifties so there more professionalization. Its a really weird part of army history compared to what we're used to modern day, where its a standardized army school rather than having each regiment do their own thing.

 

[Imperator Pax]

5 July 1917
Gun fire had echoed long into the night. Not that it had been exceptionally effective. The firecrackers Cole had sent up, presumably that had been in storage for the Fourth of July had been sent up as well had potentially hd just as much of an effect on the enemy as any occasional burst of machine gun fire sent into their general direction.

Percy certainly hadn't appreciated it... but morning had come and the pickets relieved. The englishman rubbed his eyes, and reached for the black coffee without complaining. "The city is effectively ours." Which was true barring small pockets of resistance in the city center. Zhu's territorial defense battalions simply weren't equipped to stand up to a slugging match with modern infantry, never mind the combination of infantry supported with rapid firing cannon. He had lasted longer than he had any right to do.... "He can't last much longer."

"Its the city around us. If this was open field we'd have been done two days ago," If not sooner, "the city slows down movement, the buildings restrict how and where are artillery can move. Its worse than fighting in a fog." What was worse as that Zhu might have in total another one or two battalions of cavalry, and possibly two to as many as ten battalions of infantry even if they were understrength... and so this needed to end today. "With our positions in contact though this ends today."

Nakamichi nodded with poise and solidarity at the statement, but said nothing. They still weren't going to have the manpower to deploy units into the neighboring province, and Tietsin was still blocked because Zhang Xun was sitting on the Zhili network that ran everything through Peking.

The smart move was to wait. Wait until something happened. Wait until the rail line to the ports reopened and hand over the weapons to a British flagged ship... but it would have to be at Weihaiwei or at Tietsin... that much weaponry, modern weaponry sending it to Shanghai was out of the question.

There was a pause before Percy assured them that the Legation, the British Legation, was sure that their numbers on Zhu's forces were accurate at least in terms of nominal organization. "They're undisciplined in an open fight they fail against proper soldiers." Nakamichi replied, highlighting how frail their forces were even with superior numbers to facing a bayonet charge. He left them to their disagreements stepping outside of the train car.

They were starting to see the town citizenry come out again. Either they had some sense that the battle was largely concluded, or that after the past couple days they were willing to risk peeking outside and chancing a visit to their neighbors to see how things were across town. It was a complication to the mess that they didn't need.

Cullen eased off the side of the car pushing his Stetson up, and offering his customary greeting, "They at it again?"

"Is that surprising?" Percy, and Nakamichi both looked at the world through different lenses and both came up with different conclusions.

"I guess not. Waite phoned in, the regiment has the northern rail line locked down."

"Was there a serious attempt to push this morning?"

Cole shook his head, "I don't think so, he fended off a handful of probes but I think whoever is in Baoding seems to have stopped... Waitie suspects that's because Duan is claiming to have mustered fifty thousand men to," He chuckled, "pardon me, to protect the republic."

"Where is word of that circulating?"

"The papers, Tietsin, Shanghai hit the wires two hours ago. Duan is meaning it for the international quarters obviously," The division between north, central, and southern china were such that there were various degrees of involvement. "On the other hand, I gather from the rumbling he must feel the need to talk to the other Beiyang leaders... the ones who haven't picked sides yet."

Anhui was still up in the air as the situation remained unclear in the province. "Duan also has to do something before Zhang can concentrate his forces. If the rest of the Wu Wei corp makes it to Peking it'll be a disaster."

Cole frowned, "He'd need Japanese trains for that," To bring them in from the north eastern provinces of Manchuria," and I don't think that will happen. Especially if there is German involvement on Zhang's behalf." They didn't know enough to disprove it, but the insinuation alone might be enough to delay trains for maintenance or some such, or to cite some other sudden issue that would cause a disruption of service. "Think Percy can talk them out of there?"

"You that eager to send them in?" Allen nodded towards a squad of men in black uniforms with winchester rifles who looked like they were chomping at the bit for the next round of action. "I'm certainly against trying to mount an assault." He added.

"I don't think they'd be expecting us to come in, I think we could take them in the night."

"You're going in there?"

"Yeah, I think I am." Cullen rested a hand on the sheathed pistol. "Go in quick, hit them short rifles, and shotguns, pistols on the door. We've busted the grain union," The green gang, "dens open like before,"

"This is different."

Cullen shrugged, "Yeah, yeah I guess it is. Percy doesn't get them out of there, we're going to have to go in Brother John they set the newspaper office on fire, you don't think they might get desperate and do the same."
--
It had been a while since he had done something like this... and in the Philippines he'd have preferred to take the cover of night. "I could give another try." Percy remarked as the mag slid into the water buffalo hide scabbard, even as the generators hummed. They powered the arc lighting glaring balefully at the windows of the finishing school as spotlights, which given it was cloudy made them somewhat more effective.

It was about two in the afternoon, and even with the clouds the mercury claimed it was about ninety degrees.

Percy assuming that they hadn't heard his offer started again, but Allen shook his head. "Cole's right, we need to go in. You said you only saw ten of them."

"There could be more." There probably were but that was alright. "They do have guns you know."

"But they were in uniform?"

"Well yes." The englishman remarked.

He looked at the building, and its wrought iron Victorian construction.... it was ridiculous he decided that they referred to any single architecture style as Victorian the woman had reigned for sixty odd years she'd seen the states invade mexico, the war between the states, France invade Mexico, the states fight spain, the british fight the boers not once but twice, and never mind however many fights that the British had had in China during that period... and that was just the army never mind what all else had changed as armies had made the leap from smoothbore to rifle, to black to smokeless from paper to brass.

Allen rubbed his thumb over the two hundred grain hollow point. He pushed it into one of the magazines for his Remington, as Cole smacked Percy giddily on the shoulder, "The Jaegers not going in will cover the windows, their gewehrs will thump anybody with funny ideas." Cullen was intentionally using German... albeit with a west texan accent to needle Percy in the moment. They decided not to tell him that the wolf hunters who were in place across the way had already counted more than ten or even fifteen in the upstairs. The men upstairs didn't seem very attentive... they seemed to have, as Percy had noted, found the staff's liquor stash.

"Come on Cole leave 'em be." Cullen followed his glance to the two storey structure. "Which wing do you want to take?"

Breaching occurred as with any sort of building, they tried being quiet at first. A hui corporal with a shotgun jimmied the west lock, and that got them in. He swept his browning across the hall, allowing two men with Remingtons to then push inside letting allen form his first firing section in the school hallway. The second half the nominal rifle squad included a pair of aid men and the mongol charged with making sure they didn't need to use their pistols if it could be avoided.

It was a lovely white washed building from the outside, but the prepatory school was a sight better apportioned than the confines of West Point where he had graduated, even if the academy had transitioned from gas to electric lighting by then. It was very clean, and bright that was marred by broken glass and a handful of broken doors. He flashed the Lakota hand signs that had been used in the Philippines and since adopted here signaling the point man to wait as the gray clad soldier lit his cigarette. He'd been half way to turning, probably to check the door when the gunshot rang from the other end.

Rather than fire one of their own the Manchu on point grabbed the smoker by his queue yanked him backwards and bashed down with his Remington's stock breaking the man's nose. It proved to be unnecessary there were no further shots, and they froze in place. Another wait hand sign, and he ran through what might have happened.

The gunshot had been inside... but just the one... it had been a pistol. There had been no way that had come from even a comparatively mild rifle report like the Winchesters... probably not forty five. A mauser or an FN most likely... but that still could have been one of Cullen's troopers.

Waiting wasn't going to work and inside the lecture hall one of the soldiers inside was getting impatient, presumably shouting for his friend to figure out what was wrong.

Stay low... which would be harder for him than anyone, but the smallest man in the element was still five seven with biceps more akin to tree trunks. The rifle team divided with the second half remaining as they transitioned into the hall.

Bolt action rifles, a mauser pistol, what looked like a spanish number 3 smith tucked in a cavalry sash. Allen breathed bringing the thirty five around and putting the barley corn on the officer's neck from where he was angrily shouting at the doorway demanding to know what was going on.
The queued officer, a cavalry captain from his rank markings and the backing it was on squinted and then there were a handful of rifle reports from the other end.


Allen pulled his off hand off the forend and make the plains directive to attack, and rose in the same motion.

Browning's thirty five tore out most of the man's neck and jaw as it sped through and into the blackboard. The two other remingtons in the lead did similar damage in the thirty or forty feet distance to head, and shoulders.

The six men with rifles dropped the officer slumped back behind the lectern as a third of the half squad pushed forward down the lecture hall's steps leaving the last two men in rear guard. He made a counting gesture and directed towards the probably seventy or so students who were too busy looking at the gray uniforms and wondering what the devil was going on to realize they were dressed similar. He pushed back up the steps and peaked through to the hall before rejoining the second half of the squad. There was boom and he craned up, as he figured Cullen had been right about needing to cover the windows.

--

--
Notes: As a note to something mentioned previous, but Kung Xian is referring to the county. Its near... the arsenal was near Kaifeng, it was built in an old Manchu fort / military headquarters complex, but its name refers to the county its in not Xian (Xi'an, Sian) as in the city. So basically its the County Arsenal


So what has come up recently in discussion is Japan's pursuit of a cartridge to replace their 6.5SR cartridge the 'arisaka'. Now the Japanese also used the Carcano Cartridge, and 303, and obviously later would develop effectively a rimless 303 (performance wise) as well as use the 7.92 IS (8mm Mauser) and its the last one that has sparked the discussion in particular.

So Japan, like basically everyone (nation wise) was driven towards cartridge adoption for the purposes of running machine guns. There was even as early as the Russo-Japanese war complaints about the 6.5 Arisaka not having enough oomph (which is bullshit, thats shot place, more likely its less you hit the Russian soldier and he didn't die, versus, you missed). Anyway, the US is one of the few countries which made the decision to select rifle load not designed around machine gun needs and that is specifically because they had enough 3006 production where that was even an option. The Springfield and Browning 30 cals shoot the same full power 3006 loads but those will beat a garand to death eventually, the Garand was designed for a reduced power load, but thats more an exception as its as the tail end of this early 20th​ century phenmenon regarding rifle calibers.

So Japan's primary focus was on having a cartridge that would run machine guns, and this eventually resulted in 7.7x58 which is effectively rimless 303. People I know have asked why didn't the british do that, logistics, and scale. The british were looking at updating cartridges (in this story in particular you'll note that the American characters as that British dwarf when talking about the cartridge), people have also wondered why the British didn't go to 3006, against logistics and scale. This is also why it took so long for Japan to introduce 7.7 because the post war (ww1) economic slump, and the earthquake basically meant they couldn't. The money for the army wasn't there.

So the conversation eventually meandered to things that will happen in the early twenties. Specifically that Japan historically used the Lewis gun in 303, Xian manufactures the Lewis Gun in 8mm Mauser and as a result of this during the Russian Civil War Japanese troops who historically had Lewis guns are issued Lewis guns in 8mm. To make a short answer to a question, why would Japan not go ahead and adopt 8 Mauser?

The answer is the navy. In OTL the IJN was very anglophile in the early 20th​ century, you would have probably in 1910 probably had a better chance of them (specifically the IJN) adopting 3006 than 7.92, and by 1920 they had basically decided they weren't going to go that route. The army adopts 8mm Mauser specifically as a machine gun cartridge. Its a budget thing they weren't going to tool up to produce entirely new rifles especially by that point because the money was not there and because of navy interference.

 

[Imperator Pax]

5 July 1917
He grinned taking the steps two at a time. They were going up the stairs not down, and they no longer had the element of surprise. If he had to go through any doors, he'd slow down, and and come across but going down stairs was always easier than up. He'd already pushed another enfield style magazine into the remington's magwell, and the hunt was on.

The blood was up, and they were in it. Chances were Cole was in the fight as well. They had emplaced the men across the street close enough that with glass they could still make out faces, and thus the distinctions of men's uniforms. From the number of rounds fired since the shooting had started though the major in charge of the detachment must have decided he could best secure the objectives by going ahead and eliminating the drinkers on the second floor gallery while they were stupered.

So that left the question whether or not the leg infantry was pushing to the doors of either wing to start coming in behind them. They had figured that the best plan was to pull everyone out of the school if things went loud because if someone started a fire it was scarcely imaginable that they'd get the school cleared of a few hundred students and the staff in time otherwise.

The upper floor's landing was already a mess though, "Down," He shouted in English, rattling the basic command in imperative north chinese dialects. A gray uninformed man with epaulets didn't listen and took the business from the corporal's browning that painted the wall behind him a too red scarlet. The shotgun gave twice more in the hall's confines at men with 88s even as the corporal took over issuing commands to comply.

From the sound of it Cole was at the opposite landing engaging mixed pistol and rifle fire. The lieutenant in his own squad looked wide eyed, "From the number of officers there must be a whole company here, sir."

He shook his head as they stopped at a corner, "I don't think so lieutenant," The hadn't been seeing the right number of NCOs, or rather it seemed likely given what they were encountering lieutenants who were serving in roles that sergeants should have been in... because so far he wasn't seeing sergeants... but this was also a mix, "I think this is a mix of cavalry and infantry men, not a whole unit." A number of them men they'd had to shoot wore cavalry boots in distinction to their leg infantry counter parts.

Allen followed the look back to the stairs they'd come up. "Reinforcements are entering." The Lieutenant observed. Cole's gendarmes were probably coming up the other side as well.

"If there is a company in here, then we'll find out." But it seemed unlikely. Allen pushed the corner rifle slightly above his hip and high as he forced his vision to keep from narrowing to pin pricks as he found another riflemen. At about the same time he fired another Remington barked catching the man in the torso. The two shots pushing the soldier over the bannister and sending the rifle tumbling when it hit the ground the stock broke chipping a long sliver of the toe.

There were too many doors to cover though, and too many people rushing out of various rooms forcing him to call a halt before they pushed any further. The men outside with scoped rifles had stopped firing, suggesting either they'd cleared the gallery or any remainder had had the good sense to keep their heads down, and stay away from the windows. They certainly weren't attempting to return fire... but that raised the question of whether whatever rifles they had, were they pointed at the opposite side. Were they pointed at the doors coming into the upstairs gallery?

The doors to the gallery were big. That was a plus, and the defenders had supposedly been in varying states of intoxication when Percy had come out... Allen spared a look down at the receiver of the Remington, he wished there was a hand sign for reload, the closest was the command to make ready.... which was something of a nice catch all, but catch alls lead to confusion. The other option was to chain instructions passing man to man in the formation.

Entirely different than the sort of fighting that had characterized the July Action thus far. Then again these were not the line service riflemen either. He reiterated the make ready sign taking the partially empty magazine out, and putting in another of Griswold's ten rounders.

--
They had to break down more than one set of doors to clear the upper storey. A couple of college age students had been hogtied in a broom closet with their heads shaved recently, but overall not much worse for the wear. Contingent on the expectation that the troops securing the lower floor, and the men on the train cars and rooftops would keep the exterior windows cover the mix of gray and black uniform troops cleared the rest of the upper story.

"Leave the biggest one for last." He nodded at Cole's remark. The majority of Cullen's troopers were carrying Winchester 351 rifles, Cole was carrying a Griswold modified Remington. "If this is how fighting is going to be brother john this is going to be a problem." The Remingtons had been expensive guns to import, though as part of the deal inked in 1914 FN in exchange for cash they had the technical documents to produce them... but they'd already been doing that before... but the expense still existed in manufacturing.

Allen nodded, and turned to an infantry officer, "Signal that we're about to breach." that would let the rifles glassing the gallery know. He numbered off short sections that would push in, front, left right and then the aid contingent carrying the rear as Cullen did the same for the other door.

Once they were through the big doors they could push to corners and walls and funnel more riflemen in from reinforcing troops but those men would have full length bolt actions. Too long to be appropriate for the confines of building fighting.

He signaled ready, and the gesture was returned. The doors crashed opened within seconds and as a throng the demi platoon opened fire. A couple of defenders attempted to stand and either took frontal fire, or took rounds into their backs from the outside of the building.

In twenty seconds it was done. The gallery smelled of piss, shit, and vomit.

"What a pig sty." Cole grunted one of several who were making similar observations. A sergeant told the enlisted to shut up, and get moving before moving to body check a civilian attire westerner from coming forward.

"Mr Bohannon, Mr Forrest. I had thought that was Mr Graves earlier."

The sergeant grimaced., a gesture that Allen would have been happy to mirror, "Its fine get the rest of these boys out of here." They'd put together a grave detail to collect the dead from Zhang Xun for transport to the field cemetery outside of town. "And let Percy come in," He was chomping at the bit, and it made sense to just wait for the englishman.

That left them to wait and let the schoolteacher natter away. Allen had begun to tune him out as soon as the conversation turned to the school's literature curriculum, but the greasy, combed over, haired man started asking question. "I mean you have schools."

"We went to west point, it has a liberal arts department. I studied language and mathematics." The southerner neglected to mention that while Natural Philosophy had been on the campus it had been ignored in favor of the tactile pursuits of how to build... or explode... a bridge. He wondered if Congress would graduate next year's class early to contend with the European war... he'd heard already that there were predicted officer shortages and that new methods were to be tried.

The philosopher nodded, "and I am sure that must greatly impact your own curriculums. After all," He shakily chuckled, "One does teach what one knows."

"John Allen, ah jolly good." Percy made a show of checking his pocket watch, "You went in with great Elan, I should say. Nakamichi seems to think there is some problem effecting the running gears of Manchuria's railway, it came over the cable. The railway is about borrowing some kind of tension adjustment tool for them." Percy carried on in a tide of nonsensical jargon, as Nakamichi slunk quietly into the room.

Cole elbowed him and leaned over, "You think that call he placed to Korea."

"Was to Isaburo?" He was skeptical, "Maybe but."

"You don't think so?"

"Isaburo isn't the kind of man to suggest scuttling the trains," It was possible of course, but. "Whatever the case if those trains aren't running, that's fifteen thousand modern troops stuck too far north to do anything." It was always possible whoever was in charge of the south manchuria had put two and two together to get four and knew if they let the oil out of the bottle the lack of lubrication would mean the trains wouldn't be going very far.

Percy cleared his throat, "Gentlemen, give all the fuss, if you might join us all for an early tea time."
--
Notes: this gets us through the first portion of the Manchu Restoration. As ATL, this is more action than there actually was, for the most part none of the beiyang commanders were really that keen on actually shooting at one another and while there were small scale skirmishes Duan Qirui basically resolved things by telling Zhang he was outnumbered ten to one, and talked him down by using largely showy flash maneuvers (Duan had peking strafed by the handful of French aircraft Yuan Shikai had purchased before the war, dynamite was dropped. It did neglibile physical damage but it was a novel thing) rather than any real meatgrinding action. Zhang Xun was then basically allowed to retire, without real repercussions against his person.

Then Duan and Feng proceeded to get into an argument, but that is down the road. Anyway the July of 1917 arc still has a ways to go, Yan Xishan shows up, and there are some other matters, but the July Action here sets the precedent for a number of factors that form the institutional basis for Xian military doctrine... and why the Gendarmes [and other specialist / 'elite' elements] are really quick to adopt smgs in a couple years when those become available in numbers.

That being said the July Arc is not going to cover every day there will be a couple of time skips to account for travel, and redeployment as well as the aftermath of the attempted restoration before we move into August.

 

[Imperator Pax]

6 July 1917
The morning after was when the fatigue hit... or maybe that wasn't quite right he had slept like a rock, and the feeling was ... his limbs felt like lead. Cole was the opposite he was jittery and looked like he hadn't slept, moving hither and dither around the ranks a clamor to the next. There was much to be done, as the telegram on his desk from both the American Legation and the British one remarked... but it was good that the telegram lines to the international concession in Tiestin were intact... and that word could come through.

There was a grunt from the other end of the phone line as Sam readjusted himself in his chair, "I will leave that to you lot." The other engineer remarked referring to the breaching of the building, and there was some scratch on the other end of the line. "It sounds like you could use that thing Lewis has been kicking around."

Isaac had access to some of the material the Germans ... 'staff officer day dreams' as someone had called them through the British War Office, and the Germans had talked about the final two hundred meters, needing a weapon for it... and maybe someone was just trying to put something in front of Kaiser Bill to just catch his attention... but the idea was small, compact, automatic firepower to break through resistance. "Has he actually made any headway?"

"Not that I've heard." There was some ruffling, he must have been digging through papers, "Apparently, Lewis writes that BSA didn't forward Savage the papers to the changes to the bolt... and well he's a little invective so I won't read the exact quote."

Allen covered the receiver and glance to Cole who was fooling with the field mug, "Two fingers."

"What was that?"

"Nothing I was talking to Cullen. You were saying."

"Anyway they shrunk the action down, and well Lewis is sure that its an issue with needing more gas in the system, but also that the drum is two awkward." There was a pause, "He references that he's encountered a similar problem with the Assault Phase Rifle he's been working on."

"Has he gotten ahold of one of Federov's guns yet?" Allen interrupted.

"He doesn't say, but I doubt it." Sam huffed. "Some limey has probably considered the thing a distraction, I suppose it was too much to expect Lloyd George would have cleared out the luddites. One of them is probably not passing the 'distraction' along so as to keep things running smoothly."

"The rifle would be thirteen pounds?"

"That's what he says, I haven't had the time to make a prototype from the drawing... I'll do that once this tomfoolery is done."

"There will be time for it then, so the pistol gun?"

"Think its the dwell time, they had to speed up for the 303," And of course 3006 was too much gas in the piston and had needed to be slowed down, even with the smaller bolt it probably dind't have the energy to move right quick, "But if he could get it working well that'd solve your hallway and door kicking problem."

A problem which he had not been considering. "Where is Lewis now?"

"I have no idea, he could be in Birmingham or New York." Cole set the glass down on the table as Sam paused, "Already talks about Crozier going to Europe if you didn't hear, he's not happy, and from the sound of it neither are any of his friends in ordinance. That could be trouble down the road, if those sticks in the mud decide to try anything."

"I wish I could say I was surprised Sam, but shucks its not." It was politics.... the infighting was something that had been there for generations... it was how ordinance was, and how they probably always would be, "Its how ordinance is. We're about done done here, we're gonna swing North and look at the frontage."

"Don't rightly see the point... I mean yeah it was the plan, but if what you've been told is true Duan has the numbers now, and most of the Wu Wei corp is bottled up... did you hear Duan flew aeroplanes over Peking yesterday... they didn't do anything but I reckon it was a shocker."

"It came in over the wire at dinner from Tietsin." He replied reaching for the glass, and suppressed a yawn. "Things are stable?"

"Dawes new guns did well. Battery detered anything further. They pop up, the carriage rotates, a couple rounds go out and if they have any good sense they back up, and quick. Have a good twenty miles of visilibility, and theyve no hint of trying to steal a march at night."

Well, best hope that stayed that way. "You think they might try it."

"No, not if Duan has fifty thousand men."

They finished up the phone call, and sat there as the morning sunlight streamed in through the windows as the staff officers filed in. That was the defining factor, it wasn't just the Gendarmes, but the average age of the combined staffs was something like twenty eight. Shang was one of the oldest men in the room, though he was a full colonel in the service, and the youngest men were Lieutenants like Guan who hadn't even started to grow whiskers. "Gentlemen the particular impositions of operations within town centers creates for us a problem." He gestured to the map of the city. "We have been engaged in Zhengzhou officially for six days that has tied down a signficiant body of the divisional manpower. To the north of us, the engagement and establishment of static defenses south Baoding by the second against their opposition has kept the front largely in fixed, and limitted exchanges. Exchanges which we are in a much better position to sustain."

That opened the floor to discussion, but answer was already somewhat dangled out to the officers present. "Can the divisional corp of engineers be brought in?" The ideas was that even though obvious rifle infantry could dig breast works with their field entrenching tools it would be faster if a couple of tractors were brought in from the divisions assets ... even if that would consume fuel. The division attached unit was about a thousand men, and the only with heavy field moving equipment compared to the regimental and battalion pioneers in company, and platoon strength units.

The idea of course was to allow the staff officers to brain storm deployment formations to answer the question of how best to defend Zhengzhou in the event of any further movements. Obviously they needed a deployment that would neither force them into a sustained high tempo of operations, and would maintain unit mobility if it became necessary.

The answer was geographically determined. A southern defense line needed to be established. That presented really only a single political issue. The rail line that went directly south wasn't theirs. The line that ran down to Hankow ran to Kaifeng which raised also the questions about the status of the arsenal there... but that was a military question.

"We could divide our forces. Cross deploy units. Artillery units could remain, and Gendarmes units could remain in reserve against any push again defensive works." The Zhengzhou 'group captain', and Cullen's battalion Intelligence officer, remarked in suggestion to tying down only a portion of forces to move the others north.

Everyone on the staff understood the goal was to hold the city. There needed to be a strong enough garrison to do that Mobility required meant holding the railway.

--
"Well that still leaves the weapons that are meant for the Australians here."

"Tiestin is blocked Percy. If I leave the 1sts artillery here I'm not comfortable pushing up to Weihaiwei," Hell he wans't comfortable really pushing into the province to begin with... not without a better idea of what the devil was going on. "Besides the legation is telling everyone to remain put. The minister is afraid if we move the guns it'll cause a panic."

Exactly who it would panic was unclear... he might have been under the impression it would look like England was going to turn the weapons over to one side or the other... or that Duan or Zhang might just assume that or that the other side was going to try and steal them... but whatever the case Tietsin's cable, which Percy was looking aghast at, made it clear they didn't want the weapons moved.

That might have put Percy in a problematic spot... but well that was Percy's problem.

"The weapons will be safe here." Or at least as safe as could be promised with the current fracas across the north china plain. "I doubt Zhu even knew about them being in the warehouse, he might have known we had a warehouse here, and probably could have guessed we had guns, but I don't think they were here for the warehouses."

"Then what was all this about?"

"The city." Allen replied before Cole could continue. "Zhu wanted to secure the route to Hankow so that they could mark on to Wuhan and suppress any anti monarchial sentiment. We think one of the local officers jumped the gun and started shooting at Cole's boys, and when he took return fire he went to call for reinforcements ... probably from the troops that were supposed to get on a train and go further south."

"So this whole thing was one drunken pub brawl after another. That we've been fighting for a week for what, a mistake."

"Compounded errors. They shot at us, we shot back. That was it." It was grim but that was how it was, and not much more needed to be said. "Whatever their intentions were on the first it doesn't change that once the bullets started to fly it was too late." Not that those details would ever be framed like that. Officially the story would be the Zhu's commander locally was written off as just a committed royalist who hadn't wanted to back down... that he had also been killed in action by 2nd​ Battalion's artillery and wasn't around to dispute his position in the official histories was ... well history was written by the victors.

Zhu's actions were written up to be exuberance, perhaps not actively malicious, but also avoiding any indication that the whole fight had been a comedy of, a cavalcade of mistakes regarding intentions... and of course that official recollection of events was to be the norm for how North China viewed the farcical attempt to restore the Qing dynasty. North, and even central chinese, papers would lament the unfortunate, and misguided actions that Zhang and his supporters took, but the fighting against the restoration was necessity for one reason or another... depending on the specific politics being espoused by the hundreds of different newspapers.
--
Notes: as I said in the previous segment part of what makes the July Action important is how it impacts the future part of the timeline. As to the Assault Phase Rifle, Lewis's first version was tested the previous year, he had made a second lighter version, these were interestingly 3006 guns not 303 which may have been why they were unpopular with the British establishment... but Lewis really given his grievances with Crozier and his clique within ordinance really should have considered appealing to the British first.

The Lee Enfield had been designed with a magazine capable of working rimmed 303 . it might have been better for Lewis to make a 303 gun first show it to the British and get it working before going to 3006. His development of a pistol caliber lewis gun began life as gas piston system... which wasn't ideal.

Now that isn't to say you can't make an SMG as a piston gun, but he eventually would go to a direct blowback gun but neither of these (either the LMG/Assault Phase rifle, or the SMG) were successful in part due to both political issues in the US Ordinance and of course post war (its 1919 by this point) financial draw downs and as semi automatic pistols they weren't going to be able to compete with the 1911 so trying to make one of those was also a mistake.

We reference the Federov in this segment, those will show up. It has a good magazine design, its curved it will reliably feed 6.5SR which is good... the downside is that the magazines were apparently not always interchangeable (I've read conflicting sources.... but they were also small batch of guns built intermittently so different batches probably had slight manufacturing ... basically in tolerance but that is a guess.) but Zhengzhou as a battle for a military that is only a single division is impactful. This is before Xian writes its constitution, Yan Xishan comes on to the scene in the next (or one following) segments which sets the stage for both Shensi and Shansi as provinces during the period.

Derailed somewhat by IRL events for me, I had planned to post in the misc thread the 'Necromancer's Zombie Apocalypse' project, but its not really ready but tentatively Tuesday I will be trying to update my Isekai litrpg story thread, and move into standard updates for November more broadly with Battletech resuming main timeline updates the following Sunday.

 

[Imperator Pax]

7 July 1917
They were regrouping their forces. Casualties were mild. Injuries, yes, but deaths few. Most of the enemy dead had been killed, somewhat expectedly by fires from artillery, or machine guns outside of the often lopsided routs of shock actions. Of course the latter had been a product of specific tactical conditions. There were talks about motorized ambulances of course, but that talk had been going around... just now they'd seen where that made a difference... but they were having to look beyond that regroup meant more than moving injured men to field hospitals, or further back by train, and using trains to bring them on.

The discussion about cars wasn't anything new. Motorized ambulances, and armored cars as well had seen action at the Woosung Forts, and other skirmishes even before 1913 their greater importance now and the results was in some ways to be expected.

Bill, who had drawn the short end of the stick, tossed a look over his shoulder. In this case the roles for leadership had left the large texan in command of the reserve forces. That left him at the network junction of the rails, the telephones, and telegrams looking at the broader strategic picture rather than the closer to the front tactical one. A decade ago that division of labor would have been unthinkable, but then so to would being in this situation.

The world had changed. The difference in organization reflected that. "So what do we do?"

"Its July now... Duan seems to be winning the support of the other Beiyang leadership... and from the sound of it has unified foreign recognition." Phillips, and Powell shared a look between each other. "What are you two girls fretting about?"

"You ain't wrong. He has Japan, John Jordan, and support from Washington..." There was a pause and once again the two men looked at each other, "but I think its just them." Powell finished a little quieter.

"What do you mean just them?"

"Duan, is getting loans from Japan... but I don't know if he bothered to talk to France or Russia. I can't say for sure, but both of their legations have been mum." The artillery officer remarked, "But we know he's cabled Washington, and London about reorganization loans for when this gets settled."

Allen shook his head... Duan might have been getting ahead of himself... or maybe he was hoping that he could buy Zhang off to avoid a fight if he had promises of loans to the Peking government... or he needed those loans to shore up Anhwei. "Alright, we will see how it plays, Its july I figure fighting wise once we go into September we can open new courses."

The simplest solution would be to just enlarge the previous garrison arrangement . Battalion garrison moving to Regimental Headquarters, Company headquarters becoming Battalion garrisons. "You gonna tell Nakamichi he was right?"

That they should have considered three divisions sooner... probably once the actual shooting was done. They had effectively nine Infantry Battalions. "Besides manpower," he declared ignoring the question, "Is there anything we need to do, that we could correct for in terms of readiness, anything that has stood out?"

"We were slow getting off the line. Getting the automobiles loaded, some units didn't have enough trucks, I think Waite is having shortages of tractors to haul ammo. Materiel shortage, Ammunition shortage. I mean we've engaged on paper twelve battalions?"

"That's what Percy thinks." Even if they were small battalions that that was plenty to deal with. "I don't think we'll know until there is an agreement. "So ammunition?"

"Artillery, not so much shells, but moving the shells to the guns, from the trains from the arsenals. Mortars same situation The three incher is short 'n reach, but we knew that. We could rifle them, or could make them bigger, either should work. It was an expedient design there were going to be trade offs, everyone has heard the bellyaching before."

"Its manpower but we have a shortage of medical, veterinary too, too few mechanics, too few telephone operators." They could have probably addressed that by pulling them from the reserve force, but that wasn't an ideal situation either. "I mean,"

"We could always have more machine guns." Bill remarked throwing into the conversation. "Vickers or Lewis guns, or more Madsens. The latter two are mobile enough to fire and maneuver with. Face facts boys, it don't look like the Europeans are going to stop whacking each other," The Texan drawled resting a hand on the map table, "war could go on a couple more years for as much as the lines in France have moved. So chances are we are either gonna fight another Bai Lang next year protesting whoever is in charge in Peking, or we're going to be doing this."

There were nods from around the train car, "Well the states are involved now." Powell started to protest.

"You miss the part where the French army is well and truly at risk of telling Paris to shove it up their ass?" Bill shook his head, "The french army has been repeatedly been shit out through a sausage maker... only way they're not going to break is if they get pulled off the line, and can be reconstituted. The AEF will have to fill gaps... So I don't think we'd see any big offensives yet, not"

"Especially since they'd be greenhorns." Phillips agreed, begrudgingly, "Feed them in fresh wouldn't do anything. The germans might not expect it, but the Army would get shredded the same the europeans did."

... except that Blackjack was in charge, and Pershing might well have been selected to try for a quick end to the war... whether or not the army was ready for it. "The situation in Europe will have to be let to play how it will." He said tabling the discussions out of the way, that was a conversation that had little place right here and now. "We expand."

"And we focus on our neighbors." The Texan drawled.

"I was thinking about that," He replied with a nod, "You talk to the Mas? I can see about Yan in Shansi." Bill nodded, "No telling when Cao Kun will be back though. Shensi domestically what can we do?"

"That, whole constitutional thing. It needs to be done." Powell started to protest that it was much too early for that kind of talk. Phillips shook his head, and shook his head, "No, we can't keep doing that Philip, Sam is right it was one thing when the Qing were still around, or Yuan, but we're not just in Zhili anymore, and we need to be the ones to do it."

Bill cleared his throat, "That seems a more long term solution... maybe not announcing a constitution right after there is a constitutional crisis ain't the best idea." Phillips, and Powell blinked, "Seeing as how Zhang started shooting because he'd been told one thing about the constitution," Admittedly national one, "and then they tried to do another." It wasn't quite the same ... but maybe not something to risk just yet. "What do you think we should do once the shooting slacks off, Al?"

Allen leaned forward resting a finger on the rim of the cut crystal glencairn, "We talk about farming." A couple of looks passed around the table, "We talk about farming publicly. We talk about water infrastructure." China was a rural agrarian country, and the cotton trade in the north was starting to really get underway as Japanese money rolled in to expand for textiles that were being shipped to English orders, or being sold to fill english orders for France or Russia. "Tube well irrigation," Which was nothing new to be sure, "dykes, dams, we launch a whole spiel about water management, and science. We go big, and hard, we press on it and in doing so we convey that we're not concerned about having had to roll the division along to handle this."

"Anyone who knows will know we've been talking about an electric dam," Bill remarked, "Yeah we'll look pretty even handed that way," and especially given that it would look good, responsible with the way people wanted respectable things like infrastructure put up. The Chinese put a lot of stock in farming, and in people making sure the river didn't flood and get a bunch of people killed.

Just focusing forward, "That should settle anyone overly worried." and if they started losing steel contracts next year to expanding quotas on American firms ... if this War Board thing undercut prices like the French wanted it too... then they could funnel their own production lateral anyway while they readjusted.

He picked up the glass, "And we see if Percy will put the Trans Turkestan, into Kirghiz, line into money that's worth while." He drained the scotch, and rested his hand over the glass. "I think the states are underwriting the loan, I can't see any other reason they'd go for it, not with the way he keeps bringing back to it."

"Something needs to be backed up from the Russians, and from Washington." Even though Phillips was saying that he looked close to salivating at them committing to such a project in the western frontier despite his support that they start looking at a big project in middle America... and no doubt given the expression... the gears in his head were calculating how they might be able to convince the state department to support them in Nicaragua or Guatemala. "I think we could do it, far faster than the old man managing things on the siberian."

Allen merely nodded. He'd let Phillips focus on that rather than the bloody mess of Europe... and he needed to consider how exactly he was going to approach Shansi's Dujun since he'd been quiet through the last week

--
Notes: And of course that railway, minor spoiler, won't be linked in by the time the Romanovs need rescuing since that will go along the trans siberian but it does set up for one of major foreign policy changes in the inter war years where a rump nominal white russian state exists in the south supported by the British in part because of how the early twenties play out abroad as one of the consequences of greater Japanese-British involvement with Chinese assistance in the form of manpower contributions from Zhang Tso-lin and also Xian making industrial work to Tashkent is the splitting off from Russia into a Japanese Far east, and the rump state in central asia.

I 'mnot putting that in spoilers because this has been talked about before. Certainly while that will have effects on politics it doen't really change matters within continental Europe and only becomes particularly important in and after 45 on the global stage.

This segment was going to introduce Yan Xishan, but I ended up flip flopping on that decision again, but definitely next time, which forms the basis of proto-xian's contiguous geographic clique [The Mas (the western commanderies), Yan in Shansi (Taiyuan), and then Shaanxi province (xian) itself]. Mostly this segment and the next are long term organizational ramifications that directly emerge from the attempted restoration, and their butterfly effects

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1917
Diplomacy
To be governor of Taiyuan wasn't .... precisely the most august of positions in the Qing. There was something to be said for hometown loyalty of course, and that Yan Xishan sank so much of his time trying to improve his home state, but Shansi had been a part of China... since time immemorial. Long before Shanghai, or Hong Kong had even been dreamed up, long before even rice probably it had been here the ancient northern kings had fought the Xiongnu horse lords. This wouldn't be the first time he'd come... and despite its closeness to the northern capital for centuries Taiyuan remained a sleepy provincial town.

Yan Xishan had been trying to fix that since he'd come to power in 1912. The problem like so many others had been money... and perhaps shown by the local brigade having their Maxims mounted on the carriages that more resembled those of civil war artillery pieces. John Allen suspected though that if you opened the breech the guns would at least be clean of fouling. Yan was serious, and studious about military affairs, and he had taken every lesson on modern soldiering seriously... which had included Imperial Japanese Army doctrine on the bayonet.

As the wind blew, John Allen recalled the 1893 Chicago world faire, and the sights and sounds off Washington park, the 'midway' as Herbert Spencer had called it talking about the human development. There had been a Chinese opera at the world faire.

... a year later he'd borrowed his grandfather's paper as people talked about the Japanese Navy's daring do charging forward against the larger ships of the Qing fleet. Despite the proclaimed odds, despite the talk, despite all, Japan had hit fast and hard and taken a victory that most had been skeptical they could manage. Ten years after that war Yan Xishan had been at the IJA academy, and John Allen had been in Joseon.

Allen had had received his fresh oak leaves that year to go along with observing the new war. The Russo Japanese one. That was where the problem lay, because as was somewhat normal, as Japanese sources of Yan's schooling attested, Yan had chosen to join the Tung men wei a loose, nominally secret, brotherhood with anti-manchu tendencies. Exactly how sympathetic Yan was to Sun was still up in the air... but the truth was Allen doubted they were strong ties... there just wasn't evidence for that.

The truth was that the southern doctor had failed too many times. Whether it was superstition, cynicism or some other factor, or combination of factors Sun Yat-sen simply did not have any broad popular support in the north. Yan could have made a move to support Sun several times, and hadn't so whatever had been in those years had surely atrophied in the following decade. North China by and large had simply been confronted by a movement that was all talk, and no success.

Allen had never questioned Yuan's commitment to a modern China. He wanted a modern military because that was what made the European great powers great, it was what clearly gave the Japanese the power to stand as one of the old boys in the club of world empires. If the Japanese could learn why couldn't beiyang officers learn what the IJA had learned. It was the motive that Yan had probably gone overseas to pursue.

... But Yuan Shikai was dead now and the fractures in the Beiyang were now self evidentially so ... so much more pronounced than they had seemed even just six months ago. Allen didn't know where things had fallen through, where they had started to go wrong but it had to have started sooner than all of this... this was just where things had finally catastrophically burst. The damage a flood did, was not just the rushing water, it was the damage it left behind, and what it cost to repair things as well.

That was going to cost money. Money that whoever ended up in charge of Peking wasn't going to have, and wasn't going to have the options to finance on. The south was well in arrears in terms of taxes owed, and the truth was foreign sources of loans were going to be limited given how much was tapped extended to the Europeans and their war. He suspected that Qirui didn't care, either willfully disregarding it or so damn concerned about being in charge hinged on keeping a hold on places he couldn't really afford he was going to pour good money into the fire.

After Yuan's failure to cement himself as emperor, and now this, trying to do that ... well if Duan tried it then his eyes were bigger than his stomach, and the result would be that it wouldn't matter who nominally held Peking. Whoever could hold the city wouldn't have the resources to reach much further beyond it and whatever provinces that they were in charge of... and that had been true for Yuan Shikai... but northern influence would retreat even further from the center provinces, and any chance of reestablishing Peking's influence over Mongolia would fade as well.

They needed to readjust priorities and that was why he was here. Yan was almost the model of what a Japanese Infantry Commander was thought to look like, the picturesque ideal. Stern, reserved in demeanor and with a suitably grand mustache he wouldn't have looked out of place in 1905 around a table in some field tent in Manchuria to the north.

Yan's personal chef had cooked up, and had ready, the same sort of buckwheat noodles with chili sauce and bean sprouts that took long enough to make that Yan had probably been stirring on the meeting. They'd only put the phone call in two days earlier, not a lot of time to decide on a menu or to make sure the cook could make the neighboring province's food. That was a good sign.

That Yan was willing to play into Deng's stereotype of how Shansi was a poor backwater province that probably couldn't be much use suggested that Shansi's military governor was prepared to navigate around any potential large requests. The province's main resources were coal and iron, which were the vital building blocks to modernizing in industrial terms. So Yan wasn't ignorant of his potential export market.

But he was also Chinese.so while he recognized the population he had to work with... John Allen wasn't entirely sure he understood the scope of what he had. "You have a population ten million people."

"And?" was the reply as if were stating that the sky was blue. "What does this mean?'

"New York state is about the same," Admittedly Shansi didn't have a population center quite like the big apple, its major population centers were divided across large river basins Taiyuan was one of four such sites. It was four times the population of his native Georgia, and Shansi was safe enough that its population was growing. There were less than a hundred million people living in the states and Szechwan was two thirds that or equivalent to the flagging dual monarchy of Austro Hungary.

A population that could work in factories, but no one had been willing to invest in a small interior province so Yan had been cobbling together nickels and dimes from the provincial budget to build his own. Since the state budget wasn't running much a surpluses to begin with, and in some cases was collecting taxes in the form of goods or even feudal labor Yan's process was slow and inefficient... but it was what the man had to work with.

If all of Yuan Shikai's officers had had the commendable piety and hard work of a confucian like Yan Xishan North China would have been a safer place. Not that Cao Kun wasn't jolly good, but he represented more Daoism in terms of native religious thought. Duan Qirui was a dedicated buddhist.

They weren't proposing Yan stop being governor of the province. They didn't have that kind of authority... and the truth was Peking couldn't really do more than acknowledge someone was in charge. Zhu Zhibao and Zhang Xun might be out of their soon, but Duan was ruling on consent from the other Beiyang.

"Don't you already have a hundred men?"

"Some of the older men are retiring. Some of the others are going to Middle America to start something similar to what we have there, the cadre will be optioning new membership. It'll still be a hundred men in 1920. Everyone will have one vote on projects, programs and directives."

Railways, uniforms, weapons, training, factories and tooling the manufacturing... the little machine shop used to repair and manufacture the old eighty eights could be among the first things expanded and perhaps most importantly was that with fall approaching they could provide a greater common defense against bandits both as September came, and also in the following years.

This was going to be long term. They were going to need to finish connecting Taiyuan's rail system to the towns in the north of the province, and roads supplementing them wouldn't hurt either... and the question turned to how they'd have specialists, another question of people, to do all this... and that was easier. Yan might not like it but there were experts who had migrated to dodge the draft in the states to fight in the European war, but that war wasn't going to last forever either, and when it did there were would be people who had skill sets who needed jobs who could teach.

At the end of dinner Yan reflected that he still needed time to meditate on the proposal. It was clear he didn't want to seem to eager to agree, to come to terms... and Allen wondered if old Man Ma had agreed immediately to Bill's extension of a similar offer or if he also was going to wait.
--
Notes: On the kettering CEP is about ten miles when you can get it up, which isn't a given in 1918, and really the main early interest is a combination Billy Mitchell's endorsement in 1923 (he believed that the USAAF really should have poured more money into it, especially after the British demonstrated you could control the 'aerial torpedo' with radio, which I will admit is very cool for the 1920s. Now Mitchell did have a lot of foresight in these sorts of programs but this could still take quite a while to turn into a functional ballistic or cruise missile system but its potentially one of the earliest that will yield that.

But mostly its Mitchell's enthusiasm during period writings that I think would push that kind of thing, and also if you look at GM's handling of the project this is an airframe that costs basically what a mass production car costs because functionally it is. The engines were sub contracted out to use Ford engines which makes it interesting. But it is not, and I'm not pretending it is, to be a magical solution but I think that it has long term potential to mature as a design especially post war when better engines, and bigger explosives come into play [ALso Mitchell may have let his excitement run away from, and Towers (USN) was not nearly as enthusiastic even in spite of the Navy's work in radio control systems, and I believe his solution was in fact dive bombers.]

 

[Imperator Pax]

10 July 1917
Instead of facing each other in a pitched battle there had been a handful of brief skirmishes that had entailed Beiyang, both sides, firing a handful of volleys from fixed ranks and then breaking off contact. The result was that over the last few days the Royalists had slowly ceded ground falling back to Peking as Qirui demonstrated the much larger allegedly pro republic Beiyang force that he had gathered in coalition. Casualties were sparse. There were more men falling out on the march from heat exhaustion or poor food on the way to Peking than there were wounds from battle.

In western Zhili province the situation had turned into much the same. The royalists had decided that attempting to push an offensive was undesirable. Zhu Xibao had presumably advised not to waste resources attacking fixed strongpoints and since they weren't attacking up the rail line there was little for the governor to do with his troops other than to sit in the fort to the north protecting their position.

If they had wanted to their fifteen centimeter guns could have pounded that position to ash and ruin with high explosive and incendiary but they'd held that option in reserve. Zhu wasn't attacking their position any more so the old fort could stay there and look pretty. If it gave them a false sense of security then so be it.

Allen was confident that with a static front there goals were achieved. They needed to hold the front, until Duan either secured Peking by negotiation or by force, and thus restored the status quo. That was what the British and American Legations and respective foreign services views was the best resolution to the crisis. Once things were back to normal they could ship the Australians their specialized small arms per the contract and collect the rest of the money. Business could resume normal affairs.

That didn't mean they were idle. He'd had the small collection of chaplains in early, one of the first meetings of the day. There had been a lot of talk of early rising, and moral rectitude and so forth. It was all about correct living. Men needed to be physically fit, literate, prudent, benevolent those good things that made men civilized. It had been a long meeting for one scheduled as only an hour.

It was a necessary procedure since Class B recruits had had just received their first taste of modern war looked like... and that they were going to be going further still.

He put the invoice out of the way. Requests for replacement running gears from the line up in the maritime provinces... something about having been run with an oil leak, or insufficient oil for the entire line. The invoice had come with a very insistent letter... and another one that had carried on at length in performative measure that their American supplier could fulfill because of the war in Europe having taking up the backlog. He'd seen these kinds of letters before where they'd get publicized as an excuse to halt or slow work on something.

No one ran entire line's boxes out without oil without realizing they were doing it. Allen was skeptical the north eastern line was even that damaged. That sort of self sabotage was absurd... more likely they'd pulled the oil from the oldest most warn down trains maybe even vandalized some others exteriorly and blamed someone for the misfortune and then exaggerated the damage.

That was wholly speculation on his part, but it meant that the Manchurian trains that could run south to the capital weren't. As long as that stayed this way, then maybe tomorrow, or the next day? Then this should all be over, if talks were going as well behind the scenes as they were rumored to be going.

If not... well what were a few more days? Nothing, so far as he could tell, there was talk in the south, but no action Southern China had no mobilization to speak of. Yunnan, and Szechwan were both looking more across their respective border than the capital. Canton was... well Canton. The Navy clique was making noise but their funds might last two months and then what? He was relatively certain the Fukien boys would have to put into port and ask for money for fuel

... unless they started selling off their assets or threatened to play pirate... he supposed, which was an unpleasant thought to be sure. Percy though seemed certain that all this would blow over very soon, even if he was pacing up a storm in the hotel they'd put him up in for the moment. Still that was mostly over a document published four months earlier and almost four thousand miles away as the crow flew.

... but he supposed that was because the 'argonauts of peace' might put the worm back in the Virginian's apple. There was also the young officers, the Kadets, who'd left the coalition governing in Russia as well that had come up, but it seemed all so very far away, and irrelevant with a fight on the doorstep to deal with.

Nakamichi joined him at the landing of the office, and it was a short walk to one of the large pressing machines knocking out fittings for the bodies of locomotives. "It shouldn't be an issue, if they need spares," He remarked looking at the massive hydraulic driven press coming down on a piece of partially shaped steel. It clanged, and the team working adjusted the piece into the next position for the carriage as started to look a little more like its final shape, "There is some work that needs to be done on the Trans Siberian."

"Is that right?"

"They've got an old hand coming over, but its an old line, I don't know if they've got the rolling stock, and engines for what they're talking about."

"Relieving the Russians offensive."

He wondered what Yamagata had thought about the failure, did he see the Russo-Japanese failures in it. Was that why the offensive had failed? Was it something else? Were there faults elsewhere? There were too many questions for what little they knew.

Nakamchi took the folded invoice without looking at it and put it inside his jacket. The smaller man looked at the forms taking shape inside the engine works, "will these make the gun carriers as well?"

"The machinery," the apparatus which raised and then released the hammer with its many ton of force, " is the same, the molds are different but they can be changed in the span of an afternoon to set up for making another sort of piece.

The tractors really were just tractors. Tractors really were just locomotives with bigger wheels in terms of practical operation. They needed those to operate without rails and get through muddy fields.

"So you could make, any sort of locomotive?"

"Not any, but most." He hedged, "Making the jig is hard part, that hammer will beat steel and extrude it and we can weld and rivet the body, the boiler and such if we have the measurements."

"You have shown this to Iseburo-sama?"

"Oh of course, these are old hat for locomotive manufacture in the states," Not as big as this but, there was one in Dearborn that built tractors for International, "They're part of the reason Australia and India have American locomotives rolling on Scottish railroads."

"Ah, of course. I just happened to consider it."

"These are built for our large rail gauge," Principally because their rails were cut through the hills with more dymanite, and reinforced grading that would support the wider weight, and the greater pressure from a train going faster. Faster train meant that in the straight shot east to west had in turn meant a several hour trip could be made.

It did consume more coal, but there were always trade offs. He elected not to mention the presses could knock out the frames for smaller things en masse if you had a jig... but of course that meant being sure the jig was either very exact, or you were prepared to do a lot of exact filing and lathe work... somethings worked better for one, and other.

"We can replace the gear boxes and any missing oil."

"You said so," Nakamichi paused, "Stevens, he's the old hand coming? I had heard that he was in Manchuria now."

If he was that was news to Allen. The truth was he'd lost track of the venerable old engineer in the mess of things that had come about. "Yes. I think he underestimates the condition of what he's taking on..."

Nakamichi's face belied his agreement before he could smooth it, "Yes, you're correct I think, something to speak with Akashi-sama I believe, as soon as the opportunity presents itself. This may be too daunting a task for the unprepared." Allen would later, realized he'd never been quite certain the extent of what Nakamichi had believed was going on in the summer of 1917 only that the recent offensive had certainly panicked the british, and the growing bolshevik position made the powerful genryo in Japan at least equally as nervous.

Terauchi's priority was still reapproachment with China after the previous cabinet's downfall, and would gradually shift to a policy of Bolshevik containment that would base itself in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance with a broad intent of including the United States that would unfortunately see only limited success.. but perhaps more than it might otherwise have.

In the west though the modd quickly turned to wanting a post war order and especially a 'return to normalcy'', an ability to have a collective security apparatus to maintain the peace where the bill was being footed elsewhere... and that couldn't, and didn't work... for China the narrative around the Manchu restoration of July 1917 was to blame the Germans and use it as an excuse to justify the Beiyang consensus to pressure parliament to declare war.
--
Notes: In the original configuration of this it was going to be slightly different, and part of that is this or began as a vaguely 'gaslight fantasy' moderately magical scenario, but most of that has been segregated off into its own portions, along with the broader GURPS and Destroyermen stories while this thread focuses mostly on the slow progress of state building.

Which brings us to the issue of Green Ukraine, really Ukraine to but Poland, and Finland the Baltics when they declared independence had the advantage of it being basically de facto. Green Ukraine was not this emerged as a product of how the Russian Empire had dealt with 'maligners' 'complainers' 'sedition of all sorts' during the period... and the same with Ukraine's popular national movements also had to compete with the anarchists so the British foreign (since they're principally the ones I have the most access to for this period) were very leery to provide support or recognition to the Blacks, also the British were persistently worried about German collaboration. Britain and France basically came to an accord in 1916 (Siems Picot) and when it became apparent to them that Russians had problems they came to the decision to start dividing up the Russian sphere of influence.

However once everything was said and done, after Versailles the British ran the numbers decided that without a strong US guarantee (really looking for a physical prescience, and since they had basically been the money man) to the collective security apparatus it was better to avoid a significant conflict on the continent. Chamberlain gets a lot of flak but appeasement as a strategy to prevent war was very much British policy in part because of the depression of 1920 and Irish Home rule turning into the Irish free state, there are other factors but the British conservative governments that follow simply were not going to move on continental issues.

France obviously was a little more invested, but it didn't have the resources, much as with Napoleon the first France was facing a major demographic crash and the economic problems of the war, and the war had been financed and in 1920 simply didn't have the resources and they didn't have the political unity, even the cornerstone of espoused French policy was the notion of an alliance to check Germany and that this meant an alliance with Poland.

I do hew closer mostly to the notion that Ukraine failed because of lack of foreign support. Even isolated from the Ukranian heartland by being in the far east the FSO was very leery that they were still politically suspect and of course the Anglo-Japanese alliance comes to mind. [And that goes into the weaknesses of Marshal Potato head's cabinet, the Terauchi government was not particularly stable] The reason that we're focusing on Green Ukraine, the Ukranian community in the far east at the time is because of course its closer and with the differences of how the civil is going to progress as a timeline in international relations. But with Green Ukraine, I'm referring to the settled communities of what is today the Russian Far East

 

[Imperator Pax]

10 July 1917​

The room was already a madhouse. It was hard to hear with seventy plus men crowded into the chamber with boxes everywhere. There were no secretaries, it was a cadre only and they were pressed into the space with tables which had been laid out with maps in addition rolling carts, and large book keeping blackboards with times and dates on and data transcribed from printouts.

"The legation is in a bloody twist." Someone grumbled. Reinsch was all knotted up about the situation, the bankers were complaining, and the state department regulars were a third wheel. And that was just the American side of things. There were at least three sides in the British Legation even in spite of Ed Gray finally getting sacked by Lloyd George. Then of course there was the last of the friendly nations Japan's foreign service position within the Legation had even more internal cliques the army the navy, divisions within each, provincial loyalties of satsuma and choshu, the career civil service, the farm lobby, the heavy industrialists... it went on.

The Russian and French situation... who could say. The danes were taking advantage of Beglium being occupied. It went on. It was nothing new, they knew that. The comment did nothing to draw aay from questions of lead time for manufacturing things. Once upon a time the stock drying process for rifles had been significantly longer. They had gotten around that by first kiln drying, and then a combination of kiln drying, and going to multipiece stocks. Changes in machine, cutting, grinding and the milling operations had changed the rifle receiver.

There was a significant difference between a rifled gun, and a rifle. The receiver and the barrel were some of the longest lead time items to contend with with, with the exception of complex engines that measured horse power in four digits, and holding at seventy miles on the open line... but even that compared to the way things had used to be took less, much less than it had been in Stevens hayday. The problem lay in that two months to put together a whole piece of rolling stock wasn't the problem for today... oh they needed more locomotives, but they had a build schedule that was currently marked out almost two years in advance. They knew what trains they would be building...

"And that's precisely why we need to be getting back to how things were."

"A return to scientific organization of labor, and production." Another member remarked barely audible from fifteen feet away.

That twisted the conversation back up into the situation with the states entering the war in Europe, the Swiss office, and the Middle America discussion that another fifteen minutes to get parsed down and everyone back in their seats. "Gentlemen there will be a contraction of the apparatus of global trade when the war resolves itself. Governments will hastily respond tit for tat as they usually do to perceived unfairness and inflame such behaviors with further tariffs. The French have been pressuring both England, and the States for artificial government price controls on export goods. This is intended to save the French government money. Nothing more nothing less, they're overleveraged." ... and the truth was China was not in good financial situation as countries went...

The Communications Bank, of the Communications clique, which took its name from its 'ministerial portfolio', was tied up with the Japanese Legation with the original idea having been that banking consortium was 'finally' get China's finances sorted out... but of course that had failed. Every intervention and round of reorganizations always seemed to fail...

"Russia then?"

"The French and English divided the Ottomans up last year, they've staked claims out now of Russian territory, and"

Stevens. The whole business with the Trans Siberian while at the same time the English were looking for another route if that wouldn't work if there was a trans Caspian connection anything that could funnel material from pacific ports and shore up the Russian front. England's Foreign Office was looking for figureheads, so they wouldn't have to rely on French puppets, and the old world empires were fine parceling out spoils to get America to play ball with concessions in the Russian far east.

'And we need it in writing.' Was the declared consensus. It seemed clear that France and England had reached their own decisions on how things were going to be and that the States needed to be talked around to agreeing to that...

Whatever regulations were to be born out by Wilson's decision to bring the United States into the European War they had to be out in front of it. As the guns had opened in the summer of 1914 the Cadre had changed, with the entry of the United States it seemed that there would be the much expected change in their ranks as well.

That was the notion to which they adjourned their meeting on giving him time to step outside of the confines of the cadre's 'war room'. "You said it was important?"

"A cable from Terauchi's government went out from Tokyou. Hayashi is being recalled. Mister Nishihara is coming as is, Soho," They had known that Tokutomi was planning a visit in August, but the idea that Terauchi was pulling Hayashi out... that was news. Nishihara, and Tokutomi Soho visiting was one thing, but to pull the minister of the legation out was... Terauchi wouldn't have done that sort of thing without explicit support of the senior statesmen. There was a pause, "Do you think Tokutomi is a second prong?"

Allen paused, "Because he's the advisor on Korea," It took a minute to remember that detail he'd, Soho, been on that post for so long, "No, but I do want you to call Tokyo double check Soho's itinerary." The newsman had only been allowed limitted access, like most of the Japanese press, during the Russo-Japanese war and there was little doubt that if Soho could get in sooner he'd be in Tietsin to see if he could report on the fighting here. His original itinerary had been putting him getting into Tietsin in a few weeks from now, if he was coming early... well they'd have see.

Just because the physical lines to Peking were blocked by troops shooting at each, didn't mean the front interrupted the passage of wires. Telephone and telegraph carried word , and radio would soon make physical lines run alongside the railways that moved goods inland merely a more reliable way. Telegraph, and telephone though had been able to send word hundreds, thousands of miles away and have it delivered in minutes or seconds even to the intended recipient. A change that many had been unprepared for as the technology matured.

He glanced to the trio of teletype copies, "Alright, thank you." He responded,

"What do I need to do?"

Allen threw a look over his shoulder, back down the long hall, and then pulled his sleeve back on his watch, "Its three o'clock now. Sunset is about eight, summon the 1st​ officers and staff put them in a room, I want to know what is broken, and what we need to fix to put them on the line." Soho visiting early had the potentially to be a double edged sword... better that if he came in their bit was done, "as for these, call find out Soho's itinerary and get back, I'll bring this to the cadre, we'll work on it."
--

There was more space to work despite similar office accoutrements filling the space. He had laid out that there were two objectives to the Regimental staff, and attendant battalion officers. The first was the immediate need, and objectives, and the second was to be looking at where their problems in this deployment had been and what they would need to do to correct that.

The electric lights of the long windowed façade created a glare against the night lurking outside the third story. It was pushing eleven, though the bell hadn't yet tolled. The cadre had divided into separate committees with divisions between the regiments, and the small handful of independent sections, but also the lateral wings of corporate interest.

Waite's motion to start pushing for ground clearing was still stalled up, but that was because of the disagreement about the war and the distraction. How long until they could ink the final arrangement with ford, and start taking receipt... the answer was however long the Germans could hold out, because consensus sat that if the US previous wars were any indication as soon as hostilities ended the congress would start wanting to downsize immediately and... the question was could they wait.

The incoming Battalion S3, who'd been in the job just shy of a month now, for third was a stock fellow, basically no neck and forearms of size that wouldn't sit comfortable against his size. In other words the reflected build of a career enlisted. 3rd​ Battalion's operations officer was having to deal with the shortage of of vehicles, and more correctly spare parts. The infantry mustang knew what he was doing, but that didn't change the fact that they were short on parts, and that it had taken them longer to get moving as a result.

The red leg's staff officer was shorter, and skinnier and just younger all around in the spot because Griswold trusted him to run the hammers that actually made the barrels. "Battalion garrison has," a pressing, "need for a dedicated allotment for machine shops."

It was one thing when they'd been encamping in railroad depots. The machine shops there were plenty much sufficient to needs in 1914. Unfortunately putting addition plate armor, and heavier engines put additional on the stress on the forward leaf springs, which meant off road capacity diminished... which... meant you bogged down in the mud. The bigger engine had been required for moving the additional weight of the armor and the slightly higher top speed on roads.

"The British have done some interesting things this past year with their tractors." That had resulted in the development of a dedicated armored tow for recovery of distressed vehicles... which sort of sounded like they needed. "Of course it bears," to be realistic, "reiterating the facts of current limitations." It was all well and good to recognize that one vehicle couldn't do everything. "Our immediate priority is provision of the tractors for the Five Nines. Their mobility is paramount."

The smaller red leg staff officer nodded looking painfully smug at confirmation, but at the same time relieved that he didn't need to argue the point. The rifle officers were less enthused. The problem was that was where the break down was. He doubted the Artillery branch was truly unified behind the heavy guns, some probably would have preferred a tractor with better characteristics to maneuver the light howitzers ... but they were certainly a minority in face of that a tractor that could tow a hundred fifty millimeter howitzer could pull the smaller gun on the same chassis.

"In shortage terms the tractors are in better shape."

"Explain."

He didn't really need it explained. He had an idea where this was going.

"All of the guns use the same chassis, even if a frame becomes damaged, or a wheel needs to be replaced they can be easily be switched out." Obviously, that had been the whole point of the system, "While there is wear to tractors they're not going as far from staging grounds, nor as quickly as cars. Simply put that any tractor from the heavy brigade can be used to move ammunition or batteries from any lighter field piece."

That and there, also of consideration, was they had no entrenched cavalry to fight. There were horse soldiers around, but Cole was too pressed on with the gendarmes and more focused as mounted rifles for anyone under him to contemplate four legs versus wheels. That went back what they had in front of them. "There are already plans in discussion to expand production," And whatever provincial rivalries existed Shansi and Shensi could benefit symbiotically from the other, "There is at this moment a shortage of factories," both domestically, and there was no external slack to make up for demand, "So the priority are the larger guns. Any talk of self motorized gun carriages will have to be for later. Equally the same full mechanization, or expansion of scout cars, armored cars and carriers will need to be put aside."

The thinking six months ago had been that they had been in possession of a reserve of material and with no pressing need that they could afford to experiment. While they hadn't reached the point where there was a consensus to start disbanding the experimental technical sections they had been proven wrong about the volume of spare parts, and machines needed to be kept in reserve for rainy days.
They had ended up putting all three regiments in the field, which hitherto had been an unthinkable situation compared to the idea of simply posting units of reservists as preeminently guard or picket duty. It was July of 1917, a year ago the states hadn't even been in the war, and Okuma had still been prime minister, and the little welsh man hadn't become the English PM until December.

A year.

It felt as if they had fallen behind.

Just a month ago they'd been expecting Duan to make a move on Hunan while the latter was looking at the chaos over the border with Szechwan.

The immediate concern was fixing the cars that were broken, and how quickly they could do that. If it took a few weeks that was one thing, but days would be better, hours better... but doing that would probably meaning pulling from elsewhere.
--
Notes: this is an amalgamation of three separate sections, obviously as history will tell you mechanization largely favored going to a truck based solution for towed goes, there were instances of continued tractors but it really does drop off as automobiles increasingly mature as a technology and tractors become more specialized. Also of course thats because highways become more common and road fuel efficiency drives that adoption since in peace time moving artillery piece A to location B usually involves driving it around rather than going overland. Specialized tracked artillery movers show up in this period but predominantly in this period its horses (or donkeys / mules depending), and then tractors, trucks, and also you need to move ammunition. [And also of course standardization during this period was very much a not a thing, the vehicle list for England and France, 'we had some of these sitting around']

 

[Imperator Pax]

11 July 1917

In hindsight, with the benefit of things they hadn't known this would be a complete and pointless waste of shells. It was just shells. Three casualties on Xian's side would be recorded and none of them serious, no one counted the potential risk of long term hearing damage back then. Still early on the morning of the 11th​ of July 1917 First Regiment before the sun rose began the process of disembarking from the station at Shijiazhuang's northern terminal a hundred fifty miles south of Peking. The Regiment had advanced north by train after a brief respite, and was arriving reinforced by assets from the Division.

By the time the sun was in the sky they were thirty miles north move over the defensive positions erected more than a week earlier. Then forty pieces and three battalions' batteries of artillery pulled by heavy tractors began the process of deploying. At a quarter to ten as the last ammunition carrier moved the final readied carriage of munitions into place the combined guns of first and second regiments opened.

It was now ten o'clock in the morning, and they were in physical sight of Baoding from the hillside. "I thought you said he didn't have artillery."

Waite snorted at the surly comment, "If you want to call those thing artillery, sure." He shook his head, "In all seriousness we didn't push to within range of those old krupps," They were mountain guns not even seventy millimeter, these were the smaller six centimeter guns and it was a wonder that they even worked they were so old. "We will have them suppressed before they get dialed in." He turned to start ordering the field telephone operator into the trade positions.

"I will admit John Allen this is a little surprising." Percy had found solid footing after getting used to the fifteen centimeter guns had begun maneuvering, "I of course understand the need to work north, to focus on restoring direct access to the capital, I just assumed that your position on not committing to moving on Weihaiwei was a disposition against any exploratory action of the enemy's position."

"Well," He began.

"Well we don't want these fellas on the front lawn." Waite grunted throwing Allen a look.

The truth was that this hadn't been the original plan. They had planned to hold, to give the first time to write and digest their after actions to drill at home. They could play this off as close to the vest, rely on the mobility the railway afforded them to maneuver positions close to the front offload from vehicles borrowed from other units have company level artillery units moved in a concerted force ... and then push forward relying on the range afforded by the large caliber field guns. It was hard to deny though that there was an opportunism, they had a chance to hit.

Nakamichi adjusted his field glasses, "There," He extended a hand tracing several miles, "I see there are horses, Cavalry, are they committing, no, I think they are withdrawing, they could be a blocking force," To discourage infantry from routing, "or scouts."

It was hard to tell from here looking at the farmland. There were occasional flashes of glass from reported the other lines which suggested whoever was over there was trying to figure out what was going on. "I do not reckon they can tell the difference."

Percy could have been talking about any number of things. The two regiments were probably impossible to distinguish without the colors posted, especially with fighting positions dug in. They would have looked like any other mass of gray uniforms at five hundred yards plus. The regimental guns were probably impossible to tell because of the obfuscation of the shared chassis. The muzzle flash, and smoke might have been different the sound but with so much artillery going out, and a relatively mild morning shower it wasn't particularly dusty today. A shell capable of flying ten or twelve miles was going to be hard to watch for, to watch its source effectively when it was behind an infantry company.

"They may be pulling back to the city." Nakamichi observed.

"I think he's right."

Allen adjusted the sixty power of german glass, and agreed with the concurrence. That was what it appeared. The enemy had likely realized that their territorial battalions were were now facing a significantly larger force than the one which had checked their march south the past week.

Hindsight of course would tell them that this had been pointless. Zhu, the civilian governor, had been rather leery of giving battle because of course Zhang Xun hadn't expected it be a necessary thing. The entire royalist restoration had been prefaced on the expectation, the misinterpretation that the beiyang clique was still a still a solid foundation supporting the north's weight. The notion of disagreement had apparently so completely failed to register that Zhang Xun had thought the entire grand alliance of provincial military governors, down to beiyang brigade commanders supported the restoration and that they were sick and tired, as sick and tired as he was of the southern dominated parliament.

'The parliament of fools'.

But Zhang Xun had not checked, or if he had asked he received only the answer he wanted to hear rather than the truth, and now that push had come to shove more were willing to nominally throw their support to Duan Qirui than they were to restoring an infant to the throne.

Nakamichi and Percy were here as observers... but the truth was he was going to let Nakamichi handle Soho. Having him along for this would mean he'd be front and center to drawing Tokutomi in when he got in in August... assuming the interary held, and he wasn't on an earlier boat from Tokyo.

It was a newspaper thing. Soho's record of the testimony given would be heartfelt and passionate account of the continental strife even if Nakamichi gave a deadfish delivery of nothing but cold facts. It was unfair to him, but well it needed to be done. "Red Legs have most of the work today." He remarked to the about four hundred men currently on the field from first and the same likewise from second. Each battery filled the role in the state's fourth rifle, and each battery was about a hundred men, and then there were the fellows directly on the headquarter staff, and the observers from division, as well as those forward attached.

"Yeah." Waite grunted leaning into the optic in front of him. "Shit, if I'd known they were going to run back I'd done this."

"We have superior numbers, they can clearly see that." Percy replied. "Fighting a superior force as they are-"

Nakamichi shook his head, as fifteen centimeter high explosive shell brought in and burst near to on top of one of the Krupp 1873. "No you can see their guns are too far forward of their line, their battalions were expecting to be defended by their guns." The blackpowder charges of the hit gun catastrophically cooked off.

"Well that was clearly unstable." Waite snarled. "and yeah after they thought this was just going to be a duel of gunfire they must have settled in for tea and just to sit around and wait."

They must have had no clue what to make of this push. He suspected that was probably true of their own privates. The senior enlisted had been given the objectives of the day pushing instructions down to the platoon level to distribute as they had taken the train a little farther north, and then settled on. They thing that they did not have, were the motorized cars. He doubted the enemy knew to to look. To recognize their absence, because he doubted that the battalion commanders here had been told what had happened in Zhengzhou while they had been checked here.

These men didn't know that the scout cars, and armored cars, and their machine guns and the trucks with men in them were by and large absent. This was leg infantry being supported by direct and indirect artillery fire in the advance. This was not the Philippines. This was the north china plain. This was not an island... and nor were there mountains.

Not jungle forests but farmland and country road path along the railroad tracks. The enemy did not realize that the regiments here were understrength compared to paper, because they weren't willing to bring potentially unreliable cars that needed checks on their axles and spokes, and leaf springs even if they were probably okay.

Okay wasn't good enough.

The goal wasn't to take Baoding. It was to shove and see how far back Zhu was willing to backpedal, if he fell back into the city and didn't want to run on to Peking... then they'd go back to the original plan.

They'd wait. They'd wait a week or two and see what happened.... but there would be no bombardment of the city, and no siege... but he doubted that whoever in charge north realized that... he probably didn't know what to think. This entire last march had been decided for certain before midnight.

Did he necessarily believe Percy when he said that someone had just happened to bring in a manchu officer claiming to have been paid in Mexican silver dollars. No... and even if that was true that a Royalist officer happened to have silver dollars, it didn't prove some nebulous German conspiracy... but it didn't disprove it either. If for whatever reason Zhang Xun was doing this on behalf of Kaiser Bill... then the pony tail general was a god damned idiot.

Similarly speaking even if these were German made Krupp guns it didn't prove anything. More likely the battery of territorial defense were using guns by Kiangnan or another arsenal's license built copies. If Percy meant for it to get in the papers though a reader might well imagine Kaiser Bill borrowing Santa Claus's sleigh to deliver modern Krupp guns like their own 15cm to queue wearing Wuwei corp.

"Pardon me though, if I might ask another question." Percy started, he was a couple steps away from the observation area, nearer to the bank of field telephones and sheltered from the view by the heavy felled timbers notched on the end, forming a simple protected redoubt, "Where is Mr Dawes I would have expected these being his men."

"With the rest of the 1st​ Artillery brigade."

"Ah, yes quite right, what a daft question to ask." Percy clammed up.

It wasn't Percy's fault. He was probably in spite of everything still thinking of early days. In 1913 there had been forty odd pieces of artillery in the company till. This was not 1913 anymore. The guns that Dawes was sitting on were mostly those that didn't have tractors right now to pull them. Guns that were in stationary garrison and protecting the critical cities and strong points like Bashan in the south. "You've been gone a while Percy we do have two brigades of artillery now."

"Even if someone has been off shopping for most of that." Waite grunted, "They've found the range for that other one." he added as another round of shells started to burst into bright red smoke around an enemy battery. Red smoke mingled with white powder smoke.

From the sudden scrambling around of the little smudges in the distance through the glass the Royalists knew what that meant and were rushing to try and get clear as the other two guns in the battery started dialing in corrections. A few men who didn't bother trying to move their gun and just took to their heels probably made it before high explosive started to launch from Waite's crews on the neighboring hill.

There was a shuffle of movement from the bank of receivers, and the scratching of pens on waxed paper. He didn't think anything of it. It was a notice over the wires something was going on north and east in the province. Then other notices, and from other sources. The legations, and Cao Kun, and then others. It was not immediately clear what the development was, just that something had happened.

Those first reports were unclear, and there was an enemy in front of them.
--
Notes: What will likely go up in the notes TOE wise is probably either the current Staff and Force formatting, or possibly since we're approaching that point the distinction between (in organization) Xian's 'Rifle Divisions' versus Xian's 'Infantry Division' [A Rifle Division is a type of Infantry Division, but an Infantry Division is not necessarily always going to be a Rifle Division] as we are approaching the official creation of 2nd and 3rd Divisions.

But yes the irony here is that Xian commits to this push basically too late for it to matter, Zhu is already being told by this point by Zhang 'stand down we're going to have Puyi abdicate' [again] 'everyone can go home' because he's been in talks with Duan Qirui for like the last week.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1917
Reports were filtering in... from the Legation, from the papers, from various other businesses, from other papers, from missionaries, from telegraphs. Information. Tsao Kun's 3rd​ Division had been known to be understrength... and in January that hadn't been a concern... Zhang Xun's wu wei corp being twenty thousand men had been purely academic. What had really mattered was that the Beiyang Divisions were in fact divisions. They had existed as more than simply schemes to steal money from the federal government. That as units they could fight, and were modern implements of war and state.

Percy looked over Zhengzhou's plaza for what sort of was a parade now that the fighting was officially done, and the city was peaceful again. The very tired englishman was conspicuously avoiding looking at the very Manchu dragon banner streaming from the city's flag pole, which was itself a somewhat recent installation a copy of British styles. "John Allen, if could I ask, how many men do you have under arms?"

"Seventy six hundred rifle men." He replied, placing what was already on the books as the portentous 1st​ division, at half its allotted paper strength and awaiting the men in training. The specialists would take longer to train, and longer to equip... but that was how things were. As for 3rd​ Reg, well the last batch of their rifles were due to complete training before the cold came. "We've pulled most of first and second regiment here."

" Yes, yes. I can see that." Percy replied shifting uncomfortably as troops from the second's first battalion moved to shift through some of the debris. The Manchu barricades thrown up had been hasty. "What do you make of all of this?" The englishman tugged at his own uniform's sleeve somewhat reflexively. "How did we even get into this morass, this foolish foolish thing."

He shook his head, "Li asked for Qirui's resignation," and Li didn't have any troops of his own... not really, that and the capital guards might well have listened to Duan instead, "Then the circulars went out..." He trailed off and that was where they got into the suspect matter. Zhang was the chairman of the Beiyang Association, and there had been no reason to doubt his offer to mediate no reason to assume it being a ploy...

His bringing five thousand, a fraction, of his Wu Wei corp hadn't struck... really anyone as particularly strange, especially on the notion that Li had wanted reassurance of the capital's safety. The President of the Republic had invited Zhang to bring the troops for the capital.

If anything had been going to be suspected to happen Allen would have honestly expected that Zhang would have arrested the parliament and Li, and not sent them all packing from the city. It wasn't as if Zhang's association with the Royalist party weren't known, he still wore his qeue for god's sake... so his support for a restoration of the old dynasty had been a shock... but ultimately that at least was in character.

"What now?"

"I suppose that depends on what the Beiyang clique, and the" 1913 elected, "Parliament work out from all of this." He shook his head, "I suppose your next step is what, back to trying to swing China into the war."

Percy's lips pursed into a thin line. "Yes, that is about the scope of it."

"John Allen, pardon me, but I only count Three Companies." Of 'Wolf Hunters' from 1st​ Regiment on the deck.

He grunted, clearing his throat. "That's right."

Percy's confusion didn't abate, "It should be four shouldn't it?"

"No, well, battalions are attached with an artillery battery. We opted when we moved to divisional structure from brigade to to organize battalions as fighting units on that three to one ratio." Then, there was First Battalion presently having even gone so far as to replace a Rifle Squad in each platoon with a lieutenant commanding a four machine gun armed squad. He decided not to mention that as what he said set in, and he exclaimed:

"Good god, I wondered why I had heard so much cannon."

Percy was clearly trying to do math in his head, but it was probably the lack of sleep catching up with him, surely the Englishman wasn't just being dramatic for the sake of it, but it was hard to tell sometimes... Percy had been different after coming back from Europe. "The Division at allocated strength should be about fifteen thousand men." He stated, and most of two regiments present there were nearly seventy pieces of artillery present at this gathering, but he didn't voice that, or that previously battalion level heavy machine guns like the vickers and Maxims had been pushed down to the control of the Company level HQ.

That probably wasn't sustainable not if they were going to build second and third out. The shock factor of so much firepower had paid off, but only being on a rail line had provided them with the ammunition to support the voracious appetites of the red legs' guns. There was no denying Abel Company's lewis guns had been a shock too, but the ammunition they needed was difficult to provide with twenty in the company. Baker, and Charlie hadn't been much easier with their Madsens and in the latter case Potato Diggers.

... and of course there was the fact the Gendarmes in theory fighting as light infantry had been ensconced at their depot, and the hardy brick structures and their reinforced 'factory' in the old term had may as well have been a fort. At least it hadn't been the alamo.

"I need to go, but you are coming to Peking?"

He confirmed, and Percy agained excused himself and allowing him to turn to Shang. "What's the weakness of what we've done?"

"We lack infantry, a strength in rifles to sustain an attack in pitched battle." The Colonel replied with a nod. "We also risk expending ammunition obscenely swiftly."

That was right. That was exactly it. "Indeed Colonel." He raised the glass, "Its important we recognize our own weaknesses even if the enemy doesn't." Because even if the enemy didn't know it they could still benefit from it."

He paused to return the gesture, "Do you really think those silver dollars, do you really think that they came from the Germans."

There had been rumors before, there had been reports... he wondered if the state department had told Percy's superiors about it. If that was the root or if the British had made the accusation independent, and then the question about Qirui's accusation, "I don't know. I don't think we'll ever know for sure."

--
Whatever the truth was, it didn't matter. Not to State, not to the foreign service office, not to the papers... any of the papers. By Jingo it was one more fact... and frankly that was fine. Let Reinsch argue rhetoric about rights of neutral nations that he liked the simple truth was they'd picked side by selling guns and for that matter other supplies to English, and then through them the entente's lot.

The train car continued to roll north pulled by an engine built locally driven by locally dug coal. There was everything here that needed to be so far as resources out of the ground to sustain an industrial society.

... but Industrial -ism had emerged out of the english speaking world. By the time England had exported industrialism to belgium a scottsman was already playing with the forbearer to primers, Shrapnel's shells had born his name had already been adopted been busy scything frenchmen down... and the States had been dreaming already of machined interchangeable parts. Industrialism was already underway in the Isles, and in America.

It came down to money though, wasn't that how it always was? British pounds and American dollars, and it was those tallies of reserves they were looking at. "The fultons did right good."

"Yeah," He grunted, but... They weren't available due to demand state side, "At fourteen miles to the gallon they're useful for moving infantry around. Two tons of truck is uesful, but those are the last of them we can expect to buy until the war ends."

"I was just saying they did good." They weren't the only things that had proven themselves. The Model T was cheaper than the Model A truck... but they both had acquitted well, if not perfectly adding armor put pressure on the front leaf springs, and Ford had never intended for a protected casemate to be put up top to be sure. The Pavesi, of any of the prime movers had arguably done the best, due to its speed overland while under load... but Italy with the Entente and thus at war they were likewise out of the market until the war ended.


There was a ruffling of paper, and Allen looked over his own thick sheets, "Am I not going to like that?"

"Just saying that we need an alternative." Waite replied, but that was a dead letter. There simply wasn't any where to import from and truck production could be covered long term once the deal with Ford executed and gave them a base to work from. That deal was basically agreed to.

There was a knock on the compartment door, "Enter." He called.

The major saluted, "We're almost to the station, sir."

"Thank you major." It was perfunctory. It was by the book. The truth was they had already known that. Peking hadn't been particularly far away anyway. Tietsin had only been twenty odd miles of rail line from the capital. That it had taken a week to get from there to the capital was a demonstration that ... probably that no one had really known what to do.

By the 12th​, the previous morning the royalists had already been surrendering positions inside the capital, and things were more or less done... completely anticlimactic. There had been no assault, no serious exchange of fire, just sporadic infantry contacts, and Qirui showing off by having the air school make passes and drop dynamite from the planes a few times. Peking was less modern than Tokyo.. was less modern than a lot of cities, but it wasn't wholly confined to the past. That was visible on the streets beyond just hte handful of cars.

There were people still in traditional dress, lots of people, but the further in they went the more, particularly, younger men in western clothes and with western style short hair cuts, and without any obvious religious affiliation. No obvious crosses, or bibles, but instead attache cases and newspapers, or cigarettes. Men walked, talked, and lived a modern existence surrounded by the streets and shops that had been carved out centuries before with city walls still visible in the distance that dated back to the medieval era.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine what the newspapers had to say about things, no doubt decrying the royalist attempt as the last reactionary gasp of feudalism or something along those lines. It was equally hard though to really take any claims that this was a republican victory when it was Beiyang troops from among others Zhili's native 3rd​ division sitting on the railway between Tietsin and Peking still. The Navy clique could talk all they wanted to reporters down south, but they hadn't been involved.

... no if there was any clique that needed to be really considered it was the now obvious internal divisions inside the Beiyang army. The communications bank dealing with Nishihara, the two serving as intermediaries, came to mind. Then there was Feng who was already making circulars around clearly attempting to figure who stood where, especially in relation to his home province... and then there was a question of Manchuria now that Zhang Xun had said he was retiring from 'politics' whatever that was supposed to mean.

There weren't going to be any repercussions against Zhang, that much was already clear. The southerners who'd been able to sit the conflict out were talking about it, but no one else was. No one who was actually up here, who actually had the resources to do anything was talking about it. The only people talking about how there should be consequences were the people who didn't have any power to begin with.


There was a good reason for that reluctance, and for a preference among the Beiyang factions for a negotiated internal settlement. Zhang Xun was backing down, but he had also only brought a quarter of his WuWei corp to Peking... if a push came to shove he or a nominal successor would have a good rallying cry or excuse to put a lot more resistance into potentially upending the status quo or rejecting a harsh peace... that would have cost everyone else a lot of resources when the treasuries of Peking, Anwei, and the others were probably scarce enough as it was.

... and of course there were other lessons. Though most of what they had heard was second hand, filtering word of mouth, even through the telephone or newspapers, it seemed to validate their own observations... that in a stand up fight the quality of the old qing traditional style territorial defense units weren't really worth much even if they were willing to fight. While round nose, even round nose blackpowder could still be used on the battlefield of today, blackpowder single shot metallic cartridges simply could not compete effectively against modern repeating rifles, and that was even when they were both confined to a stand up infantry engagement. The sorts of engagements that were no longer the deciding factor on battlefields. Thus, even territorial battalions who had 88s or Type 30s were at a distinct disadvantage when their artillery were large from that same period of 'modernization' undertaken by the Guangxu emperor's hundred days reforms.

The train moved passed a plaza where the zouave drill of one Beiyang brigade was ongoing. The 6th​ Brigade had come under the command of Wu Peifu two years earlier.
--
Notes: And of course Wu Peifu 'the jade marshal' had a good reputation as an instructor, and disciplinarian in terms of training troops, not the only one among the warlords in the north, and we'll see more of 6th Brigade later on in the coastal conflicts that define the post war years and early twenties

 

[Imperator Pax]

Q&A
Part 1: The Economics​

The following is derived questes asked by unique. So before I begin summarizing that there are a couple of things probably the largest single weakness to Autumn of Empires as a broadline timeline is that the outline was originally written within the framework of an AH format timeline of events on certain days with event dates frequently between them. So Unique has asked questions, i've done my best to address them, and also how this story has changed over time. So first and foremost I work with a lot of primary sources, as well my library at the house has a signficant amount of secondary sources (or primary sources in the case of ethnographic accounts from the period). And by preference if I include something at political or economic level it generally going to be based off something that was done in the period.

So first and foremost, WW1 represents a massive political and economic shift in history. It is a very massive pivot point, in no small part because it represents a significant political change in europe and in particular the massive centralization and growth of national governments and their authorities. Now this was not created by the war, it was accelerated by the war. The British Empire had been attempting to apply greater scrutiny and oversight to its subjects (including large trading houses) for almost a century by this point and this is part of the political discourse in Europe about political organization and economics, which has begun industrializing post-Napoleon. The result of this is a pattern of compromises (made possible with increasing enfranchisment in the British political system, at least within the Isles proper) that ultimately favor stability over anything else. This leads to the gradual nationalization of the various monopolistic trade companies (India, and South Africa, come to mind though they're very different in how those proceeded even though it can boiled down to money.) So the basic summary of the 19th century is that European companies continued to operate private security, warships, armies in the field until world war 1 ended that practice or coopted it to control native populations in the colonies. In the AMericas private armies ranged from almost feudal in hierachy to very similar to their colonial european counter parts.

This was legal often in a dejure arrangement over monopolies, or simply as an accepted defacto arrangement of 'natural rights'. This was changing in opinion over the 19th century within elite social circles, but it takes quite a while for it go away... and thats in governments with strong central systems and an interest in abrogating that process at least at home. [colonies are a different story entirely, and that shapes some of what exists in the timeline].

--
So that answers the question of how is this legal? Because at the time while there were rules, they were very different than the ones we had today. It used to be that governments preferred operating arsenals but didn't so much mind companies abroad actually fielding thousands of soldiers, and now for the most part governments don't build their own cannons any more artillery is built by private corporations, but for the most part those companies don't have expeditionary forces.

In 1910 a large railway company could have everything from police powers and mail delivery responsibility (and in some cases the ability to collect taxes) as well owning armored cars machine guns, and artillery for safety reasons. Of course, the thinking within the US and UK was that a railway company isn't going to overgrow the government (and often were represented in government at all levels). As for abroad? The assumption was that these companies were (and again representation in government) part of grander national ambitions. There were certainly people who even in the 1800s disagreed with this, but really its the expense of armies, especially as European armies at home grow significantly larger than their previous iterations that is the death knell of this practice.

Speaking of other corporate interests. A lot of corporations (and some cases this continued after ww2) who were involved in complex machinery and heavy industry got involved in defense articles. Krupp was not originally a gun manufacturers but as it happens steel (or cast iron originally) gives insight into the industrial process that lets you expanded into a side business that makes a lot of money. (and Krupp got its hand swatted a couple times, so did Armstrong and Vickers)The result is that these corporations in the 19th century (and on) would liscence out patents send experts out to help set up local production like pretty much any other piece of heavy industry. Krupp sent experts to Romania (which they might have regretted later), Thailand, Japan, etc, Armstrong sent engineers to China, and Japan among others. Private Arsenals and the manufacture of artillery were not all the unusual (they're really more now the norm, just reflecting changes in what is normal), nowadays your home government cares what defense articles you sale to foreigners on intellectual property rights than anything else.

Which brings me to licensing and costs. When pming Unique this came up, on costs, and this is really the era of the gold standard and also that costs during this period were very different than they were today. That getsinto inflation. Now I do need to go back and boule check my figures, and primary sources but the technical data packages before world war 1 for artillery really weren't that expensive, and thats again a factor how things were before world war versus after. For example there is the ford deal coming up (which is based on both Ford's deal with the USSR, as well as attempts by ford to set up domestic production in other countries and the costs) which in millions of dollars total over a decade, and thats mostly a cost in tooling, but as insane as it might sound before the Model T a piece of artillery could very be cheaper than an automobile (for reference a modern piece of artillery a field gun is often over half a million dollars) and governments still complained that artillery were expensive and that they needed to be made cheaper using lower carbon steels, and less labor.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1917
For a city that had been in 'hostile hands' for two weeks you would have hardly guessed it. Peking looked fine. Certainly the city guardsmen looked exactly the same as they had when he'd been here a month earlier... but then he doubted they had cared who was in charge Qirui or Xun... that didn't seem to worry Qirui any.

His cajoling to bringing along fifty thousand to Zhang's original five had also let him largely muscle past the royalists without any significant damage to eastern Zhili. Zhu Zhibao had been sacked, naturally, but probably for at least as much reason as having lost confidence from significant numbers of troops being lost as having backed the wrong side. Certainly Zhu's decision to go running to the legation quarter for safety had signaled he wasn't confident in the safety of his position before Qirui had officially resumed control of the capital and the office of prime minister.

Offices were another matter up for discussion. There was a lot of chatter in the legation quarter as it was, but gossip was really the only way you'd have known that Peking had been in 'hostile hands' this part of the city looked the same as it always did.

"Was there much excitement here top?" He asked the army's senior non com who'd been in Sulu a lifetime earlier.

"Not at all, sir." Elaborating that the office had seen no trouble, and that like the fifteenth division the China marines hadn't hadn't had any trouble either. "Legation did ask for more men from the Philippines," and had almost certainly been told no, but even if it had been approved it didn't matter, "but Royalists, or Republicans it made no difference. We had it pretty easy"

Allen nodded. That coincided with what he'd been told, "What's that then," He asked raising his glass to the metal case.

"I had thought it would be of interest,"

He knew that tone, "even though Ordinance seems to disagree?"

"Verily so, sir." The gunnery sergeant replied, and Allen's interest piqued. He'd been curious before, the invitation ahead of the soiree the diplomatic community had planned but well... Crozier and his staff really had been making asses of themselves, and he wondered what idea they'd deemed surplus to requirements.

He was a little disappointed as the M1903/6 Springfield came out, but glanced at it more closely as upon taking it his fingers sank into the bottom of the receiver just ahead of the trigger guard.
"What's that then?" He took the metal box, and studied it. The sergeant took it back, picked up an M1903, and then put it on.

"Twenty round magazine." It was charged using the same 5 round stripper clips of 30-06 Government as the original box magazine.

"When did this go out?"

"Ordinance has been tinkering with them for a few years. Think the leathernecks had the idea first, but like most of their queer ideas it never went anywhere,"

He had heard while in the Philippines of a Marine rifle with 10 rounds in the magazine, but he had never seen the butcher's issue. He had assumed that if there was any truth to it it was just Corp gunsmith fooling around with supervision. If anyone in the Army had tried that the tighter wound Ordinance officers would have wanted the offender drawn and quartered for the temerity. "I take it not many of these, top?"

"Shucks, sir. Lucky just to have the one." He responded. "They only gave me this rifle and two magazines." The senior non com showed him where the magazines had the serial number of the rifle and a -2 added for the second magazine.

Twenty rounds of thirty ought six certainly changed the weight of the rifle, but not so much the balance. It made a big difference in the height of the gun too, which was the bigger issue. It was something though. The advantage though seemed evident, especially given the letters from Winchester about modifications to the Model 1907 being made for the war. Of course you couldn't turn a bolt action into a small machine gun.

It was a pity Remington had shown no sign of adopting a detachable magazine into the Model 8. Not that the magazine for the 08 was removable, without taking the screws out. It was a change he would have to have Griswold look at, for the Gewehrs and the Model 8s... maybe if it worked out for other guns.

He grunted loosely, "Why just this one?" He asked. Allen knew this wasn't revolutionary... the truth was they'd been talking about magazines based off of the Lee patents for years on now, "What prompted it?"

"Can't rightly say. Just that they sent them out to the division." The 15th​, "And they wanted to know how they fared in the field."

"And?"

"And they want them back, I'll admit to being worried that the Ordinance men intend to do nothing with them." The truth was that magazines would end up going to the signals, or at least that Signals, and the branch's aircrews would be issued special cut down guns... so the sergeants concerns were somewhat overwrought.
--
Griswold hadn't bothered to come to Peking for the soiree of course, though a number of the other staff had. It would have been Sunday best occasion, but tailors kept all of their clothes fitted so that meant less than it would have back home. The international community was in turned mingled with a mix of old, and new. As with before there were traditional costumes, blended with newer Chinese fashions, and western clothes.
The Japanese delegation was conspicuous though, especially with Germany, and Austro-Hungary forced to the periphery. Then again, the Swiss, and Swedes were also on the ascent he was going to need to make rounds with them and the Danes given the moves their people were making against the Belgian concession. They, and the Japanese weren't the only ones of course.

"Minister Hayashi seems rather put off by your appearance Mister Forrest," The portly British man remarked waddling up to the second floor banisters where he had relocated to.

No surprise, "There is some lingering business left over from our mutual time in Joseon." He replied, but decided not to elaborate any further on the topic. "I suppose its not surprise that he'd end up coming into China." The formerly German controlled concession seemed to be his area of interest, not Northern China, at least not right now, which was interesting. Not good interesting, just interesting... but on the other hand Liu was probably right that he was worried about the recent dust ups too near Tsingtao.

"Ah, bit unpleasantness from all that isn't surprising I wouldn't think." The Englishman agreed, "And indeed I would say China is quite busy. I suppose you've heard of course of the nastiness in Russia?"

"I've heard the stories."

The man bobbed his head, "Quite. I dare say they're probably worse than what can be printed in the papers. Frightful rabble." Allen considered what he had heard. Yeah, to the Brits mass labor strikes was probably not what the blue bloods wanted to hear peasants doing. "Of course the Japanese are very interested in Manchuria. So any problems the Russians are having, well,"

It wasn't just Manchuria though that the Russians had concessions. He doubted Hankow was much on the man's mind, but there was a Russian concession in Tietsin. "A Japanese colonel I knew in Korea mentioned to me that World War 1 was divine aid for Japan."

"Ah, yes, I believe that was a quote from the Minister Inoue Kaoru, god rest his soul." The Brit replied with recognizable excitement. "Of course there is contending with the Russians are on the same side of course, even with this unpleasantness. Of course, they have loaned the Tsar's government quite a tidy sum, so that could be their leverage you know." He seemed less pleased at the notion. "So I suppose that makes you and Minister Hayashi" There was a pause, "business rivals, of sorts at least?"

Allen shrugged. "He has friends that I compete with," It was odd to think of it like that, "Japan needs raw materials. Manchuria, Central China," He thought of the 21 Demands made to the now deceased Yuan Shikai, "and us between the two. At the same time, Hayashi's been keeping his focus on Shangdong, and its rails. The Japanese are however funding more railways in Manchuria too. I suspect that they'll want to meet in the middle."

"They'd need support from the Chinese government for that. The minister of transportation at least. Well its doubtful he'd be very hard to convince."

No it really wouldn't. Cao Kun was always happy any time he heard about railroad investment that he didn't have to pay for. It was ironic, since the Dujun of Zhili liked to lavish money around in order to get things done. It was something. "What will the Russians do?" What could the Russians do.

The British man chewed his lower lip. "I," He started, but was interrupted as Percy arrived and for a minute glowered at the heavier set man.

"John Allen, hello there, so very glad you could come. I do hope Johnathan here is not being a bother." The portly man bristled slightly at the dismissive tone, and then shrank back down. "Have you spoken with Minister Reinsch today?"

"We talked a little politics in the state room," He replied leaning back on the bannister, and sipped reminded of how Reinsch had clambered up on his moral soap box, particularly about the recent trouble, and the issue of Duan Qirui's finances and the money had surely would have needed to fix things. He wasn't happy with how the Chinese President and Prime Minister's situation had resolved itself, and especially not with how the subsequent devolution to fighting.

"Yes I was told that the Premier was an unfortunate who only had one division he could truly count on, and the rest was little more than bloody minded feudalism." Percy agreed... "and well speaking of feudal powers, I am afraid the situation in Russia has gotten quite a bit worse of late, while things here have been well lively as they have been of late."

"Johnathan," He turned looking at the round man, "I assume you're here about this trans siberian business then, and a link to Tashkent or some other part of the caspian line?"

"The details, yes sir, quite right." Johnathan Boyle extended his hand, "It is quite nice to make your acquaintance." They shook.

Even though he'd been a tad disappointed by the magazine that would eventually become the basis of the air service rifle, this meeting would prove if not that sort of interesting the finalization of a more lucrative sort.
--
Notes: this is 1917 the US Army does still have a Gunnery Sergeant rank, and a Technical Sergeant rank, and a number of other sergeant ranks that have since been replaced, retired, or otherwise done away with.

[Amusingly the US Navy also in certain specialties had sergeants which of course was discontinued because by this point the navy had been moving increasingly from actually commissioning armed shore parties as it had done in the 19th​ century, even into ww2 you will occasionally hear Naval enlisted be referred to as sergeants, but in the USN there are not generally sergeants of course in this period the marine corp becomes much larger and continues to grow becoming increasingly expeditionary, but its funny to read this in period sources talking about Sergeants in the Navy in the 19th century, usually in the context of shore parties]
I will be posting the second half of my summary of QA with Unique probably in the next couple days dealing with personnel

 

[Imperator Pax]

Q&A Part 2: The Political Dynamic, and whats coming in the future
Summarized​

As I've mentioned previously I make use of primary sources, of historical people and events, and in particular of agreements that individuals, corporations and governments that were entered into in order establish much of the lead up to the present in the timeline. Now this story was originally spun off from a CYOA build and from an out of universe standpoint the build up of characters and plots integrated other ideas. US corporations and their British and French, Japanese and German parts even were capable of acting abroad in frankly means and ways that we would normally associate with a state government. They exercised in the 19th century, and into the early 20th territorial rights and ambitions and were key shaping factors in national policies. That is a keystone, a fundamental building block in the cadre, because the cadre's corporate holdings operate under a notion of extraterritoriality even if during the Qing, and Yuan Shikai, and now nominally speaking Duan Qirui it is with the blessing of the hosting government [That was nominally the case of historical extraterritoriality as at least those conveyed by treaty rights were a recognition by the host country, and thats goes in 19th century treaties]. This also goes into the patronage networks and power and wealth.

Most of the cadre are west point graduates, and represent either in blood, or ties of friendship to the pseudo aristocratic families of means within the states. This directly ties them to the US of the early 20th century's political system. Does this mean Wilson likes what they're doing? No, but as long as Lansing and Colonel House cover for them, Wilson was the sort of president who could be talked around to it, and the Cadre being willing to intervene in things like missionary safety and that being able to during this period be able to reach midwestern papers by the end of the week by telegraph or telephone provides social sanction to what they're involved in. Wilson is also the sort of president who wants to violate the open door policy by treading on US corporations, even if he doesn't like bankers, because he also supports free trade, and thinks that its good for everyone.

At the same time however it is now 1917 the great powers of Europe have been at war for going on three years. That has had tremendous impact on the global trade balance. This has made producers of articles of trade being consumed by the entente very wealthy, especially as demand drives prices up particularly when supply cannot keep up. This in particular hits the French particularly hard, and effects their foreign policy and an evolution of how they interact with their allies, and WW1 is the avenue by which the modern US government centralizes from a federal perspective it is to use a very tired analogy the crucible that forges the late 19th century New America into a new nationalism it basically takes what TDR was trying to do and its under Wilson that the US evolves. This is really what splits the cadre off from the US because Wilson was fundamentally a dreamer president, and when he had his stroke his wife Edith basically seized power, she sacks Lansing (the secretary of state) and Wilsons inability to manage, to recover or even before that get the US Senate on board with his proposals really breaks the international consensus in Europe.

The French and British were planning the division of their victory spoils by 1915, and this culminates in the case of the ottomans with their dictating of Sykes Picot and informing their current cobelligerents (i.e. Imperial Russia), and the Franco-British agreement this division of spoils continues because France still diplomatically is perceived as a great power, as a very influential power. The French through out this period have been (in the early 20th century) able to talk the British around to their position for the most part. This is why the entente survives as long as it does because France takes up for Russian belligerence and keeps the alliance from breaking down by working with francophiles in the British government. France pushes for economic controls and this is in the shape of things like price controls, but more long term things that will still be in effect for the post war market.

Now once 1919 rolls around there is a political break that comes with the end of the war, where its no longer the cadre so much as a corporate entity, but a pseudo governmental one increasingly leaning towards a territorial government. Other parts of the Cadre export this to Middle America and help shape the banana wars but in China, in specifically north China, the end of the war means a change in both politics and economics. This means collecting taxes, criminal justice (no longer just referring things to Peking for review) and other parts of government oversight. That basically means keeping other foreign powers out the Soviets are thing even though the Russian civil war is ongoing. But thats also the next arc.

This arc will wrap up before we get to there, with (most probably) that next arc's opening being 1919 dealing with the restructuring that moves them from a corporation with government like features to an actual administrating government with a constitution. That will take place ahead of things in the east the ZHili and Anhui cliques conflicts, and then Fengtien under Zhang Tsolin in Manchuria becoming involved in the scuffling for who gets to rule over the nominal position of premier or president of China and hold peking.
--
So at present that is to say post July 1917, political positions can be summed up in terms of each's most important goals:
Duan Qirui: Get China to pass a declaration of War on Germany. Additionally secure his present power base, and secure funding for a larger more reliable army.
The UK: Insure that there is secure rail access from Pacific ports to make sure supplies (and if necessary manpower) from pacific ports to shore up the Russian front.
The Terauchi Government: Stabilize relations with China [Yamagata Aritomo is basically chastising the Japanese government, and expressing serious concerns for whats going on with Russia at this point,] repairing and solidifying the ANglo-Japanese alliance is important, but the Japanese government wants to avoid committing troops to the territorial war.
The US: Effectively participate in the European War, in Asia this means bringing in engineers and making good de facto economic spheres of influence concessions in the Russian far east relating to the Trans Siberian, preferably without being required to land troops in the Russian far east to do so.


Feng: Preferably convince the rest of the Beiyang leadership in his role as President that the Beiyang clique needs to reunify weld over their differences and focus on local issues rather than becoming involved in a repeat of the invasions of the south that attritted the strength of Yuan Shikai's government.

Sun Yat-sen: Make whatever deals he has to in order to be recognized as in charge and secure funding for the KMT. Nominally opposes the war declaration on Germany in parliament

Spoiler: spoiler

[Changes his opinion in September in an attempt to get British recognition for his southern government a month after the declaration for war passes in the north]

 

[Imperator Pax]

Various Unit Order of Battles and Tables of Organization
Large scale units (Continuous)​

[Note: Maybe attempt to edit tables in later for Personnel, Light machine guns, HMGs, and artillery]

Unit	Personnel	Rifles [Standards]	LMG	HMG	Kr3IN	10.5cm	15cm
Regimental Level
Battalion Level
Company Level
Platoon Level

2nd Infantry Division (Triangle) [Nominal Organization 1918]​

3 Infantry Regiment Divisional Headquarters (CO Brigadier General commanding in practice, there are no major or lieutenant generals at this point) + with Divisional level supporting units
Composition of 5th and 6th Infantry Regiments
3 Infantry Battalion + Regimental Train (Organic, Quartermasters distributing ammunition and supplies within the unit) Regimental Artillery (Attached Battery) Engineer Battalion (Attached, would include the signals company as well as field works personnel) + Regimental HQ
3 Infantry Company + Machine Gun Company+ Battalion Train (Ammunition transportation organic to the unit) Artillery Battery (attached), Field Engineering Company (attached), Logistics Company (Attached, combination of Medical and transportation of personnel, actual would operate trains)+ Battalion Headquarters
4 Infantry Platoon +Machine Gun Platoon (4 Heavy Machine Guns, nominally Vickers Machine Guns in 8mm Mauser, in practice some are still Maxims) + Company Headquarters
4 Rifle Squads+ Mortar Section (4 Sykes Three Inch mortars) + Platoon Headquarters

The above is based off of a nominal arrangement that can be more or less summarized as an evolution of the organization of the US 15th Infantry Division except built on a triangular scale. It still retains a lot of pre war heavy machine guns it still operates on operational logic that dictates that officers should be fighting with rifles rather than having lower level officers commanding/leadership role. [Notably in 1920 2nd Division will be reorganized and move 3 Infantry Platoons to a company with additional newer machine guns, but that gets also into events of 1920]

2nd Division is an Infantry Division, and thus lacks the specialization for offensive action that 1st and 3rd Divisions would have (which I don't have those posted yet, but this goes more into specialist equipment and attached units). 2nd Division is also the nominal lead division of the Reserve component, which is based off of the US National Guard [and I can't say anything more about that barring spoilers until after Yan Xishan actually gets the ball rolling on that, because historically he took the US National Guard model applied it for his home province and was able to field an a hundred thousand man NG by the twenties that could be called up in emergencies as needed).

This does not include specific equipment, we will get to that later, but I will basically be dividing table updates for Regimental Brigade and Division level units here, and using the first table threadmark for Battalion and below including tallying specialist formations, which will likely include any core equipment.

And of course what follows, in how this is stood up goes back to the core of unit model. Xian's basic unit is the Regiment, so this is also why the Gendarmes are a Regimental formation on paper when in practice they are a mildly overstrength light infantry battalion. So when Xian goes to establish 2nd and 3rd Divisions they do so by splitting off the 2nd Rifle Regiment, and then a few months later 3rd Rifle Regiment to serve as the corp of these new divisions with subsequently obviously 1st Division also receives two new Rifle Regiment. [and in the future this will after 1920 change in that there is a difference in Rifle versus Infantry Regiments rather than the distinction between Division types being just what specialists are being attached, but you have to have actual division formations first]
--
3rd Division (Proposed, 1918)

3rd Regiment, 7th Regiment, 8th Regiment
[Details to follow]

--
Brigades versus Independent Brigades
Original Xian Brigades refer to 1st and 2nd Artillery, and the Corp of Engineers, Independent Brigades are small combined arms groups, and the distinction of independent in this case refers to their mixed combat capability not to their arm of service

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1917
The englishman handed him a glass, it was brandy but he'd drink it since the other two men were. "Minister Reinsch has been informed of the way things need to be from here on out."

Allen grunted, recalling the conversation with his father at the legation, prior to his own meeting with Reinsch, "You mean State told him that it prefers a unified china than a necessarily democratic one." He replied... oh yeah he'd been told exactly what the professor thought of that. Of the ideas of 'rule through the old dynasty'... "So you know then?"

"That he was the one who told President Li about the loan," in January "Premier Duan was making with mister Nishihara, yes Minister Reinsch was quite curmudgeonly about the prime minister's behavior."

John Jordan behind his great desk looked over at them looking as much school master as Reinsch looked a mid west professor, "The fighting was unavoidable, and our esteemed American colleague did allow his optimism to blind him to that." John Jordan remarked. "My larger concern as plenipotentiary are the weapons Sun Yat-sen is receiving through Canton from Japan, and how it may lead to further unpleasantness." Old Ser John sighed tiredly, "But that is unfortunately not my greater responsibility, I have spoken of it, but we must focus the greater effort of our day on the matter of the war effort."

Edward Gray had been kicked out of the Foreign Service and Lloyd George had begged Reinsch to go back to Asia... the British Parliament, the unified government had its mind on the situation of the empire, and was engaged in a war for the sake of its Empire's prestige and honor. They were committed to fight it.

... and the papers, the photographs, the telegrams painted a bleak picture. Not the least made clear that the Foreign Service was now coming to grips with both a distrust of the French, for previously covering for the Tsarists in the entente, among other complaints, on the basis that either French or the Russians had been lying about the political situation.

This had gone well beyond the pessimism of the Russian Army's ability to sustain itself. In British isms 'no longer an effective ally'. There was a question of how much Kerensky was lying... that should have been asked earlier. There was a now prevailing belief that socialists of any sort were suspects of troublemaking. Certainly the prevailing mood was to suspect any Russian socialist of being a potential German patsy. Doubly so given the labor unrest in England since May.

A paranoia that was apparently contagious since the state department was putting it word for word to Washington and to Wilson where the Virginian was working himself up to fitful episodes of nervousness. There were other developments, but they were hard to read from across the pacific. American grain shipments could reach Petrograd and then Moscow , but the interior of the country side had largely been stripped of manpower, and of the draft animals the year before, and the railroads which were unreliable and slow would make it hard to see grain make it into the far interior. Demand was high, supply was low, prices were thus high.

"Sir Alfred has no confidence that Russians will make it through the winter if thing keep the way they are."

A prophetic warning as it turned out... but not in the way Knox had intended it to be. He'd been looking at the details of the 'southwest', Russian, front, of the conditions of the twelfth army, and of other matters he'd been privy to.

But with Duan secure in power, or at least as secure as he could be, they could turn towards dynamiting through mountains , and laying track with labor crews... if the price was right.
--
This luncheon would have been nothing but an afternoon to laugh an afternoon away if not for recent hostilities. The mug clinked down on the table, "How soon until they mention it to Reinsch?"

That was the question. Reinsch was not nearly as esteemed in his european counterparts eyes as he thought he was.... on the other hand Reinsch did have Wilson's ear. "Not quickly, I imagine. The papers are signed, once the bank drafts are confirmed we can start the work."

"Dollars?"

"Yes."

There was a shocked look, "They didn't try and haggle?"

"Morgan is underwriting from what I'm told." He shrugged. There was a low whistle. "London must be sore about it." He replied in agreement, "Can we do it?"

"Ten miles a day? Certainly." There was a pause, "But well you know, how these things go. Its not going to be completely straight, you can't dynamite a river. We'll make up some time in some parts one of our good crews can manage double that in short bursts." Well you could divert it but, that wasn't exactly the same thing. "And the Russian side of the border? What then, we'll have to change over," John Paul paused, "You know Elliot has the idea that given Powell's Nicaruaga job that we could train up a lot of railway men, and then when this job is done send them over there." He reached for the lobster in front of him before it was barely even on the table good, "I mean it won't be exactly the same, but."

"We're going to have to send people over, its not the worst idea." He replied reaching for the steak knife. It would expand their labor force, "He knows Powell wants to get into mining over there right?"

"It won't compete with us shipping steel to them."

"Oh I know that." It would take time for a mine to get up and running, and it'd take longer before Powell could hope to get any kind of heavy industry, he'd need electricity... hopefully by that point this nastiness in Europe would be over the markets would have normalized, and they could stop fretting about the in-between of right now and back to normal.

In hindsight they would look back on that and realize normal was an illusion, really the idea of normal, normal was just the wrong word. Chasing normal was a mistake, the pivot that the weight was balanced on had shifted, and a new stability was needed. "Whats the word how's that tax business going?"

The Ma clique had made the decision to continue sending the taxes Peking was owed. It was one of the stickler points that the Ma clique was holding to in talks. "We've put an offer to Duan Qirui about it." There were potential sticking points about the salt gable, and such, but they were striking while the iron was hot, and they knew that the beiyang governor's association, the government in peking needed the money. "It preliminary, Griswold is digging through the archives right now, something about the tax system doesn't make sense." Which in hindsight, was the mother of all understatements, but underscored a truly ancient problem... "But if Qirui takes its confirmation of status in being."

"Foreign currency." It wasn't a question.

He paused to swallowed down the morsel of steak, "He's going to take British Pounds. We're pretty confident that he'll accept a fix annual payment upfront. The same thing every year."

Part of it probably was Duan was short on cash, but probably just as much as needing cash now he wanted a reliable amount... and he didn't likely want to start a problem with other provinces about trying to raise tax rates given the fragile state of government.

One thing would lead to another, and by 1919, long after the attempt to restore the last Manchu emperor had faded from popular consequence in favor of then more pressing matters in Peking... well they'd' move on to an actual modern tax system for the provinces covered by the agreement and Peking would still receive a fixed annual lump sum for several years after that regardless of who was actually in power. The coastal warlords would leave things along. Anhui, Zhili, Fengtian would fight and they would sit in the interior as the world changed.

The medieval taxes that the Qing Emperor in the 18th​ century had frozen were to be a lingering hold over of an arrangement that reflected a simpler time, and arrangement of the powers in north china. Qirui for his part was eager for a potential reliable source of foreign currency by which to build up a newer stronger army for his already planned attack into the southern provinces. Qirui was fundamentally operating on the mistaken assumption that the Beiyang governors association were united in keeping the whole country together which Feng would soon deflate after being offered the presidency... but that and other matters would be in the future.

For the time being, "Its one less thing to have to worry about."

"It is that." Allen agreed in between mouthfuls. They might have been able to get Qirui to agree to an arrangement like this anyway even without Zhang xun's misadventure, but it probably wouldn't have been considered a necessary step... but the consensus was that things were not good right now and were probably going to get worse in the future because Qirui and Li had had such a public falling out. "I'm glad Shan didn't run into any trouble on the border while this was going," It was late in the second week of July but the time had stretched out, two weeks of fighting, and train rides had mutilated the sense of time.

"We were lucky." Allen acknowledged the comment with a nod as he chewed, and JP dipped another piece of lobster in a cream colored sauce, "The work in Suiyuan is done, so a couple more days and we can start training people."

"Really? Thats good. We're ahead of schedule then, it would be nice if they could build steam cases for the locomotives." They were going to need more engines. It'd been the whole reason for another shop... well that and SIW had been planned to take advantage of the area's existing iron mines to fuel said iron works.
--
Notes: We may either have one more July update, or just go ahead and skip to August of 1917, because while there is content written taking place on the 28th​ of July dealing with the fallout of the Beiyang civil war for lack of a better less cliche description it can be referred to in dealing with the communications clique, and Feng becoming President in the august chapter. And also the research probably gets introduced, or at least mentioned, I'm about half way through august dealing with the declaration of war on Austria-Hungary and Germany.

 

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, no that's quite alright,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

"Zhang Xun is retiring yes?"

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

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

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

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

"But what about the silver dollars?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why the currency?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You are doing what with the army?"

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

"No." She replied flatly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

9 August 1917
It was the following Monday as a portion of the cadre came in to pick over the mess that that attempted Manchu restoration had continued to make a mess of things. The working comittees were still parsing things out. Powell was absent, but at least he had the excuse that he was on site in the west with crews. Bill had come in from one of his test, drill, sites. That meant that there were just shy of sixty men in the room... and it was indicative of how things had changed.

A decade ago they would have looked different. There would have been more sack cloth suits, but that was just what the pictures of the original cadre would be remembered as. The details of it would be forever lost to history.

A hundred men had been a gathering. Not everyone had been close at the time of the original gathering, but most everyone had had friends or of the same broader circle, recommendations by a backing party. It wasn't quite all inter relations, but between them the graduates from the academy, it was all who one had known. A hundred men, a stock each. That had been put up not too long after the Moroccan crisis... which seemed like a century ago. It certainly seemed longer than it was, but maybe that was just the view back of reading the papers in Korea.

A life time ago.

... just as when the Qing had fallen the start had already seemed like a lifetime to see the ancient regime just come apart at the seems.. and for what really? Not a serious military threat like the Taiping in any event... just exhaustion?

Then just two years later fresh on the heels of the mess with Bai Lang, the war in Europe. The great change over. Suddenly the cadre was no longer a hundred share holders, but a board of a hundred of experts and share holders. Three years since that shake up.

Bert coughed slightly, and then when that didn't get their attention Waite threw a booted foot against the lectern to get everyone to pipe down. "Approximately this time last year the Federal Reserve of the United States began to recommend that it was of imprudent financial sense to extend further credit to the entente." Despite the fact that the bank had been perhaps his defining act of his first term it was advice that Wilson might have ignored hence because he just didn't like bankers recommending policy and thankfully all the set backs that occurred for the European war this year had come after the Germans had decided to toss their bomb onto the front lawn of the States.

It was American loans, private loans, and now government loans to England that funded the war. A war that was very hard to say was going anything other than poorly with the recent set backs. The French and Russian paralysis, British trouble at home... and the Italians having repeatedly thought to run themselves into a wall repeatedly enough that despite entering late were themselves facing mutinies on the front.

Their lot was anything but dispirited. The science, the math had been done, was quite clear whatever the resistance the Germans might present if the war lasted to nineteen nineteen the United States would have such a manpower advantage it would carry. It was the numbers. The Germans had been fighting by and large, perhaps smuggling aside, since 1914, but they didn't have the horses to sustain an offensive, and the fact they'd given ground to avoid encirclement suggested its own things... and more. For rational scientific men who could consider the numbers there was a great confidence that the mobilization that was underway would end the war.

It was just as well Powell wasn't here, Bertie was banging the industrial planning drum quite enough today... "To that end I think perhaps 1920 or the first year of the decade that follows," 1921, "Should be the time frame to which embark on a grand new venture of planned and methodical expansion."

There was some shuffling from Percy tended to refer to as a handful of the 'backbenchers' who started passing around documents down the seating aisles of the chamber.

"Now what has been laid out in these proposals are a series of industrial goals, service goals, our colleagues who aren't here are tending to projects that were not originally planned." Bert continued, "Because who, how could we have planned a war within civilization at least one on this scale. It has changed the make up of this very body twice in as many years. We are looking at a third such shift now ahead of us."

There was a shuffling. Powell's abscence was conspicuous, and Allen cleared his throat gruffly to pull the attention towards him. " "We have an office in switzerland. With the intention that that office that branch of this tree will grow." there was a motion to open a new office or move it to Luzanne from Geneva for space reasons, but that was for the office to ascertain its own needs. "This war cannot go on forever." He thought of planes, and cars, and rested his hands on the desk he frequently used whenever there were enough of them present to warrant this theater like room, "and we will need men of learning beyond those whom we have retained. Let us be clear we have known for some time that England and France have made it their stated goal to punish the powers opposing them, and whatever our highminded president from Virginia might think the French are nothing if not usurious. There will be penalties and there will be men in need of jobs. Jobs that will be here, as well as elsewhere, because it is not just in Switzerland we need to fill. There is a railway, mining, and farming ventures in middle america which we have discussed. The United States has a voracious demand for coffee among those, and that is a trade good we shall replace the germans at, is it not?" They might not be interested in competing in the fruit market, but their agreement regarding the railway construction had said nothing about things other than bananas. They didn't have a banana handy so an orange from California would have to do as an example.

--
Allen leaned back against the office wall. He'd changed from his desk facing the door, and leaned there. He was trying to focus on the colored numbers that he was sorting through in his head head. There was a rhythmic thump as a racquet ball pounced against the opposite wall of one of the offices. The sign of JP in deep thought. There was a knock on the door, and he wondered if the thumping had gotten on Sam's nerves. There was a shuffling as JP missed the ball and had to get up to get it..

Then a rap at his door.

"Allen."

He moved the papers off of his lap, and stepped over the box, to shuffle to the door and pull it open. "Sam."

John Paul was in tow, and antsy looking. "Telegram, from Peking. Duan has the votes."

"For war?" Sun Yat-sen down south in canton had been adamant against the war. That had been holding. Qirui's return to the premiership had not been unamiously panned after all. There were southern delegates happy to see Zhang Xun and his royalists shown off, but there were others who still weren't happy with the state of affairs. "When is the actual vote?"

"Tuesday."

He nodded. Qirui would sign the decree as soon as the parliament came through, because as soon as it was done that would mean money from England with almost complete certainty.... and potentially even arms paid for and supplied directly by Britain as well. "What does the new President think about the situation?" Feng seemed to be a sensible enough fella after all.

"I think he means to remind Duan, that he's may be the head of the association but that doesn't make him Yuan Shikai, and that Feng is not going to let himself get pushed around." Duan Qirui and Yuan Shikai had not always seen eye to eye... Yuan had not been thrilled with Duan's performance chasing Bai Lang (or trailing behind), but that had in itself been a bit unfair and it hadn't been Duan's fault he'd ended up catching pneumonia either. They had had their ups and downs, but ultimately Duan had succeeded to the leadership.

... which meant they were probably going to teeter close to a public squabble. If Yuan Shikai had been pater familias of the Beiyang clique, or clan patriarch or however you wanted to phrase and certainly it was closer to that than more western though... then that meant Duan and Feng were competing brothers, in a household with a lot of brothers.

... and well Yuan Shikai had had disagreements with his actual brother over plenty, and the heirs to his surviving materiel legacy were following suit.

John Paul nodded, "I think if Duan can demonstrate his ability to raise sufficient funds," And he conveyed the statement with a pointed look, "They're going to make a move south like he'd been talking about ... before all this." He grimaced shaking his head a little unsure how to broach. "They're going to make the move against the southern provinces they were talking about prior to this screw up with Zhang Xun." he reiterated

Griswold didn't disagree, "And it doesn't do a damned thing about the situation in Szechwan." which not might be entirely true because it might just might draw off some of Szechwan's forces into Hunan, but that was only a possibility. "But yeah its going to be on the finances I think, but on the other hand Duan has already started replacing the leadership."

... which if one were honest seemed as much about nepotism as anything else. Monday, this past, Duan had announced his intention to put his brother in law, and a cousin of some stripe into military commands along the Yangtze. Not that Wu wasn't necessary qualified for the job, and Fu, who was himself from Hunan could well have been a compromise candidate but then again he might not.

 

[Imperator Pax]

14 August 1917
At the time, he had made a point of taking the recommendation to read the local literature in the Phillipines... not that it had made much difference most of it had been written by landholders, and it hadn't helped him in the moro lands. It had been good advice in principle, but in practice it hadn't helped what the war department had had him doing. He hadn't been able to read Joseon's script when it would have helped any. He had been able to read Japanese and Russian fine... which had been why Wood had recommended him for the posting in the region in the first place once the Phillipines had calmed down.

Zhu Xi had chronicled that the ideal model which governments should base themselves on was the family. Ideal tended to be the emphasis word. The beiyang clique certainly modelled itself as an extended clan... right down to actual sub cliques comprised of various in laws... and that meant contending with all the real disputes a real family had.

Feng didn't seem to overly object to the war declaration against Germany and Austria Hungary... maybe because he didn't think anything was going to come of it, but he certainly didn't like the motions Duan was advocating for down south. Duan was moving not just against Hunan but also suggesting putting northern troops into Szechwan, at least along the river itself if not necessarily the interior of the province.

Percy was too elated at the diplomatic achievement of another country to add to the list of those neutrals who had 'turned against the hun' to pay much heed to it. John Jordan had probably noticed, but put it aside. Reinsch was fretting but also fretting that the United States shouldn't take sides either and that it was an internal matter. The Legation was for all intents and purposes largely useless in terms of that.

Reinsch was more interested in picking over the differences in the people in north and south, "Well I noticed in my most recent visit to the south, these charming halls, and the communal trusts that are common in the southern provinces. They just don't seem to be present in the north." The ambassador was saying even now.

There was a habit, or at least a more pervasive one, in the south particularly in Fukien where John Jordan had just returned from touring, that clan associations were formed to provide charitable contributions to the less affluent members of a shared lineage. Allen suspected the reason they weren't more common in the north was because legally speaking a father was supposed to divide his estate equitably between his sons, and potentially there was some disagreement here to provide dowries to daughters. This meant that in the north where the laws administered from peking were more likely to be enforced more rigorously that familial wealth was more frequently divided across the generations.

He said as much.

"True." Reinsch agreed, though he didn't necessarily like the somewhat unsavory implication of tax evasion and shady implication in general of the benevolent societies... and of course he was probably right some of those halls were probably just what they said they were... but some of them were also fronts for the Tongs and Triads to funnel money to unsavory things. "If of course a government is close at hand its much easier to insure everyone is fair treated... but also Monasteries are more common."

"In Manchuria? Sure, Mongolia absolutely." here... not as much, "But they have a commercial component." Monasteries held land, they raised crops, or livestock. They were businesses, after a point... exactly how much business they did wildly varies, and like the brown robes in Belgium... well had... they brewed alcohol too, which certainly could be lucrative.

... and if he were being honest he suspected that the Mandarins... back when the red robes had still be around had been less willing to tangle with northern monasteries that might have the patronage of the nobility than lesser clan halls... but again speculation.

"you're smirking?"

He lifted the drink, "I was thinking about how congress graduated my class early to fight in the Phillipines, but at the time the war department didn't seem to think the Boxers were a pressing problem." Reinsch tried to explain that, but he'd never been in uniform, and he'd been writing papers on international law... so he was speculating too.

... but then after well all the papers wanted to talk about had been the siege of Peking that had even to an extent overshadowed Teddy's charge up San Juan Hill. Certainly the New York Sun had thought so, claiming the siege the most exciting thing witnessed by civilization.

He certainly could have done without the rehashing of how medieval the lifting of the siege had turned out... especially since now that the states were at war with the germans Reinsch was happy to talk about it since it didn't 'impinge on neutrality'.

"You know the British promised Japan the territories of the Germans." The British probably in 1914 would have given the Japanese more if they had asked. Reinsch was askance at it, Tsingtao wasn't the British to give, but on the other hand there was legal precedent for the Victorious side taking colonies off their enemies and redistributing them ... and that was probably the legal basis for Britain making the argument

"Zimmerman's telegraph,"

While it had largely been overshadowed by the sheer temerity of the bastard yammering about lost territories of Texas and New Mexico it hadn't escaped him that Zimmerman had wanted Mexico to indepently reach out to Japan to try and get around the Anglo-Japanese alliance... but then Zimmerman seemed to be misinformed about a lot of things. That poor dumb bastard. "Well, now China isn't neutral." Allen remarked.

"Right, I have cabled Secretary Lansing." He didn't elaborate on the response.

... Allen didn't mention that they had passed the word to the secretary of state that Duan apparently had the votes, and then when the votes had come down that China would be following the direction of such friendly nations as Cuba to participate. "Yes, I believe that opens the way for US foreign aid to China for the war."

"Yes, yes it does. Secretary Lansing has made it quite clear that US assistance, monetarily and materially will be available once the war declaration passed." Which implied that the minister had yet to receive a response... which probably meant Lansing was out of the office whenever the cable had come in.

"I take it the British are happy?"

"I have not spoken to Minister Jordan today, I am afraid, but I would hazard to guess he will be pleased with the news." It would have been nice to have confirmation, but they'd find out later, it was just good that they were back on the subject of the day.

The truth was the British had put a great deal of effort in swaying the neutrals... but Lord Northcliffe... among others had been pretty adamant that they had to be savvy about it. Britain had also been laboring under the misinterpretation that this was a repeat of earlier conflicts... and in a way it was ... people in england had thought the boer war would be over by Christmas... "I imagine he will."

"Has your opinion Siems Carey changed?"

"It has not mister Minister. It has not." He wondered how connected Reinsch was with the professional service of the state department... not very had always been the reading he had. Reinsch was an academic and more concerned with his own views than necessarily doing what Lansing... or Bryan before him had done. "Has Lansing brought it up?"

"Not since the unfortunate business in July."

The glass clinked... Lansing had brought it up in July? That was news. The problem was that France throwing a fit the year before in particular had really soured the American Railway Corporation's board to trying to ge the project underway. Not the least of which was it was a fairly daunting proposal to begin with, "So what then?"

"The canal everyone agrees needs maintenance, badly. There are other pieces of infrastructure that need construction, and overhauls of the telegraph system are another factor."

"I have a large project underway already, can't be helped."

"I was under the impression your great western line was completed?"

"It was." He replied, "There has been funding to connect it to the other cities of the old silk road."

Reinsch knew nothing about trains but he could still read a book, and read a map well enough. He understood the distances as a detail. "All of them, you're the Russian contract Jordan mentioned?"

"That surprises you?"

The midwesterner shook his head his brows bushy. "Its just a little queer the Russians agree to you building a railway in Central Asia, but Siems Carey is the bridge too far."

He shrugged, "Its not just the Tsar, its the French too, and its not a big railway." Not compared to the volume of work that the American Railway corporation had been preparing to sub contract out on the contract. Siems Carey was a much bigger deal, more liable venture than he was giving it credit for, "And its not just them. The Canal connects the whole east of the country." Well it didn't actually, but for all intents and purposes, "Thats complicated work." Even if the French agreed with the Open Door Policy as the states understood it Fukien wasn't going to be happy.
--
He put the ledger aside.

The issue of financing things was complicated. Coal and iron as productivity were useful... now in terms of export more than ever as demand he continued to go up. Expanding laterally wasn't just about keeping costs down, it had been about insuring supply and at a normal price, at a normal quantity on a fixed schedule. It abrogated any possibility of needing to buy parts from Europe in the business, but it also reduced dependence with the exception of things like machine tools on the states.

That wasn't to say there wasn't benefit to observing what the old empires did. Far from it. "Phillips?" He had been considering suggesting Dawes given the protracted artillery use... and for other reasons Dawes had family ties in Washington, and he was older.


"We send Powell we're just as likely not get him back until this is done. Phillips we can send him to England not even blink." Cole replied. "What do you reckon, Duan serious?"

"I think he is, how much of that is because he thinks Yuan Shikai had the right idea thats the question. I think he wants to be at the table... when France and Britain divvy up the spoils."

"and I think he thinks he needs to make a move."

"The brother in law,"

a nod answered the not really a question, "And the other one too. We send Phillips to England, did the professor ask you about the divisions?"

He shook his head, "No, and I don't expect Reinsch to,"

"He's ostriching?" It was his turn to shrug, because he wasn't sure if that was the case... or because he didn't think to ask about it, "Thats funny given how often the 15th​ gets called up, but then Division HQ says we can't give you more troops because the war department says we're trying to avoid choosing sides." Which was of course a directive from state as well... it didn't matter what the legation asked for Lansing didn't want a swelling of a US division in China with the current president in the white house. Lansing did not want to, even if that danger had largely passed into history, of having missionaries stir up the locals by offending local customs and have them running to American colors to hide behind. If there was an advantage the 15th​ division had it was that the troops were liked for not causing trouble... and why would they the China post was the best posting in probably the whole army. "So the money?"

"Reinsch confirmed that Lansing did mention foreign aid to Duan. Then he asked about Siems Carey."

Cole leaned forward, and finally moved his cavalry boots off of the ottoman, "Lansing, or do you mean Reinsch?"

"Reinsch asked, but I don't know if he was asking on the secretary's behalf. He didn't mention the trans siberian, which I admit could be nothing... but the thing is he said Lansing asked about the canal work in July before Zhang Xun marched into Peking."

"Shit," Cullen grunted, "You told him that'd be poking the hornets nest right, it'd shove a stick right in the nest. It'd be us and the Japs versus the French and Russians, have the Brits told you where they'd fall?"


"No I have no idea right now." Allen replied.

--
Notes: Japan, in 1917 / 1918 (this is the Terauchi government, and the Industrial bank of japan) was supportive of joint Anglo/American-Japanese efforts to finance the Siems Carrey agreement, France and Russia were still opposed, and British opinion was divided and as a result of French legal challenges the year before the ARC's board was still wary of actually agreeing to take the project on (though as we will see in november Carey signed the dotted line in November)... and for good reason there were other factors than just the french legal challenges.

 

[Imperator Pax]

16 August 1917
There were on his desk presently a small mountain of newspapers. Some of them were completely useless. Allen did not for the life of him understand King George's silly decision to change his name to Windsor... admittedly that yes House Saxe Coburg Gotha was something of a mouthful, it was rather the sort of thing that maybe meant a bit more if he'd done in 1915...

... or it was just another queer British-ism. He really didn't get it.

The French were rushing to blame all their recent failures on spies. It was clearly a desperate attempt to save face, but at least it made sense.

There was last week's earthquake down south that people were finally putting the pieces together on. Not that that had in anyway of Duan Qirui pivoting from blaming the Germans for supporting Zhang Xun's attempt at a Manchu restoration to then blaming unwillingness of southern parliamentarians, the KMT and affiliates, as being in the pocket of German interests. There were a couple of papers going on about that... but it was all hot air.

There were no facts just the implication and the outrage.

That might be enough that it discouraged foreign investors from supporting potential southern ventures. It might be enough that overseas aid societies looked a little askance at sending money back to china.

As for the alleged 'evidence'... With as ubiquitous as the Mexican silver dollar was in international trade and in China in particular... it would be bloody hard to prove Sun was taking money from the Germans in particular unless the doctor ponied up receipts... which could be just as useful to the north for other reasons.

He'd been more inclined to dismiss such a German plot if not for the sheer boneheadness of the Zimmerman telegraph. It was a pity they didn't have such an incriminating document to put forward and settle things.

Nakamichi came in and shut the door, then sat down. "I have had an unfortunately timed, problematic conversation." A painful phrase... probably trying too hard to make it sound less harsh than however the conversation had gone.

"Who with?"

"The minister of trade in Tokyo, he had spoken with the Ambassador."

Allen blinked expansively, to slow him, that was a little more information. "Your ambassador or the states, and to which country, and Regarding what sort of trade." cause he could guess where this was going. Purchasing agents had been a thing before this war... every nation had them, but this war had expanded the habit to hitherto unfathomable levels.

... Indeed the winding conversation turned into a rehash of the war. When the war had broken out the global steel market had went crazy. Heavy industry in general had. The lose of German mills and their production had increased prices, but the near complete loss of any European mills on the foreign market with all of their production being redirected to the war effort had forced China and Japan to rely on US exports or on comparatively to the US domestic manufacturing.

That was a problem. Japan produced steel, but there were certain types of steel that Japanese mills couldn't make. This was not a case of the yards not being big enough, that was a different problem.

With British demand the way it was prices rose such that they started buying whatever they could get there hands on to accommodate for their own lack of production capacity. The issue now lay in the US War Board and government inserting itself into production, and pointedly in Wilson looking to, perhaps or perhaps not yielding to French pressure, cap prices but also select which contracts had priority and that certainly indicated French influence because the French were pushing for not just below market prices for commodities but they wanted to be the ones to set the prices and they wanted priority for any goods.

"And your ambassador thinks Wilson will agree with a french preference on orders?"

"We think so."

He could see the logic though in Washington. The French, or the Russians, were the weakest members of the alliance. They were tired washed up, on the verge of collapse whatever, it might be good to give them a little charity to keep them in the war until the US could bring the expeditionary in to put Germany's lights out like Lloyd George wanted. What he called that 'knock out blow'.

"You realize every time we have increased production the British buy up what goes to market."

"Yes."

It hadn't really been a question. Nakamichi wasn't stupid, of course he had known that. The war had been going on since 1914. "Thats not going to last forever, call it 1920. After that the price will contract, stabilize, return to a price not inflated by present conditions. You could save hard currency if you wait."

"This is logical, yes." Nakamichi, "However it does not change that while we recognize our allies need access to steel we also are building things which require steel, and if the French demands are acceded to that pushes us further from our own aims."

"<manganese for soft steels, Nikel, argon, Aluminium, Zinc, Aluminum especially, we can do, but the British don't trust us to manufacture armor plate for them." not the least of which was because it wasn't exactly as if the Chinese had a 'real' navy so far as brass were concerned. It was true that the Royal Navy begrudgingly trusted the US Navy to make spare armor for them, but even that had been purported to require significant arguments since the Australians couldn't do it despite all the investment before the war. "You can make a list and we can talk about it, but I'll be honest even if the war lasts three more years it will take almost that long for us to expand significant volumes."

"I cannot speak for the gentlemen in the navy." And Nakamichi was army so the emphasis he put in calling them gentlemen was ... approaching a little astringent. "We are concerned though that if we do not lock in a production share of new production now, prices will continue to increase," Much as prices were continue to inflate on all other goods, food especially came to mind. "I except that from what you've said regarding the British, and their railway project in the west you have your own needs."

"Technically that's accounted for under allocations," With British money to handle those expenses through December. The British wanted the railway built, if they were lucky they'd be at the border by the first serious snow. "If you can find out the details we can solidify things."
--
Powell's telegram was exuberant, exuberant was probably the best word for it. It rolled off the pages as he made comparisons to how primitive the railways of the 19th​ century had been. How it had taken six grueling years of labor after the war between the states to by hand and with only black powder to link pacific to Atlantic.

Cole, who's father had supervised work on both ends of the line, had rolled his eyes as Bill had narrated the telegram from on top of a stool "If you listen to him," Cole presumably meant Powell even though he jerked his head at the Texan. "We should damn well aim to beat the record."

"We could probably do it." Sam added. Then after a pause shook his head, "Maybe we should wait until 1920 before we make a run at that."

"He's only bringing it up because Stevens is in Vladivostok." Cole stated, "He's preening to state like a peacock looking for a hen." Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing per se, but at the same time there were limits to how fast they could expand to meet new demand. "You know this is about getting us involved in middle America."

There was a knock on the door, and Bill got off the stool, without it tripping over, and since he was closest opened it. "Captain." He greeted the Mongol officer.

"With respect General McCulloch," Cole snorted, "The Minister is here." Allen leaned over to the window pushed the dressings over and made sure that there weren't any cherry red mitsubishi's parked in the yard, but no there was however a long black one with little American flags on the front. Admittedly it would have been awkward if John Jordan had taken a train to them without any kind of forewarning... but Reinsch showing up? Reinsch went down to the train station, would take the train all the way to Canton by himself if the legation didn't watch him so his presence wasn't all that unusual. The presence of the state car suggested that yes the Legation did in fact know where the minister was and that he didn't need to ring Tietsin.

Seeming to read the thought, "You want me to call the Colonel before the professor gets up here?" Allen thought about then nodded, Cole shuffled his feet off of the ottoman and moved to the conference phone.

Sam stood up, "Well I have some work that I need to do for second division allotment of machine guns, and I think I should be going." Or Gone before the ambassador got here. Cole followed out with a similar excuse to the Gendarmes under his command. That left him and Bill while the captain went back to whatever he'd been working on before.

"What do you think?"

"About the record? Its a bit late for us to shoot for it," This decade, "Sam's right we should wait and make a play for it after all this fighting is over." Oil was going to be big business, Kerosene was already big business in the province. They were going to need to run rails through the province in general, for goods and services, and that was without even considering the Ma clique or arrangements with Yan about further branches. Drills were complex machines, the wells were complicated.

That was just one avenue of many.
--
Notes: So the record they're referring to is the amount of rail track laid in a decade. In the 1880s as part of a wealth of new technologies and new practices the US laid down 70000 miles of track in this decade. The United States never exceeded this in a time frame, despite new technologies, such as prime earth movers becoming available within the following decades. They also didn't exceed this number despite needed to extensively regauge existing lines in the following decades of the construction of the 'inter urbans'.

Indeed in this decade in 1916 US mileage of railway is believed to have hit its peak, and again most of this rail was largely constructed by hand tools and blackpowder, though blackpowder was being superseded by TNT (and also dynamite for that matter) post 1870.

Japan's navy had gotten it into their head that they wanted eight battleships, and eight battle cruisers this is the so called Eight Eight plan. It would have bankrupted the country, and also it was unviable for other reasons, Japan in 1916 and indeed even in the thirties simply did not have the ability to domestically produce that volume of modern armor plate without importing.

The result is that in the interwar years during the years of London treaties Japan decides to forgo complex alloy steel that require foreign materials to save money and maintain economic independence. Perfectly reasonable solution, the old armor plate is still function it offers protection, and is done because Japan has some major financial problems post ww1.

The problem is still the navy is still the senior service and doesn't understand that the money just wasn't there. The reason Japan agreed to naval limitations post ww1 is the government knew they couldn't sustain that kind of building program (unfortunately some of the people who made these decisions were civilians, and some were from the army so the Navy screamed betrayal and bloody murder). Japan had been during world war 1 looking for supplies of metals, this was also the period where the US had various metals as duty free (the wilsonian free trade policies) in order to keep for example navy costs down (the USN had been complaining about commercial armor plate costs as well) as well as other metallic at lower tariff prices (which Wilson's successor Harding promptly torpedoes in his two year presidency, and sustained by Coolidge)

In any event, September 1917 runs a bit long, and November 1917, for obvious reasons, is mostly focused on broader international implications of world events

 

[Imperator Pax]

16 August 1917
In the Confucian conception of things your obligation to your superior existed contingent on their benevolence. There were disagreements about exactly how much that obligation was contingent, but theoretical ideal was absolute obedience to ones parents.

Or in the case of a government, which of course was supposed to be modelled on the family, which Reinsch perceived as nothing more than a feudal hold over. The Qing had attempted to implement German corporate law in theory but in practice not only had it not stuck due to cultural differences it also hadn't stuck because the Qing had readily carved out exemption upon exemption.

Part of that had been the Qing had expected a corporate entity to act effectively as a family unit in obligation to its different hierarchies. The concept of committees and staff and board meetings, managerial concepts they could understand... share holding and such had been harder for the Confucian literati to articulate on. That was harder to put into context of a pseudo family hierarchy, and they'd never really come up with a suitable, acceptable explanation... and it hadn't helped that German corporate law hadn't been the best answer for it... the consequence was that there were very few publicly traded corporations.

"The Chinese insistence on gavelkind while noble in its concept of fairness." The minister continued droning on, "Is detrimental to long term business. Yes, with Japan their primogeniture system is itself a feudal holdover but the keiretsu endure generation to generation." He stopped to sip from the tea. "You have long ties to the Japanese, you know how they organize, I don't see why that couldn't be done for China."

"Because the major Japanese families were already tied to the Meiji government, so when the government privatized the mines who bought them up?"

Reinsch put the tea cup down, "So why not do it here?"

"What makes you think it wasn't done here?" Reinsch was either fooling around playing question answer games, or it had just had slipped his mind. "It did. The Qing had recognized they didn't have the experience to run some of their assets and sold them off to prominent families, and that accelerated after the republic was declared," More than a few state owned coal mines in Honan and Anwhei had been sold off to influential provincial families there at cost much like the Japanese had done in the 1870s. "Why are there technically more joint stock companies, I couldn't say." He really couldn't, and he called them technically because the Zaibatsu rarely allowed stock to slip out on the private market when they could avoid it. Stock was carefully managed between main and branch families, "But in Japan the families of means own banks and have holding companies to manage operational arms." Reinsch pursed his lips at what could be construed as militarist language, but it really hadn't been intentional that was simply how he thought of how the manufacturing or insurance issuing bodies of a corporate entity were.

Zaibatsu in its meaning presumed a single family sitting on the majority of the assets. Mitsui, or Okura, it didn't matter what they said. The main family was at the top with shares parceled out to the branch families and then all outsiders in the wings. Reinsch was quick to turn the discussion though onto the 'new zaibatsu' the second generation that ha been emerging growing rapidly on the war time glut of work. These were the companies that had put the majority of shares up, Noguchi's Nichitsu came to mind pretty much immediately, and Allen wasn't surprised when Reinsch zeroed in on the engineer's firm.

"These are shipping charts."

He lifted the documents, "They are." The big man up in New York JP Morgan had tried, before the Philippines, to expand upon the US merchant fleet. It had flopped, which was a crying shame now. Probably the biggest set back the man had had in his entire career and it had lurked over him until he'd died in 1913... and now the US was facing a shipping shortage... and that was not even contemplating the British admission that they'd lost nearly a million tons back in April to the German's submarines.

The British Empire was maybe just shy of half of the world's maritime fleet... but the British shipyards had been choked of labor and steel and had yet to reach their pre war volume of laying.

"There is a shipping shortage back home."

"I am aware," to the tune of the army having maybe a quarter of a million in shipping tonnage to move men and supplies anywhere, "The new construction is late going on, it'll take time to show up, to make the difference."

"Of course of course." There was going to be an Allied Maritime Transport Council. Not that the British were going to let the French dictate the ocean routes that went through Asia. The Asiatic Market transit was absolutely critical to English financial flow. Trade from the British went to India, India went to the US, British shipping carried goods from Australia, to Japan and China as well. The Royal Commissions on the differ foodstuffs ran out of London but had purchasing offices across the whole world. With Japanese ships patrolling the south African coast and in the Mediterranean hunting uboats it was another reason. "There will be complaints about profiteering."

"There will be complaints about allowing foreigners a say in American enterprise. If the senate ever hears a half of what the French say to the English they'll flip the table," but Reinsch had a point that those same concerns had hit last year with the Shipping Act, which had itself been a compromise... but it wasn't going to satisfy everyone. It wouldn't address the issues of needing new berths for the ships needed to meet the voracious appetite. "Its out of my hands. As soon as my goods offload the rail its in British or Japanese ownership, where and how they send it on its way." The Free Trade agreement signed.... what seemed a lifetime ago was managed differently... and the possibility that the Virginian would apply something like the British to transpacific import exports was a little concerning.

Reinsch turned the subject to bulk iron hauls. He'd been misinformed. It would have been nice to make a cool million on each ship, but that the price of the goods, not profit. It was a profit industry.... a million per ship load, he wished.

It was about that point in the conversation that Reinsch sprung the news that Wilson was planning to try and implement steel price controls on the big US firms to reduce price. The negotiations back in the states would last the rest of the month and wouldn't take be announced until the end of September. The president had always been rather acerbic towards steel, and congress had the year before finally approved the creation of a federal mill to actually turn out armor plate over the continuing feuding between the navy boys and business over the costs it took to make armor plate... but then that whole argument had been initiated before the war and before demand had made economy of scale practical.

"If that's the way it falls." He replied... but the British had agreed to contracts, and the British wanted a railway built, they were already talking about some fella named Mackinder would meet them in Russia on the other side to settle out any issues over there... probably at the end of the year, maybe early next year. "I have existing contracts with the British, set prices through next year." Admittedly those prices had been before the continued rise in spring and certainly before those prices had reached their summer extreme in the states where Pig Iron had actually hit a hundred dollars per ton... which was mind boggling. He had never considered that it would go that high... not for a ton of pig iron.

No it was better to hold the price where it was... that was in no way sustainable even without the Virginian trying something... "The market is at risk of collapsing," The trade journals had already been warning about it, "prices stay this high it'll stifle demand," Which if that got time to build up supply, fine, but some producers would want prices to remain high and if they tried to hold prices at such a price... things would come tumbling down at the mills.... and looking at a depression worse than what US steel had been looking at in 1914 before the war had started.

Booms and busts.

As soon as Reinsch was gone the other door to the office opened. "Hell." Bill grunted. "Can they do that?"

"Maintain full employment of the mills?" He shrugged. "Sure. You heard the Minister, the navy is clamoring for a whole new fleet," No surprise there, the navy was the one thing mandated by the founding fathers and the congress had been vexed by that ever since, the Navy certainly wasn't going to let the opportunity slip by them. "There is no way to keep the smaller firms in business. They're not efficient." Full integration of a firm, a firm that ran coal and iron had train connections they could run it all to big mills and churn still out. "If you try and set prices where they're competetive with government contracts ..." US Steel would probably manage fifty percent profits if not better. "The good thing is, even if they look at our books... we're still tied in with the British for most costs from the first of the year."

"I thought at as much." and of course that was steel, billet especially, but steel products in general that didn't need to be shipped over the seas from Pittsburgh. Especially given that in the two years prices had on more than one set had nearly doubled. The topic price change over the last eight months even. "You know with the British blacklisting Guatemalan coffee," For german business partners, "Powell is bound to want to make a move."

He leaned back and shorted. "Yeah. I guess that's true." One thing at a time though. "What do you think?"

"I think somebody pushed Reinsch in our direction and Reinsch didn't know to check the details of things." It wouldn't have been the first time Reinsch had his naivety used against him. John Jordan really felt the professor was out of his depth as an ambassador, that he wasn't up to playing the game... and the French certainly thought the same... and Hayashi's biggest problems were people within the Japanese ministry not anyone outside it... it within the civil service and then perhaps arguments outside say with the Prime Minister's Personal Envoys like Nishihara.
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Notes: We move into what will ultimately be the failed attempt to weld together that Anglo Japanese alliance into a broader effort against the Bolsheviks in particular in Siberia, but also towards efforts in the baltic. Now over the course of this this touch lightly on a couple of historical figures, for example on the British side there is Harold Mackinder, and Winston Churchill and a couple of a generals who we will get to later. On the Japanese side there are in addition to lesser generals, Yamagata Aritomo and the current prime minister, on the Chinese side there are are for example Duan Qirui and Zhang Tsolin up in Manchuria. Where this will ultimately fail is in the wilsonian presidency, well I say fail, in the sense of that the Siberian intervention doesn't go further, does not commit to toppling the Bolshevik government.

The support for intervention fails due to Wilson for two key reasons, Wilson lets ideology get ahead of national interest, and the second is that Wilson has a stroke, and his wife Edith seizes power and ousts Lansing (from State) and Wilson's infirmity paralyzes the government leading to very little productive happening until after Harding comes to power, and Harding is an isolationist.

Now unlike in IRL the timeline difference here is that the Anglo-Japanese alliance against the bolsheviks is more pronounced, especially due to knock on effects later in the following arc, which otherwise is largely focused on the wars in north China and the introduction of modern maneuver warfare in quick rapid succession followed by months and even years of peace. Basically brief periods of high intensity fighting being the dominant fighting as opposed to seasonal anti banditry campaigns.


Also either in the second half of this month, or in march we will probably resume updating the other story in this thread, the ring of fire story that I let sit on my other computer there is actually a decent volume of 1629 content more or less sitting in the folder I just got side tracked.