Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[ATP]

The 155 were French schneiders built for imperial Russia I'll have to be home in order to actually pull the specifics but they're very good guns

Click to shrink...

i remember them.Poland made them after ww1,and Russia mass produced 152mm version.fun thing - after german help,they developed it into new soviet 152mm howitzers used during WW2.
Practically all soviet guns were french construction improved by germans after WW2,yet they still claimed it as their own weapon....
Well,not all,37mm and 25mm AA were copies of Bofors,and 46mm AT gun copy of german PAK 36 with bigger caliber.

Only oryginal construction was 40mm automatic grenade launcher - who was not produced,becouse engineer who made it was killed in purges.

your China could do the same - buy french 155mm howitzer,develop them using Krupp ideas/longer barrel,bigger chamber,etc/ and get modern 155mm howitzer for WW2.

 

[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.

 

[ATP]

Logistic - canals were great for that,barges could take more then trains,and be faster with modern engines then they were in old days.
Railroads are great idea,too.Next best thing after canals.
Roads are less impressive,since trucks from 1920 could take top 2T of things,but - you are right in making mechanized divisions.It still better then horses,and,in long run,also cheaper.
Not used truck could be leaved in some buiding for months and still work,when you could not do the same with horse.

Soviets attacking Siberia - fat chance,there was no roads which could support logistic for such thing.Unless all whites and japaneese decide to surrender.

Lenin - he was dying on syphilis,but it is funny that Sralin kil doctors for that.

Railguns - french used old 194mm guns during WW1,if i remember correctly.One battery used by germans was captured by soviets ,they gave it to commie Poland,and served as coastal battery for some time.
It seems,that everybody used the same caliber more or less.

Althought whites used bigger guns,too - 305,even 406mm from their never finished superbattleship.

Xinjang conqer - i read,that when it happened,it almost lead to China-Russia war,becouse some russians wonted India,and many brits knew that.
It would be interesting TL for world where 1890 Russia-England war happened - interesting,who would join,and on which side.

P.S Back to 155 Schneider howitzer - i saw it once in polish museum,and,compared to other heavy pieces,it was small.So small that could be compared to medium howitzers.

 

[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).

 

[ATP]

Yes,soviet agitation would be no problem as long as they treat workers good.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Yes,soviet agitation would be no problem as long as they treat workers good.

Click to shrink...

Yeah and this is one of the things that the Communist Party (China's) doesn't like talking about but Chinese wages up until Japan really started fucking around in the 30s were competitive globably, urban workers made good wages and yes Chiang after 27 starts fucking this up, but it is really the war that makes China's modern political system. Even in pre WW1 Russia Petersburg's actual working class didn't care what Lenin and the boys said (in 1913 this is actually clear from the Petersburg metalworkers dismissing Pravda as a publication of 'imaginary leaders'.)

 

[ATP]

Yeah and this is one of the things that the Communist Party (China's) doesn't like talking about but Chinese wages up until Japan really started fucking around in the 30s were competitive globably, urban workers made good wages and yes Chiang after 27 starts fucking this up, but it is really the war that makes China's modern political system. Even in pre WW1 Russia Petersburg's actual working class didn't care what Lenin and the boys said (in 1913 this is actually clear from the Petersburg metalworkers dismissing Pravda as a publication of 'imaginary leaders'.)

Click to shrink...

True,Czang really fucked things in OTL.I hope,that you manage somehow kill him here.Or,at least go full commie - till at least 1940 soviets supported Czang with T.26 ligh tanks/good for japanesses so called medium tanks/ and I.16 fighters which was good till Japan introduced Zero.
You could made czang here go dawn as commie supporter.

About Lenin in Petersburg was nobody in 1917,till Kierensky take over.Kierensky fucked thing by continuing attacking germans,and,at the same time,do not arresting soviet envoys who go to every units to pray for revolution.

I read many polish memories,when they wrote how their units/they were in russian army/ changed from averagely good army into mob becouse nobody arrested soviet envoys.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Tentatively: (and this is abridged for brevity, and to be as limitted spoilers as possible)

The Great Northern March / northern expedition happens, and gets beaten back representing a more coherent northern China, and then Chiang in a similar vein attempts round two to shore up his position with an analog to the Northern Plains war a few years later, which again is ineffective and that more or less pushes Manchuria under Zhang Tso-lin (who is still alive in this timeline) further into Japanese orbit leading to Manchukuo shortly there after with the '2nd Manchurian Restoration', which is what splits Xian from Manchuria diplomatically, along with the Shanghai Crisis (plural) playing out.

As for Chiang in the current draft after the war (WW2) he goes into exile in the states once China is reunified, and part of that is Chiang was willing to take aid from the soviets but he also didn't really like them and I don't see him as supporting especially a weaker soviet union of the late twenties and thirties. Because in the grand scheme of things here, the soviet position is weaker than in the OTL because Japan and the British Empire are stronger especially as while it didn't get explicit screen time a bolshevik supporter did shoot George V so the British (and for that matter the French public of the early interwar period) public are pretty pissed off even though he's alive (and this will be talked about in later segments in 1921, and also its repercussions for Lloyd George's government later on).

 

[ATP]

Tentatively: (and this is abridged for brevity, and to be as limitted spoilers as possible)

The Great Northern March / northern expedition happens, and gets beaten back representing a more coherent northern China, and then Chiang in a similar vein attempts round two to shore up his position with an analog to the Northern Plains war a few years later, which again is ineffective and that more or less pushes Manchuria under Zhang Tso-lin (who is still alive in this timeline) further into Japanese orbit leading to Manchukuo shortly there after with the '2nd Manchurian Restoration', which is what splits Xian from Manchuria diplomatically, along with the Shanghai Crisis (plural) playing out.

As for Chiang in the current draft after the war (WW2) he goes into exile in the states once China is reunified, and part of that is Chiang was willing to take aid from the soviets but he also didn't really like them and I don't see him as supporting especially a weaker soviet union of the late twenties and thirties. Because in the grand scheme of things here, the soviet position is weaker than in the OTL because Japan and the British Empire are stronger especially as while it didn't get explicit screen time a bolshevik supporter did shoot George V so the British (and for that matter the French public of the early interwar period) public are pretty pissed off even though he's alive (and this will be talked about in later segments in 1921, and also its repercussions for Lloyd George's government later on).

Click to shrink...

So,would Japan get here Manchuria as puppet state,but with better leader? If so,maybe they manage to find oil there? in OTL they almost did so.
And that could change history - no reasons for attacking Dutch India.

Also,China-Japan war here - in OTL it happened becouse of soviet provocation and japaneese belive in easy victory.Both could not happen here.
But,if it happen,China in 1937 should mass produce good planes.
I remember story with stronger China,where they mass produced first Fokker D.21,and later Dewointe D.520 and ,as a result,Japan never get aerial superiority there.
Forget title and author,as usual.

P.S If war happen on schedule,and China fight better,Japan here should develop better planes and tanks then OTL for 1941 and later.

 

[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.

 

[ATP]

Biodesel is not sometching new - but,they still need time for making it.
And,for future,making ammo.It would be not funny if somebody decide to bury them under bodies.Good thing is,only states which used such tactic was moscovites and Turkey,and both need to defeat other states to get there.

 

[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...

 

[ATP]

Mao topped Czang in OTL and destroyed tradition - but China are empire again with Xi as new emperor.
Could you really change anythching in China,or they are destinied to become new dynasty,too?

And Guatemala - did United Fruit arleady robbed indians there,or it would happen in Future?

 

[Imperator Pax]

Mao topped Czang in OTL and destroyed tradition - but China are empire again with Xi as new emperor.
Could you really change anythching in China,or they are destinied to become new dynasty,too?

And Guatemala - did United Fruit arleady robbed indians there,or it would happen in Future?

Click to shrink...

United Fruit is active in Guatemala but they haven't gone off the deep end at this point, we're still before the corporate (hostile take take over / change in management) coup and while United Fruit will play a role in Latin America here, its role as infrastructure builder is being superseded by the middle america cadre that they themselves invited in to help expand the rail network and infrastructure in the face of world war 1... we just don't see much of that side of the timeline since most of the focus is on China.

And as for dynastic politics. Allen will never be emperor , but after ww2 post unification thats what Augustus goes for is establishing a nominally constitutional monarchy with the Emperor as equivalent in executive power, modelled on presidential powers but with a relatively powerful upper legislature but thats after the cold war has begun in part because xian is a relatively neo confucian society in terms of public culture and with a heavy emphasis on a tradition that has emphasized 'this is what you should expect your professional leadership to do and this is what your bureaucracy does its why they exist'.

 

[ATP]

United Fruit is active in Guatemala but they haven't gone off the deep end at this point, we're still before the corporate (hostile take take over / change in management) coup and while United Fruit will play a role in Latin America here, its role as infrastructure builder is being superseded by the middle america cadre that they themselves invited in to help expand the rail network and infrastructure in the face of world war 1... we just don't see much of that side of the timeline since most of the focus is on China.

And as for dynastic politics. Allen will never be emperor , but after ww2 post unification thats what Augustus goes for is establishing a nominally constitutional monarchy with the Emperor as equivalent in executive power, modelled on presidential powers but with a relatively powerful upper legislature but thats after the cold war has begun in part because xian is a relatively neo confucian society in terms of public culture and with a heavy emphasis on a tradition that has emphasized 'this is what you should expect your professional leadership to do and this is what your bureaucracy does its why they exist'.

Click to shrink...

UF less bad - good.
And ,it is good that your MC do not try to change China into USA,many tried it in South America and ALWAYS failed.Culture is important,too,and you could not simply copy institution and expect them to work the same in different country.

So,it is good that they modernize China,not try to destroy it like Mao did.
Which,paradoxally,could lead to 2024 your TL China less focused on being imperial and more on developing.

 

[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

 

[ATP]

If USA and others abadonned some projects,then your China could pay for finishing those new warships,right? They need Navy,after all.

 

[Imperator Pax]

If USA and others abadonned some projects,then your China could pay for finishing those new warships,right? They need Navy,after all.

Click to shrink...

Hypothetically yes, but Hughes specifically lobbied so that no one would just sell off warships to third party powers, and right now Xian has no deep water port, and has a very poor opinion of the RoCN's well Navy Clique, the Fukien Clique and Guangzhou cliques are both southern cliques, they're nominally pro Sun Yat-sen. Post II, this is basically how China builds its navy, is we need hulls to train people on and Truman and Atlee want to downsize

 

[ATP]

Hypothetically yes, but Hughes specifically lobbied so that no one would just sell off warships to third party powers, and right now Xian has no deep water port, and has a very poor opinion of the RoCN's well Navy Clique, the Fukien Clique and Guangzhou cliques are both southern cliques, they're nominally pro Sun Yat-sen. Post II, this is basically how China builds its navy, is we need hulls to train people on and Truman and Atlee want to downsize

Click to shrink...

If i remember correctly,China in OTL had in 1937 few old cruisers,2 small light cruisers/Ning Hao an Ping Hao,i think/ and all were sunk on rivers by japaneese planes.
So,there is no point in having anytching bigger then gunboat here.
Although cheap battleships buyed after washington Conferency would be nice to defent harbours...and notching else.

 

[Imperator Pax]

If i remember correctly,China in OTL had in 1937 few old cruisers,2 small light cruisers/Ning Hao an Ping Hao,i think/ and all were sunk on rivers by japaneese planes.
So,there is no point in having anytching bigger then gunboat here.
Although cheap battleships buyed after washington Conferency would be nice to defent harbours...and notching else.

Click to shrink...

Gunboats aren't going to be an issue to source, but much of what Washington legislated were much larger vessels... and we'll get to that in things like Cutters and other classes later

 

[ATP]

Gunboats aren't going to be an issue to source, but much of what Washington legislated were much larger vessels... and we'll get to that in things like Cutters and other classes later

Click to shrink...

Of course ! Poland,for example,get cheap gunboats after WW1,so your China could get them,too.What about ex-russian Navy? there should be some ships who lost country and could be buyed cheaply.

You are right about Washington,it is chance to cheap built battleships for harbour defenses,becouse they would be scrapped anyway.
For England or Japan it should be good deal to sell them for slighty better money to China instead of scrapyard.

 

[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.

 

[ATP]

No loans from USA - it could be better for your China,the less you would be involved with them,the less 1929 crysis hit you.

About anti bullet amulets - i read mempries of polish patriot Rafał Gan-Ganowicz who must run from commie occupied Poland after 1945,and later fought commies in Congo.

They get good soviet weapons and cubans officers,but when cubans left,they get drugs from shamans and charged at european mercaneries shouting "water" becouse they belived that enemy bullets would turn into water.
It do not worked,even when they were fully immune to pain and fear.And fight till they get bullet to the head or lost too much blood.

 

[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.

 

[ATP]

Railroad from Kirghiz to persia? good idea.
About law - it must be as easy to undrstandt as possible.In Austria in Maria Theresa time even she have custom,that every law who was not undarstandt by average peasant was not implemented.
I think,that it is good idea.

 

[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.

 

[ATP]

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.

Click to shrink...

1.New cars - you could made steam cars,too,at least till 1930 they were as good as those which used oil.Only problem was with time,they need some to start.
2.Metal planes in 1920 were worst then wooden one,like german Junkers D1 or french Wibaut.Better keep planes at least till 1935 wooden,like Fokker.Here,Fokker D.21:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_D.XXI&ved=2ahUKEwiv2Jngv8mHAxXJOhAIHatlAPoQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0N5B9eUjtWaq6RXgUUwqi0

3.Russian transport-bomber plane? you mean Illia Muromiec,right? it was B.17 of WW1,only one was schoot down by german fighters,after downing 3 of them.
And,you could use it as transport,too.
What about keeping Sikorsky in your China/ /dude who made it,and in OTL run to USA/

 

[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.

 

[ATP]

Yes,they do not need united China just now.
About airforces - what about light bombers and transports for now? both wooden,not metal.
You could build wooden planes till at least 1940,and they still would be good enough for Japan or soviets.
Fore example,italian wooden bomber-transport SM 81:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoia-Marchetti_SM.81_Pipistrello&ved=2ahUKEwiUpO2Rl9uHAxXAEBAIHfq9J_4QFnoECBUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw09ei-BLehBGo0TNTtFpeFf

It would be good against japaneese fighters till 1940 or maybe even later.
And,you could built sometching like that without help,since you have both engine and plane creators now.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Yes,they do not need united China just now.
About airforces - what about light bombers and transports for now? both wooden,not metal.
You could build wooden planes till at least 1940,and they still would be good enough for Japan or soviets.
Fore example,italian wooden bomber-transport SM 81:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoia-Marchetti_SM.81_Pipistrello&ved=2ahUKEwiUpO2Rl9uHAxXAEBAIHfq9J_4QFnoECBUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw09ei-BLehBGo0TNTtFpeFf

It would be good against japaneese fighters till 1940 or maybe even later.
And,you could built sometching like that without help,since you have both engine and plane creators now.

Click to shrink...

Right now, and into the early to mid thirties most of the air craft are light bombers, and transport aircraft, I wasn't really thinking of the SM 81 but that is a pretty good option with the only issue being it only shows up inm thearly thirties.