December 1916
Imperator Pax
Talon Master
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December 1916
The mood in the Glory Hotel's bar was a bit odd, not in the usual night affair not for the middle of the week. The cordon of graybacks kept order, but most were officers, the enlisted men at the door all had rifles. "He's drunk." Bill remarked stating the obvious, "I mean its celebratory, but's since he made the phone call had to have at least three more."
There was a mix of sharp dressed figures in western clothes, and Allen caught Nakamichi in the back end of the throng clearly perplexed. "I'll go find find out. Hina said she put his documents behind the bar."
Bill stepped back to let one of the men pass him, "you want me to ring the embassy?"
"His or ours?" Allen asked.
"I mean, to call Colonel Forrest, but yeah, that too."
Allen shook his head, "Let me see what this is about, if its enough for Percy to start buying the whole bar drinks he probably already knows." He paused, "When do you get a minute tell Nakamichi over there I'll talk to him in a minute." It was near to tempting to pull him out entirely and stick him in one of the second storey rooms with a telephone and see if he couldn't dig something out, or-
"And if he asks?"
"Tell him, Old Man Yamagata probably knows," Whatever 'it' was was, "and if he doesn't, we'll tell him." Allen stepped towards the bar, caught a reproving look from his second wife, nodded, and kept walking snagging the bottle left on the counter. "Percy, how many have you had?" He asked taking a glass behind the counter and pouring himself two fingers of peat, salt, and smoke to sip.
"A couple," Percy proclaimed probably louder than intended, as he swayed like he was at sea, "Yes, sorry you must have been burning the midnight oil... though I suppose no one will use that," He swallowed, "anymore. All electric lighting." The Englishman straightened. "Its good news old chap. Asquith is out. Good news for your man Cole, I'd say, they're going to let Smuts into the war ministry." Percy's express and the way his eyes set clearly told what the drunk Englishman thought of that.
Percy's disapproval of letting the old Boer commando in must have seemed to let the wolf bed down with the sheep, or the fox with the hens to the old imperial guard who still believed a sneeze in Whitehall was a hurricane in Africa. "Asquith is Prime minister."
"Was Prime Minister," Percy laughed swaying, "New conductor for the orchestra, Lloyd George has the job now."
"Easy Perce," He grabbed the Englishman, before he could topple. "What else,"
"He's prime minister," He replied, "Change the whole direction of the war." Percy blanched. "The w.c.-"
Fifteen minutes later, "Well Hina is not happy, but at least he didn't give way all on the bar." John Allen put the scotch on table between them, and glanced at the man in the wireframes "So the Brits have a new Prime Minister, I'm sure Yamagata knows, but if you want ring Tokyo from here." He gestured towards the brass receiver.
"Ah yes, thank you very much." Nakamichi went to make his phone call.
If Yamagata didn't know then he would soon.
"Ring the embassy?"
"I'm sure he knows, but yes." They couldn't talk how this might effect business. The Cadre was scattered across north China, Tietsin, Peking, Taiyuan, a half dozen Zhili towns, Zhengzhou, Xian, and plenty in wider Shansi. THat was just how railway tended to shape things.
--
He'd eaten breakfast at the hotel, taken the car up to the arsenal's gallery floor, and then come back down for lunch. Lloyd George winning, becoming PM, and the Election Stateside held significantly in the forward. Opened a series of different notes, that ranged from the averaged prices of pig iron for the year for several countries, Sweden for example 157 kroner, and that was not the only failure to convert to either pounds or at least dollar value. More importantly perhaps than the cost were who was buying what from where, even though it couldn't understated that 'at what price' was important. The swedes continued sell to the French at roughly their pre war volume, but Russian demand for not just pig iron but all other steel products had increased well in excess of pre war trade... and so forth.
The answer for why? Was easy, it was the war of course. The war wasn't going to last forever though, and when it ended there would be a recession... that was just the lesson of history... Governments would want to tighten the belt. There would be no excess funding for naval building programs. The Cadre's hundred membership had contracted at the war onset, or really a bit before, consolidating voting shares, and capital into a much smaller group of the original membership, with new members brought in as a managerial and leadership roles. Where in 1914 there had been a particularly serious concern of distributing, or perhaps even being forced into a situation where the hundred might end up commanding individual platoons if something didn't end up being done with Bai Lang that hadn't played out.
There were enough people in both classes to recognize what was coming... the problem was what to do about it. The Europeans, with their near constant, and shrill insistence that once the war was over capital would return for investment had long since become stale... as had the insistence that their treaty rights be respected. The situation closer still, with the bandits in Honan, and Szechwan would spill over the borders as men were 'driven to the mountains' as the expression went. There were other still more local problems. The Ma clique had to worry about bandits in Gansu's counties as well stirring up trouble... and given the refugees from Kirghiz, and into the Ili river area there would be trouble there. For the 'managerial class' that was less of an issue, their positions in the cadre were not quite ephemeral but more likely to end in a few years, and some had even resigned to rejoin commissions under the preparedness movement back home when asked by General Wood, even as the Virginian in office insisted to keep the states out of the war.
Wilson's position was likely to change. He'd had to accept most of the preparedness suggestions, and with Lansing holding telegrams in reserve just in case. The US was approaching entry, even if it took another year the preparations had already begun. There was no way Wilson would be able to stop the deluge, he'd either go for it or get swept along.
He looked up, "How goes the planning for the festive season?" He inquired as Hina smoothly slid into the chair across from him. The end of another year, the third christmas with no sign that the European war was yet over, and far away from the sounds of the guns, for the Europeans still in China, that made Christmas, and New Years the loudest of parties. That was more an expansion of pre war trends rather than having emerged solely from the war though. "Do you have everything you need?" Even saying it, he knew that ran into the problem of the war. Beef, what couldn't be bought locally, could be sourced abroad particularly from Argentina even though that still meant competing with prices for Britain. The French had the northern fifth of the of their country occupied, but France had always been an agrarian country, and the agriculture sector continued to export goods but was doing so with a diminished work force and and the threat of german U-Boats that also served to drive the cost up.
That created something of an expected expense, and of course the reality was it increased demand for those goods. That was just how people were. "I won't even ask how you happen to know that, but counterfeits aren't anything new." He remarked taking the list from where it had been pushed into the middle of the table. "I assume you want something done?" Hina tilted her head, and he frowned, "Whose doing the counterfeiting."
"You just said you didn't want to know." She pointed out unnecessarily, "Wouldn't it be easier to deal with, after all it isn't as if the British Authorities," She emphasized the words, "Won't do much of the work in Shanghai."
She wasn't wrong. Alston had no sense to what the wider colonial apparatus had played in British positions. The man was terribly out of his depth. That meant that he'd never even considered understanding the situation and the ties and channels official, and behind the curtains, with the Municipal Police Commissioner and the whole international community. "The fakes are Japanese aren't they?"
She spread her hands.
"I'll make a couple calls..." There was some relief that Hina wasn't the sort to set up one of her rivals hotels by tricking them into buying a too good to be true batch of liquor, and spirits just to pull the rug out ahead of the most important season of the year... unless she had a really good reason.
... and the truth was he had been putting a call off about the green gang for a while anyway. Shanghai was only close by when you were in Peking, or Tietsin or other easy access to the coast, otherwise ... well China had few if any direct rail connections and the only one in the north that existed was the British line from Peking-Tietsin that did eventually reach Shanghai. The canals would have been another way to get there, but their increasing state of disrepair made them impractical.
--
The return to the arsenal after lunch was with the expectation someone was going to end up with a lot of egg on their face, and probably a great deal of money along side prestige lost. Percy looked better and apparently had been speaking with his people. Sam had been showing him the completed examples of the three inch mortars. Stokes's original design. The truth was that at some point point the other 'half' of the cadre leadership / owners class were going to have to make trips abroad, much like Cole and Bill had come back from.
Sam snapped the bipod clamps of and pushed Isaac's machine gun onto the display table in the middle so it was directly under the electric light. "This is the latest version of your dwarf," He replied throwing a look over Percy's shoulder at him.
The englishman nodded. They all together cut an odd group. Percy's khaki, and their grays, his Webley and their automatics. Allen scooped the machine gun up, "So how is this going to work Percy,"
"You mean proofing," He sighed, and then grudgingly took the Lewis, struggling against its weight but managing, "Well, as simple as it would be... to just let you proof your own guns, I suppose Smythe will have to just come back out."
"You won't bring an Australian, or South African out. They'll be using them."
"If one could be found I suppose." He happily let Griswold take the light machine gun, and straightened his jacket. "Matheson might be able to be freed up,"
It might have just been the war forcing expediency on the British... but Sam nodded, "If this will suffice, if the funding can be made available for the Ozzies-"
"The Prime Minister that regardless of that dreadful polling nonsense that the Anzacs are Imperial Troops and should be accordingly supplied."
"And the Indians?"
"Well, I'm sure at some point yes," Percy replied, "They're fighting the Turks, its not quite the same." He continued stumbling a bit to protest. Percy departed within the hour, and the two Americans glanced at one another.
"Well?"
"I showed him the Pattern 1914s."
"And?"
"I-" He shrugged, "I could use new tooling."
"I'm going to speak to Duan, I know he's hard up for modern rifles. I think some capital and an offer of rifles we currently in inventory would probably suffice."
"That's an idea."
"Do you have something better?"
Griswold smirked, "He's a red leg, the three inchers we've been using are hydro spring guns, well almost all of our guns are."
"Almost?'
"Well since someone has only just now agreed to new 15cm guns, I've worked up a hydro pneumatic recoil for it."
"Is that what the tinkerers were shooting this morning?" It had sounded more rapid than the Xian based heavy battery, but he hadn't paid much heed to it.
"It was an experiment. Congress is a collection of misers back home, and well then you've got the chiefs-"
"I am not Crozier, and I do not appreciate the comparison to Ordinance."
Griswold raised his hands, "I didn't mean it like that."
"It sure sounded like it."
"I apologize."
Allen stifled the feeling, and exhaled. Then grudgingly apologized in return, "The advantage is that it lets you go faster."
"With a good crew, yes."
"Dawes knows?"
There was a pause, "He wants to stick with the proven hydrosprings, he's not opposed to the idea but he thinks that any serial production begin with the smaller guns."
"That wouldn't be his decision. He wanted the heavy guns, he got them. Have you asked Phillip?" a look in response, "Are you telling me you've had time to fabricate a gun, but you haven't been able to get ahold of Powell?" In 1914 Powell's mentor Adna Chaffee had passed away, and it was a wonder he hadn't cashed out then, "He's still in New York?"
"He's in Washington, at Root's War College."
"How long has he been there?"
Griswold shrugged, "I've no idea, I had thought he was at the Academy." He wondered who else had been laboring under that assumption. "Look I get it, I understand, Phillip wasn't around, and maybe Dawes overstepped, but Phil ain't here... and if you're daddy is right and the war comes, they're gonna promote Phil to lieutenant colonel at least. We certainly won't have him for a minimum of a couple years, assuming he doesn't get killed."
"We'll talk about it..." ... and realistically... there were going to have to be changes. They had been largely going about the war with ersatz measures in the cadre that hadn't reflected how things had been.
--
Notes: Obviously again some of this is clearly foreshadowing to the eventual transition to government, but also the move hydro pneumatic is drawn from lessons the British made, and even within British service going from hydro springs was controversial if not for failures at galliopi wouldn't have happened and even then members of the artillery corp (the historically most professional part of the British army's officer corp) still protested the adoption admittedly on the grounds that they hadn't tested it properly (because there was a war on, but the French had introduced this into a mass produced gun in 1897, and the British had experience with the Mle1897 so eventually the system became standard after the war, but there was surprising resistance to adopting it...).
This also is related to my above discussion with ATP over artillery, if we go back to White Wolf, due to how Krupp did business you could buy pretty much any modern gun they built even in small orders, or licenses to produce really up until July 1914. So In White Wolf the cadre has the technical data packages for the 77 Field cannon (also in British inventory), the 10.5cm (which was used very widely both pre war and even further post, this is the 105x155R cartridge which goes on to be the basis the parent for a number of other cartridges), and the 15cm before the outbreak of the Second Revolution the summer 1913. The 77 and 105 can use the same carriage and follows a rather clear technological progression.
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