Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[ATP]

Well,Kirgiz here could hold till 1939,but what later?
And about Famines - soviets did it later on purpose,to kill farmers who do not agree to be their slaves.
As a result surviving peasants could not made enough food in kolchoz till soviets fell - but soviets leaders never cared.They always eat luxury food after all.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Well,Kirgiz here could hold till 1939,but what later?
And about Famines - soviets did it later on purpose,to kill farmers who do not agree to be their slaves.
As a result surviving peasants could not made enough food in kolchoz till soviets fell - but soviets leaders never cared.They always eat luxury food after all.

Click to shrink...

Kirghiz basically survives because Stalin prioritizes finland because of its proximity to St Peterburg which... goes poorly because geography and the poor state of the red army, bluntly the Red Army is just not in a position to sustain a distance campaign even in the late thirties thats a combination of just terrible logistics and also the damage from the purge

After that, after Finland, Hitler's invasion means the soviets don't have resources to put towards their eastern front by the time those resources (again the USSR here, doesn't have eastern'maritime siberia, or central asia) to think about that kind of adventurism the war in 45 is basically over and china can basically afford to park the majority of its army along the central asian border (and thats also part of why when the Asian Marshal plan and Pacific equivalent to NATO includes Kirghiz because China insists that central asia has to be covered by the treaty because its right on the border).


The reason Hoover pulled the plug historically is Lenin started approving grain exports out of hte soviet union for hard currency to buy machines and in general the soviet apparatchnik in lenin's time also got in the way of relief efforts which will be touched on. The degree of callousness and delusional writing that comes from the soviet agencies of the time is pretty massive [In this timeline the reason Kirghiz is not more vulnerable to this is because it has foreign capital and a southern railway the soviets don't have the resources to prosecute a war and by the time the later thirties roll around its still a long way from central asia when most of the built up railway network is in the western / European side USSR]

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1922
His desk was as usual crowded with documents, including those that pertained to the material preparations that could be expected of Central Asia, but they were not what occupied his attention at the moment. Even if there had been shooting conflicts ongoing his work would have required documentation, and records of movement of goods. Shang had sent up a series of papers, hand picked papers, from young Staff Officers which had been about the highlight of his morning. Hodges while here was still nominally the commander of the 8th​ Division since Shang was currently on temporary duty during the course of summer drill. That meant he was handling the up and coming staff officers while most of the cadre, Hodges included who was only here temporarily for the conference, were looking forward to the election campaigns. He suspected Waite had commissioned the placards that had gone up to encourage 'Success'. Cullen's printing presses were even more obviously his handiwork even without taking note of the gendarmes who festooned their bullpens and working spaces with them voluntarily. Cole had the advantage of being able to spend far more time with his most junior men. Mostly because the lowest rank of gendarmes troopers, the privates, were expected to be lawmen. Their patrols took them into the community regularly and without necessarily expectation of direct action.

A part of Allen envied that closeness that Cole could maintain with his most junior men. The cynical part of his thinking recognized that even Cole wouldn't be able to keep it forever that way. The gendarmes were being expanded... not as fast as the regular army, but it was becoming bigger and like all the others Cole could only be in one place at a time. The training of gendarmes for privates entailed more than the Infantry School that had been the norm up until quite recently.

The training was a talking point with the cadre. It had been a longstanding talking point. For the army was a professional institution, one drawn of volunteers. Even though they had not... except very recently discussed a cavalry, there had been red legs, and engineers, and signals men.

But the cadre had so much to do, not all of them could be focused on the profession of arms. The margins for the railway had been fair in 1914. Western Zhili had made enough in freight even that they could stomached a British style subsidized passenger carry... not that Yuan Shikai would have considered that. Not when most of that freight was coal, which then at that point had gone to selling for cooking and heating purposes.

The war in Europe had meant more demand, and had expedited electrification. It had pushed them to expand. Forty plus percent of the cadre held active military commissions in the army, that rose to over seventy men being involved in uniform for the body with the reserves... and there were a couple of seats that in the new year would need to be filled.

... and would certainly be filled by officers, but they would wait for that until after elections of the lower house.

The present quorum though was insistent that now that the war in Europe was over it was time to take advantage of mid western grain, Kansas and Nebraska and the like, to pad what they could as a guard against famine Corn, and wheat could be stored and kept on hand just in case. There were other reports.

The previous year the Food and Drug Administration, theirs not the states back home, had finished standing up and had issued their recommendations for marking and labelling food. That had been a long time coming. It was something of a point of contention. Food hygiene, and slaughtering of stock for meat... well there had been talks, but also there was the public to consider. Local farmers markets were one thing, but well the states had enacted prohibition but their own food and drug administration had more reason to check the labels and standards for alcohol.

Alcohol was legal, but it was going to be taxed. Tobacco as well. Allen expected the latter though to potentially get complaints from Tietsin, or the consul in Shanghai, but it might not. The British ambassador, never mind his American counterpart would very likely side with them, and it was always possible that the consul of the day would be too taken with moralizing to stand complaints over such taxes by tobacco.

It was equally possible the anglo-american tobacco consortium which grew tobacco in China would keep their mouths shut because they wouldn't want to risk it for their own reasons. Those being that, if they started an argument the Cadre could shut them out entirely, the public might boycott them anyway, and that the Cadre could always adjust the rates for the rail that the tobacco company used to ship across the silk road into Kirghiz That was the advantage of holding a transportation monopoly.

There certainly wasn't going to be a fight this close to the elections... not with the Anglo-American legation in Tietsin enthusiastically voicing support for the voting coming. Shurman thought they were doing well enough, and his cables to Harding were favorable in part because he'd done his stint in the Philippines while most of the Cadre had been in uniform. The man might not have known all the men personally during those days, but he seemed to appreciate that they were on the right track.

Even with the support of both ambassadors it was too late, Allen thought for the rest of China to go to the polls and stock the Federal Legislature here... and that was going to b e a problem. Because, frankly their representatives were pushing for it, and were not happy with the chatter in Peking. Cao Kun was trying to build a consensus, talk about the constitution and this and that, but what it was really doing was showing that the constitution wasn't really how things were run.

It was the dickering and attempts to horse trade instead of fighting bandits. It was the shooting different branches of the beiyang kept getting themselves into, and then when they weren't doing that it was the fighting in Honan. These were all things that made his days more complicated than they otherwise might have been.

Cole was a few minutes earlier than he'd been expected, but not unusually so. The steel documents he passed over were a little unusual. "I'm aware that stepping down production from the war time peak has been a talking point." He commented paging through the documents, before reaching another series of war production documents related to quality control, as well as security deposits for the hand over of goods. "But I assume this has something else to do as well."

"We don't have a port. There is no rail line," No direct rail line to the city, "to Shanghai, but we do bring stuff in, from overseas and we always have but that's been a real shake up over the years." He gestured to still other figures in the table. "Bert has long complained that there is a problem where some of the things that get ordered are stolen on the docks, which don't get me wrong everyone has that problem." and they expected to have that problem in Kirghiz

But it had been a big enough concern with regards to shipping goods to the entente, to England and to Russia with the brits as bursar that when they had started loading goods on to skids for shipping they had insisted that the brits were responsible for approving the goods on site and taking possession and handling shipping. It wasn't just concern over theft, they had no boats to carry them over the water, "We'd already been using pallets to move things around the factories," Especially as the arsenals had been manufacturing more guns, but it had made sense for cloth goods as well... cotton textiles had used them in the states before they'd entered the academy. Then it had only been a matter of time before an engine had been attached to a lifting machine for the pallets, "I assume that your suggestion be related."

He produced a draft of a sheet steel box, "It would require cranes, but we can put these on flat bed train cars, they're shut up so you can't easily steal out of him, and they're steel obvious its not impossible for something to get broke inside but it makes it a hell of a lot less likely."

"What are the drawbacks?"

"The lifting, we can't go any bigger than this container for want of infrastructure. If we try and ship this it'd be too big for the apes in the dockyards to move." Hence his comment on requiring cranes, "Powell wants to get into buying surplus vessels from the shipping board," which would allow the MAK to run US flagged ships but otherwise permit preferential carrying and alleviate one of the great problems the cadre had in selling goods abroad. "These containers can be put on a rail car, we'd have to talk to him though about actually using them, but if he's serious about over the seas trade and ports we could secure both ends of our arrangement."

"Do you think he'll bite?"

"If he's serious about this talk in Liberia, even if he's not packing coffee in one of these would bean easy thing. If we had enough of them."

There were economies of scale in steel manufacturing. Due to the European war's demand for steel larger producers had been able to build up immense cost saving measures which coupled with high panicking high prices of 1917 and 1918 especially for Pig Iron but mild steels and other bulk metal products they'd profited handsomely. After the armistice they had had to step down production, but costs actually increased per unit as the market had moved to peace time levels. "I understand that, but production of this will take time."

"Railways first, ships, trucks later." But with Trucks, that was where the deal with Ford cam in.

"If you can get the MAK to go along with it, we can talk about it next year. With working examples Cole, for peace and war applications." The fighting between Fengtien and Zhili had involved lots of shells.
--
Notes: This has been alluded to as forthcoming, we are talking about a precursor to intermodal containers here, because all of the technology for such existed before McClean put it into practice in the early cold war to the point that I really think that part of the resistance was most likely union related for dockworkers, and the infrastructure limitations ofWW1 followed by the great depression before the war.

Its a standard shaped metal box with doors, you just need to build enough of them, and again here, these are smaller than a standard modern shipping container because of those limitations (the idea behind these containers is that they're probably shorter) but again its a standard industrial steel box. Its we know the docks are bad about getting sticky fingers or longshoremen break things because they're drunk on the job (again at work alcoholism pervasive problem).

 

[ATP]

"Railways first, ships, trucks later." - very good idea,and Ford would indeed deliver good trucks.
Pity that Poland do not made such deal - but sadly till 1926 we were France clients,and after that ruled by ignorants who do not undarstandt why trucks could be need.
You would not have such problems in China.

Alcochol and tobacco legal - good,you do not need mafia ruling half of your country.Food hygiene,thought...i wish you luck in introducing that to China.Even commies failed to do so.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1922
Allen put the first report of the morning report aside. A part of him considered complaining about the hour, but there was daylight in the sky at least. The company farms were doing well. The war had disrupted bringing in men from Aggie and from Iowa State College A&M and the other land grant colleges in the states which worked in those. But the war being over also meant the deal with Ford was signed and on delivery now, that meant Edsel's tractors were more available. "At least no one will starve for this." Edsel engine for his tractors was apparently very impressive as such metrics went. 4 Cylinder Diesel, liquid cooled. In short while the cadre hoped to construct a larger heavier tractor...talks of V8 and V12 designs to support the farms were already making the rounds.

"Conservatism back home" he meant on the farm, "should have warned us, that we were going to get push back." Carter stated with a shrug, that was half a stretch and almost a yawn. "But at least some of them are willing to try Edsel's tractor since they've seen our tractors before them." But not in the numbers that they had expected.

Still that was alright, "We were on the hook for buying a certain number of them from Ford as part of the deal to build the factory," and to show them how to do what Ford did best. Ford did seem to honestly believe that by helping them he was helping to build world peace... Allen thought he was naïve there, but it meant also that Ford was prepared to defend them in the arena back home. Even if Ford had been masquerading behind cynical motivations his advocacy was there, and that helped them. "It is unfortunate Carter, but we can't force them to mechanize."

"It'll put us potentially behind targets."

"Then we'll be behind." He replied, "Ford seems foolhardily insistent on selling tractors to the Bolsheviks." Of course Ford also was looking at their famine and insisting that if they would accept help then famines would be no more, "I don't like it, i don't have to like it, and I think optimism is misplaced, but we can do," Allen yawned, resisting the urge to curse Carter for the contagion, "nothing about it. We're also not infallible, corn needs a lot of rainfall or a lot of irrigation, if wheat is what the climate supports, then that can be mechanized down the road." It was a question of time so far as he saw. Ford had been talking about a lab down in Georgia for tractors... they had already begun partnering the company's farms with the land grant colleges the cadre had built over here. "The example I think will eventually win out," but if they started to force farmers there was going to b e resistance, and they couldn't subsidize too heavily. Roads , road building was going to be coupled with commitments to public safety who help farmers bring goods to market, and that would hopefully win over support. "How long have you been up on this Carter, didn't you sleep?"

Carter shook his head, reached for his coffee and took a pull from the drink, "I thought it was important when it came in." The way the cadre tended to do these things was to conduct surveys of local issues... to identify problems. This was a program that was being pushed down to being carried out by county, and municipal offices that were tabulated into reports that were handled... frankly in the vein of civil service, and military intelligence reports studied and pushed on to the appropriate desks. "Pork, Sheep, cattle." Carter had made to the Philippines only after the rinderpest epidemic had decimated the cattle herds there, that had contributed to the famine of 1901... and that experience had helped to shape the Cadre policy for food relief efforts. It was why ties with A&M colleges back home was so important. They had been young lieutenants then, pushed to the frontier as congress had panicked. That was another lesson young men had learned... that the old men back home on their laurels lacked the nerve, or steady hands. That lesson though had been tempered as youthful exuberance had been shown the world as it was, not as they might have liked it to be. "Local farmers markets are going to be our best option. Encourage people to sell locally, congregate more, might encourage mechanization, but it will encourage them to use the roads more." Roads and trucks were going to be more useful to rural farmsteads than the electrical interurban lines coming online, and those roads also allowed troops easier movement through the countryside which in the south made it easier for the army to respond to concerns over szechwanese border incursions.

That was the other detail in the report Carter had put in front of him that Allen had noticed, the report was largely limited to surveys conducted south of Xian, confined to the province of Shensi. "Has Yan done one of these for Shansi, Bill for Qinghai?"

"I dunno," Carter replied, "I can ask."

"Ask Hodges for Tibet as well." He replied, "I know he's busy, but we'll try and put this on the calendar for next month," Allen glanced at the hands of the clock, "Come on 1st​ Regiment has expectations for morning drill, and I'll need coffee for that morning run." He declared

Two hours later 1st​ Regiment fighting strength had moved to the assembled rifle range. It was a sight, for it underscored so much that had changed in a decade. Carter made the observation that they were going to have to make changes to helmets. The beiyang army had largely used soft cover caps... there had been decorative helmets for cavalry and talk of the picklehaube by Yuan Shikai but it had never amounted to much.

Carter's issue was that the Stahhelm what had replaced the picklehaube was not just a matter of price per unit, though that did bear in mind, it was also the weight. The Model 1920 Helmet followed the pot's lines but had been built metallurgically with manganese alloy that didn't need heated dies and could be cast in one piece. That had helped, but it was still heavy. "We need a better winter lining as well, and cover, but its still heavy."

The helmet replacement was aiming for an alloy helmet that was under three pounds by making it high cut. The truth was principle protection was to be against splinters and shrapnel. It was however yet another move away from the appearance ofthe old Beiyang army. Beiyang as it had been at the downfall of the Qing had placed an emphasis on the flashiness of its cavalry. No real surprise not only were officers expected to provide their own uniform, but cavalry men were paid more than poor bloody infantryman... and at least while Yuan had been alive that pay had been regular. Xian though had never adopted a cavalry boot, the closest they had come had been a variation of the Davis boot that hadn't won the competition. Riding boots were popular style considerations in Japan's army as well, but Xian placed a premium on foot mobility and long rucks that even officers in the gendarmes had supported the new pattern supported lacing.

Epaulets had never been present on Xian uniforms, and austrian knots for those entitled to them were restricted to dress uniforms only, and were optional. That variation of the davis boot was an option for dress uniforms for those men who wanted to privately purchase them because they were comfortable, and sharp looking.

"Tenth Division will be at strength by next summer." Carter observed, which was generally considered to be a relief. The lower house had written up once it was clear the fighting around Peking was done with that they were already considering opening discussions on army expansion... part of that was that rallying around the flag and public concern. The men talking sternly on defense and the offensive 'northern expedition' the south had mounted had lead to last minute campaign rallies as election day was but a month and change away.
--
Notes: We note here, and also in the following September section about equipment, Xian doesn't have conscription so standing up standard divisions is not done in a rapid fashion. Xian could go faster, but it chooses not to largely for fiscal and materiel reasons. Xian's 10th​ Division comes online, at strength, in '23, with 9th​ Division at strength by this point in the timeline... and this has effects on how the second and third congresses handle military / defense planning and spending. This will have an effect when the 4th​ congress comes into session especially after the Northern Expedition (the one under Chiang) but also due to other political shifts. The elections in 28 are strongly driven by the accelerated break down of order of Peking, and the collapse, its also effected by changing social conditions.

But all of that is really effected by1925's events which really can be said to set the ball in motion, and thats part of the reason why the next arc starts in '24 and proceeds from there. This also goes into the big event of 23 that being the fallout of the Lincheng Incident. The fallout is more important than the taking of the Blue Express itself but also by the time 10th division is at strength, well Zhang and Cao Kun are both posturing for their next big moves, and this goes to fiscal responsibility because what gets Zhang in trouble is the amount of money, and the speed at which, he was will to throw it at problems when patience would have benefitted him really more.

 

[ATP]

Good,they do not need more units for now.I read,that one of reasons why polish army was obsolate in 1939 was becouse we keep 30 infrantry divisions during peace/part of battalions were at half strenght,but still/
And it eat most of our military budget.

It is better to have less soldiers,but prepared to create new units quickly.Basically,train many reseervist,but do not keep them in army long.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Good,they do not need more units for now.I read,that one of reasons why polish army was obsolate in 1939 was becouse we keep 30 infrantry divisions during peace/part of battalions were at half strenght,but still/
And it eat most of our military budget.

It is better to have less soldiers,but prepared to create new units quickly.Basically,train many reseervist,but do not keep them in army long.

Click to shrink...

That was basically Yan Xishan's plan in the early 20s with his hundred thousand strong national guard for Shansi, and indeed Poland's problem was not unique its a classical problem. It might seem strange in the modern post cold war peace dividend era but most countries spent too much on their militaries and the military was the largest part of hte budget. This is what ultimately undoes Zhang Tsolin from an economic standpoint Manchuria was agriculturally productive, and industrially well developed but he was repeatedly outpacing his spending became insane trying to assert leadership over the beiyang government in order to become the recognized leader for all of china.

Zhang could (and here, will) basically have gone 'Here is my independence circular, I'm just going to ignore Peking and the parliament' and no one could have anything about because fighting on home soil Fengtian would have stomped Zhili's branch of the beiyang but ZHang repeatedly chose to get involved in costly campaigns and trying to support those campaigns for prestige reasons. THis is why he had problems with Wu, fundamentally Zhang didn't think Wu was a 'real soldier' and that he didn't deserve respect and thus losing in that first conflict because of largely supply issues Zhang doubled down buying hundreds of airplanes in a few years.

 

[ATP]

That was basically Yan Xishan's plan in the early 20s with his hundred thousand strong national guard for Shansi, and indeed Poland's problem was not unique its a classical problem. It might seem strange in the modern post cold war peace dividend era but most countries spent too much on their militaries and the military was the largest part of hte budget. This is what ultimately undoes Zhang Tsolin from an economic standpoint Manchuria was agriculturally productive, and industrially well developed but he was repeatedly outpacing his spending became insane trying to assert leadership over the beiyang government in order to become the recognized leader for all of china.

Zhang could (and here, will) basically have gone 'Here is my independence circular, I'm just going to ignore Peking and the parliament' and no one could have anything about because fighting on home soil Fengtian would have stomped Zhili's branch of the beiyang but ZHang repeatedly chose to get involved in costly campaigns and trying to support those campaigns for prestige reasons. THis is why he had problems with Wu, fundamentally Zhang didn't think Wu was a 'real soldier' and that he didn't deserve respect and thus losing in that first conflict because of largely supply issues Zhang doubled down buying hundreds of airplanes in a few years.

Click to shrink...

Good,but if Japan could not take Manchuria here,how could they attack China at all? becouse it is not easy to do so from Korea alone.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Good,but if Japan could not take Manchuria here,how could they attack China at all? becouse it is not easy to do so from Korea alone.

Click to shrink...

The same way they subverted Korea. Manchuria does eventually break away from Central China, and Zhang Tsolin was something of a manchu supporter , supported if not exuberantly the idea of the dynasty coming back (he doesn't seem to have grasped that that wasn't popular in the south, which given his personal ties to Shanghai, and Sun Yat-sen thats a little strange, but then again Sun had no problem getting into an alliance with Duan Qirui or Zhang Xun, and he saw no issue fleeing to Japan when it was convenient) and after he gets kicked north of the wall again (in 27 28) Zhang decides he's bringing the emperor back in Manchuria wfhich completely abrogates any relationship with Xian and that leads to the three big factions in China and the handful of smaller ones at the end of the decade that in the early thirties leads to Manchukuo in part because by 28 Zhang had completely squandered his economy at least with regards to inflation, taxation monetary reform with Japan coming in much as they did with Joseon Korea with promises of financial reform (which Zhang knew worked he had seen the success of the post ww1 reforms Manchuria had conducted with foreign assistance, and Zhang had always be been pro-japanese) and at that point Zhang also wants to modernize further.

Zhang wasn't in the best of health anyway here in this story he dies of health complications in the early thirties
--
The time frame of events is that had Zhang broken away from beijing earlier there wouldn't have been anything cao kun could have done, frankly I don't think Cao Kun (given his positions during Duan Qirui's tenure) would have tried, and with ANhui clique having no way forward back into power I think Cao Kun would have probably kept a middle of the road course no southern expeditions, no fights with the north but in 26 after excessive military spending on southern adventures Manchuria was not in a good financial position and it was worse after Zhang decided to fight the KMT who he saw as backed by the soviet who he didn't like either and that absolutely wrecked the monetary system which here means that he attempts to rebuild with Japanese help

Japan has its own banking crisis in short order and then not long after that great depression occurs with the stock market crash which creates a perverse incentive for Manchuria to economically get closer to Japan

 

[ATP]

Thanks ! they knew what they were doing,becouse for manchu bigger enemy was China,not Japan.And in OTL they are small minority on their own lands...i hope,that here they would survive - there would be no soviet troops here,after all....

 

[Imperator Pax]

September1922
The fall conference spent a long time discussing many of the things he had spent the week earlier going over in minutiae with Carter. It was not just military equipment, but also the economy. While people took pride in the army the banking apparatus exerted tidal like effects on people's livelihoods... but for most of today it had been looking forward to the army's standard fighting man... or the infantry at large.

The FN Model 1900 caliber 35 Remington, and its beefed up Griswold version in 8mm Mauser were de facto the principle self loading rifles of the army's select units and ranks issued those. Current tabulations said that there were about twenty two thousand 35 Remington guns in service between the Army, the National Guard, and the Gendarmes plus other security forces. The weapons operated from a long recoil system, and Griswold was expecting full conversion to magazine fed versions was approximately ninety percent complete with most of the guns not in magazine conversion form being in the hands of the Railway Police.

The 1900, and Winchester it competed against in the states had been adopted early by the cadre as personal arms since most of the cadre were aficionados of such new developments. In the years before the war in Europe they had also been looking to buy up weapons in packets in order to outfit the then much smaller force of the company soldiery. That had lead to buying the mondragon rifles for which Mexico had been in arrears and to the work on the Lewis gun. All of which supported the notion of fire and maneuver which had been US doctrine since the war between the states

Mondragon and Lewis both favored a gas piston system which seemed to be the way forward in the longer term for using their full power 200 grain 8mm Mauser. The prohibitive recoil of the long recoil system with the service rifle was most keenly felt by smaller men... which was not as significant of a problem given the Qing height requirements for northern Chinese, but it bore consideration all the same. Length of pull for the rifle was another concern, but part of the reason that for example the Winchester 351 had failed out were issues with standardized magazine though that had only been one issue out of several.

That the 35 caliber gun had already been in limited production and in spare parts before that before the8mm version's initial form had come out was another reason for its numbers. The railway men, the Gendarmes and especially 3rd ​Divisions mechanized troops found the shorter length of the 1900 variant useful. 1St​, 2nd​, and 8th​Division all fielded the 35 Caliber gun in more limited numbers with 2nd​ Regiment being the only unit in the Active Guard unit being issued them and that was only a result of its mechanization though some were issued to its artillery component in place of the1920 Model Service Rifle.

For ten years Griswold had been playing with the design, and was of the opinion that while it was now mature there were limits in what they could do with it moving further. There was simply more that went into the production of rifles that were semi automatic, and Griswold acknowledged that improvements with machine tooling and larger orders would bring prices down.

There was a familiar litany of charts which were based on previous year records that showed what they spent on production of rifles, what development was costing and what they could expect. All of which was going to at least go to the lower house at some point because someone had gotten into their head that semi automatic rifles were presently a feasible option for the army.

They weren't. Not for the whole army. Not with what they cost per unit, and not with the logistical burden it would have imposed to sustain the present army size, never mind an expansion.

"We've got twenty thousand Remingtons." the 1900, and its variants "but the majority of those are with Lee and my boys," Cullen remarked, "And they work well for what we need them to," 35 Remington was back home plenty sufficient for hunting bear or elk at reasonable distances, and that was the impediment of the cartridge. For close in work it was great, but it was a carbine ranged weapon, where as Model 1920 bolt action allowed line infantrymen to fire on targets accurately well in excess of those ranges, even if those ranges were unheard of in street to street fighting. "I don't think they would work as well with 9th​ and 10th​divisions... we could try them with 4th​ division, but my understanding is Yan doesn't want to go that route."

The governor of Shansi nodded, "I believe that a mix of full power rifles, and 45 caliber," he paused, "Submachine guns would be the better option. I am prepared to test and evaluate this, once the Lewis work is further along than it is currently."

Griswold was working on a blowback version... Lewis's original machine pistol had been a piston system scaled down to 45 which did work, but was unnecessarily complex for a pistol caliber weapon. Lewis had recognized that after the armistice and started the work but the lack of interest by Britain or the states had diminished his drive to pursue beyond a few early prototypes.

Lewis's work had merit, though with the 45 caliber weapon there were obvious improvements to be made. "So we are in the agreement that we're not there yet? Griswold?"

"Blowback simplifies things greatly, I admit 3rd's problem with freezing the action up, I'll work on that." He stated, "Yan isn't the only one who is interested in this, Powell, has said given conditions over there," In central America, "That there are concerns about obstructions getting into the action, mud and so forth." There was a sudden wash of chatter about armaments in general... or at least the small arms side of it.

There was no surprise there. The past decade had resulted in avid martial focus on rifle skills. There remained a vocal minority within the Army Staff that every man in uniform should be a rifleman and expected to attend the basic course for infantry. That was the cadre, even Yan Xishan who came from a Japanese Army Doctrine background, admitted impractical given the needs of the Army. They needed specialist support troops, the guidelines for that recognized that training for them needed to reflect less direct combat application.

The Army's Education Bureau, now under the command of a Major General, was responsible for overseeing the certification of schooling records both before the Army, and the course of schools attended during service. Civilians and Soldiers alike seemed to take pride in this arrangement as it awarded certifications, and maintained records of when and how highly men scored on practical and academic exams.

Completion, coinciding with the Fall Festival, of their version of the Wimbledon cup with distinction came with recognition. There were restrictions of course, the thousand yard match was open to all civilians, but in the interest of fairness a more grueling course of work was open only to members past or present of Rifle Divisions who could complete the physical standards of their units... this course accompanied an award of a shoulder rocker for dress uniforms and all but guaranteed that the recipient would be asked to take a teaching cadre position in the next rotation of marksmen courses.

Those successful at the course then naturally wrote reports on the successes or failings of the rifles and other implements of the profession. For Xian's martial reading body those who placed at the national match were also treated to consideration of their writings on the merits of particular techniques. Those men largely operated though with full power rifles, or in the pistols matches that ran alongside the majority with the Army standard service pistol.

This committee within the cadre was expect to attend the national match, and observe. Perhaps almost as importantly was the reception and the public facing of the gathering at the fall festival which made them collectively publicly visible.
--
Notes: this is basically a glance into logistics and doctrine for the interwar years... I keep saying at some point I'll actually do a post where it breaks down the Rifle Divisions and possibly their supporting Brigades as Xian to moves to its Army Corp structure but that probably won't happen until the aftermath of the 2nd Zhili Fengtian war and Feng's coup against Cao Kun. That being said Technologically this foreshadows the dvelopment of an Owen type blowback submachine gun in order to not have the actions lock up. It'll just be in 45 caliber not 9mm at this point in time since Xian basically has no major 9x19mm in inventory. [Historically it should be noted that Yan would go on to produce thomspons at Taiyuan and also produced 6.5 Arisaka, as well as a 45 caliber Broomhandle after previous producing an original clone. Here there is no reason for Taiyuan to produce the 6.5 though if it had already been underway the Federov would probably be a better option than the Chauchat that SMB did produce, Vickers are still being produced in 8mm Mauser]

 

[ATP]

Owen gun before WW2 - great idea.
And giving one kind of rifle to one division is good for logistic,at least till you decide to made one rifle for all.
Mandragon - i read,that it do not liked mud,so was not so good for infrantry in China....

 

[Imperator Pax]

Owen gun before WW2 - great idea.
And giving one kind of rifle to one division is good for logistic,at least till you decide to made one rifle for all.
Mandragon - i read,that it do not liked mud,so was not so good for infrantry in China....

Click to shrink...

The mondragon at this point has basically been phased out, it was an interim rifle and one handed out to select troops of an already volunteer force. What makes the mondragon important here is that its a piston operated semi automatic andcan handle full power rifle rounds. Blowback actions are best suited for pistols because of the recoil impulse

This goes directly to late interwar development of Xian's battle rifles, and intermediary cartridge development which is a 6.5 derived from both the Qing Mauser cartridge (Liu wanted to use) and the 30 Remington (magazine geometry considerations) both of which only begin to arrive in numbers late in the 2nd Pacific War

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1922
They had less than a month before folks went to the polls. The cadre was swamped with work... which was perfectly normal though Hodges in particular looked more winded by the work. The Soviets had had to bring in foreign aid to make up for their failed grain policies since last year... and Xian while largely republishing British material was also the center point for collecting collating and republishing reports about bandit activity undertaken by Lenin's thugs. Part of that was to shore up Kirghiz, but it also had a rabid following at home as the documentation mounted.


"He's pretty gassed out," Carter observed as the throng of ninety so men filtered out in order to take the recess offer by the lunch.

Allen nodded, "And we've got a couple more weeks of this." He replied. "He is right though literacy is going to be an issue, especially in the countryside. "Hodges had stamped a long while on the naive policy of splendid isolationism as the Brits called it, and had made clear that they couldn't rely on such high mindedness to to remain aloof. He'd taken that usual warning a step forward to fire a shot across Waite's bow that Jeffersonian democracies weren't going to emerge from the aether, and that they shouldn't expect one to spring up either. "As for things in Middle America, that's Powell's problem," And he'd have preferred if the Cadre here, both Waite, and Hodges left it well enough alone. Carter's expression shifted, "What?"

"Its just, Powell is serious about trying to pull people out of Europe, and with the famine in the former tsarist lands, he's talking with Joint," What the Joint Distributing Committee shortened its name as, "And the ARA under Hoover, he's busy trying to move Ruthenians out especially the refugees who made it to Poland and if not Middle America, to settle them in Liberia to raise cattle and hogs there."

"Is he gonna have a problem with Hoover pulling out of that clusterfuck?" He asked an edge on the final word.

Carter shrugged, "I guess, truth be told Hoover's not wrong that son of a bitch," Lenin, "selling grain for machinery while the provinces in the south starve, on the other hand I don't think he'll do it immediately... they'll waffle around Hoover's got queer ideas and he'll argue with Lenin and if then when he doesn't get his way he'll stamp off, but that could be months from now," It would be the following summer.

"Does Powell know that?"

"Sure he's contributing to the medical aid to Poland from his own medical detachments, mostly those graduates from Loyola in Chicago," Who the prevailing assumption was that Powell meant to use as a cadre to establish a jesuit medical college in Guatemala City, though if he intended to train Army doctors there might be more of a hassle than Powell really reckoned for, "Last report was he had forty doctors over there." Allen nodded, and stopped to watch Dawes josh around with some round face boys from the 15th​ Infantry Regiment about whether or not they had voted yet using the army's early ballot protocol. The Colonel General of the Artillery was still in his dress uniform and the young lieutenants were on the spot about being jovially confronted about civic duty by the head of the artillery branch. "Should we go save them?" Carter asked.

"If they're gonna lead men, they'll need to take a little teasing." Allen answered, "Though I do reckon we need to talk to Dawes," He stated straightening, "I think I will let Cullen handle Percy for the time being."

"Percy and the Brits are going to have questions," Carter remarked mirroring his change in posture and tone, "About what Powell has planned."

That was so, "The MAK is making its own investments," Clark's statement to be ambitious boys, came to mind, that defined the cadre's original membership, "Their foundation, and fundamentals seem strong enough to stand on their own."

The paused and interceded with the red leg chief, and sent the junior officers to their own affairs and the three fell into a walk for the way towards coffee and a light lunch.

"Curzon is going to complain that we're not treating Moscow like a great power."

"Damn Curzon to hell." Dawes replied. "I'm tired of limeys talking about propriety. Even if I bought into that nonsense, Hodges isn't wrong, I will not respect any government the likes that Lenin is running. That bastard can write of revolutionary measures, its banditry. Grain, grain, grain that's what he writes about, telegrams about, and then he complains hoover is an arrogant bastard," which well even a broke clock got the time right every so often, but, "Pot calling the kettle black."

"I don't expect anyone to Dawes, but that's precisely the problem. We know what we're looking at," Dawes fell silent, and took a swig of the coffee and then nodded.

Carter looked between them.

Dawes put the coffee cup down, "He's a bandit. He's selling plunder for weapons, and ammunition." He stated quietly, "we know the soviets are selling grain, exporting material from a starving countryside for weapons." You bought weapons, you stocked up when you thought there was a fight coming. England's ministry was braying about a ten year rule. Briand talked of peace. They were fools, damned fools the lot of them. Europe was exhausted and short on money, and that was the only reason the fighting had taken a stay in the west. "Its the same for the situation on our southern border." Szechwan was divided, riven between big and small warlords scrambling for bits of territory sometimes as small as a hamlet, sometimes as big as a county... and Szechwan was big, and full of people.

Carter's expression said a lot about the conversation. There were days when Allen watched the younger, barely, man and wondered why he seemed so... and then he remembered the why. Allen turned and remembered the Philippines a shared glance told him the same. Carter had missed the work that had been done by the Army's Civil Affairs to reach out, Allen remembered the letters he had carried to Moro land and to other Muslim chiefs from the pasha the caliph endorsing American presence over that of the previous Spanish.

But the pashas had been deposed the middle east torn up between England and France... and even if it hadn't he could have hardly needed a letter from the Sunni Caliph to support their efforts with the Hui muslims in the Kansu corridor or in Xinjiang... though it might have been nice in the steppe it wouldn't have helped them in Szechwan. Allen made a mental note to call Cole, and Bill in along with their respective staff. Operating in Szechwan did increasingly seem inevitable was likely to be very different than before, and more likely to be akin to the hundred plus small wars of the Philippines.

 

[ATP]

Wall Street,sadly,supported communists - they first buyed tsar gold from him,later stolen church and private gold,and later grain.
And Wall Street knew that and still made bussiness with him,even when he advocated world revolution.

I think,that it was then where Lenin said that capitalists would sell them rope on which they would be hanged.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Wall Street,sadly,supported communists - they first buyed tsar gold from him,later stolen church and private gold,and later grain.
And Wall Street knew that and still made bussiness with him,even when he advocated world revolution.

I think,that it was then where Lenin said that capitalists would sell them rope on which they would be hanged.

Click to shrink...

Yes, and again this goes to the cultural new ideology that had taken root with the 'new money' elite especially once WW1 was over, it had already existed in a prototypical form with the moneyed elite on the east side and as a response to the 'old money' families in say Fifth Ave in Pittsburgh. Ford as an example really did not take european demagogues seriously and part of that was he was probably getting a little loopy as he got older. This also applies to just the New York elite post war especially East Side High Society looked at the bolsheviks as just another weird foreigner with shiny stuff to buy, and again with grain the soviets ended up selling to everyone including their supposed 'arch enemies' so it was quickly trotted out that this world revolution stuff couldn't be taken as a serious claim because post war sensibilities in the west insisted peace was here to stay

Also though, Wall Street's cultural shift its view towards the Bolshevik / soviets as something to work with is also a facet of isolation. The Cadre points out, and also comes from a much more martial socio economic though still moneyed strata of society the Atlantic isn't there to keep European problems at bay, and that splendid isolationism doesn't actually work.

 

[ATP]

Yes, and again this goes to the cultural new ideology that had taken root with the 'new money' elite especially once WW1 was over, it had already existed in a prototypical form with the moneyed elite on the east side and as a response to the 'old money' families in say Fifth Ave in Pittsburgh. Ford as an example really did not take european demagogues seriously and part of that was he was probably getting a little loopy as he got older. This also applies to just the New York elite post war especially East Side High Society looked at the bolsheviks as just another weird foreigner with shiny stuff to buy, and again with grain the soviets ended up selling to everyone including their supposed 'arch enemies' so it was quickly trotted out that this world revolution stuff couldn't be taken as a serious claim because post war sensibilities in the west insisted peace was here to stay

Also though, Wall Street's cultural shift its view towards the Bolshevik / soviets as something to work with is also a facet of isolation. The Cadre points out, and also comes from a much more martial socio economic though still moneyed strata of society the Atlantic isn't there to keep European problems at bay, and that splendid isolationism doesn't actually work.

Click to shrink...

Yes,Wall Street never seriously considered that all tank and plane factories made by them in soviets could let to soviets taking over USA.
Althought...you still need Navy for that,soviet navy ALWAYS was shitty,so.....maybe they were right,and soviets were danger only to Europe,Asia and Africa?

 

[Imperator Pax]

Here once we get to the cold war Africa and Latin AMerica receive greater prominence in the Cold War struggle, there is still an Asian and particularly middle eastern component especially when the oil shock hits but Brezhnev has to contend with a significant geopolitical shake up as the fifties play out. The soviets post WW2 historically looted all industrial and scientific assets that they could wherever the Red Army was it just here even with Trotsky dead there is still Che among several other prominent Revolutionary Marxist Leninists in South and Latin America who with a soviet union that is trying to take advantage of decolonization at the expense of in particular W.European powers that puts a number of radical ideas in the fore.

A lot of the things that Maoist China did as part of the great leap forward came directly from Soviet intellectuals prominently Lysenko but others as well that were tried in places like Cuba just not the same extreme deep plowing and close planting come to mind but Cuba made it out okay because most of their grain was being exported from the soviet union under Kruschev which prevented a full on famine though after the soviets collapsed there was the special period where that grain was no longer available.

 

[ATP]

Here once we get to the cold war Africa and Latin AMerica receive greater prominence in the Cold War struggle, there is still an Asian and particularly middle eastern component especially when the oil shock hits but Brezhnev has to contend with a significant geopolitical shake up as the fifties play out. The soviets post WW2 historically looted all industrial and scientific assets that they could wherever the Red Army was it just here even with Trotsky dead there is still Che among several other prominent Revolutionary Marxist Leninists in South and Latin America who with a soviet union that is trying to take advantage of decolonization at the expense of in particular W.European powers that puts a number of radical ideas in the fore.

A lot of the things that Maoist China did as part of the great leap forward came directly from Soviet intellectuals prominently Lysenko but others as well that were tried in places like Cuba just not the same extreme deep plowing and close planting come to mind but Cuba made it out okay because most of their grain was being exported from the soviet union under Kruschev which prevented a full on famine though after the soviets collapsed there was the special period where that grain was no longer available.

Click to shrink...

Good,but smaller soviets without commie China mean weaker soviets.They would get less countries in Africa and South America here becouse of that.
And they could fall earlier - they should fall becouse of economy between 1970-1980,but germans saved them when they gave them technology in 1969 to drill on Siberia.
Witchout that,we would be free earlier.Another reason to curse germans.

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1922
The wind paused.

Allen, standing among the other well bred parents, watched as the girl put the arrow where she wanted it. It was a fine enough sport, Joseon had it, Japan did as well, and it seemed prudent to give girls some form of martial experience besides just war gaming... though in truth he had no strong opinions one way or another. Whatever the case it was apart of the education curriculum in the public schools. There was a girls archery team as a result and the schools competed against one another, and that seemed sensible.

Ordinarily of course he simply did not have the time to take with the fighting, and frankly just with the expanse of the industry to involve to thoroughly appreciate never mind participate in the the education committee's work. Certainly not primary education. Cullen who was here with some of hishalf siblings nodded... probably feeling equally as out of place as to what they were here. Their opportunity for small talk had been interfered with by this unexpected duty of state. Ordinarily this time of year, and appearances at public functions still allowed them to cut up among themselves.

"Mother Mei said that archery was one of the six noble arts," He remarked as the girls assembled back around a statue of the Goddess Guan-yin with their teachers, "Still this is a pretty young match for us to be here."

"Don't you have a niece in this batch here?" He questioned making sure to keep his voice low.

"Sure, my half sister grew up shooting recurve..." He blew out a breath, "Which reminds me she wants to learn how to fly an airplane."

Allen nodded, there had been a time when he'd been a lot louder, brash, that he too had wanted to learn to fly a plane... but with age, and seeing what war entailed he had decided that he didn't have the time for those kinds of lessons. The railway had taken his time, and then leading men into battle, "I suppose she has the time for it," He glanced sideways to where Jun was speaking to another woman. Augustus looked less than enthused. They had left the younger boys with the nannies, but he supposed Jun was right Augustus was eight now... and frankly his school was participating there were a lot of parents here.

A significant number of the men were in uniform so it wasn't as if Cullen or he stood out. Allen in point of fact knew most of the officers here, and there were senior enlisted men whose children attended as well as the children of foremen and other senior factory personnel. Education was supposed to be compulsory and universal and the best way to insure that was to make it very clear that attendance was demonstrated by front facing folks for everyone else to see.

There was a glance thrown towards his gray uniform. Augustus was dressed stiffly in school uniform, which was not modified on military lines, instead being strictly civilian dress of oxfords, and khaki slacks. The school's uniform reminded him of the one his brother Daniel had worn. Daniel was in London, military attaché there. Daniel had gone to Yale instead of West Point... which had made their mother happy enough... and besides Daniel had been the younger brother. His maternal grandfather had been less keen on it, regardless of the usefulness of networking with other proper families.

It was that which clued him in to their reason for being here.

The school uniforms were distinctly non military. Some of the schools in other provinces copied the uniforms of the beiyang. Yan's compulsory public school had instituted a dress code based on Japanese models. It was, therefore kind of ironic that Xian's premier school for children from good families should share a uniform with the schools for the same in Shanghai.

He decided he wasn't going to mention it.
--
The meeting was off the books so to speak. It was an exploratory committee and one he'd only decided on the week before... and if he had put it on the calendar officially this close to elections then well it would have created chatter that he didn't want.

This wasn't the sort of meeting that would be able to be kept discrete. The complete staff of three general grade officers was just too many men. Allen had been able to run some stripe of cover by ordering the snap mobilization of 1st ​Regiment on the auspices of being a drill, which coincidentally Cullen had ordered 1st​ Commando to do as well. Bill and Allen had both communicated to Shang and Lee at 8th​ and 3rd​ Divisions respectively that this was an exercise and that things were fine but in truth they had already agreed to bring the two senior generals into discussions sooner rather than later.

Cullen stirred his coffee and sat down one of the last men to do so as they gathered drinks and papers aplenty. The smoking room had no one smoking in it. Some of the men did smoke but no one was at the moment. It hadn't escaped Allen that he'd had conversations related to this one with Shang before... and with Cullen... and with Bill. Never formalized discussions like, never putting it before the staff like this. Szechwan was a mess, and getting into a protracted border war was precisely what they didn't want to do.

"We have been talking about reorganizing into Corps for a while now." Bill began.

Allen shook his head, "That's not quite what this is about," Though the year previous they had reviewed papers pushed up from the staff college of a 6-5 arrangement for an expeditionary force that remained a popular talking point within army circles.

The Texan flashed a grin, "I know, but given who all is here," His expression swept across the officers, " well Percy thinks, and he told the Legation that was what this was about over the wires." In a way, as he too went looking at the men who were here that made sense. Elections were right around the corner but he knew that the Foreign Office and State had mixed views on such events as it related to the army. Percy's assumption given the presence here could easily have been reinforced by preconceived notions of such.

Percy assumed probably rightly since he'd known the longest and probably had a good measure of them that they would expand the army. He probably assumed that they would do so sooner and London didn't seem to be able to make up its mind about how it felt about that... some opposed the militarized posture, and spending on the army, where other voices in the foreign office and elsewhere suggested tighter cooperation. Churchill was one of those men... they had gotten that from both ends of the communications. From Percy and Alston as well as from men in London directly, including his brother Daniel in the US embassy.

As a result of Percy's misconception they might potentially be able to play this off... or it might give them a headache. The assembled staff officers were handed compiled folders of the Army's history going back to the RPF and also the hurdles of procurement for weapons. A reminder of times when uniforms never mind standard service pistols and rifles had not been so common.

Not as many of the men in this room were veterans of the RPF as would have been the case a decade earlier when the Army had started to really take shape. Men had retired, or died. Now, unlike in 1912 there were generals, and full staffs of officers. This was going to be a long conversation, and one probably long overdue as well. "We must discuss that the Army is not simply a hammer. That it must be a force of administration and that it will have to supervise and administer areas when we operate or cooperate with power structures that are not our own." He stated beginning the conversation in earnest. "We must however also recognize the time tables that organized a railway did not by itself provide safety. That required force of arms," The RPF initially... but hte railway was what allowed them to penetrate into the inland country far from China's sorrow... and in truth this conversation was long overdue, "We have begun," before even, "Since 1920 to erect by definition a federal civil service in the provinces the army must recognize that. The Army will need men for its very with grounding in learning, and a dedication to the missions put forward..."

--
Notes: Formatting XF 2 issues will be fixed shortly.

 

[Unique]

It was a fine enough support, Joseon had it, Japan did as well, and it seemed prudent to give girls some form of martial experience besides just war gaming

Click to shrink...

I just wanted to know if people supported this during the time period? I have heard women practiced archery but the people were very conservative especially the Ming and Qing dynasty period so I was quite surprised when Xian allowed archery for the women.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I just wanted to know if people supported this during the time period? I have heard women practiced archery but the people were very conservative especially the Ming and Qing dynasty period so I was quite surprised when Xian allowed archery for the women.

Click to shrink...

This is pretty well attested to in primary sources for the 19th century, particularly because missionaries complained about it generally because this was common with buddhist temples hosting these kinds of things but it is also something that is localized principally in the northern portion of China this is reported less frequently in the south that may have something to do with crossbows or not (I doubt it has anything to do with religious affiliations) but in the 19th century traditional archery was practiced by both genders. There is a valid question of how much of this was participatory (what percentage of people actually did) during the late Qing large public gatherings became more in vogue certainly in terms of primary sources Japan absolutely had a bigger recorded number / instances of female archery but we do know it existed in Korea and during the late Qing. [It also is not strictly a manchu, or mongol tradition, I want to point that out, because we have primary sources that explicitly establish upper class northern han participating]

How many upper class women participated I would probably guess not a lot in China as a whole, or I could be wrong and that the lower middle classes of landholding farmers might have but that goes to what people have time for, Gender norms particularly outside of the coastal cities varied wildly province to province and primary sources, typically from missionaries, do not paint a coherent or necessarily wholly accurate picture of what rural china looked like

That being said the reason this probably did not achieve success is part of the broader failure of education reforms. Compulsory education basically languished as a reform policy so you didn't have much in the way for the development of school sports develop the way you had in late Meiji era japan or early Japanese occupation of Korea (again Joseon Korea educational reforms were strongly influenced by the United States, and Japan, and of course Japan did take control of the country so after 1910 Japanese style school organization became the norm). Additionally it seems likely that women's archery would also have run afoul of two other modernizing factors in coastal cities, the first is that a lot of schools were foreign run and secondly for those schools that weren't most of the 'reformers' were heavily opposed (you see this in primary sources) to old timey traditions, there is a large backlash against traditional folk religion, confucius, martial arts in general in places like Shanghai among academia and literati circles within 1900-1920.

 

[Unique]

This is pretty well attested to in primary sources for the 19th century, particularly because missionaries complained about it generally because this was common with buddhist temples hosting these kinds of things but it is also something that is localized principally in the northern portion of China this is reported less frequently in the south that may have something to do with crossbows or not (I doubt it has anything to do with religious affiliations) but in the 19th century traditional archery was practiced by both genders. There is a valid question of how much of this was participatory (what percentage of people actually did) during the late Qing large public gatherings became more in vogue certainly in terms of primary sources Japan absolutely had a bigger recorded number / instances of female archery but we do know it existed in Korea and during the late Qing. [It also is not strictly a manchu, or mongol tradition, I want to point that out, because we have primary sources that explicitly establish upper class northern han participating]

How many upper class women participated I would probably guess not a lot in China as a whole, or I could be wrong and that the lower middle classes of landholding farmers might have but that goes to what people have time for, Gender norms particularly outside of the coastal cities varied wildly province to province and primary sources, typically from missionaries, do not paint a coherent or necessarily wholly accurate picture of what rural china looked like

That being said the reason this probably did not achieve success is part of the broader failure of education reforms. Compulsory education basically languished as a reform policy so you didn't have much in the way for the development of school sports develop the way you had in late Meiji era japan or early Japanese occupation of Korea (again Joseon Korea educational reforms were strongly influenced by the United States, and Japan, and of course Japan did take control of the country so after 1910 Japanese style school organization became the norm). Additionally it seems likely that women's archery would also have run afoul of two other modernizing factors in coastal cities, the first is that a lot of schools were foreign run and secondly for those schools that weren't most of the 'reformers' were heavily opposed (you see this in primary sources) to old timey traditions, there is a large backlash against traditional folk religion, confucius, martial arts in general in places like Shanghai among academia and literati circles within 1900-1920.

Click to shrink...

So to summarize, it was practiced in northern China and there are sources of it. Also the information that i received might be skewed in some way or the other. Also the north-south divide also played a role. Can one of the reasons be because the north was closer to the nomadic horsemen with bows as compared to the south?

 

[Imperator Pax]

So to summarize, it was practiced in northern China and there are sources of it. Also the information that i received might be skewed in some way or the other. Also the north-south divide also played a role. Can one of the reasons be because the north was closer to the nomadic horsemen with bows as compared to the south?

Click to shrink...

nail on the head. I think probably the greater ability for hunting and equestrian tradition played a part and I suspect that it being difficult to maintain those traditions in the south lead to their decline during Qianlong's reign, but I can't conclusively prove that. I would speculate that this practice suffered further with the atomization of the warlord era, and certainly the second sino japanese war and with the backlash against traditional culture particularly in Shaanxi with the great leap forward it disappears from life as a result of the cultural revolution. Here in this story in timeline terms this is part of a implementing of a compulsory education reform that has the ability to look back to traditional claims, and since xian emphasizes martial prowess this has more acceptance than Shanghai's literati who predominantly came from merchant families affiliated with the customs and revenue service.

 

[ATP]

nail on the head. I think probably the greater ability for hunting and equestrian tradition played a part and I suspect that it being difficult to maintain those traditions in the south lead to their decline during Qianlong's reign, but I can't conclusively prove that. I would speculate that this practice suffered further with the atomization of the warlord era, and certainly the second sino japanese war and with the backlash against traditional culture particularly in Shaanxi with the great leap forward it disappears from life as a result of the cultural revolution. Here in this story in timeline terms this is part of a implementing of a compulsory education reform that has the ability to look back to traditional claims, and since xian emphasizes martial prowess this has more acceptance than Shanghai's literati who predominantly came from merchant families affiliated with the customs and revenue service.

Click to shrink...

Thanks for explanation,archery lessons would help students to focus,so i hope that your China would keep it.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1922
Elections were critically important one would say, especially that the results be trustworthy. The papers were awash with pictures, and columns of words talking about stand tall, and, rushing towards the outcome. The provincial constitutions required elections of th e lower house on schedule every two years, and there were still lesser posts, county and municipality elections which also had to be held as established by lesser laws.

The papers talked also of other things.

Socialism had failed to find much reception in the United States because it lacked Middle class proprietary, because it was associated with bomb throwing anarchist and so on . That association discouraged prim and proper shop keepers, and land owning farmers from having any interest in such things, and the Bolsheviks with their grain seizures and their attempts to couch things in militarized language and socialism this and that, and 'war communism' discredited them to the peasantry, and to the farmers and landholders who all aspired to respectability.

The turnout this year was good, and initial poll reports from a variety of public and private sources laid out the projected results, even as the tabulating machines were still counting punch card ballots. The lower house would likely have a large number of men holding onto their seats. The franchise had expanded somewhat in two years and that meant there was margin shift. There would be some changes.

Much like the election of 1920 it was a turnout that Percy qualified as a Khaki election. Realistically Allen figured given the size of the steel industry, or the railway, that those might be a little more accurate... but the brits watched the Army go to the polls in their uniforms... the ones who didn't vote early anyway. Men went to their home districts as groups of chums to cast their votes as Percy had quipped. Cullen had gone out this morning with a number of his staff, and a mix recent graduates of the gendarmes college to vote.

The papers talked about how the bolsheviks stole grain from the peasantry and were selling it abroad to buy weapons. The papers did this not just to stir up anti-bolshevik sentiment, but also as a way to throw askance looks towards the unruly mobs of bandits to the south in the agriculturally productive regions of the Yangtze. That Szechwan should have been rich. That Yunnan and Kwangsi should have been as sub tropical expanses that should not have been troubled by famine, or lack of funds went for the most part unsaid.

The papers disclosed that not only was the grain stolen it was then sold cheaply to European nations.... and that hinted at insidious machinations. The papers did not have the audience to delve into the matter of grand strategy, there were social clubs for public discussion of those sorts of things. That had been a change of pace of the late Qing where such gatherings had become socially acceptable.

Most men were also working today efforts had been made to allow them to go to the polls in shifts, and frankly that was really the whole reason for mechanical punch card ballots. Cast your vote on a standardized form, and then gather around the radio tonight when the announcements of the results came. It wasn't just the men on the factory floor, the reason that an apparatus existed for the army to vote early was if they needed to be mobilized and pushed to deal with a problem.

The elections being in early November like the states was based around agriculture, but it also took into account that any summer flooding should be over by this point of the year. There were still other factors, but it could be rendered down to the fact that most the world was still agrarian, and that included China for however large her great cities were, and however peopled her provinces were so things were planned for how things were not for how one wished them to be. The broadsheets for the man around town reflected this also with what they reported to the masses. Allen drummed his finger tips on his desk aware that Percy was scrutinizing Shang's chief of staff as he did so. Graves finally settled probably all too aware that Xian expected the officers to remain with their side arms... and be proficient with them.

"How are things in London?"

Percy's smile thinned, "Not bad," He replied, "You had a cable this morning."

"Just Daniel's salutations, he knew the elections are today," Just that he hadn't quite got the timing right for the difference, "He can't exactly call from London," Frankly there wasn't yet a commercial service for handling phone calls, which was why they still did trade missions.

Percy nodded, "Your papers aren't exactly happy."

"The bolsheviks can sell stolen grain under market prices. Lenin wants to do that that's fine, but I'll have nothing having to do with it. I'll buy my grain from the states," That Curzon had been attracted by the prospect of buying cheap soviet grain dumped on the market was concerning, "And I will attempt to support improved agriculture in Central Asia," The investment of capital to support agronomists who could take steps to manage water conservancy, dig tube wells, and soil work, "but buying grain stolen from farmers besides being morally reprehensible is providing aid to the bolsheviks that will be used to buy weapons against us later."

And the us in that statement while meant in broad terms was for the papers generally interpreted more as at some point the soviets would try something stupid as their 'revolutionary bridge' nonsense of attack. The staff expected that despite 'assurances', for all that those were worth, in the international community that the soviets recognized the independence of post Russian imperial territories and so on, that they would eventually attempt to reconquer territories...

Export of grain to Latvia two years earlier had come with the demand that they recognize the Kharkiv based puppet state in Ukraine... and Curzon seemed to be laboring heavily under the misunderstanding that the Bolsheviks ideology was just window dressing and that for all their revolutionary posturing the bolshevik leadership were Russian chauvinists with tsarist educations and thus motives. Percy shuffled uncomfortably with this for the truth was it was about the balance of trade. The Bolsheviks were exporting more than just cheap grain, they were also exporting timber as well for hard currency and in turn that hard currency was being spent for goods of British manufacture. "Harding... we think at least means to take things to the papers to air his grievances as well."

That wasn't surprising, not really. The muckrakers needed something to do, and Lenin's 'war communism' bit and Trotsky carrying on in the papers, never mind telegrams made very clear what had gone on over the last few years. Shang took a seat, "We do not like that the language of Trotsky and Lenin foppishly employs military terms to obfuscate their banditry." Percy nodded regarding the Chinese general before sitting down as well, "If Mister Hoover does go to the papers to complain then there will be complaints?"

"Yes, yes of course there will be complaints... but it was Harding I should observe that wanted, and campaigned on getting things back to normal." Percy remarked

He regretted that response when Shang asked, "So it was normal to buy stolen grain before the war?"

"No, no of course not, but trade with the Russians was normal. We could buy Russian wheat at market before the war." Percy attempted to change subjects knowing he was in a losing engagement in part because when Omsk had collapsed it had caused a flood of further immigrants from Russia a not unsubstantial number to settle in northern China including Xinjiang. "The bank of Japan is talking about potentially another round of loans. Are you worried about that?"

It had taken them about eight months to get to this point, but Allen was all too aware that it was the second serious banking crisis Japan had had in basically two years... there had been one in 1920 that could have been written off as just the market shedding in the global post war recession. "I won't say I'm not concerned." But the bank was doing something, "We're going to watch the situation." They would, Xian decided it didn't like the structural factors that had caused things, especially when those factors were magnified by the following year's earthquake it put them on alert for other problems so no one was quite surprised when what came to be known as the Great Showa Financial Crisis began to break in January of 1927.

 

[ATP]

Thanks for chapter!
except stolen grain and timber,you should add church and private owners gold ,as well as paintings - all what they could soviets sell to West.

And, where is Ossendowski in your story?
Here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdynand_Antoni_Ossendowski&ved=2ahUKEwiKh7v296KMAxXvKxAIHY3ZOmQQFnoECBAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1cvqCMwnSCS4glW_h3CyQH

In OTL,he arleady returned to Poland,but in your story,you could keep in Siberia or China.

And,remember about soviet agent Roerich - he would come to China and Tibet between 1925 and 1928.
Here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Roerich&ved=2ahUKEwiHiZmomcOIAxXuCRAIHd-0LoQQFnoECBsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0Szlb8RjKiKo9tFovh3nmX

He was soviet agent - but rather shitty,so you could use him as comic relief.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Thanks for chapter!
except stolen grain and timber,you should add church and private owners gold ,as well as paintings - all what they could soviets sell to West.

And, where is Ossendowski in your story?
Here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdynand_Antoni_Ossendowski&ved=2ahUKEwiKh7v296KMAxXvKxAIHY3ZOmQQFnoECBAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1cvqCMwnSCS4glW_h3CyQH

In OTL,he arleady returned to Poland,but in your story,you could keep in Siberia or China.

And,remember about soviet agent Roerich - he would come to China and Tibet between 1925 and 1928.
Here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Roerich&ved=2ahUKEwiHiZmomcOIAxXuCRAIHd-0LoQQFnoECBsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0Szlb8RjKiKo9tFovh3nmX

He was soviet agent - but rather shitty,so you could use him as comic relief.

Click to shrink...

Yeah the church treasures will come up later in disccussion with the british, either with Mountbatten or more likely with Alston or some other society stand in.

I would assume he would have remained in Mongolia with Ungern since Ungern remains in control of Mongolia with a large buffer state between him and the soviets, it is possible that he returned to Poland or in fact might well be Ungern's ambassador to the US or Britain if not now then in the near future

 

[ATP]

Yeah the church treasures will come up later in disccussion with the british, either with Mountbatten or more likely with Alston or some other society stand in.

I would assume he would have remained in Mongolia with Ungern since Ungern remains in control of Mongolia with a large buffer state between him and the soviets, it is possible that he returned to Poland or in fact might well be Ungern's ambassador to the US or Britain if not now then in the near future

Click to shrink...

Well,private treasures,too.Not only aristocrats,i read about case where CZK tortured all tatars in one region becouse they supposed to be rich and have gold !
And ,if you want funny moments,use Roerich as soviet shitty spy.He really was shitty and stupid enough to belive that marxism could be mixed with buddhism! but not stupid enough to return to soviet union,so he die from old age in India in 1946,not in 1937 from bullet in soviets.
Fun thing - Sralin murdered then some idiots who belived that Adharts really existed,and tried to found it!
Hitler forget to do so,so we had 3 german expedition to Tibet which seek Agharta.....

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1923

The last six months, the winter hadn't been all that easy on any one. But the cadre had accepted that Hodges death had probably been preventable which made it worse. It was still a hard loss, even though the man had officially retired after the elections. They hadn't had his seat filled, and that absence was sorely felt as the year had turned. At least it could be said that he had overseen what he had meant to, Tibet's constitution had been in place long enough and it had a legislature that had held elections, and filled seats in November on schedule and without incident. Were that something that could be said for the for the whole of the country maybe they wouldn't have been looking at little stamped metal boxes with springs in them as intently as most the working group was.

Magazines had been the stumbling point in the logistical chain. They had already been used to producing ammunition. 45 caliber. 35 Browning. 8 mm Mauser. They were the working calibers of the army there were second line cartridges as well that the Arsenal produced but in a much more limited scale by comparison. It shouldn't have been complicated, but it was a small thing.

The Rifle Divisions, 1st​,3rd​,and 8th​were slated for the next universal short rifle with detachable magazines. They had probably lucked out there by not trying to do the whole army at the same time even just adding 2nd​and 4th​Divisions might have meant that they weren't ready. It had taken two years from adoption of the final pattern design after testing, and to spin up manufacturing for springs and followers, body, and baseplates. Now they were in the process of having 1st and 3rd Divisions work through a million rounds of Mauser ammunition for testing and evaluation purposes.

It had been a more troublesome hurdle with the magazines for the Browning rifles...but that had been for larger magazines. There had been more experimentation as the project developed than just ten and twenty round magazines. Browning's rifle was semi automatic and 35 Browning was ideal as a cartridge at the ranges men were fighting and killing one another at.

There were reasons of scale to keep 8mm mauser, running a machine gun was one of the more important was. 3rd ​Division under Lee was trialing the browning rifles at a company scale with their new trucks. It was machine guns where the issue lay. Sustainment in a company though was easier than trying to worry about mixing calibers further down. The lewis guns could be could be kept fed and defended by men with rifles; that was to say 8mm Mauser rifles.

There were other things they were experimenting with. Cullen gestured to the bakelite stock, "This doesn't expand like wood will in heat and cold. Its not metal so it doesn't bite a man without gloves on either in extremes. Its lighter, it also lets us build the stock inline with the shoulder." That would make the Browning easier to control...that long action, especially 8mm Mauser was difficult for smaller men to tame. Even then it helped larger men to have a mechanical advantage. "Putting the sights on the receiver expands the sights radius, and gives us better options for accommodating an inline scope. The stock also will better accommodate that," He gestured to the long curved form of a twenty round magazine

3rd​Division was slated for wide scale troop trials of these for a simple reason. The mountain division with its lighter artillery operated across a wider range of environments. They were a better choice to test these rifles than 1st ​or 8th​divisions. "If a fight comes," He let the comment hang.

"Lee knows the trade." Cole replied, "Bill is sure he can get his boys moving if things go sideways so he would have help in a hurry anyway."

"When things go sideways." Allen corrected, not that he disagreed. Bill officially in light of everything else held dual command of an Army Brigade and also was responsible for the western brigade of the Air Force, which was predominantly structured around a training and evaluation group based at the Lake for flying spotting and communications. He was also responsible for chairing the oil committee, which was a lot of engineering work so two regiments of Heavy Engineers were on hand at any given time.

Cullen nodded, "You're not wrong." He agreed with a smirk. "I don't like it any more than you brother John." In this case it was the situation in the south. Sun had a long history of failed rebellions under his belt. It was why as much as he wanted recognition from King George's government, and Washington he was unlikely to get it. He just couldn't credibly deliver on claims of leadership.

The doctor didn't seem to grasp that.

But he did seem to recognize he needed help somewhere... and after the mess with Zhang Xun, and Zhang Tso-lin... which was still a head scratcher of an arrangement looking back he had made common cause with some bolshevik thug from the Third International. That wasn't going to win him any sort of fanfare in London, or Washington.

"Lee is confident that he can win against problems."

Allen didn't question that, Bill's former chief of staff was an accomplished campaigner, "And the Regiment?"

"Its three companies of men." Cole replied. "The idea isn't exactly new, get them onto choice ground quickly, find the enemy, fix them in place." And allow the bulk of the larger force to accomplish its mission. "May not have horses, but its cavalry alright."

Lee wouldn't be in charge of 3rd ​Division for much longer. There had been talk about this evolution to the division, and other testing as the army changed, but Lee would probably be promoted up and out ... most probably to an instructional position or as commander of one of the major materiel programs. Efforts to modernize the army's offensive capabilities, or sustainment abilities were being discussed as was appointing him as commandant of the Army Academy. If he took a major materiel command though that would mean Lee would have a role in shaping special regiments that were planned for ETS in the coming year.

The lower house had been sworn in, and opened up the conversation of all sorts of things that needed to be discussed in government. The passing of the election though, also brought relief to the cadre. It allowed them to turn towards other concerns, business concerns like the production of lighter, softer, consumer goods Things, like egg and milk money, and goods that everyone bought for house hold for domestic comfort. That meant expanding the textile market further that meant the technical section examining and licensing for patents, for patenting dyeing processes and other efforts.

There was a lot to be done, a lot that needed to be read. "The central bank will be important as well, but we need to look forward to next year as well." The fall of 24. they had two elections in the lower house, they needed to make sure that things were good for going into that.

"Yeah, Waite is pretty hot on that czech patent, for that loom. If he could get it to work he thinks it'd be something special." Cole remarked running down the collar of his rain proofed field jacket. Then with a shrug he turned over, "Of course we'd be largely selling abroad and the tarriff talks in the congress has got to worry Waite." Allen nodded at this, for it was true, but the loom miraculous as Waite described the air jet system that had been patented if it worked would increase productivity and that would mean people here could buy more for less without a quality drop. Szechwan was a big province, a good sized European country by itself, and their handful of provinces were about the same as well the US Census of 1920 had recorded a population of over a hundred million, which had been something the American Geographical Society had pronounced before the onset of the war in Europe as statically likely. The handful of provinces, those under Cadre auspices, now sat with a population between that of the United Kingdom and the United States which was a very large domestic market to sell too and one that could be expected to expand as urbanization increased.
--
Notes: We enter 1923 with this update, and will continue that with tomorrows as I have social functions tomorrow Ghost (Battletech) should update Sunday as normal