Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

August 1920
Officially, with the manifold reforms of the constitutional ratification Allen had found his rank to be commanding general... what ... what in twenty years would become General of the Armies. It was a legal distinction with every intention that it was to be an administrative post, and aimed at preparing and training the army rather than actually commanding forces afield.

... but it was a position that had been one of coordination, and education... one not predicated one that could not have predicted at the time of writing the break down of central authority in north china. "What do we want to do?" He looked at the map, and the question was asked again, "What do we want to do Al?"

He idly tapped eastern Siberia... officially as his rank CG Iseburo was still the IG... unofficially was governor... Viceroy might have been accurate... that was what Percy had made the crack on about a few days ago... and he wasn't necessarily wrong... though he doubted the comparison was popular. "We're gonna push on with trying to get them to adopt 8mm Mauser." Kirghiz wasn't subject to the arms embargo, so they could get that stuff surplused cheap.

They'd push to get rid of the Russian cartridge ... mostly because there was no tooling or industry to make it in the numbers that anyone would need especially if a fight came. The 8mm was the standard cartridge across China even if the south was largely reliant on the older round nose pattern still... the Qing hadn't been able to complete the transition, and the pattern 88s were still arguably the most common rifle in the country... but that really underscored what needed to be done. If Siberia, and Central Asia were to be able to resist any potential Bolshevik advance something was going to have to give.

Logistically that would mean that the rifle caliber would have to change. Britain would have probably preferred if the change over 'if it must' be done to their dwarf but that wasn't likely. "Well the good news on that," Griswold remarked "is the tooling is set. Machine guns shouldn't be an issue, we've already made simplifications and mass production is under way." He meant Heavy Machine Guns those in tripod mount i.e. The colts not the Lewis guns. "It'd be nice if Iseburo would buy an order as well."

"Tch, and get in a fight with the Kwantung Army." Whose leadership had not appreciated the Siberian posting not being folded in... even though Yamagata's heir would have likely ended up in charge of it all... instead the Manchurian concession was a separate army and civilian apparatus... and it didn't take a genius to recognize that the two commands would be vying for funding in a post war budget... and since Iseburo's command was sitting on oil at least on that one island and he had the industry connections... well there was going to be a lot of teeth gnashing from the army, and probably the navy. "Don't get me wrong, if the reds come over," Dawes drawled, "I'd want us all with the same model of rifle, machine gun and cannons, but we should probably accept there will be a fight but one where we don't have interchangeable weapons."

It was a vain hope, there was no denying that... Allen wasn't even sure that if the Brits agreed to replace 303 with 30'06 that it would have justified adopting it to replace the Mauser. They were doing their own rifle experiments, with aims towards a universal short rifle... but twenty inches even with IMR was still stout for smaller men and they had to make considerations.

Dawes's comment further accentuated that officially, that he was formally the second most senior officer in the army commanding the artillery. Regardless of progressing talk, of air forces, gendarmes or national guard the artillery was of the combat arms effectively senior given the effective time in grade especially. "Zhang intends to start a full shift over to a domestic production moving from the 88 to the 98."

The troubles in Manchuria well if the Ponytail hadn't gone into retirement it was likely Zhang Xun would have probably pursued a similar course of modernization, and probably only the war in Europe had prevented Yuan Shikai from trying to modernize the Beiyang army from pushing forward with such.

Zhang Tsolin's hold on Manchuria meant he had funding for that. There was the question of whether or not he had the funding available to sustain a modernization program that would become self sustaining... "Do you think he can do it?"

"He's hiring russians, he has a mission in Austria," Dawes picked up his mug and blew on the steaming coffee, "We know he understands the terms of the peace treaty, and even if that wasn't a factor we know he planned to buy surplus. Zhang is surprisingly adamant about not likely the Bolsheviks, and I can't speak to ... the man's personal feelings but I am a little worried where he sits on the Qing."

Zhang Xun, and Zhang Tsolin were not related. They shared a surname but that didn't mean much there were a million lees after all. On the other hand Zhang Tsolin was adamant about providing gifts to the former emperor... and by itself that was nothing... but with thirty thousand manchurian gendarmes in Peking... well it was hard not to fret about the similarities that they were looking at.

"Something we'll have to keep on top of."

--
Only the most optimistic of the Cadre had grand visions of what the first elections would yield in terms of preparation... but the recent fightin in Peking's vicinity ... well that wasn't great for civic confidence. Even allowing for the greater infrastructure compared to out west only part of the fory odd million of the population were actually eligible for the Franchise... and estimates on how many of them would turn out to vote was largely disappointing.

In a way they were lucky that Duan had called for parliamentary elections when he had. It had allowed them a trial run that went through Shansi, Shensi, Gansu, Xinjiang, the lake, and Lhasa. All the same one of the self evident things going into the first elections would be that the lower house would have to approve efforts to better organize the electorate, but that would go hand in hand with tax reform and infrastructure expenditures. Schools, especially, compulsory education.

It wasn't the only election they had to worry about either... the states would going to the polls soon. That Wood hadn't clinched the nomination was unfortunate. Harding's rhetoric... was at best nonsense and worse ignorant of the world beyond the shore and ignorance was dangerous.

"Here are the financials," Waite remarked, "And the census is under way, we will tabulate using the counting machines," The machines that they had bought, brought over in the expectation of conducting a China wide census for the Qing, which had fallen through so long ago. "Its telling us mostly what we expected though."

The overwhelming majority of China's population was rural... and the lack of modern statistics, and regular efforts to keep the rolls updated meant guess work... but more than that rural life meant endemic unemployment, and also commonly under employment. Things that had been identified years ago, but with a comprehensive census would be able to meaningfully plan and address with the addition of government powers... if given time to work.

The financial commission had an overlap with the banking one, but it was a study group. It was looking both local efforts to reform, like what Zhang Tsolin had instituted with a silver currency of his own issue, and also ... the mess that was going on with abroad. As China had not needed to mobilize, as there had not been a disjunction of any sort of national market the matter of inflation and the value of the common house hold goods had remained relatively stable as well. Domestic production of manufactured goods had increased to meet demand for goods which ordinarily would have been brought in from Europe, and later America as American production had been devoured by the European war effort. "Is the Ed Commission in there somewhere?"

"Nah, I ain't seen it yet." Waite replied.

Compulsorily education in such a way that it could be thought of beginning had begun with the kindergartens and school for employees of the firm. If Augustus had been born in 1910 he'd have still been too young to be in those first combined classes for workers children. The expansion of 1914, then for the war, meant a need to expand workers housing and other supplemental, and they would still have to do that, and new schools had been planned... which was probably why the education commission was late.


--
Notes: The use of Commanding General is of course an American-ism its a 19th​ century facet this rank would have been abolished by the US in fact it was replaced in 1903 by Army Chief of Staff as position and subordinate in both instances to the secretary of war. This also goes however to the difference in the systems that are developing politically.

At this point Xian doesn't have a Secretary of War, and strictly speaking Xian's civilian positions are rather frequently filled with military officers or those with military experience. This is something previously alluded on in the Pre Xian period with Reinsch's complaining about militarism (this is something he complained about in his academic writing before he was posted to China, it was something he complained about with Japan, and China both regarding leadership, and he complained about it in this US system with regards to the secretary of War basically ignoring him). This is kind of a foreshadowed but Reinsch and some other politicians and political appointees pre ww1 were often inclined to complain 'oh the militarists or militarism is making my job harder', his complaints to SoW, and the Phillipines were more complicated than that, and also involved the fact that Reinsch was a political appointee and Lansing (and Bryan before him) had other things on the agenda.

But here with those complaints there is an extent leadership, and to be fair its very much a continuation of an old boy's club.

As to the gun thing this plays into WW2 where E.Siberia, like Manchukuo and Kirghiz and China in general are all using 8mm Mauser and typically some mauser action for their rifle. (88 Commission rifles or domestic productions are still common) Japan never transitions fully from their last Meiji era rifle, Japan is in the process of modernizing its 6.5 cartridge at present, but the 7.7 is complementary to the 6.5 and its basically a rimless 303 British. The 'Arisaka' are basically improved Mauser action rifles. As a result there end with Imperial Japan doing special procurement of small batches of different things but never adopting them en masse. (Like with the Carcano)

Caliber is going to be important for pushing cold war doctrine, adoption of a semi / select fire rifles, artillery and so forth. Those will be discussed touched on as we move further into the interwar years, because most of those conversations took place in the thirties academically. Now I say academically because while they had been touched tentatively before ww1 Ordinance branches got in the way, and also by the late thirties war is around the corner and a lot of small arms modernization didn't get funded, and were put off by most major combatant nations.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1920​

Eventually the optimism about 'the war to end all wars' nonsense would fade. Europe wasn't safe, it certainly wasn't at peace. The political crisis of Germany of 1920 encouraged some to immigrate, and they were hardly the only crisis. They knew that from the European offices, and Powell hoped to encourage immigration to Latin America... but the Czechs ... Czechoslovakia who probably would have been all right with out the Tsar's gold or their portion of it were doing well.

Not everyone was that lucky, and at least the Czechs were somewhat protected by geography. Kirghiz, the nominal term of choice to describe the broad extent of central asia, did not per se. The fall of orenburg the city had remained in Bolshevik hands, and remained akin to some medieval fortress marking the border... and also as the nominal capital of a communist central asian state. It kept the British invested in the region, if for no other reason than to maintain a buffer state north of India though.

He expected that was part of hte reason Percy wouldn't let the matter of a trip to England loose for any prolonged period of time. There just wasn't time to go to England, not for him. Not with everything else going about. Percy shrugged, "Well as I said the business with the Czech legion, with its great conjoining of new nations in the east has provided a great deal of favorable press."

"Yes, we're in talks to supply technical data pacakages and arms assistance to them. He almost wished they were in position to produce rifles for export to Europe just to tweak noses, but they weren't , if they were going to produce 8mm Mauser rifles for anyone it would need to be Kirghiz... "The Trans Caspian line is overhauled."

"Yes the Commission had said as much in their cable." Mackinder's people in 'south russia' as the British preferred calling it. "They're tentatively optimistic that the peace will hold you know."

"We will see," Allen replied, "From my understanding its not the same in west." Percy flinched. Lloyd George had had the temerity to claim the reason he couldn't countenance an embargo against the Bolsheviks was that it would cause starvation... well starvation seemed likely anyway, but it rang hollow for other reasons given that Royal Navy had been willing to dominant the seas and police commerce during the war, and the British had refued to contemplate budging on Freedom of th Seas when Wilson had attempted to discuss... but that merely underscored the Virginian's weakness of character for all his rhetoric...

In the end the Poles would unveil their Miracle on the Vistula, but in early and the middle of August things had looked a bit dicier. "There is aid being provided but not troops,"

He grunted, "The bolsheviks have limitted resources if the peace holds it'll only be because they can't afford to attack on multiple fronts."

"What will you do?"

Allen gestured to the map, "With tranche 3 done, the railway through to Ferghana is up and running we can look at other efforts and we will continue to encourage that the Cossacks do what they can to make themselves a less a tempting target."

"Iseburo's defense at the lake,"

"Is an example to demonstrate to, but I am just as concerned that Iseburo's defense will make any Red attack more likely to be aimed south if they manage to win in the west... assuming they give up Trotsky's madness about a bridge to Germany." He shook his head, personally he didn't so much care about the country so much as the resources and the damage its fall would do, "Look whatever, however it plays out we'll be busy in Turkestan," and on their side in Xinjiang there was just too much to do any given year, but the railways were running now. This wasn't like twenty years ago when there had been no railways in Xinjiang and the area had been largely dependent on the Russian postal service.

"Are you going?"

"Short trips only." He replied. Xian sat at the center of their modern rail network, and that stretched out to the ancient sogdian cities of trade now in the west, but it also had trunks that stretched east and eventually touched lines that ran to the coast. "The drought will require a lot of my," Twelve months of little to no rain, and then the mess in July... the harvest across North china was going to be abysmal given the decrepit status of much of the irrigation... which was of course why so many people considered flood control so important. "attention." He said, "We'll buy grain for the states to pad the granaries of course put in more tube wells where we can, but most places aren't gonna be so lucky," Either here in North China or in the neighboring countries to the north and west... and the lack of rain was across all of western, northern Asia from the sound of it.

--
It had taken the better part of the week to get around to reading the full text of the Financial Commission's report. The summary for Manchuria though proved interesting enough... Zhang had engaged in currency reforms after he'd come to power. Tsolin's reforms, and his willingness to enact them had a long history in Manchuria though...

The Financial Commission had gone back to early attempts at land reform in Manchuria, but also hadn't missed that Tsolin had opposed some of those earlier attempts, while supporting others. His government's currency reform had begun with a new issue silver note, and then... the issuance of a second currency to handle government business pegged to the Japanese gold-Yen. This was probably for the best, since the new currency was stable, and implied that Zhang's creditors were confident enough in its solidarity that his loans were secure investments...

Zhang's was one of the few success stories present... and he looked to expand that with plan to Open a bank of Manchuria with an eight million dollar operating capital. In the scheme of international finance that was not an astounding volume of money... but for a Chinese bank it had a short list of competitors.

If you were optimistic it was a good thing. The only example of note that came to mind was the Bank of Communication, Shanghai, and Hong Kong... and well the two cities, well... leaving aside them Zhang was pursuing real and effective economic reforms that very well could have benefited the whole country if only they were pursued. That made it all the more farcical, because Zhang was not conventionally educated, he had just gathered the right men around him, and built on existing conditions.

By comparison Szechwan was a teeming mess, yes there were bandits in the borderlands of the three provinces that made up Manchuria, and that required troops but it did bring them back to the other issue. Yuan Shikai had frequently attempted to keep the Army of China to a manageable half million in no small part due to financial burden preferring well armed, and well trained modern troops to the old Green and Banner formations.

Yuan Shikai had lived long enough to see the beginning of hte changes to international finance... but he hadn't lived to see the end of the war... or Germany's defeat... or the humiliation of a vindictive imperialist peace. The legal German army limited to a hundred thousand men was a joke, Germany was sixty million people, a hundred thousand was made all the more absurd looking at the growing armies of China... at their own growing army.

Yan Xishan was recommending still that the reserves be expanded to a full paper strength of a hundred thousand men. Then of course there was the move to fully equip the 5 'regular army' active duty divisions on top of the 2nd​ Division of the Guard, and the 4th​ Division based in Yan's home province.

His musings were cut short by the rap on the door, "This came in from Powell, he's been talking with Lansing's replacement." Bill remarked holding out the telegram. If Powell had wanted to talk about he could have called, the telegram was faster than a letter though, but allowed the MAK to narrow their position and its presentation.

Back at home the states had been treated to a carefully curated, and presented view by Madison Avenue to shape the message of the Czech Legion and that narrative that went with it. The Czechs were absolutely a media darling, but especially back home. The papers back home loved them.

"He's volunteered to deploy troops to Danzig?" Never mind that he had volunteered to go himself, "For this ... whatever vote Wilson's cockamamie league thing plans."

"Powell expects there to be a riot, but that's the point he wants to encourage immigration to Latin America, the plebiscite is an excuse to tour, and make the rounds, and to shore up their position as well. Its the game." The middle American cadre wanted to encourage immigration to latin america, and were willing to open offices across the defunct central european empires and to where feasible look to invest in trade partnerships. "I personally reckon this free city talk is shit..." the Texan shook his head, "I don't pretend to know how to fix the European's malfunction... but Powell is clearly thinking that Danzig is a port, and that I guess make trade."

Allen scrutinized the telegram's three pages. "Its what he doesn't say." He agreed.
--
There were other reasons to think about Manchuria was its population. It was certainly what the British Foreign Service was thinking of. Percy looked uncomfortable in Civilian clothes, it was maybe he was the one in the suit, and felt isolated from the building full of men... but Percy had made the decision not to have this at a civilian venue like say the Glory and its coffee bar... but there was no telling whether or not he'd have been uncomfortable there.

"I was under the impression Zhang was on board against the Bolsheviks, isn't he making nice with the mad baron? They're both planning to expand their personal armies."

"Yes... well I don't know if their congeniality shouldn't be more of a cause for concern, but you're really not worried about it?"

"Its geography Percy." Mackinder liked to talk about geography and to a certain extent the parliamentarian a was right... the Cadre recognized that it could not do as Washington did and pretend itself aloof from world affairs... there was not Atlantic and Pacific to insulate China from problems that sat on its borders. "Yeah, Shensi has a lot of people," But the further inland one went, well it made sense that the maritime trio being closer to the coast, and other factors had, "Twenty five thirty million people sounds about right," There were discrepancies in the numbers. Zhang Tsolin was working off a stunted bureaucracy, and previous provincial authorities number's disagreed with the Yuan Shikai era Interior Ministry numbers by several million in total... but that was normal. "What I'm really hoping for is that our census tabulations are accurate." And that it would teach them what to do next time, when they ran the next one in ten years.

"So what will you do," Percy had brought up the situation India previously. The population of India was something on the or der of 250 maybe 300 million, but trying to measure the stock of hte whole sub continent was a nightmare much as accounting for China. Percy's point stood though, "He'll make a hundred thousand by next year."

"Yeah I know," He replied, "Believe I've heard about the Renaults as well, Griswold and Dawes both are interested... and if Zhang is serious about domestic production I'll never hear the end of it."

"Could he do it?"

"Sure, why not?" He replied shrugging, "the engine is a little anemic for my taste, but my real objection is just that for what it does and Cole agrees with me an armored car, a ford truck is just as well." They weren't precisely contending with storming intensive networks of trenches after all, and that would shape what the requirements were. "Now Zhang does seem to like the Renault, and his criteria is different and maybe he thinks its worth at this stage, I do not at this stage."

In Five years, maybe it would be different then, and Percy recognized, "Mechanization will progress."

"It will, I'm sure of that, but an Infantry Division, the Guard are for the reserves and troops to stretch a defensive cordon. I don't like the situation in Szechwan, call it tit for tat if you like, but I mean to hunt bandits... but I'll not go down south..."

If only a similarly commitment from Zhang could have been extracted... but that was another matter... but these were to become known as the years of High Warlordism for a reason.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1920
The collapse of the German, Austrian, and Russian Empires provided ample opportunities, and opportunistic moments had been abundant. Japan citing Tsarist debts had extended its control over what bits of the Trans siberian railway were in their sphere of influence, rubber stamped by their patsies and that was it. That assumption of rail properties also included Manchurian lines. The French had protested of course, but Lloyd George's government supported the Anglo-Japanese alliance and talked about the responsibilities of things like the international financial system and the importance of rules based systems... a not so subtle shot across France's bow regarding war time debts.

Now, Japan would have certainly preferred to add the Russian concessions in China to their holdings, but the Government in Tokyo knew that would have been a much harder swing. Harbin was one thing, Hankou was another much as the creditors, and their creditors wanted those coal and iron assets in the south fed Japan's largest steel mill ... it wasn't a fight the prime minister was willing to entertain. The Japanese Prime Minister was... vacillating between political camps.

For Peking the Austrian problem was easy enough to address. The Chinese were refusing to sign Versailles over Shangdong, and they could go point to the US refusal to ratify to buttress things... but the beiyang cliques forming the new government to replace the Anfu wing were still unhappy about the situation... and the Brits had a point Duan's had signed on the line, and even if it hadn't the Japanese hadn't taken the concession during the war and gotten the Brits to sign off on it before that. In other words Allen really doubted that the Brits would have, regardless of where Jordan, and to Hell with Reinsch's talk about pre war norms, had stood, objected to hard to the Japanese concession gains. Again, the Russian concessions were the different story.

"What do you think will happen? Hara going to buy them?"

Allen shook his head, "No, I can't expect Hara convincing the diet to to come up with a figure that would get Peking to let it happen." He'd have welcomed being wrong... but even if the Beiyang could agree to a Hong Kong lease like what the Qing had offered the British the south would have thrown a fit... and ... well Wu wasn't in the south and he was a native of Shandong...

Or as Waite agreed with him, the anti-war party didn't want a headache any more than Hara did. "Which is what they'll get. Koo's idea is tempting I suspect."

The smart ass had twisted Jordan's arms embargo around on the British, and since there wasn't a recognized 'russian government' the concessions should revert to China, and that the boxer indemnity payment should cease entirely. That latter one wouldn't take much to get traction... but Koo's proposal would potentially cause trouble in Manchuria.

With Japan holding Eastern Siberia, and the British propping up central Asia Peking had no reason to talk to Moscow... Peking didn't... Sun Yat-sen though would prove to be another issue... even though the ComIntern was to still make noise. Running a press was cheap after all. Talking was easy, fighting was hard, and costly. "And there is the Ottoman mess..."

The room fell silent. The states had avoided a declaration of war against the pashas... and Wilson had done little to really abridge rampant anglo-french imperial ambitions... but for the British it meant inflaming tensions in the muslim quarters of India, "I don't think Koo will go that far, but yeah he could easily turn it loose..." And as for India, well they are supposed to go to the polls in November as well, "We should be so lucky that bit of old world vinegar didn't hit market sooner." The states had never declared war on the ottoman empire... but entente policy had declared, that was to say Paris and London had declared that the Turks had forfeit their state's very right to historical existence. A dangerous precedent to set.

It was such heavy handed talk from the foreign service, and policy makers that supported boycotts of British and French goods... "The elections in November are non negotiable," George declared casting looks up and down the table, "we have to hold them and seat the lower house in the new year."

Waite was right, it was imperative. Local, county and municipal governments needed to be brought into full function. Cole and Waite's staffs needed relief for their criminal and civil investigations, there needed to be a normal municipal police... there was much more to a functioning and healthy government if they were to expand.

Expansion though, meant the growth of a domestic market, producing goods that might otherwise be purchased out of french and british exports. The crisis, and political disruption of Hopeh, Hunan and Honan were all points of concern... but while there was occasional talk of actions of the pre war years there was a consensus that that anti bandit operations were going to need to change. A change that was going to have be discussed as input needed to be measured from Tibet, and Xinjiang as well.

--
They had started talks with Union Carbide and American Bakelite before the war, but those had had to be put off due to the war's demand for chemicals... even before the US had declared. The end of war time controls meant access to US laboratories and the corporations that funded them, and liscensure of technology.

Technology for synthetic materials had been pushing forward anyway... and Rayon had existed before the war. That demand would go up now and that would have knock on effects in the silk the real stuff market. Rayon yarn was also more in demand for cotton textiles as well. He paused, for a minute because he understood that, "I'm sorry you can use it to make tires?"

"Yeah." Bill replied with a nod. Artificial rubber was tricky. Polymerizing isoprene was costly before the war, and while there had been work in the war from the sound of it was still going to be a financial drag even with an abundance of electrical energy. "If anything our consumption of rayon in industrial processes it because we don't produce enough of it. Phineas," the navy lawyer of the McCulloch siblings, "says the British are getting stung by it and that the staffs are being let go by some firms. We need a chemical industry for the oil, and I'm going to need a portion of the trucks, which will in turn consume oil, and chew up tires. It just goes along,"

... but this was letting him know ahead of time of course. The importance of oil, and the broader chemical industry were part of the reason why Bill hadn't ended up higher in the seniority even as his command produced officers of general rank.

"And?"

"Well supposing that there was a way to expand production..."

Bill was playing coy, which meant there was a way... most likely figured out during the war or maybe just before that must have made it through the scientific conversation but for reasons not entered production due to war time limitations... rayon wasn't exactly a strategic war material, "I assume its something obvious that no one would think of like with edison's lightbulb from that shit eating grin?"

"Its molasses. As fermentation process, and its not just rayon we're talking about, acetone, ethyl acetate, butane, and more." Allen nodded conceding the possibilities, Chemistry was something he had studied even if he had largely looked towards the manufacture of propellant, charges, and well diesel too. "So Phineas knows then?"

"Of course." Bill shuffled, "There is another thing, Percy's nosing around again in the west."

"Ive noticed. You heading out that way?"

"I was thinking about ... " The bigger man blew out a breath. "The qing just didn't get around to it, like I've read where they recognized what they needed to do, that at least somebody in the bureaucracy knew that they had to do something a hundred years ago to write about," Way back in 1820, "They just didn't want to spend the money." Maybe by that point it had already been too late, the Qing had pretended to an air of strength... but the more and the harder they looked at the Qing's own tax receipts the more shoddy and hollow the old dynasty appeared.

The education basis of Chinese proposals had been Confucian of course. It would have structured classical Chinese rather than vernacular language among a population in the west that largely spoke turkic. The result was they had made scarce headway into it by the time the dynasty had collapsed. "Its been eight years." He remarked, but well semantics, and then on top of that Yuan... and Old Ma for that matter too had been dead for a couple years as well.

"Maybe we could have moved sooner, maybe not." Bill shrugged and it didn't matter, "The internal tariffs are gone, we don't have to worry about the lijin. The Tsar's empire is gone. The treaty of st petersburg is defunct... change the situation on the ground... besides with the cossacks in Kirghiz its our industry going to their markets ... and trades a lot more equitable now."

"We'll need to expand the schools." There were significant resources for their heavy chemical industries in the west... and those industries would be safe from szechwanese trouble but they also had to watch the north west, "It was different when the Ma were coherent, but given the situation on the outside things are different." They weren't talking about an abstract social problem they'd gotten the warning well enough ahead of time. The rain fall wasn't enough, there were going to, would be short falls of crops in territory held by the Soviets, and there was nothing that could be done... there was going to be a famine, "We need to reinforce the frontier and trade so that if the Bolsheviks do try for something stupid we can make sure its bloody enough they break off early."

"Like with Iseburo. That shouldn't be hard Dawes is already talking about Eight Inch guns, has been, and enough that the British aren't opposed to that sort of thing." Bill replied, "That will mean another Brigade in the west though, you know that."

"I know that, and that's why I need you to focus on making sure we've the carrying capacity to support them." For the Ma clique, their flying brigades had been going down south to settle grievances and chase bandits... and if they were given the option that would probably be the direction that was pursued even when there were other things that needed to be done... the cadre had to look at bigger picture beyond just what they had been. "The army cannot be a frontier constabulary, we are past where that is an option. The world has left that era behind. So what do you need?"

"I need aircraft if I'm being honest." [With]"So much ground to cover, we need more radios, need to be able to broadcast... if something goes we need to know as soon as it drops into the pot."

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1628
They had piled out of the cars, and left everyone to do their own thing after they were finished for the day. Not the best idea, or well thought of plan but he accepted that they weren't sure what to do after the raiders had been shown off. That had dropped everyone back in town to do whatever while they were waiting to see what else had happened... and he didn't like it.

Victor Lucius Gunther was not particularly religious. Twenty years previous that would have been a social problem for a man his age, but not in the South they had come from. There was far less social pressure towards being inclined, and less so for ... whatever he was now. The Gunther Mill Annex had been donated to the school a few years after the mill had finally closed. That still made it older than him given the Depression had nearly killed the Mill, and only the second world war had stopped it from going under then.

Normally he used the building as an example of American industry prior to the second world war since they could just get on the school shuttle bus and the freshmen, and sophomores didn't need to worry about missing their next classes. Today he was here for something different. The 1907 Pratt and Whitney Industrial Lathe was more than a hundred years old, and if one was entirely an honest having a working 1940s Type 3C would have been better; but that needed a new belt and some tweaking. This did work though. It was amazing the amount of junk that was collected up, and then not maintained over decades. The sheer volume of material that was rust covered that even he wasn't sure of what it all was meant no doubt hours wasted trying to figure it out.

Which was precisely what he had class today. "As you've been told, I'm supposed to have your final grades in on schedule." Apparently some people hadn't read the notices, or checked their emails, which the latter made sense limitted power meant they would have had to go to the library in order to check most likely. "We will be spending this last week of actual classes cataloging various examples of Industrial America, as opposed to covering the Cold War, and the War on Terror." It was a noticeable improvement. His America to 1870 classes were getting shunted to looking at various examples of agriculture starting with squash gardens, and three crop rotations... and hopefully not some idiotic waste of time of looking at war time victory gardens. Jethro Tull would be a lot more useful... but still more likely was going to be the need to trade for food.

The collected freshmen, and sophmores looked at him. "So this for a grade?" One of them managed to ask.

"Technically, yes." He replied, and quite frankly he didn't see the point, or rather he understood that the ... idea was to coax the students along but he wasn't sure it was going to work. "Your grades as far as the university needs to be concerned have been entered already, this will merely replace the remaining coursework." He was not going to be grading term papers, and Final exams in this situation. "This is a practicum substituion for that remaining coursework."

They divided off into groups on their own, and started trying to prod through the various material in the crates. There were probably rats, roaches, and spiders around here... it was an old building, but it was something to do. He started dragging another shop lamp over.

"what are we going to do with all of this?" An airy voice asked after he had started examing a part of a grinder machine that was probably twice his own age.

He glanced at the blonde undergrad, and the sorority logo emblazoned tee shirt, "In theory we might be able to put some of it back into service," His tone of incredulity suggested he found most of this junk would work without some serious jury rigging... and even then... "That," He gestured to the Pratt and Whitney, "Works, we could do a lot with it, as far as stuff on lathes go." He amended, and he had a smaller Eglin at home, that if hadn't weighed so much damned much would have been better suited here in the mill. "They," The museum people, "want to make crankshafts, or see if they get the steam engine working. I don't know where they intend to find the people who know how to make these things though." There were not a lot of navy people in town. He doubted there were any machinist mates, and even if they were if they'd ever used something like this. Even if they had... well, "They might have the schematics for that king of stuff though." Otherwise they'd be fumbling along blind, and that didn't seem effective.

"But we have cars," It was almost a whine, "why do we need a train?"
There were a variety of reasons. A variety of ways to answer that question. A some point any of the men here should have lived through a fuel shortage regardless of how minor or a nuisance as it would have been.

"In theory the train is steam powered, we can burn logs if we have to to run it. In practice though," He stopped, "There aren't any roads, or rails so distance travel is impractical." If the town was serious about getting around town focusing on keeping the buses running long term seemed a lot more practical since as far as he was aware they didn't have a dearth of train manufacturists besides the dilettantes at the museum. It could very well be ten years before they had a working train, assuming they had the steel for the tracks, that could go anywhere important.

Any further discussion ended when the heavy steel mill door opened. The entrance to Patrick Square let in the mid morning light to compete with the shop lamps, and were temporarily obscured by the figure of men. He'd been expecting this. The head of county board of commerce had arrived, and with him some large heavyset man in suspenders, plus one more. Visitors from the extended family, and underscored the reason he had gone into academia as a job in the first place after leaving the service. No, now with the likelihood of catastrophe it was obvious where his expectations were.

Optics, and resources were important to politics, but optics only got you so far if you didn't have the resources to get things done. The classical system of patronage thrived in such enviroments, but loosely knit alliances between nominal equals was also self evident. The net was closing. Joseph Gunther was tall and had farm weathered skin that had been common place to his generation of southerners. His associates were introduced as man from the power company, and someone from Oliver's uncle's staff. The sorority member stared at them like they might as well have been from New York... or Mars.

Joseph Gunther worst of all had brought a copy a paper... that he had probably pulled from his own university web page, about the Civilian Conservation Corp. That had been politics too, the school had wanted something about local history for the department, and no one had wanted to touch the civil war, reconstruction or the civil rights era. It was a puff piece liberally sprinkled with old newsreel black and whites.

Andrew Bracken, the power guy, hadn't even bothered reading it, and was trying to do so surreptiously as they talked while the students pawed over everything else that had been pulled out of storage. Michael Novak the last of them was taking notes like he was some gumshoe detective from the forties. "So it could be done?" The older Gunther demanded.

"Yes." Definitive answer. It could be done. There were enough farms who had the machinery for it... but... "Biggest hang up will be gas." He admitted hedging finally. If they had still been in the south he couldn't have fathomed organizing work crews in the weather, without a working economy anyway he still thought that would be a problem, but presumably they had some solution to that problem. He could concede that there were several short term measures they could employ to buy time for longer term ones... but they might dangerously risk harvest potential, which would be especially risky given the new climate. Then again he was not a farmer either. "A lot of the John deres though," and probably every other brand of modern dedicated farming tractor, "have GPS equipment and programing thats useless to us now." He frowned, "Look, France in this time period needs Baltic grain to stay fed, we're in the same boat, have the same problem. We need access to eastern grain markets to stay fed."

The adult middle class of the rural south, and indeed in the suburban south in the eighties and nineties by virtue of social mores, economic availability, and other standards had participated in a variety of small agriculture cultivation. Things like growing a few acres of corn or such, but that had fallen away. It had been falling to the wayside as gas prices rose, and really had dropped off after the great recession of the housing market imploding. With a third to almost a half of the county's population in the city that was the county seat risking the farms was an almost unconciousnable risk.

Even suggesting it to the farmers or the agriculture department should have sparked a riot. Assuming they had asked about it.

Two hours later he was back on the main campus... which basically had meant he had gone up the road on the shuttle, walked across the grass and headed into the offices. It was stuffy but not unbearable even without air conditioning. Most of the staff had opened windows, but still decided to escape outside.

Most of the college wasn't here. Most of it anyway. Social Science was the very broad classification of study of human society and its branches. As an academic discipline... it was like herding cats. It was why the university had always had a hard time managing the various egos. That was also why the economics professors were off in the business college. The college of Social Science's dean bid him into a chair, and offered him a drink.

It was funny how quickly dry the campus offices were supposed to be went out the window. "I've got the ROTC cadets working, and that's rather what I wanted to talk about." Jordan Webb pushed over a series of print offs. "School administration has already decided that everyone in the dorms is staying where they are." That much was apparent even with limited electricity extension cords had finally been run from the library to the quad to power speakers, where even now the likes of 'Post Malone', and whoever else was hot before they had gotten shifted over. Neither professor seemed thrilled by the newly returned racket, but unlike some people who wouldn't be named had yet to start blaring music from their offices... Campus police had begun surreptiously doing welfare checks every so often on the professors now on top of that. "I think we can all agree that ROTC could use some more practical experience. I've spoken with Joseph Gunther, and as a proxy to the county, and if you're willing we have an idea that we'd like to trial run."

If you're willing... hah as if it was really a request.
--
Notes: its been a minute since I've updated this, but this one of things like in 1632 that makes no sense with the later books.

France, and England were economically dependent on the dutch for the baltic trade routes. The league of Ostend makes no fucking sense. France needs the baltic open to avoid famine, England (regardless of Charles being a moron) knows it needs access to that timber for the navy, and the idea that Richeliu would willinging entertain strengthening the hapsburg ring is ludicrous but hey thats canon so when we get there we're gonna roll with it

And in 1636 when the consequences come to call well there you go. And thats another thing, I don't think Flint knew enough to recognize why the League of Ostend made no geopolitical sense cause I don't think he understands understood the period, I don't think this was a case of him knowingly handing them an idiot ball, I think he just made assumptions about political motivations and wanted to lean into the stereotype that Richeliu was a political machiavaleian super villian

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1920

There was a map of the river. Well of the Yellow River's Basin, and how the railways moved, had been built stretching westwards. On the edge of the map were stacked papers. Around the table were a bevy men in gray uniforms. The grumbling wasn't audible, but the sentiment was heavy in the air as they stood around.


Honan's gentry were a pain in the ass... and they probably were always going to be. Part of it was the fault of the Qing... probably in more ways than one depending on how you wanted to look at it... but when it got down to it the fact Zhengzhou was a part of Zhili and not Honan really grated on them. Zhengzhou was valuable, and so was its surrounding area, and well it was very medieval.

Even without that problem, they had made certain agreements with Yan about well bringing Shansi up with everyone else. The rail expansion largely would follow the 1914 route anyway, they were really just doubling up, and pushing farther north... but it was infrastructure work, and it address other problems.

So naturally Honan's gentry decided to complain about that as well. The original lines remained in service and there was little doubt Cao Kun as Dujun of Zhili would consider any solution of ceding territory to Honan. That wasn't how things worked, but it didn't stop Honan papers from being a source of complaints.

"The problem is Honan is the problem." Dawes dead panned.

What he meant was, this wasn't Peking. This was provincial... and that it meant it was a provincial problem, and Honan and the war anti war squabbling had left a sour taste that had an entirely different character and perspective. Honan was a province, and had its own assembly, it had its land holding gentry it had also its share of vying men of note.

Whether or not it had been intended as some smart crack by the British the confederacy as a joke had stuck. Xian was not Richmond, and as Percy remarked it was more like the English Birmingham as the growing army's core of officers supported a firearms trade... which wasn't per se the problem.

Honan was outside of that 'confederacy'. It was still North China of course, but for Hui officers from Gansu who graduated the military college in Shijiazhuang which was properly Zhili or Han or Manchu ones who had graduated from Xian college there were strong opinions. Opinions which held that while North Chinese Honan was outside of the camp so to speak. That Honan gentry were viewed suspiciously, and had been viewed suspiciously since the attempted Manchu restoration by the pony tail general made the army presence at Zhengzhou bristle.

Bristling officers who were publishing in Xian's papers and journals which regardless of in English, or in the local vernacular characters there was a receptive audience at home waiting to listen. Aspersions of banditry, and us versus them punctuated the discussions, alongside in the normal papers talks about ... well the facets of modernity, electrification, and a growing industrial urban working class.

That was yet another reason for Honan to complain, or at least their gentry as they were 'luring away' sons from farms or other internal provincial provinces. If not for that there was a demand for labor he expected the honanese arriving would probably have complaints from their side too, but the truth was that the post war labor demand was increasing as new machinery and new works were started as a result of being able to actually buy machines.

That was just a reiteration of needing to more housing, among yet other concerns and on a scale that they had thought they had been prepared for, but hat had been a lot easier to think before 1920. It might have been with just Xian's suburbs and surrounding villages contend with, but that hadn't even true of 1916... and things had changed greatly since.

The Mas out west had changed. Old men had died, of course, but there were other changes. It was no longer the 19th century, and the frontier of central asia were different in ways that would have been unthinkable to the old men at the turn of the century. There were entire clan dynamics which needed to be considered... but the current accepted route forward was to acknowledge Cao Kun's Zhili clique as legitimate continuation of the Beiyang government... but that was already a potential problem with the southern parliamentarians who were after having not stood for reelection in protest of Duan calling new elections were demanding to be given their old jobs back.

Ultimately that was to be the greater difference... in the long run the papers currently circulating solidified a nascent political position among the voting constituency to seat the legislature of the province on the basis of the new constitution. A lower house that accepted that they would have to run for reelection on fixed terms, and explain the policies they had voted for... and that was to fatally undermine support for the nominal government in Peking ... never mind any notion of legitimacy that the southern representatives had. September of 1920 was to be a month that shaped opinions that would form policy in response to the course of events of the next three years.

"We need to move on," Allen remarked.

"The farms."

Agriculture more generally, but yeah, wheat state side was down to 1.65 a bushel, which didn't accommodate transportation costs... and wheat was bulky to move. "The drought doesn't look like its going to break, we need to approve grain stockpiling measures."

Dawes acknowledged the point a slight nod. "That'll be good. You have a figure in mind?"

"I don't," He admitted, "I respect the apparatus Hoover has established but I have no interest of letting him come around but we can surely take lessons from his Relief administration and that applies to at home and the neighborly thing to do." With Wheat down by half that was feasible especially with shipping restrictions lifted, "I still want efforts sank into Waite's farm cultivation, but we need to start manufacturing tractors domestically for the corporate farms before we're going to be able to seriously move."
--
Allen idly noted on his calendar that the last big push for election rallying would be at the end of the month... coinciding with the Mid Autumn festival. In hindsight and look back at that with the recognition of the poll results that would come in and well two and two made four even if it was more complicated math than that.

He had been at west point when the most jingoistic papers stateside had broken the news about the Maine going up. The truth was of course had grown up expecting a war with spain... a war with spain had been seen as inevitable since the end of the war with Mexico even before the war between the states.... so at the time had not made overly much of it.

The papers that had made his desk didn't immediately remind him of the turn of the century. It was different. The... political ... well the pro-war pro-Duan pro-anfu however one wanted to define the position of supporting a strong north china government made their case... but Duan had failed, and coupled with factors beyond the red leg's ability, or doing the policy of a federal, the anti-war that was the perspective of leave the south alone, and focus on local matters were the loudest voices. The papers though made this explicitly about individual provinces... people still talked about Bai Lang's rebellion, but that was now a different matter.

Hui, or Han, or Manchu, for the western provinces, for Shensi, or Shansi... Bai Lang was made out that it was his provincial origin that was a problem so much as anything he had done, or his political sympathies. That Honan's gentry had not stopped a native son from rampaging, and now were if not complicit were unwilling to stop other bandits, and focused on their own grievances it was a matter of ill repute, and even a lack of respect.

The discovery of Qin Shi Huang's tomb in the search of suitable sites to dig a well had raised other public concerns. That discovery back in July was a reminder of a China that had been, back in the bronze age of distant history, he'd been the first man to take the title Emperor... and it from Qin that China took its name as a unified country.

This wasn't Egypt the tomb was a fucking city in their back yard, and something was going to have to be done...

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1920
Four months earlier the Bolsheviks had spilled over the old tsarist borders and announced a Socialist Republic for Persia. It was a narrow strip of north west persia on the Caspian ... a joke really... but Lloyd George wasn't really thinking of Persia so much as a potential soviet threat to India. India was enough to consider for the English attempting to form defacto recognition of Lenin's bandits sitting in Moscow. Carrot and Stick, carrot such that maybe it'd take pressure off of the Jewel in the Crown of Empire.

"The Teasury wants the Russians," The Bolsheviks, but quite frankly Bert didn't care about the distinction, a lot of people didn't. "To take responsibility for the debts taken on. Lenin's guy says well the pre war ones maybe," ... and the Treasury was pushing back that the war time debts included industry that the soviets were now using so that Moscow was on the hook for those too ... and it went on, "Well the Foreign office wants them out of Persia, and it wants recognition of the borders more or less as is so for the west that means the Brest Litovsk borders."

Cullen nodded, accepting that all of this was well beyond their own control, beyond any efforts they could make here, "And the Poles?"

"That's the good news, after having them," The bolsheviks, "thrown back from Warsaw the Foreign Service" who cared less about the money / debt issues, "is digging in its heels on the border issue. I suspect it won't amount to anything until we see something change on that front talks wise."

The defining aspect was of the renewed great game... at least so far as British Foreign Policy went... but with Britain unwilling to enter the fray itself, they would have been better off frontloading the western front, the anti-bolshevik forces with weapons taken from a disarmed Germany since it seemed clear that Trotsky's red bandits could only manage one thrust at a time and that containment might be viable.

The City of London, and the Treasury seemed entirely too self congratulatory that Moscow wanted to talk about trade treaties at this stage, even if that did as a compromise seem to be a way to convince a status or set of agreements to solidify in the east. A modus vivendi in the language of diplomacy.

"I suppose we shouldn't be surprised," Allen remarked finally drumming his fingers. Nothing they could do he supposed, "Alright moving on," Bert looked like he wanted to protest, but they had things that needed to be settled. Four years of Industrial war had raised them up, and two more years on top of that helped stabilize things after all that rapid growth, but there was still a lot to do. There would he suspected always be something to do, but steel was the building block of matters critical to industrial modernity... but there was also the possibility of being bogged down on talk of education, of army organization, of higher education within the army.

Part of that was cadre politics. The political changes of the war, and reaction to the war had worried some of the remaining old guard. That seemed to be taking shape in the interest of expanding cadre industries in the west of the province and into the Gansu corridor all the way to Xinjiang. Those discussions needed to be addressed, were more important to local matters than far away moscow, or the land of the Shah for that matter.

"It baffles me so," Bert agreed finally changing tracks, "The British take such an issue with, or the Europeans in general, with holding to the eight hour day. It works fine for us."

"The problem is we did it for safety reasons, they bristle because they see it as a demand imposed from down on the floor." Cullen muttered, "Its not the same thing." The adoption of the eight hour day had stemmed originally from coal concerns, but it also applied to rail workers because a locomotive was a piece of heavy equipment. "Way they look at it, a man says I need to work eight hours, he thinks he's being lazy, which ain't always the case. Eight hours of monotonous duldrum labor causes a man to make mistakes,"

--
Iseburo's letter was accompanied by details of the restructuring of the trans Siberian railway. It was a reversing of polarity on the assembly. The reconstruction of the line, and its overhaul would insure that in the event of a Japanese Conflict, preferably if a fight came an Anglo-AMerican-Japanese conflict with the Bolsheviks that troops would be able to deploy from both the Korean peninsula, and Vladivostok and be rapidly shuttled across to the yards and spaces of trans-baikal.

Geography though was the determining facet... or limiting factor really. The retreat from Omsk hadentailed the comprehensive annhilation of the old Tsarist line eithereastwards or any attempts to link into the Kazakh steppes. There were no connections into either, or into the Bolshevik region.

"British eight inchers?"

"Apparently they were coastal defense guns," He replied to the question from Sam.

Griswold nodded thoughtful, "That makes sense... and after that landing in Persia by the reds there were talks about coastal artillery in Kirghiz, big as the lake is I can understand Iseburo digging in his defenses around the fortifications. It took me by surprise is all."

In British service the 8 inch had been superseded by 9.2 inch guns for coastal defense, and the Japanese production of the eight inch had involved modernization with a 45caliber model of domestic production. This was the Type 41 that Iseburo was anchoring his defensive line. It was an inexpensive solution, looked good for the papers back home, and had the advantage that the Bolsheviks were largely exhausted... never mind the current spanking the Poles had handed them in the west. It looked good back home in the papers and it was cheaper which would help with the diet.

Iseburo could rely on a strong coalition to support his spending program of investment, and despite talks about opening trade with the British, neither the welsh wizard, the French or the states had extended legal recognition of the bolsheviks in Moscow. Japan would not be the first... and indeed this was to be formative in policy for years down the road. In the interim, the talk of coastal artillery brought up other matters.

"We could invite Lewis." He had been in the coastal artillery back home before everything.

The war, for Europe and the States part in it was over. Isaac was out of the army, and he had the requisite experience with the coastal artillery. "I can extend the invitation again," But Allen was skeptical that it would yield results, "And if not get him to come consider if he might have suggestions." With downsizing chances were there were people from the states, probably from England that could be brought over to Kirghiz, or middle America as well. That would be good for any of the committees in question... but the notion that Lewis would sail for Middle America was dubious at best. It might happen, but Lewis wasn't precisely chasing the dollar and and nor did he have the investment in the growing ... state building ambitions that Powell seemed to be expressing with the movement down there. "We might also try and put him where he and Edenborn can do in foundation work."

"Yeah I heard Phineas is busy, and then elections are coming up as well, so we wouldn't likely get a response from the states before they vote." And they would have their own elections to oversee as well.

"There is something else, there. If Isaac won't come to us, which fine," Griswold frowned at Sam's comment, but Waite continued, "See if he'll go down to Middle America, Powell needs a steady hand there and if he can get artillery and everything else it might do everyone some good. Edenborn would probably like that too." He paused, now one precisely brought up Edenborn's age, but the moment passed between the men present, "And one more thing, while we move on, here." Waite handed over the sheets of paper.

"What's this then?"

"Its a graph," He could see that of course, "We've been pulling boys in from the farm, young folks in general, and city has a lot of needs, you know. Now in west Zhili that was one thing. There were a lot of people there, but we built the rail lines, and such but that front page is Xian since we've been here." The tables were tax revenues and that would have been important, but it was a question of productivity." The war was over now, and there were the signs of an expected decline, but,"

"Its stabilizing?"

"Yeah, we might even see growth next year. Kirghiz is good for us, lets us ease off the pressure safe like, and if we're lucky in two years next time we do elections the domestic demand for goods will mean the economy will be growing healthy." People living in the city working normal jobs, hourly jobs for wages had money in their pocket, bought things and spent that money.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1920
The wide drafting desks were filled with papers and men were busy scrutinizing them. There were newspapers, telegrams, letters, and documents harvested threshed and distributed to different sections. The machines clattered, but the truth was the states were easy to predict how things would be. The expectation was the Irish machine and lobbies were going to stay home or turn out for Harding... the truth was most of the national lobbies who had sided with the Virginian were likely to pivot on for Harding. Part of that was Wilson had seemed to think he'd somehow earned a third term and had been angling to run even though the party apparatus had made clear that they weren't going to nominate him.

"They're going to broadcast the election returns by radio."

"So are we," Waite replied, "Its just we don't have the whole continent to ourselves," Never you mind Canada or Mexico, of course. Now wasn't the time for semantics. "More realistically the states have more going off of this."

Allen settled for staring out the wrought iron great window overlooking the yard. The cadre lacked its full allotted numbers. Yan had published his iteration of the constitution and was at home in his province overseeing his own elections of the lower assembly there... the broader Cadre was for the majority here in Xian... but still not everyone could be here.

Some had rotated overseas but it created problems for moving forward if they didn't find some way to contend with issues of the legislature. They would need to seat membership... the irony was the solution was to be one they hadn't previously considered up until things shifted at a national level...for tonight though it was about the election of the lower house of the legislature.

The matter of national elections called by Duan in the summer of 1919... and next year they would become a contentious problem as in theory a new series of elections should have been on the horizon. The lower house of the provincial assembly were to sit two years, a position set down based off of the US House of Representatives. There would be later discussions that the lower house needed a slightly longer term... and when the time came to seat a North Chinese lower assembly it would be expanded to a four year term for representatives drawn from each of the provinces.

In November of 1920 though despite that the lower houses of Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Xinjiang Shansi, and Shensi were meeting most of the focus was here in Xian. Apportionment for the separate provinces was less important in this election than it would be in later ones. With seven assemblies, including one representing Western Zhili's original area of operations including Zhengzhou, the local governments weren't competing with one another for limited slots. Later though with fixed terms, and a limited number of slots the legislature's constituency would need to be adjusted to facilitate a compromise between the states.

"Percy asked what happens when we seat a bunch of officers."

Allen half turned, "Did he?"

"Well unlike with the cadre the representatives don't have a proxy mechanism." that was admittedly by design. It was an elected assembly the intention was to make sure the representatives actually represented and participated in the government they were enjoined. The intention was to prevent the lower house's memberships from being distracted by offices in Peking. At its fundamental basis Officership was a profession, and there were professional responsibilities... but on the other hand. "there are no grounds to stop them from them running for election. I admit it runs into the issue of policy making questions." George started to mull, and then fell silent as the speaker crackled to start talking about tabulated results from the polls.

The expectation of opening the automotive plant came with the expectation of expanding steel production. Steel was bulky, and while they could have imported it from the states, there was little reason to given war time production. That would keep men on the rolls and that would shape the electorate.

It hadn't been discussed in such terms but some of the middle management were smart enough to nose around asking about with the war over if Britain wasn't paying what had been absurd prices pre war for pig iron and everything else what was going to happen. The answer was that while the profits made to export sales would go away the work force would be needed for other projects.

The cadre as a business institution, as the management side of things had plans for new mines, for the railways, but much of the public discussion on the latter had been the inter urbans and talk of public housing for workers. Housing which was to require further electrical lighting, heating, and other modern amenities. Electrical works meant demand for those skills.

Then there was water management.

In the wealth of nations Smith had written, Smith having gone on to be a tax collector in Scotland's port, that there were public goods that were best provided by the organization of the state even if it was nominally at cost. If you stopped a man from getting sick though, if you in placed a quarantine and the spread of disease then while it was difficult to fathom what money was saved you had surely prevented loss.

About half of Xian's population were industrial workers and election day had warranted special planning to insure that those who were eligible to vote went out and fulfilled that civic obligation... but Percy's question did raise up other matters.

"Is Percy really the one asking though?"

"You really think Alston gives a good god damn who gets elected?"

Bill's reply was a fair point. The minister for George the Fifth to China was less likely to care than what Jordan or Reinsch would have if this had been four years previous. "Can you imagine if this had been where we were in1914."

It wasn't though, but he could imagine all the same. "The professor would probably be trying to read us the riot act."

The men laughed. The night went on. The conversation left the British and their opinions to mostly focus on the duties allocated under the constitution for the house of representatives. It would be easier for officers of the bureaus, the Guard, or the reserves to serve as representatives, the business over the summer demonstrated that there were plenty of things that the first division could be called out for as Waite put it that were of 'national importance'.

'National Importance' the words were missed for their significance, for what they represented to change and organization as Peking's importance dimmed, and northern eyes narrowed at their southern provincial neighbors.
--
Notes: So, I have more or less configured 1921 to open with its prologue in March the British Affair and then from there fudge the travel times if necessary to then have1921 run until the fall. The opening of the Washington Naval Conference isn't likely to be covered in particular detail. Indeed 21 is going to be relatively short all things considered, before we move into '22 and 23, what we will see in 21 is the delegating of anti-bandit operations against Sichuan province which is largely organizational

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1920
The day following the election opened like any other. Men got up, men went to work, the army did the morning run, and pt regimens to maintain readiness and discipline was maintained. It was the army that was the main thrust of the assembled cadre and of course discussions of laws shaping it. The National Guard had an allocated, statutory, paper strength of a hundred thousand... and from the system that Yan had laid out his home province of Shansi could have met that by itself.

... which meant most likely maybe not the first thing, but that at some point there would be talks of an army appropriations bill to have a vote for raising it. "If our numbers are right Shansi sits at about fifteen million people." But it was the prospect of the number that was the matter. Shansi had been allocated a division the 4th​ in recognition of the situation with the hundred thousand man volume. On paper that pool was partially consumed by the 2nd​ Division for Shensi and the other three divisions of the Guards and Reserves.

The consensus was not to make the mistake of being unprepared like back home had been. The states had been complacent, comfortable with the great moats that protected the continent from unwanted foreign entanglements, and there needed to be a vigorous campaign of being prepared so five and five divisions. "Any expansion will have to be brigades." That was the acceptable, legal route to addressing man power.

No one objected to Waite's point on the matter. Dawes nodded, "He's right at this point any additional allocation would require us not just to promote officers it would be wasteful, in other ways."

Officially the main part of that was the production of arms, and the integration of new small arms from the European conflict or other developments there of. Unofficially a brigade entailed a much larger complement of red legs and engineers so approving them meant specialists as those combined arms units took shape. "If we ever need to do a call up it would help having more officers, you saw that mess with the states when they spun up." A man down the table remarked. "Have a bunch of reserve officers from the Corp," The Corp of Engineers, "If it drops into the pot we can recall those boys for an emergency to manage organizing the rest of the deployment as we on load to move the guard."

The idea was simpler than that... the truth was there were statutory limits on force size, but those limits had been written off of defined terms. That was ultimately the problem so to speak with the writing the laws. The Army was limited to a set number of divisions... which Percy was right in predicting that would expand just as the army had, but the Guard needed more men on paper than the active component, "If things were to drop into the pot we'd need the officers to stand up new units, you saw how the states did."

"Right, Captains became Colonels basically overnight." After spending years decades even as lieutenants in the reserves back home. That had been the scale of modern war, war in Europe. "Which is why I want to expand the war colleges as well." Dawes declared, "It'll insure we have officers in professional duties and who can be rotated to command positions but who will be largely reservists. Men that can work in industry and help us expand ... and when things go to hell we can call the numbers and ask for volunteers."

Waite nodded as the noise came back to more manageable numbers, "The Qing," He began starting to turn the subject from the army to the population at large, "made attempts to introduce compulsory education more than once, General Tso tried," Which hadn't gone anywhere before the Mule had died," and then there were the attempts in 1907," That had gone into legal effect before the Cadre had formed, "but had no real stick to it."

The Qing had for all protestations, and grand ceremony hadn't been a powerful central government... the mountains were high and the emperor was far away. The Ming hadn't been any better, the Mongols before them seemed to have had the same records. Peking's bureaucracy simply could not effect sustained programs from afar, and viceroys and legates or whatever title one wished to call appointed officials just didn't have the resources because of the state of the national treasury because of the decrepit finances to manage.

Waite was right, compulsory education had to take place. The problem was the expansion of the schools would take time. "Hodges, you want to say something down there?" Allen found himself asking craning his head towards the foot the table.

"I find it, sir, that it is in my interest to volunteer for Tibet," The older heavier set man declared, "I'm not much good to the cadre as a whole," They had talked about this Hodges had been talking about giving up his position, and the retirement wasn't so much a matter of easing him into. "That perhaps it would be best that I step away in the near future from this body, and focus on more regional matters there."

It wasn't a new principle. It was a natural outgrowth of how the cadre had done business. A bicameral, a two house system was natural. They had just overseen the elections of the lower house, and it was entirely natural that there would be senatorial bodies to complement the chamber. Simply put it made much more sense to appoint a smaller cadre that could then cooperate, and direct efforts across the broader 'confederation'.

The most obvious matter was invariably the inevitable distinction of provincial affairs to a greater interprovincial arrangement. Yan Xishan had been admitted to the cadre, but was also dujun of a province. Did that imply, in a common law sense establish precedent, that governors of provinces should be on the cadres or would that represent a confusion of jurisdictional powers. "Should we even consider that," One man remarked, as still other voices added in.

"He's right there isn't a supreme court." The clamor built. "We haven't had much need for lawyers at all." "This is not the states,"

Which was of course that in 1920 even after the elections held the day prior the six and change provinces, including western Zhili, considered the provinces largely still a part of a broader Beiyang lead Peking based unified Chinese state. A state that if it still existed was in the process of unravelling and was coming apart whichwould force a return to look at these questions, and still others as Northern China evaluated its political options based on both external considerations as well as domestic political opinions.

--
Notes: This is short, computer problems mulched the last half of this, the next November segment and the conclusion segment (december 1920) so I'm gonna have to rewrite those next week, which will be fun. Then after that we will proceed into1921

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1920
Allen looked over the report tallying the end of the fiscal year; this wasn't the final version but it was close enough for a feel. Bai Lang's rebellion had swelled Xian to two million people, some had with security restored melted back to their home villages... but then the war had come to Europe and the city had grown again. Xian's steel mill now turned to the production of skyscrapers as part of an urban development program... made possible because the war was over and the demand for steel had receded from the old world. They could do that now, and more importantly they could tell people about it and make it happen rather than a nebulous time frame.

The project objective was to furnish public housing similar to what the English had been doing to clean up London during Victoria's reign, but in this case with the aim of just addressing the surge in population so as to avoid a health crisis. The twenty storey blocks mostly aimed at young people though... much of the population growth pushed in were young people looking for urban jobs and while company townships were still planned the city's size meant if they weren't on top of this housing demand would outstrip supply. They had to stay on top of it, that meant the cadre needed to be there, and be seen involved.

Hence recommendations for establishing an Urban Housing Authority sub committee to attempt to avoid having anything approaching a 'how the other half lives' problem. This was a modern problem, and a modern urban problem since most people were used to living in multi generational households, and that went hand in hand with if you brought second and third sons in from off the farm and they started making money and could sustain a family from cash wages they wanted to get married. Thereby dormitory housing had immediately struck out as a problem in discussions. It was one thing for soldiers in dormitory housing, the general consensus was the men liked barracks given the electric lightning and modern amenities.

There was another argument that ...maybe not this coming year, but whether or not the reserve divisions, the Guard shouldn't be allocated an additional engineering company with security attachments. They wouldn't be mechanized of course, but perhaps 2nd​ Division could have a trial program to test the idea.

On its surface the two matters were seemingly unrelated. Only on the surface, since what he expected would happen is that 2nd​, and 4th​ would get their extra companies of Engineers to their battalions , maybe not this year, may not next but then Yan would start tasking out the battalion engineers for the outreach work. That was fine, if he would just come out and say that, but there were complaints about the budget already.

Jun was always quick to insist that proper government built infrastructure, and it was hard to argue with that given the number of people crowded into everywhere. Flood, and fire were catastrophically dangerous. So those engineers and the mechanization was a necessity at least in the long run. Reinsch wouldn't have cared, might have even so far actively disapproved, for how much weight they put on gray backs', but the professor was gone now.

"I don't think its really all that bad," Waite declared, "Oh sure I know it looks bad, but from a tax base perspective I think once things settle out we should be able to manage well enough." He leaned back in the chair, "Its been five years, five pretty decent years." He drawled smug and content as the cat who'd caught the canary.

Which was true, the war had brought demand for their industrial goods at a volume that would have been impossible to consider before the cutting in Europe had started. That money coming in had meant a lot, Hodges was in Tibet he had taken the morning train outbound to the Lake, and was probably minding the battalion waiting to ship to Lhasa for its rotation. They should all be there by Friday. That was again, something that the railway made possible. "The expansion of the rail network," the great achievement of the 19th​ century, its advent or at least proliferation insures the means by which that we can move both goods and people in peace, as well as in response to crisis." Timetables that made the modern world go round.

Not war, no one missed the man had had to purposefully avoid saying the phrase war. He wasn't wrong though... flood or need to distribute grain you called up the guard and they were responsible for handling things. Another duty men in gray uniforms shouldered.

Reinsch had rarely ever referred to them as gray backs. It simply hadn't been the professor's manner even when he'd complained about the spending on the army... and the truth was the legations might have cared more if not for the war in Europe, but being able to sell goods to Britain, and Japan had funded industries that that reduced their overhead costs.

In the present day, with the elections tabulated, they had received congratulations from the legation in Tietsin, from Alston and Crane as well as a message from the Japanese that had come in slightly later... that likely had been dispatched from the office of Prime Minister Hara or his foreign minister. They were nice polite sentiments all of course. Crane, Allen suspected was the most genuine of the lot, Alston and Hara were more concerned with securing the front with the Bolsheviks but they were telegrams all the same.

The niceties mattered though. Reinsch had always moderated his language, even on the times when it was clear that he thought of his post more as an excuse to tour and vacation than other matters. The professor had meant well, but it was also clear that he didn't fully grasp reality of the situation...John Jordan had had the opposite problem. He had had that chair so long it was a wonder they hadn't buried him in it... and the problems there had really started after his sabbatical.

Alston was still trying to address those differences, of Jordan's age catching up with him while he still held the legation together... and deal with MacKinder and the realities of the great mess the Bolsheviks had made of the Tsar's empire.

"The elections are settled, we'll seat those men in the new year," That would theoretically enough time to brief them on the goings on draw up and distribute explanations of responsibility to the offices to which they were tobe sworn in to.

"Crane," Another man spoke up interrupting the speaker, "Won't be with us much longer with Harding elected, he won't be in the office," He meaning Harding, "Until spring," March, "But he'll probably find someone else to replace Crane."

The shift in topic twisted the room up, but Allen was hard pressed to not recognize he was right. Crane had replaced Reinsch because the latter had decided to make a bid for office back home... a bid failed. Something that he was silently glad for, Reinsch might have been a problem in the senate with how he viewed the idea of international law.... "You're not wrong," Which was unfortunate Allen supposed, Crane was a good man, he would have been helpful, well meaning, "But that's for next year," and the truth was Harding would not as it happened stay in office all that long.
--
Notes: Anyway this is a rewritten abridged segment computer trouble last week mulched this, but this is reflective of the changing post war political dynamics. Crane isn't ambassador to China for very long, Reinsch is not longer ambassador, Alston is in replacing Jordan finally and of course here, the Russian Civil War the big one between Whites and Reds is largely a blood stalemate, there is a much larger japanese presence there is a white holdout in central asia that the british intend to use as a buffer zone between the soviets and India which is something that both Lloyd George and the future conservative leadership are willing to subsidize on the cheap because they can get away with it... and that has knock on effects. Politically things are now very different than they were in 1914.

 

[Imperator Pax]

December 1920
They'd agreed to allow Percy to take the agreement to go to England besides. The truth was it was more complicated than a simple win. The visit would entail a series of pageantry that was like to be absurd. Japan's crown prince would be coming... the Anglo-Japanese alliance was at the fore, there were the Bolsheviks to consider, Lloyd George was adamant to make this about himself... and then... then there was the matter that come March Harding would be just getting sworn into the presidency... which was bound to make things complicated. The point was though, they'd told Percy they were committed to visiting this 'season', the coming social season.

Still in the time before the war all of Europe's royals had held colonecys in the others regiments, and ranks in the navies of all their cousins... and Lloyd George seemed just as adamant to return to British grandeur so they'd need to go to England, and make something of it all.

"It'll be like a world faire."

Allen nodded to Bill's comment. "Not unlike it, but not quite the same thing. Its not going to be like Chicago."

"We are a bit bigger boys now," The texan leaned against the railing watching the gray uniformed men march, "Dawes will have things in hand for us while we're off, and he doesn't expect trouble."

A trip to Europe would be a couple months minimum, they would make separate ways back some of the cadre would be head to the continental offices, and others would steam for Middle America to check in on Powell, and others would board for home. The truth was Allen suspected that there would be a further reduction in American born men as they retired.

They had already discussed that It was a topic that was impossible to avoid. The Cadre as a government body, as the upper chamber of the legislature would name officers of note from the ranks. The Cadre as a corporate body, as a business... well that was trickier. Ten years ago the cadre's hundred men had all held one percent of the shares of the work... not a pittance of money, but far far less in value than what the company's value stood at now."We'll see if he's right," Allen replied, "What about back home?" Going to England would mean seeing Daniel who was serving with military intelligence, as attaché to the embassy to the court of Saint James.

"Well Phineas is fine, he complains that Tillman left them in a lurch." Phineas as a navy man had in parochial inclination supported Wilson's idea of a great fleet for the Navy, and of course had liked Tillman's ideas to build great battleships for both the obvious reason, but also that it would consume steel as the naval appropriations would build up smaller ships in southern yards... and oil fired cruisers would need Texas oil as they moved over the waves. "The Colonel," Bill's father, "Is fine this prohibition thing doesn't sit well with either of them,"

It didn't sit well with any of the cadre. The war was over, one might have maybe made the argument that conserving alcohol made sense in the face of an invading army, but even then, that made sense for France, or England much nearer to the conflict. "Its a fool thing," Allen replied, "Well not our business what will be is the consideration of the colonel towards benevolence societies."

"Yep, not a problem I think." He whistled optimistically, "But the south has its foot in the door on Mott Street in New York," Sun had always toured the states and Canada for financial support, political support and favors too. He'd been out of the country when the revolt which would fell the old dynasty had broken out, he'd been named to the post in absentia... and nominated Yuan Shikai to take the role of president of the republic in de facto terms because Yuan had held the Beiyang Army... but Sun and for that matter others including Wellington Koo were adept at speaking in the states. "We'll have our work cutout for us."

"I know California will be tough," Allen had spent half his life in Asia now this trip to England would be work related, Good King George could mean well, but that didn't, wasn't how things worked... they needed to speak across aisles and deal with men prepared towards confining the Bolsheviks. As much as that he supported Free Trade it had to be recognized that strangling a nation by trade ... in the case of keep the Bolsheviks from buying things they couldn't make should be pretty obvious in terms of sense.

It was a pity Ford seemed to still think that Free Trade would make peace possible. That didn't mean the deals with Ford would continue or be expanded it was just there was the recognition that those differences existed. "We're going to have our work cut out for us when we come back," Dawes probably wouldn't have any trouble over the winter but there was certainly trouble brewing in the south.

As feudal as it sounded there was talk about the needed to be back for the summer campaigning season, but that would be tricky. If they left in the spring by steamer and reached London for 'season' then they'd be absent even if they took an airplane and there were reservations about air travel even if it was the future.

"Kirghiz is going to be another topic. We've got a lot of work there too,"

He nodded, "Yeah," And the truth was he'd scoffed at the time at how quickly that the British had pushed lawyers and churchmen and so on into Central Asia ... but common law, and really written law and those traditions would do the government in Kirghiz good. It was true of course that they'd been working to modernize the Qing legal code as well, but the British aid mission in central Asia was different in character.

Too much of the tsarist system had carved out exemptions and expectations from other nationalities and in a feudal society that worked of sorts, but it kept a foot too far in the past. The British were trying to press the white government there to adopt reforms to uniform things. Of course Iseburo was doing the same to the north, and in Mongolia there were similar modernizing trends the difference was that Iseburo and Ungern were quicker to coopt Buddhist clergymen to help things along.

The conversation that Bill was dancing around though had been had. The truth was Russia... the empire of the tsars the facts of the population hadn't changed. So much of the Tsarist population remained and industrial production lay tied around Petersburg and Moscow and the surrounding area... and maybe it wasn't so bad as Mackinder put it... given the facts of where the borders were but the comment 'the spaces within are so vast in population wheat cotton fuel and metals so great that it could be its own world' wasn't entirely hyperbole. They were in Central Asia talking perhaps twenty five to thirty million people evacuated of sorts from the bolshevik reach, and then there was the Japanese hold on Siberia which pushed that total to over forty million according to some figures.

--
Notes: Part of this deals with the scrunching of the timeline per se where some travel dates may need tobe fudged for certain things in the first part of 21 as a fictional year.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1921
Cox had won the south, save Tennessee... but the south had been his only wins in the contest, since otherwise Harding had spanked his fellow Ohioan something fierce...but Harding was not precisely an enthusiastic gain to the presidency... at least so far as the Cadre was concerned. From the base of operations in Guatemala the developing Middle American Cadre were pursuing the planed trunk and branch rail development which was coupled with an investment into telephone and telegraph lines, and a general motion across the post office duties . The real tell though would be if Powell could get manufacturing up and off the ground. That would be the real test of the junior office, and if they could do that then Powell would be free to pursue the fillibuster's dream... if not it was still worth the effort to try. Things were looking well enough that they needed to be here, more than they were needed at home.

"There is talk of a small arms commission."

"Yep," He agreed with Bill's statement. "Brownings, and Gewehrs aplenty... mortars probably," Most likely lighter artillery, three inchers to start... the truth was in spring of 21 with the Soviets mostly contained well things were looking a bit optimistic, and the bandit wars in Latin America had been ... well weren't to be predicted. They would be the MAK's White Wolf rebellion, and money and sinking capital to build industry would provide the leverage to what would come in the future. "Most of the stuff we've been more than willing to pass over in technical details to Poland and the Czechs..." stuff that the Reds couldn't effectively use. It would have been nice if Finland might have done the same but those talks were caught up in other quirks even though they had managed to reciprocate other requests. Access to the 155 guns the Finns had came to mind, but there were other factors... it would have been nice to be sure they could have shutoff Lenin's bandits from any and all trade but the British were waffling, there were talk of a trade agreement that was disgustingly close to an arrangement.

It wasn't the only thing they disliked as peace settled over at least western Europe, "From the sound of it Harding won't stop Wall Street from trading with them, but its just talk right now," Bill replied. "We won't really know until something happens."

"He'll push it off on Hughes," Which was lackadaisical handling in his opinion, but Harding, Hughes and Hoover, the 3Hs seemed not to be taking Lenin all that seriously from the sound of it... "I don't know how they'll square the Turks signing the treaty with them," With the Soviets, but that news had come out in January... which Allen figured were the first real bilateral arrangements to be concluded. "And then there are the French,"

"Is Morgan holding to see what Harding says?" Bill questioned folding the paper in his hands.

Allen shook his head, "No from what I hear the French are throwing a tantrum about the interest rate, if Morgan Junior wasn't such a Francophile he'd see he was throwing good money after bad, and If Harding did have sense he'd ban any further loans to the French until they put their finances in order." Wilson should not have extended a moratorium on payments it just gave the French the idea they could get their way by stamping their feet like children.

Indeed in a reminder that the Congress both held the purse and that the Senate was responsible for ratifying international agreements come the fall they would remind Harding ...arguably though they were late too and should have reminded Wilson sooner... or more strenuously.

The big clock tower chimed. Bill frowned, "they aren't doing well."

"The French or the British?" He replied

"Any of them, to be honest Al. Hell, the farmers back home got used to the French driving prices so high now they don't know what to do... especially once the French threw that tariff up."

... and from the sound of it Harding's response would be signing a riposte that was slapping a tariff for the states on the import of foodstuffs. The tariff on food was one thing, other farm products was something else, but the truth was they needed to import grain from the states, both stock grains and as a pad against the drought. Bill, and as Dawes had noted before him, was right that the demand for grain in europe had driven prices, leading to farmers taking on new debts, and bringing more marginal land under till...and now there just wasn't the demand for it.

The bickering between the Treasury,and the Federal Reserve sure as hell didn't help.

There was a knock on the door. Daniel had the family look, and the height though Allen had almost two inches on his younger brother the younger officer was in favorable company to most of the English aristocracy with regards to his build. It was what a childhood of clean air, rugged exercise, a good diet yielded.

"Its about time you finally made it," The younger Forrest remarked. "I can tell you King George won't be visiting the states, he's gin glad war time prohibition is over. Temperance doesn't sit well with him, or his cousin."

That wasn't really a surprise. "Do you like it here?" He asked regarding the London posting.
--
His Majesty's Government had invited them to stay ... but according to Daniel that was equal parts gratitude and posturing around the Welsh Wizard's handling of the situation. Daniel had been on Black Jack's staff, and made friends with his British counterparts so he had ears abounding on the chatter of British high society. His posting to England was with military intelligence in the face of predictable congress wanting to rush demobilization.

"That's about the size of it."... and the pre war to post war Federal deficit had jumped thirty times... from one billion in federal liabilities to 30 it was a mind-boggling prospect on the face of it. "What about you last I heard your steel division had a hundred thousand men."

He nodded, "We actually expect to expand that. We might not have a navy to feed but there is demand for steel," Though the IJN wanted krupp steel and other naval materials... which western Shensi had chromium mines, "but with the deal with Ford we plan to expand the integration the steel mills will turn out car bodies."

"Its just as well you didn't come last year, between the business with the Czechs... George the fifth had to award medals to the widows of men who died in Northern Russia."

"Was it a problem?"

"No, it would have been a spectacle is all. I know you hate those," His brother paused, "Did you really kill a thousand bolsheviks at ekatrinburg?"

There was a scoff, "Hell no, Daniel. We came in by night and bushwhacked those bandits, and we withdrew before they properly knew we had secured our objective." The objective being the Tsar and his family. "I don't even know the full supposed strength of the reds at Ekatrinburg off the top of my head." He replied as he reached for the glass of scotch.

A quip about the cavalry followed, which did have some merit given the action. "You can expect a medal for it, all the same."

Allen's expression immediately soured from over the rim of the glass, but Bill beat him to the response, "Ah to hell with a bloody neck tie Danny."

"I'm forewarning the two of you."

"How's the war department and state feel about it?"

"With Harding, god I don't know. Wilson probably wouldn't have liked it, but I don't have a feel for the new administration yet." It went without saying that Daniel would need to step lightly until he had a grip on where the new boss in Washington stood.

"You made friends?"

"Well yeah you exchange letters with Louie, he's going to Japan." Daniel replied, "He's sweet on one of the Tsar's daughters but I'm sure you know that." He shook his head moving to glance over the ground, "I was gonna ask too what about this crazy Russian y'all have next door, claims he's a mongol prince or something?"

"Ungern."

Bill nodded, "Yeah, he's a strange one alright. He came down to visit some Church in Gansu, and its all Chingisid this and that out of his mouth, but he can ride for sure." More importantly Ungern had spent the last couple years making good on solidifying a mongolian state around him with relations, and making nice where he needed to. That solidified the net that blocked out Bolshevik agitation. "He and Zhang are pretty close I'd say."

"You all are adopting the German Mauser."

George the Fifth had invited them stag hunting... the king was in no condition to hunt of course ...probably even before being winged by the bolshevik's mouse gun of a browning, but the invitation had been made. "He is in the process of adopting Zhang's version of the rifle."

"Is it any good?"

"Yeah Its a fine rifle. Its the caliber perfect no, but its good enough." Bill replied before the conversation turned into the matter of soldiering. Of men being proficent not just in the use of firearms but also in the trade of woodcraft, of field craft and measures of fighting positions. "Ah wells its different for us Danny, the RPF back before the war wassmall but we'd go out day and night with the men, and well-"

Well, the truth was that Percy had called it early that their troop numbers were unrelated to the war in Europe. That they wouldn't be drawing down the numbers with the end of the European war.

--
Notes: leaving aside the presidential election in the states this is important for other reasons in the long term. By the time we get to post ww2, there is an ideologically coherent north China state that is politically stable this among other things prevents the looting and pillaging of manchuria and the whole scale absconding of much of the industrial machinery of northern china in real life by the red army and that changes the postwar global dyanmic. The soviets have limited ability to expand in Asia except through European vectors, i.e. Ho Chi Minh in French Indochina which is a whole other can of worms down the road. It changes the situation in Korea, and of course this makes the Asianalliance ala nato and its envisioned Marshal plan component viable which will be visible after Truman is succeeded by Ike though admittedly there are other issues.

This alters political and socialdyanmics post war due to industrial factors in East Asia, and thateffects other social norms and academia.. 1st​ through 3rd​world modelling is something that emerges from French Sociology inthe early cold war in response to the actualization of the decline inFrench prestige and power, and this is a major factor in literatureof the period. Thats important in post war international relations.

That being said this notably skips over, though references the events of the 21 Honors Dinner in the extras tab, thats still nominally canon, its just that at the moment I haven't decided whether or not to directly canonize it in that course of events. However, basically the events happen everyone gets drunk at a large social function bolshevik agitator shoots George the V in the arm mistaking him for Nicky, there is a great fracas everyone retires for the night.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1921
In 1913 alone they had laid over a thousand miles of track as the rail network had pushed into the west, and population density diminished relative to eastern China. The current outline for the next four years was of a still more a massive expansion of rail industry for the total network. Urumqi needed a rail depot and the yard space that went with it, but more than that it needed the workshops and the braising centers for servicing engines crossing the .... silk road line into Kirghiz north and south all the way to Samarkand and parts further west still.

The notation on the paper highlighted other factors... and still beyond that drew attention though did not directly mention facts to a learned man. At the end of the 1870s, really the start of 1878, Khotan had surrendered to the Qing but the whole campaign of reconquering Xinjiang had cost the imperial treasury more than a thousand tons of silver.

In 1917 they had begun expanding from Urumqi admittedly even with the shortage of spare engines, and cars had been driven by economic factors. Commercial use of the line even with that shortage was in full swing by 1918. That was forty years...and while the Qing side of the line wasn't mentioned in the papers the Russian expansion into Kirghiz was. The Tsar's conquest had continued on another decade coming to reach the hitherto modern borders in 1889, five years after the Qing had created Xinjiang as a province. Lloyd George's man Curzon had travelled through the region of Russian expansion back then... and it sounded as if he was supportive of Mackinder's efforts.

The White Russian project though was now in an entirely different measure. In the 19th​ century the Tsar had looked upon his central asian gains as a colony like British India. The measure of Cossacks and others from the west though now needed to build a state divorced from Peter's city, and Moscow both of which were under the bolshevik's red terror. MacKinder thought the best way to do that was lawyers, and school teachers, which seemed optimistic.

The return, from England, had inundated them with new documents, everything from tractors to metallurgical sciences... a lot of it was insuring that quality control remained strenuous. Less waste in the production was good. "This is the report on the Type 41," Which was what Japan had declared their caliber 45 8 inch cannons to be, "admittedly its not like the reds have decided to muck around, but you know with what happened I can understand Iseburo wanted a few more."

Allen nodded. The russian radical shooting the king of england when he had meant to shoot the tsar right as the Bolsheviks had managed to get the Welsh Wizard to make arrangments on a trade treaty... Lenin was probably livid. And though John Allen wouldn't know it that would have effects in the long run. Indeed, while Stalin would conduct apurge of doctors as the blame for Lenin's series of strokes the more likely explanation for the first leader of the Soviet Union was the sudden compounding of stress on existing vulnerabilities.

"Yeah, its not a bad idea."Allen admitted after a minute. "Tell me about the construction?"

Dawes did so. "I expect that given the age the navy will want to replace them, from the sound of it Iseburo may even be encouraging it by suggesting that the use as coastal artillery would free the navy to select a longer barrel, or other changes.... but I really suspect what he and the government wants is for the Navy to retire the older ships using them without funding their replacements."

It was possible. The navy lobby wouldn't like that but the current PM didn't want to fund a costly naval build up, and with the soviets on the border in Siberia Iseburo needed the guns more than the Navy did. Railway guns had been something both the reds and the whites had been using in the course of the Civil War so it wasn't as if this was untested, or a revolutionary idea.

"Here," Shang's report was a little verbose. The commander of the eighth division had been thorough, but almost too thorough.

Dawes flipped through the bound papers. He wasn't reading the paper per se but looking at the tables and charts. "He's pretty quick to point out Japan only had about thirty eight hundred," 3800, "miles of rail in 1900." The artillery man observed wryly.

Allen leaned back, "Oh believe I'm aware, as soon as he found out that we had laid more track than Japan has total, no amount of commenting of acreage was ever gonna pull him off that cloud." The reality was that China, North China itself was larger and more expansive, it needed more rail especially with the ... dilapidated condition of the canal system as a result of neglect by Peking either under the republic or from the Qing before them... probably the Ming as well. Japan's assumption of railway control north of the great wall from Russian concessions and Iseburo's iron grip on the eastern half of the Trans siberian were just as a much a testament of those geographical realities. "We have a great expertise in the trade,"

"Eight inch guns are entirely reasonable for our locomotives to pull," Dawes remarked in the same tone," Could we build them? Sure. I've noticed that Iseburo, and Zhang Tso-lin, and his mad baron friend are all using Russian guns mostly cause I reckon that's what they have spare. Its a cost expedient measure, Kirghiz is probably about ideal for that. We have large howitzers and other guns which we can use for such things, and I think over the next couple years this 'distinction' of 'whites' is going to have give some way but the guns that they use work, no sense not using them until they're used up."

He decided that was as good of a reason as any, "And Ungern?"

"He married local, that was smart, it ties him into the community. He likes their religion, that's always a plus, whatever social quirks he has, and whatever backlash for the needed reforms that he's making, I think with the way he's set up the army and his training of recruits he should be able to hold on."

He sensed the but there, "But?"

"I expect that's between him, and your buddy Iseburo. The Kwantung office is busy in Manchuria sure, but there needs to be infrastructure built." He paused, "Ungern is in Manchuria, I think that he'll stay in Manchuria proper, Japan likes where the borders are, Britain likes where they are... we all need time to build back stronger... I don't see the reds having the strength to throw an attack to drive the Whites or the Japanese into the Pacific, but I wouldn't be surprised if they try it anyway banking on revolutionary elan and bayonets to carry them all the way to Vladivostok."

"We will have to be ready for that possibility," And that made Zhang, and Ungern's choice of the German Mauser all the better for everyone involved... among a host of other choices. "And we will be building up. The army is going to get bigger, and we will motorize the Rifle Divisions as much as we can as build more automobiles, which will mean building more roads as well." Something that all the Dujun tended to emphasize doing, building civic infrastructure held establish one to the public, and that it made marching soldiers easier to deal with the nearest bandit problem just compounded the thing being good.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1921
Allen settled to watch the Ninth Regiment move through their paces. The 10th​ were on the ready mark waiting. In time they would form the nominals of the last authorized divisions ... of the Regular Army. That comment prompted a response as soon as it was remarked on, "We knew it was going to happen." He replied.

The authorized force strength was in part a matter of financial conservatism. It was also a matter of maintaining in code the standards of discipline. "Of course we knew it was going to happen." Griswold agreed. "We should elucidate the cadre position in the paper, anyway."

Yuan Shikai had attempted time and again to get the Republic's army down to a manageable size... but the Qing finances had been abysmal ... no Qing Emperor had conducted a fiscally sound national level top down comprehensive tax reform program, and institution of taxes.... the land survey, the last comprehensive land survey had been under the first Ming Emperor. Duan Qirui had remitted financial collection of the western provinces in exchange for a fixed sum payment annually being sent to Peking. That agreement was holding. They paid the taxes that were owed to the central government and were left to do as they would... and they stayed around rather than worrying about the Peking social scene.

The income tax, and education requirement though had created a strong urban rural divide, and the rural vote was further divided. There were no political parties as of yet... the closest that had emerged was the Constitutional Club which was still fluid and informal. The structure of the vote meant there wasn't an agriculture party... yet. There probably would be though. The Constitutional Club here in Xian would probably draw into a more structured nature as the officers and professional bureaucrats acted on the system.

"What do you think?"

"That we should write the reasoning in the paper,"

Allen shook his head, "I got that, I meant regarding parties."

"The founding fathers were optimists ... I think painfully so at times," The other Georgian remarked, "We have to accept that there will be parties, and that yeah Percy was right we have officers qualified to hold office, and they'll make assemblies of free men. "We should accept that there will probably be a 'patriotic wing' or some other veterans association that is going to be engaged in politics."

The truth was labor agitation, and Red subversions had been one of the main thing they had looked at and expected... but Bolsheviks were bandits and hooligans and such in the popular conception and wages were good, benefits were good. The men worked eight hour shifts. The bank's, the central bank that was, job was to make recommendations for keeping inflation under control, and that was increasingly to make recommendations on trade policy.... and they knew better than to ignore their own experts didn't they? That idea was of economic self-sufficiency, avoid buying European goods where it was feasible. The logic behind that though was rooted in pre war... nineteenth century logic... when China had been rushing to import goods that they couldn't make themselves. The greatest value Europe could in its postwar self provide were expertise, techniques especially developed during the war. They were not going to invite Belgian firms to build tramways when they could do it themselves.

There were slogans that before which had been said, but were now as the assembly had been seated were now in a new sort of prominence. "The other thing, with officers, is that we are unlikely to ever have a Quaker problem." The comment was lost on a few of the men elevated from the ranks, but there were still nods from American men. "That isn't to say pacifism isn't an unknown perversion but we don't need to worry about men lacking the will for a fight."

Allen had no objection to the comment, but also because the position of the cadre remained one opposed to conscription. A Quaker would never be in a position to plead his conscious if they ever had to call the reserves, because reservists had already volunteered for duty.

Reservists who had been inculcated into the same uniform, the courses of education, public education that established the standards. Classes which would change only slightly now to explain how their elected government and the provincial constitutions were intended to work, and their mechanisms. "There are other things we should consider..." Griswold continued, "Waite means what he says with his social insurance program...heaven above, Percy will never stop with his German comparisons its based off of Bismark bit, but who else should we use for an example that works?" But Percy wasn't really the problem, Iron and Blood were watch words to be sure, but for all they were talking of legislature establishing things... the frontier was a nightmare of near feudal skirmishing between villages across provincial borders that stretched back to King Arthur's day... and Szechwan teemed to the south a whole world of bandits.

--
He needed to pen a letter to Powell...but he'd been putting it off... and from the look Cole had come in with he doubted that that letter was going to be a particularly high priority given when in the day he was coming over. Allen picked over the oil fried chicken and the chilis in the dish as the clock struck the hour. "Xu is trying to have new elections called, now?"

"That's right. The assembly is too divided between the Anfu and the Communications clique so they can't get a budget passed, certainly not one that ... well that gets what is wanted funded."

He grumbled into his bowl of food, and shook his head. That was going to be a problem. Yes, certainly new elections needed to be scheduled... but that wasn't how you did elections, and having the president dismiss or discuss saying we'll just hold new elections was stupid and reduced confidence in the legislature. It was dumb, especially in a situation where no one had a whole lot of confidence in the government anyway after last year... which was the bigger problem up front actually.

"Look he has something of a point." Which wasn't what Allen wanted to hear, "Look I get he is doing it for a lot of the wrong reasons but they gave it a couple months."

"So how is it going to go over then?"

"Like shit," Cullen replied matter of factly. "Xu is doing this to try and well among other things get a budget passed you would have to be blind not to see and he's done nothing to get the south to even talk about participating... and its worse than that now."

Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Canton, Fukien, Hunan, Hupeh, Jiangxi... never mind Szechwan were nine provinces who wouldn't or couldn't participate for the chaos.

Allen put the bowl on the desk. "Cable Cao Kun, recommend that elections be scheduled for the fall and that enough time be prepared to hold normal elections." The elections that were supposed to happen this fall anyway and then they could seat the men who won come the new year, whether that was in January or March.

"Do you think that's really a good idea? That Xu won't have a problem?"

"I know Xu will have a problem, but our six provinces all have the necessary infrastructure to elect both their senators and representatives," With Zhang's Manchuria that was another 3, then Zhili , Shandong, Anhui, Honan and Jiangsu in theory... Mongolia and Zhejiang would be up in the air... and if the south didn't want to participate they couldn't really make them, and they should have had to. "We should go to the polls in the fall."

Cullen was right in his assessment though. Xu's decision was going to create problems. There were budget issues yes, there were political engagement issues but it was obvious he was trying to play political games in the increasing fraught situation between Beiyang factions. Where in years previous those would have been interactions that might have sparked arguments it had not been ... what was increasingly looking to be a new norm. "I'll draw something up, and nudge him with the telegram," Cole replied.

The telegram would go out, it would circle... Cao as who it was 'officially' addressed would respond first, and then most likely there would be other responses.

The point of any such circular was to facilitate a legal argument or an appeal to tradition, traditions which didn't really exist in north china with regards to going to the polls but to appeal to the idea of the law and just try and 'nudge' things.

"The elections in 1918 might not have been perfect, but it was past time they were held. Early elections aren't going to help. Not going to the polls isn't going to help, but the elections if they're every three years need to-"

Cole waved him off, "I know. Its just, you think I should go bother the legation too?"

"Too, nah, Crane seems alright enough, but I think Yan and I are going to have to pen something to go out for the provinces talking about how campaigning should start, or something." It was different than how Jun had used the mid autumn festival to organize positions but campaigning was going to need to have rules.
--
Notes: In the current draft, and I need to go back and address some stuff, this whole quarter has been completely hectic so IRL is messing me up, 1921 which was always going to be a relatively short series is looking like it'll be pretty short . This isn't really a change but its a pretty important fulcrum in how events later play out. Including how things in the south are effected by political detioration or changes in the north as northern provinces begin to solidify around more local power bases rather than Peking (the capital).

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1628

It was raining again... Patrick Huff groaned like a wind battered oak. He had actually started losing some weight... not because of lack of food, but because of the hours he was keeping as part of the hours the emergency management office was keeping. They hadn't even been here a month yet. He'd went around and gathered up everyone who had ever volunteered and tried to work on things over the last few weeks talking about all the basic necessities.

Most of it was just for the food kitchens. There were... there just wasn't a need sandbags, and there was no evacuating to be done. The work that had to be done was largely about feeding people who did not have power at home. They were using the churches, and their community outreach networks as best they could, but that wouldn't be able to reach everyone.

They were going to have to do more than that. Clean water was going to start getting scarce. They were going to have to start talking to home owners associations, and other people. He'd never expected to be responsible for any serious leadership... just advise until someone from the capital showed up...or if it was really bad FEMA.

FEMA wasn't coming. The state wasn't coming. They didn't have the diesel to run the generators with what had been with the generators... there had been talk about bio diesel conversion kits for automobiles and how some of the parts stores might have a few... but they hadn't done anything yet for that. At least the humidity was down. There were a handful of matters he knew how to address, and water purification was actually one of the easier ones by comparison. He was leery of putting a generator on the back of a truck, and driving it around town where they'd have to connect into a building to run pumps.

The rain wasn't all bad. The 'riots' had mostly been limited to thrown rocks, and burning trash... there had been a few cars burned, but that had been limited. It had still been wasteful of course, but the fires had been contained even without municipal pumps. Those would be safer than fuel pumps though, there was less he knew could 'theoretically' go wrong. It probably wouldn't but still it did keep him up at night. Then of course they'd still have to pump it out into new containers... and that was going to be controversial too.

The various cobbled together generators they had weren't enough not to run the city. The generators the hospital had weren't even enough to run all of their equipment, but that was the problem with the sprawling campus that had developed over the years. That was one more problem he hadn't been aware of...having the hospital administrator admit it to it was trouble to be sure.... but the reality was setting in things like the cancer ward weren't as important as more immediate medicine. They'd danced around that , around spelling it out exactly in a memo but it was true and people recognized it.

In hindsight the frozen goods, and stuff that needed to be refrigerated could have... they could have tried to move more quickly to do something about it... but really second guessing what they had done wasn't helpful. Still if they had had more generators, and the fuel ready of course they could have set them up and kept more of it running. Readily available fuel was getting sparse for diesel so they had to move since they had more generators... after the nationalization. After that had been done they really should have moved on the gas sooner.

It wouldn't go bad of course. Not in the time frame they were talking about... the city's current rate of consumption for current power meant they would consume the diesel long before that was an issue to be certain. That was part of the problem he was faced with, and what he was grappling with right now.

There was a knock on his open door...more as courtesy than anything. "Any luck?"

"We... we have stuff that we might need the diesel for Eli." He told the other man, and accepting the coffee, "I mean you've seen the county using diesel for large tractors." They were going to need to farm he was sure of that, "but we can't keep the lights on if we don't run the generators." That should have gone without saying. They had to say though, some had to actually say that at an open forum at the town halls, and behind closed doors with the city government. Both types of gathering had plenty of prickly people unused to having their egos banged up. It was precisely the kind of situation Paddy had tried to avoid, and he didn't have that option any more.

Eli nodded running a large hand over his shaved bald scalp, after he put his own coffee down on Paddy's desk. "They're farmers," He remembered that Eli's grandfather had grown up on a tenant farm, "They know you got to farm to eat. I'm worried about whether we will have enough."

"Ah, well." He opened his desk. The mayor had asked them, well asked... demanded... ordered...them to do some figuring. "We've been tallying things up." That they had some electricity let them use computers and printers...and that was a godsend.

The tall man waved a hand at his satchel, "Well we got one more," He unlimbered the messenger bag, and opened it. Inside were more medical paperwork. Not really what he wanted to see, not what he was looking forward to... since it would be preventable deaths in all likelihood.

Patrick Huff took the paperwork carefully. They were skirting all kinds of regulations, and probably breaking a few outright... but emergency and all that. Diabetics, and other insulin users were what he had assumed that this would be...but that wasn't the case, since they'd already been expecting to look at that. It wasn't heart conditions, or such either. It was pregnancies. Specifically it was first time pregnancies that they were being called attention to, "We're not doctors though, this is a medical question, why us?"

"I think the mayor already asked the doctors," He waited until Paddy had flipped a couple of pages down, "Nutrition and care information, eating for two and that."

Patrick slumped back in his chair...coffee wasn't going to spoil but stocks weren't going to last forever even after having taken the local walmart's stores. With limitted access to refrigeration though milk... and other stuff, that would be different. He'd really been thinking about Vitamin C, even if they had been in the middle ages and right 'where' they were supposed to be the where still wouldn't have been in the right climate for citrus growing... and that meant orange juice was going to be a problem.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1921
The letter from Guatemala City had come by steamer from San Francisco, but it spoke of ships. It spoke of shipping, and of industry, and of course the turning wheel of progress which had so dominated their upbringings as the way forward. Powell's situation in Middle America was pretty cozy... or rather that he had other different things to contend with, but he'd only been there a few years... and in a decade... in two... never mind in three the years after the first world war would be looked back on as defining and change in central America in a way that they weren't in the history of China. For China this year, for China as a hole, this was just going to be another year in the strife that had come about after the collapse of the Qing... and you saw that firsthand foremost in the papers of Peking, and Shanghai as they talked about the condition of the republic.

... and for them, they could 'feel it' in how there were things that didn't get talked about. The fighting the spirit warriors conundrum as a result of the fighting in Szechwan and as it spilled over into neighboring provinces required action... but Peking and Shanghai's luminaries had other things they wanted to gab about.... wanted to waste time about in their papers but here far from the coast, far from the coast he had a fight on his border.

Allen made himself sit down... only about a third of the room were in civilian attire. The two gendarmes officers had traded their fitted suits for their dress uniforms but had left their broadswords at home. Even so they like every other officer here in Uniform wore the standard issue 45 caliber 1911 at their hip. "So there is a racket?" He asked.

"Yeah. Its not complicated." Cole replied. "The green gang trades for opium being grown in szechwan, which they've been doing for a thousand years anyway its not new by any means but it is a problem."

... because of course the Green Gang was taking the opium and selling it and then using the funds selling the opium generated in the first place it was being used to buy weapons which were being used well in lots of places, but in their consideration the problem were the various armed gangs growing the opium for sell in the first place... it was those bandits who were the immediate security concern on their southern frontier.

It was a problem that needed to be dealt with. "How do you plan to deal with it?"

"Shanghai is one half of the problem." You could go down the Yangtze from Chunking all the way down to the Shanghai Bund. "They've got their fingers in a lot of pies but we're not without options, on the other hand I want to start running spotting planes out over Szechwan," He held up his hands, "Just as observers, radios and cameras its all I'm asking."

John Allen paused and glanced to the two black coats that Cullen had brought with them... ah both men had pilots wings then for a reason. "Unless one of your birds go down, in which case I send the 1st ​to come drag you home." An aircraft could be replaced, it was a machine, a pilot had the potential to end up teaching trainees, or making contributions to doctrine further on. They were a literate society after all. "Observation from the air only, and while we will work out numbers later, if the planes start being shot at I expect to be told about it immediately." And of course pilots were officers, or were going to be predominantly officers, and aviation commanders would need to be pilots themselves or should in an ideal world.

--

"What are you writing?" He asked as the scratching on the paper continued. He had spent lunch at the hotel... it had given him a little time to spend there... but then it was back to work.

"Nothing don't worry about," Dawes replied

Waite shot him a look from his own desk, "Its about elections."

"Its just an idea I want to explore." The red leg grunted. He put the pen down, "Look, I get it that Federal terms back home are two years, that the congress sits those two but with everything going on I honestly two is too short. We just have too much to do." He stated, which was of course self evident with summer being here. "Now damn what that first assembly thinks but-" And it was immediately obvious that he was talking about the national assembly, and this tied into the issue of the parliament in Peking.

"We agreed that the whole point of fixed terms was to create the institutional framework so we could have something like the states, we aren't changing it." Waite grunted. "Those idiots down south can bitch all they like." He spat

And he was right. There had been people in the cadre who had been worried four years was too short of a term, but it was how back home did it. They couldn't flip flop especially right now."

"I'm not suggesting we arbitrarily extend the terms it wouldn't go into effect if it got accepted at all once we were going into a future election. I know we can't do it for this one, but I really expect that what we will see is that we need people needing to prove their bona fides in formulating policy."

It was a conversation at, that at the provincial level, within individual provinces, would go no where. With a fight on the southern border developing trade with Kirghiz and other factors... factors over these back in the states included as well of course things closer in Peking the topic was shelved.

In the long run when the time came to formulate a new lower house aimed at 'Federal formulations' that was when the longer term would be brought back up... of course by the time that came up, by the time those were words being thrown around things would be so much different. "We held elections in November of last year, they've had just about a year to get an idea of how the lower house works." It was certainly a start, there could be no denying that it was helping. The lower house provided a wider body to distribute weigh across... as did the growing professional bureaucracy that had been taking shape over the last ...roughly six or seven years now... longer if one counted the railway apparatus, and personnel trained to manage the telegrams and their operators.

"Yeah, but those of those fellas are used to being told, hey this is what the army needs," Dawes was quick to point out, "Or failing that, this is for the steel industry, or what not."

Waite looked at him with bewilderment, "And you're complaining about it? I mean yeah we get some pushback from some landholders in Zhili some of the time but, everybody understands what things are like in Szechwan, and frankly what Bai Lang was getting up to."

The White Wolf rebellion was the constant reiteration of storytelling even now years after the fact, few papers in Xian even spoke of the rebellion against the Manchus since then. There were some papers who talked about the overthrow and foundation of the republic but usually only in October, and over the last few years those had become markedly fewer... the urban population of the city had changed in how it worked as it had grown. The influx of people from the countryside and the new education system, and growing attempts at implementing a vernacular chinese meant that most of the young people coming for factory jobs hadn't had anything to do with, for or against, the old dynasty and its toppling. Not this far west... but plenty had at least heard that Bai Lang's bandits had made the rounds, and no one forgot the propaganda that he'd issued to try and stir up support.... and that had its own weight but in the opposite direction to how remembering toppling the Qing and the founding of the republic was looked at...

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1921
The example weapons were all clean, free of grease to smudge their finishes all laid out immaculate for the review. Fundamentally though, at its core Lewis's gun's defining feature, what made the whole system work was the gas piston system. That system was the important part. Not caliber. Not the feed system.

Lewis's gun had been designed originally to fire from a closed bolt. Leaving aside the issue of gas pressure and reliability, an open bolt made more sense for a reliable machine gun, given the engineering tolerances entailed. For men their height, Lewis's gun was maneuverable even if that pan magazine was a problematic thing to load. There had had to be changes there... but it was light enough that an experienced soldier could advance with it.

Mobility in Firepower to borrow from Black Jack. Fire and maneuver. That was intrinsically a Rifle Division concept, and 8th​ Division would have its share of Lewis guns, but that wasn't what they were evaluating here today. Lewis's Assault Phase Rifle was lighter... but Isaac just didn't have the space or the work area that Griswold did. He didn't have access especially now to troops, and the truth was Isaac's grievances with Ordinance and Crozier's friends at the branch was a lingering problem even now. It would have been better if now that the war over if he'd just come over, but Isaac was adamant that he didn't need the money, and that he was happy tinkering. The 'Germans were whooped' as he had put it in one letter.

That meant Griswold's changes were practical. The pistol grip had been lengthened, and Isaac's original stock replaced with one more inline with the shoulder. The rear endof the receiver had taken new cues from the Enfield 1914 and its sight. They were largely though, ergonomic changes, for a rifle meant to be fired by an experienced man from the shoulder. Forward of those the main change from Lewis's assault phase rifle were the necessity of the magazine for accommodating their 200 grain 8mm Mausers, and in that the magazines needed to be of a catch design and size interchangeable with other such.

1st​, 3rd​, and 8th​Division all had troops contributing to the test. There were also troopers from the Gendarmes, and of course there was no shortage of officers and others ranks from the Corp of Engineers. Shang looked like he was happy with the development.

Griswold looked cross.

The two men were obviously zeroed in on different details, "Its about production?" Allen asked.

"Its about production, never mind we're not including 2nd​ in this show, and I've already had a dozen plus requests for fitting scopes to these."

"You knew that was coming."

"I did." Sam replied, "But they're not ready."

"Why, Lewis's guns work fine?"

"Yeah, because we've beenmaking them, back to the small batches since before the war. I've got an incoming class of junior workmen," Enlisted 1 Ranks for the Engineers assigned to the Arsenal, "Who will spend the next six months learning about drilling and tapping barrels for that gas system, and the only time they'll see me, or any of my colonels will be at formal functions." Or 'for malfunctions' that was to say disciplinary issues. That was not how things had previously worked. Griswold and his senior staff had been ubiquitous on the shop floor in 1914.

"The gas system, because of the barrel is different," Allen hedged around, and received a nod, "Lewis did suggest the muzzle device could alleviate, but I knowthat as soon as we get to scoping the rifle there will be an ask ifnot sooner to put one of Maxim's suppressor so that won't do me or myengineers any good." Griswold remarked. "Then there is,that other stuff. I don't see putting this in serious use for two orthree years, and even then, it will be what, those regimental AssaultPlatoon idea, for first and third?"

"That is the current thinking yes." Assuming that they reached the point of actually finalizing those proposed organizations of fighting men. "The scout platoons are another idea," Those would be the scoped carbines with four power glass from the 98 line. Ideally those would have maxim silencers fitted for 1st​ and 3rd​Divisions Regimental snipers... but that went into other programs, but ultimately the rifle division and brigade level high readiness units were the offensive tip of the spear.

Bandits tended to build their nests either in urban environments where they had popular support or otherwise control of a local township by other means, or they built nests and warrens in mountains with lots of tree cover. Szechwan had too many of both. The truth was Ma's brigades were burning themselves out. Part of that was that Young Ma didn't have the resources to sustain his manpower, not at the skill level that the brigades had been when all of this had started... and of course the truth was that after Old Ma had died there was a vacuum of leadership, and no one in these last couple years had really stepped in to fill it... the natural result of that was to have Ma come off the line, have the hui brigades from Gansu step back.

"I don't understand what we're going for."

"Excuse me?" Allen questioned turning to look at him.

"No, I don't mean it like that, but we have basically said that the army is limited to a certain size. These aren't ready, hell they might not be ready in ten years, but even if we had half a million of them of," every infantryman having one, "What does it actually get, Szechwan is a threat to us because its chaos down there, but there is nothing that we can do to fix that." Killing them by the bushel wouldn't fix the problem.

They wouldn't have the manpower for it... it would have been the same mistake Duan had made, that Yuan had made before him... and frankly the mistake that Cao Kun and Zhang Tsolin both seemed intent on making. "This ain't just you, I assume the fiscal conservatives in the cadre – the lower house as well?" He asked

"Yeah, Look we agreed on how the chamber was supposed to work, but we cannot expect Little Ma to keep doing what he's doing and we cannot invade the province, even if it was just us versus which it wouldn't be, but there is enough talk that we cannot keep pushing forward." Not if they were actually going to have a government that had real responsibilities. "But we have to think about what we're doing, Waite is right him and Cullen both since we have a whole damn legal system to build." There was a growing bureacracy there was writing ... that was to say there were journals were men put out opinions monthly... and things were changing. "I'll tell you the truth, I don't like the talk coming out of Europe... France smacking its lips sounds like they think its back to normal which means sticking their nose into our business and complaining about lack of prileveges."

"You think there will be trouble there, then?"

"Yeah, something like that."
--
The letter from Dulles was mirrored with similar ones from Edenborn, and a similar one to Bill from his brother Phineas. The truth was Allen suspected that a letter from Daniel in London was probably also on the way. He ran a finger down the table. He wasn't entirely concrete on the plans but he had ideas... they all had ideas. The cadre was about ideas, and discussions with each other.

Shares, and patent numbers. That was where it came down to... and for more than just RCA. The break down in stock shares of that company was only part of it. He suspected, hindsight and other details that the Navy must have broken the German diplomatic codes before the war... maybe the Kaiser's impolitic comments regarding the Philippines had been the reason, maybe there had been others maybe they had just gotten lucky. It didn't matter of course the why just that the Navy had interests in communications security.

What actually meant meant was that a faction of Anglophobes within the USN had leveraged the Virginian to push for making RCA 'All American'. That nucleus, that core of officers in the Navy who objected to British control of the communications were supported by other interests, that was to say that they were buttressed by those who just wanted to make sure the British couldn't monopolize radio and telegraphs in latin and south america as well, or worse establish a global monopoly. He didn't really thing that was a realistic possibility with everything else going on in the world, but he could see the reasoning and while he didn't think a monopoly realistic it didn't change the idea of having capability independent of London... but there were other matters to, "there is going to be a what?" He took the letter.

The conference was intended to open on Armistice Day, and it was obvious that Harding's government was angling to probably find some common ground with fiscal conservatives in congress as well as in Parliament of good king George. The other invitations made sense, Japan, and Italy and France.

"It seems to be Hughes idea," Waite remarked naming the secretary of state. "Its not the same as Wilson, though I'd be honest I think with that," He indicated the RCA commentary that had come out of the navy and their alternating transmitters, "The Navy has the right idea. We would be better off if the Navy was buying steel... but congress doesn't want to keep spending." Of that Allen was sure, but the problem was congress couldn't see the second and third order issues..

The rush to demobilize was a mistake, cancelling orders, reducing the size of the navy not replacing things would hit the numbers employed by the mills. It would drive unemployment up... and the navy needed more time to reach effective fighting strength... which was a whole other issue. "Speaking of boats?"

"Well like we talked about Cullen got the russian and french guns we got from the legion, now those trains we've mostly kept in the west, but it seems less likely are going to need to use them to beat back some red rush." Of course that didn't mean they hadn't planned for it. Dawes liked Iseburo's idea of eight inch railway cannons for bushwhacking any Bolshevik artillery park, "I don't think he'll commit to it without putting it before the legislature, but I think he's waiting for that plate test either. If that turns out to be what it sounds like though?"

"Cullen will hold off until the Navy frees sailors and engineers."

Waite shook his head, "Well I don't know about that, the Navy demobilized last year, by about half so if he's looking for tin can men they're already out there I'd think." He paused, "If anything I suspect its just that we've got so much going on he wants to wait and see. We got the meal in front of us, but eating the dinner without exploding will meantime to digest it all." Waite was mixing metaphors but Allen understood the comment.
--
Notes: this is going up because I like posting daily, but also it foreshadows some of hte coming talks in the fall within Xian's developing civil government bureaucracy

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1921
The summer air prompted the running of the fan up above, but it wasn't by any means unbearable, it was really a dry day.

He didn't pay much more mind to the conference plans for November in Washington. They were quickly overshadowed as summer mounted in front of them and hostilities flared along the southern border, as szechwan exploded into seasonal violence.

It was just the way the agrarian village bled off steam... it was just bleeding in this case was all too literal. "We should be grateful that its such a disorganized rabble." Not some levee en masse, by the week of the 11th, sotwo weeks earlier, several, perhaps up to a dozen farming villages had put approximately several thousand total troops in the field. They had known that two weeks back, "They have spears and kropatchecks," Admittedly with actual cavalry, ahorse, actions being fought in the south that was only a mild surprise, but the problem were the numbers of illiterate village boys clogging the roads.

He disliked the images of the talismans taken after the fighting had been done. "They're not boxers."

"No, well in that they think that these will help stop bullets, but for the most part that's where the similarities end."

That was on some level, Allen supposed, reassuring as his fingers moved over the images. Calling them kropatchek was perhaps overstating it. They were tubular fed rifles along those lines, but they were of local manufacture, common enough in Szechwan since the end of the previous century. They were black powder rifles which was another reason for the label. It was simply the vernacular

In Joseon ... a decade and a half earlier the 'Righteous Army', really 'armies' would have been more accurate given the variety in leadership, had hand built single shot rifles on European lines or like the Trapdoor Springfields when they couldn't secure more modern Japanese, Russian, British, French or American rifles through foreign sources. It was in that sense the same. The spears and the rifles were a matter of supply... which was of course why, "Did we get a count?"

"Somewhere north of twelve hundred." Waite replied, "We left plenty of them on the field before the battery came on, and they broke and ran." As the artillery come along to sweep aside the numbers.

Allen turned to look at the silent assembly of other officers standing back from the table waiting, waiting. "And our losses?"

"Forty five dead, 109 were wounded in the action." He scowled, but didn't speak and Waite continued, "Four lieutenants are dead, one captain, it happened fast. Too close to the action" The NCOs had done their jobs though, not that theofficers hadn't... the men who were dead had died at the front of the fighting... and besides that the battery had mostly needed to be called to put fires down range.

"My concern is why they allowed the rabble to get that close in the first place." From his understanding of the report the old ... frankly probably originally Song era road post had been seeing plenty of civilian traffic, but it was still the summer, some degree of trouble with just civilians getting disorderly should have been expected.

"I agree with you, but 5th ​was only supposed to be filling in for the 8th​ and they hardly expected real trouble to come over. Probably didn't realize what they were looking at, not really. They weren't clear on whether or not they were supposed to fire , and like you say the rabble got close enough to catch men in the open... and the shooting started at about two hundred yards," Easy killing distance for men used to firing a rifle, which was why casualties were what they were.

5th​ Infantry Division was supposed to be getting summer practice soldiering... well in this case, this battalion anyway had gotten practice soldiering. "Did we take prisoners?"

"Of course."

"I want to know what villages they're from," He growled, "Get Cullen and then I want his aerial photography done of those villages, and then I want it left to Shang to decide what his division does with that information..."He paused, and then took a breath. A part of him wanted to snarl and spit threats, to send cables over the lines into Szechwan, threatening to rip and tear, but that wouldn't have set a good example, much as he could tell there were other men wanting to do the same, "What do we know about what's going on in Szechwan, and what is little Ma doing right now?"

"The 6th​ Brigade is still rearming and retraining, ideally they need another month or two even." That was a compromise sing Hongkui really did need to reorganize and rebuild to standard, folding the Gansu majority Hui unit into the ranks had entailed a lot of other work. Organizationally the Brigade would be subordinate to 3rd​Division and in turn would take its equipment cues from the 'Mountain' troops, hence new issue carbines or universal short rifles going out, and pack guns, "Working back from that the province is a mess we're not sure would be the accurate answer."

... it was however the honest. Things in Szechwan were simply to opaque and confused to often make sense of until after the fact. There were too many local strongmen. "I would like what we have for the moment." He replied Szechwan was a confused mess, and it had been getting worse over the last few years... the explosion of summer violence was not unusual except in its volume, and frankly even that was more of a facet of just how many people lived in the province... and potentially if the drought was effecting them.

The various local strongmen had no unifying organization between them. Some were Yunananese aligned, some supported the southern doctor, and some were just local chieftains.. and they all were horse trading amongst themselves for leverage despite any political statements they might make for the papers and the masses. That had been best demonstrated last year when Lu had been forced to tuck his tail and run for Shanghai after an erstwhile ally had switched sides...

Liu the ally in question was probably not responsible for their current scrap... unless one wanted to lay the blame for his fighting for the problem. More likely Liu's inability to exercise control over his outlying villages except by sending foraging 'tax collectors' to the villages was only part of the issue.

That certainly must have contributed, Allen felt, but it also wasn't his particular concern. What had nothing to do with the actual violence were Sun's preening from Canton. He had, Sun had, issued a statement earlier in the month, and indeed a second one back the previous Saturday morning, but the truth was it was irrelevant preening to readers in coastal cities, to people who read urban papers, and to financial supporters predominantly abroad. It was part of Sun's usual playbook... it was a familiar tactic that reminded him of the 'second revolution'...

Sun choosing to reject the Peking government was a nothing. For all intents and purposes the southern provinces, like Canton, never mind Yunnan had done that years ago. They were independent in the ways that mattered from Peking Sun had had several 'independent' governments several times now make similar statements... so did it have any influence on what was going on in rural Szechwan... no probably not.

--
July was proving dry, he had reports that hoped that in a month or so they would get lucky and the spell would break and that come September so would the rains... but the meteorological folks were worried about the smaller less complex...the more traditional farms... and drought. That wasn't the news he wanted to hear, but he had to listen even if famine was not a concern. They would do as they had planned to do and purchase grain from mid west farms through connections stateside, and they had emergency granaries... and the farms in the north of the province had been cultivating potatoes, and with the war over they'd been able to proceed with greater mechanization of the consolidated cadre venture in farming.. Well, that would help, but buying back in the states would let them backfill the grain stocks.

The lower house would be putting in a committee to take a survey, but that ran head long into the lack of good information for an almanac they just didn't have sufficient back details for rainfall per annum. They obviously had to start somewhere, but it this time last year the House hadn't even been elected.

With summer here though and the lack of rain still being a problem, the lower house clearly needed to respond to the issue. "The war is over. We'll be able to buy grain from the states." Buy it and have it shipped over without worrying.

"I know that." Allen replied still looking out the window. It was just money after all, and the real issue had always been distribution. The money wasn't an issue it was distribution of the food, "We'll have to call the guard up and mobilize for food distribution if it comes to it." It would keep the peace... that was really one of the things that kept the peace after Bai Lang, being that the army had enough discipline to get rid of the bandits, and well the provincial militia's in Kansu had started going over the border at bandits further afield.

"I thought you wanted the 8th ​filling out the Bashan."

"I did, I don't like having a bunch of reservists jumped on the border, but the reality is the 5th​ is better used handing out supplies of grain and food and deterring bread riots than anything." Waite nodded accepting the explanation.

They were looking at this from a variety of ways. Bread riots were not necessarily a given of course, they were sort of a worst case scenario. The bigger issue was any kind of panic and a run on the markets. The idea was if it came to it they'd open the emergency grain stocks to keep food prices low... if they had to they'd implement rationing.

Company workers and their families, especially the ones who lived in campus... in company provided housing... would already have access to company provided meals. Children frankly wouldn't be an issue they could be fed through schools since education was compulsory as well. All features and options for distribution that wouldn't require troops.

"You're suggesting Jun's family?"

"Not just them, but yeah your inlaws, and Cullen's half siblings and their clan. Bring them along, and frankly... to be honest. We just appointed," Hadn't just, but relative to the changes, "Shang general, hell his family, his brothers, his daddy, frankly his in laws I imagine, and his mother's kin." Waite railed off.

He was right. Colonels commanded regiments. This was not the war between the states with Colonels heading brigades. Generals were appointments and there were brigadier generals, one stars, commanding the Brigades, but division commands were limited and far between, and three stars were administrators on paper more than usually field commanders. With the responsibility of the arsenals they were too necessary... but what was on paper was sometime contradicted by the reality of this chaotic epoch.

"There is also the conference to consider." He added. "The House has certain responsibilities yes, but even if it didn't I'd say we should included. We do a lot of work, and it bares to mind that we have men from Austria, Germany, Russia, and elsewhere, and more than that we have business interests all over the world as well..."

Allen nodded. It wasn't just Powell. There were benefits to pushing out designs and equipment to those who were interested in them. Finns, and Poles, and Czechs were only part of it, but also the possibility of selling arms in South America had come up as well Powell hoped that foreign sales would stimulate a domestic arms industry in Guatemala especially as tensions seemed to be increasing. "Isn't the first one the air meeting?" A meeting that was generally assumed to be dependent on aircraft engines.. but there were other things. There were a lot of engineers who had come over, and given the economic down turn and rapid downsizing of the war industries more were likely.

That was the consensus of the Cadre, here and abroad and supporters. Cynical, or not, the consensus stood that all this talk of peace was nonsense. This rapid demobilization was a mistake for economic reasons. That war perhaps might be avoided between the great powers for a decade, but maybe not. The agreement to divide up the empire of the pasha's between France and England might well lead to a repeat of the boer wars... war was inevitable and likely.

... and regardless of what was being said right now, as soon as another great conflict started he assumed that the previous lessons of the war would come to the fore and the belligerents would go rushing for foreign supplies to fill their stocks for a war.
--
Notes: Now is as good of a time as any to talk about Fiscal Policy and how it structures over the really thenext decade. Xian by this point has begun collecting taxes,implementing tax reform, this is part of the reason the house of representative and provincial constitutions are important. To stepback for a minute, Duan Qirui's modification of / expansion of therelationship that goes back Yuan Shikai in Zhili, is that its stillbased off of Qing and Ming and pre republican China behaviors and relationships. This has a basic in the warlord this happened just noton the scale of multiple provinces.

But Duan basically goes 'hey pay me(the Beiyang Government) a lump sum every year, and you canadminister the province however you want'; its classical Tax Farming.There is a reason the British are uncomfortable about makingcomparison to the the East India Company because its on the nose.

Now, besides taxes there are two otherfactors in financial policy terms. The first is obviously that thecadre controls basically all heavy industry and WW1 meant a massiveexport boom this isn't quite export oriented industrialization. Italso in terms of effects has similarities to import substitution bothas a direct result and as a knock on effect to how productionorients. Firstly of course there isn't a choice in terms of having toswitch to domestic production WW1 happens, and then the Wilsongovernment (in the US) imposes war time controls.

Now historically this removed European,and then later American capital, and also actually reduced JapaneseCapital inflow, Japan became a creditor nation, but it allowedChinese exports to Europe and Japan to be competitive particularcoastal textiles. Historically China's chemical and metalurgicalindustry just couldn't meet demands of the market, the Entente boughtchinese goods, but here its on a much larger basis due to avaialblesupply. This feeds into growing the cadre's already expanding steelindustry (It made sense to reduce imports from the US anyway, butintegration is just as important to business management) so nowthey're exporting during the war while still expanding (particular inthe form of housing expansion in the cities, but also in railwayexpansion).

Then of course here there is the recentLegion evacuation, and the monetary side of that. The gold predatesthe constitution. Its under cadre fiscal control, and the cadre isvery inclined to sitting on that as leverage and emergency currencyreserve which also allows them to spend foreign currency (pounds orUSD) on the market they would have otherwise wanted to keep inreserve. Thus in practice the cadre has access to its own sources offunding for the government beyond taxes, which is part of why theHouse is there. Is it a check on expenditures yes, in bothdirections, but its not quite the same system as in the USconstitutional system.

But again another factor in fiscalpolicy is again a product of WW1, Wilson overuled the Treasurydepartment to continue to extend loans to the French, over treasury'sobjection that the French were insolvent and that it wasn't a goodidea fiscally. What Wilson did not overrule them on, is that thatsame year, is that the Treasury department stated that State loansshould not be made to China in present fiscal conditions. This isimportant, because post war there were reservations due to theTreasury saying we shouldn't extend loans because instability thateffected privated lendor confidence. All of that will play a factor,in conjunction with other finacial factors and political factors asthe Large Warlord era states begin to solidify over the course of thetwenties.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1921
The end of the month was right around the corner. There was a lot going on, but part of that was that they were moving into fall which meant in conventional wisdom there were two trains of thought bandit activity in good years would be low, because everyone would be home harvesting, in bad years places that failed would go jumping the border. Part of the reasons harvests would fail was lack of water, irrigation was tied into the dykes...the canals and those were and had been in a sorry state.

A good government's job was to build infrastructure both for economic, and for safety reasons. You controlled the water you stopped floods from killing people, and youhad the water to grow crops. That might have seemed simplistic, andit was a reduction of the sheer complexity of it all, but it was the fundamental basics.

Waite and Cullen had both taken up the more complicated parts of the government... when it came to law enforcement. "Infamous offenses require a grand jury." A congregation of twenty or so odd men in good standing to review the charges and establish if there were probable cause for the authorities case to proceed. It was as much a check against overreach by the government as it was to do anything else.

"Yes," He agreed. "Its a fundamental part of common law," Of anglo-saxon legal traditions, which of course meant that the Legation in Tietsin were all for it, "And?"

"And half the damn problem of the old dynasty was public corruption, and the breaking of the fiduciary duty of men, who should have damn well known better." It waso bvious Cullen was bored with this whole exchange... but Cole had the advantage of enforcing criminal statutes on arson, and murder... and bank robbery, and train robbery and such. "Part of that I'm sure was lack of oversight, and lack of pay." The army didn't have a desertion problem...nothing like the States had had during the indian wars because they knew better, they knew how to maintain discipline and how to organize the men. "Most of the men that we have in the bureaucracy aren't lawyers... we can teach the law as its written but none of us are lawyers by profession." Profession was an important question.

"Don't see that we really need them," Cole replied looking up from his mug, "The law was written to be intelligible to anyone who can read."

"That's the problem, its not that it can't be read, its that its so damn long now, and the world s still changing." Waite replied, the term white collar wouldn't be coined for another decade, but the idea of public corruption was always always had been a problem. "And, what in particular I need other than men who've read the law, are more accountants. We need an effective bureaucracy Allen, and for them to have to be effective we need to have good record keeping. That's what we need for a functioning tax system."

That got Cole's attention, and likely would garner the interest of the rest of the cadre. Because the cadre controlled major industries it was easy for Waite's bureaucracy to handle things like the income tax... the industry themselves reported that information from payroll and it was all filed ... well 'in house' as one description had gone. That applied to men working on the line, all the way up to members of the cadre. The income tax was tallied... and of course Waite expected that social security the safety net would operate in a similar manner.

There were these things, and others that took ... that were taking shape as the government for the provinces formed. They could be formed foremost because of international trade driven by demand because the Europeans had gone to war, but while the larger European conflict was over didn't change that that influx of capital had paved the way for expansion. The money that had come in had paid for expansion of industry that now had domestic demands even if not as blazing hot degrees of demand.

There were still foreign markets to trade with but given the trade war the french seemed insistent to start, it would give other protectionists, and mercantilists both in Europe and beyond ammunition to support their outdated backward policies... and there was little they could do on that. The truth was that domestic consumption of goods would have to grow.

But there was a legitimate concern that Europe might try and go back to carving up colonies out other continents... that the French would want one sided trade concessions. "People need to understand how the government works." Waite continued, "How Justice is done," There was just so much to do.

Allen nodded, "Its an essential function of government to society." That was also how they had justified the profession of soldiery... the job that he'd put on his official census report... which was a comment to where they stood. He had put soldier in 1920 instead of land owner... which would have been a perfectly legitimate answer. The census was another thing, important thing for government to do as well. Reinsch had happily attested to the good service that the bureaucracy was rightfully expected to perform on on behalf of society. It was part of the profession. More than that, it was that obligation of public good which formed the basis of a professional man's 'higher calling'. "Hence the education budget,"

"Yes." Which just as with Reinsch, and the old man before them, they could expect favorable... and in the case of the new ambassadors in Tiestin very likely unrestrained support for their actions in cables home to London, and Washington. The New Government in Washington was still stiff and unclear on the route to take with the Europeans. The best case scenario was that the French would confine their stupidity to the Middle East with Sykes Picot and that the legation would continue to hold up the open door policy. "We should move on to international matters, we seem to have a consensus."

There was a pause and Cullen flipped open the folder with the topographical maps pushing them forward, "With our pace its taking up our railway engineers in the west," He meant the Corp of Engineers within the Army, "But we're maintaining average speed, there are some other matters but probably best for next week," There were already talks about coal consumption for electricity generation dominating the Fall Conference. There were two different talks about roads, and grading and such as well... but the main thing was oil and coal developments to construct the rails and expand steel production. "Our neighbors in the west have little to no real industry. Its agrarian for all the raw materials they have access to, with the Bolsheviks in the big russian cities the markets are hard to reach. Kirghiz is cut from the Trans siberian." That also cut them from Vladivostok as well, which was in Japanese hands. Manchuria... under Zhang was well... couldn't decide if he wanted to be a part of the Federal System or he wanted to ignore everything south of the wall... and it looked like right now the fights over the budget, "Lenin and Trotsky are a making appropriately concilliatory mouth noises, don't believe either of them, but the shooting of George instead of his cousin seems to be something they didn't plan for... did they have anything to do with it,"

Cole shrugged, and Allen acknowledged that it didn't really matter, "If the railway is developing then we could reach the gulf." They weren't actually going to go the whole way down to the gulf... the British just wanted a link into the Raj and or Persia, and that would settle the problem of an outlet to trade, "Merv is linked with kumis so that should be well enough to show progress in the west, so long as the British don't attempt to wrangle anything else we can back fill the work and be done in a few years." A few years was thousands of miles of railway though... but that was of course the reasoning, but building that railway on behest of King George there was British money paying to maintain the skillset of rail building and furnishing engines and rail cars for a network. It was true that they were using a lot of dynamite, and a lot of men to build but the work meant that the the north western border of the steppe wasn't passing goods across into the bolshevik territories and the longer that went on, the more normal that would be.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1921
Next fall they would have elections, and as a result the House was focused on committee reports to prove they were capable of what the constitution expected of them. There were publications and public record keeping to track progress and votes cast... but there were other factors that made things how they were.

That ran into problems... there could be no disputing that the Cadre had a technocratic bent that was self evident. Provincial transportation networks were one of the most important things that could be talked about, and the success of those actions were largely built upon the core Cadre's railway development efforts, but it now entailed other matters. Streets needed to be either widened or built, paved, and the inter urbans and buses put into service. That meant automotive efforts, and that went into the manufacture of automobile bodies, and especially engines... and engine production for automobiles also interacted with production of both tractor engines and aircraft engines... and also other things including the likely inevitable discussion of boats on the river.

The Cadre, in contrast to the House, with that more technocratic inclination was more involved in discussions internationally. Part of that was the discussion the Navy had with radio, but they had a Bureau of Aeronautics as well which played a part... and of course Moffet seemed to have different priorities and interest than Billy Mitchell. Billy had vision, and optimism but Moffet was a smooth talker and was less prone to stepping on folks' toes. Billy thought a lot of ideas had merit, but also the cadre had to consider the limitations of things. Spruce came to mind, they needed an alternative material and frankly metal aircraft and the limitations on engines were not there yet not yet, they didn't meet requirements... patience didn't come naturally to a lot of people and Billy Mitchell was one of those.

There were suggestions that eventually the metallurgical department would have a solution, but that might be ten years. So the topic looming foremost was the manufacture of reliable engines, and that meant tempering and tolerances of the machinery. Part of that was the interest to use aircraft for transport for men and materiel. Something than Zhang Tso-lin and the warlords of Szechwan would both pursue as well in order to rapidly move. For Xian though the other was radio clarity, and transmission power.

"I would, by preference," Dawes remarked with only a slight pause to indicate his acceptance or recognition of technical limitations "That anything that flies is able to maintain constant radio contact." That would allow them to remain capable of both observing as well as walking fire onto a target, real time fire adjustments for the artillery.

There were other possible duties, again transport, or bombing raids, fighting other aircraft, so forth and soon. The issue was that at present, the principle actual service duty of the aircraft in inventory were reconnaissance. They were photographers in the sky, and radio communication.

There was no interest in opening a money sink. The prospect of spending on metal aircraft had been refused on the basis that it would be too costly in manpower, and expense at this stage and no one in the cadre had been willing to authorize funding for that. They had in theory the money to open a project, but that might have meant the tsarist gold stocks, which was out of the question. That money needed to be saved because well they probably had a decade and money needed to be spent towards machinery and transportation and funding schools.

"I'm not convinced that machineguns will cut it, they don't have the range."

The man who added that comment, sparked an instant debate over what that would mean. Were Machine guns close range self defense only? Mount cannons? Rely on defense by alacrity, that would require more powerful engines.

Then of course there were the protests opposing. Who would be shooting at observer aircraft? Zhang had demonstrated no hostility towards them, and he was operating thelargest air force in northern China... even if it was a menagerie of models. Cao Kun and the Zhili clique which was the federal government nominally controlled the federal air force of Yuan Shikai... but again not a threat, not an enemy. There were rumors of planes in the south but at the moment it hardly seemed a realistic challenge. Was this a hypothetical concern, or the paranoia of some immediate threat... or was this based on looking at a potential red menace?

They were going to argue about this for a couple hours, and get basically no where.
--
Air planes were fundamentally attractive inventions. Allen understood this, he understood where the thoughts, and passions came from, but it did not change that they were now in the matter the business of appropriate funding and providing for the organization of such... and that was a much more daunting prospect. Military Aviation was a given, but they would also need to manufacture aircraft for civilian usage.

"They're going to argue about it some more."

"We'd have gotten arguments even without the House being here." Waite grunted.

Dawes shrugged, "I wasn't saying we wouldn't have."

There were glances from the rest of the senior committee, because it was obvious that wasn't necessarily universal. Bill sipped his Spanish coffee, and mulled, "Well I figure the argument over transport was a given." He put the cup down, "mounting guns, and bombs and bombers in general should have been a given. The infantry was always going to want close air support if that was in the cards."

Which again the problem was coordination, the planes needed better radios. That ran head long into domestic production, and of course they had other production, they needed to expand engine manufacturing in general. To that end Allen decided to shift the conversation, "Yes, they were," And personally they were probably right to want it, but it wasn't in the cards they weren't there yet spotter planes for the artillery were the first thing, "and its probably best we started here, automobiles is, are all of you still in concurrence about mechanization?"

"For the regulars yes." Cullen replied.

"I expect we will have some trouble defining that, seeing as you want mechanization." Waite observed.

"Yes, I do, but 1st​Division is going to have to go first," First after the experimental brigade.

"Do we have a time table on that?"

"Two years?" Griswold asked Waite, and the glancing to Dawes. "Figure training the mechanics and of course having all the trucks replaced, all the accoutrements?" Sam's question brought a round of nods, "I figure we can probably, if production holds do 3rd​ the year after that, or the following spring?"

Then after that depending on costs, and how production numbers were looking that would be where things started to get questionable. Did they mechanize 2nd​? It was on active duty, but it was the center piece of the 'National Guard' Component. Cullen's Gendarmes or at least his main fighting force was probably going to be brigade size by that point so them?8th​ was still standing up, right now. The 'Regular Army' was supposed to be capped at 5 nominal divisions, which they weren't close to, much as the Army of the United States of 1906 had been well under its allocated strength. The Reserves were allocated a hundred thousand men, which was mixing units but nominally speaking the infantry divisions totaled 5 now with the 7th​ assigned to Kansu.

That manpower of reserves were part-time though for the most part, and also for disaster relief... not that it had stopped anyone from commenting about it. Percy certainly had had no qualms about talking about it, and in 1914 a hundred thousand men in a provincial army would have been a sight given the downsized army that Yuan SHikai had been hoping to reach... but that had also been before the war in Europe had erupted.

"I've got a plane from our émigrés," He meant in this case the White Russians, " That we can do some domestic production of, maybe that we change the engine in with the work being done, but it will work for transport, so it'll carry a radio, and it can carry bombs as a design. " Waite remarked turning the subject back. "In those terms it should be ready for the conference, "He paused, "And of course we've taken other measures."

Gabion baskets that probably dated to the Romans, or were at least Medieval. They predated sandbags and had been used in the Crimea and in the war between the states. With the war in Europe over and ease of steel production for it had been easyto turn the reserves to using them for stopping soil erosion and fixing dykes if temporarily.

It had been a peace time application aimed at fixing neglect that they didn't have the resources to engineer a proper fix for just yet. But those cheap mesh metal that made the structure had fighting position applications... and China had been using rammed earth to build walls since people had had bronze spears to fight with.

It had made sense to turn it towards defensive protection, especially as heavy engineer companies had arrived with their mechanical tractors, the eponymous heavy component, with buckets, and and loading equipment to move dirt, and gravel faster than men with shovels.

"How fast is it?"

He paused, "In an optimal scenario, it takes two men and a tractor half an hour, what it takes a squad of men eight hours work. Long as that squad can protect them you end up with an effective fighting position, what our grandfathers, or fathers would have called a fort in the war between the states." Waite replied. "Its not much different the wire mesh is that zinc aluminum stuff we use on the farms anyway." But the principal issue was construction of such things were relegated to requiring heavy engineers and the train yards which moved equipment rapidly to a departure point. "I give you its heavy, and again we've talked about mechanization, it won't replace sandbags, but if we reinforce the southern border, and if we do this on Kirghiz then it has benefit. No amount of bayonets will force a confident defender from them." That was the thing, so long as the machine guns were fed, and the infantry were steady you could cover a front. Artillery helped, and as they had learned mortars protecting a position could free heavier cannons for more important duties, especially given the ranges of most fighting.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1921
The, nominally, fall conferences continued, including talks about the issue of the drought, but that ranged from relief, to also better for the longer term water management, and wells...including the work with the baskets At the same time though the army did have other things to talk about, that ranged from talks in Europe... and how that might effect things, and to other efforts, "They are nice looking shoes." Hodges remarked shifting it about.

The boot was shorter than the standard army field boot, and a had thick brand of rubber around the leather just above the reinforced sole of the shoe. "3rd ​Division wants them issued to all troops, its in Lee's appropriation request, and Shang looked at that for the 8th​ right after." It was that time of the year after all.

The summer drill meant a congregation of the whole army and all the things they were studying through the past year. Regimental Snipers gathered to discuss and compete in the summer games and that included the stalk in advance and shoot competitions that were more than just hunting for that single rifle crack. Those men were the eyes of Rifle regiments and reported back to their colonels to direct the battle, and that meant they needed to be invisible.

They had already been issuing the scout platoons specialist equipment and dispensation for other items, but the central equipment of the army remained the fairly typical equipment of a modern army. The Quartermasters, and depots were furnished with boots, to socks, and trousers, belts, and so on to the winter coats and to the fact that standard rifle was a magazine fed bolt action rifle in a modern caliber, and that it was supported in turn by the provision of entrenching tool, and belts for cartridges and stripper clips, and so forth.

The on going adoption of a new universal short rifle or carbine didn't change that it was just aimed at insuring rifle companies were light faster formations and not burdened by a clumsy implement of battle. The issuance of hand grenades was also underway, even that was limited. The adoption of the short rifle, and current efforts with it, precluded for the time being rifle grenades, though those existed as an option for the long rifle 'original pattern' gewehr 98 but was only in limited service due to expansion of production.

Overhead there was the hum of engines. A reminder of the ongoing debate. Waite was more along the realist side of the debate, but like back home with Mitchell there were idealists who claimed for the airplane all the things that it might do. That optimism needed to be moderated by both current capabilities, and also the matter of fiscal responsibility, the fiduciary duties that they had with regards of spending... there were talks going on state side in Britain, and there would be racing competitions and other engineering demonstrations that members of the cadre would be travelling to see, but for the time being aircraft were a supplementary matter in the grand scheme.

An aircraft carrying radios and cameras and that could loiter to relay and walk rounds from artillery was generally considered the most important procurement option at this stage. That meant range, which meant fuel capacity, but the truth was they needed to up engine production.

Increase production, that was a familiar issue at least. There was a rap on the door, "Percy is in the lobby looking antsy," Bill announced shoving his head into the room. Hodges paused, and put the boot back on its tray.

The heavier set man as they made their way down the elevator had made the observation that much like Britain with its nabobs, its prejudice against new money, Japan had taken similar cues. That was true... and much of that was the frivolity of spending. All of it wasn't though, before the war in Japan there had been a debacle with Vickers and Siemens. As the British had pointed out to Vickers they should have bloody well known better under British Law. Bribery and political patronage were something that ...well extortion under color of official right as it would be come to known in common law was a problem. High societies the world over and the old money might disdain the new, but what really bothered them was that political parties, the political machines didn't so much care.

Populism worried old money.

"You think that's what this is about?"

"Maybe not," Hodges replied, "From what you said George getting clipped in the arm spooked him something bad," Bill's father had been shot by an apache over some old grievance and the colonel had healed up fine while the war had still been going on and thus Hodges didn't really care much for the fretting the british did from the little Bolshevik mouse gun. That was probably not ... reasonable per se, but it was the man's opinion.

They cut a contrast with Percy Graves even if he wasn't the only man in a civilian suit. The tweed suit was a little more 'militant' than what Percy had worn before the war, but it wasn't the 'trooper' style that was popular with Xian's emerging business community.. which only served to make the englishman's suit stand out in the crowd. Percy's lack of a pistol... now that the war was over was another matter. Hodges, who out massed the slim englishman by a hundred pounds easy, retained the same colt browning 45 as was standard service issue to the rest of them. The pair of men in black charcoal suits in the lobby were carrying their service weapons under their jackets in holsters better suited for a man who expected to be in an automobile for much of his day.

In contrast though to how things had been ten years ago Percy had no shadow. The Legation was not worried about one of their men getting abducted... which had been a reasonable concern at the end of the Manchu dynasty, and the early days. Not now though.

In place of a gun tucked under the Englishman's shoulder was a folded paper. A familiar local publication.

Bill nudged him, "Oh boy, well be glad that the professor ain't here. I read that front page article."

Allen nodded, "Yeah." Hestrode forward without breaking stride, "Percy, good morning."

"John Allen, William," The texan snorted at the full use that Percy's trademark even as they shook hands, and the englishman moved on to Hodges. "Well I just came this morning, on the train." Obviously, "I have a lovely room at the Glory, but I know you gentlemen are in the midst of your conference." He nodded again emphatically. "Did you happen to see this article?"

"I did." Allen replied not actually looking at the paper. It was under a pseudonym of course...but that was for only to provide the barest of cover. The colonel who had written it had almost certainly gotten Jun's approval... she owned the State Daily Herald, and the RPF veteran had won a seat the year previous to the lower house. The man knew very well what he was doing. "He wants a larger army."

"He wants a half million men."

Allen shrugged, because it was true...but it was also clear that Percy was missing context for the matter, "I know that, and we will talk about it, but I am not comfortable having an army based on conscription." But the argument that armies based on conscription tended to bear down on their neighbors ... wouldn't have held weight. "I know he has his concerns about banditry in szechwan, but doubling the army upwould not in my consideration be fiscally prudent." Nor would it be sound to reduce the size of the army. "If in three or four years we've completed the ground work, then maybe his argument will carry more weight, but his proposal is not fully enfleshed at this stage." But the argument was mostly fiscal conservatism, if they had absolutely had to there was every likelihood that Shansi by itself could have have provided that volume of men... but the infrastructure wasn't ready to support that, yet. That was the operative word.


"And you've read the gentleman's other articles?"

"You mean that he doesn't like the doctor, or Liang for that matter." Or that matter any of the literati of Jiangsu province... which was no surprise.

"Yes, well that too. He's anti-bolshevik."

"Yes, he was posted in support of the reserve force we stationed in Kirghiz before we hopped over the border and road for Ekatrinburg. He's a good man. He's been with us a long time." The previous July, that of 1920, had divided the beiyang between Zhili and Anhui factions... and then also reduced the other poles of the tent to trying to keep things running.

It had been worse down south... people talked all the time in the papers about reuniting the country, but the south was a mess. Guizhou and Yunnan were fractious to say the least... and szechwan made them look prussian in orderliness. "He opposes Federalism."

"No he opposes the south withholding taxes from Peking, its not the same thing." Allen replied as they began to walk to a large office on the first floor. The gendarmes men following along, the younger of the two who hadn't started to grow whiskers was named Zhang Wei and befitting the name blended well into any urban crowd he stepped in to. Zhang Wei grabbed the door and led them in before ringing the phone.

Security precaution.

Hodges might well have been getting snarky about the bolshevik mouse guns but like it or not there were security precautions being taken.

"So what does it mean?"

"the Cadre agrees in principle to Cao's position broadly." Hodges stated speaking up, "What happens south of the river is not the provinces' business. There is a constitution, it might not be a great constitution but it is written. We pay taxes to the central government, we hold elections that is more than I can say for Guandong. What Sun wants is to play at governance without actually doing any of the hard work of governing, its why he keeps running off to Japan." Hodges looked like he wanted to bang on the desk to accentuate his point, but was at least for the moment restraining himself.

Percy was on the back foot. Hodges normally didn't' deal with the Englishman... and that was useful for times like this.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1921
The standing committee held a number of men with austrian knots, and a half dozen officers of rank with red dragons banding their collars, and every man present was in field gray regardless of the caps resting on the table. Reinsch would have complained about the lack of civilian suits regardless of whether it was peace or war time. "There is going to be a naval conference in Washington."

Allen nodded... or really most shrugged, "Yeah, I was told." he replied, and truth be told he was surprised Powell had made the trip never mind was bringing it up. They were meeting railway production targets and shipping engines both into Kirghiz, and across the Pacific to the port of Quetzal which Powell had been expanding to handle the arrival of heavy industry.

"Its Hughes's baby." He continued, "But China, and Belgium are both planning to attend... nine countries," Portugal, the Dutch, Italy as well with of course the states, the brits, Japan, and the French. "So far as the talks going around its the exact opposite strategy of Tillman in terms of plans." The Senator from South Carolina was dead now but the idea had been to have the states build the biggest meanest ship afloat for the battle line and then focus on cruisers of a more modest size to busy southern yards to protect commercial shipping, but in short to settle out the question of who had the best battleship once and for all.

That list was good news in a way. The Germans wouldn't be attending but neither would the bolsheviks... that Harding not recognizing Lenin's group of thugs was a good sign. "And what will that," Both the conference, and the abscence of a nod from the White House, "mean for Siberia?"

"I don't think Hughes gives a damn personally, Harding... some of the others... that's a harder read," The red leg replied, "The brits and Japanese have agreed in their cables to recognize the borders as they exist, I think in order to get Britain and Japan to agree Harding will agree to that." Some people might not like that, but ... Harding was not adventurous.

If things held that was good. The shooting, the injuring of the British King might have been seen as a good thing for revolutionaries committed to the cause, might have been seen as a step in the right direction for hard liners. That kind of talk though would get a man punched in the mouth given present English sentiment...George the fifth was a popular man, more so than Lloyd George as it seemed the Welsh Wizard was starting to have outstayed his welcome. Certainly the Anglo-soviet trade discussions so soon before the shooting proved a problem for him.

It was bad timing all around.

There was a pause, "Hughes isn't going to invite the Bolsheviks. He is going to invite France, and Italy." Griswold remarked. "We needn't give a damn about Italy, but the Frogs are making mouth noises about the Chinese markets... and then there is Shantung to consider as well. Koo is going to run off at the mouth."

There was an exasperated grown from a former cavalry officer, "He doesn't even like the Fukien clique," and besides that the Beiyang government was in no position to spend money on the Navy... which wasn't to say that there hadn't been talk of buying ships that would otherwise go to the breakers.

"They're not going for the navy." Waite commented, "No this is about the open door, and the age old argument about what open door even means. Best case Lansing and Ishi's understanding holdings and we get the British in agreement with that." No Germans to worry about. No Russians... but still the frogs grabbing at english speaking coattails like that cartoon.

"Powell?" Allen asked.

"There is talk about an immigration bill."

"Another one?"

There had been one in 1917. "Its still in talks I don't think they'll get to it anytime soon but its something that will happen. Harding wants a renewal of the previous one, but I figure they're going to want more."

"What do you want done about it?"

Powell shrugged, "I want to get around it, of course. Its stupid, but in a way it benefits us. The gentleman's agreement with Tokyo is silly and going back on it is worse. I'll happily take anyone from China or Japan who wants an honest job and I need Italians and Germans for the works as well. Poland just got its country back so I'll trade with them but things are what they are." The red leg declared a gallic shrug to punctuate the statement.

It was in this that there was an inherent driving idea with regards to society. Xian's constitution profoundly declared all men equal under the law. Circulars that went out espoused a promotion by merit and ability that encouraged studying, and excellence. That same borrowing of ideas shaped the mission statement of the Middle American Cadre and its own documents, both in their newspapers and the charters of their corporate towns.

But neither cadre, and certainly not the much smaller European based purer business interests had the influence to set or shape immigration policy. The collections of men could say what they wanted with regards to immigration but it was outside of their ability to make that policy in 1921 at home, and certainly abroad. "The Conference is in Washington proper isn't it?" Allen questioned.

"It is, I figure that I should have no trouble sailing through the canal, and reaching the capital." Powell replied, "I'll take notes on what all I can find out," He paused for a moment, looking around at the other side of the table. No one joined the conversation. The truth was while Powell's mission, the MAK's aims to have a merchant shipping portion which could carry goods over the sea had a basis in lessons learned or ecognized long ago in the phillipines and reiterated with the European war the Cadre here in Xian simply did not have the ports under its own control. It had not interest in trying to finangle that given it passed through wei hai wei and shantung under long standing agreements with the tariff commission operated on behalf of China largely by the British.

--
Notes: This is going up early real life impaied the completion of the next segment of rabid fox which is what was otherwise scheduled for today's post so I will most likely be pushing things a day forward with things back to normal on Sunday with Ghost going up.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1921
He could remember in 1913 talks of the first regiment... or the argument over even calling it an army. The question 'what should the army be used for' would have a very different answer in twenty years, the cadre had always been leery of haying to far one way or another, but in 1921 the conclusion more or less established by conditions on the ground was that the army had to be able to perform some degree of law enforcement capacity. It had been the unpopular consensus basically since the army had formalized, but the opposing position had agreed that regardless of how the states did things posse commitatus was not a good fit for China. The Army had to be available for such duties as there was no civilian bureaucracy available to them even in 1921 which was of sufficient size to undertake the sure backlog of work in addition to all the new incidents of bandit fighting.

But just as they had papers which published and spoke on their particular positions, there were in circulation papers in Szechwan. The province was divided under the control of different warlords yes, but which still reached regional audiences. He tossed the paper into a stack with the others published by 'their side', the article didn't read like it was one of Jun's and it wasn't one of her pen names but almost certainly someone she had approved of for it to receive a front page publication. It spoke in the melding the old ways with the new, of a synthesis of both learning new things and adapting old ways for modernity.

The article was quick to call up the annals of the warring states when speaking of modern events, and the expressions of that period. To enrich the country, and strengthen the army, and their neighbor to the south wasn't ignorant of that growing strength. They'd let Kansu units and other Ma clique brigades pass over the border to raid bandits... and settle grudges... it had let them defend the border with limited troops and he didn't regret that decision. The border defenses especially those ancient, storied historical towns passes and highways that went back two thousand years were better protected now.

Not that they had had much ability to stop the Ma family from doing so... but they had had the option, it had been their choice to support them. Part of the labors undertaken by the new bureaucracy was an unvarnished look of history... of the historical record. It had started out as just looking at the previous dynasty.

The realization that China hadn't bothered with a proper census and tax roll reform since the first Ming Emperor had been a shock to the system when they had first learned of such. There had already been objections to the Qianlong Emperor's reign, and some of the decisions of the Kongxi Emperor for fiscal policy especially as the cadre had adopted tax powers as part of its bailiwick. The history writing had expanded to all of Chinese history and that included the focus on the first emperor's tomb, and the papers wrote themselves.

During Qianlong's reign the landed gentry had in the face of government corruption created their own private militias. The newspaper in question was quick to associate the Ma clique's brigades of Kansu to those in comparison. That was not flattering. It was at best a back handed compliment.

"We recognize a militia's right to exist."

"If its well regulated." Waite replied, emphasizing the line cribbed from the Bill of Rights. "He's asserting-"

"I know what he's asserting." The other red leg grunted. Griswold twisted in his seat to look at him, "Fundamentally the Ma clique lost its head when Old Ma died. They lost steam without leadership, there are still some old men with influence, but Hongkui has been going over the border up and over up and over for years. He's spent as a force and most of the Hui in Kansu, and Xinjiang are looking more towards us than the central government."

That was true.

It was also true that Hongkui's efforts while appreciated were looked at as a dated response, a relic as compulsory education, and growing jobs in Kansu pushed eligible, desirable recruits towards the cadre lead provincial army or in less martial families sending sons to factory work, or to coal mines or into the city to work as shop keepers as towns grew larger and expanded.

It was also true in Tibet according to Hodges. Lhasa was mostly Han merchants, but Hodges was expanding the Cadre's interests and while he was fond of Buddhism and enjoyed the company of monks and learned men, he was also dead set that there were things that had to be done. That meant compulsory education.

"Here," The historical record being compiled also relayed on the information not just of the Qing themselves but freelance Chinese scholars writing in the time of Jiaqing emperor during the literary loosening of censorship, but also the number of active english sources, and the result of looking back at that were that they had to look at, "This is the Han river islands mess, see here is Hupeh, Shansi," and of course Szechwan, which was the real, larger concern.

At the end of the 18th​century when the states had been young the crisis had forced the local gentry to form their own militias... not that that was new of course... which of course why newspapers could draw historical comparisons, "I don't like that comparison," Waite replied, "The Qing claimed to have killed a hundred thousand rebels, and leaving aside corruption in Qianlong's day and inflated numbers that was with pike and shot and bow and spear not repeating rifles." The rebellion in the early years of the 19th century though had had a religious component, something in Szechwan that they were thankfully unlikely to face. On the other hand the armies of the various warlords, and bandit kings of Szechwan of note easily dwarfed that of Wang Lung from over a century earlier. "It was most certainly not what happens when a 15cm Krupp battery opens up from a hill six miles away."

There were nods from the men. That was another point regarding why Hongkui's ranks were thinning. His cavalry needed fodder but more than that horses were hard to replace ... and HOngkui's independent brigades while shock in szechwan for performance couldn't stay on scene and lacked the baggage to support more than a handful of machine guns. Kansu's brigades were built much akin to colonial frontier armies of the British Empire in Africa dashing hither and dither as they moved but relying on square and maxim gun to show off superior enemy numbers.... which had worked for them these past several years, but they still suffered attrition, and a lack of an ability to replace materiel as well.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1921
At the beginning of the month Wood had accepted Harding's invitation to the post of Governor General to the Phillipines. It wouldn't meaningfully change anything, per se...there were possibilities. The Cadre governed provinces were all in northern china, they were not readily suited to the growing of paddy rice, which had originated in the south, but the Philippines... well the islands could grow rice fine.

That presented the opportunity to import rice for those who wanted to buy it at market. There were urban dwellers who wanted that. It had been a topic among the last of the conference... that in terms of administration with agriculture starting to get a bit more normal they could see about trades in non necessity goods.

So after emergency grain stocks, and coffee as the crack had went to the laughs at the table. The talk of trade should have been a good thing. Trading for things... and buying rice from the Philippines would mean shorter turn around times. Rather than trying to buy them from the southern states, which would have been an option. There would have been talks about quality of course, and the breed of rice, but if not for the war then the shipping would have been available. Trade was good though.

Trade was normal.

Trade would be the nice part of normal.

Normal though entailed other things. "Wood is going to want to comment on our police," Waite observed, "Will want to talk about the elections wouldn't be surprised if the old man doesn't want to stick his nose in everything we do, and tell us everything we're doing wrong."

"You think?"

"That's because you were the favorite," Waite replied, and he wasn't likely wrong. Certainly Wood's endorsement had helped secure him a position as observer with the Japanese Army during the war against the Russians, and that had helped secure him elsewhere. The promotion to major after had been endorsed by Wood. "If we're lucky he'll happily write to the state department and the president with all praise for it." He shook his head, "Look that'd be the best thing for us, I don't know what Harding thinks of us, but Wilson was crazy at the end of his term but State is talking to Powell about this business in Nicaragua." The cable had come in this morning from Washington... a trip there for the naval conference where Powell would also be seeing what was going on with the other delegations.

They were reading everyone's mail after all.

He had no problem with that. Akashi would have approved after all... which was just a reminder that so many of their mentors and other friends were dead. He'd written to Edenborn after all concerned for the Louisianans mortality, which had always seemed more apparent then Colonel McCulloch. There was no getting around that though... but that was still a reminder of how they had gotten here... and standing on their own now more or less. "State's goodwill would only help us, but it can't make or break us. Trade would be good for the provinces, short distances are better for trade so if we can buy rice from the Philippines that's good."

They wanted trade. That was important. A prosperous people tended to want things from the market that theycouldn't make for themselves... and the truth was that as people moved in from the farm they needed to use their wages to buy goods for life that they didn't make. Shellman was quick to point out concerns about the population but he was also not wrong about the concerns of fire, and for the matter sickness. They needed to plan public layout for a much larger populace than they had especially as they moved westerly. The Navy doctor had a horrific fear of what mercury or other heavy metals might do if it got into the water table... which of course just encouraged him to make conversation about good stewardship in general of the waste.

There were concerns about smallpox again, which Shellman was right needed to be handled. Hodges agreed... and unfortunately that meant that they had to look back at some of the things Yuan Shikai had done when he'd been president. Officially Tibet's capital was Lhasa, as the head of the local cadre Hodges was within his constitutional rights to organize as needed for public safety, and health measures against small pox... but the provincial borders were not the same as how far their actual reach extended.

Lhasa was mostly ethnic Chinese after all. As inclined to be conciliatory as Hodges was he was also adamant that the provincial constitution applied to the entirety of the old Qing province. Any agreements to which China had not signed on be damned... by which he meant a rejection of the Simla Convention.

The problem there in was Curzon had told the government in Peking he meant to treat Tibet as an autonomous state. "Which makes no damned sense given our situation, does he mean to extend that to all the provinces?"

Surely not, Allen imagined, and Curzon even admitted to contemplating that would like create a furor at the state department regardless of any good will they presently enjoyed. The cadre's position time and again had always been to recognize the beiyang government in Peking as the legitimate government... and as it related to Tibet as a province one represented in the national assembly.

Curzon's motivations might well have been driven by his time as viceroy of India or as Bill succinctly but it, "He could just be an arrogant son of a bitch." ... but that didn't change the communicated memorandum to the Chinese that the Foreign Secretary wanted to treat Tibet as separate from China as a whole.... or how other powers might then start acting. The anglo-russian accord was in the trash... but there was breathing space there, so the more immediate concern was Manchuria with regards to Japan following Curzon's policy, or the French with regards to Yunnan.

Harding would never say such things were normal. Harding supported the idea of the open door in principle, but what worried the cadre was that even at the beginning there had always been a disagreement between the great powers exactly what was meant by the open door... and Curzon's statement to Peking was worrying. More worrying especially because of exactly what they had become, they had compiled a census of the provinces a census that they had originally prepared to carry out a decade earlier for the old dynasty.

A decade earlier still the cadre not that it had existed as such in 1900 had been a gathering predominantly of young officers who opposed, rejected the old Jeffersonian notions of a provincial, farmer's republic that was as Long had put it was 'safe behind its oceanic walls.' They had been looking for adventure, and a part of voices that had come together to advocate for a more expansive US policy, and the victory in early may had been an affirmation because only an expansive US policy would have insured that they wouldn't languish as lieutenants.

That had been a selfish consideration, but they had all been twenty some things back then. They were older now, more mature now with the adventures of the Philippines behind them, and they'd been here in China for a long time. "I think it would be prudent that we discuss it with Crane's replacement," Which was the problem... they had known that Crane wasn't going to be around forever, and it was all well and good to see a friendly familiar face in the Philippines, and they benefitted from Iseburo being viceroy in all but name on the great lake to the north of themselves. "We got complacent," Hodges admitted after a moment where the heavier set man had glanced around the small room that was crowded with just the six of them favoring his good leg, "We were used to the Legation being stable," So little turn around in Tietsin, and even that hadn't been really accurate... the European war had been an anomaly of course John Jordan and Reinsch would be recalled home and replaced with other men, and there would have been no reason to assume that their replacements would stay on as long... but they had assumed. "So we should talk with the new one, for ever have long the yankee has the post, and Wood in the Philippines."

Bill nodded at the comment, "Phineas has been talking about the railway work in Texas, Edenborn has been busy, and there is talk about a line to Dallas," Whether or not either the Louisianan or the McCulloch family were interested in supporting more rail infrastructure in the Philippines immediately Edenborn could probably be expected to support the founding of schools in the Philippines, agricultural work, and research, and of course efforts to combat disease. That was exactly the idea Powell had for Middle America as well but there would have to be separate commissions ... they had been gone too long from the Philippines to really cement leadership of something like what Powell had underway there, but there was still a lot of work to be done... but that was nothing new.

--
Notes: So first and foremost the computer crash earlier in the summer mulched a couple of the August updates hence rapidly going from July to September as we did, butthis is part of the internetional arc where there is that transitionin the governments of going 'back to normal' on a number of points,and on the British side is Curzon as Foreign Secrectary, Harding hitting the usual US talking points of hte period without actuallycoming out and defining what things like the Open Door actually entailed in the US conception as well as other other policy decisions(and of course there is the naval discussions and other treaty considerations in Washington, there are post war finances, there isthe change of from Wilson to Harding (Harding has only been in office for a handful of months by this point) with Wilson by and large havebeen ignored by the incoming government... which is something that should have otherwise gotten more screen time in the previous updates, but will probably be commented on in the following september updates).

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1921
Allen recognized there was more to Curzon's high handed comment to Peking than the man probably realized; it didn't take a genius to see the man seemed intent on replaying the great game. Alston at least seemed to realize that as well, if not perhaps to the extent that the man in Tietsin should have given the disquiet the memorandum had caused. Tibet was the frontier of China. The Anglo Russian treaty's becoming defunct was no great loss, but the cadre was cognizant of the 'unequal treaties' as historical artifice ... but equally so, "The situation with the soviets is one thing that Percy at least admits that much is something, but Tibet is part of the frontier, Tibet, and Xinjiang both have a long border with the Szechwanese and on our side there are longstanding tensions with the Hui."

There was a nod of agreement from the rest of the sub comittee.

In the view of history, after the great war historians would write expansively of how it was domestic policy as much as foreign policy for the Cadre of the day. Then, of course the inevitable round debates about what was idealist versus realist policies of government. In the waning summer, early fall of 1921 the cadre wasn't thinking in those terms, they appeared no where within internal memos or the records kept.

What was kept were the changes of security, and the emphasis of internal bureaucracy taking shape. Ma Hongkui's independent brigades had been operating over the border into Szechwan for years, and that had taken its toll on the units and with little really to show for it. That wasn't to say that they had done nothing, but the expense of the command relative to incomes by the Ma clique had a much harder time in 1921 to justify itself as more and more of its responsibilities, and respectability were subsumed by the emerging provincial authorities.

That Hongkui's Gansu brigades had been adopting reforms as they had come in meant he was also having trouble retaining troops, as well as recruiting replacements. Which was why Allen expected the young Ma general would retire from the military and go into a civilian provincial position, whether he would later make a run for the provincial assembly that was debatable but Hongkui was adamant that what he had undertaken had been against bandits.

Anti-bandit raiding had been the accepted policy after all. It was the old accepted policy. Publicists and official historians were rapidly, since the formalization of the provincial constitutions, had shifted to commenting on the policies as continuations of Qing policies. "These are the estimates," And they were the estimates which were what cemented Xian's military leadership against subsidizing the continuation of those raids.

Domestic cultivation of Opium had begun in China during the Song dynasty, even only in small volumes on the southern frontier, a thousand years earlier, but in the last century consumption of the poppy had so expanded that it was not hundreds of thousands out of a population of hundreds of millions... but rather millions of addicts... China had transformed over the course of the Ming, and Qing by the import of new world crops originally brought by the Portuguese that was very much self evident, and that had fed a growth of both cities and bringing more marginal land under cultivation. Opium cultivation in the south, in szechwan in particular provided a massive financial incentive to the half dozen competing petty tyrants. South China was not just producing opium for the massive consuming populace it was now an exporter... and the money from that trade purchased weapons that the Green Gang in Shanghai to support different factions.

"And is precisely these numbers to which state complains in support of Jordan's embargo." Because it was by the opium trade that the bandits and warlords in the south traded with gangsters for foreign guns and that in turn agitated the New Englanders of high society. It didn't matter the details, all the papers and their readers would care about was that it was part of it. It also didn't change the facts that the embargo demonstrated the critical need to have domestic production. "What do you want to do about it?"

"The proposal for military expansion is premature, in so far as we're not there yet." But if not the scare along the border with the soviets then it was the much more realistic concern with Szechwan's fractious rat nests, "Even if it weren't premature the current legislature," The current lower house wasn't prepared to form a bill for spending and preparing to train new divisions which was ultimately what the Patriotic League was advocating in their broadsheets. Broad sheets that they knew Percy was reading, and were probably being read by both sides of the Legation in Tietsin

"They're getting more coherent."

"Yes, which is why we will move forward with the existing plan for more brigades." Waite replied joining the conversation. They had this conversation almost a year earlier and they were just as likely to have it again because of the publicly available minutes of the cadre. A man should know what the public policy of his government was after all, and Yan Xishan was adamant that despite the statutory strength of the National Guard it was within their means to to field a still larger force. The Dujun of Shansi was not wrong, which was a publicly acceded to matter. "Which goes into have men with the requisite experience to command those formations."

Brigades were as they had argued ten months earlier were combined arms formations, which placed young generals in command of specialist formations with significantly different abilities to even rifle divisions. They were independent minded commands and more so than most were commands where high authority was to outline an objective and expect those one stars to figure out how best to accomplish it in support of the broader objective. It was why the 6th​ brigade had been built up to support 3rd​ Division over the past year.

It was very much one thing for staff officers, and men in education to join the general staff to advocate that each Rifle Division, 1st​, 3rd​, and 8th ​should be supported by flying, independent brigades but actually in practice the matter of supporting those was a whole other kettle offish. Talking about each Rifle Division having two or three brigades in theory sounded wonderful except when it came to the logistical bottleneck of each such 'battle group' save when they were operating in the close vicinity of the large rail depots and staging grounds.

Szechwan's roads were abominable and the many internal divisions to the sprawling province meant no local strong man had any reason to try and cooperate with his neighbors to construct such public works given the need for constant alertness.

The argument from both 8th's commanding officer, and others was that that also cut the other way. The benefit of a functional government was that their presence in both eastern Tibet, and the Kansu corridor was such that they could effectively build infrastructure and secure their own zone of control over the region. In a way that the Qing had never been able to do, precisely because of lack of roads and lack of sufficient central authority.

That was another reason for the growing pressure inside political society. The professional officer corp lacked the idealistic optimism of their western counterparts either in the states or in England or in western Europe. Especially not with it being impossible to not have Curzon open mouth insert foot for the public to hear about.

"What are you planning to do?" Allen remarked, turning to the Texan.

Bill shrugged, "Well I've talked to Lee, and in a week or so I'll put out a short tract. It won't be anything fancy, but it'll be focused on the responsibilities of an army officer." A trio of responsibilities the first of which was the organizing, equipping and training of the force, "Then I'll probably as an addendum to that point out that while we have the population base to support a larger army and we could probably even get away with having that half a million men on the basis of pre war armies a lot has changed since 1914." The greatest impediment toa mass expansion of the army would be its supply, and the moving of those supplies because of the lack of horses, which only one part of arguments. Officers on the General Staff, and at Xian's war college had drawn up proposals modelled on the British Expeditionary Force of Six Divisions as the nominal triangle division structure of Xian's existing divisions were based on British models. What they were asking for were Six Rifle Divisions intended for expeditionary warfare. That was the more modest of the proposals as the 'aggressive' wing of the staff college called for at minimum supporting brigades for them. In its most conservative form that expansion suggested 6 Rifle Divisions supported by 5 Brigades ...again likely numbers borrowed whole sale by the staff officers from the BEF model ... to be arranged as a Corp.

That was of course the second principle of the professional officer. That the general staff was committed to the formulation of planning for the army's actions. Xian's war planning was predominated by the notion of fighting the Bolsheviks. It studied Iseburo's defense of Irkutsk, and the fortresses, the red legs were asking for rail deployed heavy cannon. Other officers were not just asking for more radios, and spotter planes, but reissuing calls for an independent air force... whether that had anything to do with the formation of the Royal Australian Air Force was debatable.

The final third principle was the direction of operations in and out of combat, and it was in that the third principle that resistance to many of the above expansionary ideas most expressed themselves. The existing division Rifle and Infantry were geographically located. That had done because while the expansion of the army was to reflect the consensus that posse commitatus had no place in North China, that for the Cadre had to be available and active as a peace time instrument of policy both insecurity terms as well as a part of public safety.

"Which is an argument that everyone accepts." Waite replied, 1st​, 3rd​,and now the 8th​ routinely, particularly during the months of hard rain after the drought had broken, had to operate in and amongst the provincial civilian population. Cadre policies and management of resources had kept famine at bay of course but flood control was organized through the Corp of Engineers who expected the divisions to contribute during emergencies and that included regular professional troops as well as Guardsmen from the Reserves.

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1921
As fall came to north china much of the focus built into business ventures. Kerosene, and coal were to be consumed of course by house holds. They were needed for light and heating and cooking and so forth. Both had been consumed by households long before the Cadre had arrived in Xian, and before they had turned back Bai Lang from the city in the hail of artillery and aimed magazine rifle fire... what had changed though was its consumption after 1914 as the urban character of the city became a center of renewed banking and also industrial work.

It was the industry that facilitated the whole ability to support an army. Spanish silver had flowed into China from the New World since the time of the Ming, Spanish silver coinage, Mexican silver dollars now and since the time of Qianlong had been the currency of choice due to Qing restrictions on Chinese pure silver coinage... and its comparative scarcity. The Mexican silver dollar was and had been ideal for trade... and still was prolifically used.

Xian's central bank held the currency in reserve, but as with Manchuria there were changes as industrialization effected the provinces. The trio of maritime provinces had had their own well planned banking reforms... and now both Xian and Manchuria were well underway to issuing their own paper currency to supersede either the Customs Dollar or the Mexican Silver dollar.

"We're not entirely sure Zhang's actual specie volume but his numbers seem sound," And the paperwork appeared to be in order... it would have so much easier if Zhang Tsolin could have been able to definitively prove he had the ponytail general's specie currency from the bank to which the latter had been the major player behind... but that didn't seem to be the case, "But our own gold reserves are sufficient for our needs." More than sufficient, the train which had originally departed Ekatrinburg and the retreating Czech legions had been loaded with the Tsar's bullion... the Czechs eager to depart the fighting for their newborn country had offered them a portion.

It had never actually gone to a formal cadre vote. The freight cars with the gold had never officially existed on manifest as such. The Cadre had never officially remarked of its intake per se, and its only entry into the official record had been in the lead up to the financial planning commission ahead of the formalization of the provincial constitution under the declared assets. Assets which had of course included the sums paid to industry for war materiel from 1914 hence, just as it included the goods Japan had purchased that were for its civilian markets at home because European goods and American goods could not be readily shipped overseas but could be put upon trains and sent via Korea and across the straits, or from Tietsin or Shanghai to Japanese ports.

The actual decision to implement a domestic currency had been controversial. The only way it had probably survived committee was that local currency had historically been a thing, the history of varied silver currency, historical copper cash, and the use of paper money. Manchuria, and Zhang's reforms had helped clear the last resistance, the remaining hold outs but it had been political hurdles not practical ones that had been in the way. That didn't eliminate the use of the currency dollar, or the Mexican silver dollar those were too ubiquitous in circulation in trade, and they were in no small part because of how the old dynasty had managed their currency.

The map turned to the south, "Sun keeps speaking of using Canton as the springboard of a northern expedition." Waite warned him, reiterating the same warning Cole had made the afternoon previous as part of a different committee, but here Waite was more concerned of the money matter, "Now Chen, and the Cantonese have their own economic development plans, but Sun is a smooth talker."

Jiongming could probably be reasoned with. He wouldn't, or did not seem to be inclined to support any such an expedition. "You'll think he'll pull it off?" Allen questioned. Cullen was certainly concerned that there would be a fight, if not necessarily this year then Sun would do something stupid in the coming one.

"I think Chen could be left be he could do something like us or Zhang are doing, but," But the south was less stable, there was too much uncertainty and too many bandits. "And yeah, I think Sun means to do something stupid, I think he's convinced he has to do it because he's spent so much time talking about it and raising money for it that he has to try and make good on it."

But Canton was far to the south... and while close to Hong Kong, and the river system being what they were it was still far from them. "We will have to watch it, 1st​and 3rd​ divisions will be receiving their magazine rifles," Would be completing the transition over in the new year. It was the primary break with the otherwise excellent idea of 1913 pattern rifle, the decision to go to a detachable magazine. 1st and 3rd and 8th later were regulars and their rifle fire was accurate for it. It was a floor plate change so the reserves would receive rifles with fixed magazines, and from what they understood the missions to the Czechs and Poles alike preferred the increased simplicity of the fixed magazine... so in short they would likely adopt a 'carbine' length 98 version of the 1913 in 8mm Mauser. The Finns seemed like they were going to stick with the old Russian cartridge, but the Poles seemed prepared to make the transition for the cost that the rifle would save them in the long term. "I don't see us needing to push them to Ankang and Zhengzhou at this point."

"Not yet." Waite agreed. "But the truth be told I know we also need to watch the north east, I guess the east in general." He muttered. "A war with Lenin seems inevitable, him and Trotsky, well Trotsky mostly keep talking about this bridge to Germany, world revolution."

"You've been talking to Churchill." It wasn't a question, and the truth was the needed to keep open with the brits "But yeah, I agree. Peace is an imposition of exhaustion or overwhelming force." And while Black Jack had wanted to impose peace by overwhelming force the war in Europe had been peace by exhaustion, and that meant that once they found there feet a continuation was inevitable. He distrusted the bolsheviks more than the new Weimar Germans, but it didn't change the fact that when war came back to Europe it would be with the English speaking world they would trade goods in support.

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1921
The cable from Powell was a report from Washington, not from Middle America... though no doubt the rest of the MAK there had put together their own reports... or were in the process of doing so. Allen though understood that Powell was free to communicate whatever he personally thought, where as the more junior cadre was no doubt in committee trying to determine how best to make good of the situation.

The idea of a central american republic had great appeal in the States, and with the state department's latin america desk. The proposal in September had been to make the honduran town, he'd spent so long in Asia it was too small to call it a city, of Tegucigalpa capital of the proposed reunified republic. Powell believed that the success of reunification of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras could only be a good thing... and likely he must have been confident in the state department's support.

"What do you think?"

"Ultimately what he's asking for is a fresh round of investment." Into Honduras to expand their holdings there," Powell had outlined his thinking that if they could just invest into Honduras as they had done in Guatemala that it would stabilize the country by discouraging rebels from being able to hide in the countryside. That was probably optimistic, though expanding the great trunk would help but more realistic was his recommendation for further arms sales of goods under a proposal for a standard 'CAR' Army... and the railway expansion ideas were all well and good as well. "I expect Powell has the good sense to have learned what we got right, and where we had trouble... and he'll be closer to home."

Allen nodded to the response. That was all probably very true but he could also easily see that being closer to the states ... and the state department would be double edged. He wasn't entirely convinced on how well the three existing independent republics were going to fit back together and reunify either. Not easily anyway.

Powell had made a lot of hay over how small, relative to China, Honduras and even for that matter Guetemala were. Shansi by itself was larger than the three countries all together which amounted to a little under four million people. That was however still a lot of people, and Powell thought that they'd benefit from immigration from Europe and Asia as the manpower flowed in to build and staff new industries much as the States had two generations earlier. That was optimistic, for a number of reasons, but ultimately still boiled down to money.

They had invited them in years ago, but the ability to actually build railways, when the States were subject and still subject to some war time controls had meant that they had already outstripped what United Fruit had been able to construct on their own. That wasn't to say the telegraph and rail lines, and mail services that the banana man's people had been doing at the government's behest hadn't been an important first step, but they had been able to expand upon that and with alacrity do so while attention was elsewhere. The fact that there were now having problems at home on Wall Street or among share holders and competition with other fruit companies... as the average soldier came home with money in his pocket, well...

... well that was hardly cadre business. Powell certainly seemed convinced it shouldn't be an issue... but Powell focused as he was on his own backyard, and his own area of operations, was not looking at China. There was a pause, "There is the other thing, the Pashas are gone now, but the army still is in the same mess." That also probably wasn't the companies business, but Allen let the other man continue, "I think, regardless of what the British, and the States think, that if we accept that this is half time at best, then it would behoove us," And here from across Dawes started to stir, and look at the speaker "that we suggest strongly to who we can not just the adoption of the heavier 200 grain bullet our mausers shoot but the adoption of the simplified M1918," What was just an 8mm version of the Enfield 1914/17 pattern.

It would not be well received by the men in Europe and in England who insisted that peace was here to stay. In Eastern Europe where the Bolsheviks were near by and in the center where things were even more uncertain, especially with so many young governments born out of the war. It was likely to be unpopular with Britain and France because it was the German cartridge, but it was something they could easily manage, and the cartridge was common.

It was unlikely to effect countries with established arms industries or wide ranging holdings. England would go back to the [Lee] Enfield because the army was rapidly shrinking back down, and the lee Enfield did have nice features even if the brits kept their damned dwarf. The cadre, in committee, had even in the face of John Jordan's foolhardy and infuriating arms embargo spoken of how if only England the States would agree to commonly adopt the Government cartridge, 3006, then it would justify the cadre changing over. That had been a minority position but it had still been discussed; such that the MAK had a small minority agreeing.

"And where," Here Dawes paused, "Exactly all would this commission range for?"

"The Czechs, obviously," The unified state of czechoslovakia, "The balkans," Yugoslavia, "The Turks," And at that point the conversation dissolved into an argument for which there was little hope of holding a civil conversation, whatever the original point of the discussion or the logic of so many countries which were now building armies and who would benefit from the economy of scale selling such a singular model of rifle design firing a modern cartridge could entail.


It was so far as such subjects when an issue of realism versus idealism in political theory. There was a logic that called for and recognized the utility of the excellence of the Pattern 1913 and its action, and the ubiquitous commonality of the cartridge coupled with other features ... but then there was the political dimension It didn't matter the confusion of post war arsenals there was also the question of money too, which was the larger practical hurdle to any such things.

Some hours later Dawes sat on one side of the table, "We also don't know who will side with who in the next go round." The prevailing wisdom in Paris, and London was that the Germans and Soviets both were pariahs, but that they wouldn't make common cause. Allen wasn't convinced of that. Black Jack had written that the Germans should have been pursued by force all the way to Berlin and to not to do so meant there would have to be a war, because the Germans hadn't been shown to be defeated in battle. That the only way done would have been to force their unconditional surrender, and in spite of that the French had still dictated peace... that was going to have consequences. "The reichsmark is losing value, that's good for us John, we can pay men like we always have in dollars, or pounds and in truth they'll be plenty who will leave Germany for better lives abroad, Austria too but Lloyd George wants to invite them and the Bolsheviks to the convention next year in Italy."

That had been of course before George the Fifth had been shot and before the outcry, so the Welsh wizard still had the chance to disavow it, but it was equally possible the pressured to return to the gold standard would in addition to the mess made of the continent force the conference forward.

"We will have to wait and see, but Europe is a long way off," He replied, "And Canton, and Sun are much closer, and much more likely to give us a headache sooner." As Jun had reminded him, and was likely to do so again when he returned home this evening. "Is there anything else?"

"Yeah, I don't think this proposal came out of the aether. The lower house wants to sponsor a bill endorsing the creation of an independent air force."

"Oh really?"

"They have the numbers to support the taxes for it, and also for an expanded fact finding mission to the continent." Dawes continued. "And also we know from Zhang that England and Italy will both flaunt John Jordan's embargo when it comes to aircraft." Allen had already heard as much from Percy, just as Percy had no issue assuring them that Vickers would happily allow them access to tanks. It established, with Zhang being able to purchase them, that John Jordan's embargo with the old man gone would have only a narrow reading of articles effected. "So ironically if we do start selling rifles and such to other countries well..."

"If we get to that point I will write to John Jordan on the cadre's behalf." He replied, "Aircraft mission to the continent, that will be easy to approve... and a standing air force?"

"Cullen circulated a copy of Smutts report that lead to the RAF but they had the advantage of having a larger body of fliers for the war,"

"They were reduced to a tenth of their war time numbers," He replied. Ten years ago in 1914 the idea of having 300 thousand or even just a quarter of a million men under arms in the army would have been a lot... "The current flying apparatus is largely a reconnaissance one, does the lower house understand that?"

"We will have to see."

"What about engine production for this air force, from what I recall the armed forces committee and the road committee in the lower house are all for cars and trucks?"

Dawes glanced at Waite and spread his hands in a plaintive gesture.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1921
Integration was the priority. Effective integration. The machinery would increase productivity, and easy transport would make life easier.

Coal, steel, oil, and then the logistics to move it all the railways, electrical power to expand factors it all fed back into the system. They had arrived in China to find the domestic coal was subject to the boom and bust cycles of seasonal demand... most coal was being dug out in the winter months for heating houses for quick use and not generally stored. Throughout the year far less coal was dug out for heating houses yes, but also for cooking in the home.

That had been a decade ago, and the coal fired railways had been the sensible practical decision. It was true he had told the old man that diesel was going to be the future... and frankly that was still true, but there was also electrification... he hadn't seen that in 1910 as being right around the corner. Electrification had been driven by the war time expansion, of building power plants for even larger factories to sustain output for three then four shifts during the peak years in1916. That electrical capacity now went into new production housing for the expanded workforce and the towns expanding.

Those people were building, and operating both the full size railways and the inter urbans, as well as the carriages, and engines that were being put into service or being shipped out. They were also forming the expanding steel, and oil industry capacity. There was also the new wider paved roads, and the automobiles which would use them, and the factory there would employ another ten thousand people before it expanded.

There were places where it simply wasn't practical to grade for inter urbans, and there were more frequently than that the need to move daily loads for deliveries. The municipal governments and county governments would need such trucks, other smaller firms would, but it would be some time before car ownership trickled down for the average working man. Ironically as the roads improved more like gentry farmers would make the expenditure, the investment in trucks first, and shopkeepers after them.

Rationalized was a watch word and far less dirty in public than monopoly had become in the states as arguments over the trusts sprang up. Steel though was the building block of industry without it you couldn't do anything. Pig iron concentrated high carbon that gave you the working step for making rude steel, as well as finishing out and that was the building block that the mills worked from, even though during the war with demand being what it was they'd been selling pig iron to the British cause the war just demanded so much of it... to the point of driving prices per ton to never before seen heights.

He didn't expect anything like that not any time soon. The fighting, that was still going on in Europe at least in the east... and the spanish fighting too he supposed but to an even lesser extent, lacked the raw volume of demand of the big war in Europe. The same with farmers in the Midwest especially... they had had it worse. Europe's demand for midwestern grain had convinced the farmers to take on loans as the French took out loans and the farmers brought increasingly marginal land under cultivation and the now the French were acting like they shouldn't have to pay back the loans and had placed tariffs in the way of American crops... the same crops that had kept the french from starving.

The war had expanded necessary steel production and the railways before that had already been demanding the integrated firms produce steel in increasing loads. So Xian sat now with a lot of steel capacity. More importantly, the cadre had from that pig iron production, and integrated factory the ability to manage local rolled steel needs running off of a domestic labor force.

That was actually part of the thing. Pretty much everyone in the many thousand strong work force made enough income to meet the requirements for the franchise under the Qing rules for the vote. The labor force was also large enough that they needed schools for their children, which had already been expected in 1914.

That brought back the matter of the inter urbans.

Allen walked around the map diagrams occupying the thirteen foot table.

The officers from the Corp of Engineers were mostly at rest sitting. A handful of men, in the process of studying the problem. Two of them followed behind throwing the occasional glance at the maps.

He came to a stop, and glanced to the nearest, "Could you grab me the Mitsui financial reports, there is something I need to have checked." He ordered the staff officer. It wasn't directly related to their railway concerns, but... his thoughts were on the Hankou area mines that Mitsui had loaned, and Mitsui's other activities. Han Yeh Ping had been taking loans from Mitsui for decades and supplied Japan massive quantities of iron ore.

Mitsui, or its subsidiaries, and its competitors bought pig iron from abroad. More than three quarters of pig iron that Japan needed came in from overseas. That was why Han Yeh Ping been so important at the turn of the century and why Mitsui as creditor had leveraged the government to secure ownership of it as the mines down in hupeh had fallen increasingly into debt.

Mitsui was a tiny steel producer by comparison... because its production wasn't rational, and because it was dependent on a lengthy supply chain. Even if they were integrated Mitsui chemical was simply small. That was of course the thing most of the men didn't hadn't immediately grasp.

Mitsui was a great trading house, were ancient venerable even merchants. The zaibatsu was a grand affair who had come out of the Meiji era with mines, and banks to bolster their wealth, but they were one great name of several. It had mines, and money, but its steel production even twenty years now was tiny, because Japan as a whole didn't produce all that much steel a year. Maybe a million tons and Xian... Xian with its handful of contiguous provinces, never mind need to ship over to middle America in some cases, the need for bar stock, rods, and the rest...
"Electrical power," He remarked, "Will provide lights for homes," Much like it lit factories, "It will also support the facilities down the road to forge specialty steels. We have an abundance of aluminum ore, that needs electricity to be refined."

Aluminum was much cheaper now than when he'd been a boy, but that was a facet of how mills had evolved. Better living through chemistry. Electricity would do everyone a lot of good, if they could make it cheap enough. That was really the focus of this. The British demand for goods during the war had brought in capital, and had driven the price up, and the Japanese had wanted to build up their fleet so their demand hadn't decreased.

The talks in Washington that were starting were necessary for Japan. She couldn't spend the money, neither could England, and the Congress back home didn't want to spend the money. That wasn't quite the same thing, but navy's were aghastly expensive thing and it was the one thing the founding fathers had demanded the congress fund and so the legislature back home bristled at the obligation put upon them.

Xian didn't have a navy. There were rivers, but any funds the cadre spent on ocean going would be chartering transport ships for trade, not battleships like Tillman suggested building before the Carolinian had passed away.

--
Notes: Let me put this in perspective Japan in the 20s produced about a million tons per year, Luxembourg for one year of comparison produced 2.2M tons per annum. The US produced 60 million tons per year, and cheaper as a result of that, largely as a direct result of integration, and particularly abundant electrical engineering.

Now Japan got on the electrical wagon pretty quickly, but the majority of steel production occurred in one steel works and that was dependent on significant imports from...central china. Japan had also besides ore access needed coal imports. [Additionally a lot of Japan's electrical work went directly into their chemical industry] Now where Japan proceeded to fuck up, that the Japanese government in the name of supporting small businesses demanded government contracts sub contract out to well effectively cottage industry outfits that were politically influential but we will get into that later.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1922
Federov's rifle had a lot going for it. It was magazine fed, it was reasonable in dimensions and it was relatively controllable. It was a bitch to disassemble of course and its operating principle was equally a pain to manufacture but it proved the point. Allen appreciated that Iseburo agreed that it was still too troublesome of a system for mass production. They would need something simpler when the time came to issue men a rifle. It was writing on the wall. If not for the fact that it fired a comparatively anemic cartridge to the large caliber rounds, rounds that were better suited to machine guns like the water cooled browning as well as that rim creating a nuisance of itself in magazine tolerances... there was something to be said. The Federov was useful, but the experience's with lewis's gun told them enough.... yes the Qing had wanted a six millimeter cartridge of modern design. Liu had ideas, and some of the others, including Cullen wanted the superior performing six millimeter calibre cartridge for riflemen it was hard to justify that adoption or the necessity of it...

... yet.

"Well?"

"The MAK has the lines on schedule, France seems set on trying to push for a closed system on their colonies," Not that the British hadn't had parliamentarians who'd advocated the same. "Powell is sitting on a lot of surplus material, apparently he sold some to Paraguay." There was a pause, "There is something in here about Liberia, a report from the Navy in 1916, some other stuff in Africa, plus talk about the trade mission in Germany."

Allen craned his head, part of him wanted to know why he should care, but perhaps maybe the other question was, "What did he sell them?"

"Artillery, French Schneiders we know for sure... if I was guessing he's expecting that they'll need weapons for something and is giving them the opportunity to stock up." There was a ruffle of papers, "The interesting thing, is the arsenal is already producing shells, and to be blunt he's put a lot of effort into the textile department too... from the way this contract looks he's prepared to sell shells as needed."

So someone expected a fight, "One of the neighbors?"

"Or its internal," Dawes replied. "But yeah, everyone down there is looking for 'experts' and for guns... a lot of them made money selling to England, the entente during the war so they have the capital to buy, but," But of course there was a trade war going on and France throwing tariffs to protect her own farms shut out Argentina and the likes biggest exports, especially during the war, to Europe.

"What else?"

"There is the squabbling in Peking." Dawes replied "The business with the cabinet was dumb, but lets face it, too many hands on the pie." He tilted his head towards the map on the wall, "What's worse is that Cao Kun, and Zhang are both over there and are probably where the fuck we'll come down on. Then there is Wu," Cao's number two guy, which was another headache, because the man had both his pros and cons. He had supporters and detractors. "He's going to be problematic... the British don't want this turning into a fight, but from the posturing that sure sounds like where we're going to get to a head too quick."

Allen paused, "Do we have estimates?"

"Truthfully, it'll be a small front, they care about Peking, both sides can muster a hundred thousand men in northern Zhili and even if, if this doesn't turn to cutting up one another, they're both going to want more modern weapons. Zhang has renaults of his own, now I don't think he'll bring them down, but he's talking to the British about buying more tanks, more aircraft... once he gets them, you mark my words he's going to want to use them. Its probably best if Cao moves first for Zhili, while Zhang is overconfident but not ready for it."

Zhang had the definitively ... stronger perhaps economic base. It was more coherent, it was rational, better able to support his efforts. Zhili was a federation of dujun south of the great wall along the coast too many of whom held their provinces as their own fiefdoms and were too beholden to local domestic opinions, and too suspicious of their neighbors.

--
"What do you mean the Russians didn't know?" Bill's question was more annoyance, almost petulance than it was really surprise.

"Didn't have a reason to, I guess." Dawes replied leaning back, "The Russian tax system was scarcely any better than the Qings, oh that finance minister of theirs back before the war tried to fix some of that but then they bushwhacked him and well like I said that was before the war." He shook his head, "Then there was, there were too many exemptions... and you saw what happened when the war forced them to try and roll that back."

The muslims in kirghiz, through Central Asia had attempted to revolt against the draft of course. They protested the impressment of young men, and the seizure of animals from farms... not helped of course because the draft had come just before the harvest... and the tsars government should have known that would have caused the famine... and from all indications the Bolsheviks just didn't give a shit if it did in the Volga and elsewhere across their part of the old tsarist empire. "Lets take the last Russian," The tsar's government was gone, and even if Russian was a short hand it risked bruising their allies in Kirghiz to associate the red bandits in Moscow with the nominally royalist Russians of the White cause, "publication. 175Million," Most of whom were under the Bolshevik yoke, "Maybe 45 million east of the Urals," Thus in 'Asia'. That didn't mean those people who were closer to Peking and Tokyo than London or Paris were all together... they weren't.

The Old Tsarist Empire was gone now, that was clear. Iseburo had built up and reinforced the Baikal region was doing everything he could to reiterate where the boundary lines were, while still keeping his boys on his side of the fence. The border further west, of Kirghiz followed the old Tsarist lines which made things tense, but at least the maps worked. "The Silk Road line is going to need to go south,"

There was a wrinkling of noses.

The Treaty of Sevres, the year before was unpopular to say the least. The cadre at large had disliked theSykes Picot agreement the French and British had made with one another before they had even whooped anyone, the French had never even managed to push the Germans out of their own home soil and they were dividing up the Ottoman lands. It was galling... and the Frogs behaviors here and now after the war was just salt and burning whisky in the wound, "The British do want us to push the line to Baghdad if we can." There was a reason that there was still grumbling talk from the year before of speaking with the Republican Turks about the schematics for the Model 1918 Rifle as a uniform rifle to replace all the old service rifles if only there could be peace first.

"We'd have to cross into Persia first." Waite remarked with a scowl. "Merv," In the land of the Turkmen, "Is the current last stop on the line," And the reasoning for that was not just Waite's reluctance with the British... in February the year previous there had been a coup in Persia The Persian Cossacks had seized power under Reza Khan and well he was friendly to the British but that just irritated Waite more.

Waite's vexation at the matter though was not their only problem, "Bill we have other problems," Allen began. Problems which had always existed, and problems that had been seen forming in the south, "I don't like these arguments going on over the budget. Liang had a point that the operations in Hunan were costly," Certainly that was true.


"Zhang is taking this personally." Bill replied, "But I don't see what we can do about that." He glanced at Waite, "don't get me wrong We've got problems, but its a new year, and you've got to leave for Japan." The Old Man, Yamagata Aritomo, has passed away the day before at one in the afternoon... and a state funeral was being prepared in Tokyo... there were plenty of dignitaries expected. Iseburo would be in attendance, he had been recalled from the formerly Russian Far East for Okuma's funeral and had been expected to return to the Asian mainland come march ... there had been talks on the cable traffic of the Diet.

Iseburo wanted more of the to be demobilized ships and battleships to be scrapped to be turned into railway guns to reinforce the position, but that was probably going to be bogged down with allegations of graft in Manchuria from Seiyukai party bosses. Allen tapped the papers," Then we're back to this. Persia?" He questioned, moving one hand to gesture to the map, "This needs to be done before Iboard that train."