Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

So,with monks do not paing taxes and serving in army he could have problems,but - still better then soviet rule.

Click to shrink...

I meant to respond to this, but the tax thing is certainly a potential problem, but buddhist monks and military service varies by school, and varies by what they're allowed to do in participation in the armed forces.

There are some schools that are explicitly no military service, there are some which support a concientious objector position (i.e. fairly normative of most clerical systems) where a monk can serve in a non combat role, and then there are schools the Zen example where a monk may serve in a combat role. I cannot authoritatively speak on Mongolian buddhism, in the US military there are ordained buddhist monks who are in combat professions / line professions, the same is true in Japan, and South Korea, and Thailand. I do not know how Mongolia would treat that, but I would suspect given the historical monoglian buddhism of the Yuan dynasty, and rule by the Qing they're potentially more tolerant of monks in the army but that is purely speculation, but that could very well be something that socially could lead to strict volunteerism rather than conscription (I think Thailand conscripts monks, that is to say I don't think they get an exemption)

 

[ATP]

I meant to respond to this, but the tax thing is certainly a potential problem, but buddhist monks and military service varies by school, and varies by what they're allowed to do in participation in the armed forces.

There are some schools that are explicitly no military service, there are some which support a concientious objector position (i.e. fairly normative of most clerical systems) where a monk can serve in a non combat role, and then there are schools the Zen example where a monk may serve in a combat role. I cannot authoritatively speak on Mongolian buddhism, in the US military there are ordained buddhist monks who are in combat professions / line professions, the same is true in Japan, and South Korea, and Thailand. I do not know how Mongolia would treat that, but I would suspect given the historical monoglian buddhism of the Yuan dynasty, and rule by the Qing they're potentially more tolerant of monks in the army but that is purely speculation, but that could very well be something that socially could lead to strict volunteerism rather than conscription (I think Thailand conscripts monks, that is to say I don't think they get an exemption)

Click to shrink...

In Japan Nobunaga must crush armed buddhist monks,so why not?
and,i do knew anytching about buddhist monks in Mongolia during Unger rule.

about your chapter -
1.Germany to win do not need abadonn fleet,only do not send support to East Prussia when Russians attacked there.
And Schieffen plan would worked then,with germans winning war in 1915 or 1916.
Becouse even if russians captured East Prussia,so what? they were not soviet animals and would not rape&murder everybody.And keeping East Prussia would gave them notching - Berlin would be still safe.

2.1632 - All you need are few ironclads to keep straits to Baltic closed.You do not need big fleet there.
At least warships - some big ships to colonize Australia would be nice.You knew where gold&coal there is,after all.

3.Rising Thunder - brits would be stupid to agree help USA - if they remove french and spaniards,they would be next.Capturing Canada would be easy for USA at least from 1870.
But,if they fall for that,USA would easily kick frogs,at least from Mexico.

In that time Mapuche indians were still independent till 1881,and some french dude tried to become their King and unite them with France.It could work this time.

4.Sharp - brits take over seas anyway,so giving them steam ships change notching,i think.
Unless.....all countries start experimenting with steam engines as a result,and since,let say,1830,we would have steam cars and airships with steam engines.
That would be change.

 

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

This goes to the US UK side of things:

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

 

[ATP]

Good chapter,they think about logistic first.
I read,that one reason why Russia fall was becouse ammo and other military stuff could not get through Murmańsk fast enough,becouse rails was partially blocked with...alcochol/and good one/ for France.
You see,tsar decided tat he not only would fight germans,but alcochol,too,and forbid it from selling in Russia.But France need it,so it must be send there.

I think,that if tsar was less moral and do not cared about his people getting drunk,he could keep power even with all other mistaked he made.
Lenin,of course,started selling vodka at one he get power.

Poland in 1925 adopted french doctrine - infrantry tanks for infrantry,but mechanized units would get only armored cars.Pity,that in 1926 we have putch,and winners do not like tanks.

About future - In OTL Truman help Mao defeat Chang,when he made him stop his offensive in 1946.Either he was simply stupid,or part of some immoral cabal who wonted commie taking over and filling more mass graves.
Taiwan - i hope,that this time locals would not get massacred for being Japan-friendly/they have reasons for that - Japan treated them in kid gloves/
And Kim could forget about getting anytching at all.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Good chapter,they think about logistic first.
I read,that one reason why Russia fall was becouse ammo and other military stuff could not get through Murmańsk fast enough,becouse rails was partially blocked with...alcochol/and good one/ for France.
You see,tsar decided tat he not only would fight germans,but alcochol,too,and forbid it from selling in Russia.But France need it,so it must be send there.

I think,that if tsar was less moral and do not cared about his people getting drunk,he could keep power even with all other mistaked he made.
Lenin,of course,started selling vodka at one he get power.

Poland in 1925 adopted french doctrine - infrantry tanks for infrantry,but mechanized units would get only armored cars.Pity,that in 1926 we have putch,and winners do not like tanks.

About future - In OTL Truman help Mao defeat Chang,when he made him stop his offensive in 1946.Either he was simply stupid,or part of some immoral cabal who wonted commie taking over and filling more mass graves.
Taiwan - i hope,that this time locals would not get massacred for being Japan-friendly/they have reasons for that - Japan treated them in kid gloves/
And Kim could forget about getting anytching at all.

Click to shrink...

Yes, the suspension of alcohol sales to the general public by the russians during ww1 was a mistake, both a social mistake and an economic one because it was a major source of their internal revenue and because it pissed people off
--
Mao had made friends in the state department, and Truman was not prepared to assume the presidency. (To the point the state department lead him around by the nose, this is notably what happens with Atchkinson as SoS, and it goes out the window when Atchkinson is replaced by Dulles, because while Ike was a fairly affable old man by that point, he had experience with how state worked, and he and Dulles (and the other Dulles) were friends.

So the short answer is on this at least Truman was simply stupid (and this, the situation for state is the reason why Truman sends the 7th fleet to go make sure Chiang doesn't start shit with Mao during the first part of the korea conflict, because the state department had said that as long as the US plays referee they'd both stay in their corners and there wouldn't be a war)

... cue the state department being all shocked when Mao goes into Korea and catches State and DoD by surprise

The result of that is Truman reopens supplying the KMT in 51 but by that point its a little late.

 

[ATP]

Yes, the suspension of alcohol sales to the general public by the russians during ww1 was a mistake, both a social mistake and an economic one because it was a major source of their internal revenue and because it pissed people off
--
Mao had made friends in the state department, and Truman was not prepared to assume the presidency. (To the point the state department lead him around by the nose, this is notably what happens with Atchkinson as SoS, and it goes out the window when Atchkinson is replaced by Dulles, because while Ike was a fairly affable old man by that point, he had experience with how state worked, and he and Dulles (and the other Dulles) were friends.

So the short answer is on this at least Truman was simply stupid (and this, the situation for state is the reason why Truman sends the 7th fleet to go make sure Chiang doesn't start shit with Mao during the first part of the korea conflict, because the state department had said that as long as the US plays referee they'd both stay in their corners and there wouldn't be a war)

... cue the state department being all shocked when Mao goes into Korea and catches State and DoD by surprise

The result of that is Truman reopens supplying the KMT in 51 but by that point its a little late.

Click to shrink...

Indeed.Tsar was good man,who wonted help his people - and,as a result,lost war and damned them to communism.

And,with Truman,it was unfortunatelly worst.
Thanks to USA ambassador in Poland he knew what communism is - and still failed to stop them in China.
If he was american patriot,then he would use faking election in Poland as pretext to start war,and burn soviets to the ground.Of course,many poles would die,too - but,american president should think about his country.
And,honestly,soviets should do to us the same they did ti themselves - kill 10-30% of population and enslave rest.

Why they did so? well,at least some of us would fight - and they could not start WW3 with suprising attack then.

Here,book:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...p/1258187817&usg=AOvVaw3JPMlBYRt0NEPbOIjPFVmG

 

[Unique]

Will Xian be asking for German modernization after the war? Cause I think that the machines as well as the technicians will be dirt cheap cause they lost the war, he could also ask for German instructors as well as some General staff officers. Those soldiers got nothing to do but cause trouble after the demobilisation.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Will Xian be asking for German modernization after the war? Cause I think that the machines as well as the technicians will be dirt cheap cause they lost the war, he could also ask for German instructors as well as some General staff officers. Those soldiers got nothing to do but cause trouble after the demobilisation.

Click to shrink...

Yes, this is actually the plan that the Cadre is working from

Spoiler

What will actually happen is as a result of the May riots and the eight power convention, demobilized German troops, and also Austrian Germans will begin a process of migrating to middle america, which will serve as the clearing house for bypassing John Jordan's arms embargo by using a combination of flagged shipping (and thus not legally beholded to the eight power convention of the diplomatic body*) to bring in after war materiel

*which depending on who you asked wasn't legally binding anyway in 1920, certainly the government in Peking nor the southern government in Canton recognized that diplomatic body in Tietsin had any right to do so, and it was willfully violated by seemingly nationals and governments of all eight powers in some fashion eventually leading to its abolition historically after Chiang's nominal victory in 28.

 

[ATP]

Will Xian be asking for German modernization after the war? Cause I think that the machines as well as the technicians will be dirt cheap cause they lost the war, he could also ask for German instructors as well as some General staff officers. Those soldiers got nothing to do but cause trouble after the demobilisation.

Click to shrink...

A-H,too.
Artillery - new Krup guns with longer barrels and new ammo.
A-H - Skoda guns.In OTL they considered move to other country in 1919.
MP18 as submachine gun.
Planes - 4 factories from Germany and 3 from A-H to choose.Engines - dude from A-H,but not Porsch.

 

[Imperator Pax]

A-H,too.
Artillery - new Krup guns with longer barrels and new ammo.
A-H - Skoda guns.In OTL they considered move to other country in 1919.
MP18 as submachine gun.
Planes - 4 factories from Germany and 3 from A-H to choose.Engines - dude from A-H,but not Porsch.

Click to shrink...

I am going to have to do some reading on Skoda post WW1, I've been putting that off becaues I've had other things to do

One of the developments in this timeline as its progressed, as we've moved forward closer to getting into the 1920s portion of the timelin are some changes to how things play out: Part of that is the immigration factor, part of that is the greater emphasis on interwar trade, and as a timeline this means a greater emphasis on things going on in th ewestern hemisphere, both with the US, Canada with Argentina, Chile, the Middle American states as develop, especially that due to the emergence of the communist international on the global stage though it wont take center stage and was never intentded to take center stage

But the MAK the coalition of a latin american union guatemala nicaruaga and honduras is in part something that was both tried and failed to take root several times previously, but helps to stick due to the changes in economy and particularly the development of a railway system that goes through all three countries, but also the increase in immigration. In part due to things like the US restricting immigration via JohnsonReed and others where the MAK as a corporate entity builds on existing concessions of allowing corporate towns to encourage immigration.

Now i'm not saying Skoda would relocate to latin america per se, but Skoda-latin america branch might be a thing, and the MAK and the Xian Cadre already were planned to integrate as a free trade association to move goods from one to the other without tariffs and duties because the original cadres were planned as corporate institutions rather than governmental ones (hence the clearing house comment for bringing over goods and technology and people from the former Central powers).

 

[ATP]

I am going to have to do some reading on Skoda post WW1, I've been putting that off becaues I've had other things to do

One of the developments in this timeline as its progressed, as we've moved forward closer to getting into the 1920s portion of the timelin are some changes to how things play out: Part of that is the immigration factor, part of that is the greater emphasis on interwar trade, and as a timeline this means a greater emphasis on things going on in th ewestern hemisphere, both with the US, Canada with Argentina, Chile, the Middle American states as develop, especially that due to the emergence of the communist international on the global stage though it wont take center stage and was never intentded to take center stage

But the MAK the coalition of a latin american union guatemala nicaruaga and honduras is in part something that was both tried and failed to take root several times previously, but helps to stick due to the changes in economy and particularly the development of a railway system that goes through all three countries, but also the increase in immigration. In part due to things like the US restricting immigration via JohnsonReed and others where the MAK as a corporate entity builds on existing concessions of allowing corporate towns to encourage immigration.

Now i'm not saying Skoda would relocate to latin america per se, but Skoda-latin america branch might be a thing, and the MAK and the Xian Cadre already were planned to integrate as a free trade association to move goods from one to the other without tariffs and duties because the original cadres were planned as corporate institutions rather than governmental ones (hence the clearing house comment for bringing over goods and technology and people from the former Central powers).

Click to shrink...

Skoda - as far as i knew,their guns and howitzers were not worst then Krupp,but not better,too.
So,you could basically toss a coin what buy.

Planes - buy Hiero Engines from A-H,they were stronger/169kh/ and do not have problems.And welcome constructor,in OTL he died in Europe in 1924 during some car race.
Better live for your China,right?
A-H - 3 types of fighters - Albatross/german copy/,Phoenix/modified german Brandenburg,sell to Sweden after WW1/,and best of them - Aviatik/Berg D.1.

Germany - Pfalz D.12 and new D.XV/in OTL factory was destroyed after WW1,so you could move it to China/Roand D.VI, Schiemen-Schuckehert D.III,Fokker D.VIII - but it go to Holland after WW1.
There were also metal fighters/Junkers DI and Dornier-Zeppelin D I.But,metal fighter in 1920 was silly idea,so forget them.
Albatros worked on new plane,do not knew how it was named.

So, practically you could choose either Aviatik/Berg from A-H/which was supposed to be easy to produce and with stronger engine/

Or either Albatros,Pfalz,Roland or Sciemen - Schuckehert from germany.
Fokker and A-H Phoenix would be sell to other countries,and metal fighters were not worth following yet.
You could wait with it at least till 1930.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Skoda - as far as i knew,their guns and howitzers were not worst then Krupp,but not better,too.
So,you could basically toss a coin what buy.

Planes - buy Hiero Engines from A-H,they were stronger/169kh/ and do not have problems.And welcome constructor,in OTL he died in Europe in 1924 during some car race.
Better live for your China,right?
A-H - 3 types of fighters - Albatross/german copy/,Phoenix/modified german Brandenburg,sell to Sweden after WW1/,and best of them - Aviatik/Berg D.1.

Germany - Pfalz D.12 and new D.XV/in OTL factory was destroyed after WW1,so you could move it to China/Roand D.VI, Schiemen-Schuckehert D.III,Fokker D.VIII - but it go to Holland after WW1.
There were also metal fighters/Junkers DI and Dornier-Zeppelin D I.But,metal fighter in 1920 was silly idea,so forget them.
Albatros worked on new plane,do not knew how it was named.

So, practically you could choose either Aviatik/Berg from A-H/which was supposed to be easy to produce and with stronger engine/

Or either Albatros,Pfalz,Roland or Sciemen - Schuckehert from germany.
Fokker and A-H Phoenix would be sell to other countries,and metal fighters were not worth following yet.
You could wait with it at least till 1930.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, with the metal hull air frame, there is actually already a scene where, the engineering staff 'goes thats not feasible at this point, we're not there yet. Junker is crazy if he thinks this will work' Becaues historically it another four years to start putting up viable small frame metal aircraft and then you still run into production costs, such that its not until a decade later that starts being practical and part of that is hull design. Fir (wood) monoplane represent different building constraints than your different alloys (and this is before high strength aluminum metalurgy is cheap enough by about a decade) to even think of putting a high use object into production.

 

[ATP]

Yeah, with the metal hull air frame, there is actually already a scene where, the engineering staff 'goes thats not feasible at this point, we're not there yet. Junker is crazy if he thinks this will work' Becaues historically it another four years to start putting up viable small frame metal aircraft and then you still run into production costs, such that its not until a decade later that starts being practical and part of that is hull design. Fir (wood) monoplane represent different building constraints than your different alloys (and this is before high strength aluminum metalurgy is cheap enough by about a decade) to even think of putting a high use object into production.

Click to shrink...

According to what i read,those Junkers fighters who was built,was slower and could turn less then other german new fighters with the same engine.
P.S Austrian engine inventor - Otto Hieronymus,since in OTL he died in car race in 1924,it would change notching in Europe if he go to China.
Aviatik/Berh fighter - apparently they could be made even in small manufacturies,so welcoming it constructor Julius von Berg could be good move,too.

P.S.S wooden fighters worked till Fokker D.21,althought french made Arsenal
VG33 prototype in 1940 which supposed to be good.
Maybe take it from France in 1940?

 

[Imperator Pax]

According to what i read,those Junkers fighters who was built,was slower and could turn less then other german new fighters with the same engine.
P.S Austrian engine inventor - Otto Hieronymus,since in OTL he died in car race in 1924,it would change notching in Europe if he go to China.
Aviatik/Berh fighter - apparently they could be made even in small manufacturies,so welcoming it constructor Julius von Berg could be good move,too.

Click to shrink...

That was probably something to do with a combination of the control surfaces and more importantly its weight. Junkers as an academic had been arguing for metal for more than a decade by this point, and the engines just werent there yet. He was had target fixation of being ahead of his time, and engine technology had not developed to were you could feasibly run a interceptor with those heavier hulls. The aircraft's weight cuts engine performance, that means you can't turn as quickly.

So you need lighter alloys (not just for the airplane, they help cut weight on the engines of an aircraft) and Junker had to also contend with his aircraft needing to use the same engine which

if wood plane is going to weigh less so it needs less fuel to fly the same distance on the same engine, so what will happen in the 20s is first and foremost military aviation is going to be focused initially on scout planes, there isn't a western front sweeping ground attack role, and won't be any major aviation incursions until the second half of the decade for china. Lighter wood plane, maybe you have some ground attack capacity, but mostly speed and stability is desirable. Aviation spots for artillery, artillery does most of the damage to the enemy
EDIT:
And of course: Junker is looking at this from purely academic really position 'oh metal aircraft are the way of the future' he said in 1910, and he's not wrong, but he really refused to accept the limitations of both manufacturing and other technology limits, and he also got into fights with other people including the government (Hugo Junker didn't like government intervention in business)

So yeah he just refuses to accept that its too soon. There are real practical limitations that preven useful military metal aircraft at this point. And while Xian, and the latin american branch accept Air Power is good, and support the idea that this is possible they also are hearing from the opposition going 'no this isn't practical', one example of this from the US side is Mitchell versus the Navy and that will come up as an example of 'well we don't need to spend money on armored seaplanes' and say in 1924 well our planes don't need to carry enough munitions to flatten a town they just need to be able to tell the arty where to shoot.

 

[ATP]

That was probably something to do with a combination of the control surfaces and more importantly its weight. Junkers as an academic had been arguing for metal for more than a decade by this point, and the engines just werent there yet. He was had target fixation of being ahead of his time, and engine technology had not developed to were you could feasibly run a interceptor with those heavier hulls. The aircraft's weight cuts engine performance, that means you can't turn as quickly.

So you need lighter alloys (not just for the airplane, they help cut weight on the engines of an aircraft) and Junker had to also contend with his aircraft needing to use the same engine which

if wood plane is going to weigh less so it needs less fuel to fly the same distance on the same engine, so what will happen in the 20s is first and foremost military aviation is going to be focused initially on scout planes, there isn't a western front sweeping ground attack role, and won't be any major aviation incursions until the second half of the decade for china. Lighter wood plane, maybe you have some ground attack capacity, but mostly speed and stability is desirable. Aviation spots for artillery, artillery does most of the damage to the enemy
EDIT:
And of course: Junker is looking at this from purely academic really position 'oh metal aircraft are the way of the future' he said in 1910, and he's not wrong, but he really refused to accept the limitations of both manufacturing and other technology limits, and he also got into fights with other people including the government (Hugo Junker didn't like government intervention in business)

So yeah he just refuses to accept that its too soon. There are real practical limitations that preven useful military metal aircraft at this point. And while Xian, and the latin american branch accept Air Power is good, and support the idea that this is possible they also are hearing from the opposition going 'no this isn't practical', one example of this from the US side is Mitchell versus the Navy and that will come up as an example of 'well we don't need to spend money on armored seaplanes' and say in 1924 well our planes don't need to carry enough munitions to flatten a town they just need to be able to tell the arty where to shoot.

Click to shrink...

Yes.following metal planes in 1918 was almost as stupid as making jet fighters then/if i remember correctly,first jet plane was made by some romanian about 1910 - and,of course,could barely fly,if it was even possible at all/

Michell vs Navy - he was wrong,he sunk old german battleship - but it was not moving ,and do not have AA.
Horizontal bombers during WW2 could hit only stationary targets./with exception of ONE japaneese destroyer sunk by B.17 on open sea/

And,on land,they were right about artillery - as long as you do not use it in soviet way from 1945 /few lines of fieldguns standing wheel by wheel/ which worked only becouse germans was unable to respond in that period.

P.S Back to Skoda - in OTL Czech manage to develop it after WW1 only becouse they use part of gold which they get from Admiral Kolczak for fighting against soviets.
They sold Kolczak to soviets,but keep his gold.

If in your TL they never manage to keep russian gold,then Skoda could have problems.
Which mean,your China could buy them cheap.
Their 100mm and 150mm howitzers were as good as Krupp 105mm and 150mm.
And,more important,they keep developing them till 1938.
Germans produced last versions for themselves till 1945.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Yes.following metal planes in 1918 was almost as stupid as making jet fighters then/if i remember correctly,first jet plane was made by some romanian about 1910 - and,of course,could barely fly,if it was even possible at all/

Michell vs Navy - he was wrong,he sunk old german battleship - but it was not moving ,and do not have AA.
Horizontal bombers during WW2 could hit only stationary targets./with exception of ONE japaneese destroyer sunk by B.17 on open sea/

And,on land,they were right about artillery - as long as you do not use it in soviet way from 1945 /few lines of fieldguns standing wheel by wheel/ which worked only becouse germans was unable to respond in that period.

P.S Back to Skoda - in OTL Czech manage to develop it after WW1 only becouse they use part of gold which they get from Admiral Kolczak for fighting against soviets.
They sold Kolczak to soviets,but keep his gold.

If in your TL they never manage to keep russian gold,then Skoda could have problems.
Which mean,your China could buy them cheap.
Their 100mm and 150mm howitzers were as good as Krupp 105mm and 150mm.
And,more important,they keep developing them till 1938.
Germans produced last versions for themselves till 1945.

Click to shrink...

The other thing about Mitchell's test, was that there was no crew aboard (he actually endangered the navy's testing personnel) and the USN having just revised its Damage Control program basically in addition to the Battleship not having air protection (in addition to being alone, which would be atypical) the damage done by an actual hit on the target could be fixed by a damage control party and that it wasn't sufficent to destroy a warship at this time.

Well Mitchell doesn't want to hear that of course, he wants Airpower NAO! not twenty years down the road, and of course his testing also had the not comment on until later, that it needed more than one strike to carry out. Thats not feasible with land based (with US contintental based aircraft) bombers you have needed a carrier strike wing to be able to rearm and sortie, which would be something the navy would point out later going (they'd have our aircraft how are you going to get those planes refueled and rearmed to chase down an enemy ship at sea?)

As for the early jet planes, a lot of them tend to start really fast and then nose dive either because they spin out of control or they run out of fuel its really only in the thirties that you get sufficient fuel mixtures, and engines where you can start having safe jet engines. There are a number of people in the early 1900s who can do that math and go 'hey if we can do X we can get the plane to do Y' but the problem is that until really the thirties your engines are not capable of meeting the power requirement. Too many people tend to act like the Germans magiked the jet engine out of thin air when really its more they managed to get a feasible production model up and running (which not to take away from that accomplishment, but its not the same thing) and in terms of production the British weren't that far behind in getting an engine in production and the Italians had jet aircraft that reached prototyping and flight stage in the thirties, but really its the question of whats practical especially for the cost

Yeah the gold situation here is different, but thats also because the railway situation is different, and we will be getting to that after July of 1918

 

[ATP]

The other thing about Mitchell's test, was that there was no crew aboard (he actually endangered the navy's testing personnel) and the USN having just revised its Damage Control program basically in addition to the Battleship not having air protection (in addition to being alone, which would be atypical) the damage done by an actual hit on the target could be fixed by a damage control party and that it wasn't sufficent to destroy a warship at this time.

Well Mitchell doesn't want to hear that of course, he wants Airpower NAO! not twenty years down the road, and of course his testing also had the not comment on until later, that it needed more than one strike to carry out. Thats not feasible with land based (with US contintental based aircraft) bombers you have needed a carrier strike wing to be able to rearm and sortie, which would be something the navy would point out later going (they'd have our aircraft how are you going to get those planes refueled and rearmed to chase down an enemy ship at sea?)

As for the early jet planes, a lot of them tend to start really fast and then nose dive either because they spin out of control or they run out of fuel its really only in the thirties that you get sufficient fuel mixtures, and engines where you can start having safe jet engines. There are a number of people in the early 1900s who can do that math and go 'hey if we can do X we can get the plane to do Y' but the problem is that until really the thirties your engines are not capable of meeting the power requirement. Too many people tend to act like the Germans magiked the jet engine out of thin air when really its more they managed to get a feasible production model up and running (which not to take away from that accomplishment, but its not the same thing) and in terms of production the British weren't that far behind in getting an engine in production and the Italians had jet aircraft that reached prototyping and flight stage in the thirties, but really its the question of whats practical especially for the cost

Yeah the gold situation here is different, but thats also because the railway situation is different, and we will be getting to that after July of 1918

Click to shrink...

With 1920 technology they probably could made V1,but for what? it had sense only if you attack big cities,but do not have good heavy bombers.
And gold - Siberia do not fall to soviets here,so Kolczak gold should remain there.
Or be taken by Japan,not czech.
Which could lead to your China buing Skoda cheapily.Not bad choice for producing guns.

Here,Czech modified 10cm howitzer - with list of other czech weapons on bottom.Some could be useful.
Here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...fnice_vz._30&usg=AOvVaw2MZCwfAQgkNpcXDkjcZPkh

 

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

"And?"

"And if we wear masks."

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

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

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

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

"That isn't the only thing."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clack clack clack went the machine as he hit the keys

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[ATP]

Well,in 1940 when England supposed to face invasion/not really,but they fear it/ they gave sticks to cyvilian cyvil Guard which do not have hunting rifles.
Better that then notching.

Spanish flu is there - i hope that they do not copy USA and use aspirin.It would kill more patients.

Canals - they were/and still are/ as good or better then rails - you could carry more that way.

 

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

Percy was more than a little drunk.

"So gearing up for a fight I hear."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[ATP]

I just remembered one thing - in 1918 general Judenicz with one corp attacked from Estonia and almos take Petersburg.
Soviets was saved,becouse brits do not supported him,and Lenin pay some deserters from central asia/kalmuk or something/ to fight for him.
But,you could change that easily - if you pay them more to not help Lenin !

 

[Unique]

Pax just wanted to ask how his American comrades and especially his father think of him having two women with him? What do they think? Do they have the 20th century mentality or are they open minded?

 

[centurion1291]

Pax just wanted to ask how his American comrades and especially his father think of him having two women with him? What do they think? Do they have the 20th century mentality or are they open minded?

Click to shrink...

I didn't get the impression his father knew he was involved with even one woman personally.

 

[Unique]

I didn't get the impression his father knew he was involved with even one woman personally.

Click to shrink...

Welp he's got a son now so unless his family has the blood of great chieftain Tecumseh or someone in him well he's got a lot of explaining to do.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I just remembered one thing - in 1918 general Judenicz with one corp attacked from Estonia and almos take Petersburg.
Soviets was saved,becouse brits do not supported him,and Lenin pay some deserters from central asia/kalmuk or something/ to fight for him.
But,you could change that easily - if you pay them more to not help Lenin !

Click to shrink...

I have to go back to reading and rereading my books on the Russian Civil War, but this goes into Judenic doesn't have seem to have had the supplies to sustain the St Peterburg march (now thats per the US Army war college, which frankly the consensus of is Operation Albion was a basically a fucking miracle for the Germans in getting as far it did' [or at least that was the opinion I got from them a decade ago], but when we pivot to Central asia later in the year that does have an effect in how things change, but my understanding in Judenic didn't have the supplies to take the city and hold it.

Pax just wanted to ask how his American comrades and especially his father think of him having two women with him? What do they think? Do they have the 20th century mentality or are they open minded?

Click to shrink...

Cullen is from a mormon family, even though most of his content in White wolf has largely been sidelined and didn't make it to post, his father has multiple wives (even though by this point the mormon church has publicly disavowed polygamy). Part of the reason Allen makes the decisions to stay in china is that legally bigamy is a crime in Georgia at this point (its barely enforced lacking some other charges) but for the most part its more a question of social status than being actually open minded.

Similarly on the AMerican side, Bill's father back in Texas is known for rampant womanizing (despite being in his eighties by this point, this is commented on briefly during White Wolf) so its really more hypocritical than being open minded.

Forrest Senior more or less chooses to ignore the problem because prior to 1914 there were no children involved thats why he doesn't comment on it. [and this is historically accurate to how the south often dealt with this] this will change in story only really by the inter war years when Augustus is no longer a toddler and is actually starting school 20th century family norms are a complicated matter especially when social status has to be factored in.

 

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

"Do you think they'll come?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So these fortifications are across the mountain?"

"That's right."

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

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

Which was ultimately the point Percy was making.

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

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

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

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

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

 

[ATP]

So,in this TL China would survive as one state ?
In that case,especially with Japan taking and keeping Siberia,i do not see why they sfould attack China at all.They have everytching they need on Siberia.
And,in that case,FDR would not have pretext to provoke Japan to attacking him,like in OTL.

To be honest,WW2 should remain in Europe and Africa here.

 

[Imperator Pax]

So,in this TL China would survive as one state ?
In that case,especially with Japan taking and keeping Siberia,i do not see why they sfould attack China at all.They have everytching they need on Siberia.
And,in that case,FDR would not have pretext to provoke Japan to attacking him,like in OTL.

To be honest,WW2 should remain in Europe and Africa here.

Click to shrink...

The Kwantung army of Japan was having disciplinary issues by 1900. As we'll touch on, Japan had a policy of shipping politically inconvenient officers to Korea (going back to the 1870s), in fact IJA policy was to segregate cliques away from one another largely because they were continuation of region loyalities. and what I mean by that is during the Meiji period you had the beginning of the army's transition from the Samurai elite but you still had strong provincial loyalties but as political parties emerge in the 1890s these regional loyalities are gradually sidelined and eclipsed by the 1910s by different factions within the IJA (and as factions fall from grace their officers are forced into retirement).

So what happens is that Tokyo already has limitted control over the Kwantung Army HQ in northern China, and that is really what sparks the second sino japanese war. The Japanese protectorate in Siberia that forms up in the twenties and thirties will be an international point of contention but its under an entirely different Army command from the Kwantung Garrison in north china and that relationship will have to be expanded upon (The Kwantung Army HQ by 1925 had become very opposed to Sun Yat-sen, he was supported he was hosted in Japan previously by rival factions anyway which probably didn't make him very popular, but he was / had espoused pro bolshevik positions and Chiang (regardless of his later positions) likewise had espoused positions that made the Kwantung generals nervous, now IGHQ in Tokyo had told them more than once to stay out of things in the south, they were told in no uncertain terms do not cause an incident. [KwHQ being a dumping ground for young officer malcontents already had a reputation]

As Roosevelt, to be entirely honest he already sufficent planning to provoke Japan into war as in the apparent plan was to allow Japanese attacks against US naval vessels in the western pacific ala a repeat of the Panay incident (along with others) and use that as justification for further responses against Japan. Roosevelt would have worked towards getting a war if he had wanted one, it would have just required more time. The plan was to basically bait the Japanese into attacking old outdated US ships engaging in freedom of navigation excercises and then call the IJA pirates . Roosevelt did not take seriously the idea that Japan would actually attack Pearl any attack against US territorial assets were assumed to be aimed at the Phillipines due to the logistics involved.

So yes in this timeline China will remain divided until after the second world war largely because its at that point where most of the potential external threats are removed or otherwise neutralized, and the one that isn't the Soviet Union doesn't have the force projection in Asia of the OTL (for reasons that will show up in the following Arc).

 

[Unique]

So how will Xian be treated? Is he treated like a fellow warlord or that guy who knows where to get things and provides you for a reasonable price?
Also will he reunite China? Also wondering what the kuomintang think of him as well as the other players like Japan, Britain,France,etc.

 

[Imperator Pax]

So how will Xian be treated? Is he treated like a fellow warlord or that guy who knows where to get things and provides you for a reasonable price?
Also will he reunite China? Also wondering what the kuomintang think of him as well as the other players like Japan, Britain,France,etc.

Click to shrink...

Post really 25 China will resolidify into a handful of large territorial states with degrees of recognition, instead of individual provinces there will be several large blocks i.e. Manchuria, Xian, and the Nanking government, nominally speaking for the rest of the decade Manchuria and Xian remain allied but are independent of one another and that alliance will fade in the early thirties as international politics changes in (in part this due to the Financial Crash in Japan that precedes the Wall street crash by a few years, and this plays a roll in Japan sidelining several political factions that would be potentially friendly or at least anti-soviet)

In the early twenties Xian is one of the Junfa states, so considered semi legitimate in the sense of it represents the province but it doesn't represent the whole of china, and China as a unified political entity does reemerge until after the second world war with a fairly strong anti soviet block taking shape in eastern asia over the following decade (with a non communist china there was a plan for a Marshal style program that would go into effect in both China, and Korea in the fifties alongside Japan, whether or not a EEC style trade agreement is realistic I don't know, but there were talks about that that were scuttled after Chiang got run off the continent IRL, and Chiang had burned a lot of good will with State by that point anyway)

But eventually Xian's government as a whole presides over a reunification, and part of reunification occurs because southern China more or less can't prevent it, operation Ichi-Go in 44 and 45 severly weakened the KMT who were already thoroughly demoralized the ability of the KMT to manage a stand up conventional fight is by and large gone and never recovers after that point. Then there are political changes when Augustus steps into the spotlight, once WW2 ends Allen by and large retires to an elder statesmen role rather than an explicitly executive one. [and this is a deliverate call b ack to the beginning of the war where its pointed Dawes has no business commanding from the front he's too old,] So nominally Augustus will have his name on reunification's final policy changes when it formally is proclaimed in the current draft [and really that goes into the government that takes shape going into the start of 1950, and the cold war and all that fun stuff]