Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

21 August 1917

He watched the electric bulb flicker. His thoughts were really elsewhere. When he'd been a cadet the Academy had made a point of showing them, the prospective corp of engineers, one of the brand new commercial power plants. It was a whole new concept back them. Electrical needing to be piped in from offsite had only become a thing really that decade. But there was more and more demand for electrical power, for bottled lightning, and it made more sense to have a big power plant somewhere... and that meant you could just wire houses to have electric lighting... and well not just houses. "And?" Allen shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and lifted his drink, "The Fukien clique doesn't have the money to run those ships, it doesn't matter."

"Sun has a navy now." The englishman remarked more emphasis on Navy, as if that changed things.

"So he's what going to turn to piracy? Or is going to run off to intern them in Japan. Sun does not have the money to man and pay for those ships. Those ships need maintenance, they've sat up in harbor for years now." and the lack of the use of the navy since 1915 made more sense now, "If the Fukien clique thought he did I think they seriously overestimate what the south's finances are." Not with the war on. "What you asking for, what has he possibly got?"

"He approached the Canton legation, British support in exchange for a declaration of war. You haven't heard anything about this?"

Allen sipped, the thought occured to him that Sun might have assumed he could potentially barter China's navy as an asset for the war... but that didn't add up the ships weren't really up to it... "He's a little late." It had been a little odd that Sun had been adamant about staying out of the war but it did make sense he wanted a little qui pro quo in exchange for going along, "Duan has the consent of parliament," How much strong arming he might have had to do for some seats was up in the air, but with the 'Research clique' and the 'communications clique' had certainly helped local down the finances side of things... if there was going to be any kind of problem it was going to be to the south. "No I haven't heard anything about this Percy." Besides of course the railway and the army, there was of course there were all the other things. The RPF had been a long time ago now, a long time, that had been a quick rustling, little more than a posse thrown together short term, part time at first... with the differences in how businesses differed between the countries, they needed to shift some things around, but they couldn't just copy Japan's model.

It was the matter that was more his focus, than... a bunch of rust buckets. That wasn't fair to the navy, but damn it, what good were they going to do anybody. "What do you think they'll do?"

"Go back to Duan or Feng, at least nominally." Someone had to pay the bills, and prestige was the main reason to even keep up a navy... Duan wasn't going to just write the expense off, and Feng ... well that was a harder question. "Get one of them to agree to abide by the constitution," per the agreement from... before the whole mess with Zhang Xun putting the toddler back on the throne... this year was insanity.

He remembered looking back after 1914 and thinking how insane that year had been, and 1917 had well blown it away....so for that if Powell wanted to be ambitious then let him.

"John Allen?"

"Sorry," He exhaled, and then clipped the question as a drawl on the words, "you going to tell me about your Parliamentarian?"

The conversation went that direction in name only. Percy couldn't tell him much so blustered on about social niceties, and so forth. Apparently the man was something of an academic, he probably would have gotten along well with Reinsch. The Minister could have done with another academic who was involved in official foreign service work or whatever... even Percy thought so. "You really can't tell me any more than that, come on Percy."

"There really isn't anything that comes to mind. Very fascinating ideas about the interplay of nations and the role geography has in shaping nations but what can I say beyond that." Mackinder didn't seem to have served in the army or navy. Percy probably would have mentioned that directly... but it also made sense the English Army, the actual British Army while larger than its American counterpart had still been small, and the Royal Navy had devoured the bulk of British spending on defense.

--
The gradual modifications to uniforms, and their manufacture had been simple enough. Dress uniforms were hand fitted for officers and some utility uniforms had Chinese sleeve work which had some practical utility in the field, but it wasn't standard. The true utilitarian changes to the uniforms had begun with changes to the shoulders in 1913, no epaulets. Then changes to the stiching for machine needles to deal with wear and tear in the field triple aught needle work to shore up sleeves, and gussets. Larger pockets, and more pockets, four on the chest. It went on like that , and it went both ways, the Army's dress jacket had turned into the preferred business jacket, slim fit, large pockets, but as much that Europe wasn't exporting as much in fashion these days.

Those manufacturing tasks had been picked up by clothing shops with machine tooling otherwise meant to produce men's wear for the states. It was part of the reason they hadn't considered going for anything in different colors until Cullen had slipped in that the Gendarmes pattern uniforms while identical in cut were to be in black.

"Tch, the navy? What good are those bastards." Cole snorted pulling a handful of six and half spitzers for his scoped rifle, and adjusted the position of his legs feeding them into the internal magazine. He cocked his head towards the piece of wire strung sheet metal, "What do you make that twenty twenty five mile winds."

Allen looked over, "Closer to twenty five," He replied looking at the movement of the trees bending under the western wind.

The hundred twenty three grain spitzer had more of a crack than the thunderclap of a larger 200 gr eight mill. There was a chime as the piece of steel was rattled at eight hundred yards the far right edge having taken the impact right before the wind gusted.

"So what do you think the doc is going to do?"

Allen shrugged, he still didn't think Sun had the money to actually keep the ships up, but that could be why he was ferretting around for British support, "What do you think?"

"He might follow everyone else's recent example, say Canton is independent."

"That's a thought." Allen replied. It might even make things simpler.

Cole eased the bolt back on the rifle, "British money, with the way Duan is accusing him of silver dollars coming from Kaiser Bill?"

He thought back to his comment at the beginning of the year, and then to the conversations in spring. "I would have thought he'd have been taking money from the Japanese. Something like the loans Qirui is taking from Mister Nishihara. The notion it might be German money," It was possible, "It might explain Sun Yat-Sen's opposition to declaring war." Or not. China was a big country. Sun taking the navy and running south put a lot of space between him and Peking... a navy was always going to be pricier than an army... the sea tried a lot harder to kill a fella.

Regardless of who his foreign backers were that kind of money meant he'd be able to pay for troops, and weapons. At the very least he'd be able to carve a niche out in the south. How much, that was the question.

The rifle shouldered as the wind died back down, "On the other hand it could be bullshit to try and erode the support Sun has in the national assembly." That seemed a bit more likely, but stranger things had happened.

"Are you the slightest bit worried about this?"

"Naw, I reckon that's your job. Big stuff is your job brother John, I'll do the detail work" He rang the plate again.
--
They had filed back in the study, short Elliot Kemper and young Carter, "Now." The Texan rumbled, "Say he does say Canton is independent, what then, you can't hold a city with just ships."

Which meant it would probably only last until one of the warlords down south got tired of him, and muscled him out of the rich port city. "Then of course he'll," Presumably he meant Duan, but it wasn't clear, who Cullen meant, "say something about the 1912 constitution to placate the navy." Or whoever else wanted to cling to the document written after the Fall of the Qing publicly. It hadn't been worth the paper it had been written on, and it had never really had much in the way of legal standing before Yuan Shikai had tossed it into the trash.

They continued through the bookshelf lined room, and the Texan blew a breath out, "I suppose they'd have a better point if they'd written the damned thing after they'd toppled the Qing," Or at least something they could claim had actually succeeded the provisional constitution, "So as to say it was what they were fighting for."

Allen was tall, but Bill had almost half a foot of height over him. "What is that?" He asked finally. He had originally thought it was a 1911 but now that he was beside the other man it was clearly not.

"Oh, yeah me and Sam," The other Georgian tossed a look at the two taller men, "took another look at Lewis's idea. The open bolt idea," He shrugged noncommittally, "If it was automatic then you could excuse the weight, because it'd need to be. I was nearly in favor to scrap the whole idea. Fifteen rounds though." He whistled, "This is provisionally mind you the P.45/15. We took Lewis's mag idea," Sam snorted at the 'we', the Texan was using "and built a Browning for it." The gun had a strangle toggle where the magazine release button was on his model 1911. Seeing his look, "Yeah, we took Lewis's magazine release and rotated it ninety degrees to make it ambidextrous. If you look at the magazines you can see where it locks in as well," That more or less confirmed to him that Bill planned to have a second pistol whenever he could needle Griswold into it. "It'll actually take with the way we did the magazine well standard 1911 magazines, but they do wobble in the well."

The gun would probably fit his hands well enough, but it would be too large for most men. The 1911 with its single stack magazine was quite ideal in that respect, though some people needed time to adjust to the sights. It was increasing in popularity over its only real rival the Mauser 96. There were still a number of various revolvers used, but they, and handful of other semi automatic pistols were steadily falling behind. With it nearly impossible to get guns from Europe though even the Broomhandle was losing ground to the 1911 pattern pistols now being produced domestically. The Lugers remained popular but harder to get than the the Mauser pistol.

"The swiss have a set of tooling for that," Cole remarked, handling the pistol, "I saw it when I was looking after our office out there, I think they're the only other ones with a set outside of Germany. Mausers, Tsingtao's arsenal has the tooling to make copies of the 96," and they probably weren't the only ones. Certainly Spain and Italy had tooling if not one of the other arsenals in China.

Sam took the large frame automatic from Cole, "I've been talking shop with Yan's chief machinist, he's worked up a forty five caliber one that runs." To forestall questions, "Its hand made, lovely vine engraving." He made a bunch of squiggly winding motions with his left trigger finger. Before the war had broken out one of the 1906 batch Luger trials pistols had been given to Griswold from DWM's representative on account of their existing friendship with Paul Mauser and the licensing of his rifles. Serial no 5 was in Sam's reference case, but they'd never even considered production of it given that in 1913 there bloody well hadn't been a point... and in 1914 Belgium had been occupied and FN had needed hard cash and had the Browning patents for everything under the sun. That technically had made them beholden to FN's agreement of noncompetition for those patents for pistols in the United States or Canada but they hadn't been aiming to compete with Colt anyway.
--
Notes: A couple of things, firstly it is a little ahistorical that Shansi Machine Bureau / Taiyuan Arsenal would be working on the 96 45ACP this early. Hence the implication here that it is a tool room prototype.

Yan Xishan for whatever reason made the decision to adopt and standardize on 45ACP whether he believed in stopping power or whatever (which I doubt since I've seen pictures of him carrying what appears to be a colt 1903 the 'pocket hammerless'), he authorized the production of both pistols and submachine guns (including Thompsons) in Taiyuan in the late twenties. It is possible that Yan (as indicated here) had already made that decision, and he may have been convinced by his own experts that adopting the 45 made sense (but OTL I suspect that it probably didn't occur any earlier than 1919). Here though he has more reasons to do it earlier

Secondly there may be instances where 93 and 96 are misplaced. This is because originally there was a rifle conversation as well, but I noticed I was making that mistake and dropped most of that in favor of dealing with pistol development. So yes Luger tooling, IIRC DWM made a grand total of four Luger tool sets period through the entire history of the gun. (And two of them haven't been built yet IIRC) Mauser meanwhile had 96 tooling built or contracted out for or just tooling was made in the dozens. Colt and FN and Kongsberg, and everyone else who got tooling to make the 1911 that's really up there there were a lot of tooling sets by the end of world war 1. Its one of those facets of industrial history.

Which brings us to the 1911, the trick with the magwell is actually something that had been done a couple of times in history. You only really see it with niche guns. The Makarov had a service version that would take the original single stack magazines of the design as well the version specific expanded capacity. It never went anywhere. Double stack 1911s basically in the modern day all competition guns but its one of those zany prototype things people did back then (including turning the 1911 in the twenties into a machine pistol). Some of these changes will be incorporated later.

The ambi controls yes, the double stack mag, no that will wait really until when Xian, the Chinese Army and Navy, goes to 9mm after the war for service pistols (and goes to double action), but the controls yes those will change in Xian's side arms (With looking into the future the Air Force and Police largely remaining with the 45 single stacks, we will get to why later). The Grip Safety on the 1911 was requested by the US Cavalry because they liked it on the Luger. There will be mentions of the grip safety being pinned in place, and then in later domestic production runs it being one of the features that gets deleted to save time in favor of the manual safety on the frame

This also sets up for the adoption of a first generation submachine gun in 45 ACP (effectively a 45 acp version of the Lewis gun, which never went anywhere historically because Lewis was hated by Ordinance branch) and that will see some use later on, though as a specialist weapon (and getting into the trend of police usage of submachine guns during the interwar years) in the forthcoming years.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1917
The map traced the winding concourse from the west of them. Nature being contrasted with straight and level rail tracks. Mostly straight there were towns they needed to reach.

The Yellow River dominated north China. Xian and Zhengzhou were both south of the river creating a natural boundary line... one they had used against Bai Lang, and one that had played a part in how recent fighting near the latter had been shaped. The Yellow River was important to china, was important to them, it geographical fact, but the railroad also made canals no longer truly indispensable... well as a direct commercial artery anyway.

That was part of the reason Gansu's taxes had been put starting years ago on the rail car and sent to peking. Shensi, and Shansi, Kansu, beyond out to Sinkiang the rail ran. Bai Lang had travelled overland being harassed and driven ever westward, and that deepened their own relationship with Gansu's hui.

It wasn't enough to completely silence the anti foreign voices in the community, but it didn't need to be. The fighting in Szechwan between Gansu's independent brigades had picked up, and while Old Man Ma had treated them to lamb soup that the old man was really dancing around the issues that were going on in Peking. Cao Kun had been pretty up front as well that ... there were divisive voices within the Beiyang clique over what to do. The provincial governors association was dividing up into regional blocks running north to south. The premier and the president head up rival factions.

He turned away from the map, and regarded the IBM machines, and their punch cards. "Are we auditing?" Not that there wasn't anything... wrong per se with the abacus most Chinese accountants still used... just that normally his thoughts trailed off.

"Nah," Sam replied, "Calculations. We're going to need to do a census," Griswold admitted to figuring they could also pen that in also for 1920, "I'm taking Rockhill's figures, and trying to estimate the population." There had been a recent publication out of New York citing that China's population was now about five hundred million, that was an estimate.

"And?"

Bill moved to grab the paper, "Says about thirty three million,"

"But that's the 1910 figure that Rockhill estimated, give or take." There was a break down based on that 1912 report for the provinces. Ten million people was a lot. Shensi had more people than New York state, and at the same time, the province was only smaller than Texas... "and that doesn't count that thats small and undeveloped by Chinese standards." Szechwan to the south came to mind in terms of population... it dwarfed them considerably, but was more fractured. He fished back for the paper, and stuck it to the side. "How about the oil?"

"if my arithmetic is right at 40000 barrels a day. Conservative math mind you, and that will be once I've got the derricks up." It had moved them up that Colonel McCulloch had sent some of his engineers over than risk the men get drafted to fight in Europe back in the spring, that gave him extra experts, but it would still only shave a few months off bringing the derricks online.... "It should help."

"Do more than that." Texas oil was cheap but the war was eating it up, the British had devoured that as well. This had been years in the making. The wells in the province had been slated for next year they were ahead of schedule because of necessity Suiyuan coming operational was good, it meant they could build more coal fired trains to use the coal they dug out of the ground anyway, and that would deal with the carriage shortage... or at least help address it.

"If we'd gone to war with Mexico," If Mexico had joined the Germans, "That would also be basically all of," Three quarters at least of, "The brits petroleum." When the war ended, demobilization would be... messy, everyone had been told that much... they had been sure of that a year ago.

"What about Ma?"

There was oil in Gansu as well. They had tentative sights plotted out. It had actually been where they had planned to start full scale drilling first. "Still waiting to figure out things with Ma Fuxing, and his clan." The Ma family, or at least they all said they were related when it seemed convenient, was enormous. "Then there is also Zhang, also." Zhang Guangjian who was the actual Dujun of the province of Gansu, even though the Ma had more influence on provincial events. "But They're both waiting to see whether ... what happens in Honan." Or probably more accurately... what a beiyang division, say the Fifth, going into Honan would do to neighboring Szechwan.
--
The paper this morning had talked about the fire in Szechwan. It was a mess. If they were lucky the fighting wouldn't come over their border... but they probably weren't that lucky.

Allen made no presumptions to actually being in charge of Kansu's brigades, even though he was relatively sure they'd at least listen if he was giving advice while there was shooting going on. He was certainly more comfortable with Yan Xishan's situation than the situation because Yan was unlikely to throw troops over the border... but the base line problems were similar. There were bandit problems that needed to be stamped out.

... and of course besides that human blight there was the risk of famine, and literal plague to consider as well. "And how are your Gansu Braves coming along?"

"There is some discussion whether, were we stick them in which division." Or if there would be so many recruits they'd end up putting a battalion of majority hui in each division. That was an idea. It was one idea out of several, and he wasn't entirely forward on forming homogenous units. Hui and Manchu were disproportionately, to overall population even without a fresh census, in army numbers at all ranks and ratings. Comments of turning iron to steel or iron and nails aside, there really was a need to deal with the bandit problem locally. "What do you need Percy?"

There was a pause, and the Englishman sighed. "The Prime Minister is very concerned about the condition of the war effort. The French are as you've surmised wholly spent as a fighting force and with these... 'bolshies' pressing down I don't suspect the Germans will have much to worry about on the Russian front for much longer either, its a mad house in St petersburg, and in Moscow. There are anarachists, socialists, marxists everywhere."

He grunted.

The US had laid an average of seven thousand miles of rail between between 1880 and 1890. A feat that had basically doubled the size of the national railway network, and of course a period that had among other things marked the zenith of 'narrow gauge'. It was a feat made possible, a record set because the US had had no panics in the market, and of course good strong leadership in the great firms, and the need to traffic large quantities of food stuffs.

But a railway couldn't go across the sea, and both Russia and France were dependent on foreign wheat shipments due to the loss of so much manpower. The men who were tied up to fight the war, the seizure of draft animals... and of course the corruption and profiteering that seemed rampant in the supply trains and administration. "Where is the connection point?"

"Omsk." Before he could speak up Percy continued, "You don't have to go that far, here these are our plans broadly but Omsk is the junction of where we want the projects to meet." The documents that went onto the table detailed the sort of agreement that were almost assured to make the French furious. The three hundred miles of rail in Western China in dugan country was nothing... that the British had footed the bill was useful. "Ayaguz to Semipalatisnk. Is the last leg of the journey, build that ninety miles, connect it to your existing line, and allow British material passage for the duration of the war."

He flipped through the bank notes. Then the other documents. There was already a russian built line in operation, rather than just being talked about from Novosibirsk to Semipalatisnk. He stacked the papers to one side, "MacKinder, your parliamentarian, will meet us on the other side?"

"Yes, He's in Russia already, is there a problem?"

"You didn't mention," And thus Allen had had to have some ask around to find out, "That MacKinder supported Chamberlain..." He glanced at the smaller man, and tilted his head with a raised eyebrow and a look, "certain policies on tariffs. The term imperial preference may ring a bell." There was a pause, and he flipped the papers turning his gaze back to them while Percy formulated a response..

He coughed, "Yes, well that was a long time ago, and I would remind you that when Chamberlain was speaking those words that your own United States had high tarrifs, and more importantly I think those changes and of course his views on industry, and that..." Percy were grasping for something, something to change the subject, "Equality between nations you will get on well I think we should put 1900 behind us."

The quotes reflected what he suspected was a mix of british policy objectives. Parliament had had its share of problems getting private industry interested in railway projects and never mind getting British rail firms to build anything quickly, British pay rates reflected that, the war's effects effected that ... and it hadn't escaped him that the language of the Russian agreement emphasized american mercantile interests in the line... such that Percy's superiors in the foreign office had probably sold this to Wilson, or Lansing at state as a 'generous expansion' on American enticements to the far east in Russia. Then of course there was the plain thinking that shoring up the Russians would help put some steel back in the french's spine. It was all patently British towards coalition building and trading off.

What Allen would not have contemplated were the knock on effects in the long term. How this would effect thing, how it would shape things in less than a year. A few hundred miles was business as usual so long as the crews knew what they were doing and there was dynamite, and earth movers. The political repercussions of the railway it would not shape what the world would eventually call the first world war it was too late for that but it would shape things of after.

Percy this looks find, but since we're on the subject, "What do you plan to do about Baku?"

"Vickers most likely, I should think. They did the work pre war. Oil is the next thing you know that."

He smirked. "It is that." Allen agreed.
--
Notes: Mackinder is a little more involved in the Foreign Service Office than OTL I don't think he actually visited Asiatic Russia for another year at least, but I can't say that with absolute certainty. The bigger change is of course is an earlier railway link.

Historically the linkage in the caspian to the trans siberian wasn't finished until later, to the Trans siberian by the Russian Military Railway (constructed by the whites) and it would be demolished by the soviets and then a new line doing the same thing would be constructed

That link will of course be important after the new year. In the mean time , the main focus is business and bandit hunting in the aftermath of Duan attempting to bring honan inline by force without the unanimous consent or support of the rest of the northern leadership.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1917
Though it wouldn't go into effect until next year 3rd​ Division was to be constituted as a second Rifle division. The more ... potentially argumentative point was its Mountain division designation, which was of course more of a matter of fielding them with principally light field guns and 3inch howitzers. The idea of course was mobility and ease of supplying the unit with ammunition, because very likely its posting would be in the Bashan mountain range straddling the border with Szechwan.

That part wasn't in debate. It was simply an indisputable fact.

Fu, Duan's choice as Dujun, was from Hunan province. The fighting had been going on for two weeks now, since the 16th​ when two provincial military officers had declared their independence. Splitting off a couple of counties should have been an easy fix, or would have been if Yuan Shikai had been around, because he could have rallied the beiyang clique as a whole.

Feng had wanted no part of this from the start, but at the same time he hadn't done enough to buck the trend. Feng should have been a little more vocal about it... but there were reasons why he hadn't. Still as president it was of course his job to issue the proclamation of a punitive expedition... which had lead to confusion causing the 8th​ and 30th​ division commanders to wonder what was going on... and thus they started dragging their feet.

... and of course that was only part of it... but that Feng's successor in Kiangsi and two other Dujun had released circular telegrams admonition this whole mess as a bad idea was not a good sign.... and all of those ... those were all northern officers within the Beiyang... it didn't even touch on the mess in Hunan or Szechwan as a result of the eruption of hostilities. .. which involved no less than six provincial governors having their troops shooting, and a litany of minor military commanders proclaiming they ruled their own small fiefs, and were invading their neighbors.

Cao Kun didn't like this mess either... and when they would look back this was probably the ultimate indicator of what would follow after the European War. It set the stage for everything else after, because Zhang Xun had chosen to retire from political affairs, ceding all remaining political power in the north east, manchurian region, to Zhang Tso Lin... but that wasn't so evident in September of 1917.

They themselves had other things to do. The cadre had steering committees and they now had two major trunk routes in the west. The north reached Urumqi already but the southern line hadn't yet reached Lhasa but it was on the paper work. That had been authorized by Yuan Shikai when he'd still been waiting to be coroneted emperor, but the work from Xining, or Lake Qinghai, was still in progress. The delay was one they had warned him about at the time... not that in 1916 Yuan had wanted to listen... but they were having to bypass Szechwan province entirely, which was doable of course but it was also a lot of dynamite.... and the truth was the southern route was a secondary venture ... with the British paying for the route to the Russian border.

He expected that the eight hundred mile southern, or south western, trunk would finish in the spring of next year. Duan didn't care. As long as the western provinces didn't care, and as long as the fixed payment to cover the salt gable came in the prime minister didn't care. The western provinces not causing trouble meant that he largely ignored them. It was not the same as Yuan Shikai had been in Peking, Yuan had trusted the Ma had lived with them, and they were old men together.

Chen Shufan had his cabinet position and all the more reason to stay Peking. He certainly wasn't going to come back and stir the pot, no really that only left Hu in the south... and Hu was too busy watching the same direction they were... wondering what the Szechwanese or the troops from Yuunan were going to do.

"It is a temporary alliance, one of convenience."

Allen nodded looking at the map. "Not the first person to tell me." Hu though didn't want his home town burned to hte ground and risking a famine if one or more Jia slipped over the border to engage in some bushwhacking. "I'm fully aware we're going to need to watch him."

They already had had a contingency for that. Access to Xian from the south took a well known route whether they were talking about from within the province or from the outside. The 'southern gateway' to access the ancient capital and it was ideal a position to post troops to watch the border with Szechwan, and with telephone, and telegraph and radio broadcast and railroad it was choice ground to occupy. As ridiculous as it seemed this was precisely the normal time of the year for cross border skirmishing, or fights between counties.. .the time table of fighting in the provinces and between the provinces remained essential feudal in character a by product of the harvest schedule of farmers, and the seasonal weather determining when some people had free time and privation.

It was the agrarian economy, and the distance and lack of centralized force projection. Corn, and sweet potatoes had swelled the population and with three quarters of those hundreds millions involved in agrarian labor the Qing bureaucracy had never been able to expand to keep up. A single magistrate being responsible for a quarter of million people simply could not be a functional system.

That was how it had been when the dynasty had finally given up the ghost. "So what then?"

Killing Famine... "Before the French," and to be honest the British, "buying up all the wheat surplus they could get their hands on, "Our solution was always if there was a risk pad out with Midwest grain." When there was a problem, or shortage to be expected buy cheap from the interactional market ship it via the union pacific and sail from san francisco bay.

That had been the emergency option for shortfalls. There was no speculation going on back home. No grain hoarders. The prices back in the states was being driven up because the entente had the money to paying higher prices. He didn't fault them there, there was nothing to fault.

"Domestic production at scale. Mechanization."

"Eventually yes, tube wells, There are lot of things we can do." Mechanization on industrial farms favored large square plots, favored certain crops over others. It would mean reshuffling the labor pool, people moving into towns and becoming wage laborers rather than tenant farmers.

Sam picked up his coffee. "Yeah." He sipped. "You never cared for farming."

"Nope."

"Just saying." Sam commented. "Alright, look my staff is drafting their materiel now. Zhang thinks, October." He didn't elaborate which Zhang, "Wu think he's jumping the gun, and figured divisional headquarters won't be ready until the new year."

The opposite estimation, the opposite extreme, "That's rather conservative,"

"Yeah, I thought so to. He thinks," Griswold paused and blew on his coffee, before sipping, "that even moving into the existing space, we will need more time. I have Cameron and Bridges over there helping them try and get set up, wiring telephone banks, so forth just to keep their hands busy I'd otherwise be hunting work for them."

"No one is expecting you to have barracks space for the entire division up. Just space for the headquarters to actually work out."

"Yep, I know that." Forts didn't pop up over night, and they were talking about the permanent basis of a reservation. "The boot camp will be busy training. We'll be done with the barracks before we need them."

It would come to it that they needed more than one training pipeline for basic training, but the current system while perhaps longer than it truly needed to be was comprehensive and suited their needs for training. It wasn't like how the English did it with each battalion carefully guarding their unique lessons as sacred traditions... or at least that had been been how the old British army had worked, maybe the war had knocked that foolishness out.

"Alright so second is comfortably settled in I take it?"

Sam shrugged, "We haven't done much over the last few weeks other than move them back and forth from Zhengzhou to tell the truth." The funerals for the handful of men lost in July came to mind... there was still something to be said for having artillery when the enemy didn't, but city fights were nasty affairs all the same. "What are you thinking about for 3rd​, you've had time to think about the idea?"

A 'Rifle Division' was an Infantry Division. An Infantry division though was not always also a rifle division. "Powell has a lot of goddamn nerve." He grunted without any real heat, then snorted shaking his head, "Its an idea. Mortars and infantry guns. They'll lack the punch of 1st​ to be sure, but its an idea and he's right it would make them more mobile and less constrained even if they had break downs with their tractors, or trucks," Whenever they could actually buy or build enough to provide for the planned division. "I'm not going to say I'm entirely thrilled limiting them to three inchers but if they're going to be up in the mountains it is an idea."

"It would simplify logistics, and realistically it would help our own production meet goals sooner... and lets be honest if Szechwan comes over the border they don't have a lot of artillery."

Chunking ... the story from the newspaper came unbidden. "That's not the same thing as none." He rebutted. "But you're right, means and needs... and it'll be next year at least before we get that far." There was a lot that needed to be done. There were sergeants who needed to go courses, there were staff officer courses... there were war games run.
--
Notes: So again here 3rd's Mountain division moniker refers to her planned lighter field guns, rather than being an alpini style rifle division as would have existed pre war in Italy. Again this goes to the service branch importance of the artillery branch.

One other thing to touch on, is the line that this finishes on. About War Games. This is referring to both table top wargaming and also field exercises. By this point Wargaming in a table top sense has already displaced games like Mahjong in mainline social circles in Xian. So I'm going to digress into social topics, and the history. Mahjong is was originally a card game, it made the shift to tiles in the latter half of the 19th​ thats when the oldest tile sets a material culture item date.

Mahjong is fundamentally though a gambling game, and as will probably make some comment on in the 20s is fundamentally a southern chinese game. This goes to the distinctions, and the cultural distinctions emerging in China during this period in this timeline, effectively it is type cast as Shanghai's game as a gangsters game as a wannabe gangsters game.

That isn't to say that people don't gamble, but gambling still takes the place of, or resumes moving back to using card games, rather than tiles. Again, though Confucian morales, particularly neo confucian ideas in the song and tang dynasty don't approve of gambling (people still do it), but competitive social gaming begins to be subsumed by things like table top wargaming. Particularly modeling land based armies (Xian is a territorial, army centric military structure with an emphasis on its artillery and infantry, there are technically cavalry rules, but thats a legacy).

This goes to the fact that war gaming emerges from Prussia and is very popular world wide, including into the anglosphere across most age groups, and social classes and genders as well. This is lightly touched on in White Wolf, where its exported out, and remains popular up until really ww2 and then somewhat declines, and wargaming in the US is what ultimately leads to Dungeons and Dragons (the rule set for early DND traces back to Napoleonic war gaming rules, thats why its very simulationist on some stuff.) I digress. It forms a key part of staff education in military colleges and also again its something that children of both genders in the US, in England played prior to WW1.

Its effectively perceived as a tool of instruction, its a 'Educational game' as opposed to gambling, in addition to any perceived status factor for being good at something martial related even if you're not in the army, because in theory in 19th​ century 20th​ century literature, being good at war gaming supposedly translated to being good at business (chess also has this stereotype).

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1917
There were stacks of dark blue books piled on the table up against the side wall, and the boxes they had come in, were sitting by table's legs. The books that would be going out to Rifle School's next class, and the Staff Officers College now that they were printed. Some of the books would also be going to Taiyuan, and to the school out west in Lanzhou.

What had become the basis for the infantry officer's primer was ... had begun life as a chronicle of the lessons learned in the Russo Japanese war of 1905... time in the Philippines had impacted it, but practically speaking at the moment everyone was going to infantry school first before anything else... and thus the lessons were about the last war in Asia.... or at least the last war in Asia between two distinct nations rather than these wars in the pocket.

The issue with the states in the war though. "It was bound to happen." Bill commented a little more gruffly than his usual boisterous nature. The war in the Philippines ... and of course to the imperial pivot to Asia had allowed for promotions in record time... but by the time it had been done... well hot fires consumed more fuel. The Congress after the Russo Japanese war had looked at the expense of the army and been unwilling to spend money for certain things, and there had been a break with old school and new schools of thought and of course it was the war department without a war to fight people had gone to the private sector.

Now there was a war to fight. "Crozier has always complained that the army loses the best minds to private industry." Then just to make the point, "Which is why he's head of Ordinance." Cole snarked. "They may not even post them boys overseas."

There was a pause, his youngest brother was now a major as well, "No Daniel has already been told he's going to France with the AEF. I've heard the same from Black Jack." He replied. "Dawes's oldest boy just made full bird. And the youngest just made captain for one of the new divisions." This preparation craze that had swept in... there were older men who'd been lieutenants for ten years that were finally getting second bars... and it wasn't enough. It should have been obvious it was never going to be enough.

"He's what twenty four." Which in peace time was half of what a Guard Lieutenant averaged.

He'd be twenty five in November. That was the situation. Either the cadre members had siblings, or grown sons being called up or promoted to fill out whole new units. "Where is Dawes he's supposed to be here damn it." Allen grunted wrapping his knuckles.

Cole stood up his cavalry boots clacking over the floor, "I'll get him."

The field artillery man joined them about fifteen minutes after the meeting was originally scheduled to begin. "Was looking through what we had going through Shandong especially after July."

It was on the itinerary. "And? If this-" He started to grab for the pages.

Dawes waved him off, "No, geez, I didn't realize how many melons we grew for export." The whole agricultural sector had been caught up in the war. Sugar beets, melons, cotton. It wasn't just them sugar cane was native to south china and the Japanese in Formosa were making a tidy sum of it over their export of Sugar to the English. "No its cotton. All this talk about the Russian line, that business last year with uprising in Kirghiz." Whose principle cash crop was cotton. A region whose labor had been voraciously devoured by the war effort stripping the fields of not just cotton, but also wheat and elsewhere... and the war effort had also stripped the fields of draft animals. "Productivity is nonexistent. I would estimate that Russian production peaked in 1913 and has been declining ever since, and that's only partially the war. The weather is not helping, but some of it is lack of technical innovation from lack of capital. The farming is, Are the sort of goings on daddy would have considered ass backwards." He stopped and waved his hand, "Sorry I'm getting ahead, the Australians their influenza is bad this year its in the papers. Hell it was elevated last year, but it starts in what we would consider the spring. They're on the bottom side of the world and all... but if the war has done anything it has made international trade it has bound us all together in great markets." Selling to markets back home before the war wouldn't have raised any eyebrows. Japan was right next door as well of course some exports there... but then the war had come and demand for everything had skyrocketed. It was no longer just tobacco or cloth or sugar or some coal. It was a demand for every sort of good imaginable.

Pershing had complaints about the French and their brothels, about the moral sickness, the clap and such all the others... as if the French didn't know to watch for venereal diseases in their whore houses... but disease was a problem. They couldn't possibly have guessed just how much of an understatement that would prove.

Something as simple as the flu. It wouldn't be until later that the Australians who had been invalided out could be back traced... or associated with cases in the British Army in France. All that would be academic. The epidemic would sweep over the world, and of course the states would only start counting the pandemic in the following spring... but it had begun well before, and it would last for after the war.

The papers back east would call it the plague of their time, that it was biblical... which at the time was ironic since of course the plague was still actually a thing on the prairies, and the grassy steppe lands... and of course the reality of the plague being the disease to be mindful of was what impacted their policy of epidemiology.
--
It had been over a month now. Two of hunan's regional commanders had taken their territorial militia and declared themselves independent of both Fu, as well as Tan as Dujun. They were striking out on their own... and there was a good chance that they were just the first two... but that wasn't what was worrying them.

"How many troops are in Hunan?"

"In total? God knows." and it wasn't their real problem. "Its not the real problem."

Allen looked from Carter who had asked the question the first place, and then to Dawes. "You think that number is accurate, Sichuan has another twenty battalions?" even if that was only five hundred men, the ... report put forward by John Jordan's office was alarming.

"That would only been ten thousand men, John." The older man replied, "And we know from the shooting in Chunking that the counties are as much at each other's throats as they feuding with the Yunnanese."

But the question was would that hold. Hunan sat on the rail running south, but Duan had other problems than the question of had he fixed the issues that had plagued Yuan Shikai's expeditions... Kiangsi's government really wasn't happy about all of this. Kiangsi's governor, along with the Dujun of Hupeh, and Kiangsu were now pressuring Cao Kun.

"Yeah what if the Yunnanese and the Kweichow bushwhack them then?" Carter asked leaning forward on table. His southern georgian accent strong as he reached for the whisky, "We supposed to just wait."

"Yeah we're supposed to wait. What do you want me to do, post you to Little Ma?"

"It'd give me something to do. I'd rather you do that then send me to Switzerland."

Allen and Dawes shared a look. Then back to the younger man. They nodded, "Alright," Carter rocked back in the chair and stood gripping his suspenders above his gun belt.

"You mean it?"

Carter had been late coming to the Philippines. His class had graduated on time, and he'd left the service as a first lieutenant rather than dawdle and brindle along in the grade with nothing to do. Rather than going back to Georgia he'd stuck taken a slot that had opened in the Cadre after Bai Lang had caught the bullet in July of 1914.


"Yeah of course he means it." Dawes stood up, and pushed him pack in the chair, "Now sit down before you turn the table wrong side." The artillery man grabbed the bourbon and shook. "Look the brigade is trouncing every which way, and that's fine don't tell Hongkui what to do. They've stuck him on this fool's errand let him do it his way. You've got one job you handle that's keep the artillery intact. Its a supply chain. You make sure that those trains run on time, and those batteries roar when they need to."

Even halfway to sloshed they had the younger man's attention. The idea was pretty simple of course. Ma needed technical services. Artillery. The handful of old Krupp guns were from the Dungan revolts for gods sake, some of the other pieces were even originally Russian.
--
Allen flipped through the postal receipts, and then looked at Percy. "Its disunity John Allen. Disunity. Anarchy even." The Brit grumbled. Then he suddenly shifted and banged his hands on the table in a way he wouldn't have done before the war in Europe, "Goodness gracious John Allen they have counties with their own soldiers like its the damned middle ages!"

"Perce. Take a breath and sit down. " Even as he said it he eased the putnam and weale book Reinsch had sent him out of sight.

He half considered getting up... but after a moment Percy sat and went back to nursing his brandy. "I don't... I don't understand. Hunan is a horrible mess." He repeated that more or less a couple of times. Percy had enough self control most of the time to avoid outbursts like this, but he'd gone to observe the fighting, and then gotten on Peking Hankow line and come straight up north and had torn through two or three bottles the night before.

The Green Standard were... for all intents an army based on the preceding dynasty's model of army organization. That was to say that after the Qing had come to power they had stood up the Green Standard based on how the Ming had done things.

They were the Luying. Tiny regional garrisons meant to keep local conditions peaceable.

Maybe it had made sense back then. The Qing had come to power when the thirteen colonies had still been new. Not that he mentioned that to Percy, instead, "Duan claims he's making progress."

"Oh certainly. Progress, if he wasn't fighting a feudal army. You ever seen men with spears charge machine guns."

"I have actually."

Percy clamped his mouth shut. "Right, not everyone has." he shuddered. "I can't. I don't."

"You've seen men with bayonets its not all the different. Just wagering on luck." he replied.

"Maybe that's it. Then." The englishman coughed slightly. There was a slide from the door and a hawk faced man stuck his head in the room. The oak leaves at the major's throat accentuated his scowl.

"He's fine." Allen waved. He wasn't actually talking to the royal marine but to the hui officer behind him.

"yes sir." The Marine replied almost sounded like his cousin Albert.

The door closed. Percy scowled and straightened. "Goodness he didn't even knock."

"He's a marine they don't knock."

"He's a royal marine."

"He serves on a ship and they drink rum Percy. They don't knock."

"You have marine friends."

"That's how I know." He replied, "Hunan." He reiterated steering.

"Its a mess John Allen. Its a terrible mess." Percy shook his head. "Do you know how we reached the numbers we came to," He was listing to one side, "Well its because we know that the units that are supposed to exist on paper aren't at full strength. You're the odd one." He snorted. "Some of the units are a sixth of the size they're supposed to be in Hunan. You sit across from me and even you don't get it. Is it something in the water? Is it htat fucking bandit you shot. You went out in the woods and killed Bai Lang."

"I didn't personally do it."

"you would have."

"If he'd have sat in my crosshairs." Allen lifted the glass. "The White wolf has been dead three years Percy." Bai Lang was dead, he was no longer the problem. Other bandits had come up, and been put down, and there were different problems now.

"The Qing have have been gone longer, and Zhang Xun still tried to put his bonny prince charles on the throne."

He attempted again to steer the conversation, "Hunan?"

"Its gruesome."

"Gruesome is a nice oxford, sanitized word. Duan says he's making progress, but you and John Jordan are both unhappy, so why is that?"

Percy wasn't having it. He was too messed up.... more than the fortified wine, "Do you remember the new years games, you as Gordon.. the frog's face. It was easier then." Percy cracked a fragile smile. His hand shook holding the brandy, "Its the same as back then... the taiping I mean. The central government's army cannot sustain what they're doing John Allen. The Beiyang is supposed to be modern, but they're understrength like the banners or the green standard. Its only a matter of time before they're fighting not just provincial militias, but outright provincial mercenary units... just hired men."

That wasn't quite accurate to the rebellion. There had been mercenaries on both sides. Both foreigners, and mercenary soldiers recruited from neighboring provinces. They had been the units the Qing had considered to have the most success so those militias had been praised.

The irony of course was in the unit genealogical tradition was the beiyang itself could trace its roots to one such unit. The Huai of Li Hongzhang.

It had been based in Anwei... but there had been others. Including one based in Hunan. One whose ranks had reached a hundred thirty thousand men under the command of Zeng Guofan.

"Is there a man who fill his shoes?"

"Right now? No. No one stands out like that. No one has their own bureaucracy." Not right now anyway... they'd only declared independence last month, but he didn't interrupt. "There is no," He sloppy waved as he searched for the word, "secretariats that have popped onto the scene."

"What do you mean?"

"its just the Yamen." Percy continued waving his hand. "The counties who have declared independence are large I'll grant you but they're not the whole province." He stopped to speculate that Tan might still have some control over his former subordinates, but Percy shook his head, "We thought that too, we hoped even, but that's not it either. Maybe they're working together, but these men have ties to the local finances, we know about the salt gabelle. They've been levying other taxes but thats a double edged sword."
--
Notes: It bears mentioning, especially since ATP has pointed out the Influenza Epidemic, in 1917 at the end of September (so the next update) Eastern Zhili suffered a severe flood that inundated Tietsin. There had been heavy summer rains in northern Shanxi and in southern Mongolia, but the main cause of the flood was that dykes in the canal failed. This wrecked massive numbers of farms in the east because of lack of maintenance and the heavy silting which prevented drainage.

The reason this doesn't get more coverage in the next update is because it effects Tietsin and eastern Zhili almost exclusively, and even if it didn't while it made a big splash in Tietsin at the time, it was quickly forgotten but it was endemic of the problem of lack of maintenance on riverine infrastructure during this period. So its get a very oblique mention among this is in the papers, but it was a once in a generation flood, but it has basically no effect on the interior, most of the damage is concentrated in the south east of the province where silting had been the worst (the northern heights, northern henan and shandong) further inland in Shanxi proper there was no flooding or at least no catastrophic flood the summer rains came in and they went down stream they hit where the silting of the river had been building. The river burst its banks, and continued down stream, but as a flood had no meaningful [direct] impact inland.

I digress, this coming Wednesday I plan to update Dominion on the baltic sea with the next part of spring 1628 and update it the following Wednesday of the month thats what I'm aiming for anyway.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Week 1 (B)
​

The TV showing the county government channel was muted, and it was replay anyway of the morning session of the county assembly... before it had adjourned. The room was a mix of smells. Mostly the mix of gun cleaner and microwaved food.

The city and county governments officially were on the same page about what people should do. People should remain calm, and minimize travel and thus not congest traffic, not use up fuel. Given the facts the roads simply 'ended' at the clear border point, transition between the county line and what was the 17th​ century there weren't that many places to go. The European 17th​ century, or the 17th​ century of Europe... there was already a nasty circular email chain working its way around the faculty of which was a better sociological term across the social science departments.

It was an example though regardless of how severe or out of context a problem was that people were going to quibble, and fight over petty details regardless of social status, or educational attainment factors. People were ultimately people, which was what created the problem of official statements. They had even gone so far as to be the Emergency Management guy, a diminutive little fat man in birth control glasses as his brother had pointed out... and well he had come to the realization that... that the scenario they found themselves in was likely to be made worse by there being active fighting going on.

Hunched over a bowl of potatoes said brother said something that was completely unintelligible, swallowed and let the spoon clink down, "I said," The marine non com, "Oly said that shits already started." There was a pause. "a couple hundred grains of lead hitting cars by the volley."

Maybourne had been right. The semi auto civilian Bushmaster rifles were a tremendous advantage, and that was before factoring in other advantages. It however had forced them to face other problems, again just like Maybourne had talked about.

The city, and the county had immediately started arguing. That wasn't entirely unheard of. The county and the city didn't get along for a large number of reasons... and in truth the resulting mess had really been an argument based off of much earlier grievances. The riots, and the panic had set in by that point in the city. There just weren't enough cops in town to handle, especially not when a bunch of them had been ordered to ad hoc town hall.

Three days without regular power had made that even worse. That wasn't true actually, but for the most part was accurate enough for most people. It was probably for the best that way as well. The places in town that did have power were limited to the various places either on back up power running... and burning precious diesel or other fuel... or those projects running on renewable energy of which there were a handful.

That was the nice thing about the city police having converted all their cruisers over to natural gas several years back at least. That was likely small comfort to most people in town. Those patrol cars weren't much use either, given the situation. There were more mercenaries more soldiers, more fighting to come. The local head of the emergency management agency, for the state that was, not the federal one, had come up with a good idea. Since various food would otherwise spoil without refrigeration, the stuff that they couldn't keep by moving to freezers with power, or whatever would be cooked for the community.

That might have sounded obvious, but it had taken someone actually pointing it out to actually be acted on... and even that had had an argument attached to it. It was that divisiveness which was really the problem with a few thousand people never mind the whole city, the wade swathe of the county who had come along for the ride.

Then of course there was the problem of more panicking people fleeing the city, the down time city, near them threatened by siege... and that had been a riot in its own right. It had been like watching two sets of aliens run head long into each other and then start shrieking and pointing at one another at the surprise of the whole affair... over and over again. Thankfully, or not, most people didn't speak German... not after the ... repressions in the early nineteen hundreds one of the professors had pointed out anyway... and even if they had it wasn't weird seventeenth century German that lacked many of the later introduced technical terms of the language of the later centuries. They'd still been able to get the gist of it... that was how they'd come up with the name Wallenstein... and the name of the nearby town... city whatever... and they'd also been able to get the year.

The meeting of the county farmer's association had ... not been productive. They had ideas sure, but they weren't productive ones. The local medieval combat club had been inundated by people who had confused medieval for Renaissance... but they had also put forward ideas. First no one had had ideas, and then everyone seemed to find ideas, and it became very loud in every gathering.

Tony started to nod reflexively, "Well that's why the psychology department insisted on people going to class, to try and impose structure."

Viktor racked the slide of on the german semi automatic pistol as he finished reassembly, "Impose order you mean?"

"Well the email used the word structure." The tenured professor replied. "But yes,"

"There isn't a point, we'd be better off forcing everyone to attend safety briefs." Tony groaned in exaggerated effect at the statement.

"But the sheriff's department got the guy to talk." They'd actually captured a couple of guys... the bushmasters had been only part of that... and, "And yes Wallenstein is probably going to come on, and that no one is taking the threat of pike and shot seriously." Mikey trailed off, as his brother put the bowl of mashed potatoes down.

Maybourne shrugged, "Way I fucking figure, if you've already got kids jumping off rooftops and soccer moms oding on whatever they're hooked on, its a matter of time before we starting getting rioting. Sooner if the mayor tries to push this nationalization bullshit from the alderman's office." Whether or not that maybe trying to lay hands on gold and concentrating it for the purposes of trade with the down timers was probably one of the few smart things to have been said at that meeting it had been phrased in terms that were never were wise to use in front of Americans.

"Eastern europe already basically feeds western Europe at least for staples. Poland is a major grain exporter as it is, Lithuania made the transition to the three field farm-"

"About seventy years ago, if the book is right." and if it wasn't Viktor didn't really care, "But some time in mid 17th​ century. The hanseatic towns are either in decline or are no longer relevant. The bigger question is how do we transport that grain."

"Aren't we within visual distance of the polish border?" Maybourne questioned.

"Grain is bulky its transport<" how it could be transported, "yeah fine, but we're still talking thousands of tons of grain, which we will then have to turn into bread," Tony replied, "There aren't really roads suited for that volume, well the volume we're going to need. We're going to need friends, and we're going to need friends with lots of horses.'

"Griefswald might be able to serve as a port other than that, Stralsund could but its currently under siege by Wallenstein." And that ultimately would be the factor, because in May of 1628 there was no shortage of war in northern Germany, and with war came disease.
--
Notes: This was not the originally planned update, but I'm going to aim to resume updates on wednesday through the rest of this month and get into and through really the first week after transition into the past, but this is short and an ease into this timeline project. This will not effect the Saturday updates of Autumn of Empire's timeline.


Just to reiterate on dominion of the baltic sea, this is a fairly old project this was originally started as a timeline before covid, before Trump was elected, and as a result some of its material is dated in that respect because the real world made other choices.

Anyway its 1628 Philip Julius of Pomerania has been dead for three years, Pomerania is as mentioned severely in decline due to the decline of the Hanseatic league, Stettin is not actually apart of Sweden yet (thats 1630) but that is in the general area to which we're currently referring. In the future, in the summer months the siege of Stralsund will be lifted but not without consequences. Anyway this is an update of the dominon of the baltic sea project with the intention of getting us on track to eventually have this timeline reach the arrival grantville some time this decade.

That is to be completely serious something I don't want to get bogged down on, where frankly the canon novels of 1632 (besides being quite frankly ridiculous in places) stalled out and that the last chronological book number 34 (novels) is 1637 despite being thirty four novels spanning a publication history of over twenty years. To reiterate that Flint died last year, and the canonical series is expected to conclude once the scripts already submitted are published.

On the subject I take a vastly less optimistic view of history than the idealistic flint, and in particular to borrow the summary from the china venture

"Prevent the destruction of the ming empire by the manchu?"

No. Preventing the Ming Collapse is literally impossible by the 1630s if not the manchu then some other invasion or rebellion would have done it. The Ming had litterally not been able to conduct a national level land / tax reform survey sin ce the middle of the 14th​ century and had already devolved provincial powers (the same kind of devolution that would perennially plague the manchu) by this point they were already in slow motion collapse by this point by 1636 China was already in yet another rebellion and the Manchu were already threatening Korea there is no saving the Ming by that point

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1917​

The thing about modern war was that observers, newsmen, while annoying had gotten very could at tallying all the industrial hardware that moved. Trains carrying shells... it was part of the reason that the British had tied bells around their journalists necks, and also threatened them with espionage is they printed things without clearing censors. How well that would work for the states... well only time would tell. British journalists could move pretty much wherever they liked and like unlike Chinese journalists weren't at risk of getting shanghaied into the army or made to carry baggage for your local bandits. In fact local bandits tended to like getting foreign press attention, and posing for pictures, it helped their reputations.

Duan's advantage was fundamentally grounded in his military background. He was a red leg, and his initial successes hinged on concentrating the Beiyang artillery where it mattered... but artillery couldn't hold territory by itself and while his artillery could make life very uncomfortable for enemy infantry he still needed the troops of other Beiyang commanders to contribute to holding territory, especially with as narrow of a rail corridor as there was.

Percy hadn't actually seen the arrival of troops from Szechwan, or Yunnan, or Kweichow, but he didn't need to. Word had begun to get around that other military commanders were coming from the south and west. Not a trickle either.

This wasn't the systematic maneuver of Tsai's troops two years earlier up from Yuunan. This was an unruly mob, mobs really, individual commanders taking their troops and crossing over the border with not little but no coordination that immediately started fights with not just the rebelling provincial battalions but also Fu's new governance and the nominal civilian provincial authorities. Some of the southern troops crossing from Yuunan were reported to still be carrying the banners of Tsai's campaign against Yuan Shikai, probably for luck Duan wasn't attempting to declare himself emperor after all.... and he hoped that Duan didn't plan to try.

That didn't stop the newspapers from eating it up though. There was no Tsai this go around. That much was clear, because as soon as it had looked like some of the little warlords in Szechwan were even thinking of getting involved the fighting had started up in spurts. "Its just a damned excuse."

Which was true, Allen wasn't going to pretend that the allegations that the new fighting wasn't anything more than one county or even one town's militia jumping the next guy over for some much older grievance using things a hundred miles away as an excuse. "That's not the point Sam. We've been watching mountain range down south for years now. There have been bandits in those mountains for centuries its a perennial problem." Old gangs dissolved as leaders passed away, new ones formed, and they needed to distinguish themselves as a result, "Cole?"

Cullen stopped playing with his hat, and smirked. "I'll take a battalion down there and start enforcing law and order." A battalion though was really all that they could spare at the moment, but it was still a demonstration of how things had changed.

The Qing had never expected them to actually have courts. Maybe to deal with their own internal problems, but the ancient regime had expected them to ask a magistrate to at least nominally arbitrate disputes ... or really go ask Yuan who had been governor of Zhili at the time. When Yuan had become president well there had been a succession of various governors to Zhili province... and other problems.

Court proceedings had never been a thing to worry about. The way you dealt with bandits was you shot them. God knew that was a kindness compared to the Qing penalty a magistrate would give them... but even so live bandits were supposed to be handed over the magistrates... and they had done that during Bai Lang's run through the west... but then Yuan Shikai had died... and now well Percy's comparison to the Taiping situation wasn't one for one.

There weren't any, or at least not anywhere near enough, magistrates to administer... and Shansi and Shensi were neither important enough to really warrant Peking to send anyone worth the post. "So what two battalions. Cole, since Shang going back down there, and then Cole's detachment."

"We're thinking of calling it a cordon." Cole and Shang would both be on 'their side' of the border... but Hongkui was going to be going over the fence with young carter in tow. "We have two to three months of potential fighting, and then potentially some space, yeah?"

"I reckon so." Sam agreed.

So they needed to signal that any bandits thinking the province was going to be an easy target should look elsewhere, "The way I figure out numbers is that we can post the Guards," What would be second division as it gradually stood up and filled ranks, "In the spring at the rail head." As the rest of the division filled as the regiments became regiments in being rather than individual battalions they'd have solid border guard.

The problem as of course these things went was that while they had correctly observed the lack of Tsai having left a successor to succeed him... they had failed to contemplate exactly significant the fissures were in the Beiyang. Duan would make successes as he marched south, and while there might be some truth to his protests that Feng would sabotage him in jealously it was not surely not just that. The initial county level rebellions, the signed declarations of independence from the county level in Hunan spread. County level military commanders first in Szechwan... for whatever such telegrams were worth... and then Yunnan, then seemingly Kweichow and Hupeh and others began to circulate as the year would continue to wane.

Part of that problem was the habit of provincial governors had gotten into the habit even going back to before the Boxer rebellion of circulating such telegrams, and now their county level administrators had cottoned on to the fact that they had sufficient local autonomy that they could do the same and that their provincial superiors could do nothing to stop them.

--
They hadn't talked about it, the flooding in Tietsin had hit the papers and had been bad by all accounts, certainly the summer rains had been hard when they had come but they'd rolled on down stream. No, the real problem was the state of the dykes, so in June so what if the rain had been hard, but by September... it was a different story. He put the North China Herald aside. "The Industrial Stage." Percy declared with a flourish watching the mill work. If this turned into the Brit complaining about how easy an eight hour work week again Allen wasn't sure what he was going to do. Instead he looked at the documents, "Well what are those then?"

"Census estimates." He grunted.

"Has this country even had a census? I thought the one in 1910 fell through," Percy trailed off... and made a small noise.

"Well that is the thinking." Allen replied, "Griswold is aiming to take stock of the province in 1920," Not that they didn't use the tabulating machines for other projects. "Szechwan is about the same size Austria Hungary," he tilted his head, blew out a breath looking at the fan rotating, "or the States were in 1890." Thus he wouldn't have been surprised if by 1920 that held and there were seventy million odd szechwanese by then.

Not that they planned to actually try and enumerate Szechwan. There were could be a margin of error of course, but the growth in the provinces they could count along with Rockhill's work and other logisticians should give them an idea. Percy was heedless of this, "and Pensions," Percy mentioned looking at the paper packet.

"1920." Maybe they should have started thinking about it sooner, but things had changed so much in the time since the old buddha had died, "there will be a lot of changes. We're already moving to life time employment," As it was it wasn't as if they weren't turning towards near hereditary employment. He wasn't going to tell Percy that that was aimed at furthering the rapid industirlization. "Have you talked to Soho?"

"Only that I tried to convince him not to go down there." That had been a fool's errand to even contemplate. "I failed to do so of course. To succeed in talking him out of it."

The question was how would the newspapers record events to the Japanese people, how would this be memorialized. The Terauchi government clearly agreed with Duan's interests in trying bring the south back under a centralized organization. Duan probably wouldn't have cared about how civilian policy was pursued if the provinces would just pay the taxes that south had remitted to Peking to Yuan Shikai or the dynasty before him... as it was coffers were alarmingly starting to run dry with the volume of shells Duan's troops were expending.

... and part of that was that Duan's Beiyang troops had more than a dozen calibers of shells in service bought piecemeal and often in small patches so it was difficult to standardize... that was no surprise of course every knew that was a problem but the qing had had financial problems, then Yuan, now the same with Duan.

"Speaking of finances."

He paused, and considered, "Your, have your people in New York have they talked to JP Morgan," The firms, "the French or the Russians?" or the agents trying to negotiate for credit,

"The Russians."

"They're overleveraged. The Federal Reserve said that last year."

Percy grimaced, "To the tune of about ten billion rubbles as it happens."

He had heard it was closer to eleven, but decided at that metric at that volume... it no longer mattered. If you were that overleveraged well that the bank's problem, and that was precisely why the Reserve had been saying stop, "That's just," The "foreign loans." He observed.

"Oh yes. The Russian government is outstanding to some fifty billion in total."

That made sense why the Russian government had been willing to accept significant restructuring of internal markets, and areas. The Russians had always been completely and utterly dependent on French capital ... but the war well French investment had faced other issues as French credit had been tied up elsewhere... Kerensky making those concessions made more sense given the overleveraged state with an actual number put to it.

He thought about the price the Russians had been willing to pay in 1915 for rolling blocks... for any sort of rifle no matter how outdated it had seemed. That the rolling block would take their rimmed modern cartridge was a boon to be sure.

"The bolsheviks have seized power in Tashkent."

The Russian Civil War was underway. Not that it would be called that until later. The irony of ironies was not to be Korlinov's failure, but what the coming year would be, would hold. The British response, and funding as British fears of Russian influence redoubled with the new Bolshevik change... and of course the mergence of distinct White Russian factions with different backers among the great powers.
--
Notes: Ok so technically there a number of start dates to the Russian civil war in just 1917, I'm not definitively saying its September of 1917. You could make the argument the Russian Empire had been in a civil war since 1916 (I know some people who hold that position academically, in addition to some good literature on that topic) or even earlier, and there are plenty of end dates based on how much you count the soviets killing one another never mind the anarchists, or the peasant uprisings, or the whites or the ethnic uprisings.

This however is the big timeline divergence that effects international perceptions and relations, this leads into MacKinder, and on the Russian side Fyodor Keller, Wrangel and among all the other zany cartoon characters like ungern. The reason its the Russian Civil War's consequences is because of Russia's ties culturally, physically, and economically with the powers in Europe. China was a fourth of the planet's population but economically and socially isolated from a europe and as one might expect despite French, and Russian protests and claims throughout the first world war that foreign investment would return it didn't. Belgium investment similarly largely dried up, in part poached by danish firms but also Belgian shareholders sold back to Chinese stockholders this is the case of investments made by the 'Research Clique' who were never militarily powerful but were very economically successful. To the point that a number of them ended up leaving political office went into banking and retired financially stable.

This compounded of course by the events in may of 1919 both with Versailles, and also with John Jordan and the eight power arms control agreement the embargo that would last nominally for really about a decade with most people have broken it fairly soon after, which will be touched on. That kind of agreement only really comes about because of the first world war and changes in international norms Versailles as an international treaty would have been unthinkable before the Russo Japanese war. A good example of this is look at the end of the Napoleonic war and how France as the defeated power was treated versus Versailles. It went well beyond the scope of previous treaties, even though its very much revenge on the French part for the Franco-Prussian defeat.

Economically, and Socially though, British and French exhaustion and Versailles couple to largely remove them from the Chinese sphere of influence. That failure to ratify Versailles had very little tangible effect on european politics, but Versailles itself had serious effects on Chinese consumption of imported goods. (Which surprise surprise, France and Britain then complain about, but politically they do very little about it).

The French reach the conclusion after Versailles (ultimately proven erroneous but they didn't know that) that the anglo sphere was not going to come save france a second time and began looking for a security guarantor in the east. (Poland, the Soviet Union as the natural successor to Russia, they talked to Romania and the newly independent other states). This was the overwhelming french foreign policy concern post war. The British went into a post war depression that lasted basically until the the military build up that would lead into the second world war. [And of course part of the French inability to act besides the demographic crisis is that western european economic interdependence and cooperation before ww1 was at an all time high and that was completely gutted by the first world war and only returned to that level as a result of the Marshal Plan and the creation of the EEC, and the reason it failed to do so sooner was French protectionism post ww1]

So thus in this timeline the first major change and reorienting in politics are the changes in central asia that come out of the alternate Russian civil war that will progress after this point.

This is also in terms of planned updates the first of two, conclusionary segments for 1917, the other will be at the end of October aimed at major reorganization changes that begin to take place. Part of this is due to the fact that in November 1917 due to persistent logistical and financial issues, as well as disagreement with the Beiyang Duan Qirui's advance to Hunan grinds to a halt. His forces there start atritting themselves and additional rebel forces begin to crop up, and this prompts a political schism to emerge from the eastern beiyang provinces. This is the Feng-Duan split of the clique between the President and the prime minister and will set up for the Anhui Zhili war later on between the two men's respective clique but it really has its roots here.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Week 1 (c)​

Michael idly reflected that it was a good thing Luke didn't have a swear jar. That was probably a good thing ... or it would have been if paper money hadn't rapidly devalued itself to uselessness as a result of the sudden case of time travel to the early modern era. He leaned back and looked up at the high ceiling, a reminder that this house had been built without air conditioning in mind.

"Fuck." Walter muttered as he continued to model, and check math, "fuck..." He scratched down some details on a pad. He looked at the map again, "Fuck... fucking county administration, gah." The deputy threw up his hands, looking disgustedly at the error message on the computer, "Stupid magical ring of fire bullshit... this gives me a headache, hey mikey any idea when they're gonna get back?"

Michael sat up, "Uhm, no I don't , sorry." All he really knew was that Oliver had... gotten called to do something. He didn't really know what. As one of four full time lieutenants in the county sheriff's department who had been in the county at the time. Oliver was fairly high up there in terms of management ordinarily anyway, and he was Walter's immediate superior. If the Sheriff was as tradition dictated equivalent to a colonel, the chief deputy was the little bird... or occasionally a major... and then major subdivisions were filled out by lieutenants and captains... it wasn't quite one to one the army... but there were certain antiquarian ideas that retained from the young republic... and it was going to bit them in their collective...

"Its gonna bite us in our ass. We don't have enough people. Fuck we didn't have enough people before this shit."

"What are you doing?" He decided to ask.

"Luke has a professional GIS suite, I'm attempting," Since he wasn't here, and since apparently Walt wasn't having a lot of luck "To plug in our geography and population details into the parts of north Germany we replaced ... or at least just their geography."

"I didn't know you did that in the corp."

Walter sent him a dirty look. "Yeah, well... I really need a second set of eyes used to this software. I also only normally have to plug in crime data, and draw circles, so..." He trailed off glaring from printed off maps, to screens, to notepads and scratch work.

"We could go to the university even if its some module that Luke is using for his research I'm sure the geography and political science labs would have them." Presumably it was something about the preponderance of states or areas that adopted hydroelectric, relative to accessible coal deposits, or some other facet of 20th​ century electrification waves... but Michael didn't go that far. "What do you have so far?"

"I have our rough geographic dimensions, orientation, the altitude changes, so I know roughly how much land was displaced."

There were rough, very rough, mass calculations pulled up on one of the tabs of another calculating program... never mind how much energy it would take to move that much material physically... it boggled the mind.

Walter got up and sauntered around the map table.

The toilet flushed and Michael's brother Tony walked back into the room air drying his hands. Tony looked at the satellite images of the down, and the various marks that had been drawn on the map with a mix of excitement, recognition, and ... something else that Michael didn't recognize, "I never thought I'd see one of these done like this... outside of the usual training areas." They were height and terrain elevations... it didn't take a genius to figure that Michael would have kicked himself for not realize it sooner... but that made sense.

What was clipped on both man's hips though suddenly stood out. They were radios.... Michael had seen them the other day, but had not at the time made much of them. There were still range limitations, but the cell phone network more or less had stabilized on the basis of what towers were still working.

The mud room door opened and Oliver strutted in wearing shiny new captain's insignia, double bars, which he was exuberantly proud of and announced to them. Walter just complained that was going to make things worse in terms of between the Sheriff's department, and the City Police about who got to deputize who... which was a problem Walter had mentioned before.

"Did you get it working?"

"Do you, do I look like I got it working, bro?" Walter responded to Luke's question, "Can you come the fuck over here, and show me what I'm doing wrong."

While they went and fucked with the computer Michael and his brother turned to Oliver, "So what's popping then?" Tony asked.

"So anyway," Oliver shrugged, "My uncle has county admin calmed down... at least for now. I mean that's gonna go out the window if Wallenstein does something stupid, or people start breaking into liquor stores but for the moment things are okay. As long as the power stays I think they'll manage to not run around like chickens with their heads cut off."

"Isn't your mother-,"

"Yeah, but she believes me when I tell her that our portable radios are magical words of sending," that was a DND joke, "and we will totally know that if Wallenstein tries anything, so we can deal with it." Oliver replied, "I mean like..." He trailed. .. Michael felt the looks as his friends, the marines in the room who hadn't been rear echelon motherfuckers as one time his brother, a little too deep in the Christmas punch has complained, after one argument too many had snapped, "Man I really wish you had bought that tank." He trailed off.

Luke looked at him, and scoffed, "Yeah, I don't think it'd do us a whole lot of good, besides the county MRAPs will get better gas mileage, and that's going to be important. Having a working seventy five millimeter sherman and ammo wouldn't do us all that much good..."

"Tch imagine if Anderson had come along."

"Fuck Anderson, give me Clemson." Oliver snorted, "And no not for the football." The tension evaporated among them... even if it didn't change the fact that their situation was that the Holy Roman Empire could afford to drown them in bodies if that was what Wallenstein chose to do, and they weren't prepared for it.

Tony punched him in the arm, "Hey, I might have given you some shit about joining the army, but like you need to back to the university." The non com glanced, "Luke like I'm sure you're doing stuff, but you too man."
Luke nodded, "There is a lot that needs to be done... I wish we had more specialists in early modern history," Michael could empathize, most of the history department, and political science department were focused on other areas, same with the other social sciences. "Lloyd's right that it would have been better if we had replaced the down time county, not be dropped into the thirty years war, the frontlines of the conflict."
--

The words of a preacher cut down too young echoed in his thoughts; 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.' Politics was inherently dynastic, but especially in old towns. That was true for both parties, and his pulpits, especially the wednesday one, had never been more full than after the Ring of Fire.

People claimed to not want people to starve, but could squeal if things that weren't even theirs to begin with had to be taken for the common good. It could have been worse he had had an uncle who'd told him what it had been like during the DC race riots had been like. There had been nothing like what had happened in April of 68. Not that there needed to be to wreck the inner city economy of a much smaller town.

The Mayor seemed to think she could keep up meeting with the church elders, and that would be enough to help. The whole situation with the food was going to help, but it had already stirred everyone up. The local university administration was bucking the Mayor, that had been apparent when university administration had called an emergency faculty meeting for the following day, and he was pretty sure that had been done to stop any more unilateral decisions until they could figure out what they wanted.

He doubted they would get very far. Not quickly anyway; there were plenty of white liberals on the faculty but then that was why he remembered the quote from King. That they weren't willing to go along with anything unconditional made sense, but at the same time was terrible. Thankfully the church, churches really, were used to food assistance programs... food banks...they'd be able to pick up the slack for the time their own stocks lasted. The problem with that was that the City Council, and their County equivalents had been all too ready to nearly come to blows with one another.

As he thought back of his uncle telling his teenage self the stories of DC during the riots he half way wished that the objections about the militarization of police had started far sooner. Oh the 'Reforms' that old Sheriff, and the current sheriff had worked on hadn't been what white people would have called racist. If anything the 'professional standards' had eliminated most of the old guard in favor of hand picked recruits who had gone off to fight the war on terror after nine eleven. That was what concerned him, what had always concerned him.

The old money in the county still controlled a lot. That network of patronage had once controlled the mills, and the large farms had diversified after the great depression relying on politics to keep them afloat. Their numbers had grown smaller as the years had gone on, but the large farms were still there, and they still controlled who got elected to the County Judge among other things. They were going to be a lot more prickly about property rights than anyone else. The sundering of an already fragile relationship would probably result in a more serious riot down the road.

They were going to have to board up the church windows he realized, which meant without electrical power it was going to get even stuffier in here even accounting for the easier time they were having for the weather.

Unfortunately congregations were getting older and grey on this side of the color line as well. Not as serious as with even evangelical whites had, but enough the churches could do more than organize rallies. Three percent asian. Five percent hispanic... maybe more. Forty five and change for blacks and whites both. That was the city though. County was whiter overall. Worse they were stuck in the middle ages, the European middle ages. Southern Baptist was not going to go over well with the local germans regardless of whether it was a white man or a black man preaching.
--
Notes: This concludes on the religious snippet, because we are talking about a period, and this is one of the things that I feel is overly overly fucking optimistic about in his writings regarding the wars of religion in this period of European history. This is the period that is really the predecessor to the prototype run of 19th​ century European Nationalism, and quite frankly Flint doesn't seem to have understood that, and that from a social perspective, let me reiterate that Flint's west virginians and Maley and Doc Nichols (or worse as a cliche) do not hold up they come off as idealized Californians in both speech patterns and also in ideological openness and that is also a problem that extends to the downtimers.

And frankly, its a very American fictional thing (like once Weber, in particular comes on, but some of the others help) with regionalism, but I don't think Flint actually grasped the sheer cultural gulf that existed between North Eastern (coastal americans) versus just Englishmen in the time frame of WW1. Never mind the English cultural distinctions of that period versus modern americans of say the west coast (I certainly do not think he understood the social distinctions of class that existed in England in 1914, and certainly not the class and social distinctions of England of the 17th​ century and differing behaviors that entailed)

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1917

The papers on the desk painted a grim picture. The letters were worse... but it was the telegrams that really the biggest problem for what was going on south. That wasn't counting the influenza cases hitting Shanghai, and were probably going to do a number in Tietsin, with the flooding... and if Qirui was adamant about sending north chinese troops down... well...


Qirui's successes were all on a timer. He'd hit the logistical tail end for his operations. Shells were limited, and now he was running into manpower shortages because the the other Beiyang divisions weren't sure what was going on between him and Feng. Even Cao Kun was starting to get vocally uncomfortable in his public telegrams.

That situation was at least as responsible for moving Chen's troops to occupy Hankow in attempt to insure the arsenal continued to produce ammunition that then made its way to Duan's various artillery batteries aligned in pairs and spread over an ever widening front.

As a complicating strategic factor was the explosive growth of the population of the lower yangtze in particular over the last century, at the bare minimum, and the effects it had had on an already restive population. There were more people that needed to be fed that needed to still live on the same amount of land in the area.

The premier could not have been ignorant of the pressures his troop movements were putting on the dujun for Kiangsi, Hupeh, or Kiangsu but it was just as likely he thought if he pushed a little harder a little , a little more that things would fall into place and that his successes would bring victory. It didn't look like that was going to happen. The numbers just didn't add up. The papers from the yangtze provinces were increasingly hostile to the whole affair, and they hadn't exactly started out flattering of the adventure to begin with.

George shook his head, "He could surprise us, but if its not done before Christmas he'll have problems." It wasn't just shells it was the coffers running empty to buy other goods. Qirui had needed loans to fight Zhang Xun, admittedly that had been because he had needed money to raise enough troops to avoid a stand up fight. Gathering up those fifty thousand men had probably been a costly proposition in the best of times never mind when the local commanders might have preferred they stay close at home to discourage their own homes from being targeted.

While that was arguably the bigger real problem that the national assembly, the parliament, wasn't happy was another hurdle to Duan's ambitions. Even if Feng had signed off on the necessary paperwork the parliament would have complained about the expense being extracted from the national coffers and Duan knew that. He knew he needed other sources of funding. Reinsch had been told to leave it well enough alone, but they were waiting to see if the minister would actually do what he was told.

Lansing might well have to fight the president over loan reorganization, but that was vastly less likely to upset parliament. They were fairly certainly that at the end of the month the second loan from Nishihara had gone through... they were still trying to piece together where the bank in Taiwan was getting the money for there share the deal was done though.

Mitsui, or Mitsubishi. He knew they were competing. He doubted that the second generation firms of note had the capital to pull it. He had taken time to make a few phone calls of his own and it didn't seem like they were there... but it also wasn't like he'd really expected anyone to want to carry on over the phone. No if they were going to get answers it would have to be in person, and Noguchi was too busy travelling between Korea and Taiwan this summer.

It just didn't occur at the time that the answer was obvious. That it was Terauchi's government themselves underwriting the loans. It should have. Twenty million yen was a decent amount of money and of course Wilson had declared the US government would underwrite the loans to support the war effort to the European partners despite the Federal Reserves concerns about European solvency. France's government had underwritten loans by their private banks, and Britain had also done the same, but it simply hadn't occurred. The war loans ultimately were in theory supposed to be backed by gold reserves... but sometimes you just missed things in front of your nose.

Japan was a partner in the banking consortium the general body of which tried to organize governmental foreign loans as a part of a public body politic. 'No Secret Diplomacy' as Wilson would have called it, though he was not the instigator of that clause to the apparatus.

"This is turning into a repeat of last time." And that was despite no Tsai O to lead in the south, arguably this go around was much more conventional. Tsai had been willing to use skirmishers and cavalry to get around and behind to harass northern positions, and while that wasn't off the table there was a lack of higher coordination to make those harassers effective. "There is an under current of problems."

Unlike most provinces, and as a result of Szechwan's characteristics of geography both in expanse and the topographical traits of the province there was no single fellow in charge. The so called garrisons of the qing era had become succeeded by about a half dozen major regional commanders and then a scattering of dozens of minor part time warlords or bandits on their margins. Stuck in between were the various county and town militias in Szechwan that might be used and forcibly conscripted by one of the big fish to pad his numbers.

"It gets worse." There was a ruffling, "We started asking about the second round of loans, IBJ's portion of the capital. The bank's representatives think there movement on the canal deal, and not just the canal, the whole rail, telegraph overhaul." There were other American firms in China. Standard Oil before they'd been broken up had been ubiquitous as the heating fuel and now while much reduced still had two subsidiaries active in China. There were other factories. There were various textile, and cash crop enterprises... but the problem had been most of the funding for expansion had been based on either a large parent holding i.e. Standard or backing stock on Wall Street or a trading house... the tobacco was doing fine but the problem with a large parent company was most had been wooed towards investing in European war bonds or contracts for production stateside. "Here, that should look familiar."

It was in English. No surprise. English was the defacto lingua fraca of international trade. There were partners from New York and London both signing on. Dawes was right though the project outline was indeed of a familiar layout.

It wasn't finalized, but the format suggested that the filing was done in such a way that... the principles were agreed upon. He wasn't that surprised. It looked like a late Qing document. Hell it probably was, the truth was the work on the canal was decades overdue. The canal had needed massive overhaul during the Taiping rebellion and that had only gotten worse, but that wasn't the issue. "What do you make of it?"

"Japan's position seems pretty clear. I mean this has to be Lansing and Ishii having come to terms."

Dawes was probably right. At the start of the war the British had acknowledged that Japan would take possession of German possessions in Shandong. That was in writing, so even if the French wanted to protest that it would be a hard sale and the Industrial Bank of Japan running the loans and through say Tokyo or more likely Mitsui would just ignore french protests something the American Rail Corp was unlikely to do with their current board. JP Morgan's influence there would make them liable to influence regarding the ongoing war.

He weighed the scales, running the numbers.

The Russo-Asiatic bank though and the French credits lines were nonexistent, even if Yokohama was probably overleveraged it wasn't nearly to the extent of France or Russia, and Belgium certainly couldn't take up the fight.

Jordan and Reinsch had both been quiet about this, which was unusual... Reinsch had pursued the previous iteration of the canal deal and had seemed annoyed when the ARC board had balked under french pressure. Then things had gone into a lull, and the professor had gone back. Japan had had a seat at the table originally according to this, at least in Shandong before hand... "We'll need to see the 1914 papers, but these date to before the war."

"The Japanese cited the open door, whether that was because IBJ is on board, or because it was to tweak the Germans I don't know." The latter was possible too, if not necessarily annoyance at the shandong concession in general. "But I was really talking about the rail rights."

The 1913 1914 agreement would have been signed by Yuan Shikai... maybe even Sun's signature depending on when in 1913 the agreement had been, but probably his successors signature as portfolio of railway development in the cabinet. "Map?" Had they done survey work?

"No, but you can see the writing."

He could see the writing on the wall. The Japanese would cite the open door, and IBJ's earlier participation in the previous planning no doubt, but then to make sure the British got on side would cite British agreements regarding the peninsula. The French would throw a fit, because if the railway went through. The new line would be American money financing a wide ranging list of lines would be into Kwangsi, regions that previously the french claimed to have been given preferential rights toward, but had not had the capital to act on.

"We saw them make those protests this spring."

"The French mutinies the Russians collapsing. Nishihara's loans." All of the above... others still. "Williard," From the money behind the American Railway Corporation, "is in Shenyang almost can bet that that's related to the concessions on the Trans siberian as well... and if that's the case."

Simple process of elimination told them it wasn't John Jordan. It certainly wasn't Reinsch. Looking further up the food chain, it seemed possible that it could have Balfour or Lansing. Balfour seemed unlikely he was pro french, he was rumored to be a staunch francophile.. unless he was taking the legal concession to Japan on Shandong strenuous like.... still seemed unlikely to be him.

Lansing? It was possible, it was no secret he'd been annoyed with the French this spring over their supposed secret rights in Kwangsi. Following the ranks, Viscount Ishi... it was possible that this was something he and Ishi had agreed on. ... but "Jordan hadn't told Reinsch explicitly we're the ones making the link into Central Asia."

"Yeah I heard that, which," He grunted. "I hate people pulling my strings. That's what this feels like... and by somebody who either doesn't know or doesn't care what a mess this will make of down south." He paused, "Speaking of that I'm planning to go over that, Percy is up the wall over this Tashkent Soviet anarchy... he's got some Russian Cavalry general," Probably one of several pro British officers of the Russian Imperial staff... or whatever in Tietsin.

"Things are getting worse."

 

[Imperator Pax]

Week 1 (d)​

The new government center had been constructed within the last decade with federal money ponied up to take advantage of green energy initiatives in geothermal... not that that actually worked that well since as it turned out the design was woefully insufficent for dealing with summer heat in the south... which would have been the problem that he'd have normally been focusing on.... was the inevitable oops something failed in the new system... which was his usual double duty. The Sheriff's department had complained about running dispatch through the government center, but they'd wanted that federal funding for upgrades too... they shouldn't have acted like it had been just the city.

Not that city or county asked his two cents.

He had been getting run ragged since Monday... really since Sunday, but they'd wanted to do, news broadcasts that were largely impromptu speeches while people were shouting, and carrying on. As the head of the local office of the state's emergency management he didn't actually report to the mayor, or the executive of the county, and he certainly didn't report to any single member of the state legislature. It was a mostly academic point though. He was five six and all pointdexter. He was not configured to the take charge and start barking orders to people... and that wasn't what his job was. His job was to proffer advice, and make recommendations, which was the opposite of what local governments wanted, they wanted him to pick a side.

The problem with all of the scenarios his office had on hand were about dealing with mundane things like hurricanes. Oh sure there were some copies of the what to do in the event of nuclear war... that had probably been last updated before the Berlin wall had fell, and there were some more modern outlandish things like dirty bombs, but nothing about being transported into the past. Never mind what to do in the event of a war.

That wasn't to say all of the scenarios had been completely useless. Plans for forest fires useful, as were the ones for major disruption of civil services, and how they related to natural gas mains and safety. That had been what most of his people had been working out with the local gas company about how to go about it.

He had given the best advise he could give given the information he had available. The situation did seem very bleak. Without modern necessities society was going to break down. Even with national aid Hurricane Katrina had failed because at every level beginning at the local one there hadn't been a plan, and without local roots the state had had nothing to build off of, and the national program had clumsily attempted to wing it after they'd finally been given the go ahead. By that point the damage had been done. On the plus side they weren't dealing with a hurricane, on the downside they didn't have any kind of higher level aid to come. Most of his recommendations were based off of emergency management guidelines, that presupposed outside help, in the short term they needed to keep people fed and safe. They were sheltering in place, because there was no where to evacuate to, and there was no immediate danger structurally speaking.

In Katrina of course with safer grounds to run to those with the means had done so. The result had been that wide swathes of emergency services had hightailed it out of there with their families before the mandatory evacuation orders by the state had even been considered. That had in turn led to uncontrolled looting, and only compounded other mistakes by the city of New Orleans even after the National Guard had arrived. Everyone here was stuck here, and at home... just without electricity.

If they had been at home in the heat of the south he'd have put more priority on the city civic center getting power back. That way with power to it people could have escaped the heat and sheltered there during hottest parts of the day. Given it was barely seventy degrees outside right now, and cloudy at that, he didn't think summer heat was going to be all that much of a problem. Winter on the other hand... months down the road if they got there... was a terrifying prospect. That would still have been getting ahead of themselves though.

Part of the problem with everything was that most of the large public structures, in contrast to the building, weren't new enough to have been constructed with renewable energy in mind to take load off the grid. The University system had a few on geothermal, and solar. Those were purely supplementary though the University had basically had to cut off its air conditioning because the power requirements for their usual cooling was out of the question in their situation. They apparently did have enough power to run lights, and the computer labs though. Their cafeteria might be the best option for a food kitchen, but right now the university administration was trying to carefully stradle the line between city and county government not wanting to alienate either when it was unclear who was going to end up in charge if they even did manage to figure something out. It didn't help that the univeristy was one of the city's major employers... it wasn't inaccurate to call it a college town... and then on top of that there were a lot of young people here because of the university, or the community college.

That was what... part of what still put government still up in the air of course. He wished they would figure something out, but until they did he could only give advice, and hoped he was making the right suggestions, and that they listened to them.

They had been here ... here ... for a few days now, and people were struggling to make sense of it all, and most people weren't going to good of a job at it. All of the material in his office talked about fundamental basics, but presupposed certain things. Things that everyone took for granted that had now been stripped away. That was made even worse by apparently being surrounded by bloodthirsty savages.

He leaned back into his plush office chair and sagged into the cushions. They had the police for the time being they'd be able to put them at any food kitchen... but given the guys who had attacked them had had guns... okay primitive guns... they were going to have to put them... on the border, which was a really odd notion to contend with. That hadn't really been a FEMA planning topic except jokingly when it came to interacting with the Federal agency... and none of their supervisors had found it very funny so they had had to stop talking about it. He'd never actually thought they'd be invaded... but it wasn't really an invasion.

They weren't in America anymore. There wasn't really an America anymore. Pretending otherwise when they'd been wrenched to who knew when, what was in allegedly Germany. He wanted to curl up under his desk and hide... but thankfully there was enough order he could afford to work without worrying someone might try and hack him into pieces for fun. So no national guard was coming, and he really hoped that the arguments between everyone would chill out.

He looked mournfully at his phone. He regretted that there was no internet, and that the increasing sophistication of the cell phone had largely rendered obsolete mp 3 players... never mind the walkman he'd had back in the nineties. He needed the upbeat rock music to cheer him up, or he was never going to get through all the hard copies of 'what to do in emergencies' that he had piled in front of him.

He also wanted coffee, and then tossed the guidelines for 'social media during emergencies' into a corner... that wasn't going to help him given they had no facebook. He knew now that he'd thought about it he might as well go get some... coffee that was. It wasn't even noon even... he had had coffee with breakfast. He got up and trudged to the break room, as he considered what all had happened at the 'meeting'.

It wasn't like Martial law had been a terrible idea... a wildly impractical one with their manpower sure, but the idea itself wasn't bad. A curfew at least... that was just sensible. Unfortunately people were already throwing sense out the window... and while they hadn't been writhing in panic they had been ready to argue vehemently over small details. So far it seemed like the whole county had come along, and it had happened on a weekend so the workforce who would have been here from neighboring counties wasn't... which really would have been useful to them now.

The City had no interest in listening to the county administrator. The council had no interest in taking orders from the mayor of the county seat. The police chief and the sheriff had nearly come to blows with one another. The latter hadn't even made sense to Patrick Huff, but as a much shorter and pudgier man in glasses he had shut up and let them argue. So had most people It had taken the former sheriff to calm his successor down, and then a ten minute recess turning into a twenty minute one to get everyone calmed down enough to actually start talking about anything productive... and they... all they had by the end of the meeting were ideas. Most of them weren't even really that great ideas... just simple should have been obvious things like the curfew idea that hadn't actually gone into effect until the day after

Patrick Huff looked longingly towards his vice of choice, and groaned. He really didn't look forward to the idea of them running out of caffeine.-
--
They had driven over largely in silence. The radio remaining tuned to the emergency broadcast channel... but truthfully they had harris radios handy and expected if something happened t would be through those that word would come first. Walter's SCAR 17 had its suppressor on it, but was racked in the seat space between, along with an also suppressed HK.

He doubted they would need the rifles.

Oliver couldn't make it, which would slow down moving stuff. Maybourne popped his trunk door, "I appreciate this man." It was wet Wednesday morning. Mayboure had a clean set of olive drab pants, and a matching Massif shirt. Over laid with his plate carrier, and his other gear. He'd gotten time off to do this, which was a little surprising actually.

"Not a thing." The man replied stepping out of the driver's side of the trunk, "And you have a giant shoot me first sign on you."

Maybourne rolled his eyes, "Fuck don't I always." He crossed in front of the truck, "Come on Mary's at her office talking with the partners. Her mom has the kids." The deputy's house was a little under four thousand square feet. Five bedrooms, five baths, two stories... built before the housing bubble went under. The backyard was fenced, and not in a way that practical to drive into the backyard. At least there wasn't a basement. "You think we can move the safe?"

"I want Oliver here for that, maybe two other guys, like how we brought it in." The last thing he wanted was a sixty gun safe being dropped on anyone's toes never mind for it to tip over.

"Yes sir." Maybourne grunted opening the gate to the back. "We'll start with the storage building, and then I guess the pantry." Maybourne's lot was a bit under an acre and a half. It was a picturesque yard, and basically ideal suburban property. Blame the HOA, for that of course Maybourne had joked often enough. "My boy is going to go crazy without the Playstation." He unlocked the storage building, and gestured around. "Its three months worth of food. We can pack up my reloading press. The ammo." He continued talking as they walked.

Loading took, nearly two hours with just the two men. The drive was... eerie in that they were the only car on the road.

Victor Lucius Gunther lived on more rural portion of the county. They hadn't exactly worked out the elevation differential, not for sure, but he was certain they were no longer two hundred meters above sea level. They were definitely higher than the surrounding European land mass, but certainly not by the difference in home and here were. Whatever the differential was he was going to be worried when the rain came in... washouts and floods and mudslides besides.

Acreage spread out before them. Mostly untilled. Part of it was woodlands that his uncle Vince had allowed, starting in the late eighties, sections of to be cut for timber most of the farmland was fallow kept cut by a tractor with a bushhog attachment, and scraped down even over winter, and occasionally seeded with winter wheat. Mostly to draw deer in to fatten them up for hunting season, "Bet you wish you'd planted more this year." Walt grunted leaning to watch the birds fly.

"Not really."

"What?" Maybourne bug eyed him as if the reply had declared the sky was in fact purple.

"Gas, fertilizer, nitrogen treatment, pesticides, I'm not used to handling much more than this. I certainly wouldn't be ready to deal with it on top of everything else thats going on." The ranch style fencing was multi layered most freestanding rectangles that didn't connect to the others. "I doubt I have storage space, and even if I did that still wouldn't address gas to actually handle harvesting, or water for irrgation. Getting right down to it, we can sell seed stock to the locals, but we're gonna need to buy their produce."

Maybourne nodded, "Didn't think of that." He stopped, "Wait your house is on a deep well how would water be an issue?"

His friend shoved a long bony finger out towards the fallow patch, "I don't have anything to irrigate those untended fields, the well is drilled right by the house. I also haven't checked the creek yet either, but it might go dry if its not connected to a source. The dam stops the lake from draining down river , but that's probably why town doesn't have power." or more accurately why it was having power problems.

"Shit." Maybourne snarled. "The fucking idiots in city." He glanced sideways, punched his steering wheel; lightly. "Come on those assholes are why we lose wars. You know it. People like them." He looked like he wanted to punch the door, "boss my kids weren't in Afghanistan with me when they were shooting at us."

He turned the truck off, and stepped off, "Its not like I don't have room." It wasn't a plantation house per se. It was too 'new' to be from that period, but it was old and huge in comparison more modern construction, on the outside anyway, at three stories, brick, and three fireplaces it hadn't been built with modern HVAC in mind, and the rooms for sleeping space were smaller than modern norms for housing construction. "The lakehouse also came."

"Its on propane too isn't it?"

"Yes."

He laughed at the succinct replied, "Nice." He wanted to say something more about that... but wasn't sure how the lake was going to work out. There were fish in it... but...

"I was going to let Tony rent it if he decided to move back here," Maybourne nodded, his wife had been trying to convince Luke to sell the place to her firm since it had come into his possession, and he had moved back to town.

He laughed, "Don't let Mary know you were gonna that." He got out and leaned against his back against the truck and sunk down, thumping his head back, "Shit. So much for hanging out there with the kids this summer. So if the waterways are fucked up boss, what do we do?" Both men abruptly snapped towards the road at the approaching car. The oddity of the noise compared to their previous isolation. Maybourne started to relax as the black BMW convertible came there way, only to stop when the narrowed slits of his friend's eyes became apparent. He'd known that there had been bad blood. It wasn't like the property division had been some kind of surprise. There ways you could get around death taxes if you had time to put it in writing. "Boss?" He asked.

"Lets see what he wants." It was amazing how people you least wanted to see tended to turn up when they had problems, and likely expected all previous issues to be dropped without a word. If that was true normally the veritable end of life as people new it certainly held to that.

Walter made the distinction between the two men pretty easily, family resemblance aside it was the musculature difference really, though the differing tans gave a little contrast to how they looked. There had been less difference in high school, where the two Gunthers had been on different sports, different classes different clubs, but still in the same age bracket. Charles Alexander shared all the usual family traits. High cheekbones, long ish face.

Tony was standing there on the railing of the deck watching them. "Whats up?"

"Lets not move anything off the truck until after he leaves yeah?"

"What if your cousin doesn't want to leave?" Walter shot back.

Viktor grunted conceding that point as he left the rifle racked in the center. This was a different sort of fight.... and probably an opportunity. "Charles."

There ws a crack about using the end of the world as nopportunity to get the gang from high school back together... it wasn't like that.

--
Notes: looking at my original outline because of course this is both an old story, and its tied up, and disorganized across a collection of sub folders on an old computer. The original plan was for Chapter 2 to be just Monday after the ring of fire, and then Chapter 3 to be through out the week 1 of the event.

What will happen is that there will be a second engagement with a scouting party, before we move into machine parts, and metal fabrication down time. I should clarify that in American Vernacular, a civics center is a combination public venue, hockey rink in door soccer stadium presentation concert hall large building its not a 'government/administration building' They were enerally built to have emergency shelters since they proliferated during the cold war but most major government funded buildings (post offices, primary schools, and such were required, I think banks also were required to have fallout shelters if they were constructed in certain zoning areas, transportation hubs as well IIRC)

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1917
Things had used to be so god damn simple, well looking backs thing were more simple than they had probably felt at the time.

Before 1914 Allen could recall every time he'd had to involve a magistrate for something. He'd fill out a letter send it off to the man in Shijiazhuang, and generally he'd get some kind of response by the end of the day because the man had had a phone in his office and would call when he got the letter. Evidentiary procedure varied a little more, but the first step was having the magistrate take things up and then start ascertaining the facts.... which typically meant that whoever filed the petition could shape how things went.

In Zhili that had been one thing. In Shansi ... after Bai Lang had been put down it had become wholly another. They had however taken a step beyond.... whatever the previous level had been. He supposed that technically they had officially replaced an absentee Chen Shufan... besides Chen had other things to deal with... what with his brigade being moved into a new posting at the Hankow arsenal.

The problem with it being official was Chen had rarely dealt with the civilian side of things. There was a significant backlog of administrative business. For the first time in his life he could truly get why so many scholars memorialized the need for people to compromise in their civil disputes with one another in the thousand years...

There was a beginning of a protest from one of the Cadre "I cant-"

"Yes you can." Allen grunted rolling his eyes, and stopped play with the silk lining of his sleeve, "You knew as well as the rest of us that Chen wasn't arbitrating the disputes and had been avoiding pushing them up the chain." Everyone had known. Chen didn't want it making a fuss in Peking so he'd just left it to his subordinates to try and settle out. The problem with that was there had been building issues with the local banking apparatus since the Qing had fallen. The first obviously had been the tumultuous founding of the republic... but the second had been Baiyang in the countryside and the growth of the city afterwards. Li had been able to keep things together but when he'd been replaced for supporting President Li... "Its an eight month backlog of where Chen wasn't dealing with it, plus whatever Li didn't get to doing." The question was how far that went back... three four proceeding governors?

"It is worse than what we thought it would be." Waite interrupted, George flipped through a cover sheet to the documents below. "We can start putting committees together and clearing some of the back log." There was a pause as he confirmed that they had cases that apparently had been put forward during Gao's tenure, and thus sidelined when been replaced in March of 1914. There were probably cases and disputes from before that. Song had replaced him given the problems with the White Wolf but had been replaced in turn at the end of Bai Lang's marauding. Lu had been in about ... maybe a year and a half. "I'll put Cao Pei in charge of civil disputes he can put a team together for digging up the facts and writing everything up. That can deal with the marriage disputes, inheritance, we'll deal with all the civil law stuff."

Cullen snorted, "Right, I'll deal with the fighting." He grunted looking through his own stack, and using the Qing era legal term. That was to be the division. One wing would handle civil disputes particularly over patrimony, debts, land disputes. The Gendarmes would handle a second wing dealing with criminal disorder up to the particularly heinous crimes including murder.

The division in the labor to work on the backlog would also take differing routes in how it pursued the cases. George's first recourse was to appoint one of his accountants, the aforementioned Cao Pei, in charge of a fact finding mission that would pull its staff from primarily corporate rather than the 'army' personnel. Cullen and the Gendarmes route subdivided their pool of the work almost entirely in house within their own ranks assigning young officers like Guan to divide criminal offenses into investigations that could be worked.

The idea was to settle disputes, and solve cases. The archiving of results went into a new building with a card catalog for easy reference... and that would be the basic norm of things until 1920.
--
He looked at one of the posters before turning his attention back to what was in front of him. It was pastel colors. He hadn't met the artist, but the artwork represented a change, a gradual policy. It was a Chinese style art work... trying to navigate around old colloquialisms. The tiger was attempting to explain of crucible steel. Whether it would work, and the analogy to military effort, and strength... well they would have to see.

Allen flipped through the documents for the umpteenth time. The Qing had hoped was probably the wrong word, but their attempt to prompt western style business practices from their merchants was to ... basically wholesale copy German business law. It hadn't worked. He could still remember the hearings and the million questions that covered just the most basic sort of things from officials.

Shansi and Shensi bankers and merchants had been involved in Szechwan's salt trade. It had been Shansi bankers who had helped support Li Hongzhang though their influence had declined before Yuan Shikai had taken power. The war with Japan, the boxers, then the fall of the dynasty in particular. The collapse of the Qing had hit them hard. Szechwan had come apart at the seems and was now divided into a collection of prominent warlords exercising sway over too smile fiefdoms to truly sustain them.

That was not a grievance he could address he wouldn't send the division into the province, but there needed to be some relief. They needed to be restructure and apply a new standard banking law into Xian's banking sector even if the concept of joint, and several obligation was going to give the local banking apparatus a headache because from the sense of things that western corporate notion didn't exist in traditional Chinese corporate law managing contracting parties. The province had never succeeded or perhaps never attempted in placing the translated German practices into... well practice.

As he continued to work through, he supposed that might be itself a small blessing in disguise. If no one had adopted those laws no one abided by them there should be in theory no confusion in place different banking laws in place.

He looked through the pages outlining the railway concession. They weren't identical to the rights the Qing had conveyed to their stockholders, but they were close enough. It hadn't escaped him that Duan agreeing to Siems Carey had... well he had plenty of reason to do that. The ARC could build the two hundred fifty miles to finish the line that would link Hankow, and thus Peking, to Canton. Lucrative wouldn't begin to describe being able to run cargo from Canton all the way to the Yangtze by rail. The other twelve hundred miles of main program track... that would take them more than a year, but, he doubted that would matter.

If there hadn't been a war on he could guess what would have happened. The French would have accidentally lost a whole lot of guns or had someone sell them cheap to the provincial officials in exchange for concession rights, which the French would then promptly try and use as justification to any French investments, and exclusive rights in wherever.

Allen suspected that was the basis of current French objectives. The French hadn't been able to show any written documents to his knowledge substantiating their apparent claims in Guangxi, but he wasn't privy to the whole matter. Had that been what had happened... it was possible... he knew the British had claimed they had certain land rights to build a railway... but the British had actually gone and then built that railway... so it was very possible they had gone to the governor and bought those rights with the intent of acting on it.

It was giving him a headache. He didn't need this, and the knock on the door was welcome. "Nakamichi welcome back. Soho-san, you look well." he replied a little more formally standing up as the two men were waved into the office. "I've spoken with Iseburo," Among other things this whole railway business, but also, that, "He said you were planning to write a book."

"It is just a small thing." The old journalist replied in false modesty. They made small talk that more or less was the circular over infrastructure and investment prompted growth, and so forth. "The printing bureau has expanded." He observed.

"Bigger demand for text books," He replied, and glanced to Nakamichi, after all you needed scientific progress to help commerce and industry thrive, and all that "The change over to printing in the vernacular helps with the schools, but I'm not going to lie its caused some confusion."

"Of course you should write how people speak," The newspaper man chuckled leaning back in the chair he'd taken a seat in, "I told you that years ago." Then a little more self conscious, "Because of course that was the advice I was given when I was a young man."

"Its good advice, no doubt." He replied. Soho always spoke an easy vernacular english. He didn't bother trying to be formal in a private setting, which made him a dangerous reporter. He decided to pivot to things, before Soho could build momentum, "How is the front?"

"I really missed the opportunity when we fought the Russians," and Allen wasn't surprised that that comment followed into an admission he'd been in contact with Akashi... and that ... things in Russia were declining steadily from bad to worse... the degree of how worse they would get he hadn't even begun to consider... "And of course the British know this very well. They have appointed a special commissioner for 'South Russia' as they have called the post."
--
Notes: This is a direct call forward to what happens in several weeks of the Bolshevik revolution and the subsequent terrors, the creation of the Commissioner position for southern Russia is early, as I've already mentioned the British are moving a little faster on things because there are other things going on.

Since we're on the matter of railways and calls forward, I might as well bring up the MAK and the other cadre government, and the differences. In 1919 in may John Jordan presents an arms embargo declaration to the nominal Chinese Foreign minister on behalf of the British Empire and the diplomatic / international body*. The more I look at it I have to assume this idea had probably been kicking around in his head before this but none of my primary sources, and certainly nothing I have explicitly comments on where this idea came from, before the May 1919 protests regarding the terms of Versailles. The * here again as I've said, and will probably repeat is that this appears to have been John Jordan on his own initiative, and he appears to have browbeat some of the missions into agreeing... and for example Reinsch's agreement did not make it legally binding on the US or its citizens; that's a whole other issue. Its really Harding-Coolidge... and their compliance is... spotty relative to what Jordan had in mind.

Anyway there were two (or three if you count direct non compliance by state nationals of the countries who signed on to Jordan's 'decree') main ways this was gotten around the first is that they bought from non signatories (Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, others) or alternatively they bought from Signatories and had them shipped via third party shipping lines i.e. Latin american shipping firms (the UK US, France and Japan were all in principal agreement, but as with the third condition firms from all signatories including the UK (Vickers especially) willfully ignored the Foreign Office and John Jordan and his successors sometimes outright publicly scorning them and sometimes just rules lawyering (see especially on aircraft)).

This brings us to Middle America and the post war (WW1) in order to get around the embargo Xian buys from both non signatories (Sweden, and Switzerland), and also buys also through middle men in this case the middle american branch, who are buying up cheap surplus because bannana wars are going on. Such that while its not the focus of the story, and the timeline if we ever get around to the post cold war (or if the author of the CYOA this originally spawned from does a Mexican civil war / revolution, or Bannana wars CYOA in the same vein) it will get more focus. Lansing gets palace couped after WIlson has his stroke, so the state department under Colby... largely sits around and does nothing substantial in that period

 

[Imperator Pax]

Week 1 E​

The mills closing had been an unpopular but ultimately economic reality. Simply put it had been a practical decision based on world conditions of the late and post cold war. There were people who had, and still people who had argued that the shut down hadn't been necessary... they used all kinds of arguments, emotional down to that the downsizing hadn't been necessary that the steady reduction and transitional period had still been turning a profit...

.. but the writing had been on the wall... it was true there had been 'tax shenanigans' write offs and waivers and the family trust had managed the transition to get out of paying stuff as possible, and that had included the family trust turning the mills over to the university trusteeship ... maybe if they had waited for gentrification to continue the trust could have made a bigger profit but that was an iff... and no one had been thinking like that...

... and it would have been a gamble given the eventual financial recession half way through the war on terror...

Stewart was standing a little further back. He'd grudgingly left the mk 18 back in the toyota, but he had modern single point drop leg, an update from the double blackhawk drop legs of the early war on terror when they'd still been running thin skinned humvees and the old guard were still complaining about being told to wear armor. The Glock was unsuppressed, but had a weapon light and he was a wearing an expensive maritime plate carrier.

It was a far far contrast to Charles's black fancy turtleneck and sports jacket. That was more endemic of the problem. Viktor had gone to OCS on completion of his masters, deferring the nearly complete dissertation, but he'd still gone to the colours like a million other men after the towers, and the GwoT had begun. That wasn't how Charles Alexander saw things. He'd been interning at goldman sachs he had bigger ambitions... so as far as he was concerned, and he'd been vocal about it, Viktor had gone to war not because 'three thousand yankees had died, but just because he wanted to kill people'. He didn't view Tony or Michael the same way, the marine noncom, degree not withstanding, was just dumb muscle... Charles didn't distinguish the technical qualifications to the skill sets involved in Raider applique.

Charles had other ideas too, and while not whole formed, they had potential.

"Its true that the market pressures which made the mill long term unviable no longer exist," What with being almost four hundred years in the past, ... alternate timeline, whatever, "The market conditions which make a mill like this viable and economically productive don't necessarily exist either."

That wasn't to say that in theory it couldn't be made productive, which was something to talk about but there were other other other issues. All kinds of them that would need to take priority in terms of manufacturing before they started dealing with money and heavy capital ventures. They finished up and he closed the door watching the beamer pull away.

They needed to make sure the town didn't starve first. Tony waited until the BMW beyond visual before speaking, "What an asshole."

"Yeah." Luke replied, even as the sergeant turned over the engine.

"Where to?"

"Chemistry department." He replied, "This may not be viable, but between the university and the technical college, we can manufacture modern ammo." They'd end up having to throttle down production of course... they currently had a much higher volume of precursors that they'd eventually use up, but they could produce ammunition... the shortage would be in primers... still even that was doable he just needed to make sure he had a claim on the equipment and the alcohols necessary to do it, and that meant moving.

There were other industrial tasks that could be looked at of course. Screw manufacturing, and the use of 19th​ and 20th​ century button jigs but ammunition was a consumable... and a modern infantry unit shot a lot of bullets. Drawn brass was easy, and the machines were already set up.

And Tony brought the valid point that even accounting for rechargeable batteries they were going to lose a lot of technology. Night vision gear, tubes, and peq 15s and the other kit modern infantry relied on was going to become scarce as batteries were used up... batteries like 123s were going to be harder to replace... maybe not impossible but they'd require sources of minerals... that he certainly off the top of his head couldn't name a local source for.

They dismounted the Toyota truck to a relatively crowded campus parking lot. He had to wonder how long until the city, or county started weighing siphoning gas from parked cars... and if the cars had been cleared off the road. The gas would remain stable locked up inside fuel tanks for a time... but it wouldn't last forever... and it would be inefficient to dole stabilizer out to individual cars.

Fuel shortages would be a problem as early as the end of the month probably... maybe not for off road diesel but that was largely for tractors... but there were going to be shortages of that eventually. They didn't get very far, he'd started categorizing computer inventory, and writing things down when his iPhone still reading a cell tower signal, and also linked to the University WiFi and configured to accept wifi calling buzzed angrily in his chest pocket.

Forty minutes later he was looking irritably at the bag Walter had just tossed on the table.

Maybourne's first arriving bag was... Luke eyed it. The AR 15 was normal, the pair of glocks wasn't really pushing anything... but the tomahawk was a bit silly even if they had carried them in Afghanistan. The two fixed blade knives as well for that matter. Those were the glaring oddities he saw everything else was for the most part normal for a day bag even the dromedary bags. Normally he just kept bottled water in his car for day to day travel... but too each their own. The pointy objects were... well he had never considered needing to conceal a knife in his belt. Most of this was par for the course.

Maybourne had gone back and opened the back passenger door to the Toyota, and retrieved another bag he had tossed in about an hour earlier, and waved to a deputy who was standing around "Here see these ammo cans they go in the back of your cruiser, right?"

"We should have room," The man replied... clearly hoping that would be the case... and given the way the springs on the suv were struggling already.... Luke spared a glance at the boxed 556 ball ammo. He could guess where the bulk had come from.


"I need an honest assessment of where we stand."

"Beside that it aint normal?" Devil hissed, "That's why I asked about the planting, but you right. Are right," He leaned back and took a swig from the water bottle. "Mass Casualty Event is pretty serious concern."

"No that's not what I meant." He told the other other ex marine present.

"We're gonna throw a drone up Luke its electric they figure its our best option." Oliver remarked he was running his hands through his freshly cut hair like it was itching, and if Luke had to guess he'd probably been in the middle of a hair cut when the calls had started going out. "Its not a great drone, but its something."

He wanted to laugh. It was fucking absurd. When they'd invaded iraq the special mission units had had access to drones... and of course hte modern corp had access to significantly more common drones... never mind Army aviation battalions field what were basically predators of their own... he was under impression they'd been rebranded to mitigate the Air Force complaining... but it wasn't 2001... a small drone could be a couple hundred bucks a good camera and moped engine... the problem was flight time, and resolution.

Someone cursed as they fumbled a barrett and the light fifty dumped into the park dirt. They were at the edge of the line... further south than the last time they'd gotten a call out, and even though he was pretty sure he could guess what was going on. It must have been another of Wallenstein's foraging parties... which meant if it was Wallenstein the army must be close... whatever little drone they were going to put up wasn't going to cut it.

They were going to need to find out what was going on at Stralsund to the north west of them on the coast of the baltic. If the county was pulling ammo from where he was thinking this stuff was coming from they probably hadn't mentioned it to the city, but they probably thought this was going to get bad... or rather that if the early modern army got in among civilians it would be bad, both materially, and psychologically...

The great benefit to the whole fucking mess was that it went both ways. That would be true when a west virginian town called grantville arrived from another alternate earth... that the change in topography, and the oddities it created were such that local mercenaries weren't quite sure how to deal with the change. With a comparable tech base it wouldn't have mattered, they'd have figured it out and then it would come down to which side had more soldiers and the better position... or really the side with the most guns... which was in most respects what it did still end up coming down to.

... both now... and in the future.
--
Notes: whats going to happen in the current version is that this will update through April as we continue to work through May 1628, this first week first post change, including dealing with coverage of both the skirmishes but also the internal face and side particularly dealing with people are in commerical jobs, university students, bankers, the urban population not facing that outward pressure.

This also clearly calls forward to when Grantville arrives in 1631, and pointedly that down time military commanders were not stupid per se and that the geographic transformation of a sizable piece of landscape courtesy of a ring of fire would probably make most officers some caution, there are exceptions to this but that will be dealt with later, particularly as we need to demonstrate the dangers and lethality of volley fire at distance (and this is the early modern period, this is the period of the tercio and pike and shot, guns are commonplace as the standard infantry weapon in the way they were of infantry blocks and lines of a hundred years in the future).

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1917 [Conclusion]
The official minutes would refer to this as the fall conference of 1917, which looking back was to be read more heavily than that label meant. There was one of these every year so that label was both a continuation of 'tradition' and innocuous in its label. It reminded him of the meeting in 1914 where the cadre had decided that no, expecting every member of the cadre to be responsible for a company sized element was absurd but that something still had to be done. That was the crux that something had to be done.

One hundred men were gathered today. Cadre officers and the proxies of those absent. In the conventional organization of those preceding years the cadre had formed standing committees especially after 1915 and the change in the body. Allen nominally sat on several, but particularly was only an ancillary member of the farming committee. In that committee his vote normally proxied to the chair.

The committees formed sub groups to manage specific projects. The heavy industries committee had a litany of subsidiary units responsible for each of the corporate sides major heavy industries. It was part of vertical integration. Steel, Coal, and the Oil ventures sat among those. There was another body that handled the export goods that had been dominant before the war, chief among them were textiles, and clothing goods that had been shipped to the American market.

Today's gathering was the first step towards actually putting everyone together to contend with the consequences of the United States' entry to the war and the government's assumption of new powers. It also was the first step to major restructuring. To answering questions about education and others.

That was a major indicator ... it was told in the eighty odd men in uniform. Less than twenty men were in tailored civilian suits. Fewer than five were not visibly armed. To be sure part of that was the selection of proxies for votes... all of the selected proxies were officers from either the 2nd​ brigade of Artillery or from 3rd​ Regiment Infantry's staff contingent. There were eighteen Chinese infantry officers present, seven of whom were Hui two of whose number were little birds. Those were the staff's technical service officer, and the staff intelligence officer.

That would have been unusual for staff officers in the states given the commander of a regiment was to be ranked colonel. Intelligence and the TSO billets were ranked as they were due to the unique conditions of their environment. It was also of course a statement on what would be coming in the spring. 3rd​ Infantry was already preparing for its inevitable duty to become the core of a new Rifle Regiment. The selection of her officers to fill that role by sitting here was a statement of that.

He was therefore glad that this meeting was limited to the hundred men in the room. That Colonel Shan was outside with command of the division and responsibility for general security.

"And that is the outline of the 3rd​ Division. A time table to which I consider to be conservative." The speaker concluded... conservative because it had taken the states back home three months to mobilize 17 divisions of the national guard for federal service... for fighting in France.

It wasn't the same thing.

Cole kicked the back of his seat and leaned forward in a comical approximation of their academy days, "Its funny the accountant is the one who thinks we can magic a whole damn division together before the first wheat harvest."

"He's right that we don't have to furlough anyone though." Obviously farming had been a potential consideration. The real consideration had been the matter of financing in general. It touched on that Yuan Shikai had tried to avoid changing the tax system of the republic from what it had been in the Qing, even though as time had gone on he had gradually lost certain revenues to the provinces. Fundamentally though the last national land evaluation had been drawn up by the order of the first Ming Emperor, and that no subsequent monarch nor official had been able to update those rolls for threat of uprising or rebellion. It was not a tax system designed to or even built with the modern international flow of goods, and certainly not the titanic volume of goods of war time trade in mind.

Neither though had the cadre. They were going to have implement tax changes, even though that was not what they had originally started as.

The Cadre had begun first as a railway firm, and expanded into growing into lateral fields of industry. It was not a conventional extend clan kin group holding the shares, and the cadre shares were now far more concentrated in a handful of individuals with the hundred's ranks filled out by experts. It might be thought of as a holding company model.

Reinsch might have used a term like 'group enterprise capitalism'. Such academia meant that, basically underneath the main ownership the capital holders was a clear managerial class of experts who conducted good scientific work. Percy, he was sure, would have looked at it, sniffed dismissively and said it was all very American. They were however taking on the traditional mantle of clan organizations, of a parent firm, of subsidiaries and hierarchical structures that simple didn't exist in the states. There were to be changes in employment, and changes in worker care.

They had been building housing of course for years, but other changes were to come in the face of changes likely to effect the western provinces and new industries. Industries that were being funded by the profits of the war and were largely expansions into lateral or ancillary fields, or investments to be made to support further future growth.

There was a significant interest in what the end of the war in Europe would hold. What new technological wonders and patents licensed ... after all there had to be some trick to explain Germany's ability to sustain its war machine three blood years against the other great empires of the war, and of course recruiting engineers who would need jobs.

It was a portion of the conference dominated by the mechanical. Of tractor and trucks. Inter-urbans were to be considered of course, Allen had always been impressed by the Belgian tram system in Tietsin but it wasn't particularly ideal for the movement of goods.

The conversation was actually aimed at furnishing stores, and more important than even that the movement of raw materials to actual factories to produce finished goods... but it was true that the utility of the truck as a weapon and manpower carrier, and the tractor's utility as gun carrier had been noticed and acknowledged by the assembly.


In historical records penned in future days the Fall Conference's minutes were used to demonstrate a clear continuity of policy, and a clear link to future policy. The Conference's failure to reach a conclusive plan for future long term goals what would become the first five year plan did not represent a failure of the conference per se.

The Fall Conference had never been intended for that. It wouldn't be until later that Yan Xishan working from a model of the US national guard suggested foundations of a much larger body of reserve troops to contend with provincial emergencies both man made and natural. It was not that the idea would not have occurred perhaps at some point in the future. It was that Yan was more cognizant specifically of his province of Shansi's particular conditions. At the time of that proposal though no one had expected that the expected dearth of cheap surplus rifles would be interrupted from China by John Jordan's proposed eight power agreement.

Not that that ultimately was a problem foremost among most aims were the creation of the charters of the provincial A&M colleges which of course included the armories and the armorers to sustain an infantry battalion's rifles. By that point of course there had already been a working model from the school in Western Zhili and by that time of that proposal Shansi's machine bureau had received its hartford tooling.

What, the Fall Conference, had not overlooked was the question of aeroplanes, of the air war going on in europe, and of the US's Signal Corp's new found production control authority over spruce harvesting and lumbering in the pacific northwest. The US had been selling the seasonal stocks to the British, French and the Russians, of Spruce as old world timbers were overharvested from already depleted woodlands, or worse actually threatened by fighting if not poor management, that the US with its entry into the war needed to take control.

The US was now interested in that process, in the Air War. Ironic since of course this was in essence an about face on 1907 the debacle had been the US military leadership. Where command had not been interested in pursuing the idea despite there being some, admittedly, tepid support from the civilian leadership in the war department to let the signal corp experiment. Now though with the air war a proven concept, and the German's Gothas bombing England the states were on board.

There would be American aircraft pioneers holding stars, who had been advocating for all sorts of new gadgets in the technical journals since before the US entry. Those papers had made their rounds... air power was now in vogue.

It would be in this venue, and also that of the equally new weapon of war the 'tank', that would be the downfall of John Jordan's 1919 arms embargo. British legal custom of the state department was to adhere to the letter of the agreement, Jordan's proclamation regarding Chinese arms traffic specifically singled out rifles and prevented artillery the state department was less willing to block aircraft sales by British manufacturers or to block Vickers Armstrong from selling tanks in North China after it was clear there was a market for them.
--
Notes: Regiments are Xians principle unit of organization (and indeed this is the default Anglosphere organization, thus the US until the division replaces it, and only the US makes that transition where as you still see British units tracing their lineage to royal regiments on napoleonic or even earlier lineages through consolidation), and this is still a period in their development where all officers are effectively Infantry officers but this also reflects two factors in that since regiments are relatively self contained their staff component is relatively large with a component to handle railway operations (logistics) telegraphs, early radiotelegraphy, and also intelligence is looking out for bandits in particular in addition to more conventional threats, as well as political intelligence. Secondly as mentioned its contingent reflects that the 3rd​ is the planned basis for another division. This is basically roughly twenty percent of the units commissioned officers. Again as a call back to the White Wolf years, the idea that each cadre member would command a company would have created ten regiments very much hearkening of the old Original US Infantry Regiments. Very much a symbolic gesture, but one ultimately discarded in 1914 as simply impractical.

Also as an economic term, Keiretsu and Zaibatsu are occasionally used interchangeably by me in accounts. This is technically correct in the historical sense... but keiretsu historically (in this period) would have referred to the second or 'group' zaibatsu, i.e. Companies like Toyota (who aren't actually around just yet,) not 'first' zaibatsu like Sumitomo. If anyone is associating keiretsu with its post world war 2 usage that's almost entirely a product of the US Occupation and business relationship post occupation the word was so frequently misused that the Japanese went okay fine we know what you mean and started using it in the 'American' fashion. Keiretsu in its historical usage is different than its modern usage, but summed basically it refers to these large oligarchical companies that emerge out of the meiji period and the early 20th​ century of Japanese industrialization and with the second form are very heavily shaped by the boom years of ww1.

As will be built on later, and further down the road this goes to how Xian's government policies are structured, even before the 1920 constitution goes up, as to where priorities go.

Spoiler: 3 Priorities

Collective Defense: The Army. This is intended as simply an observation that the province's security and well being is contingent on internal and external security in practice this is the reason Britain makes the Prussia jokes.

Public Order: The Law, and Legal transparency, Civil/Criminal proceedings, Law enforcement [This is about both legal governance, tax collection, tax codes as well policing powers, criminal proceedings ultimately]

Public Goods: Public Compulsory Education, and Public Health (Public Health in this case is referring to Epidemic Management in this period, its talking about disease and it is a late addition that makes its onto Three Priorities of Governance because of the dangers of plague, and the Influenza outbreak (So this is basically the same logic behind the CDC's foundational powers).

In practice, down the road, after the 1920 constitution goes into effect, you'd have other public goods, like municipal and county public works projects for things like roads, but also the rebuilding of the dykes, and canals as flood prevention. Public Order, the development of the legal system, the legal code and development of police and public safety apparatus develop but at this point that's limited.

What these priorities are not, is to be philosophical for the cadre, these are put out there as the basis these are to address immediate real world problems in the province of Shensi (and also technically Western Zhili), down the road Shansi, the 'western Commanderies' all adopt variations of the Shensi constitutional. Pre-Constitutional Xian though its still working towards finalizing an actual written constitution.

 

[Imperator Pax]

The Other Side
A​

With a sigh the police officer looked at him and then closed the door. They didn't need introductions, and settled into irrelevant small talk about how fucking crazy the world was.

A weekend without electricity had driven his students up the wall. In the wake of the Ring of Fire Ren Faire had gone out the window. Never mind the threat posed now by the roving bands of killers... so no most people had sheltered in place unknowing of what was going on around them, and that had started the rumor mill

There were no aliens though.

The Assistant Professor for psychology could empathize that those kind of thoughts weren't that crazy compared to the reality with how things were. Without electricity he too had been going stir crazy. The city's government had instituted a curfew of all things, an actual enforced curfew. He couldn't honestly fathom why they had felt the need to go that far; there wasn't any where to go after all. Neither had his students. The threats from wherever they had found themselves were from people. As far as he could tell there was no serious risk of wild animals, and as long as you drove carefully getting around really wasn't an issue. Still the curfew was in place, and the University administration had demanded everyone abide by it.

That was the problem. You tell kids not to do something and they wanted to do it anyway. What was the university supposed to do? Take their keys? It was ludicrous. You also couldn't just expect them to along with a perceived unreasonable demand. It was authoritarian not authoritative and the young people with all their vim and vigor just wouldn't stand for it. So they were seeing deviant behavior break out.

He really did want to know just what the city council thought they were doing. A weekend by itself could have been dealt with. They would have been good to go with little more than complaints if the power had been back on by Monday morning, but it hadn't. They were coming up on a week now, and the University administration was getting impatient because they were getting pressure from the student body. He was right there with them, since normally most of the students would have left their dorms for summer by this point. That wans't an option here of course.

"Yeah, I hear yah," The detective grumbled as they crunched through the growing dry grass. It was the recipe for a disaster, which was why he was rushing to tell the dean just that. That had been when he'd found the door locked. "Alright, you haven't seen him?"

"No like I said there was supposed to be a meeting this morning." The professor remarked.

The police officer nodded and looked at the office and fished out a master set of keys and unlocked the door. The professor heard it click and immediately started talking about how without the ability to go home, or the ability to relieve stress via the modern conveniences they were going to have a riotous mob of students upending everything around them. The whole thing was driving him up the wall. He barreled through administration waiting and into the Dean's office without even bothering to knock, and right into a suede loafers.

"Oh god." He felt the blood flow from his cheeks as his stomach roiled. Hanging suspended from the fan was the man he'd been coming to vent his frustrations to, the man who hadn't been at the meeting this morning. He hadn't even considered how the man might have been handling the stress. He quickly lost control and vomitted profusely beneath the dangling feet of the hanged man, before scrambling back.

The police officer stepped back, and pulled the walkie talkie radio brick, and started saying something... he wasn't surprised... and it made a certain amount of sense why they had wanted him to contact the police. He let the police officer help him out of the room, and sit down.

It took him several minutes for him to compose himself before he manage without wanting to vomit. "How did you know?" The man asked as the detective tapped at the touch screen of his phone.

It was a pretty typical call... they had started pulling people and slotting a roster as soon as people started making comparisons to the 08 recession, so he wasn't surprised. It was better that they didn't have to run anywhere to get help. "I figure it'll take the coroner the better part of an hour to get here." The detective replied sparing a glance to the office. Ordinarily in a case like this procedure would have been to try and get the man down... try and resuscitate... he'd called it in before the doc had lost his lunch... and speaking of he got up and with a grimace opened the office windows... he would have tried to go find some bleach but he'd wait

That took longer than he had thought it would... not the least of which was since the university was running on limitted power... and thus minimal services. The professor was the chatty type, a mile a minute ... All thoughts of how that might have driven his students up the wall when they hadn't had electricity but parts of the school staff did were gone now. Not gone, really, just at home, without power, or phones... there was no one to call, and that meant physically finding someone. The Meeting of faculty was going to be much more interesting than he had originally thought... and not just because of the spate of suicides since the Ring of Fire.

"I thought that maybe," The man grunted weakly but was talking and that was good, "Technically since it was a faculty meeting a lot of the other university staff wasn't going to bother coming"... He paused and trailed off, in other situations certain faculty probably wouldn't have bothered coming to such a meeting.

"This isn't the first one, we had a guy find some body the day before." That had guy had half ran half stumbled across the concrete footpath towards a foot patrol shouting incoherently about what he'd found.... the lacrosse freshman had been sloshed so it wasn't like they had known. "It took a while to figure out what was what."

"I think, somebody from the business school mentioned that. Something about the switchboard working."

The Campus Police department was was technically certified a fully authorized state police agency. Fifteen officers, including the reserve team, coupled with support staff handling communications. It wasn't a lot. "We don't have a lot of guys," He said, "But the switchboard works, and so does the internet," However that worked. It had taken pulling someone from communications trying to find the chief before someone from the 'detective' bureau to show up and investigate.

It was supposed to be calming the younger man down. Get him acclimated, but Walter Riley didn't think it was working. Too much stress from everything else. He got back up out of the office chair and stood in front of the professor. He was an older man who looked almost elderly, his wiry figure making him look much older than fifty. He'd left the state police after twenty years, and had picked this up as a reserve. This was his first dead body he'd had on campus, and he didn't like it, but it had been his turn at the queue.

He hopped his thumbs into gunbelt as the professor looked at him... really looked at him. The man was looking at the gun under his shoulder. His model 645 full size smith and wesson semi automatic was slung in a Miami classic shoulder holster in what was probably not approved by department regulations. He had in addition to it his department issue smaller glock 19 on his belt as well, with the detective's shield next to it so he might have just been skirting by. Besides who was really going to complain, especially with a body hanging from the ceiling. None of the professors certainly... the people who were now filing in.

There was a voice behind them now, "Do something." Another doctor of psychology squawked at last, "We have to get him down. You can't just leave him there."

Riley rounded, and met the doctor's brown eyes, and then nodded. "You're right," He agreed, "but he's a hefty fellow gonna need a hand." he'd already taken pictures with his cell phone, though it was apparent that it probably was just what it appeared. Getting the body down would have been less trouble if they hadn't had to dodge patches of vomit, while lifting two hundred plus pounds of dead weight of a man.

They rested the man beside his desk, and Riley took a few more pictures with his cell phone. The computer had woken up, but just a login screen nothing he could do there.

The staff formed a sullen queue and left the policeman to his work as they headed to the apportioned meeting grounds in the University's newest building. The Doctor of Political Science, an associate professor, who served as the Dean for his department had his back to them, but the psychologist recognized the head of the ROTC beside him and a handful of other men. The doctor who had called that in made sure to point that out to Riley as the man came forward to talk to them.

He marched forcefully towards them prompting them to turn at this heavy series footfalls, and looked upon them with a sullen expression trying to keep his eyes up and at the new man, but the noise wasn't him trying to be loud it was the men from the coroner's office following him in tow. Three hours. That was how long it took the coroner to actually get to the school from the call in... it was now after one.

--
Notes: This is in part a series of different peepholes into post ring of fire ahead ot the changes over the summer months of 1628. This is a combination of two different versions of this scene technically three if you count both the faculty perspective and CP perspective.

Additionally while it will likely not go up in this I will probably be posting a version, in the misc thread, of a distinct Xianxia branching of the Autumn of Empires timeline. Now that will obviously not be canon to AoE even relative to the original more gaslight/urban fantasy version of the original timeline, but will entail spirit beasts, and the circulation of Qi, and alchemy being a thing that on top of all the other early 20th​ century problems one had to deal with following the end of world war 1. I am using the term Xianxia, rather than Wuxia, or Xuanhuan and admittedly depending on progression the latter might be more accurate. This deviation from the timeline won't effect saturday updates, and won't involve gamer or interface elements common place in a lot of the genre thats common place.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1917
The roster was starting to be tallied, and it wasn't so bad. They were certainly going to lose Reuben and Ada to the 'Filibusters' they'd go to middle America for sure. That was no surprise, Powell had brought Ada in in 1915 specifically to handle management of the original steel mill at a time when the shares were consolidating into main ownership, and a significant portion of the cadre were management / leaders / experts. Reuben was further down Powell's side of the corporate ladder, arguably his machining background was a slightly bigger hurdle since they'd need a man to replace his skill set in the east.

That was another matter. Expansion had been steady before 1914, but not explosive. They had been active in Western Zhili but hadn't had any where near the customer base or potential work pool of what had happened after Bai Lang, and after war were declared in Europe. It was no longer 1910 or 1911 and things had changed. Sam leaned forward on the other side of the desk. "Its not practical,"

"No its not." They couldn't allocate slots on the cadre for major capital resources... bluntly speaking cadre slots could not be senior factory management, and even major project engineers were likely too numerous for the body size. "It wont come into play immediately, the war in ongoing,"

"Not as much as I'd like." Sam agreed. "Powell is moving that we should go ahead an plan for work over there next year. I suspect he's already on the ground." There were organizational problems at other levels as well. The creation even just on paper created the issue of promotions to general, and admittedly brigade created the same issues. "The war has grown us too large too fast, if the war ends next year I have no idea how we would handle it."

"Have you changed your mind on Siems Carey?" He asked straightening. It wasn't too late if it came to it they could levy for a piece of the thousand miles of rail that the deal outlined.

"No. Its too focused on the coast, and down south. I agree that's no good." The route was very likely meant to go down through fukien that was to say make a route from shangai to run along the coast to hong kong. Something the British had wanted for a while but simply hadn't been able to get started before the war. There last real work had been two years before the dynasty had collapsed. The other connection was finishing the link from Hankow to Canton. "And it didn't occur to me really to me until just now, but think about it the French fuss over it this spring. Duan starts talking about going down south in July. The Japanese are clearly onside, Reinsch is on side." which wasn't an oddity, "Terauchi then yanks Hayashi back to Tokyo." That was different than just being onside... you didn't just pull the minister and send a personal envoy

"Are you suggesting Duan is a wizard?"

"No. Not Duan, this isn't his doing, from the feel of Tietsin. This is the Research clique. They're the only ones with ties to Japan, the states, and England. Liang had helped organize the parliamentary votes for getting China in the war. Liang talking to Reinsch or Lansing, no one would pay attention at all to that... hell no one pays attention to Reinsch talking to anyone." Because Reinsch didn't play the game. Reinsch wasn't an industrialist, or a politician, or a general he was a university professor... admittedly a professor with powerful political connections he'd gotten the job because Wilson thought highly of him. It was no surprise Reinsch bought into Siems carey. He'd bit down on the idea even while Carey was balking at the noise the french and russians had made... and from the sound of it was Reinsch who was badgering Carey into trying to get back on.

So what then... he voiced the question a minute later.

Sam shrugged and leaned back. "Going south of the Yangtze would be a mistake. Feng has a point the provinces there are consuming resources right now that peking's treasury just cannot support. Duan's expedition, regardless of his success is too expensive to manage on feudal taxes, and foreign loans." That was really the problem It was the key problem that continued to rear its hideous ugly head.

He pushed his own papers aside, "Estimated exports to the entente is in the tens of billions of dollars, Sam. Thats not just steel the US is export, but certainly that market is overheated. The French buying up the wheat futures in the midwest is inflating food prices, and the farmers are used to the new prices." US exports to europe were roughly double the value of what the US was taking in from the entente powers. Over a billion dollars in gold had been used to help pay for goods from the states, and credit extended heavily by New York to Paris, and London. The result of all of this was in short, "... New York took London's spot as the beating heart of international finance. There is no going back from that, but for us, even if those dollars are being handed over by the British..."

"When demand stops or slacks off it'll cut overseas capital influx." A recession was likely to follow... that was just the science. "We need to take precautions. That means reforms to insulate that productivity will need to be reduced, and what we can't reduce redirected."

"That might not work," Sam pointed out, "Look I agree the change to employment was my idea. The restructuring to divisions makes sense based on," he waved at the papers, "Who we're going to lose, we're going to be gambling with the change over until we find our footing."

"I can't make Powell stay, he want to leave," A grunt punctuated the short comment, "and they want to go let them go." He replied. "We've made good money." They'd largely been insulated from the wage explosion so costs of operating had remained largely stable, "Powell wants to go down to Nicaragua or Honduras build a railway concession there, better he goes with a blessing than thinks we're holding him back. Besides if we're going to be operating more heavily in Shansi, Yan is the only one with the influence in the province and the brains for it."

Old Ma had refused Bill's extension of the offer. The Ma family, the different branches could agree to participate in the effort and agreement... but the old man was too old and he knew it. If he took a position and died in six months. There would be a fight internally. They couldn't pick Hongkui cause that'd pissed the uncles off... who rather rightly would think they were being sidelined by the younger generation.

Old Ma was more concerned about instituting a public school system aimed at Confucian morals than advancing his position. He was a degree holder. That position wasn't unique among the extended Ma clan either. Hongkui's father had a degree under the old Qing system of examinations, and supported Confucian education as well.

It wasn't even a compromise since the primary school education had been drawn up when Yuan Shikai had been insisting that Mencius be covered in primary school education It was in short he wanted to be sure the current system remained in place. Did he have other interests? Of course, every man had interests... but some men were looking for a legacy. More than just an endowment to the arts in any event.

Yan would take a seat, Old Ma wouldn't, but while that wouldn't effect the provincial development outlook, what the ywere really aiming towards was Shensi province's tax reforms... which was going to be controversial. They needed to enact land reform, and bring people into the system, they needed a replacement to the old Confucian scholarly order... and well that meant both the army as an institution but prosperity more broadly, prosperity and security.
--
"Fire."

Rifles barked.

A mix of the company standing, prone, and kneeling.

The recruits were getting their first taste of real ammunition on a non static range. For Abel Company 1st​ battalion this would have been a turkey shoot. These were younger men, though not the veterans. Greenhorns.

There was a reflexive growl from the NCO, "We should be grateful they're all shooting in the right direction."

Everyone had to start somewhere, but, "Indeed sergeant."

The sergeant straightened at the comment having been overhead. "Go give them some pointers."

"Yes sir."

"They're new troops Al."

He knew that, and realistically most of the shots a rifle man fired under return fire missed. You were always going to make your best shots when you had the enemy by surprise or when he was breaking... once he was broke and running it got harder.

These young men were shooting at and a training unit a variety of targets at both known distances, that was to say marked, and moving iron silhouettes. Unsurprisingly a lot of the shots were impacted the perms and ground around the rough man sized figures particularly the ones on tracks. What distinguished today's class was that it wasn't unique, that it was part of a uniform body of instruction that stretched over several distinct training fields and therefore was in scientific principle capable of producing troops that could be dispatched to any unit.

In Shansi Yan was currently refitting the old provincial examination center. A collection of barracks would be added to the area for dormitory housing but most of the classroom instruction would be able to use older facilities until new buildings went. The process of expansion of training centers meant for the time being pulling experienced NCOs out of the ranks and shipping them by train to one of a handful of towns, and it was the general consensus that it had worked when they had made the move to Xian, and it should work here.

Yan was skeptical of six months of education, but he had relented on confirmation that British professional army had had units that had taken as much as a year to prepare to deploy. Of course that wasn't to say he was entirely as amenable to the curriculum. Yan Xishan wasn't an old man, actually being in their age cohort, but he had his officer's training in Japan and thus placed a greater emphasis on the bayonet, and had been quick to point out that Bai Lang in 1914 had mounted cavalry charges, and almost certainly there would be bandits who would still do the same.

That there were an increasing number of such ruffians, that bandit gangs were trending larger was not lost on them either. Thankfully the bayonet pattern that Yan preferred was nothing unusual. That the British Empire had adopted their Japanese allies pattern sword bayonet had in turn already resulted in the need for manufacturing. So they'd make a little more time for bayonet fighting, and instruction.

"The majority of men bleed out before they can get to a doctor." That was how it had always been... he'd seen the reports from the war between the states, but in the Philippines especially and in the Russo Japanese war medical care and its lack of rapid application cost men's lives. "We barely have doctors for our own people, hell we don't have the manpower to cover second division's medical people."

1st​ Regiment's battalions all had enough experience handling packing a wound, setting a leg, or tying off. They'd learned basically all the lessons that the Philippines insurgency had taught because often enough bandit fighting didn't involve standing line engagements.... but with the situation being what it was, that needed to be distilled to battlefield medicine for aidmen in a standardized fashion. "And that's without Percy fucking complaining about where stick the surgery." He agreed, but, "They have to start learning somehow." The sergeant was presently chewing the younger men's asses out.
--
Notes: I'm going to go ahead and note this here, once we do get to the cold war, or if against all odds there is a banana wars CYOA or some other drive to cover that side of the pond in this timeline, with east asia largely secured much of the conflicts between the Soviet Union and Nato interests will be in Africa and Latin/South America. Particularly to the prior will be the outbreak of the 1st​ continental war at the end of Ike's term, and well the fallout of decolonization. [It bears in mind that Lumumba didn't make it eight months before the coup, June 1960 he comes into power and then he'd dead by January 61]. I do prefer to be somewhat circumspect on this because it is spoilerish for post WWII but Kennedy would have looked for another fight and was susceptible to western European influence in a way that Ike wasn't, Kennedy was just easily lead around by those and didn't know better. LBJ had his own problems as well being particularly subject to getting buttered up. Thats well in the future though.


There is a Russian Warlord CYOA (based on a series of HoI4 Mods admittedly) that can be found here if anyone is curious: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/general-qq-cyoa-thread.1263/page-2347#post-5111391

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1917
They had been in conference preparing for... for a lot of things, there had been a couple of probing raids over there border with Szechwan. A couple of thousand brigands shooting at one another... which was bad because it suggested that instead of coming to an agreement some gathering of confederates had ended up militantly disagreeing, and that fighting had pushed them north and far enough that they wanted to try the way into Shensi.

So that was their priority. How did they reinforce the boundary? How did they check any repeat attempt... and how quickly could they put green troops on the line to cover a wider frontage...

That was just their problems. Their local problems.

Percy should have damned well waited rather than barging in. Nakamichi had at least had the benefit of having been in all morning, but apparently some fool thing had happened in Russia and the Bolsheviks had seized power. "Percy I can't just go to Tietsin at the drop of a hat." That was nine hundred kilometers as the crow flew, and longer by railway.

"So what if Duan having problems. Set backs happen in the field. He's just stumbled a little." The englishman protested.

There were some curious looks at this. Indeed stumbling might not be wholly inaccurate. The initial reports were not so bad taken individually. Some troops had managed to get in Duan's package train, due to of course lack of infantry to guard the train... but that wasn't the problem per se.

If Percy though had come from Peking he may have known something about the goings on in the capital, or with the Beiyang that hadn't yet made the rounds. Of course vice versa was true. The papers were going to talk about the bandits trying the border, coming over the Bashan and the fight with the defenders... it had been in sight of a decent sized town after all... but it wouldn't have gone out yet... and the North China Herald wouldn't have had time to remark on it, so none of the other papers in Tiestin, or Peking never mind any other republishings would have had time to reach the diplomatic community.

They weren't overly concerned about that, even though that was really the news that was making the rounds. Allen stood up, "Cullen."

The cavalry boots hit the floor, "Alright I'll take a brigade," Meaning he'd take a mixed unit, "and go on then." He shook his head and moved by, though not before throwing a look at the englishman. The gendarmes would be only part of the move to reinforce the bashan range to their south, but it would reinforce the troops there with a larger combined arms force... just in case anyone else came over the border in szechwan started feeling froggy.

He doubted they would after having tangled with the 2nd Infantry Regiment, but better safe than sorry.

The problem was how unpredictable those small incursions could be, but also because there was so little warning for what happened over the border.

At the smallest level a village of a hundred might have two or three guards at anyone time and that might rotate between a dozen or so of the menfolk between fifteen to sixty over the year. If it was just the villages as a whole, but it became more complicated thant that at the lowest level it wasn't just hte village. The headman could have a couple guys, but so could the biggest farmer, or the wealthiest merchant. They could have tennants as their guards or they could be subcontracting out to a local private 'bureau' for protection services.

Those were just the building blocks. Collections of groups built up together forming sworn brotherhoods, trusts and alliances, groups of villages would form leagues against their neighbors, men with the same name would find some shared common relation from way back when, or invent one, to organize on behalf of the clan. That could create a pretty large group men with the right leadership.

It was that unpredictability that was the problem rather than say an actual field threat.

Percy barely waited until the door of the adjoining office was shut before he started in about Lenin and his German money. The german's gold, and the Kaiser's other dastardly deeds. It didn't help in the slightest that the French ambassador seemed to have finally annoyed the Japanese counterpart that Reinsch was now afraid that the Japanese might stop cooperating entirely. Personally, though he didn't interrupt Percy to tell him, Allen suspected that was a negotiation tactic to make sure the French didn't object too hard over the canal & rail deal when it came up probably next month.

"How long has he been there?"

"Since we walked in the room." He glanced to the staff officer who had looked up from his papers.

"Should I leave the room, sir?"

"Yes," "No."

Shanyang stayed seated but fully removed the headset he was wearing.

"John Allen."

"I didn't walk in for no reason." He replied shaking his head, "Alright Kang, have we received anything from Tietsin?"

The captain shook his head, "No sir," Then to cover his bases he clipped the next sentence, "Nothing since this morning. Its actually been quite quiet."

"So who is in Tietsin then, I thought you said MacKinder was still travelling." He didn't wait for an answer, "Captain, call the American Legation." The advantage of the structure of the posting was, yes it was shared with the British, but Reinsch was so frequently sight seeing that the elder Forrest was effectively in charge since he effectively served as the channel to bypass the Philippines and run things directly to the state and war department in tandem. "And while you're at it as the watch officer of the 15th​ to send a runner to ask the Russian legation what they think."

Percy wasn't really comfortable with the captain staying in the room, but that was tough shit. He probably wasn't comfortable taking a seat with his back to the officer either. Not the least of which was the shaved pate had his service pistol in a shoulder rig that would have been very easy to draw from sitting, but then again Percy might not have even noticed that and might just thought this was above the junior officer's paygrade. All the same the captain started making calls, and Percy stopped eying him.

Allen rested his arm on the back of the sofa and watched the Englishman shuffle in his khaki uniform uncomfortably. "Well, ahem." Percy cleared his throat. "Our situation is,"

"Bad?" He suggested.

He sighed, "Yes, bad is a word."

There was an eyebrow raised. Allen didn't comment on the gesture, and watched the englishman as Captain Kang waited for an operator to connect him to the legation. "I assume that the Bolsheviks have done something?"

"They seized the foreign ministry in St Petersburg. There are very sensitive documents there... and from the speeches that this Trotsky person has been giving... there going to try buy the Germans off. Make peace."

It was funny how he lead with the seizure of the foreign ministry, and then Trotsky... "Whats Trotsky saying?"

Percy swallowed, "I'm afraid he's borrowed some of your president's earlier talking points..." And that was it... if Russia backed out of the war, and if the French were worried the Japanese were going to suspend cooperation... then it might very well look like the ability of offensives would grind to a halt... especially if the Virginian occupying the white house got it into his head to take things at face value and ordered the AEF to hold in reserve in favor of some idiotic impassioned plea for peace...

... which would do the president no favors after he'd asked for the declaration of war, after campaign for not getting involved... and then having to pivot to 'make the world safe for democracy' ... "You think Wilson will get cold feet?" It wasn't really a question, and he didn't wait for a response, "So tell me what I'm supposed to do about it Percy?" The English... and the French for that matter never could do anything simple. They wanted to keep Russia in the war... and part and parcel of that was to support an eastern front even a limited one. "Japan will never agree to it." He knew from repeated cables not only were the estimates ungodly expensive in money it was a butcher's bill Japan wasn't prepared to pay. Old Man Yamagata opposed involvement in the european for those reasons, and still largely distrusted the Russians... Terauchi was never going to go against the old man.

"No, we're not asking them for full mobilization just a couple of divisions to intervene and hold the railways open."

He didn't believe Percy for a minute, the turn of phrase was entirely too practiced. If the British were asking for that it was probably only so they could leverage it to then ask for a few more to maintain the peace before long start lobbying for something akin to the Boxer rebellion... but he didn't say that... but he wouldn't have been surprised if France or England weren't looking at the Bolshevik uprising as if it were something like the Boxer rebellion.

Whether that was really what was going on, it didn't matter the Bolsheviks were two things. Firstly they were socialists, and secondly they were Russians... it was far from difficult to guess that any requests to Japan was going to play on the inherent distrust of revolutionary political parties and that and existing distrust there in.... and he was willing to wager that the FSO was probably going to start trying to pressure Reinsch in Tietsin to start cabling not just the state department but Wilson directly to try and get the president's ear.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Dominion of the Baltic Sea May 1628 /
The other side of the coin
Part 2​

The Mayor had just finished another exhausting session with the city council. There had been a wide range of reasons to do it... it in this case was the dreaded nationalization of resources. It wasn't really imminent domain, they weren't taking the land. It wasn't just Lowes either, but people had basically already stripped Walmart of food.

With the dollar defunct there had been a lot of talk about 'barter' economy, but most likely people were likely to hoard things, and the consensus in both the Mayor's office, the city council and various community figures was to avoid that. Lowes had been the big issue because she doubted anyone would have complained... they needed the supplies in order to start winterizing houses they were somehow all the way across the Atlantic so the consensus was that winter without electricity was going to be terrible.

That was guessing, but it was something they had to think about.

They were just trying to get ahead of that. There were other reasons, but the threat of having to deal with winter in six months was the big one. Also without electricity they needed those generators, and the ability to siphon gasoline so again it made sense. That hadn't stopped people from being upset, even though they themselves hadn't been directly effected. The trailers were another thing they needed, those they would be able to hitch to the municipal service trucks and use as a light logging industry. That specific idea had been put forward by one of the men on the city council; his exact motivations for that were unclear. It did seem that he'd been talking with both some local businessmen, but also the members of the local medieval club who had some idea about walls that could in theory be used from the abundance of trees that had both come with them, and if needed the area around them. It seemed a little far fetched, but he had made such a racket over it, that they'd added that idea along with everything else.

It was an amazing thing to watch people make a fuss about it, but was right wasn't easy. In order to help the most number of people they had to do this. Tomorrow things would be better though, since then they would have the generators distributed and they'd be able to better organize food distribution to people in town. Once mothers didn't have didn't have to worry about feeding their children, people would start to come around and things would calm down. She just hoped the county saw it that way.

Besides it wasn't even like Lowes or Walmart were really here to complain. They weren't taking stuff from actual residents they were taking possession of the store's stock, and since those corporations weren't in town they couldn't really complain. She leaned her cheek against her hand as she hunched over her desk, and waited for Paul Ferrer to figure out if the computers would work or not.

She understood why the power had stopped working in a broadly simplified explanation. Nothing they could really do about that. Right after the event the back up generators had kicked over pretty much without anyone needing to do anything and the city's government center continued to function as had cell phone towers. Fuel for those generators had been something to conserve... and in hindsight it might have been a good idea to turn some of them off before they ran them dry. They hadn't acted fasted enough.

Finally she turned on her notebook computer and waited for it to boot up. It took a few more minutes, but then she had wi fi again. Not Internet... or rather only local network connection. Her email chimed a minute later. The perfunctory message was simplistic, a simple test message that had it been from an outside the network sender might have triggered the spam settings... she was actually surprised it hadn't.

She composed one of her own and sent it off.

Five minutes later another message came, with more in depth instructions. She repeated the process of turning her iPhone on and connecting it to the network. The city's app system worked as well, which meant in theory they'd be able to use WiFi in place of the normal cellular network... though only in places that they had wi fi connected to the local network.

It would be dependent on electrical power, and that would be a problem. The city center was obviously going to have to have power, but she wondered exactly how they would provide for even the rest of down town. Well since the computer was working again, she sent off an email query for ideas to the rest of her staff who were supposed to be testing everything. Testing would really mean playing to make sure the App alert system worked.

There was of course no reason why it shouldn't work now that it had power, but given it was now after five and there wasn't anything else to do it made sense to check. Besides most of her staff were under thirty, and even she was already starting to go stir crazy without access to the near constant stream of updates from facebook.

--

The following morning, as a second weekend got ever nearer, a small panic had broken out. The disturbance had its roots in more than one thing, but the kick off event had been the 'nationalization' / seizure of inventory. It wasn't so much the reasoning behind it most people doing the actual rioting that developed by mid morning hadn't put that much thought into it. The people who were just running around with their heads cut off also hadn't bothered with paying much heed to the reasons either. Most the disturbance really was just a way to blow off steam from all the accumulated stress of having been thrown back almost four hundred years.

By the time anyone had found found George Campbell he'd been dead for at least several hours, longer probably, but not much longer. "Looks self inflicted." Merle grunted. The sheriff's deputy had long since holstered his side arm, and the police officer next to him with the shotgun still readied looked a little sheepish.

"Do you see a note?"

The looked around the bank's small office space; it was an older layout. George Campbell had managed to, if this was suicide, make a real mess when he had checked out. The over turned chair, sprawled body, and papers everywhere did give a strong impression that there had been a struggle. Couple that with the fact that it was dark as shit without electrical power, and being limited to only flashlights, and the handful of idiots who had among other things burned a suburban a few blocks down it had made sense to be cautious as well.

Not that if it had been a murder the murderer would have been still sticking around by the time they had gotten here. "No, his ex wife lives in town." The deputy muttered. Technically both the bank man and his family all lived in town. The only reason the sheriff's department were here was how short handed the city was.

It would be good if this was a suicide. Callous as that might have sounded the police officer knew it would not only make his job easier... he mused rifling through the papers with the flashlight in his mouth... and his job being easy when it closed this case would ease things up the ladder. It not being a murder meant there wouldn't be the chief and the mayor breathing down their neck to solve it. He didn't like the idea of trying to solve a murder in this situation. Even with all the technical gizmos, even accounting the wait time for the state crime lab, crimes against people were fifty fifty about getting solved... or more correctly closed.

It took them several more minutes of searching through the dark, but there was a suicide note. It wasn't especially clear... might mean something to the family about why, but it would let them satisfactorily declare it a self inflicted death. The two men backed out of the room, headed out of the local branch office, and locked back up after them.

Not that there was really any point to doing so. Since the Ring of Fire they doubted anyone at the bank had come in before mr. Campbell had showed up to commit suicide, even if they had it wasn't an issue. There were probably employees with keys, but they wouldn't have a reason to break the police evidence seal the officer affixed to the front glass double doors. All the banks in town were closed... in no small part because most of them were apart of much larger financial institutions, which had large corporate facilities in the state capital. A capital which effectively no longer existed... and neither did the even more distant corporate headquarters of Wells Fargo, or Bank of America... or whoever.

Not that there had been much reason for the local county bank, or the farm bureau, or any of the credit unions in town, to open since the ring of fire either. The dollar was worthless without the US economy to back it up. Without large commercial institutions things like mortgages meant nothing, and credit cards were worthless, but so too were the accumulated debts. That would have been the logical way to look at things... except the economy was gone. The dollar was worthless, and without that currency no shops and businesses were running. That was so much more apparent on the ride back to the local command post... which was its actual label though most people settled for precinct... that serviced this end of town.

Everything was closed, and had been closed. The people who worked there were probably going stir crazy. Unlike the local starbucks though municipal services were still working. The only private company still working was the power company, and that was largely in concert with the fire department dealing with natural gas. As a result it was a long stretch of empty roads, driving past empty parking lots. That being stuck at home had contributed to the stress build up that had played a part in the riot, the mayor nationalizing the goods of certain large store chains had probably played a roll only as being the spark that had set the kindling on fire.

George Campbell had killed himself because he knew he no longer had a job. He had killed himself because there was no going back to his normal life. There was no point in pulling money out of the bank's vault because that money wasn't worth anything. That was why he had painted his brains all over the ceiling as he had leaned forward in his chair over his desk.

They'd check the house, but it wouldn't be a priority now. The officer wondered if it should be... suicide and all the man probably had stuff that might be useful to other people. That wasn't in his job description. He held up the plastic evidence bag with the man's wallet, and keys, and gave them a good shake. He wondered how well the neighbors had known the bank man next door.

Merle glanced at him, "Don't worry about." The deputy grunted barely open his mouth as he moved to step out into the parking lot. In a normal situation next of kin should have been their job, but it wasn't going to be their immediate job. The morning had had too much excitement, and on top of that there was no guarantee the wife would be at home. Not saying she wouldn't be either, but they just didn't know. "If it falls to us we can do it around five, until then..."



The Mayor might complain but the police chief was willing to take the heat after people had started setting cars on fire. It was why he brought the shotgun out for the building, but deputy was fishing his county bushmaster out. He watched Merle's line of sight to where it lingered across the street... buildings built back in world war II, some probably before, and some after. Merle looked at him raised an eyebrow "Whats up?" He asked finally.

"I'm thinking this is gonna suck." He was looking at how he had his hand resting his hand on the top of his glock, "You should keep that handy. The shotgun too man."

The cop quirked an eyebrow, he'd never remembered getting ridden nearly this hard by someone from the Sheriff's detective bureau... sheriff's department at all... not this hard... before. "Yeah?"

"Yeah I think so," Johnson replied, he threw a look to the east side of town... what was the west now since things were spun round. "Lets just say, man, that," He snorted, "Nothing... you'll probably see it sooner or later, you'll get what I mean." He said it wasn't just that, and he threw a thumb back down the street of the suburban burned out.

Merle wondered running a hand through his increasingly shaggy brown hair what the police chief would say about that... or the mayor.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1917
Percy was very uncomfortable about what the Bolshies were going to do about the papers. About the things Trotsky was going to say... and desperately hoping that Washington would clamp down on the papers... that Wilson wouldn't break consensus with London. The Englishman was very, very uncomfortable, to the point of fidgeting as the Russian railwork was laid out in front of him.

Lansing had been publicly, probably privately to Washington's elite as well, but publicly optimistic about Kerensky's coming to power. Enough confidence that he'd put his name on things, but that had soured especially as 'joint rule' with these 'soviets' had started coming up more and more frequently. If Lansing was a little more even handed on his walking back of his public commentaries, the people in Wilson's interior service were more alarmed about Bolshevik success, particularly on the state's domestic front. The Justice Department wasn't at all happy.

The new situation though had spun up like gas on fire. Frankly Allen wanted to laugh at them, all of them, "Russia is as much an agrarian country as China is." He grunted, in part he was trying to placate some of the alarmism... because these were things they didn't have the resources to do anything about, and he wasn't going to hand wring or get the vapors, "Hell most the population lives in one half as well." The map in front of them was the proposed division of Russian spheres of influence, what in the actual literature between nations were called 'markets' put forward by the French and British and agreed to by Kerensky in exchange for support months earlier. Kerensky had agreed to a lot and he was likely to be excoriated by all sides ... and frankly it was hard to say he didn't deserve that... except that Lenin and his friends would be worse.

A protractor and rulers sat on top. He had smudges on his finger tips, and the side of his hand.

Percy leaned on the table and looked at the work, and finally the Englishman seemed to deflate. He nodded at the outline. "That'll do I think. I think it can work."

He was glad when he left the room. Left them to the rest of business. He wasn't the only one. There were some grumblings about the rail project already, about things. The war though, the basically complete disappearance of German and Belgium market presence, and then by 1915 Britain devouring their own production and voracious for more was only part of it.

In the eighteen nineties Vickers had come into Russia bringing the very latest in oil technology. Drilling sites like Baku proved lucrative in the short term, and very productive. Then the fighting over capital and efficiency had started. The French who'd long seen it as their remit to be chief capital source for Russian development and Belgium supporting as well, had started to complain, and complain directly to the Tsar. Then the, russo-japanese war had happened... and well Vickers had been a bit shaken up by the Russian belligerence but also other factors of their business and standing with the public. The Russians had gone from about a third of the oil production to under ten percent before the start of the current war.

The French had wanted the Ukraine as their market area. They were looking for farms, and coal. That wasn't being short sighted. They were looking for coal for its use in steel for the things they needed right now. The British interest in Oil was looking forward. The zones of control had signed off concessions to the US that frankly Wilson probably didn't even want... the Russian government had been in such a mess that they needed the financial reorganization, and the promise of more influx of technology and expertise that simply didn't exist due to historical distrust and concerns over eroding old 'feudal privileges'.

"Should look on the bright side." Dawes observed ruffling through papers. He stopped pulled a printed map grabbed a red pen and circled a few sections of traffic that had come from State... and ultimately Stevens.

... if that was the case... the Russians could be pushed out of China entirely. If there was no Russian leverage, the French pressure was substantively less of a concern. Did that mean there would as a result be no French participation? No. The French would argue that their treaty concessions, real or imagined were still binding, despite the lack of available French capital... and it was the lack of money that would stymie French projects.

Stevens had put out a preliminary report about his mission to Siberia. The port of Vladivostok was not particularly modern, but it was the only one the Russians had really. There was less bellyaching about the Russian gauge size than he'd been anticipating, but the condition of the bridges was atrocious... and that was a limiter on speed... and not the only one. The Trans-Siberian was too long... it didn't have natural intersect points with large towns. It didn't intersect with any major other rail lines... it was a trans continental railroad for the sake of building a railway to the sea...

There was a ruffling of papers. "Outlining the practical solutions the most expedient method of repair is of course the replacement of the decayed, and greatly neglected stretches of track." There was a pause, and some conversation, Some of the 'decay' as it was caused was probably legitimate weathering... some of the problems were that even if you had graded the embankment properly the rains came, floods came, and it washed your work away.

Maintenance hadn't been done on potentially hundreds of miles of track in the last decade... some longer... and an even larger volume of eastern railway had been neglected due to lack of resources during the war. Then, of course the recognition that some of the steel used in the tracks originally simply had been sub par, of poor quality.

Stevens outlined hundreds of miles of track non contiguous that it would simply be prudent to replace them with new American manufactured steel and put down steam driven ties. If that had been a single section of track, even a long section... it would have been perhaps a season's work... but that time expanded because Stevens didn't have a crew under him, he had limited engineers to survey, and he didn't have the material... and because that mess wasn't one section.

The condition of the Trans Siberian thereby forced a reduction of speed. It forced trains travelling along it to not just travel slower, but also stop relatively frequently to clear tracks, as well as to occasionally bridge gaps in the tracks. That was just regular normal delays. He rubbed thumb and forefinger together expunging the dark smudge of graphite from the pencil.

Dawes answered his look. "You know the ask is going to come, don't you?"

"That Percy's," The Foreign Service... hell state too... "scheme is to build some grand coalition to needle everyone to try and leverage the people dragging their heels," And that when everything was said and done credit, and public accolades would be used as political capital to try and sway people with public social fawning for the next thing that needed doing regardless of what they'd really done... that was just how the game, "Stevens is worried," He said changing the subject, as he rested a hand on a circular telegram, "That this kind of work could take until 1923."

Which was conservative an estimate to be sure... the Russian Army had had to build railways for the war... but the British weren't going to want to let Russian troops come off the eastern front to do that kind of thing... which meant an appeal to washington... or maybe Tokyo.

Dawes tapped his temple with the red pen and shook his head then reached over and tapped where he had circled Lake Baikal... or more accurately the fortress of Irkutsk, "They have to hold here. Its just geography, this link has to be held. That means they need a patsy government, someone they can say is Russian, but who will do what London says." and it was what London wanted, Kerensky had been France's poodle as the joke had started going around.

Then there was to be Japan's interest, as history would ultimately hold out... but such things were years in the future, and for now they were concerned about rolling stock, and the rails they moved upon, and the payment for such works... rather than the larger political picture. Green Ukraine as that patsy would be known would not come into recognition by England and her Japanese allies for a few more months... and even that was nothing compared to later political theater as the British and Japanese would hand over arms captured from the Germans, or from their own stocks later still. That was in the future, when there could be no denying that the Russian Civil War was well underway.

"I take your point. That doesn't change that Stevens has a point, he'll need a crew to work those cuts, if he's right about that erosion, those spans."

--
Putting aside the business of international railway ventures there were matters closer to home. The railway was the motive power that kept people and goods moving. To that end four separate tracks pushed westward from Xian's westernmost station. This was a contrast to the two track line expansion work to Zhengzhou, which would still maintain a single line as it ran north into Western Zhili, and then into the east of the province.

It would not, and never intended as an anti invasion measure. It was a non competition measure. Going directly west from Zhengzhou would put them into competition before the present day with Belgium... so they had never built a line to the coast except the short route from Peking to Tietsin, any traffic to Weihaiwei or to reach Tsingtao had to run on existing British or German lines which meant transfers.

As they pivoted west there was less and less industrial competition, but there were still decent sized cities that there were worth building routes to, and decent sized towns that had enough of a population base to pass through. It would be the railway which linked the western circuits. The four tracks went out to Qinghai, to the big lake, and then diverged to individual stations. One went down to Lhasa, but the others went into the provinces of... the 'western commanderies' western trio, whatever one wanted to call the area as one went through the Gansu corridor, that no longer had a governor. Zhang Guangjian was the last sitting governor... but his position was in part a hold over of how things had been when Yuan Shikai had been alive.

The created something of an institutional matter. Ma Anliang had no clear successor right now, and the best they could hope for would be the old man kept chugging along, but that only was delaying the inevitable political fracas of either no successor or the fighting of a successor being chosen and some other part of the clique's disagreement with them.

"We have to establish colleges along the A&M model." The accepted idea from 1912, and not unique to them, other outfits had set up colleges. There was the farming college in Zhengzhou that had nothing to do with them.

"Yeah, and we still have the same problem as when you brought it up last year." Cole declared interrupting JP before he could start up. "Running the ones we have now, is one thing, we do not have the manpower to put one in Lhasa, or Qinghai, or parts west."

Accepting that the resistance to the motion had weakened since last year, the limitation did stand. The protests of government work had largely evaporated over the last thirteen months. "You can take it to the floor." Allen agreed, "But practically speaking we don't have the teachers." He doubted John Paul had the votes already... but he could probably get them. Most likely what would happen is the cadre would then agree that construction of institutions should be done. Staffing though would be trickier.

From the way Powell was tapping his foot he was about to start hearing how they had a moral obligation to stamp out illiteracy, which certainly he found no fault with, but it didn't "Teachers don't grow on trees." Cullen grunted, "And to further you have to count that there aren't the institutions to get people from a to b to c. A college can teach adults, yes, and that will help, but elementary schools are functionally nonexistent, as are junior high and high schools." and logistically it had been one thing to construct schools of childhood education in Xian for a ten year program or a twelve year education. It was one thing in western Zhili where there were large cities that already had factories who's parents were employed in mechanical manufacturing in an industrial world.

You could say that was true for Taiyuan, but Urumqi, or Hsining, or Lhasa not so much... but Sinkiang in the far west had significant untapped resources... and Bill was currently absent because he suspected that included oil, but even if they didn't the province already dug coal. Coal which would fuel steel.

"Do we need to expand production though?"

Japan might buy what they could make, but for how long was the question. It was true Wilson had vented some of the pressure in the market, by capping prices... if for all the wrong justifications to do so... the war couldn't last forever, and was opening another steel mill the right move? Probably not... there was going to be a glut once Europe stopped being at war... there were so many producers ... they could use the coal though.

... and the capital to that steel mill might be better suited for some other metal working good instead... there would be other goods to make after the war... things that they'd need locally.
--
Notes: This is going up early, and Saturday should see the conclusion of November 1917

With the Bolshevik seizure of power it is as good of time as any to talk about timeline divergence, and on a global scale this timeline largely remains fairly similar to the real life in broad strokes, particularly in terms of western Europe. Now the Soviet Union will form in a few years, Lenin will die due to complications of getting shot in a couple month and his pre existing medical conditions, but for the most part the twenties and thirties in Europe and in the european periphery will go along.

There are all sorts of conflicts that take place after November 1918 regardless of whats going on in the western capitals. So WW2 will largely happen in Europe disconnected from events in Asia. It will really only be when the Cold War begins in this timeline that there will be significant divergences in the global historical timeline.

Like I said with PMs, Thatcher may still end up as PM due to the way the stability of British political institutions are, not exactly the same thing, but Nixon is also sort of a given though thats more because he was Ike's VP, and if WW2 happens more or less as normal Ike as president is very probable response to succeed Truman. After though, Jimmy Carter was anomaly of US presidents his elect was one things where specific confluence of social pressures got him elected, and then electorate forgot about why they elected him, and frankly even without the shenanigans he probably wouldn't have been reelected. So yeah really Nixon is the last president thats its likely will share with OTL.

The establishment of the Fifth Republic (France) has its roots in the first world war, thats not a typo, France's political problems are at least that old, and the presidential republic didn't fix all of the problem late 19th​ century france had that the first world war blew wide open. If the second world war goes largely to OTL DeGaulle is a possibl, and if so Pompidou is a pretty strong maybe... but if Degaulle is not a given, then Pompidou, who was PM for deGaulle isn't. Thats going to be important post ww2, but especially after major divergence in the timeline in the sixties and seventies, because as a timeline global oil demand is going to be higher just as one example.

Anyway, just something that needed to be touched on, especially because one of the divergence points here are the changes in Central Asia hinted at here, but those do not readily effect Western Europe. Western Europe, the Franco-Entente, are involved but it doesn't effect their core areas so the consequences don't actually play a role until much later. (There will be knock on effects, but they won't have effects on Europe for decades after 1918)

I also want to make clear that the use of 'the Ukraine' is to reflect period usage standards.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1917
[Conclusion]
Baxian was the name of a county in the area under Chunking and because it was an important river port that meant it was of British beyond just Chunking being in the 'British sphere'. The warning of movement in the area wasn't a surprise. Chunking had quieted down a bit after the shelling incident but mostly as they had adopted a wait and see approach to events in the north.

Powell stepped and shut the door and moved to sit down. "Phillip, what do you want?"

He stopped and shut the door, then sat down. "I need an advance out of the operating budget. I know its the end of the year, and I know there is a month left."

He glanced down at the telegraph card, and slid the Szechwan map over it. "What do you need it for?"

"There's been an earthquake in Guatemala. Its made the paper." He added a bit unnecessarily as if would question that such a thing had happened.

"It has." He agreed.

Even if it hadn't came out that the General Staff hadn't been actively monitoring cable traffic coming both ways, which of course Powell should have known, but that those intercepts included all outgoing traffic including those by cadre members... they still would have ended up in a row. "You've already received guarantees from Edenborn. The operating budget can advance you a million dollars." He held up a hand, "No, you listen Phillip, I will back you on this." But he'd better make good on this whole plan, "Coffee, the railroad, electrical generation. The president there has a deal with united fruit that they'll auction off railway concession. Get it done. Buy off anything German investors lost when the country entered the war on the US behalf."

"Churches, hospitals, schools?"

"The latter two sure." He shrugged, "Don't get too far ahead of yourself. Focus on the plan, but make sure if you do outreach its effective. Layout an area then make sure that area gets done." He paused, "I'll cover for you, don't ask me for another advance though, its an advance, and its coming out of this years earnings, so there will be questions, so you can expect Dawes will want concessions."

"I can deal with the old man." Phillip promised straightening.

He wasn't going to argue, now wasn't the time. If Phillip did view this as now the time to jump in with capital, "When does the boat leave?"

He didn't exactly answer the question, "I'm on the next ship to the Philippines, then back to San Francisco."

"It'll be arranged when your stateside." He'd make the calls.

"Thanks Al."

"Telephone, telegraph."

"I got it." The door closed. He was for the stairs and fast from the sound of his boots as if the boat would leave without.

Allen pulled the copy of the telegraph. Not the artilleryman's cable to and Edenborn's response, but Edenborn's cable to him this morning. The cable he hadn't mentioned as coming in. The cable that if Powell had been thinking straight might have figured out existed... or might have stumbled upon by happenstance.

It didn't matter. Bill stuck his head in. "Where the devil is he off to so damn fast?"

"To break ground in middle america." Allen shrugged, "I expect Dawes just solidified his place as colonel general of our artillery."

"Are we actually going to bring that back?" He shrugged, the truth was they hadn't thought that far. Black Jack was the first Full General in US service in nearly thirty years. "He skips lieutenant this time. " Bill's observation referred to the three star rank of the service, and that Black Jack had in 1907 skipped from his regular army rank of Captain to brigadier general skipping the traditional colonelcy period or perpetual major status.

Allen didn't mention that the whole business in Manchuria and the Russo-Japanese war was why, and why he'd left the service as a major. "Regardless I doubt Phil will be back to us anytime soon. Any objection to me sending the rest of the 105s down to shore up Cole and Shang?"

The texan shrugged. "Do it."

It was done. He was glad the British had made payment for manganese ore and steel needs. Otherwise the money would have been harder to justify... of course there were other reasons for that.

They jokingly called the middle america venture the filibusters. The eventual precursor to the state that would emerge later would be a largely dead on arrival suggestion of a federation of central america. That idea though would worm its way into the Middle America Groups head and while El Salvador declined to participate in it. Three countries eventually ended up becoming one... largely made possible by a large trunk and branch railway, a lot of dynamite, and this thing called radio certainly would help.

... but that was someone else's story.
--
He made a point of not speaking to Phillip while he waited in Tietsin for the ship that would carry him to the Philippines. "This is good though." The elder Forrest remarked smoothing his smoking jacket, and that it concealed the forty five caliber government work. "Don't complain, its not like he's taking ten thousand dollars out of your pocket." He reached over to the glass. "Black Jack has Daniel on staff duty."

"I'm aware."

"He tell you that or did you ask him?"

"He told me," In between cursing about being himself stuck away from the front proper, but he assumed his father knew that, and that he didn't need to say that, "What do you make of Mackinder?"

"Were you expecting him to be another of our Minister Reinsch?" He put the glass down without drinking from it. "No, I'm not worried about him." He shrugged, which was non verbal for then what are you worried about. The civil affairs colonel cocked his eyebrow at the gesture, "What do you think I'm worried about?"

"Trotsky?"

"Well that little bastard isn't making things easy, he's got friends, but really its the president, and being an easily duped sort." Trotsky's publication that had gone out had heavily borrowed from Wilson's own talking points in lampooning European secret diplomacy. He then gone a step further on that measure by then sending letters to all the ambassadors suggesting, reiterating a peace without annexations, a white peace without indemnities... or the same damned thing Wilson had put forward this time last year. "We need to be pragmatic about this. Can the British transport troops through Siberia, or into central asia?"

Could they use the rails yes, "Both. I've seen Stevens reports." But it would be slow but the railway work could be done. It wouldn't be the overall work, but Vladivostok to Irkutsk was certainly feasible. "But the British wanted the caucuses," and the French had received Ukraine as a sphere of influence in Russian market space, "I can tell you projecting there from this side isn't feasible. Its too slow."

"The British have a navy for that, or so they claim, I suspect its this balkans thrust they've been talking about, but whatever the case our concern is Siberia. The British wish to secure with their Russian allies," Which was a hilarious thought in itself, "a foothold by which to keep the Russians in the war regardless of what the Kaiser's lackey thinks or attempts."

Banging on rhetoric was all well and good, but that was a much more complicated thing, than simply broad sweeping speeches. "So we're back to the matter of mister Mackinder then?" Officially the parliamentarian had been given some fancy title and the post of commissioner, but he was not a member of Lloyd George's war cabinet, neither was John Jordan for that matter. The welshman's war cabinet was a handful of men that included men like Jan Smuts as Cullen had noted. "I assume that the British want more than just the railway link."

"There is at present a collection of pro British factions assembled. They have apparently convinced and managed to smuggle some generals and nobles out." Lansing was preparing to make sure Terauchi was against the Bolsheviks. A further expansion of secret protocols of his and Ishii's understandings of the other's position, and would in combination with the British support for the Czechoslovak legion, and the British support for the whites combine with Manchurian, and northern Chinese soldiers and labors... that was to say contributions both by Zhang Tsolin and Duan Qirui to be the building blocks of intervention in Siberia as 1917 drew to its close...

... the future was that looking back historians would question whether or not if the British had been more supportive of the Kornilov coup against Kerensky if the Royal Navy had been more present in Petrograd's harbors then perhaps could something more have been done to stop the red terrors... but that was the prerogative of historians and people of the future to ask what ifs. Lloyd George had decided he needed to do something, and it very much was to become a matter of British pride to intervene in the war.

Almost half a million chinese laborers would serve in Russia over the course the first world war, and more than a hundred thousand troops drawn from more than a dozen different 'warlords' Puppet states would be established, international support extended and the game would be played.

The older Forrest shook his head. "There is something else."

"What?"

"Lansing is going to ask Terauchi about standing with us against the Bolshevik, not going to lie the Secretary is a bit embarrassed over the Russian business." An embarrassed Lansing was a dangerous Lansing, "You have plans to meet up with Yamagata's boy, this trip to Taiwan, Akashi has going on."

The eavesdropping on phone calls wasn't a surprise. It was annoying but he wasn't surprised. "The railway situation is a problem. I'm not going to Vladivostok, I'm not putting men up there. I need somebody who can do the job."

"Yeah?" There was an amused skepticism, "Well whatever thats good, getting Japan involved. I've seen Steven's handwringing of a report, but the Virginian is too likely to take it at face value and the Corp of Engineers is probably too busy with France. What do the British know?"

"As of yet, nothing." It wasn't finalized yet hell he had made all of five phone calls this past week, the conversation about Phil leaving for latin america had put him off guard for questions... the British contract had provisions for subcontractors, and for expanding jobs... though not exactly what he'd had in mind... Steven's report was alarming.

"Fine, the truth is Stevens seems to have lost his nerve he's fretting over the Bolshevik situation and the line needs to be done rather than just be written off. Lansing and the British are going to approach Japan about what we collectively can do... and we're not going to tell the French. We're not going to tell Reinsch, and we're not telling John Jordan either."

... what the hell? "What happens when they find out?"

"It'll be fait accompli." As if that would be that simple, but one thing at a time.
--


Notes: There is a reason that El Salvador doesn't join the middle america project is because by this time, that it occurs, or even at this (segment) in the timeline El Salvador already has a strong oligarchic and centralized influence bloc. Yes, it is US aligned (or more accurately in 1917 Anglosphere aligned, it has strong ties to England despite not declaring war against Germany), and does become a defacto military dictatorship, and is anti communist but unlike the other three El Salavador has during this period has a relatively strong central government and as a result no regime change, no banana wars. The great families have a vested interest in not having their power diluted by such a federal government.

The subsequent government has no interest forcing it in. They're both anti-communist, and they're both aligned with other US interests among other factors. So thats why El Salvador declines to participate. The middle america thing is really more of post Russian civil war / late inter war period matter until the cold war era.

And I should mention, because its a useful detail. On the 15th​ of November 1917 Duan resigned from being PM again, he was back in the job effectively 3 months later. He basically goes, "Fine" then in December as will be mentioned takes up in the newly formed War Participation Office... and then gets asked to be prime minister again in the following year. As will be noted in the opening of December, and over the course Duan still wields significant influence in the Beiyang establishment.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Naval lore across the timelines​

--
Notes: I'm going to go ahead and touch on this here... and frankly I could discourse this topic on, with Saturday's update. Naval matters across different timelines I'm going to start with the easy one first:

Freiherr von Zemo saves the Reich... Zemo hates the navy, mostly because he hates the admiralty but also for purely political measures internal and external. Imperial Germany's naval ambitions are curtailed in this timeline, and the only reason that the navy isn't completely abolished as a service is the success of this timeline's version of Albion other wise by 1918 Zemo's army faction of politics would probably try and dissolve the navy.

Now part of that is economics; the Naval expansion pre war prevented the army from having the forces on hand to execute the Schlieffen Moltke plan is the espoused reason, but it goes beyond. Naval machinery is expensive. The navy failed to win a decisive victory at Jutland (again propaganda in this timeline has the outright accusing the Navy of incompetence for failing to act during Beaty's cowardice, objectively thats not the Navy's fault, but the Army doesn't care, and that's also propaganda aimed at the British as well).

Post World War the peace treaty is designed to kickstart an EU style economic union early, or more accurately restore the pre war economic integration, and expand that to the independent countries in the east that have sloughed off the crippled russian empire (Lenin has an unfortunate run in with von Kroenen, and Trotsky stays in New York rather than return to Europe) no Red Revolution, a defeated france means no Kerensky. .

So in Naval terms in this timeline the German Peace Treaty immediately leans into something to the Washington Naval Treaty of X number tonnage here based on how many oceans you border (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian) as part of the peace treaty process, with lesser tonnage allocated by Sea (north sea, baltic, sea of Japan) and this is specifically realpolitik designed to keep Germany out of a pacific war down the road while banking on that England, is not on good terms with France, and that Japan's Young Officers might still do something stupid down the road thus forcing England and the US into a war. SO in short the German Navy is small and conservative.

--
Moving on

1632. Ordinarily I would say that in such a scenario realistically the idea of a US Navy and of sweeping naval such is high fantasy, its a little more fathomable in ISOT, but with grantville its extremely fanciful. Again naval scope of things relatively conservative, part of this is both the limit of industrial ability (this will be touched on down below) but also the conditions and geography of the Baltic.

Now canonically in 1632 Grantville manages to serious magik some ships together, and that will sort of happen in the form of iron clads initially, and eventually much as in Rising Thunder (what will be touched on next) is that these are an emphasis on propulsion and seaworthiness rather than fire power. Here, there will be seaplane tenders , not true aircraft tenders but spotting planes for artillery for the most part though it is not feasible to in the time frame involved to construct a nominally swedish navy to do what could be done in Rising Thunder, or in Sharpe's Patron which is the other iron clad centric. All three at least initially rely on coal, but rely on different gun arrangements.

Here the geo strategic goal is of course sealing the baltic and then later projecting out to the opposite side of the peninsula to protect the rest of the 'neo Kalmar Union'. The goal is less about trade and maritime commerce than it is in the following two stories due to other factors in the timeframe.

--
Rising Thunder

Ok so Rising Thunder takes place in a post Confederate Victory Timeline based off Grand Tactician and like the actual US Civil War leaves the US with two situations. The First Napoleon III in Mexico, the second is that the civil war has resulted in the US (and I'm using US as a shorthand rather than typing America) with a massive number of hulls.

The immediate geo strategic goal of the US here is reimplementation of the Monroe doctrine, and ideally expulsion of both France, and Spain from the new world as a long term goal. This means staying on with England. The US at this point in 1864 still needs British support as a counterweight it doesn't have the available resources to kick both spain and france out at the same time. So the strategic plan is to either convince spain to sell and get out of the new world (this was tried historically, Spain refused) and alternatively to support fillibusters and rebels to knock Spanish influence out by military force.

Again this timeline is post civil war a more nationalist and less isolationist US emerges, this means eventually more and further naval activity. In both the pacific and also in Africa, both North Africa (i.e. Morocco) as well on the western coast (i.e. Liberia). It also means a much more belligerent France, both during Napoleon III's reign, and after with regard to the revisionists. That has knock on effects on the rest of europe. A more expansionist US and a Mahan with a greater support from the Congress means a minimum of three fleets, a home waters fleet, an atlantic fleet and a pacific fleet, and that likely means an earlier canal getting built.

This means from a naval technology standpoint iron clads as a starting point but then something akin Texas, but with a greater support for building protected cruisers for commerce protection, per Mahan. Again coal power, domestic steel production eventually something along the lines of USS South Carolina as the successor to these ships with oil superseding coal from at first oil fields in Pennslyvania and then Texas, and California... and then US Mexico so a second round of naval build up in the 1890s to replace coal ships.
--
Sharpe's Patron
In the short term no major changes, its only post Trafalgar that in this story there is a major shift in naval technology, and the reasoning for this is industrial. England has ready access to coal, India has ready access to coal, and iron, and so on, basically the expansion of industrial processes in the 'first british empire' early in the 1800s, and emphasis here is on patronage of at first the industries of Scotland, and then a greater settlement of Canada and Australia by Napoelonic particularly Irish veterans later.

Basically post Trafalgar there is an expansion of British industry in scotland at first in part for maritime trade, these are initially coal fired steam ships, and then coal fired steel hulled ships to further the blockade. There is an early development of triple expansion ships (basically what defines the First Generation Post Civil War Ships of the CSN of the late 1860s in Rising Thunder) allowing for much greater range with an emphasis on transatlantic trade, and also enforcement of the British blockade of continental Europe. They are primarily armed with high explosive shells, again primarily fighting french commerce raiders, they're capable of running them down against the wind, the ships of 1812 when they first arrive are unstoppable hence Dreadnought being the first warship in this class.

In this timeline it as an emphasis on this on an early exploitation of coal and triple expansion steam boilers the redirects British Interests overseas to free trade agreements with the broader english and commercial world. In this timeline there is no Washington state, the US what will be Canadian border is the Columbia river. The British build an earlier transcontinental railroad in this timeline, and in return the British Empire more authoritively forces spain to go along with the monroe doctrine. This means a loss of Cuba in this timeline much earlier, it means more British bases in the pacific it means a British fleet opens Japan to trade... or more correctly its the BIE "Hey our agreement with your ancestors is still valid right, right?"

This is very much an emphasis on maritime commerce
--
Finally for the largest of the three timeline /stories AoE... Xian does not have a port. Its carrying trade is conducted by anglo-american merchant shipping, and this is how Xian likes this before the second world war. They don't have a major port system its an infrastructure that would cost them money so it is not a priority, when their principal export across the pacific are to the British Empire, and the US. So from 1913-1937 trans pacific trade are carried by British or American ships. There are financial incentives such as avoiding tariffs for this, lobbying, so forth.

However that doesn't necessarily hold for the rest of the timeline. The MAK have ports, they have an interest in maritime commerce and also an incentive to have some naval assets, and they have the ability to through the British and US procure other vessels during this period. This even leads to largely footnote schemes to try and get around treaties the US and UK sign in the interwar period regarding ... well first...

Marine Diesels. Unlike the other timelines diesel power plants and their development are the interwar venture of note, again this is primarily driven by maritime commerce requirements predominantly influence by non military factors. This as a direct result factors into submarines, and how to counter submarines... and that will play a role. The MAK has a small navy by the time world war 2 is declared in Europe. Now from a manpower perspective the MAK has a population the equivalent of Canada? They could theoretically send troops? Right. Well yes, they could so the MAK supplies destroyers, for convoy duty it supplies pilots for fighters for the battle of britain, but its principle contribution to the allies is not an army but rather the preservation of maritime trade.

Again the middle american cadre it trades with, it exports goods to the US and to the UK. To the commonwealth nations. It cannot have a uboat threatening its trade. Xian is too busy fighting a continental land war and thinking about building a road to what will become pakistan to be worrying about the logistics of shipping let the UK figure out how its going to get stuff to Iran, or India we will figure it out once its there, until then... land wars in asia.

But the difference in the interwar is of the two cadres one has a reason to look at naval power, and one doesn't. Now post war both of them have reasons, means and opportunities to do that, but interwar thats a different story. One example of this is when Argentina goes to Great Britain for destroyers in the late twenties, the Cadre isn't in a position to act on that but it keeps it in mind, by this point well the writing is on the wall about which way things are heading.

The less conservative proposal is yeah we need destroyers, but the Australians want to build Cruisers... unfortunately cruisers are treaty limited during this period. The original plan is however to piggy back off the Australians now this is economics, this is political horse trading. Australian industry and the navy wants to build up its domestic shipbuilding in the twenties it has six major yards at this point (IIRC) and they're an important imperial trade partner, and within Imperial politics the Royal Navy wants the RAN to build up rather than eat up British yard space so everyone wins. Or everyone would win if the Australian Government wasn't staffed by idiots who don't want to actually spend money on keeping those shipyards going. So the cruiser idea for that reason, and because of treaty limitations goes no where. The MAK goes well lets build auxillaries and have our people cross over visit the yards in construction, the Australian government is still sort of hte problem.... and the end result of this is that by the thirties the MAK goes to England with the original, hey those destroyers youre building for Argentina they use british ordinance we'd like to place our own order.

HM's 1930s government is thrilled by this. This is money for the British docks that don't require expensive tooling up everything is underway. It is a cost inexpensive option for everyone that keeps yards running. The MAK is able to build up its navy during the interwar period, to where it can participate in the battle of the Atlantic.

WW2 happens. The MAK is the participant, nominally in the European theater. Xian is not. China does not symbolically declare war on Germany, Xian spends the entirety of the war from 37 to 45 fighting Japan, predominantly on land. After 45 China still is not immediately unified, Hurley tries to get the north and south to talk, Truman is president now, there is all the stuff going on with Japan, and what Roosevelt wanted with decolonization... and Hurley makes a mess of things, resigns to get out of it, and leaves Truman in a lurch in a job that he's already not prepared for.

So 'navally' Xian doesn't in the short term have a lot of options, so it follows the MAK model before the war ends. It stands up an office a bueracratic structure for its navy on the basis of supporting an invasion of japan as part of the anglo and american alliance against Japan. That never happens but the plan creates the navy. Xian goes to the Royal Navy and to Vickers and lays out a proposal as a part of the Commonwealth trade notion. Atlee is in power, he authorizes a lot of technology transfers, but he also nationalizes vickers, but the end result is that after China is reunified Xian begins the process of naval build up using at first British style ships, Anglo-Sino joint training crews, and British experts to construct yards in China.

The end result of this is eventually carrier air power. Its the broader adoption of naval airpower that in the timeline as a whole results int a much wider adoption of the F 14 as an option to replace and or complement the Phantom. This is a US aircraft, but the adoption of it in timeline is that it fills an all weather strike aircraft role. It enters service, it has teething issues, changes are made to the airframe, but eventually in this timeline the countries which adopt the Phantom, China, Australia, the UK, Korea, Iran, Indonesia and Japan go on to adopt the F 14 because it a much more widely produced airframe here.

Thats well into the future... and I need to go work on today's actual update.

So basically in summation: Zemo: Nothing major Naval wise in this timeline to comment (Not in the time frame of 1914-1925). Similarly for the main timeline of AoE, the naval side of things aren't that important, if I do go and do the Destroyermen, again that takes place in the forties, and into the fifties Xian doesn't really have a fleet (that also gets into Destroyermen as a timeline/alternate earth).

Rising Thunder is more focused on a period style distinction between ship patterns. There is a ship design break down between your battle fleet and your patrol fleet. Where as in 1632 (Dominion of the Baltic Sea) and in Sharpe's patron the major iron and steel warships are primarily focused on seaworthiness rather than raw firepower, for similar reasons.

 

[Imperator Pax]

December 1917
With the end of the year approaching they were already looking at January... and they were looking at other business as well. Ordinarily Allen would have simply yielded his vote on the agri board, the committee to handle company business on company farms, to the chair. The problem was that 1917 had not been a normal year, and that the end result of grain prices increasing in the states, predominantly as a result of French purchasing up of wheat futures in the Midwest two and even three seasons ahead of time where they could was causing a massive inflation of prices... never mind that with the US in the war and with talks about maritime cooperation of the transport industry there were other problems to export.

The committee had to contend with a number of problems, and as a result the board chair... had dragged them all out here to stump. The war in europe had cut them from purchase of various european manufactured goods, and slowly reduced their ability to source US replacements. The end result was a problem in expansion, they had hit a bottleneck, because their local production of equivalent goods simply up to the task.

There was also the increasing use of tractors they had already had for military purposes, predominantly drawing of supplies, or actually pulling of artillery batteries, which when contending with Bai Lang, or such a threat would have been one thing... but now the farm side was becoming acrimonious.

With wheat futures from the midwest bought up, and at risk of other meddling even if they had gotten a portion of the harvest for 'war time necessities' / 'european needs' they had been looking at other options. So they had among other things brought in Russian grain stocks that grew well in the steppe country and were planted in September. It wasn't new, Carleton and the university in Kansas had been writing about Mennonites growing the crops for two decades ... and singing the praises there in, but it was a change over for them because it meant bringing more land into cultivation...

... and that had threatened to start a whole 'nother fight over matters with the fledgling A&M colleges over rotating students through the fields, never mind the fight over steam tractors, and grain combines.

In the particular case here it didn't help that they were in a field north of the river that hadn't been put into service until after Yuan Shikai had passed away. It abutted part of the Great Western Line that ran out to the big lake.

What would the Qing have said? Well about the farms not much... but they would have never considered growing wheat of any sort this far out back then. It just wouldn't have been worth it. Bringing new farmland under cultivation that met with Qing approval, but it wasn't especially economically productive. The company farms had been to stock company commissaries and cafeterias not actually to go to market... either local public ones, or the international one.

There was a huff beside him, "There this, there's the peanuts, there is the corn... and still got the argument about tractors." That was just scratching the surface. For the first time in years the matter of agriculture was a priority rather than just a line item, or a box to be checked...

"Carleton is already getting head hunted by United, otherwise it'd probably be worth it to bring him out... Kansas is more like here than Georgia would be." Another cadre member added

"Thats a problem with the draft," A third.

Conscription... it was going to fuck with the economy. Pulling men out of the work place by lots would disrupt production... but it had been two generations since the last time the states had had to worry about that. It had been a volunteer force that had ridden out to fight Spain.
--
The dominos down south had started to fall quickly as the temperatures dipped and the new year approached. In Hupeh two county level commanders in the province had declared their 'independence' which ordinarily might have been ignored save that they had marched east, further into the interior of the province, and towards Hankow's rail juncture. It threatened to cut the Beiyang supply lines as they moved increasingly southwards.

Duan, who had resigned two weeks ago in disgust of the complete mess of political bickering effecting the beiyang command, was currently moving into his new office to take up his new position as head of the war participation office. Whatever that was supposed to be about. Feng was apparently left wondering why this new office entitled Duan to a bunch of money to raise entirely new troops and provision of weapons. To say that the President of the Republic was upset with the now former prime minister was an understatement.

... in reply certain people had basically come out to say Feng just wanted to give up on keeping the country together and that there should be a north China and a south china. This was from cherrypicking some of Feng's comments and was being phrased in... unfortunate historical comparative.

The problem for opponents of Feng, both southern parliamentarians and Duan, was that Feng's position as president remained conciliatory, but also that he was recognizing of fairly expansive provincial authority, which meant the provinces liked him. That was in short as long as the provinces largely policed themselves he didn't see it as his business. For the gentry Feng's peace position was eminently reasonable... but there was probably some truth to the claim that it had the potential to cut the country in half. "When's the conference?" He asked putting the newspaper aside from where he'd been scanning the columns.

"Tomorrow." Or it opened tomorrow, and that short notice was possible only because the invitations made it clear that the meeting would be in Tietsin. The current RSVP counted ten provinces attending. Zhang, and Yan both planning to send representatives.

Two years ago he might have only considered it a curiosity. Allen would not in 1915 considered this to be anything more than a beiyang curiosity... but then two years the exact scenario they were in now would have been near to unthinkable.

Sinkiang was about two million people but the truth was just their crescent of Western Zhili, including Zhengzhou, was more heads than that... he knew that without even the census... and with good reason Shensi, and Shansi weren't small. The population that they were 'representative' of was only small relative to the comparison with medium sized provinces like Anwei. Truly bloated provinces like their raucous neighbor Szechwan were another story entirely.

Provinces like Szechwan, like Shantung... Hupeh, Honan, and kuantung were all an estimated twenty five million human beings or more. Szechwan was far and away the outlier being nearly sixty million people. It was a special kind of weight, those numbers, that was a lot of rice. It should have been reassuring the gentry of those provinces were as a result of their great size and near impotence of local magistrates now were more concerned with their own local counties. It wasn't nearly enough of a reassurance. In part because these people who weren't officials had the means to organize small militias of their own and had a tendency to act in a hard to predict way.

This wasn't some collection of Qingyi, low level juren who didn't really have day jobs writing publicly about some complaint they had with some policy. These were men who actually had real power in the sense of the influence to get things done in their local areas in a time where counties were with alarming concern declaring their independence from provincial governments.

Allen twirled the ballpoint pen. It had been a novelty originally, but in the Philippines the pen had proven useful in writing notes, and as a result it and small seaman's logs had become standard practice. Right now he was just rubbing a blue line across his thumb. "What do we expect?"

There were looks around. "Wang is worried they'll cut his lines of supply, that may make his block switch to supporting, or it might convince that they need to step back and rethink this whole thing." There had been a lot of talk in the Peking papers about cutting melons.

It had officially become written policy that new divisions should be stood up using the Infantry Regiment of that number as its core unit. This of course did not prognosticate the notion that they would establish other sorts of Divisions. The thinking in 1917 was much as it had been in the past there were not going to be cavalry divisions, and the idea of 'artillery divisions' seemed a bit obnoxious. It was apart of a series of reforms and codifications laid down.

Generals should be placed provost into their commands that was to say that given their current situation and lack of frankly anyone even themselves being suited to hold a full time major general's position. Temporary command would have to suffice for the time being, while training from the bottom up continued and was carried out by a uniform curriculum. The staff college could only do so much work, so it was expected to take time. That Black Jack had only been promoted to Major General by the United States the year previous, and had just been promoted two grades to full General two months earlier may well have had something to do with it but it wasn't to be mentioned aloud.

The idea though that command should b e a temporary appointment was further buttressed by the idea that the three divisions planned to be active should be supported by a ready reserve. Yan Xishan had used the States' national guard as an example on more than one occasion in conversations as they carried on about greater integration.

How much a year's time had made, where they could talk about ground up changes. Those changes needed to be more than just the army. "I'll go to Tietsin tomorrow, Bertie is already there, anyone else taking the train?" He asked looking around. A couple of men folded their own newspapers. Most had to decline. He'd send a circular out to the cadre at large to find out if anyone else was planning to go, and they'd go from there. "Alright, then there are a few other things then before we call it quits for today."

Firstly was that though Zhang held the title of Dujun he didn't have control of all the militaries of the province. He didn't even control all the Beiyang commands in Gansu. Ma Hongkui's independent brigade went over the border as they liked, and that wasn't a unique arrangement. It created a web of allied, but independent military commanders in Gansu that was a headache. He never really knew for sure if Hongkui was doing more trouble than good.

"If the 1920 date is to be taken seriously." Griswold remarked, "Then we have two years to get as much ground work done as we can. That means a division of labor, while still recognizing our other commitments." that would mean forming new working committees, and planning. They had talked about banks... and that had lead to talks about the matter of equity and stock markets, but the latter had turned into not wanting to end up in a situation like the Shanghai exchange, which was basically a members only establishment, and also that a stock market wasn't necessarily ... well necessary. Public equity needed to be developed. They couldn't just keep retasking shop floor managers like they had been doing.

"I'll start drafting organization," Or rather already had, "but any lines on a map will need surveys, and that may require other infrastructure. Outside of the firms, the army ties up a lot of our technical expertise. Management is similar. I know that JP will just suggest schools, and yes that's true, we need institutions of learning, but how do we staff them... there needs to be an institution for our officers, NCOs to deal with interacting industrial side management." Especially if two thirds of the army was going to be in the reserves. The A&Ms would need to expand, they would need one in each province eventually, and probably more than one as primary and secondary education continued... but the army already had an educated base to it, and people got out and would need an education to be other than soldiers.

More importantly the eventual impact of reforms from the bottom, of town county and province would eventually lead to the issuance of a paper currency... what a decade later would refer to as the North Chinese Dollar... never mind that Manchuria was by that point had been issuing its own currency for years. Zhang Tsolin had begun minting his own currency at, or even before, the start of the decade and had demonstrated its own robustness achieving rough parity with the Japanese Yen. Thus some confusion existed abroad about which was the North Chinese Dollar by that time frame.

Xian's provincial currency would supersede the customs dollar. Xian's system of public administration prioritized common defense, then legal arbitration and property rights, and then the provision of public goods as its primary administrative priorities. This had it origins in the necessity of fending off bandits, but also the gradual creation of a universal public education system, and of course the provincial level medical board in response to the grip pandemic.

--
Notes: This is in the long term a fairly important institutional development, obviously clearly sets up on paper for the national guard being a thing. It bears worth restating again that Xian in this period makes everyone enlisting go through infantry school. The successor to that policy is that standardized training then divides into Infantry basic is followed by specialized training at actual schools as opposed to them shipping you to your unit for on the job training. So in the future Artillery is the first other basic that gets stood up. Then the artillery will have control of tanks when those become the hot new thing, because the goal is artillery support infantry by lobbing high explosive at the other guy. [And then later becomes more cavalry esque get in the back end of the enemy's supply set their stuff on fire, but its more mobile direct artillery fires, I digress that's a ways in the future. This goes to Machine guns were originally an artillery branch weapon.]

Anyway this is the basis for the 1/3 active 2/3 Guard component Xian practices during the twenties and early thirties. [Obviously mobilization during wartime that changes, war time mobilization is 50 something infantry divisions in 41, where a standard Type A Infantry Division is 3 Regiments and 3 Battalions of Artillery and so on. Thats ww2 on the north china plain, and there are a lot of people involved, and thats fifteen years further still in the timeline from the Northern expedition.]


Out of universe: Up front the reason that Xian uses the Regiment to Division model at the start of this segment... is predominantly to save me a fucking headache in the ww2 section. So what that means is 1st​ Regiment is the core of 1st​ Division? Simple yeah. That makes sense right? Well in the US in ww2 the 45th​ infantry division is the 157th​ IR, 179th​, and180th​ regiments. I'm going to have to deal with that to a lesser extent yes, but as far as cadre stand up for those divisions this is a easy cheat for writing alternate history. [Now in universe, this has a degree of historical precedence... before world war 1 makes modern armies explosively large, but the principle is out of universe for my own book keeping.]

And speaking of institutional development the cadre as a corporate institution benefits from its pre Qing collapse origins in both temporal advantage, and that it takes place during a time the qing are trying to both industrialize (they wanted working railways) and also to figure out a corporate legal tradition (they never quite got that far) but also patronage, The cadre's formation, its corporate incorpation as functioning entity takes place in Zhili during Yuan Shikai tenure as governor of the province as part of his local modernization inviting foreign investment, such that the cadre benefits as the Beiyang clique advances and the cadre expands until we get to this point a decade down the road where corporation interests are turning having to take on governmental ones in the province of Shensi. [Part of that is the change in power, Duan is in a position where he wants stability and needs to refill the treasury so he delegates and hands off authority in places he doesn't consider a threat to central china, or aren't important to his government. Feng as president similarly doesn't consider the south worth fighting for, its a case of 'if the western provinces are still paying taxes into the system thats great who cares what their provincial governments are doing.'] Its a continuation of the devolution of federal power to the provinces that dates back really to the Ming dynasty, before the Qing.

Speaking of world war 2 though not on the division mobilization:

This goes to the US UK side of things:

Spoiler

In 1944 Xian in reply to Operation Ichigo in the south launches an airborne assault against Taiwan, it lands first secures Taipei by sweeping the unprepared garrison (who are in defensive air shelters thinking this is a USAAF or USN attack) and constructs air fields to land reinforces from there, by the time Nazi Germany surrenders in spring of 45, Xian has had taiwan promulgate a provincial constitution without recrimination and admitted them to the northern government.

The knock on effect to this, or a knock on effect of this is first, the Royal Navy and USN can now dock at Taiwan, heavy four engine bombers can land on Taiwan, refuel and rearm. The long term effect is that it contributes further to when Atchkinson as SoS draws up the US position for Asia, and of course as historically Hurley has left the state department in a real bind especially with his sudden resignation.

By 1948 once the civil war resumes it sets the stage for Chinese reunification in full, the KMT had burned enough bridges with Truman that he had cut support off IRL by that point, and US support didn't resume until 51, and of course Korea here is very different. The Korean Communist party does exist, it does participate against Japan, but its also not on good terms with anyone. There is not Soviet land border, and as a result Kim doesn't have the support necessary to actually push down into the peninsula (he was actually operating more in Manchuria, which was part of the reason him and Mao beefed historically).

But that is Thirty years in the future from where we are in the timeline at present.

 

[Imperator Pax]

December 1917
The market's air was remarkable, in both how calm things were and how how unnerving that was given how very relaxed everyone was taking this whole conference thing.

On the other hand... the Dujun had done something like this before, and the year before that too not that he thought about it. The truth was that Dujun had at the end of the conference in the spring voted for war against Germany. It had been the parliament that had voted no, it had been the southern dominated parliament and the KMT aligned Members of the Parliament elected in 1912 who had voted no, and then called for Duan resignation, and then in the face of everything turning upside down invited the pony tail general to Peking where he had asked the parliament to kindly if they would get the hell out of town.

An air of normalcy existed as people went about their business. "What about the grip?" The initial cases after the flood season had been thought to have been plague due to discoloration of the lymph nodes under the armpits... and well given the flooding here the diagnosis had been questioned.

"Its worse in Canton from what we're told, not so bad, but yeah its definitely back," Bert shrugged in resignation, "The doctor thinks we can stop it from spreading if we implement strict quarantine, and,"

"And?"

"And if we wear masks."

That was the traditional protection against plague... someone had said the Buddhists had been doing it for two thousand years, but more than anything he thought of the crowheaded doctor's masks of Italy's golden age. Wood had basically beaten the idea of sanitation into them back when, he supposed those lessons must have stuck pretty well, "Do it then. I'll make sure you have the space to raise isolation wards, and print posters." He was glad it wasn't the plague though. "I want you to talk to Yan's doctor friend make sure we're all on the same page, and coordinate. None of this leave it to the next guy over." Too many people wanted to let states do all their same damn thing, to hell with that.

"Yan's here for the conference, isn't he?"

"He is, I'll mention it to him," Yan Xishan had his own experts, people he'd befriended to try and make his home province better he had taken the time to make friends more broadly with the red cross, who while otherwise fine fellows had been known to occasionally brindle at military discipline and medical procedure.

People getting in among the sick. Letting sick people wander around tended to spread disease. He reiterated that he would take time to speak to Yan about coordination, and endeavor to make sure Yan in turn spoke to his medical people, and also the Red Cross in Shansi.

"That isn't the only thing."

He looked sideways, "It never is, what's the matter?" There was a ruffling of papers. Allen was surprised at the list of professors from Peking University, more specifically it was a pledge that their involvement in some newspaper wouldn't be political... "I've been told this is the new thing." He replied referring to the 'solemn vow', he scoffed, "They're doing it in the states, England and France have done it.

'For the war effort' it was a way to muzzle journalists so that they didn't write things that the government wouldn't like. "That's the problem John. It doesn't matter what we're doing, Reinsch thinks it too much."

Allen rolled his eyes and leaned back. Then he looked back down at the names, "Oh let me guess he already knows every body on this list who has promised to not be political?" Bertie shrugged and confessed to not knowing but that he wouldn't have been surprised if that was the case. Allen really had to wonder if Reinsch believed this was truly the best use of the American Minister's time. Par for the course for Reinsch, "He won't listen, you think it'll cause a scandal?"

There was a pause between them. If there hadn't been a war on. If China hadn't entered the war against Austria Hungary then Reinsch would have had support from the French side of the diplomatic body. He paused, "This is that Shanghai paper, comes out of the French quarter...." He paused searching for a name, "Chen Duxiu?"

"They were in Shanghai," came the correction, "with this lot joining him, Chen moved the printing up here. Its been a busy year in Peking, and here... and Zhang Xun really lit a fire under their writing." Which was probably the impetus for this public profession of political neutrality. Neither premier nor president probably wanted them to take sides.

It was not a question of did they have common ground it was the uncertainty of where there would be disagreements, and what the press might print. It occurred to him that before the European war, before the big boom in business he'd have been more aware of the events, the ongoing shifts and changes in staff and big influential papers of Peking, or even Shanghai...

Bert tried to assure him that the paper only had a circulation of 'about ten thousand' but it didn't change that it was recognition that things had changed.

--
It was not lost on Allen that Baoding housed the military academy that Duan had graduated from before he'd gone off to study in Japan. Admittedly it didn't seem to matter. There were no shortage of graduates from the school, and there wasn't the same alma mater inclination of loyalty ... and certainly there were enough Baoding graduates on the wrong side of the fence.

He put the folder on the table. Trasncribed copies of Japanese documents compiled by the kempentai, Army Military Police, on students at the Japanese Staff college handed over during the Bai Lang years. The hui corporal closed the safe back, but didn't lock it, but insured the archive wasn't blocking them from moving around. The gendarmes officer took the copy from the vault and walked over to the typewriter in the office, and racked it.

Clack clack clack went the machine as he hit the keys

He glanced to other 'general' ranked officers'. "He might not try it."

"We were lucky this summer. Luck doesn't always hold."

Dawes grunted. "Bigger question is who's working with whom." Szechwan had broken up into collections of county level fiefdoms, and even taking Hui brigades from Gansu, and the Ma clique coming down wasn't able to effectively unify the province, which was a double edged sword in itself. "And whos actually guomindang."

There were days he considered just taking a boat to Japan and sitting down with Sun in a tokyo hotel restaurant and just asking him that question... but Sun would probably just say they all were... it wouldn't do them any good... no any trip to Japan would be better off aimed at visiting Akashi... maybe even taking time to talk to Terauchi about the war effort... and this marxist shit show russia was turning into. The British were trying to get the Japanese to participate in East Asia, "Do you we know anything about what's going on with Chunking?" He said turning back to the south.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, which told him enough.

The problem was last he had heard there were at least three fellas with decent sized armies who each wanted the city for their personal 'capital', and they weren't really the sharing sort.


"We know they're fighting, but that's about it, the British aren't very clear on what's going on, but that so far they've kept artillery out of it."... which was how the British consulate in the city liked things... even though it didn't stop the charge daffairs from asking for troops... that he had to know he wasn't going to get.


There was a shrug, and they returned to north of Chunking, and to the northern most Szechwanese leaders. Liu, Zhong and Shi. "We don't know for sure they'll start a fight, give it a couple weeks, it'll be impractical to do any kind of wide scale movements, and then... probably is the next we would normally see trouble." The problem was that that was how things normally were... but that that was assuming that the situation in the east ... in Peking and in amongst the beiyang clique hadn't given anyone ideas. Wu's troops taking a beating and getting run back north was a problem, even if it didn't effect Gansu's brigades in the west. The problem was Wu faltering meant Wang was either at risk of getting cut off if the Yunnan troops coming up from the south hadn't already done that... which gave the impression and attack could be launched up the rail line.

A 2nd​ division infantry colonel suggested it would be better to have Hongkui withdraw back over the border to concentrate along the Bashan frontier... which was arguably the best traditional strategic view. The gansu forces, more broadly the western ethnicities, and Hui, were increasing their numbers, which was what they were doing, and what Percy reported was going on in the south, and Duan was doing, what anyone with money was doing.

Money because rifles were the expensive thing. There were talk of coolies being impressed into service in the south by Yunnanese troops, and given past experience that would probably spread to Hunan, Fukien, Hupeh and the rest as southern forces, with less access to rail cars and other transportation became restive. They couldn't use the canals because they didn't want to pay the taxes to keep them in good repair... so it was the backs of men.

Not that it'd limit itself to just the rural south... no give it time, the beiyang army divisions would swell up like the 'second revolution' had and they'd need laborers to fetch and carry... and that'd be after money got scarce.

It also wasn't lost that Ma Hongkui outranked the colonel, and commanded more men... but that hadn't stopped the colonel from suggesting the brigade commander be told to come back over the fence, and stay with the group where he would have the rails to rely. It wasn't bad advice at all but it presented a problem, or problems. They could hold the old gateways to the province those natural chokepoints themselves.

He could already guess that their printing bureau would start making those historical comparisons, to some historical epoch of thousand year old literature... as long as they were the guys who won in the end. "So say he does try it." 2nd​ division wasn't ready... not really... and there were other problems... as soon as second finished standing up...

... well when the pony tail general had put Puyi back on his throne... when the fighting in Zhili had happened Percy had been looking a bit too much at first divisions manpower... and there was all this war participation talk going on. It wasn't just Duan talking about it, either, no Zhang Tsolin was talking about things too, and he had Japanese friends, and Japanese rifles as well... and he disliked the Russians. These things were known.. and there was other sorts of chatter.

--
Notes: So, one thing I want to touch on is, as has been stated previous Sichuan province is fuck huge in terms of population (especially relative to the other provinces in the region). It is also the historical frontier region, alongside tibet, and Xinjiang the result of this is that after Yuan Shikai died there were nominally four major warlords in the province, there were minor warlords, there existing tribal chieftains. There was was influence from outside the province most notably Yunnan from Tsai O, and his successors in the south, but also from tibetan tribal confederation influence and the Ma clique in the north and the borders were very porous. Sichuan province did not have a lot of industry, its various militia, mercenary armies, bandits were often fighting with weapons more contemporary to that of the Taiping rebellion or the 1880s. There was in the 1910s and 20s documented use of swords, and spears being common place, as well as with more well off militarists having modern artillery (the artillery use on Chonqing did historically happen), the British consulate in Chonqing repeatedly requested British troops which weren't available due to the war.

 

[Imperator Pax]

December 1917
The Christmas season was here... and Tietsin, flood damage not withstanding, the parties were starting to que up. The champagne might have been expensive but it still popped... and of course with much of France on the front lines the vintages were increasingly American. Not that Allen cared he mixed his with other drinks and that worked fine for him.

Percy had not foresworn alcohol, and John Jordan had cut bask, but hadn't entirely quit either... King George the Fifth had... but apparently wasn't all together happy with war time abstinence, but he'd quite plainly given up drink... and the fact that it was news King George wasn't happy about giving up, and making do made it believable when the papers from the states talked about it. Way more believable than the temperance movement's placards anyway, even as they attempted to use George's image and actions...

Moderation was a good thing, alcohol was expensive, and with the war especially so.

Somewhere down below there was a cork pop from a bottle of champagne and a cheer.

Percy was more than a little drunk.

"So gearing up for a fight I hear."

"Man has to hunt," He replied sipping the whisky mix looking over the sparkling electric glitter backdrop of the decor of the hotel. "The bandits in Szechwan are bound to do something stupid sooner or later." He was betting on sooner, since Hongkui was down there somewhere... and he wasn't the only Ma officer in Tiestin for the festive season.

The Ma clique over all would support Duan in principle if not in deed. They would voice their support that the country should remain unified, disagreein with Feng but... Qirui wasn't going to ask for Ma troops to come east... because he didn't have anything to offer the western provinces so he'd receive vocal support from the western dujun of the trio, and that would keep the peace between the nominal military governors of Zhang and Yang and the large Ma military forces that were independent of their authority as well as the Ma family's social influence. That was a fine line to walk with the Ma being the more conservative, ironically, faction.

... and the truth was he had been considering skipping the new years festivities in favor of being in Xian ... telegrams could be sent from there on to the states, cabling to everyone. There was other chatter going on as well. So he needed to be hear, for the purpose of business.

Chatter that Percy was hearing too. "El Salvador is complaining."

"They've been that all year." He replied as if Percy had declared that water was wet.

The Englishman shook his head, swaying slightly, but stopped himself trying to regain his poise, "You just poured a million dollars investment into their neighbor. They were going to say something, its not something one just does, questions are asked." He swirled his brandy looking especially morose, "From what I hear your Senator Root isn't happy."

Allen's lips curled showing his teeth in annoyance, "He's not my senator, Percy." But it wasn't like Georgia's senator... who admittedly believed anything that he read in a newspaper was any better, "What's he complaining about now?" Elihu Root had temporarily been made to shut up after Costa Rica's coup, but it wasn't a surprise the New Yorker had found something else to bang his hand on the podium about. The damned yankee.

But it was all the same. Complaining that the State's Latin American Division was running rough shod over congress, and bypassing senatorial privileges to make treaties... and what not... Percy didn't really get it... which could have been the sauce dulling his wits. There had been controversy when the courts had ruled that technically Costa Rica's complaint about the naval base were valid under the Washington convention... but that because the States hadn't actually signed that convention... it wasn't legally binding on them... which Root had crawled up the wall over...

The Englishman didn't notice any of this and paused to take a drink, "The Salvadorans want to avoid any more confusion." He almost interrupted to ask if that was what the English Minister to El Salvador had been told, or if El Salvador had asked Balfour or the like about that. Did Balfour have any idea about what was going on. Percy continued on, "We're the Middle America's second most important trade partner you know," And Germany had been third and the Royal Navy, and Foreign service had made a point of squeezing out German interests in the area over the last few years... but they hadn't had the capital, or the inclination to buy it out... which was part of what was going on in Guatemala.

"I hope you're not going to tell me the French aren't annoyed too."

He paused, "I don't rightly think they've noticed yet." he stopped again, and observing, that it had only been a month. "But it is complicated isn't it? The El Salvadorans look at the goings on in Nicaragua... and well now this influx... and they're..." He trailed, "Shocked." He dead panned... whatever the case Sir Cecil had apparently complained about... this and that on the Salvadorans behalf presumably.. Percy wasn't being particularly clear on the details... but he could find out from elsewhere.

El Salvador had decided to remain neutral... and Allen wouldn't have been surprised if Lansing... or maybe his man Stabler hadn't intimated , perhaps misled the Salvadorans that the matter in Guatemala was being rewarded for severing relations with the kaiser... or not.... but he knew there were ideas bouncing around too. "The El Salvadorans want to avoid any more errors, the war won't last forever... but for now Guatemala."

Percy gave his best sagacious nod, and the conversation changed, and after the Englishman in his khaki uniform moved on Griswold stepped in from the right, watching the drunk Englishman go, "What the devil was that about?"

"I don't know but I we're going to need to find out, much as I don't want to." He knew that the business of Nicaragua's finances were improving... that was supposed to be a good thing, but you wouldn't know that if you listened to Columbia, El Salvador and Costa Rica.... but those arguments were a world a way. It was hard to be sure they had an accurate read of the lay of the land... "Nakamichi looks excited, did you hear him talk about Soho's book?"

"Sure did." Nakamichi was currently schmoozing with a reedy Japanese colonel that Allen only knew by mutual acquaintance, but the infantry officer was a staunch anti-socialist, having been brought up in a household of samurai land owners, and his presence represented part of a delegation that were here in addition to that of Nishihara. "Soho's antsy about the Russian mess, surprised he hasn't badgered a quote off of John Jordan or Percy."

... which was true... Yamagata had predicted that Russian would try to avenge its loss in 1915 a step prevented by the outbreak of war in Europe... but if tsarist government and chaos gave way to 'socialism' well that was worse. The Bolsheviks were unequivocally worse... the British wanted their allies to do something, were likely to find ready support in Japan. The problem was next year... Yamagata would turn eighty... and where a decade ago he'd have still been capable of the political wrangling necessary to rally Japan against the Bolshevik menace brewing in the west he was running against the clock. "Yeah," He muttered, "The British are looking for a way to keep Vladivostok open for business... even if it means camping Australian troops in Irkustk."

"You think that's what they'll do?" He nodded, "I guess it makes sense, they're closer... and given the Indians didn't do well in France's winters, I'd hate to see how they'd handle Siberia." Not that Australia had ever seemed that cold... but there were other things going on.

Everyone was on the same page in that the war was approaching its end... but that was speaking relative, and if the Germans got breathing room ... they'd been able to drag it out another Christmas who was to say that they couldn't manage another year or two.
--
Notes: It bears commenting that George the V was in his day a very popular monarch arguably during the war the most popular monarch Britain had seen. He had a degree of public prestige and likability that rivaled that of QE II and that was not something his sons could really live up to, but his reign was very much a transitional one from Edwardian to Edwardian periods (Edward VII and VIII) and indeed the two Edwards ultimately rather resembled one another in their public scandals and their parents criticisms, which is an amusing historical irony

 

[Imperator Pax]

January 1918
Every man was issued an entrenching tool, but in fighting terms the doctrine was no longer a copy of foot down foot put up top, as it had been still in early 1914 based on the matter the Indian wars... Percy had looked physically ill on the first survey round the fortifications... a reminder in their breath of the danger of artillery in modern war.

There was too much elevation to be Flanders. The barbed wire stretched out, and the heavy guns were far back. It was not 1915 either. A large AM, a distinction not yet commonplace but would become so in later years, radio tower allowed a signal to be sent to the north to a similar tower in Xian and while there were occasional problems it was a supplement to the process of making a telephone call by operator line. The idea was that if something happened, the telephones would still make their calls but that the radio would broadcast both a play by play of actions as they unfolded but also that they'd be the first warning. It was to supplant the old telegraph, and telegrams needed to be run.

That by itself freed up men with a skill set, and the learning to manage to operate a telegraph machine to do other things.

... but that wasn't what they were here for, and he was a little surprised that Percy was here at all.

"Do you think they'll come?"

Hongkui certainly seemed to think so, and he had sharp instincts. The young general from Gansu was looking forward to it from the speechifying. That was regional politics though... that was complicated... very complicated... it wasn't just Ma Hongkui watching to see what happened. "We'll see."

"But do you think they'll come?" Percy questioned again.

This wasn't going to be like the fighting at Zhengzhou... this wasn't fighting in the spaces south of Baoding. This wasn't Zhili province, and wasn't between Zhili based units in some nominal sense. This would be provincial one against the other... Szechwan versus Shensi, and if Hongkui's Gansu troops came in them too... but he suspected that Hongkui was aiming to bait the enemy into coming over the border to stir things up.

The exact motivations were debatable but it lined up with what was going on. The promulgations of both official decrees at county, and military administrative offices as well as the papers circulating, the telegrams... the insults being thrown at Szechwan commanders, and gentry supporting them. Most likely Hongkui wanted to bolster his own military credentials, he wanted a big feather in his cap to let him stand out... whether that was because he wanted peking to notice him, he wanted the president to notice him, or something closer to home it didn't really matter.

There were about a half million beiyang troops under northern chinese colors give or take. There were only an estimated hundred thousand troops in the south, defined as south of the Yangtze. The Beiyang success in moving forces into Szechwan, and then Cai E's own success in Yunnan had meant there was no unified government in a province with as many people as the Austro-hungarian empire... but there were a lot of guys vying for the job.

"If Ma's right, and Hu has decided to come over the border there aren't a lot of places to do it." Not really... not effectively... he'd have to come up the same passes and ancient highways that had funneled armies during the three kingdom's romance... which meant he'd be exposed on three sides to hundred fifty millimeter guns...

Did Hu know that? Not in so many words not likely... but he knew enough about what a krupp howitzer or field gun would do that he'd have to be feeling awful brazen to launch a frontal assault into Southern Shensi. That of course was the matter... there was no other way to muster the troops. Much as in ancient times this was the most direct route, the safest year round route, and the only one that could support an army... and it was the only artery in the south you had to cross the river and make your way through the mountain passes, and while Gansu could invade south into the basin going back up again was harder.

The railway was largely east to west along the fortifications, and connected to the north, but didn't go into Szechwan. In short a responding force could reinforce the existing on station brigade sized force a combination of artillery and infantry in short order by rail, but more troops couldn't readily make it through the mountains, and certainly couldn't supply an attacking force against the fortifications under sustained artillery.

"So these fortifications are across the mountain?"

"That's right."

Percy decided to take leave of his senses for a moment to play trivia, "Do you know why Jiangsu's proportion of Beiyang forces is significant."

It was true it was a combination of economic factors, but also, "Because the Qing were mistrustful of the province." He replied, coupled with the corruption of their traditional banner armies the idea had been that Jiangsu needed to be occupied by modern military forces... and of course the problem thinking under Li Hongzhang and then Yuan Shikai had been that those divisions would be was was necessary to stop a French force landing at Shanghai if the business with Indochina had gotten hot again... but that war had never happened... and France had been too busy with other much closer to Europe posturing with the states, and with the Kaiser... and the Italians ... and England... everyone else he supposed... But fundamentally those divisions assigned to Jiangsu had been born out of mistrust for a wealthy province and one well represented among the literati that the Qing distrusted but still needed them. It was why Yunnan had had two modern divisions... it was the frontier with IndoChina. It was the reason Manchuria had had divisions posted... and it was also why the western provinces didn't have the same proportion of forces there was less perceived need at the time.

Which was ultimately the point Percy was making.

"Its about the common defense." He rebutted, the southern part of the bashan range, that was to say the Szechwan side was aswarm with bandits... and even if they weren't Gansu mistrusted Szechwan either for their own politics or because of the influence Yunnan's militarists to the south exercised over the province.

--
Notes: This marks the active portion of the spring war of 1918 on the frontier with Sichuan, and more broadly the integration of western china as part of the military facet of bandit fighting across the border (and fighting in both directions), as well as the social and economic factors of the railway lines being built.

Also this is a direct call back to Jun's commentary on the opinion against Jiangnan as a region as it historically existed from the courtly perspective, and the effects of that... by the late qing dynasty being then compounded with the fear of French, British invasion, Japan might come for round 2 (and the Qing basically told Italy to go fuck off when Italy wanted concession and that actually worked... and part of the reason that did work is because the qing were confident in their modern divisions (and the licensed guns i.e. large naval vickers that were being produced domestically by that point). [And obviously what happened is that then the Boxer rebellion happened, and eventually CiCi dies and there is no real leadership at the helm anymore, and well Japan and Russia went at each other.]

I digress, what follows in spring of 1918 are two main broad threads. There is the spring fighting that somewhat isolates central china with Szechwan. Gansu has been by this point jumping back and forth over the border possibly as early as 1914 in an organized manner (possibly even earlier than that under preceding leadership, pre revolution, provincial wars were not unknown in the late Qing period) followed by the break in the spring for most part time bandits go back to the farm to actually farm, and the fighting dies down and during that period will be a combination of slice of life and gradual business. Then in the latter half of the year when summer starts we will pivot back to WW1 and the move to the conclusion of the first world war setting up for the conclusion of the ww1 years, and the entry into the Roaring Twenties.

... and that will last as a series of content until the northern expedition largely solidifies interwar china into its large territorial states

 

[Imperator Pax]

January 1918
Xian was a different sort of noisy. He could hear the maids fussing over Augustus... on the plus side the boy wasn't old enough that he'd be able to remember being an only child... on the other it was abundantly clear the little tyrant wasn't happy. As his father's eldest son Allen had had time to be used to it, the elder Forrest had been lucky to survive childhood. Augustus would grow up used to having brothers, Allen decided.

He then turned back to the papers. Development depended on coordination. That was why the railroad had expanded into related industries. That the steel industry benefited from concrete wasn't a surprise or a shock it was a fact of life. Reinsch didn't have to like it, nor did he really need to then go trying to make it anything other than what it was. He wondered how Powell was doing, Powell would need local iron supplies to fuel the railway's growth, the conditions at market were different than they had been in 1909.

Xian needed better urban planning, the city was growing, and it needed better public utilities. Once upon a time the city had been 'larger' geographically the map showed that, for a city with thousands of years of history they were going to have to plan better. More public schools, more education, which would in theory mean more technicians and office workers, and men who spent their pay checks on industrial goods.

He tapped the pen digging the tip into the newsprint rather than the report. The paper didn't tell him anything he didn't already know from other sources, it just told him what people were reading. When the war ended there would be a shock, all those firms selling to governments would be used to it and prices being high... and European firms would want to go back to the way things had been... which meant France... and probably England too even though he hadn't said as much to Percy ... would start talking about tariffs. He'd have to plan for that, they all would. The cadre accepted that, which meant looking at trying to grow the internal market now as a future substitute, and also importing whatever developments had let the Germans keep up this long fighting the majority of the world's economic productivity either directly or indirectly.

... and of course if their was local demand for goods and burgeoning population to consume them then they wouldn't have to lay off people, that was a plus. Coal mining would need to expand. They needed coal for other industrial processes but especially for a voracious demand for electricity as the city's population got used to electric lights. This year's new year, the festival of the Horse, would have a large demand for electric lights. It was a good that they couldn't import, hadn't been able to import for really almost three years now. First because European suppliers had evaporated earlier still, then because the US's production increasing moved to answer European demand after, and with higher demand and high prices paid it became cheaper to increase production locally.

In literature the vernacular used coopted terms normally assigned to family councils in order to organize expansion. By promulgating internal regulations it created an internal logical framework that could be obeyed ... but that was internal... business law was going to have to be generalized to form a corporate law that provided a framework for other firms to work... but also in order to answer the rather loathsome question of public finance... taxation. The government side of things would need money to fund the army, the police, the courts, the schools, and hospitals.

It bore in mind though that the Qing had largely done the heavily lifting of eliminating the power and legal influence of the Juren as a social literati and elite. The privileges of the old office holders who had passed the eight legged exam had long since stopped having the pool being refilled by new graduates, even before the Xinhai revolt had broken out which had insured the closure of the Hanlin academy. While Jinshi holders were still around they were no longer critically important, and the driving pressure in the public view was to address the bandit problem not necessarily the issues of insuring that cost effective domestic goods could substitute for imports.

The papers wanted to talk about the mess in Hupeh, and the failings of yet another Beiyang advance south despite the 'war faction's' success in largely rallying the Beiyang commanders to it. A reality on that consensus meant that rather than disengaging Szechwan was in fact getting more rowdy, and the fliers were getting more aggressive.

He penned a quick continuation to his still in progress response to Reinsch's letter disputing that the purchasers of goods were harmed by the operation of vertically operating firms before dropping it in the top drawer of the desk for later was the next round of papers came in. Mortars were essential to the newly raised 2nd​ division, but there were increasing numbers of requests from the original three rifle regiments and their seasons troops for Lewis guns, both the original and the lighter model of 1916, as well as other rifles and accoutrements of war. There were requested changes to uniforms and boots, and belts reflective of real service requirements.

It was the sort of thing he liked to read. This was no longer academic, nor was it about equipping a few thousand volunteers. 3rd​ Division was now an inevitability, and there was already chatter among the ranks of a fourth and fifth divisions to address the broad mountainous frontier with 'the verminious southern bandits' a turn of phrase that was being pulled from the local papers.

Speaking of domestic reporting there was government business. The civilian side. It might have been noticed before now, but it was only now being pushed up as medical care in Xian proper that birth registries started recording names. Xian meant Western Peace... which admittedly Allen found rather amusing. Of course Jun was pretty quick to point out this change in the city's name had been merely an attempt by the self aggrandizing Ming to give Face to their new capital 'in the north'. Leaving that aside Shensi also referred to the west.

Xian the other Xian meant immortal, which Jun found amusing.


He paged through another page as the door closed. The new year meant they were approaching talks with the British about steel production, which dredged up discussions previously buried. "I don't think Reinsch believes us."

"If we made what he thought we made we'd already have inked that deal with Ford." Dawes snapped impatiently, though they were rapidly approaching where that was on the books. Instead of turning to look at a new steel mill the capital that had been considered for that institution would be the site of Xian's Ford plant. The first of its kind in China, and the beginning of mass production assembly line production of trucks. "But whether or not he believes it ...."

No it could be a problem.

Part of it was Reinsch wasn't career state department. He had little experience with the war department either... and fundamentally Reinsch was an idealist, not a realist. So on top of questions about whether or not would the British renew, and if so would they renew for another year in April or just for six months, there were the questions of if they cut back on demand due to access to Pittsburgh that Japan would purchase what they could... which would annoy John Jordan who was already grouchy over Nishihara's presence... especially given part of the reason Japan was interested in expanding their purchases was because the steel they produced passed British standards of inspection, so it would meet the industrial needs of that Japan used which were themselves based on British standards.

Still couldn't do anything for them about armor plate, but there was no helping that. Japan would have a bottleneck there... it couldn't be helped. He knew there was a public fundraising for a new BattleShip called the Nagato, she'd been lain down a few months earlier, and her sister ship Mutsu was due to start this summer. The Japanese Navy attache at New Years had talked longingly about expanding their aid to their British allies in the Mediterranean, but he doubted Nagato would ever see a ship of the Kaiser's fleet...

"We'll have a problem if some muckraking peckerwood actually thinks we make a million for each haul of iron," Bill grunted, he wrapped the desk to ward it off, "Did you see that cable of him sticking off to the station chief in Columbia?"

He had actually. A courier from civil affairs had actually sent him a copy before their own people had transmitted it over. "I saw it," And a million dollars was a lot of money. He hadn't actually pulled the Latin America Division's broadsheet, he could have asked for it from State, but he had no reason to doubt Reinsch that a million dollars was one seventh of annual investment in the country... "I saw the response to it."

Dawes snorted, "Yeah, well its about time someone told the professor to mind his own business, the undersecretary might get some hell from Washington, Reinsch being friends with the president." It was past time though, Reinsch had been having these sorts of 'moral lectures' to his state department colleagues for a few years now... he'd lectured the previous US ambassador to Japan about his ties to Pittsburgh's wealthy ... and from the sound of it didn't like the associations of the man's replacement much either... and well... that was going to be something to think about too, "Him sticking his nose about what goes on in Latin America is a problem, he can't do anything about it, but the Virginian, and that Yankee from New York."

"Phillip is going to have to learn to deal with it." He had wanted to jump in the water, if it was cold he shouldn't be surprised... but, "I wouldn't worry about it though."
--
Homophones, what different words sounded alike and could have different meanings played a varied role. Poetry came to mind, but there were other applications. It was more than simply conveying a message though.

People needed to be able to read sure, but they really needed stuff written to them the way they talked. The newspapers that they published, or provided direct support to did not publish their columns in the high and inflated stylized memorandums of the old dynasty's court language, but a simplified language of how people actually talked day to day

Though it hadn't happened until after Yuan Shikai had passed away the text books both for children and also like the infantry primers had followed this trend. Now it moved to popular literature with books being published in vernacular, or at least vernacular northern, Chinese and focused on stories of imminently human people. Rather than the cardboard figures of virtuous paragons and bloodsucking fiends the emphasis were on every men living in relatable flawed, and changing societies. That wasn't to say that stereotypes were absent, that stock characters didn't make appearances.

A novelization for young men apart of the local boy scouts, and the tradition of scouting lionized Charles Gordon. It simultaneously portrayed the Taiping rebels as rapacious southern bandits stripping the country side like locusts... and perhaps he might have been reading a bit too much into it, but Allen suspected that the writer....

... who despite the pseudonym used, was probably an officer of the RPF or 1st​ Regiment during the the White Wolf rebellion and had intentionally adapted the conflict against Bai Lang as the basis for his novelization of events. It certainly emphasized scouting skills and values, but there were anachronisms in the book itself.

It was a very popular novel all the same competing with the much more realistic portrayal of middle of the road everymen with real flaws who struggled on a daily basis.

These were the sorts of things that made into the day's briefing, though they weren't daily updates... but with first of the year increasingly behind them and 1918 underway there were more things to contend with. There would probably be some complaints ... from both rigorous Confucians and the missionaries about moral ambiguities and lack of heroic solutions... but at least he had some forewarning about that potential problem.

Cullen snorted trying to contain his laughter as he and and several other black uniformed officers of the gendarmes laughed at a recently published political satirical comic that lampooned everyone involved in the first opium war. It was a thinly veiled anti-war comic that portrayed both sides and all major figures as high handed arrogant buffoons...

Its layout strongly suggested the comic had probably been written or illustrated or both by a western educated southerner. It portrayed Palmerston, Lin, and the Elliots as all equally embarrassing, with the Minister Elliot being slapped in the face for trying to tell the Admiral of the Nelson he should only use 'old ammunition'. Presumably a diatribe attacking both politicians who wanted to meddle in military affairs for their own reasons, and also militarists who wanted to rush into a conflict just so they could test new weapons (in the case of the comic the lethal iron steamer nemesis when she'd been state of the art).

In short it made fun of everyone, and very likely was meant to to criticize the Beiyang government and the British and probably the 'southern government' since Lin's rivals in the comic looked suspiciously like a spectacled farmers tan doctor rather than a more realistically suave clear skinned mandarin. Someone was clearly unhappy.

"One of the university students?" Cole questioned waving one sheet up.

He thought of the list of people who had publicly swore not to be politic in publishing, "You don't think its one of the professors?"

"I suppose it could be, but its more anti war, and I'm surprised they were radical enough to pick something so recent."

Radical, and recent when they were talking about a dust up that had happened eight decades earlier almost... but maybe that was because they hadn't had any better options, had did you put the war in Europe in historical context. Whatever the case this was another example of modern literary styles using previous historical events, historical events to make commentary on current ones.

There was a sly look he didn't like creep over his childhood friend's expression, "So about the fly boys, we getting near to standing them up or not?"

"Don't look at me like I've got the juice for that Cullen. Not with so much else going on."

"That's funny coming from you brother John. We ought to get it done."

He suspect that if truth be told Cole had already probably started asking around his brigade about men with mechanical aptitude, men who'd be willing to learn to fly if only they could get the planes. The truth was that wasn't a terrible idea, but there had been push back in finances about advancing the filibusters the money so unilaterally, "We don't have the planes, and we're going to need men who want to learn to fly, and who can then teach other men to fly. Just need time for it, lets wait until the spring is here."

"I hold you on that." Cullen raised the mug of tea he was drinking. "As for the votes, tell Dawes we put radios in them they'll be more dangerous than any amount of guns we could put on them at this stage with the engines we have."

They didn't need to tell Dawes that. A plane with a radio to relay for his heavy bastards... Dawes knew that well enough. "Do not bring it up at the next cadre," The needed to wait until spring came.

"I won't say anything," Unless someone else brought it up, but that went unsaid.
--
Notes: So in particular this is going up, because June is almost here. We will not be through this arc before fall, but we are approaching the end of the arc in July 1918 which will have epilogue 1 and epilogue 2 will take place as a transition into the prologue of the next arc in 1919 establishing the end of world war 1 from a de facto western perspective. There are some things in the next few months that I need to expand on, there are some books I need to read, and reread regarding the early Russian civil war but that is the direction we are heading into.

Its funny that destroyermen's cliche villians got brought up, this section on literature, loosely touching on chinese literature was actually written months ago.

 

[Imperator Pax]

January 1918
The rifle barked, but instead of the need to rack the bolt, which for most men meant coming offline entirely it then barked again, and again. Until the five round magazine was empty. "I'd say he likes it." Cole false whispered in amused candor as the hawk faced major brought the rifle to rest against his hip, pulled the spent magazine out and rocked the new one into place.

Much as with Liu's Rifle design the gun was too expensive to outfit a whole army... much as it loathed him to recognize that financial burdensome weight. Ordinance could hang the rest of their complaints about such innovations as magazine fed self loaders but they were at least correct that the cost of such a rifle in time to construct and machining was a bit much.

Unlike with Liu's rifle, or variations on Brownings 1900 rifle Lewis's new gun operated by a piston that was driven backwards under gas pressure. That might not on its surface as struck anyone as particularly novel given that was how his machine gun operated, but the long stroke of the gas piston was a simplification of the gun. It still could fire in short bursts effectively, but the gas regulator was tuned such that it could operate from closed bolt, and thus be an accurate rifle. It would get hot... but well that was physics.

The major wasn't the first man who'd gotten a go, and they had pointedly kept the gun in single shots, but the rapid fire demonstrated its utility. Assault Phase Rifle. The gun for sweeping in and breaking the enemy's line in twain.

Part of the matter was the reorientation of the gun from how it was on the light machine gun. The gas block, the whole piston had been reoriented to be atop the barrel. "The barrel is too long." Waite muttered, "And don't tell me its cause I'm too damn short, you royal oak son of bitch, I'm closer in height to most of the fellows."

Waite wasn't short, but he might have had a point. They were trending towards shorter barrels, and this wasn't short. "Griswold?"

"He ain't wrong," the other georgian replied to his inquiry, "Its still shorter than the original 98. Lewis has reduced the shroud, and the rate of fire in the design." It wasn't really a shroud any more so much as there were flat fins underneath the hand guard that forced heat to radiate from the barrel... "I do think the pistol grip could be a bit bigger as well, but its as you see accurate enough for government work"

It would never be adopted by the War Department. Ordinance would see to that. Crozier and his clique would strangle it dead... and Isaac probably already knew that regardless of his letter talking about his sending to be tested... which was probably why he'd made sure they'd gotten a copy as well. Maybe history would vindicate him maybe it wouldn't... maybe the bastards in ordinance would chance on something better, maybe congress would take a ballpeen hammer to get them into spec. "What about the other one?"

"The pistol?"

"Its a handful... actually it could probably do with being a bit bigger." Waite grunted an affirmative, "A burst of 45 government works pretty well in Nick's shoot house." Cole nodded, he sounded particularly smug.

"Yeah..." He started to say something

"They ain't ready." Grisworld cut him off, "You can take the guns up against those gangsters when they're ready but I'm still working on them. I will give you no end of hell if you take them up against bandits in the field, what your commandos want be demanded. They can just as well wait."

The Commandos were a nominal battalion sub unit within the Gendarmes, itself as a nominal brigade, that predated the standing up of the Gendarmes as separate force. So inevitably 1st​ Regiment would start running requests up the chain for the new guns to test out as well if they started arriving for use by the specials.

They tittered off about magazines, that brief intransigent acrimony between technocrats fading after a minute. Lewis's action was the most feasible of developments from his gun. The pan magazine needed refinements, but was in many aspects itself a visible dead end already. The action and feed though could be branched into a rifle, and a machine gun, both of which would begin as magazine fed rifles, but the latter would develop into a belt fed feed. The cooling shroud would take decades to make its next improvement, after new machining techniques were developed only then would it be revived for use and that was far far in the future.

--
A year from now... or really... truthfully in about fifteen months they'd look back at all of this with the benefit of hindsight and scowl and curse, and stamp their feet in disgust. The truth was complicated. It wasn't black and white... though thinking it was was part of what with Reinsch and Wilson get every body in so much of a mess.

In January of 1918 though while a lot had happened, and was unfolding... a lot of other things just hadn't happened yet. The ball of yarn, as it were, was still unspooling as it rolled down the hill. Right now though there were a gathering of men around the table. When Europe had gone to war in ... really in July, but in the summer of 1914 the whole balance of world trade had completely gone topsy turvy.

As a result people who did not do economics made all sorts of wild and outlandish assertions, that damned Virginian in particular was easily duped by claims made and taken in by hysterical claims rather than the hard fact of numbers and dollars. With voracious unseen hitherto Europe turned its appetite for all manner of goods to the world at large and their demand drove prices to the point production could not keep up and it threatened to burn out the engines of manufacturing.

This gathering of the Cadre was to be remembered as the Winter Conference 1918 a combination of full members and proxy members to facilitate a full briefing and dispersal of information on the money made by supporting the European demand for goods... mostly the British Empire, but also Japan and how war demand had filled the coffers.

How the war demand had also increased operating expenses, and how that they would need to invest net profits into new industries and expansion. That they were going to make a change over to how they ran business organization. Not only was this to eliminate any potential accusations of war profiteering ... in an ideal scenario anyway... but to make sure that there was understanding of how the system worked.

It was to set the ground work for what would happen next year as well, as they set the stage for putting into words the final version of what would be Shensi's Provincial Constitution to come into effect in January of 1920... what would, though not planned to, become the first year of a era calendar to replace Republican era calendar that had been proclaimed by the southern rebels... that would be proclaimed later by the future lower house established by that constitution.

"These gentlemen are our iron production figures,"

Another group of men were looking at coal.

Rolling stock.

Pig iron.

Bar Steel.

A group of red legs hovered over domestic productivity of machine guns and howitzers.

A hundred men gathered in the room. Tens of thousands of pages of paper were only a faction of four years of brutal war a continent away. Men looked at export of textile goods, or foodstuffs ranging from cows and pigs to melons going to fight scurvy.

Then of course there were the new trends in 'war participation'. The British payments to construct railways in the Russian Central Asia, and the outlines of the Franco-British areas of market interest in Russia... and things there. There were questions of what would happen there... questions that would only be magnified by other events.

Allen nodded to Yan Xishan. "We're glad you could make it." And truth he really had wished that old man Ma had changed his mind... if he would have taken Bill's offer to take a seat at the table... Shansi's Dujun ... military governor... would in 1920 publish his own amended version of the 'Xian style' constitution. It would have slightly different features of course and the provincial constitutions that would follow be adopted by western provinces would follow a general template of provincial organization leading to a national constitution as a response to the final hard breaks of the beiyang clique.

Provincial constitutions would remain in effect, but a new gathering of the constitution would push some members further up from the different gatherings in a few years to a more centralized multi province organization. The nominal allocation for the future Federal Xian style constitution would only truly come into effect in response to other pressures... years into the future after the winter conference... this was just one more step on the road to when in the future eventually China would be reunified. In 1918, in January of 1918 no one was really thinking about that.

Today was about the economics of trade of trade made possible because the Europeans had created a demand for goods unseen ever before. Oh it would have been easy to say 'China is divided', but whole together another matter entirely for anyone to say that it was Shansi, Shensi, or the small province of Kansu or any of the other western commanderies to take it upon themselves to rebind the land. That was Peking's job. Let the Beiyang army with its million man army do that... in fact by 1918 there were enough Shensi natives who were quite fed up with Canton and Yunnan, that Feng's idea to leave the southerners be and let them go their own road was popular.
--
Notes: this is the conclusion of January 1918 pretty obviously given its tone, because from here we move into the brief border skirmishes in Szechwan, where first with the Gansu independent brigades (i.e. 3rd​) move into, before being reinforced by Xian's Regulars, before being joined by the Cadre's more elite 1st​ division troops.

WW1 arguably was the most transformative event of the 20th​ century in terms of economics particularly in terms of long term effects. Effectively overnight the demand for war materiel for the western front added billions of dollars into the trade volume, and for a variety of reasons the war in 1914 completely shattered the greatest degree of economic integration Europe would have until the establishment of the EEC. Not only did war disrupt European productivity it increased demand, and increased costs. This was in both raw material costs and labor as well as other expenses.

The result of this was the post war, rather predictably, the economic contraction that would become the great depression in the long term, and part of that was the response of both business and government, and by business I mean both labor and management's response to the sudden shock of no longer having production guarantees at war time high prices. Business, and government both engaged in protectionism, and protectionism invites protectionism in a tit for tat fashion which prolonged negative economic conditions in trade, as well as drew out the recessions. I digress.

So the result here, what this section deals with is without trying to put especially hard numbers, though we are probably talking hundreds of millions of dollars of trade, likely up from a 1914 value measured in tens of millions of dollars in trade, is the cadre's export business due near universally due British war time material needs. This isn't limitted to just the cadre per se, though Research clique though not on this scale were able to largely buy out their European partners from large capital enterprises (i.e. the belgians out of coal mines in eastern china) with proceeds from the war years in short order.

... and speaking of coal while a long time in the future since much of what has been obliquely touched on here is is coal primarily as being mined, or for heating and cooking (which will touch on in a minute) or as fuel for trains. This is the nineteen teens high sulfurous coal is still in common use its not preferable to high grade production (it requires additional work, this was known scientifically it was confirmable by the 19th​ century, but it was 'known' within the steel maker trade much earlier) it was still commonly in practice.

Naturally one of the factors that will come about in the sixties and seventies as a result will be an earlier recognition of the need for smog control along with other emission control legislation due to both domestic populous and technocratic demand, as well as in response to international conditions in the cold war era. This again goes to my argument that wat WW1 in terms of long term effects is the most transformative events in the 20th​ century.

 

[Imperator Pax]

February 1918
"You ain't got to go, you know that right?"

"I'm next in the rotation." He replied, even if that was an excuse. The truth was it was easier to take the deployment. The truth was that with an increasing number of officers the cadre was increasingly reallocating its membership to industrial and social duties. Even Cullen had been taking time to step back from the Gendarmes to look at the mines... but on the other hand with people shipping to Guatemala to join Philip and the Cadre having other people step towards industrial work there were fewer members. Bill stint in the rotation took him away from the oil work.. though one could make the well founded argument that anti banditry presence provided legitimacy to his work there. It certainly was shoring up support in the Ma clique as well as in Gansu's populace more broadly to see contribution to law and order. "besides If I don't go it'll look bad to the Ma Clique. Hongkui is expecting me there to show the flag."

"no he's not, he's hoping you don't show up so he can be in charge. If you're there, its first division that's almost sixteen thousand men including the attachment from the staff. Never mind everyone there already"

Waite might have a valid read of it, "Thats not how I take it."

"Well then how the fuck do you read it? What do you think his play is?" There was a pause, "You think this will give him legitimacy because Tidao is publishing that Bai Lang broadsheet? Thats not implausible but, Hongkui doesn't need it. He'd get more out of this expedition if he's the one in charge. Yeah being able to go back, and say," That in the current effor they were reiterating that myth of fighting Bai Lang who had in summer of 1913 some ten thousand men, a number that had at least temporarily swelled to locust like proportions. "Yeah, so what if can go back and say all that..."

"Because in the long term if I go down there the labor corp comes along and thats a better chance of us being able to hold a salient into Szechwan. Think about it Hongkui has made the effort for his bonafides in the anti bandit campaigns into the south. Yes there are still tribes in the tibetan lands and Szechwan that are still fighting indian wars," Why wouldn't they, you didn't stop having a grudge with the next clan over just cause some high and mighty jackass from the capital demands you pay taxes or made any other demands... there were going to be problems. Tibet on a map might be allegedly four or five sub units but really it was more like four or even five times that. With a toe hold in the eastern most of those big counties by the running of the line down to Lhasa.

... and the prescence in Lhasa if the MAK hadn't spun off early might have been the next talk of what to do about... but coming into 1918 and with the spring conference looming Allen was cognizant that the cadre was looking at more than just that. He gestured to the map on the wall, the one that had a rail line that pushed off its borders going north west. "You see that," He asked rhetorically, "Thats us, thats me, and you. The other guys. Its the company as a whole to not just the railroad people."

"Maybe so, but this isn't like Bai Lang where you can cut the head off the snake and watch the body flop around listless. The bandits are not just going to disappear, we go down there, in ten years Gansu and us both will still be posting divisions on our southern border, because Szechwan isn't going to change." He was right of course. Not just about a decade down the road, but in twenty years Szechwan would be as a province divided between the southern government under the KMT nominally capitaled at Nanking but later from what would come to be called Wuhan and then Szechwan's capital of Chunking in the high years of the Sino Japanese war... but they couldn't have imagined that.

At the moment this was a purely a provincial affair. It was Shensi and Gansu 'suppressing', as the word was translated, 'pacifying' bandits who were prone to going over the border.

"Are you going to avoid having to go Tietsin?"

He turned, "Why would I need to do that?"

"I've read the cables from State at least thats ones I've seen."

Allen scoffed, "Yeah, shocker Lenin wins a quarter of the vote, and then imprisons the PSR and the other parties when they wont go along with him. So much for democracy in Russia." It did actually shock him how flabbergasted Wilson seemed to be in Washington about the Bolsheviks seizing power in the face othe congressional assembly but the bigger concern was, "Did you read the British ones, Balfour?"

"Separate peace." Waite replied, it was what the British were most worried about. "Yeah." He said quietly.

--
A couple of three inchers from a battalion battery made themselves known.

He was glad to be here.


It was something to do with his hands, even if it was cold. There was a light touch of snow on the ground... whether it would stick or blow away they didn't know. Hongkui had circled around the border at least crossing three times. He'd jump over and launch a probe, and come back after hitting whatever nests of bandits he could find... and he'd done these punitive raids across the winter.

Per Hongkui the bandits had appealed to higher authority going to complain to bigger county bandits and warlords who were yunanese running dogs. Which was probably true enough. Shi, the most north eastern provincial warlord refused to give battle... for probably the very sensible reason he'd then be prey to an attack to his south.

Zhong on the other hand had decided he could no longer be so embarressed by Ma Hongkui and decided to answer the petitions. His circular was dated the first of January but it hadn't actually reached them until the end of the month.

They'd been cabled about it from Young Carter who hadn't known exactly what to make of it, especially once Hongkui had started circulating his own circulars... Hongkui wanted to roll down in force and not just hit Bazhou but actually occupy it.

That seemed like a really stupid idea, because if they took the city they'd be committing to holding hostile ground in a furious neighboring province that was in its own civil war. Zhong was unlikely to make a deal with Liu to his west but that wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility... but they also couldn't just allow Zhong the ability to mass forces on their border.

Waite was right. Whatever their reasoning...

That didn't change the fact that they'd shot first. That they were the ones skipping over the border not Zhong Tidao or one of his lieutenants. They could at best make the argument that they were responding to previous incursions or even allege the territorial integrity of Kansu had been violated by bandits associated with Zhong's subordinates... but that was a thin justification given the situation... and yet here they were.

Once this was done they were going to have to make changes to how they planned this. If anything it needed to start now, If Hongkui could secure a foothold in the north of the province he'd have a foothold to launch other incursions, and while that should have been obvious to anyone looking at a map... he wrote it down anyway.

If Hongkui could sustain supply lines into Bazhong then he could manage to theoretically hold the city through outside support and then penetrate into the countryside... but the bandits could continue to go to ground, and be supported by people further south beyond Ma's ability to strike out at. It was in many respects all too similar to the situation of the Phillipines with local strongmen congregating across regions out of necessity, and with all the infighting that often accompanied such alliance making. It made things unpredictable.

"We're on station." Bill remarked with a twang as if the motors of the trucks couldn't be heard rumbling in the difference. The Motorized Rifle Company, provisional had received slight changes from its initial composition, but for fundamental purposees was not that different. They had learned some lessons about how best to use them in a fine, but it was the supporting assets that had changed the most... and having spare parts... that meant people knowing how to work on the automobiles as well.

The machine gun sights were graded out to a, John Allen considered optimistic, three thousand meters. Really at that point it was mostly everyone on that hill over there notices some angry hornets and the general displeasure of the artillery man shooting at them. In reality with the advantage of fighting from a protected turret that artillery man could meaningfully suppress an infantry position in the open or in concealment at closer ranges... and that was the whole damned point.

"How do you feel about this?"

"Well you know, I reckon we were going to fight Zhong sooner or later. There are couple of Lius are gonna be a problem." Especially since one of those was the guy in charge of the little fiefdom to Zhong Tidao's west. "But if you're asking between you, and George? I here cause Waite would wait until they came into Hu's neck of the woods, and then we'd been subject to the same complaints as he threw at Chen. I'm not okay with standing there and taking a punch."

"I just wish I could make George see that."

"He'll get over it." Even if this was likely to last into the spring.
--
Notes: Third update of the week, again by this point the Xian Cadre has replaced the previous provincial government apparatus. Chen Shufan has moved entirely to a federal job, he was in Peking most of the time anyway, and he had relieved his civilian equivalent prior to that. Because of his abscence and because Szechwan was by 1916 already devolving (Yunnan Clique would come in from the south and lay claim to basically the entire province the NPW, how real that control was is debateable) and by the end of that year both Tsai O and Yuan Shikai are dead which fractures both of their political bases.

Thus the modus vivendi of sorts between Gansu, and Shensi as provinces is that it is better to keep the border areas, specifically the Szechwan side of the border policed by their own troops proactively. Its not a great solution but it is historically what the Ma clique did anyway (and in part that was successful because at the beginning they had better troops, both in terms of training and equipment, but they were also better organized. Eventually that strength atrophied, but for other reasons beyond just the border fighting).

I also need to find time to finish Castlevania before I cancel my netflix... and not get bogged down by writing something based on set in or otherwise related to that, but its a good animated show, if a little over the top at times. Along with other stuff... my buddy is talking about running a weird west style DnD campaing which might be a nice distraction, I'm always glad when I don't have to be one Dungeon Master in the group.

Anyway this week was atypical for updates. The plan is to get through this end of the arc, the fighting in Szechwan in the early months of 1918 along with central asia's developments directly contribute to long term organizational changes, and they directly impact the July conclusion of the arc that is set up for in June which is really more or less the end of the regular updates for the arc.

 

[Imperator Pax]

February 1918
He no longer expressed surprise, as he once had of the plumes of white powder from old guns. He had simply become inured to it. It was horrifying in its own way... that people were still using such primitive weapons against modern forces. That old muzzle loading cannons were attempting to fire on modern forces.

Carter's notes were a bit concerning in themselves. Not that they were about the cannons, he'd basically dismissed those but rather his observations on the enemy organization. He recognized the make up... and didn't like the implication... but it might not bear too much to read into.

So the bandits had adopted Boxer esque organization, that wasn't so out there, the boxers had been an off shoot of an offshoot of a rebellious group called the White Lotus. The secret societies were rife across south china, and it was just as likely that in six months or a year, they would be shooting at bandits who used the same organizational scheme as the Taipings.

It bore in mind that there were still tribal chiefdoms to the south and to the west, so just as much as there were units who adopted the ranks and styles of the French and Germans there were older remnants. There were still groups fighting in the name of the Ming at least in professed sentiment, but that there were rebel groups who claimed to be fighting for a dynasty that was nearly four hundred years dead, so why shouldn't there be people who chanted Boxer slogans, waved boxer banners, and organized as the boxers had. It would have been nice if they didn't use guns and artillery at all, but if that had been the case this Hongkui probably would have tried to take Bazhong all by his lonesome. He still wanted the city though, thought they could use it to project power.

... which if Allen were honest if Ma wanted to be brazen Ma could well have taken the city, but Hongkui didn't wear spectacles to look smart, he knew better ... he knew what it took to keep his cavalry in the field, and that taking the city would take too much

... and in all likelihood he knew that he had rivals within the Ma clique who'd complain if Hongkui's independent brigade decided to take a city and then needed resources to hold it.

What perhaps concerned him more was that the Ma clique increasingly wanted to hold territory. Broadly referred as 'the cousins', even though some ties were purely nominal the Ma clique had a generation that was getting old having to back away from power, and an up and coming generation who had either made their bonafides or were looking to make prove their bones in a fight. Hongkui was first among this young generation, and thus had less to prove.

Clouds of white gunsmoke from black powder rifles obscured the gray haze of the mountain side in the distance. Puffs of ineffective fire from down below.

The noise was then overwhelmed by much larger more modern artillery as Carter's artillery came alive filling the area. He wondered if Ma's horses were deaf yet. The mounted rifles of the brigade were moving around, but going up the mountainside like this would be a mess.

He lifted the field glasses to watch the ponies run. A handful of men... but at least these had modern rifles. "What do you think?"

"I wonder if that's how its going to be."

"How what's going to be?"

"Black Jack took the cavalry down to mexico," and the ponies had danced at Bersheba, where the Australian Light Horse had taken the wells at the end of the previous year. To dim the chatter a pavessi drug forward, lumbering as it came another load of ammunition. The tractor coming to a shuddering stop, its great wheels holding under the break as it was applied. "They're faster than that bastard."

"Maybe so," Allen replied, "But that bastard keeps the divisional artillery well fed," He nodded towards the 15cm HE in the wagon it was towing. "Different jobs though. IF the Kansu Rifles down there are serious about harassing the enemy then the automobile can furnish the supply park."

Carter swung out of the fulton coming up from the direction the tractor. "Are they still shooting round shot at us?" He questioned passing them, and shouting at the red legs. He and Bill shared a look.

"We're eight miles from him, on a ridgeline , and that's black powder shooting up."

"It'll mess up horses though." Carter replied turning back, "I want rounds on that gun." He barked to a crew chief.

Carter's orders to the howitzer crew saw a long barreled, nearly 30 calibre, piece send a 96 pound high explosive charge seven miles and change into an airburst that when it exploded ripped apart the opposing gun crew. A second shell fired detonated slightly left by appearance, from the enemy position, and tore the axle from the gun... before the gunpowder cooked off and even from a sixty power spotting scope was drowned in white smoke.

He stepped away the german glass. "Dawes must be very impressed."

"We'll never hear the end of it." Bill agreed. "That is 1st​ field artillery though, most of that battery was with us at Xian.... and you can bet they were the first ones on this model." He was right of course, half of the 1st​ Field Artillery spent most of its time rotated to the experimental technical section for testing anytime they weren't actually in the field. "You want my guess, Dawes put them here to put the fear of god into the bastards down there."

"That might be," Allen replied, "But you were saying?"

"Just that horses aren't going to cut it but we do need a more maneuverable field force of our own, and Cole and I have been talking about what we need. The Mechanized Rifle platoon is built using stuff we have but once this ford factory is up," Well that would be different. "We need to be able to put a force on site not just first, but a substantial force. They'd be cavalry just not horse soldiers."

Though the quote was often ascribed, Forrest had never in such butchered english actually said 'firstest with the mostest' but the idea was reflected in his directive on cavalry usage.

--
The labor corp had cut a turnpike, rather liberally with dynamite. They'd filled caissons up as well, which wasn't exactly discrete. It had been hard to miss. In fact one would have had to be blind, deaf, dumb and stupid to some how have missed the construction... of course the attack followed on a cold morning with about six inches of snow on the ground from the previous night. Hotchkiss Winchesters with fixed bayonets had no business coming along at the fighting positions... but no one had told the other guys that.

"Fuck, they're doing it." He grunted as another few hundred men in bright jackets fired from their clouds of white smoke advancing up the road towards the positions. "God damn it!" There was a shrill metal note from down below and an officer with a sword waved his men forward. He didn't make it long after before someone up above sent a spitzer through his breast, but the attack was signaled and the press of bodies rushed up the hill.

"Carter, watch your language."

The younger man turned and looked at Bill like he'd grown a second head. "Canister, Now" Carter said snapping to an artillery captain. Allen watched the charge all but distingregate. He didn't miss Carter biting down on his lip either.

Bill flashed a hand sign to him, and in the direction he indicated, here came Ma Hongkui to mop up. The Hui Mounted Rifles detachment were a squadron strong and had the advantage of the corp having cut and leveled the road out with cages to allow a path for trucks... which meant a horse soldier could ride eight or even ten abreast with ease.

The organization of the charging men didn't mean much. If Carter was right they were using the boxer's organization of small units... but on the other hand these men had rifles and bayonets... probably had cartridge boxes. They might not have had modern uniform jackets, but he doubted they'd find talismans intended or hoped to ward off gun fire.

"Did the boxers ever mount an assault against prepared breastworks?"

"They tried to jump seymour on the turnpike, but I don't think they ever tried an assault on a properly fortified military position." The legations didn't count. "I think most of the assaults were the alliance throwing men at the forts, and walls."

"Well these boxers didn't do much better." The mounted rifles opened up with their Mauser carbines from about seventy yards into a handful of men trying to get back to a shattered tree line. Enfilading fire was echoing from another post of fortifications. They had been built, unlike the main line which utilized concrete, as largely wooden earth and sand bag fortifications. They were nothing fancy, trees hewed down notched like you were building a long cabin... and then sticking a machine gun in the windows.

It wasn't much more complicated than that. Rifle Platoons could be stationed on what were basically protected porches shored up by short trenches topped with sandbags. Most of these positions though were filled with 2nd​ Division troops. 1st​ Division was being maneuvered up and had been staged behind the line to actually march on the city of Ba Zhong... before it had started snowing.

It was the only reason they hadn't encircled and launched an attack... though admittedly calling the county township a city was a stretch. "You think Hongkui's impatient?"

"He said this is the largest single mustering of troops in anyone's lifetime."

He rolled his eyes, "Don't be absurd."

Bill nodded, "That's what he said, the Qing had less than two hundred officials in the province... a hundred seventy eight maybe? In a province of fifty odd million. Imagine that."

He suspect either Hongkui was having Bill on, or ... he considered the Qing era Opium suppression campaigns to root out native opium growers to have been so long ago that it was just on paper now... and it bore thinking about that most of the leaders of the province were men their own age... and indeed most of those had studied modern military science in Japan. That could have easily explained the bayonet charge, or French education, or German education... Chengdu had had a military academy even if it had closed a decade ago the local commanders could have attended there.

There was another grouping of hooves as another squadron mustered. Ninety minutes... fighting since just before dawn and who knew how many men had run into the bursting shells to their mortal ends.
--
Notes: As I mentioned Ma Hongkui seems to have started his bandit suppression career as a Kansu commander, this was local work, but it continued, dare we say it 'mission creeped' to such a point that it was eventually a 'federally' recognized command, on the other hand its generally accepted that Peking either wanted to keep him close (Cao Kun probably wanted him close buy, or he wanted to be in Peking in order to get benefits from Cao Kun when he was president, or it was mutual). Anyway we're going to get through some fighting, which I will touch on in a minute, but in March and moving forward we will be touching on political shifts before we approach the conclusion of the arc.

Militarily Sichuan province during the warlord era had a large manpower pool, but it was politically fractured and was regarded as having the worst troops in all of China. (That should say something). Part of that was just lack of equipment but by this point there is starting to be a transition from the early warlords of the province (with the division of the province into large territorial areas) that will continue with new warlords coming to power. This were less educated local leaders (or the scions of local leadership who exercised control through a mix of family ties and controlled several counties usually by controlling an administrative center. i.e. Chonqing through which they were able to collect taxes.

 

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

Minor short Fragment Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1918

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There were glances around. "And?"

"Yeah, what do we do?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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