Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

Percy was more than a little drunk.

"So gearing up for a fight I hear."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

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

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

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

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

"Do you think they'll come?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So these fortifications are across the mountain?"

"That's right."

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

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

Which was ultimately the point Percy was making.

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

January 1918
Xian was a different sort of noisy. He could hear the maids fussing over Augustus... on the plus side the boy wasn't old enough that he'd be able to remember being an only child... on the other it was abundantly clear the little tyrant wasn't happy. As his father's eldest son Allen had had time to be used to it, the elder Forrest had been lucky to survive childhood. Augustus would grow up used to having brothers, Allen decided.

He then turned back to the papers. Development depended on coordination. That was why the railroad had expanded into related industries. That the steel industry benefited from concrete wasn't a surprise or a shock it was a fact of life. Reinsch didn't have to like it, nor did he really need to then go trying to make it anything other than what it was. He wondered how Powell was doing, Powell would need local iron supplies to fuel the railway's growth, the conditions at market were different than they had been in 1909.

Xian needed better urban planning, the city was growing, and it needed better public utilities. Once upon a time the city had been 'larger' geographically the map showed that, for a city with thousands of years of history they were going to have to plan better. More public schools, more education, which would in theory mean more technicians and office workers, and men who spent their pay checks on industrial goods.

He tapped the pen digging the tip into the newsprint rather than the report. The paper didn't tell him anything he didn't already know from other sources, it just told him what people were reading. When the war ended there would be a shock, all those firms selling to governments would be used to it and prices being high... and European firms would want to go back to the way things had been... which meant France... and probably England too even though he hadn't said as much to Percy ... would start talking about tariffs. He'd have to plan for that, they all would. The cadre accepted that, which meant looking at trying to grow the internal market now as a future substitute, and also importing whatever developments had let the Germans keep up this long fighting the majority of the world's economic productivity either directly or indirectly.

... and of course if their was local demand for goods and burgeoning population to consume them then they wouldn't have to lay off people, that was a plus. Coal mining would need to expand. They needed coal for other industrial processes but especially for a voracious demand for electricity as the city's population got used to electric lights. This year's new year, the festival of the Horse, would have a large demand for electric lights. It was a good that they couldn't import, hadn't been able to import for really almost three years now. First because European suppliers had evaporated earlier still, then because the US's production increasing moved to answer European demand after, and with higher demand and high prices paid it became cheaper to increase production locally.

In literature the vernacular used coopted terms normally assigned to family councils in order to organize expansion. By promulgating internal regulations it created an internal logical framework that could be obeyed ... but that was internal... business law was going to have to be generalized to form a corporate law that provided a framework for other firms to work... but also in order to answer the rather loathsome question of public finance... taxation. The government side of things would need money to fund the army, the police, the courts, the schools, and hospitals.

It bore in mind though that the Qing had largely done the heavily lifting of eliminating the power and legal influence of the Juren as a social literati and elite. The privileges of the old office holders who had passed the eight legged exam had long since stopped having the pool being refilled by new graduates, even before the Xinhai revolt had broken out which had insured the closure of the Hanlin academy. While Jinshi holders were still around they were no longer critically important, and the driving pressure in the public view was to address the bandit problem not necessarily the issues of insuring that cost effective domestic goods could substitute for imports.

The papers wanted to talk about the mess in Hupeh, and the failings of yet another Beiyang advance south despite the 'war faction's' success in largely rallying the Beiyang commanders to it. A reality on that consensus meant that rather than disengaging Szechwan was in fact getting more rowdy, and the fliers were getting more aggressive.

He penned a quick continuation to his still in progress response to Reinsch's letter disputing that the purchasers of goods were harmed by the operation of vertically operating firms before dropping it in the top drawer of the desk for later was the next round of papers came in. Mortars were essential to the newly raised 2nd​ division, but there were increasing numbers of requests from the original three rifle regiments and their seasons troops for Lewis guns, both the original and the lighter model of 1916, as well as other rifles and accoutrements of war. There were requested changes to uniforms and boots, and belts reflective of real service requirements.

It was the sort of thing he liked to read. This was no longer academic, nor was it about equipping a few thousand volunteers. 3rd​ Division was now an inevitability, and there was already chatter among the ranks of a fourth and fifth divisions to address the broad mountainous frontier with 'the verminious southern bandits' a turn of phrase that was being pulled from the local papers.

Speaking of domestic reporting there was government business. The civilian side. It might have been noticed before now, but it was only now being pushed up as medical care in Xian proper that birth registries started recording names. Xian meant Western Peace... which admittedly Allen found rather amusing. Of course Jun was pretty quick to point out this change in the city's name had been merely an attempt by the self aggrandizing Ming to give Face to their new capital 'in the north'. Leaving that aside Shensi also referred to the west.

Xian the other Xian meant immortal, which Jun found amusing.


He paged through another page as the door closed. The new year meant they were approaching talks with the British about steel production, which dredged up discussions previously buried. "I don't think Reinsch believes us."

"If we made what he thought we made we'd already have inked that deal with Ford." Dawes snapped impatiently, though they were rapidly approaching where that was on the books. Instead of turning to look at a new steel mill the capital that had been considered for that institution would be the site of Xian's Ford plant. The first of its kind in China, and the beginning of mass production assembly line production of trucks. "But whether or not he believes it ...."

No it could be a problem.

Part of it was Reinsch wasn't career state department. He had little experience with the war department either... and fundamentally Reinsch was an idealist, not a realist. So on top of questions about whether or not would the British renew, and if so would they renew for another year in April or just for six months, there were the questions of if they cut back on demand due to access to Pittsburgh that Japan would purchase what they could... which would annoy John Jordan who was already grouchy over Nishihara's presence... especially given part of the reason Japan was interested in expanding their purchases was because the steel they produced passed British standards of inspection, so it would meet the industrial needs of that Japan used which were themselves based on British standards.

Still couldn't do anything for them about armor plate, but there was no helping that. Japan would have a bottleneck there... it couldn't be helped. He knew there was a public fundraising for a new BattleShip called the Nagato, she'd been lain down a few months earlier, and her sister ship Mutsu was due to start this summer. The Japanese Navy attache at New Years had talked longingly about expanding their aid to their British allies in the Mediterranean, but he doubted Nagato would ever see a ship of the Kaiser's fleet...

"We'll have a problem if some muckraking peckerwood actually thinks we make a million for each haul of iron," Bill grunted, he wrapped the desk to ward it off, "Did you see that cable of him sticking off to the station chief in Columbia?"

He had actually. A courier from civil affairs had actually sent him a copy before their own people had transmitted it over. "I saw it," And a million dollars was a lot of money. He hadn't actually pulled the Latin America Division's broadsheet, he could have asked for it from State, but he had no reason to doubt Reinsch that a million dollars was one seventh of annual investment in the country... "I saw the response to it."

Dawes snorted, "Yeah, well its about time someone told the professor to mind his own business, the undersecretary might get some hell from Washington, Reinsch being friends with the president." It was past time though, Reinsch had been having these sorts of 'moral lectures' to his state department colleagues for a few years now... he'd lectured the previous US ambassador to Japan about his ties to Pittsburgh's wealthy ... and from the sound of it didn't like the associations of the man's replacement much either... and well... that was going to be something to think about too, "Him sticking his nose about what goes on in Latin America is a problem, he can't do anything about it, but the Virginian, and that Yankee from New York."

"Phillip is going to have to learn to deal with it." He had wanted to jump in the water, if it was cold he shouldn't be surprised... but, "I wouldn't worry about it though."
--
Homophones, what different words sounded alike and could have different meanings played a varied role. Poetry came to mind, but there were other applications. It was more than simply conveying a message though.

People needed to be able to read sure, but they really needed stuff written to them the way they talked. The newspapers that they published, or provided direct support to did not publish their columns in the high and inflated stylized memorandums of the old dynasty's court language, but a simplified language of how people actually talked day to day

Though it hadn't happened until after Yuan Shikai had passed away the text books both for children and also like the infantry primers had followed this trend. Now it moved to popular literature with books being published in vernacular, or at least vernacular northern, Chinese and focused on stories of imminently human people. Rather than the cardboard figures of virtuous paragons and bloodsucking fiends the emphasis were on every men living in relatable flawed, and changing societies. That wasn't to say that stereotypes were absent, that stock characters didn't make appearances.

A novelization for young men apart of the local boy scouts, and the tradition of scouting lionized Charles Gordon. It simultaneously portrayed the Taiping rebels as rapacious southern bandits stripping the country side like locusts... and perhaps he might have been reading a bit too much into it, but Allen suspected that the writer....

... who despite the pseudonym used, was probably an officer of the RPF or 1st​ Regiment during the the White Wolf rebellion and had intentionally adapted the conflict against Bai Lang as the basis for his novelization of events. It certainly emphasized scouting skills and values, but there were anachronisms in the book itself.

It was a very popular novel all the same competing with the much more realistic portrayal of middle of the road everymen with real flaws who struggled on a daily basis.

These were the sorts of things that made into the day's briefing, though they weren't daily updates... but with first of the year increasingly behind them and 1918 underway there were more things to contend with. There would probably be some complaints ... from both rigorous Confucians and the missionaries about moral ambiguities and lack of heroic solutions... but at least he had some forewarning about that potential problem.

Cullen snorted trying to contain his laughter as he and and several other black uniformed officers of the gendarmes laughed at a recently published political satirical comic that lampooned everyone involved in the first opium war. It was a thinly veiled anti-war comic that portrayed both sides and all major figures as high handed arrogant buffoons...

Its layout strongly suggested the comic had probably been written or illustrated or both by a western educated southerner. It portrayed Palmerston, Lin, and the Elliots as all equally embarrassing, with the Minister Elliot being slapped in the face for trying to tell the Admiral of the Nelson he should only use 'old ammunition'. Presumably a diatribe attacking both politicians who wanted to meddle in military affairs for their own reasons, and also militarists who wanted to rush into a conflict just so they could test new weapons (in the case of the comic the lethal iron steamer nemesis when she'd been state of the art).

In short it made fun of everyone, and very likely was meant to to criticize the Beiyang government and the British and probably the 'southern government' since Lin's rivals in the comic looked suspiciously like a spectacled farmers tan doctor rather than a more realistically suave clear skinned mandarin. Someone was clearly unhappy.

"One of the university students?" Cole questioned waving one sheet up.

He thought of the list of people who had publicly swore not to be politic in publishing, "You don't think its one of the professors?"

"I suppose it could be, but its more anti war, and I'm surprised they were radical enough to pick something so recent."

Radical, and recent when they were talking about a dust up that had happened eight decades earlier almost... but maybe that was because they hadn't had any better options, had did you put the war in Europe in historical context. Whatever the case this was another example of modern literary styles using previous historical events, historical events to make commentary on current ones.

There was a sly look he didn't like creep over his childhood friend's expression, "So about the fly boys, we getting near to standing them up or not?"

"Don't look at me like I've got the juice for that Cullen. Not with so much else going on."

"That's funny coming from you brother John. We ought to get it done."

He suspect that if truth be told Cole had already probably started asking around his brigade about men with mechanical aptitude, men who'd be willing to learn to fly if only they could get the planes. The truth was that wasn't a terrible idea, but there had been push back in finances about advancing the filibusters the money so unilaterally, "We don't have the planes, and we're going to need men who want to learn to fly, and who can then teach other men to fly. Just need time for it, lets wait until the spring is here."

"I hold you on that." Cullen raised the mug of tea he was drinking. "As for the votes, tell Dawes we put radios in them they'll be more dangerous than any amount of guns we could put on them at this stage with the engines we have."

They didn't need to tell Dawes that. A plane with a radio to relay for his heavy bastards... Dawes knew that well enough. "Do not bring it up at the next cadre," The needed to wait until spring came.

"I won't say anything," Unless someone else brought it up, but that went unsaid.
--
Notes: So in particular this is going up, because June is almost here. We will not be through this arc before fall, but we are approaching the end of the arc in July 1918 which will have epilogue 1 and epilogue 2 will take place as a transition into the prologue of the next arc in 1919 establishing the end of world war 1 from a de facto western perspective. There are some things in the next few months that I need to expand on, there are some books I need to read, and reread regarding the early Russian civil war but that is the direction we are heading into.

Its funny that destroyermen's cliche villians got brought up, this section on literature, loosely touching on chinese literature was actually written months ago.

 

[Imperator Pax]

January 1918
The rifle barked, but instead of the need to rack the bolt, which for most men meant coming offline entirely it then barked again, and again. Until the five round magazine was empty. "I'd say he likes it." Cole false whispered in amused candor as the hawk faced major brought the rifle to rest against his hip, pulled the spent magazine out and rocked the new one into place.

Much as with Liu's Rifle design the gun was too expensive to outfit a whole army... much as it loathed him to recognize that financial burdensome weight. Ordinance could hang the rest of their complaints about such innovations as magazine fed self loaders but they were at least correct that the cost of such a rifle in time to construct and machining was a bit much.

Unlike with Liu's rifle, or variations on Brownings 1900 rifle Lewis's new gun operated by a piston that was driven backwards under gas pressure. That might not on its surface as struck anyone as particularly novel given that was how his machine gun operated, but the long stroke of the gas piston was a simplification of the gun. It still could fire in short bursts effectively, but the gas regulator was tuned such that it could operate from closed bolt, and thus be an accurate rifle. It would get hot... but well that was physics.

The major wasn't the first man who'd gotten a go, and they had pointedly kept the gun in single shots, but the rapid fire demonstrated its utility. Assault Phase Rifle. The gun for sweeping in and breaking the enemy's line in twain.

Part of the matter was the reorientation of the gun from how it was on the light machine gun. The gas block, the whole piston had been reoriented to be atop the barrel. "The barrel is too long." Waite muttered, "And don't tell me its cause I'm too damn short, you royal oak son of bitch, I'm closer in height to most of the fellows."

Waite wasn't short, but he might have had a point. They were trending towards shorter barrels, and this wasn't short. "Griswold?"

"He ain't wrong," the other georgian replied to his inquiry, "Its still shorter than the original 98. Lewis has reduced the shroud, and the rate of fire in the design." It wasn't really a shroud any more so much as there were flat fins underneath the hand guard that forced heat to radiate from the barrel... "I do think the pistol grip could be a bit bigger as well, but its as you see accurate enough for government work"

It would never be adopted by the War Department. Ordinance would see to that. Crozier and his clique would strangle it dead... and Isaac probably already knew that regardless of his letter talking about his sending to be tested... which was probably why he'd made sure they'd gotten a copy as well. Maybe history would vindicate him maybe it wouldn't... maybe the bastards in ordinance would chance on something better, maybe congress would take a ballpeen hammer to get them into spec. "What about the other one?"

"The pistol?"

"Its a handful... actually it could probably do with being a bit bigger." Waite grunted an affirmative, "A burst of 45 government works pretty well in Nick's shoot house." Cole nodded, he sounded particularly smug.

"Yeah..." He started to say something

"They ain't ready." Grisworld cut him off, "You can take the guns up against those gangsters when they're ready but I'm still working on them. I will give you no end of hell if you take them up against bandits in the field, what your commandos want be demanded. They can just as well wait."

The Commandos were a nominal battalion sub unit within the Gendarmes, itself as a nominal brigade, that predated the standing up of the Gendarmes as separate force. So inevitably 1st​ Regiment would start running requests up the chain for the new guns to test out as well if they started arriving for use by the specials.

They tittered off about magazines, that brief intransigent acrimony between technocrats fading after a minute. Lewis's action was the most feasible of developments from his gun. The pan magazine needed refinements, but was in many aspects itself a visible dead end already. The action and feed though could be branched into a rifle, and a machine gun, both of which would begin as magazine fed rifles, but the latter would develop into a belt fed feed. The cooling shroud would take decades to make its next improvement, after new machining techniques were developed only then would it be revived for use and that was far far in the future.

--
A year from now... or really... truthfully in about fifteen months they'd look back at all of this with the benefit of hindsight and scowl and curse, and stamp their feet in disgust. The truth was complicated. It wasn't black and white... though thinking it was was part of what with Reinsch and Wilson get every body in so much of a mess.

In January of 1918 though while a lot had happened, and was unfolding... a lot of other things just hadn't happened yet. The ball of yarn, as it were, was still unspooling as it rolled down the hill. Right now though there were a gathering of men around the table. When Europe had gone to war in ... really in July, but in the summer of 1914 the whole balance of world trade had completely gone topsy turvy.

As a result people who did not do economics made all sorts of wild and outlandish assertions, that damned Virginian in particular was easily duped by claims made and taken in by hysterical claims rather than the hard fact of numbers and dollars. With voracious unseen hitherto Europe turned its appetite for all manner of goods to the world at large and their demand drove prices to the point production could not keep up and it threatened to burn out the engines of manufacturing.

This gathering of the Cadre was to be remembered as the Winter Conference 1918 a combination of full members and proxy members to facilitate a full briefing and dispersal of information on the money made by supporting the European demand for goods... mostly the British Empire, but also Japan and how war demand had filled the coffers.

How the war demand had also increased operating expenses, and how that they would need to invest net profits into new industries and expansion. That they were going to make a change over to how they ran business organization. Not only was this to eliminate any potential accusations of war profiteering ... in an ideal scenario anyway... but to make sure that there was understanding of how the system worked.

It was to set the ground work for what would happen next year as well, as they set the stage for putting into words the final version of what would be Shensi's Provincial Constitution to come into effect in January of 1920... what would, though not planned to, become the first year of a era calendar to replace Republican era calendar that had been proclaimed by the southern rebels... that would be proclaimed later by the future lower house established by that constitution.

"These gentlemen are our iron production figures,"

Another group of men were looking at coal.

Rolling stock.

Pig iron.

Bar Steel.

A group of red legs hovered over domestic productivity of machine guns and howitzers.

A hundred men gathered in the room. Tens of thousands of pages of paper were only a faction of four years of brutal war a continent away. Men looked at export of textile goods, or foodstuffs ranging from cows and pigs to melons going to fight scurvy.

Then of course there were the new trends in 'war participation'. The British payments to construct railways in the Russian Central Asia, and the outlines of the Franco-British areas of market interest in Russia... and things there. There were questions of what would happen there... questions that would only be magnified by other events.

Allen nodded to Yan Xishan. "We're glad you could make it." And truth he really had wished that old man Ma had changed his mind... if he would have taken Bill's offer to take a seat at the table... Shansi's Dujun ... military governor... would in 1920 publish his own amended version of the 'Xian style' constitution. It would have slightly different features of course and the provincial constitutions that would follow be adopted by western provinces would follow a general template of provincial organization leading to a national constitution as a response to the final hard breaks of the beiyang clique.

Provincial constitutions would remain in effect, but a new gathering of the constitution would push some members further up from the different gatherings in a few years to a more centralized multi province organization. The nominal allocation for the future Federal Xian style constitution would only truly come into effect in response to other pressures... years into the future after the winter conference... this was just one more step on the road to when in the future eventually China would be reunified. In 1918, in January of 1918 no one was really thinking about that.

Today was about the economics of trade of trade made possible because the Europeans had created a demand for goods unseen ever before. Oh it would have been easy to say 'China is divided', but whole together another matter entirely for anyone to say that it was Shansi, Shensi, or the small province of Kansu or any of the other western commanderies to take it upon themselves to rebind the land. That was Peking's job. Let the Beiyang army with its million man army do that... in fact by 1918 there were enough Shensi natives who were quite fed up with Canton and Yunnan, that Feng's idea to leave the southerners be and let them go their own road was popular.
--
Notes: this is the conclusion of January 1918 pretty obviously given its tone, because from here we move into the brief border skirmishes in Szechwan, where first with the Gansu independent brigades (i.e. 3rd​) move into, before being reinforced by Xian's Regulars, before being joined by the Cadre's more elite 1st​ division troops.

WW1 arguably was the most transformative event of the 20th​ century in terms of economics particularly in terms of long term effects. Effectively overnight the demand for war materiel for the western front added billions of dollars into the trade volume, and for a variety of reasons the war in 1914 completely shattered the greatest degree of economic integration Europe would have until the establishment of the EEC. Not only did war disrupt European productivity it increased demand, and increased costs. This was in both raw material costs and labor as well as other expenses.

The result of this was the post war, rather predictably, the economic contraction that would become the great depression in the long term, and part of that was the response of both business and government, and by business I mean both labor and management's response to the sudden shock of no longer having production guarantees at war time high prices. Business, and government both engaged in protectionism, and protectionism invites protectionism in a tit for tat fashion which prolonged negative economic conditions in trade, as well as drew out the recessions. I digress.

So the result here, what this section deals with is without trying to put especially hard numbers, though we are probably talking hundreds of millions of dollars of trade, likely up from a 1914 value measured in tens of millions of dollars in trade, is the cadre's export business due near universally due British war time material needs. This isn't limitted to just the cadre per se, though Research clique though not on this scale were able to largely buy out their European partners from large capital enterprises (i.e. the belgians out of coal mines in eastern china) with proceeds from the war years in short order.

... and speaking of coal while a long time in the future since much of what has been obliquely touched on here is is coal primarily as being mined, or for heating and cooking (which will touch on in a minute) or as fuel for trains. This is the nineteen teens high sulfurous coal is still in common use its not preferable to high grade production (it requires additional work, this was known scientifically it was confirmable by the 19th​ century, but it was 'known' within the steel maker trade much earlier) it was still commonly in practice.

Naturally one of the factors that will come about in the sixties and seventies as a result will be an earlier recognition of the need for smog control along with other emission control legislation due to both domestic populous and technocratic demand, as well as in response to international conditions in the cold war era. This again goes to my argument that wat WW1 in terms of long term effects is the most transformative events in the 20th​ century.

 

[Imperator Pax]

February 1918
"You ain't got to go, you know that right?"

"I'm next in the rotation." He replied, even if that was an excuse. The truth was it was easier to take the deployment. The truth was that with an increasing number of officers the cadre was increasingly reallocating its membership to industrial and social duties. Even Cullen had been taking time to step back from the Gendarmes to look at the mines... but on the other hand with people shipping to Guatemala to join Philip and the Cadre having other people step towards industrial work there were fewer members. Bill stint in the rotation took him away from the oil work.. though one could make the well founded argument that anti banditry presence provided legitimacy to his work there. It certainly was shoring up support in the Ma clique as well as in Gansu's populace more broadly to see contribution to law and order. "besides If I don't go it'll look bad to the Ma Clique. Hongkui is expecting me there to show the flag."

"no he's not, he's hoping you don't show up so he can be in charge. If you're there, its first division that's almost sixteen thousand men including the attachment from the staff. Never mind everyone there already"

Waite might have a valid read of it, "Thats not how I take it."

"Well then how the fuck do you read it? What do you think his play is?" There was a pause, "You think this will give him legitimacy because Tidao is publishing that Bai Lang broadsheet? Thats not implausible but, Hongkui doesn't need it. He'd get more out of this expedition if he's the one in charge. Yeah being able to go back, and say," That in the current effor they were reiterating that myth of fighting Bai Lang who had in summer of 1913 some ten thousand men, a number that had at least temporarily swelled to locust like proportions. "Yeah, so what if can go back and say all that..."

"Because in the long term if I go down there the labor corp comes along and thats a better chance of us being able to hold a salient into Szechwan. Think about it Hongkui has made the effort for his bonafides in the anti bandit campaigns into the south. Yes there are still tribes in the tibetan lands and Szechwan that are still fighting indian wars," Why wouldn't they, you didn't stop having a grudge with the next clan over just cause some high and mighty jackass from the capital demands you pay taxes or made any other demands... there were going to be problems. Tibet on a map might be allegedly four or five sub units but really it was more like four or even five times that. With a toe hold in the eastern most of those big counties by the running of the line down to Lhasa.

... and the prescence in Lhasa if the MAK hadn't spun off early might have been the next talk of what to do about... but coming into 1918 and with the spring conference looming Allen was cognizant that the cadre was looking at more than just that. He gestured to the map on the wall, the one that had a rail line that pushed off its borders going north west. "You see that," He asked rhetorically, "Thats us, thats me, and you. The other guys. Its the company as a whole to not just the railroad people."

"Maybe so, but this isn't like Bai Lang where you can cut the head off the snake and watch the body flop around listless. The bandits are not just going to disappear, we go down there, in ten years Gansu and us both will still be posting divisions on our southern border, because Szechwan isn't going to change." He was right of course. Not just about a decade down the road, but in twenty years Szechwan would be as a province divided between the southern government under the KMT nominally capitaled at Nanking but later from what would come to be called Wuhan and then Szechwan's capital of Chunking in the high years of the Sino Japanese war... but they couldn't have imagined that.

At the moment this was a purely a provincial affair. It was Shensi and Gansu 'suppressing', as the word was translated, 'pacifying' bandits who were prone to going over the border.

"Are you going to avoid having to go Tietsin?"

He turned, "Why would I need to do that?"

"I've read the cables from State at least thats ones I've seen."

Allen scoffed, "Yeah, shocker Lenin wins a quarter of the vote, and then imprisons the PSR and the other parties when they wont go along with him. So much for democracy in Russia." It did actually shock him how flabbergasted Wilson seemed to be in Washington about the Bolsheviks seizing power in the face othe congressional assembly but the bigger concern was, "Did you read the British ones, Balfour?"

"Separate peace." Waite replied, it was what the British were most worried about. "Yeah." He said quietly.

--
A couple of three inchers from a battalion battery made themselves known.

He was glad to be here.


It was something to do with his hands, even if it was cold. There was a light touch of snow on the ground... whether it would stick or blow away they didn't know. Hongkui had circled around the border at least crossing three times. He'd jump over and launch a probe, and come back after hitting whatever nests of bandits he could find... and he'd done these punitive raids across the winter.

Per Hongkui the bandits had appealed to higher authority going to complain to bigger county bandits and warlords who were yunanese running dogs. Which was probably true enough. Shi, the most north eastern provincial warlord refused to give battle... for probably the very sensible reason he'd then be prey to an attack to his south.

Zhong on the other hand had decided he could no longer be so embarressed by Ma Hongkui and decided to answer the petitions. His circular was dated the first of January but it hadn't actually reached them until the end of the month.

They'd been cabled about it from Young Carter who hadn't known exactly what to make of it, especially once Hongkui had started circulating his own circulars... Hongkui wanted to roll down in force and not just hit Bazhou but actually occupy it.

That seemed like a really stupid idea, because if they took the city they'd be committing to holding hostile ground in a furious neighboring province that was in its own civil war. Zhong was unlikely to make a deal with Liu to his west but that wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility... but they also couldn't just allow Zhong the ability to mass forces on their border.

Waite was right. Whatever their reasoning...

That didn't change the fact that they'd shot first. That they were the ones skipping over the border not Zhong Tidao or one of his lieutenants. They could at best make the argument that they were responding to previous incursions or even allege the territorial integrity of Kansu had been violated by bandits associated with Zhong's subordinates... but that was a thin justification given the situation... and yet here they were.

Once this was done they were going to have to make changes to how they planned this. If anything it needed to start now, If Hongkui could secure a foothold in the north of the province he'd have a foothold to launch other incursions, and while that should have been obvious to anyone looking at a map... he wrote it down anyway.

If Hongkui could sustain supply lines into Bazhong then he could manage to theoretically hold the city through outside support and then penetrate into the countryside... but the bandits could continue to go to ground, and be supported by people further south beyond Ma's ability to strike out at. It was in many respects all too similar to the situation of the Phillipines with local strongmen congregating across regions out of necessity, and with all the infighting that often accompanied such alliance making. It made things unpredictable.

"We're on station." Bill remarked with a twang as if the motors of the trucks couldn't be heard rumbling in the difference. The Motorized Rifle Company, provisional had received slight changes from its initial composition, but for fundamental purposees was not that different. They had learned some lessons about how best to use them in a fine, but it was the supporting assets that had changed the most... and having spare parts... that meant people knowing how to work on the automobiles as well.

The machine gun sights were graded out to a, John Allen considered optimistic, three thousand meters. Really at that point it was mostly everyone on that hill over there notices some angry hornets and the general displeasure of the artillery man shooting at them. In reality with the advantage of fighting from a protected turret that artillery man could meaningfully suppress an infantry position in the open or in concealment at closer ranges... and that was the whole damned point.

"How do you feel about this?"

"Well you know, I reckon we were going to fight Zhong sooner or later. There are couple of Lius are gonna be a problem." Especially since one of those was the guy in charge of the little fiefdom to Zhong Tidao's west. "But if you're asking between you, and George? I here cause Waite would wait until they came into Hu's neck of the woods, and then we'd been subject to the same complaints as he threw at Chen. I'm not okay with standing there and taking a punch."

"I just wish I could make George see that."

"He'll get over it." Even if this was likely to last into the spring.
--
Notes: Third update of the week, again by this point the Xian Cadre has replaced the previous provincial government apparatus. Chen Shufan has moved entirely to a federal job, he was in Peking most of the time anyway, and he had relieved his civilian equivalent prior to that. Because of his abscence and because Szechwan was by 1916 already devolving (Yunnan Clique would come in from the south and lay claim to basically the entire province the NPW, how real that control was is debateable) and by the end of that year both Tsai O and Yuan Shikai are dead which fractures both of their political bases.

Thus the modus vivendi of sorts between Gansu, and Shensi as provinces is that it is better to keep the border areas, specifically the Szechwan side of the border policed by their own troops proactively. Its not a great solution but it is historically what the Ma clique did anyway (and in part that was successful because at the beginning they had better troops, both in terms of training and equipment, but they were also better organized. Eventually that strength atrophied, but for other reasons beyond just the border fighting).

I also need to find time to finish Castlevania before I cancel my netflix... and not get bogged down by writing something based on set in or otherwise related to that, but its a good animated show, if a little over the top at times. Along with other stuff... my buddy is talking about running a weird west style DnD campaing which might be a nice distraction, I'm always glad when I don't have to be one Dungeon Master in the group.

Anyway this week was atypical for updates. The plan is to get through this end of the arc, the fighting in Szechwan in the early months of 1918 along with central asia's developments directly contribute to long term organizational changes, and they directly impact the July conclusion of the arc that is set up for in June which is really more or less the end of the regular updates for the arc.

 

[Imperator Pax]

February 1918
He no longer expressed surprise, as he once had of the plumes of white powder from old guns. He had simply become inured to it. It was horrifying in its own way... that people were still using such primitive weapons against modern forces. That old muzzle loading cannons were attempting to fire on modern forces.

Carter's notes were a bit concerning in themselves. Not that they were about the cannons, he'd basically dismissed those but rather his observations on the enemy organization. He recognized the make up... and didn't like the implication... but it might not bear too much to read into.

So the bandits had adopted Boxer esque organization, that wasn't so out there, the boxers had been an off shoot of an offshoot of a rebellious group called the White Lotus. The secret societies were rife across south china, and it was just as likely that in six months or a year, they would be shooting at bandits who used the same organizational scheme as the Taipings.

It bore in mind that there were still tribal chiefdoms to the south and to the west, so just as much as there were units who adopted the ranks and styles of the French and Germans there were older remnants. There were still groups fighting in the name of the Ming at least in professed sentiment, but that there were rebel groups who claimed to be fighting for a dynasty that was nearly four hundred years dead, so why shouldn't there be people who chanted Boxer slogans, waved boxer banners, and organized as the boxers had. It would have been nice if they didn't use guns and artillery at all, but if that had been the case this Hongkui probably would have tried to take Bazhong all by his lonesome. He still wanted the city though, thought they could use it to project power.

... which if Allen were honest if Ma wanted to be brazen Ma could well have taken the city, but Hongkui didn't wear spectacles to look smart, he knew better ... he knew what it took to keep his cavalry in the field, and that taking the city would take too much

... and in all likelihood he knew that he had rivals within the Ma clique who'd complain if Hongkui's independent brigade decided to take a city and then needed resources to hold it.

What perhaps concerned him more was that the Ma clique increasingly wanted to hold territory. Broadly referred as 'the cousins', even though some ties were purely nominal the Ma clique had a generation that was getting old having to back away from power, and an up and coming generation who had either made their bonafides or were looking to make prove their bones in a fight. Hongkui was first among this young generation, and thus had less to prove.

Clouds of white gunsmoke from black powder rifles obscured the gray haze of the mountain side in the distance. Puffs of ineffective fire from down below.

The noise was then overwhelmed by much larger more modern artillery as Carter's artillery came alive filling the area. He wondered if Ma's horses were deaf yet. The mounted rifles of the brigade were moving around, but going up the mountainside like this would be a mess.

He lifted the field glasses to watch the ponies run. A handful of men... but at least these had modern rifles. "What do you think?"

"I wonder if that's how its going to be."

"How what's going to be?"

"Black Jack took the cavalry down to mexico," and the ponies had danced at Bersheba, where the Australian Light Horse had taken the wells at the end of the previous year. To dim the chatter a pavessi drug forward, lumbering as it came another load of ammunition. The tractor coming to a shuddering stop, its great wheels holding under the break as it was applied. "They're faster than that bastard."

"Maybe so," Allen replied, "But that bastard keeps the divisional artillery well fed," He nodded towards the 15cm HE in the wagon it was towing. "Different jobs though. IF the Kansu Rifles down there are serious about harassing the enemy then the automobile can furnish the supply park."

Carter swung out of the fulton coming up from the direction the tractor. "Are they still shooting round shot at us?" He questioned passing them, and shouting at the red legs. He and Bill shared a look.

"We're eight miles from him, on a ridgeline , and that's black powder shooting up."

"It'll mess up horses though." Carter replied turning back, "I want rounds on that gun." He barked to a crew chief.

Carter's orders to the howitzer crew saw a long barreled, nearly 30 calibre, piece send a 96 pound high explosive charge seven miles and change into an airburst that when it exploded ripped apart the opposing gun crew. A second shell fired detonated slightly left by appearance, from the enemy position, and tore the axle from the gun... before the gunpowder cooked off and even from a sixty power spotting scope was drowned in white smoke.

He stepped away the german glass. "Dawes must be very impressed."

"We'll never hear the end of it." Bill agreed. "That is 1st​ field artillery though, most of that battery was with us at Xian.... and you can bet they were the first ones on this model." He was right of course, half of the 1st​ Field Artillery spent most of its time rotated to the experimental technical section for testing anytime they weren't actually in the field. "You want my guess, Dawes put them here to put the fear of god into the bastards down there."

"That might be," Allen replied, "But you were saying?"

"Just that horses aren't going to cut it but we do need a more maneuverable field force of our own, and Cole and I have been talking about what we need. The Mechanized Rifle platoon is built using stuff we have but once this ford factory is up," Well that would be different. "We need to be able to put a force on site not just first, but a substantial force. They'd be cavalry just not horse soldiers."

Though the quote was often ascribed, Forrest had never in such butchered english actually said 'firstest with the mostest' but the idea was reflected in his directive on cavalry usage.

--
The labor corp had cut a turnpike, rather liberally with dynamite. They'd filled caissons up as well, which wasn't exactly discrete. It had been hard to miss. In fact one would have had to be blind, deaf, dumb and stupid to some how have missed the construction... of course the attack followed on a cold morning with about six inches of snow on the ground from the previous night. Hotchkiss Winchesters with fixed bayonets had no business coming along at the fighting positions... but no one had told the other guys that.

"Fuck, they're doing it." He grunted as another few hundred men in bright jackets fired from their clouds of white smoke advancing up the road towards the positions. "God damn it!" There was a shrill metal note from down below and an officer with a sword waved his men forward. He didn't make it long after before someone up above sent a spitzer through his breast, but the attack was signaled and the press of bodies rushed up the hill.

"Carter, watch your language."

The younger man turned and looked at Bill like he'd grown a second head. "Canister, Now" Carter said snapping to an artillery captain. Allen watched the charge all but distingregate. He didn't miss Carter biting down on his lip either.

Bill flashed a hand sign to him, and in the direction he indicated, here came Ma Hongkui to mop up. The Hui Mounted Rifles detachment were a squadron strong and had the advantage of the corp having cut and leveled the road out with cages to allow a path for trucks... which meant a horse soldier could ride eight or even ten abreast with ease.

The organization of the charging men didn't mean much. If Carter was right they were using the boxer's organization of small units... but on the other hand these men had rifles and bayonets... probably had cartridge boxes. They might not have had modern uniform jackets, but he doubted they'd find talismans intended or hoped to ward off gun fire.

"Did the boxers ever mount an assault against prepared breastworks?"

"They tried to jump seymour on the turnpike, but I don't think they ever tried an assault on a properly fortified military position." The legations didn't count. "I think most of the assaults were the alliance throwing men at the forts, and walls."

"Well these boxers didn't do much better." The mounted rifles opened up with their Mauser carbines from about seventy yards into a handful of men trying to get back to a shattered tree line. Enfilading fire was echoing from another post of fortifications. They had been built, unlike the main line which utilized concrete, as largely wooden earth and sand bag fortifications. They were nothing fancy, trees hewed down notched like you were building a long cabin... and then sticking a machine gun in the windows.

It wasn't much more complicated than that. Rifle Platoons could be stationed on what were basically protected porches shored up by short trenches topped with sandbags. Most of these positions though were filled with 2nd​ Division troops. 1st​ Division was being maneuvered up and had been staged behind the line to actually march on the city of Ba Zhong... before it had started snowing.

It was the only reason they hadn't encircled and launched an attack... though admittedly calling the county township a city was a stretch. "You think Hongkui's impatient?"

"He said this is the largest single mustering of troops in anyone's lifetime."

He rolled his eyes, "Don't be absurd."

Bill nodded, "That's what he said, the Qing had less than two hundred officials in the province... a hundred seventy eight maybe? In a province of fifty odd million. Imagine that."

He suspect either Hongkui was having Bill on, or ... he considered the Qing era Opium suppression campaigns to root out native opium growers to have been so long ago that it was just on paper now... and it bore thinking about that most of the leaders of the province were men their own age... and indeed most of those had studied modern military science in Japan. That could have easily explained the bayonet charge, or French education, or German education... Chengdu had had a military academy even if it had closed a decade ago the local commanders could have attended there.

There was another grouping of hooves as another squadron mustered. Ninety minutes... fighting since just before dawn and who knew how many men had run into the bursting shells to their mortal ends.
--
Notes: As I mentioned Ma Hongkui seems to have started his bandit suppression career as a Kansu commander, this was local work, but it continued, dare we say it 'mission creeped' to such a point that it was eventually a 'federally' recognized command, on the other hand its generally accepted that Peking either wanted to keep him close (Cao Kun probably wanted him close buy, or he wanted to be in Peking in order to get benefits from Cao Kun when he was president, or it was mutual). Anyway we're going to get through some fighting, which I will touch on in a minute, but in March and moving forward we will be touching on political shifts before we approach the conclusion of the arc.

Militarily Sichuan province during the warlord era had a large manpower pool, but it was politically fractured and was regarded as having the worst troops in all of China. (That should say something). Part of that was just lack of equipment but by this point there is starting to be a transition from the early warlords of the province (with the division of the province into large territorial areas) that will continue with new warlords coming to power. This were less educated local leaders (or the scions of local leadership who exercised control through a mix of family ties and controlled several counties usually by controlling an administrative center. i.e. Chonqing through which they were able to collect taxes.

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1918
Unlike the war in Europe there was no aerial component, but it was otherwise a very bloody modern war to be had. Much of the fighting had devolved into defending fortified positions as they covered a ninety mile rail course that moved south. When the railway was done, they'd allowed the labor corp to pile down and then they'd set the concrete. It was march now so it was warm enough that they could pour seventy to eighty cubic into blockhouses and that was was to be the beginning of the yard houses.

They had returned from the front as planned, rotating back as the advance settled and anchored their lines, and engineers extended rail to the junction. In a couple of days the Spring Conference would start... and this one was going to be different than previous... not the least of which was the changes in the war.

The proposal itself was undated, and the fact that attached separately the usual spiel about concentrating the army's forces and maintaining momentum it was clear what direction the response was supposed to go. It was a memorandum in the Staff Letterhead Format for English publications of the Imperial Japanese War College. Nakamichi clearly hadn't written it, but on the other hand he'd been the one to deliver it... and he was antsy. "Who else did this circular go out to?" Allen asked... Pershing maybe, god never mind that Black Jack might have, and what if they'd sent this to General Wood...

Nakamichi didn't admit to sending it to the States, but that didn't mean someone else wouldn't have... Shinbei maybe... and if not him any of a dozen intermediaries who kept the lines of dialogue open, "I am aware that we have requested British consultation of the proposal." He replied, which was probably true, almost certainly true but was also a clearly evasive answer... and well... he knew that Balfour had run off at the mouth to once of Ishii's subordinates and the Japanese were concerned.

There was nothing particularly novel about the paper's conclusions. It was evolution not revolution. First and foremost it reiterated the great expense and difficulty that mobilization entailed... same verse different year. Allen completely sympathized with the complaint that congress didn't give the army enough money for everything that the congressed asked the army to do, but he also had to see the other picture. That their cash register only had so much money coming in as well to cover those expenses.

Old Man Yamagata wanted fiscal responsibility, and he wanted Japan to be reliable in her debt payments, and her ability to extend loans to her allies when she could and that sentiment was broadly shared among the old gentlemen of the Meiji era. It might not have been popular, but the old men had a point.

"First and foremost, mobilization is expensive," That was an understatement, god, that was an understatement they had all seen the estimates for the amount of money the British needed for six months of fighting, "and forty divisions for an active war time army is certainly the minimum." It was a nice conservative agreement with the papers put out since 1914... and weighing carefully his next words, "The Bolsheviks, are not going to be like the Boxer Rebellion," He thought of the Winchester Rifles that Zhong Tidao's troops considered themselves lucky to have in the fighting to the south, "This is not going to be the sort of thing that sending fifth division in will suffice, and frankly sending two divisions won't cut it." Their conversation turned to an excepted table of measures of divisional frontage, and there were a series of back and forth about what could be done ... on the cheap as it were in order to secure the Diet's approval but withot compromising the ability to do things.

Maybe it was the mathematics, maybe it was to be geography perhaps the diet had been just needing the excuse or was being performative and had planned to agree all along maybe it was that Terauchi had given his blessing for Iseburo to take a railway crew not just to preside over Manchuria 'for the emergency', which itself would have provoked some disagreements anyway, but that he could engage in the 'international railway mission' as the British Charge d'affaires to Tokyo had described to the Japanese PM.

Whatever actually tipped the scales, later in the month Japan's would approve a contribution to allied intervention to total five divisions. Certain members of the Diet would complain, but they could do little when Terauchi approached not just Duan Qirui, prior to his return to the premiership even, but also Zhang Tsolin in Manchuria about cobelligerent contributions to fight but that would be a couple of weeks...

In the mean time. The door thrummed open one slamming into the other side the other being caught as it swung by the officer who just managed to avoid be knocked flat. Percy was about gassed from the excitement. "The Bolshies have made peace with the Germans," He managed stumbling in and almost knocking Nakamachi down. "its terrible. Pardon, me sorry there,"

The documents were crumbled, and a mess but Percy's demeanor was a greater descriptor than any single word like terrible. Brest Litovsk was a fortress. The most immediate thought was that the Germans had bound themselves to the land. There was no way the Germans could readily reallocate forces with all this lost territory... but all the same the creation of German protectorates, ceding lands to the turks, the loss of the baltics... on the other hand

...he drummed his fingers, and looked around the room, searching...

on the other hand Allen had to move over to an almanac that was six years out of date dated 1912, and thus referred to production years earlier still. Forget the financial indemnity, he ran down the proud charts, the pride of Russia's attempts to modernize, "The bolsheviks just signed away the majority of their steel and iron." Which of course to be sure Percy had to know... the peace of Brest Litovsk signed away the French Sphere of Influence in Russia to Germany, and the British one to the Ottomans, and then some. He licked finger to page through the book he hadn't opened in probably three years.

He started so suggest that Nakamichi use the telephone, but the office line started to ring... and it seemed as if the whole lot of the shit started to roll down hill. The bolsheviks had made peace with the central powers, and faced with that the English began to scramble for solutions, and that had meant telling their allies.

What Lenin had agreed to was not the sort of peace Wilson had had in mind. It was not a peace without victors, and for France and England the notion that such a peace might allow the Germans to force a similar one on them in turn upending the table... and also that he doubted that the French and English were happy about having their 'bits' of influence in russia abrogated by the Bolsheviks was a feather ruffling experience as well.


No one pointed out to Percy that a decade ago no one would have fathomed dividing up Russia into spheres of influence like what Kerensky had agreed to last year.... but now White Hall and Paris were acting as if it was darkest Africa and such. In looking back the reason such objections probably thereafter dimmed was not Russian status France's counter weight but because how the Japanese and US might have taken such talks... or Italy.

And the phones would buzz and ring for days. There were to be other factors as well as word came by other methods, as in November of the previous year when it had been none of their business to care the Kokand peoples in central asia had declared independence. Central Asia taken as a grand whole was actually fewer people than Shensi, about 11 million people estimated... but in a riot of the draft in 1916 the Hui had become involved and Xian by proxy after the fact. The Ma clique would hasten to characterize the February massacres and the Basmachi resistance that followed as akin to Bai Lang's predations. That was that the red guards were bandits.

The Ma Clique wanted access to the railway lines to go in, and send off some of their young braggarts to get fighting experience. That was the excuse, in all likelihood Allen suspected their were other incentives, or encouragements... or just as likely that potential competitors within the clique were being sent abroad in anticipation that they could either not be around during a succession or that they could prove their bonafides. More importantly the changes in western China introduced the ability for the old Ma clique to interact in away that hadn't really been possible since the Dugan revolts of the late 19th​ century... something that the British may well have intended to take advantage of.

They also could do recruiting as well. The Russian Civil War would prove ripe recruiting grounds for experienced hands.

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1918

Before the Qing Banking Crisis of the 1900s Shensi had had its share of powerful family controlled banks... but there had been provincial disputes, some of that went down to things in Canton, some of it went to changes in banking in Shanghai... and some of it was entirely honestly a fault of Peking's inability to maintain federal control... and to maintain the infrastructure. To maintain the locks and the levies that made the canal such a marvel... and also kept the rivers from blowing out over their banks as had happened with Tietsin last year.

Since banks tended to be involved in loans to agriculture, here and in the states, and since China was a largely agrarian country crop failures had had repercussions on banking clans just like they would have had on banking corporations back home.

That wasn't the singular problem Shensi faced. There had also had, after the banking collapse, as part of the Xinghai revolt its share of revolutionary violence... and grievance settling masquerading as revolutionary violence. It was telling though, at least in John Allen's opinion, that Xian as an urban municipality had not seen disturbances after the onset of the so called 2nd​ revolution... but having been four years since Bai Lang had been defeated at Xian's eastern boundary... four years had proven to be a long time when one factored the economic growth that demand for goods had created... and that had changed the city.

It certainly hadn't helped that there had been a general policy of mostly benign neglect from the old government apparatus. That wasn't unique to Shensi, neighboring Shansi had had the same problem, worse even since Yan had a serious problem keeping the best and brightest of his province committed to working local that was easier for a larger city like Xian to handle compared to Taiyuan.

Because Xian was comparable in population to New York there was a population and demand for goods and services that needed to be brought in that coincided with electrification... or even beyond it. That meant branching out. To use Soho's example the Cadre were the old firms, and there were new firms coming in to answer new market conditions created by demands in the market, but all could be considered Zaibatsu. Soho knew his Adam Smith.

That meant encouraging banking apparatus, but making sure that there were safety measures in place. The sort of thing they could have applied by differing means two years ago, hook or crook, carrot or stick so to speak because they had city in being... but now as de jure and de facto together governing body there were other options. The Constitution wouldn't go into effect for another year and a half, but the basis for its organization, and rules ... its skeleton of sort were already going into effect and that went beyond delineating a new organization township county and the provincial side of things.

Waite looked at the parties assembled in the civic center... the very new civic center... then he blew out a breath, "Guess we drew the short end of the stick, Bertie getting to run herd over the school debut." With Bill tagging along with him, but the truth was they needed more primary schools, and sooner rather than later. "We should be fucking glad though that the war has meant everyone has an income tax, makes things a lot easier to point to."

Taxes were going to be unpopular.. but it was necessary. If they were going to be government there were certain public goods that needed to be paid for, "Schools are going to be one of those things, and unlike the Juren they'll be no class restrictions."

"They won't be iron rice bowls neither." Waite replied. "I'm not opposed to lifetime employment but the Qing's scholar system had other drawbacks, much as I think we need to promote men from off the floor to running shops where we can." Efficiency was best figured out by knowing what needed to be made, and where you could change the process to speed things up while keeping quality up there... and just as much keeping the tooling up to date. "The Qing system was broken before we got here." The eight legged essay had been gone well before they'd started laying railway tracks, never mind started braising steam cases for locomotive engines... never mind before steel mills had started turning iron ore into bar stock and pig iron. "But that's getting up and ahead, Bert's got to do his bit," Waite stretched, making a show of cracking his thick neck side to side, "And we've got ours." The intention here was diversification of market to expand and encourage to expand the wealth by encouraging hands idle, or underutilized to take up trades and options that were in demand but not being satisfied.

Since the men were paid in the customs dollar, which was easy to convert from either British Pound or the American dollar, they'd have a stable currency to purchase goods from without any of the uncertainty of ... well the previously issued provincial currencies or the for that matter Copper 'dimes' which were still commonly in use and had been locally minted during the Qing era. There were plenty of currencies that didn't even use machine minting in circulation, and there was little the Qing had been able to do about it, and even less that Peking today could do. Eventually though Xian's lender of last resort, the central bank would get to the point of issuing its own currency, but that would be later. That would be well after provincial state power had taken on more national characteristics and after the last vestiges of Peking's legitimacy had faded.

--
There was a slight hum from the machine and its light, and Shellman adjusted the dials on the machine.

The film didn't mean anything to them, best summarized as Bill hunched forward and squinted at the produced image of black and white, "What the hell is that?" He demanded in a pronounced Texas drawl highlighting his annoyed frustration.

"Its an Xray." The Navy doctor replied. "Of what should ordinarily be a young man in the peak of... the scarring of his lungs as a result of the pneumonia from complications of grip. They are extremely atypical. I've never seen this before... and certainly not in a boy of twenty three."

There were glances around. "And?"

"Yeah, what do we do?"

The muttering at the saw bones continued, and then died out... and then the speculating started. In 1913 the flu season had been bad enough to warrant a mention in some papers, but not for people to go around talking about biblical proportions... and Europe hadn't been at war either. Travel had been normal and San Franciso to Shanghai was a standard pacific line.

"Reckon it must have started in Brussels," He meant Belgium as a country, "1914 there are field hospital reports and then men invalided back to England." The navy man replied, "We think it jumped in a ship rode down to Australia and probably South Africa. It must have gotten worse somewhere along the way. Still... its why the port cities are getting the worst of it, it gets in an army camp and then can be passed around." He paused again, before getting down to the matter which had probably been the entire reason the cadre had been convened.

Money... specifically money for education, money for medicine programs, but also for quarantine, facilities, abilities to place restrictions on rail traffic along the lines, and other things. There wasn't anything in writing... not officially but it was a play to put a plank down to what they were responsible for, to set policy or at least start writing policy for the future.

It was ultimately two different requests for 'public capital' or public goods. Education spending, and Government involvement in public health. They needed no reminder further that 'Imperialism', was that the word was neologism coined by some smartass with a pen readily taken up to offer social criticism but described phenomenon that were not ancient, but wholly modern. The word had only entered use as the boxer rebellion had sprung up after all

A distinction existed within the idealist and realist camps of the Cadre. It was not the only axes, or division in thought that existed inside a body of hundred men with influence and it created packets of of dispersion. The US Senate was only ninety six members after all... and though Reinsch had made that same observation and though the minister thought it good that the Cadre's body of new members who were Chinese he objected that they were military officers from within the company's ranks. Not a lawyer or churchman in sight.

Reinsch disagreed with that, but it didn't make the cadre a monolithic block. This conversation though did further build on the three principles that Xian would establish on what governments should involve themselves first and foremost in. Those Public Goods.

Such conversations, such consensus were to be the bedrock to building an apparatus that at its foundation was an organization not dependent on singular individuals to operate. Personal relationships were all well and good but there also needed to be bureaucratic and institutional knowledge that could build up from those individual connections.
--

 

[Imperator Pax]

March 1918
He found himself in something of an uncomfortable position. Allen had no idea what the most recently seated cadre members thought about all this.

God knows, a decade ago the idea that they'd be carrying on like this... it would have struck him absurd. Still, they had to sit through it, and so did the proxies and make what they would of the stump speeches. That was they were for all intents and purposes. Stump speeches... and ones that were looking beyond just the province... people had gotten up and talked about the war too, and the mess it had made of everything.

He knew for a fact that had resulted in some unplanned changes to what people had planned to say, but more than that this gathering was different for other reasons. It hadn't helped that they'd opened at this least this part of the conference to allies, and associates from outside the province. Instead of informal dialogue, smoking room fireside chats in the morning or evenings over whisky or in open floor circulars instead they'd had every take turns at a podium for speeches.

This year had been formal floor speeches. So maybe with an itinerary that made it clear that the topic of this morning had been intended to talk about the situation of bandit suppression... maybe hongkui had a point... maybe it would have been better he used terms like forward basing instead of sphere of influence... but maybe just as well he'd called a spade a spade.

The truth was geography played a big role in Szechwan's situation, and that the province's original leadership were being replaced by more and more fractured local leadership.

Some of the noise started to dim. The loudest people the originals, and a line between camps. The Ma Clique was looking at more than just bandit suppression there was money to be made, and maybe grudges to be settled that went back to the Dugan revolt... and probably before.

"Oh shit." Cole had sat up, and Allen recognized that Waite was heading to the podium next. Allen had not intended to speak at this and was high up in the back right row.

There was a cough, "The Tsardom is gone, does anyone disagree with that? This war has killed by my reckoning three empires. A fourth to come? The arrival of the Federal Army on the shores of western Europe is the doom of Germany."

Allen rubbed the bridge of his nose. Cole bit down to stop himself. He sounded like Colonel Wood at the forefront of young men in cadet uniforms in New York.

"It is true that the Congress of the United States has been loath to supply the necessary funds to prepare the army, but the army is now in Europe, whether it lasts a year or two. The landslide is coming down. Russia though, is gone. The sick man of Europe is all but broken, the Austrians were as the Germans themselves observed a shambling dead weight handcuffed to them. The Germans have killed an entire generation of frenchmen, but the math does not lie. The Entente spends something to the order of a half billion dollars every six months. Over four billion dollars has gone out to insure that France can buy food and weapons, that England, and Russia can. That's what the war costs. London has been supplanted as global financial heart of trade." By New York.... by wall street, by the trading houses like JP Morgan. "Washington has yet pledged more."

This would have been a speech better made, tailored to an American audience... and indeed one largely of educated southern gentry and adventurers of their generation or even their fathers' generation, but Waite continued his hands resting on the podium as he spoke of structures, and of history... and of what had allowed the US to take such a role. The factors of gradual construction, of evolution not revolution as Waite tended to quip, which was in itself a contagious catch phrase he probably had gotten from some Englishman.

... and speaking of Englishmen Percy was nervously squirming as the speech carried on. Not the least of which was when Waite highlighted that there had needed to be a transition from the British acting through Morgan to having actually sent a treasury delegation to Wilson in person. He wasn't likely to turn the conversation to the necessity of military resources, which might further disturb Percy at the moment... instead turning to Russia's descent into anarchic bloodletting as the Bolsheviks focused on seizing power for themselves and purging their rivals... and the famine that such disorder would predictably bring.
--
He watched the staff gathering, as the pipes played. The march had put an argument about their current force arrangement.

Cullen shrugged as another cadre man to the right of Bert and Dawes regarded and then turned, "The kilts are one thing, but swords really?"

The Commandos were in their dress uniforms, which now included basket hilted swords. "I've six companies of the fellas," Cole replied, "Besides the point of the sword on a gentleman's uniform is to look sharp... and they match." He added after a minute.

Allen paused to sip his coffee. The kilts weren't quite Campbell colors. They'd clearly been done from the same wool stocks as the uniforms were worked in. That was from a green mountain boys line off of the spanish merinos. They were machine stiched, and machine dyed, and the green was therefore dark and uniform and made the red stand out a bright near to blood color.

"You're doing this just to tweak the limeys." A twangy voice put it.

"I wouldn't do anything of the sort Seamus." Cullen protested to the South Carolinians comment, "I planned the uniforms a while ago, its just it took time." He said to the others... and it did sound believable. "I put a lot of work in those uniforms. Fellas deserve to look good."

It was believable.

Certainly it was the same thinking that allowed dress uniforms for staff officers to include Austrian knots on gray uniforms... which the British probably weren't all together thrilled of either.

The labor corp had been formally retired as a name after the Bashan fighting and their fortifications as the transition completed with the body folding into either the Corp of Engineers or the Interior Ministry. Ministry had been a compromise to Chinese sensibilities on the naming of things. They had considered Department of the Interior ... well Interior Ministry sounded better... it was hard to argue there.

Public Works was a good name for civilian side of things.

"Cole." He called.

"Yeah?"

"I want those bandits in Bashan cleared out. Take your first battalion and get it done."

Cole clicked his tongue and smiled, looking to a veteran of 7th​ Cavalry with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "Yeah, I'll handle it." Carter down the table started to protest, "He can come with me, I'll need some red legs along, yeah?"

"Of course he's going with you." Allen replied, and the younger man shut up, "What? I'm reinforcing the front Carter. I ain't mad at you. Szechwan is big country, the corp of engineers will do what needs to be done, you do your job, Cullen does his, and Hongkui will handle his. There is enough food at the banquet for you all to fill up."

The Gendearmes 1st​ Regiment on the deck marched well... but they fought better still. Cullen was right maybe the distinction of them with kilts and basket hilted swords was a merit of distinction that did warrant it. Later when it was time to hunt they'd trade dress uniforms for ghillie suits and remington and mauser rifles.

Cullen leaned back, "There are other bandits that need killing John."

"There are always rats in the field." He agreed.

Bandit... as they had learned years ago, years ago now, had much harsher connotations in Chinese than in English. It was true that Bai Lang had had his ideals. That he had had his beliefs that he had looked after the people in at least his home county with the proceeds of his raids... but that hadn't extended to the neighbors never mind what he'd done to the hui as he'd worked his way west four years ago.

Never again would bandits be allowed to cross Shensi's borders, that was the intention. To accomplish that they needed to to grow and expand. People were less likely to turn to banditry with better prospects, and no famine. There were always the bad sorts... but that was what the law was for... and if Hongkui was serious about projecting a sphere of influence into the north western frontier region of the province... well then yes they'd just reinforce the foothold as Gansu units filed in.

--
Griswold had been giving him dirty looks much of the previous afternoon, and it didn't look his mood had improved. Part of that were the speeches from yesterday. JP was all but fidgeting and Waite looked like he wanted to be elsewhere as well which suggested the Georgian may as well dragged them in by their ears.

He spared a glance at the clock, "Don't you have a meeting with Waller, and Simmons now?"

"See I told Sam just that." JP burst out.

"It can wait." Griswold declared, "Look I needed the four of us in the same damned room and I can rustle Dawes if I need to, but," He wagged his finger, then stopped, "Alright its like this the times are a changing. The filibusters have gone off yeah well thats fine, but we're short on people, we are still on schedule, but with everything going on something is going to have to give. Lewis's gun takes an awful lot of machining. Its a lot of hours on my fellas."

Allen nodded. JP nodded. Waite shrugged, "Yeah. We all know what. I mean come on, those fins sucks down wind, a vacuum like." There was some shop talk between the trio of exactly what it was like, but then they dropped back.

The jist was that production needed to throttle back. "I'll be honest. We've been running full tilt for the Anzac order, and from the feelers we're getting look I think we need to step back and refurbish the machines. We're making a lot of guns a month. The barrel making is starting to show problems..."

"Not the Mausers?"

"We replace the bits on the Mausers more frequently anyway," Waite answered the question, "I know what he means there, and with the Lewis it has been different but, if we had machine tooling from the states more regularly this wouldn't be giving us trouble." But the situation was, that Waite had a point that the war was till ongoing and thus machine tooling replacements were basically non existent. "Towards that end we need a solution to look for it, preferably before the Japanese Army starts seriously asking for 8mm guns."

"Nakamichi was serious about that?" JP questioned suddenly, "I thought he was just, I mean." He trailed off, "Its just a few hundred guns." And that statement in its lonesome highlighted how much things had changed. A few hundred guns. A few hundred [machine guns]. It was not longer 1914. Yuan Shikai was long dead, and things had changed quite a lot since then, never mind since the Qing Dynasty had crumbled away.

They were beyond, well beyond the early days where industry went up piecemeal. They still were licensing technology, they would license things from Kodak after the war ended, there would be other technologies to license and bring in. For 1918 though a few hundred machine guns as a contract it didn't warrant much of a look. "I think Nakamichi found some spare change somewhere, or one of his friends did. I mean the Japs probably have an ETS equivalent, but they've said nothing about airplane models." Waite replied, "if I had to guess they're going to move on Vladivostok, and if they can find the money-"

"Nakamichi's request for input?"

"Uh huh," He grunted, "Five divisions, he's looking to pad out the number of machine guns. Of course, with the war," Waite paused, "I don't know how much the Japanese army has kept up with trends. Tsingtao not withstanding." Allen hadn't had to watch the assault on Tsingtao at the start of the war, they'd been camped far away from the coast in Xian ... making sense of the post Bai Lang situation of the country side, and contending with what the European war would mean... but he remembered the human bullet attacks of the Russo-Japanese war. At Mukden, the Japanese had had less than two hundred machine guns and that had been spread across in packets in the five field armies present... but that had been way back in 1905

"Speaking of five divisions."

"Not this shit again." They had had this argument yesterday.

"Damn it John Allen. We had this argument, Nakamichi made the observation that three divisions was a good idea, and put it off." In 1916, and they had taken time to do that. "Yeah, I agree that in 1913 that would have been silly. The British had what six plus the horses." It wasn't a real question, and it wasn't 1913. "We can stretch it out, but we need to be clear with the men what we're going to do."

In 1913 the British Empire, not hte Empire at large, but the British Army the BEF had been six infantry divisions and an over strength cavalry division. The reasoning behind it was it was a frontier force designed to operate in marginal border zones across the empire... that hadn't been where they had gone to fight in 1914. Unlike the British though Waite's logic behind the divisional expansion reflected territorial boundaries, and answers. 1st​ and 3rd​ were expeditionary units built similar to the US 15th​ Infantry where as 2nd​ and the presumed 4th​ and 5th​ would be Infantry Divisions intended for staffing by reservists and as a body for maintaining order.

The compromise was eventually to be had with the establishment of a national guard bureau based on the American model that would be staffed by initially three provinces. Western Zhili, Shansi, and Shensi. It would take time, after 1920, to go ahead expand that to stand up and recruit from the western commanderies, Xinjian, the gansu corridor and also tibet, but the ground work reflected the changes.

British estimates placed the number of soldiers in China in 1915 at half a million. That would have been fine, if, if that had still all be under a nominal Beiyang chain of command, but it wasn't any more. The president and the prime minister hadn't even evenly divided the armies. Percy's estimates suggested there were over a hundred thousand men in the south under arms predominantly under the control of the Yunnan clique and its army. The expectation would be ther would be in excess of a million men next year.

He wasn't even sure if Percy was counting their three divisions and the four brigades. He wasn't yet counting plans for the WPA's nominal force of the same volume not yet. Duan Qirui had yet to announce his plans for that force's size and organization, much less make anything towards how he intended to equip it to fight in Europe. Not that the War Participation Army would actually ever go to Europe.

 

[Imperator Pax]

April 1918​

In terms of military organization there developed an argument over what should have been done, which had been probably a long time coming. This things had happened before, and they were likely to happen again. First and foremost was that while the ETS was capable of evaluating new units in the small scale the resources of spare parts simply weren't available, nor were there sufficient numbers of armored cars and trucks to mechanize a large infantry formation. "If we lose any of those trucks its gonna be a pain in the ass."

"Yep," Allen agreed simply as he made another mark on the paper. There was no sense contesting that, "But Cole is out best option for instilling some sort of civil order in Bazhong if Hongkui is intent on holding the city." Which certainly seemed to be his intent. That had potential repercussions if they acted like a garrisoning army, so the Gendarmes needed to be there.

"You say that, but we'll be lucky if we start getting new trucks in a year and a half." He was referring to a notification that the war production act, and the board Wilson had put together was allocating priority for exports and that that had the potential to delay orders for the sake of the European war. It was one more reason to get their foot in the door with Ford as soon as the fighting was done, and set up domestic manufacturing... and also to get as many people out of war ravaged Europe for that matter. They'd need to encourage immigration, of the permanent sort, as well as shorter term contracting gig work for the company. "And by that point demand is going to be high as a Georgia kite."

He glanced at Dawes, "I figure you're leading somewhere with this?"

"Changes to the brigades, once the cutting in Europe is done." The initial proposal was to take guns that had previously been under Phillip. Phillip had of course not taken 2nd​ Brigade with him, that would have almost certainly been a good way to lose the guns to someone else one way or another. The idea though was to turn 2nd​ Brigade into a combined arms element of its own, which called for a distinction in doctrine usage versus how normal Rifle Infantry Officers were calling for the Mechanized force to be used.

"Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves."

"I'm not, I'm just going to say that, while Lewis's gun is useful for a lot of things. It has limits, but we do need to replace our existing Maxims as well whatever we do. " The idea was that while the Vickers did work, and had worked well, that they would be better off swapping to the M1917 and building that for their 200gr Mausers.

"Why?"

"We need a new machine gun, and we need a new heavy machine gun in particular. Also to be honest the gun is licensed for the war we can leverage state for production of it without a problem... and from what I understand most of the people trying to produce are having trouble standing to."

"You think we could undercut them?"

"I think so, but really we do just need a new gun." The war would ultimately end before Dawes's scheme to do what they had done for the Lewis gun could be initialized, but by 1920 the 8mm version of the M1917 Belt Fed Heavy Machine gun had to the consternation of Minister Reinsch and Sir John Jordan had reached ten thousand.

The guns wouldn't be in service and useful until after the war, because state had provided the license during the war, before the armistice and certainly before the May Fourth fiasco the arms embargo never touched the production. So that when Ford's engineers came to build the first assembly line automobile factory in China it didn't take a rocket scientist or very long at all that Ford armored Cars started rolling off the line a few years down the road. Production of trucks would lead to production of heavier tractor engines, V8s that could be used domestically in other things, and export as well as domestic consumption.

The production of automobile, truck, tractor, and all the other things the engine could go into spawned from the war, or at least was made possible by the economic growth of the war. Its take off would insure new growth in supporting industries, and while the Ford V8 lineage lead to other things it also contributed to the manufacturing side of production for other engines.
--
Spring had come, but there was little time to enjoy it. Duan had come back into the premiership while they'd been having the spring conference... but frankly it changed so little there was no point on mentioning at the time. The truth was they had other things to contend with. The 2nd​ and 5th​ Infantry Regiments both apart of 2nd​ Division had been placed on the border with Szechwan, the last of the division's infantry regiments was formally standing up its garrison at Ankang... but that was just as much to keep certain people on their side of the fence from starting trouble.

Shan had actually refused a promotion to division command of 2nd​ wanting instead to wait for a slot in either a volunteer brigade or as commander of 3rd​ which was currently held by Bill's XO. Now General Lee was presently at Urumqi with his divisional headquarters alongside the 3rd​ Rifle Regiment. The 3rd​ Regiment, 3rd​ Division of theirs, had taken up headquarters at the railhead at Urumqi and was being supplemented by additional Kansu troops. The Ma Clique had expanded Hui troops to account for an estimated eleven thousand men. That had been a surprise. Hongkui's Independent Brigade still formed the bulk of that force but it was a cordon of extra bodies stretching west... and in theory it might keep fighting across the border limited to attacks into Szechwan.

The gears turning in Percy's head were almost audible. "And these are at strength?"

They were, he acknowledged. In 1898 the US Army had expanded from a meagre twenty seven thousand men, to a high just short of 210 thousand. Admittedly the growth and rapid reduction in the army had continued annually but it had never returned to that pre war with Spain low. With three divisions in the field Xian was not likely to drop below that number either. Not when the entire point of posting the 5th​ Infantry Regiment in the Bashan Defensive Cordon was to insure they had some experience... but Percy would have done well to understand that this was not the United States, if that was his thinking, and that manpower was more abundant relative to actual demand. Of course 5th​ division was also planned to be posted to Zhili and Shansi with Regiments drawn from western Zhili and Yan Xishan's province as part of collective security. As such the 4th​ and 5th​ Divisions were planned to be modelled on 2nd​ Division.

... and if it came to it, then well they'd decide what to do from there, but there were arguments about whether or not 8th​ and 9th​ Regiments 1st​ and 3rd​ Divisions respectively shouldn't be looked at as the future cores of Rifle Divisions of the same number.

"I don't believe I've met your General Lee, is he from Virginia?"

Allen glanced up from his papers, "He's from Zhili," Though only because his father had been posted to the capital in the last years of the Qing dynasty, and that was complicated. Lee's presence in the company had originally been for railway development. When the shooting had started in Shijiazhuang and the family loyalty to Yuan Shikai as political patron... it hadn't been much of a stretch to go to the RPF and then to forces arrayed against Bai Lang. "We needed someone to command 3rd​, he was up for rotation." Then after a moment in which he weighed the remark, "I suppose I could have pulled Klein from the training rotation and let him have the rifles."

"Yes, ha ha, very funny."

It wasn't. Percy's distrust of the West Texas German community had created tensions over the last two years, and while none of them sat on the cadre... barring occasional proxy seating even so they had other ways of complaining ... almost nearly as much as the Irish-American gallery and that had been bad after the Easter rising, though some of that had boiled off. "No you're right even if Klein was in the rotation there's too much else going on. I assume you're here about the rail line." He got up and walked over to the tray at the end of the desk. Percy looked at him, and Allen collected the papers, "Well?"

"Actually... Nakamichi's request, for Lewis guns?"

"Yeah?" He replied.

"Its been passed up to the cabinet," He almost immediately asked if that meant John Jordan had a problem with it... "There is support for it."

He shrugged, "I wasn't aware the war-"

"No-," he bit down at the outburst, "Yes, we are coordinating what I meant was this is coming from the Japanese Cabinet, from the Army Minister, and Prime Minister Terauchi."

"Yamagata, makes sense with Iseburo involved as well." What would follow was the problem of the war in general... feeding all the different rifle sorts. The British had as a decision had to compromise on who received 303 rifles in the standard cartridge. The French, and the Russians each had their own cartridges... the states had 30 Government and the Japanese who while not fielding land forces up to this point had supplied rifles in their own service cartridge. The limits on machine gun production had meant most sides had ended up buying from outside manufacturing concerns. The French arsenals simply hadn't been able to keep up production. BSA had tried but had fallen behind. The story was the same, especially as air power had taken a more prominent role.

War planners had expected a rehash of the Russo Japanese war, a quick war. They hadn't expected airplanes to take off, no pun intended, or for them to need machine guns of their owns.

"The Prime Minister, the King's Prime Minister and the munitions board wants to insure that the ANZAC units are competently equipped."

He didn't immediately show overt interest, and flipped through the in tray. Some one had slipped a mention that Duan was talking about holding parliamentary elections to the Legation in Tietsin... that was interesting, but, "Alright, so competently equipped what are they needing?"

The idea was to keep the Eastern front open of course. In 1918 the idea was not to wage a war against the Bolsheviks. Lloyd George would come around too late to that idea, and there simply wasn't support in the cabinet for that while contending with the situation in the west, but there were other factors within the small coalition cabinet managing the British Empire that were in play.

"Machine guns principally. Lewis Guns, Vickers, mortars yes, it would be a continuation of the orders you were filling for the troops operating in the Middle East. An expansion we don't need to worry overly much about anything, just, you know an accommodation."

He wished Percy hadn't brought up the Middle East... they'd known about the backroom deal between the French and English before hand, but the 'Bolshies', as Percy had taken to calling them throwing it out into the public papers that had caused a headache all around.

 

[Imperator Pax]

April 1918
The receipts only told him what they'd already been aware of. It was mathematics. It had been the arithmetic of a decade now. Yuan Shikai had invited them into western Zhili at the behest of Qing desires for that first railway stretch. Then of course there had been other interests, he'd been the governor of the province and within a year of the old Buddha's death they, the original cadre, had enough work for four thousand men. Yuan had been trying to bob and weave around Russian pressure at the time while also modernizing his province, trying to make it a model for the rest of the country.

That was where it had all knit together.

Once you had vertical integration and skilled work crews building railroads was easy to get going, and putting down. It was when you stopped that problems crept up, and it was when you didn't have production going to at least some level that problems developed. There had been no shortage of rail work to be had either in 1913 or in 1915, or in the preceding year of 1917. It hadn't been hard to look at British proposals and work them out... the biggest hurdle had always been rolling stock. You needed engines, and you needed cars others wise you just had the rails.

With an American Mission to the Trans Siberian now stalled due to lack of a long list of needed resources to make such viable, but not really impossible there were other factors to contend with. That best demonstrated b Wilson's generous contribution of ten thousand box cars, and three hundred engines that had only recently arrived from Harbin.

The British had made clear that they planned to land troops in Vladivostok of course, but they also intended to send the Australians up to garrison other cities using the link into Central Asia.

Admittedly that was something of a change. A year earlier Percy had couched such transfers through Central Asia as war materiel. He wasn't going to argue the point that the passage of troops from the dominions wasn't quite what was on the paper. He recognized that things had changes, and besides the Ozzies were transferring to an existing Russian spur to make the final ride into Omsk. The fact that those troops were transferring from the end of their line at Semipalatisnk, and that line had ended up being larger and longer than originally called for... but the British had still paid for it... he wasn't sure how that mistake had been made in the original draft... but it wasn't the issue.

No, the issue as with most things, the problem came from Washington. Problems, plural of course. Washington's many fold responses to things. Wilson had entered the war as a cobelligerent. Percy should have done well to remember that during the Moroccan crisis French ships had pointed their guns at Americans ones... and that had been subsequently over shadowed by King George's Navy arriving with all its pomp and circumstance. There was no reason to suspect that the US cared a whit for French territorial aggrandizement, and the Bolsheviks had published Sykes Picot and Guardian had dutifully reported it in November. It had been too late by that point for Wilson to do much about it but the Virginian wasn't happy. Of course, Wilson didn't seem happy about a lot of things.

It wasn't just the president though. Lansing of course had known about the treaty, the State had been sitting on those details because it would have potentially kept the states from entering the war. It would have damaged the preparation movement by weakening public support if it got out the French were slobbering all of themselves of potential spoils while the Germans were kicking their heads in on French soil. If perception of the war shifted in the states that this was just a great imperial conflict the Irish and German lobbies would be able to out vote the British one damn JP Morgan's seemingly unlimited stack of greenbacks.

The British, and their recent, convention of their Eastern Committee was sure to be a further point of contention, but for today there were other things. "The Legion is currently moving eastwards."

"So the British have said themselves." But they were still months away... and there were arguments ongoing. The French wanted them shipped immediately to Europe, god damn whatever herculean logistical exercise that was to be for whoever had to actually do the shipping which certainly wouldn't be the French. The British would have preferred appealing to the more radical czech legion officers to remain in the east, playing on sentiments hostile to the Bolsheviks after the reds had signed Brest-Litovsk... but even that was a gamble. The British hoped they could use the Czechs to batter down the red governments if nothing else, but were already planning to levy for American participation in the intervention, officially just for keeping the pathway open from Vladivostok and the eastern front against the Germans open, but there were noises for more from some people. "It'll take them time."

"The State Department is aware," Allen rolled his eyes, he couldn't help it. The State Department was also having to respond to Congress. Congress was in turn under pressure from grass roots efforts in the cities, both Cleveland as well as soon to be Pittsburgh agreement would put pressure on both the congress and Wilson to do something.

The problem was that Wilson only wanted a limited intervention, and the British were not having it. Only part of that was the calculus that the rail line in central asia would let them move faster, part of it was also that Lloyd George probably was under pressure to be seen as a decisive leader in this new crisis. That meant putting pressure on Japan, and that was in turn probably buttressing Japanese interests in participation.

Wilson would of course ultimately drag his feet, protesting time and again until finally he agreed in July to send a paltry US force from California only after he'd been soundly browbeat by all sides to even that compromise. The result of such a small US force would pressure Anglo-Japanese concerns to levy for additional ones... and so Zhang Tso-lin looking for distinction would step forward in Manchuria in exchange of course for new modern weapons that somehow managed to continue to arrive despite the 1919 poorly thought out arms embargo proclaimed by the diplomatic body in Tietsin the following May.


Now though with things in the East, and with the Russian Civil War underway the US apparatus was looking for its leverage.
--
Allen watched the long serpentine body of the train move westwards. There was another matter that needed to be contended with. "this is a fucked up mess." Bill observed.

"Too late to get out now. We finished the rail line and we got paid."

"Yeah, I think everyone recognizes it. Waite can blame, rail on Sykes Picot all he wants, but we can't afford bandits in Kirghiz than anyone else. People on empty bellies are desperate," And desperate people do damned stupid things. "So ... there needs to be something like the thing with Belgium."

There would not be an attempt to do what the Japanese would eventually do. At the time there simply wasn't the thinking, or the apparatus the political will to do that. The Whites never could come to agreements about fighting the revolution as a concerted effort they were too divided. Reds, whites, greens, blacks the Russian Civil War was well underway, and so different regional governments would rise and fall. In much the same way this splintered British attempts to organize the resistance, which would itself lead to lessons learned when eventually two decades in the future when the SOE would have to be sent to organize the fractious infighting of the marginal French resistance... but in 1918 there was no such experience to work from.

The British assistance was to be based on purely local and regional concerns each theater acting independent of each other, and really to an extent independent of London save for a theoretical overarching concern for trying to support the war against Germany in some way. Japan was only to be slightly different. Terauchi's government had to contend with a fractious fight in the Diet, and had to find the money to pay for things. Money that would eventually be approved by what amounted to horse trade with the British and would see that the Diet would eventually yield from a two division limit on forces to the deployment of five divisions.

Five divisions, deployed as a single army group separate from the Kwantung army command, and Manchurian support would meant hundreds of thousands of personnel which meant supplies. That meant money, and loans, but also popular support at home. The result was expenditure and support for a jointly recognized series of states in the east. Kirghiz's Cossack leadership assumed control of Central Asia crushing the Bolsehviks, and a nominal Green Ukraine would be bolstered through out Siberia.

Wilson would not be happy... but he'd have a stroke and be crippled long before he could even hope to do anything. The Soviets wouldn't be invited to Versailles and the Russian question would remain... but all of that was more than a year in the future.

In April of 1918 China's newspapers were more concerned about the situation in their south... and specifically Zhang Tsolin's actions the month previously that had brought about the dismissal of the Yangtze province dujun in the south in exchange for supporting Duan Qirui's return to power... including his mistakes of naming a senior Beiyang officer, another Zhang no relation, instead of rewarding more competent commanders. That would cause problems later on for Duan, but for right now the newspapers were too busy reporting on Zhang Jingyao's misdeeds and incompetence and it didn't help there were other rumors going on.

The whole of the Hunan campaign had never been intended after all to last this long. It had supposed to have been completed months earlier not have dragged on or exposed the growing political rifts within the Beiyang army officers. Rifts that were not to Shansi, Shensi, and the western territories all that apparent, or all that of a concern. Later thinkers would summarize this as the lack of a political community, but more accurately it was the difference between having a state identity and the formation of national identities.

Provincial and regional loyalties largely ran along north south lines, every time a northern army went south all real democratic discussion went out the window and military power re-cemented itself as the determinant of political power. Every time Sun, and his Guomindang party officials left the country the work turned to increasingly regional military officials to resist first Yuan, and then Duan's attempts to weld the country back together.

The consequences of that would not be a southern military victory, but rather a schism within the north over whether it was worth all that. Duan had burned enough bridges, and wasted enough political capital by this point that Feng's supporters were finding new allies who had previously supported the 'southern pacification campaign'... and in 1920 things would finally reach their boiling point.
--
Notes: This is a transition section because again this is coming up on the end of the arc, we are approaching things that in the long term will have butterfly effects on the timeline at least in Asia, they don't effect western Europe all that much. They're predominantly centered in marginal, or border areas between the empires fighting ww1.

In April 1918 Brest litovsk was a mentioned because it was the surrender and loss of prestige to the Russian empire and thus since the Bolsheviks were surrendering to the Germans it was not a socialist victory . It was not a step back to take two forward in the public consciousness (and this was true even in Russia Trotsky wasn't convinced, nor was Bukharin) it was oh the Russians have lost, because the socialist and left wing in China were predominantly anarchists , there were marxists but the chinese communist party only gets founded in 1921 after Versailles, and that's important because its not just Versailles as a treaty it is also what happens in China in the spring of 1919.

Ho Chih Minh's man crush on Lenin specifically originated out of his existing French political marxist socialist background, a background that was not common in China in terms of political outside of Shanghai. Ho Chih Minh would join the Commintern but he already had the political education before that.

Once we get to 1919, once the war is over there is going to be a transition in the business, and economic side of things. There is no longer war time demand so the income streams need to switch over to peace time production, so that is something in the next arc but also between the end of the war and the break between Zhili Anhui cliques that ends unified northern authority there are other things in the timeline that need to b e dealt with. So at the start of the next arc running from basically Spring 1919 until the outbreak of the Zhili Anhui war is a large transitional period before we move into the years of high warlordism and then the gradual coalescing of China into regional power blocks before we move into the late twenties. Of course once we get into the twenties is some of the culture clash between the vestiges of the Qing era versus the various modernization movements and of course without the war there is more local slice of life

EDIT: Also I have misplaced my map of the Russian Civil war belligerents (that is the within russia separatist and autonomous governments map) 1918/1919 I need to find that and put that up it would be relevant to the eventual territorial settling out in the twenties

 

[Imperator Pax]

April 1918
As a boy he'd been compelled to read Edmund Burke as part of the lessons. To be fair of course his resistance had been less political but rather it had been the agreement of his father and maternal grandfather, but as a boy of ten he'd had far far too many things he'd wanted to do than surround himself with dusty books on political science... but that had also lead to being expected to learn the math, the telegram, morse code, and such for the family rail business... and all of it together was intended to give him a leg up for when he shipped to west point.

Now though, there was reason to reflect to consider the scope of their actions.

The rooms', their, current condition greatly reminded him of the old house's great library either when he'd been a boy or one of the breaks home in 1898 before the Maine had gone up, when his brothers had been studying. The same siblings now in uniform under Federal Colors. Daniel would be fine with Black Jack, but not everyone had a staff job... and being back from the lines was its own burden.

To attempt to impose order here in the European style would be to invite disaster. If anything as Reinsch had agreed before he had left Tietsin most recently... even if the professor hadn't realized the full weight of the implications he was laying out, it was in that slow modification and growth that was taking place.

It had in the moment more annoyed him to know that as a fellow Southerner Wilson had likely been made to read the same works, and that the Virginian was well acquainted and agreed with Burke's views on the French manner of organization of government. You couldn't just absolutely declare something and expect no push back at all. The ties knitting things together took time... if they were lucky the cadres years of business would suffice to serve as their articles of confederation period, and if they weren't that would be what they were going into with the plans for a first provincial constitution.

Xian was one province though. The Western Zhili Development Corporation only covered half a province and while Cao Kun was probably entirely fine to hear suggestions regarding engineering, to hear about roads and bridges, and railways and factories and electric lights it was because he wanted to be seen showing people the way to modernity... but Cao Kun was also afraid of losing his position. Xian... Shensi was different though.

Shansi was another story. He understood where Cao Kun sat with Zhili. He understood where, what informed Yan's position... and he understood why the respective authorities in the west didn't have a proposal they could put forward.

"Shansi is getting hit by the flu pretty hard. Yan's trying his best but, outside of Taiyuan him and his red cross friends have to compete with people trying folk remedies." Yan had complained about that before, and it wasn't like they were ignorant of that problem.

Back in the states the remedy to everything was take a fistful of aspirin and wash it down with your morning coffee regardless of what ailed you... and that was something Shellman had made sure they knew. The navy doctor had the seen problems with his marines in the Philippines of them trying that with other tropical diseases ... well as had been pointed out Aspirin was in somewhat short supply anyway. And Malaria was another problem to be had as well, even if they were currently in the lull of it.

That had actually been the wrong thing to say since medicine in general was in short supply due to war time demand. That, and the influenza was expected to get worse... a hell of a lot worse. "Our bigger concern is interopabilitity on that front, and given who Yan's friends our, Shellman shouldn't have an issue, but there will be shortages."

Yan was talking about a new provincial constitutional something to come... but what that really meant was that he was willing to update his previously promulgated one. It wouldn't be identical to the one they were drafting for Shensi and Yan might even issue his before they published but there were generally going to be similarities.

Or at least they had agreed that they were looking to have a similar framework. Reforms to town and county administrative layers was one thing, and thankfully there was a general consensus of bicameral legislature... but that was where there started to be an issue. Yan believed pretty strongly in confucian morals, and while him wanting a Japanese style police force was one thing, but that required a lot of effort. His idea about an annual census also had the potential to be inefficient, that had in the Qing era always been more of an ideal than a real practical matter the government could accommodate. That being said stamping out foot binding was agreed to.

So while there were going to be difficulties, and differences in opinion there were also common grounds. They could work with that. It would have been nice if the Ma clique could at least provide enough frame work to suggest even that much.

"It is what it is, now besides the flu, and we knew to an extent that was going to be. Yan wants to expand education," He'd been able to mandate elementary education, but he just didn't have the teachers or the schools to expand that to middle school in the province... to that point he was putting his junior officers through sixth and seventh grade classes before sending them to the military school in Taiyuan or Hotei, or even over to them now. "I don't know if he was joking about opening a law school or now," He'd talked about the University in Taiyuan which had received some of its seed money from the British after the Boxer rebellion.

He also knew Yan was deeply envious of what the European war had meant for them. They had sub contracted out what they could when they could but Yan's arsenal simply wasn't big enough, even if it was expanding the man needed more engineers and he needed time. The war would be over before Yan could get spun up to really benefit, but on the other hand he'd be in a good position for his own domestic needs for sure.

The gathering adjourned into smaller committees leaving him with Bill, and George. Cullen was hustling Shellman out of the room and JP and Bertie were heading the opposite direction.

"What's the matter with you two?"

"You know Duan is calling for parliamentary elections right?"

It had ... it hadn't slipped his mind completely, but the truth was he hadn't really paid much attention to it. He was certain it had been mentioned but it struck him as well not that important, and from the expression of his lack of immediate reaction that was not where the two in front of him stood on the subject, "Somewhat, why?"

"The Mas were gonna proxy their votes to peking,"

"you didn't."

"He did." George replied quickly. "Now before you bring it up, this shit with the assembly is nonsense. They were supposed to be elected for three years. Yuan should have called for elections in 1915, I'm sorry he should have. That's how they're supposed to work. You run, you get elected you get sworn in, you do your bit you run for reelection." He went on about how it was cockamamie bullshit to pretend like the situation had been done, and how both sides had done their share of idiot things, but that elections in general should have been held ages ago. "The Ma aren't the problem. We put some of our own fellas up. They do their bit in three years they can run for reelection, but the sooner this country has regular elections the better."

Bill crossed his arms and nodded, "I'd tell Lee he should run for a seat but hell we can't spare him." And with a General's post Lee wouldn't likely take a position in Peking's legislative assembly. "Besides the south is threatening to boycott the elections anyway. I think we could potentially see some real reform with a northern parliament that might do well if they haven't got to squabble so much."

The basic idea though was to select or advise or suggest to, support candidates from shensi, shansi, Qinghai, Kansu, xinjiang, Tibet even. In the spring of 1918 that had made sense. It was about inclusion in the federal apparatus rather than being separate from it.
--
The shop floor was two football fields wide and three long. There were rows of single stage machines. Big deep green machines from Pratt & Whitney. The men at each station took a piece of metal fitted it in a jig did one cut at the station and moved it on. "Your people out there sure are busy," Percy observed. "We've had discussions with Iseburo as well."

He didn't immediately respond, still watching the work, and then shruged, "Yeah he chewed on my ear for an hour about steel," Iseburo didn't do public conversations well, but phone conversations different story, "Anyway what's the situation with Mackinder, you didn't bring him." Percy in previous conversation about the ANZAC deployment to 'stem the tide' had said the minister would be coming around.

"These have gotten complicated."

Complicated was one way of describing it. Iseburo had asked for a lot of steel. He had a cash infusion and was looking at ... well he had said he'd seen drafts but he hadn't heard Yamagata's son this giddy in years. "Iseburo mentioned something about the Omsk line."

"Oh," Percy's expression lapsed, "Did he now? Well yes there is a lot of labor already available." He was being evasive, and Allen expected that the states probably hadn't quite been told about the Japanese line extending, or whatever work they were doing. It meant England and Japan wanted two indepdent routes to funnel troops into Russia, but that wasn't really a surprise that was the whole point of Percy contracting for the central asian connection.

Percy was fidgeting looking towards the door, and to the work the floor below.

"Come on, lets head on, you wanted to talk?" He wished the brit would get on with it. He watched the barrel blanks and the beginnings of actions be reamed out and milled down. They headed for one of the adjoining office buildings. This had once been the Manchu quarter... and that had been torched and really left like that for the few years before they had shown up. It was why no one had objected when they'd torn the old quarter down and rebuilt everything after the summer of 1914.

Percy looked around the office space overlooking the yard and the parked trucks, "How familiar are you with the agreement between the French, and the Asquith government regarding Mesopotamia?" He rolled around in the swiveling office chair to face the desk.

It was the Asquith government now was it? It was a degree of separation, an attempt and frankly a shoddy one. "I know enough." He replied. The British would claim that since Edward Gray had signed it Lloyd George had to move forward with it as the basis, and ... and Percy was currently looking at the proposals for how to handle cases of appeals.

Yan wanted a system of evaluating magistrates, which was great because he had a series of provincial magistrates. They didn't. There was no body of lawyers to rely, and no one had any truck to trying to stand up a series of judges, especially since there wasn't actually a clear system of what the legal system should look like at this stage... so the current suggestion was to rotate a final board of appeals through available cadre members.

"Don't you have enough to do?"

"Yeah, yeah, give me that." He grunted taking the sheet, "To other question, I read Sykes Picot, Bill thinks you're all idiots by the way, giving the french a cut of Iraqi oil, now the hells the matter with you?"

"I didn't make that decision." Percy held up his hands defensively, and he had probably distracted the Brit for now. "I mean more, along the lines of how do you think it will effect things."

"I don't think it should matter Congress approved the loan," He replied, the British had been provided the liquid capital to make war purchases. "I guess Balfour will have to decide whether or not what Ed Gray agreed to is something to stick with, but that's on Balfour, like you said it ain't you." And while he might have had concerns about explaining his knowledge of Sykes Picot he could always blame the state department and the state department was unlikely to admit to anything they didn't have to... but Balfour wasn't some johnny come late-y to the British there was no way he hadn't known Edward Gray had signed the agreement or at least that there had been something signed regarding the middle east. "But it can't keep the states out of the war now. If that was what you were concerned with."

That was the thing, that had been the greatest worry of the Lloyd George administration is how close the Brits had been to insolvency. Percy Knew That. He understood it. The Pound was fragile in a way it had never been...

But that hadn't been why the Cadre had wanted payments in the US dollar once it became clear this wasn't going to be the quick war the British and the French papers promised it would be. No, the truth was it hadn't been guessing about the chance in ... the end of Edwardian High Finance and the New York take over ... not at all it had been that the British were getting loans in dollars to buy American goods and the cadre needed to also buy American. They had a back reserve of Pounds... but they hadn't predicted that the Brits were going to get to the point where the cost of a single offensive would start having a hundred million pounds sterling in price tag, and that was what Haig's offensive at Paschendale had cost the brits.
--
Notes: I do need to reiterate the Entente received a combination of both private, and public sector loans from the US. This was financed through JP Morgan principally on the private sector wall street side and this amounted to the tune of French and British securities for 1915 1916 over four billion dollars in that period money. Following that, summer 1917, there were official government to government loans a kind of precursor to what the US would run later in 2 and after, between the treasury department were negotiated with the White House.... which meant Congress (power of the purse had to sign off) and that was to prevent a British default on the loans it was a pretty big shock that the pound came that close. War is expensive, and while this had been made clear with the Russo Japanese war in terms of pre ww1 financial institutions (Japan and Russia were both still paying off their loans as has been referenced by the time the first world war kicked off) no one thought ww 1 would be as expensive as it turned out it completely changed how national economies worked.

And as will be relevant later, and ATP mentions part of the reason the Russians didn't financially collapse is that they didn't transfer their gold reserves as collateral for further loans and supplies, (now yes they made internal territorial concessions to their allies, and then to the US on economic development but that's another economic fucking otherwise). The French, the Franc, suffered heavily, the French economy even pre war was not nearly as strong as the British and British Pound, and by 1916 the Treasury was advising against further leverage, and indeed the French would choose to default over devauling the Franc later on. [and that is a major contributor to why the US implemented cash and carry.]

Anyway, yes so this sets up for a lot of the the post war / inter war political change in 1919 and in the first years of the following arc of the twenties

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1918
A year from now there would be entirely different problems to be had. Problems that the truth be told they couldn't really fathom.

Their original posting of officers for short term duration had been based on the medieval schedule of the year in China, the schedule of peasant farmers, and thus where peasants were idle enough that they could go be bandits in neighboring provinces. That was no longer workable. There had been a concentrated effort since 1915 to stamp out banditry on their side of the border, that was to say inside Shensi and Yan in Shansi had attempted the same, but they couldn't be entirely sure it was one hundred percent effective.

Just mostly sure it had worked. Even that didn't change the fact that even during Bai Lang's rampaging through North China there had been complaints about the system... now though... now with whole divisions extant they could no longer base brevet commands and postings on feudal seasonal time frames. It was neither practical, nor did it have a scientific rationale. They had simply outgrown the rational for that post.

It was part of the reason why Lee had 3rd​ Division in Urumqi for the tenure he did. He would handle things for the year, he would come back in January take a staff position and they would figure out what worked, and what didn't based on 3rd​ Division's experiences.

Eastern Tibet would be different than 2nd​ along the border in Szechwan... and that was something else being talked about as well. "The German Offensive has been underway for almost two weeks now. Either it breaks through, or it breaks." Either or... or potentially both. The French could crumble in one sector and the Germans could bash their heads into a stone wall in another... but would it change things?

"I don't think it matters one way or another. Brest Litovsk has shown what the British will to expect a German peace will mean, they'll hold, and that'll put steel up the French's spine until the Germans burn through whatever they've got left... and that can't be much."

... and after that, Allen agreed then Black Jack would take the AEF and launch some bullheaded offensive, or if necessary put one off until next spring to attack with even larger numbers. That was the real question. It wasn't the tactical or operational concerns they were really talking about. It was what this fighting was going to mean for war time demand.

"Thats what people have been saying though," Carter said adding that this was supposed to have been a short war, and yet here they were.

"Lets talk about something else"

"Its May. The Australians aren't going to be fighting the Reds any time soon, but in six months its going to start getting mighty cold." They'd need winter uniforms. They'd need ammunition. They'd need spare shoes. They might not be fighting the germans but they'd need all those things just to stay on station in Central Asia. "IF Japan is serious as well, and the British are paying for it anyway we start manufacturing that."

Numbers were scratched on paper, and ideas circulated, and the papers moved around the table. The idea was to slowly wind down production. The US Army had already doubled its combat strength from the previous year, and if the war continued through the next year there were talks of three million men.

"We should go ahead and make an offer through Percy, hell talk to Mackinder about them stocking ammunition and winter clothing, spare shoes." There was no disagreement but it was also pointed out that it was no secret that the Brits and French wanted US troops, and Wilson would probably get convinced to give them something... especially given.

"The agreement in Pittsburgh is written, they'll have a ceremony at the end of the month... They were talking about it already, but the state department is doing more than putting out feelers." Wilson was serious about this self determination stuff in a way that wasn't just an excuse to break up their rivals in the halls of Paris or London. No, Wilson was an honest to god idealist That made him dangerous in other ways... it made him harder to predict because he had a crusading ideology based on a morality that was divorced from individual national good. There was no question that Wilson meant well... but that was what made his beliefs dangerous.

Some body down the table tossed the paper in front of them with a snort of disgust. "If they break its going to be a god awful mess." He was clearly talking about the French, or maybe he meant the Germans breaking through.

He leaned to his right, "What does state have to say?""

"Lansing intends to push for a complete shattering of the old empire, we can assume he's exchanged notes with the French, and probably Balfour as well."

That was actually the problem. The French and British wanted two different things. Regardless of business Lansing would expect that they'd put a priority on what State wanted done with regards to the Czechs... which unfortunately ran into the problem of the likelihood that Lansing and the President might have different points of view on what was best for the United States' interest. "Europe is a world away," And he was glad for that, "I meant more-"

"More in our neck of the woods, unfortunately," Dawes shook his head, "I don't know. I don't, The Brits want the czechs in the fight in the east... but the French, need warm bodies to shore them up, I suppose they want them sailed to France. No body I reckon has asked the czechs what they want, but State doesn't know what to do with them."

Not that they were in a position to do anything with them. They were the center of a corp of an army that was more than just czechs and slovaks. That was a potential problem that Wilson might not have countenanced while carrying on about his crusade for liberty and making the world safe for democracy...

--
The British over the past ... really two years had kept them abreast of developments from the front. Never with the intention of them providing an answer or consulting but because there were channels that had always been open.

Percy had observed that their 3 inch improved Krupps were in many respects equivalent performance wise to what the Germans had done with their own so called 77/35 or indeed the British MK1 s which used the Krupp 96 as its base to arm British Merchant Marine shipping... it was a three inch QF gun of an established pedigree.

They hadn't been put into a situation where they had to defend against aircraft though, and aircraft was one of the things that dominated committee discussions. Things like the Albatross currently held the dominant position of hopes for acquisition... whenever the war ended. There were other planes being reported on, there were other weapons, but today was about 3rd​ Division.

The 3 inch guns popped. Twelve guns. 3rd​ Division had allocated out its machine guns with Madsen and Lewis guns to fill out their allotted paper strength numbers at present , but also they were the first regular unit, not a technical section, with the newest mortars.

Percy was squirming as the conversation or the observation of the excercise continued

"in an ideal situation we could replace the Madsens with Lewis's whole sale."

Bill nodded, but his senior staff officer dismissed it. To be fair probably from Lee's perspective 3rd​ Division had the best equipment it could get. It was a modern division. Still if they had been able to furnish the whole unit with Lewis guns it would have reduced some of the work on the armorers... even if they were heavier. "I can wait until production of the Assault Phase Rifle begins." He remarked.

Bill laughed, "Thats right." He threw a pointed look at Waite.

The shorter man scowled. Waite's protest that he did have other things to do was true. Sam and George both had 'civilian' side administrative responsibilities. In Waite's case that included relations with the public at large and while he wouldn't be on the bank board their central banking apparatus was going to require a lot of effort and he was involved in some of the set up for that. "We will get them when we can, but among other things they're gonna need magazines and we have to make sure those work and are reliable."

"What about the new general machine gun tender?" Lee questioned. "Is it prudent to discard the idea of adopting the Vickers fully?"

There were some looks, "I'm not saying we won't use the Vickers, we will," Waite replied, "And as a replacement issue sure, but in terms of manufacture once we're set up for the 1917... and when we get to five divisions the volume for Brownings design will make more sense at that scale." That would prove true in the scope of things, in the scope of production, Utilizing the 200gr Mauser bullet had certain advantages over the US GOVT standard load 30 06 but the gun design itself would have teething issues that would take time to put in production and in service... to the point that when it did enter it was with further simplifications that helped bring costs down.

--
Notes: i seem to have misplaced my copy of Sutton which is annoying, Provincial Militarism is a really useful book. Anyway on the Vickers thing, that is actually... well I'm sure part of it was not invented here in terms of the US (the whole ordinance debacle over machine guns was a mess, but also the Vickers proved difficult to mass produce and I don't have production numbers in front of me, but there were machining issues that well would be easier to overcome in manufacturing the 1917 and indeed what will become the Xian equivalent in many respects to the Polish variant of the 1917 though intended for a slightly heavier bullet weight but in terms of sights, and overall caliber thats the basis. I understand the reasoning that went into the sights the browning went with, but frankly that should have been done away with if it needed to enter actual mass use in ww1, and again Ordinance makes dumb decisions because last war syndrome).

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1918
"We should have started doing this last year,"

"Last year, we should have been doing it before then.

This was important that was why they'd allocated a whole week to it. The men needed large scale exercises encompassing tehir at strength units. It was important that Lee's division wide exercises went well, and that the lessons were understood. That was especially true for measuring the performance of 7th​ and 8th​ Regiments in terms of handling the new equipment. There had been questions about how prepared those green troops would be... but it had to be accounted that after the deployment they weren't really green troops.

"We have to face facts where we stand." Waite replied. It was early in the morning but they were through a second pot of coffee already. Waite had been the forefront, in a surprising press, to expand the army ahead of a finished constitution... and that went hand in hand with the idea of having legislative controls in place. "With 3rd​ Division having completed its first deployment we have some seventy thousand personnel who are under arms."

And if 4th​ and 5th​ Infantry regiments took the planned place as the core of new Divisions bearing those numbers that would increase. The previous July, a mere ten months earlier, Duan had had to cajole and spend no small amount of borrowed money, to rally fifty thousand troops to overmatch decisively the force the pony tail general had invested Peking with. Admittedly that had been in the interest of heading off an even more disastrous and expensive campaign but it was the numbers that mattered.

Waite was right that they needed a census but even the estimations of what they thought the province had meant that in terms of manpower... a hundred thousand men was maybe one percent of the population of the province of Shensi at large... and a substantial potion of 1st​ division were from Western Zhili, and 3rd​ had recruits from the western provinces.

It wasn't really the manpower though. The US Army of 1906 was only a part of the comparison, it was the scale, it was the economics of scale to supplying troops. They made uniforms, the boots, the rucks, and carrying accoutrements and the rifles... and after a point things tended to cost less per item to make.

Griswold slid a paper over. "This is our finalized adoption of the Pattern 1914, based on our own lessons. There is still the argument of a shortened rifle, but the composite stock," To be constructed from multiple pieces of kiln fired wood for ease of manufacture would be retained. The lessons were a combination of how the Japanese had taken the Mauser action, and their stocks, and also the changes to the mauser action by the US and then the UK who had the then built 1913 Rifle, which had been the forebearer to the pattern 1914 for the war. "The important thing is that it saves us material and tooling we can switch over from making stocks for the Australians and go straight to mauser barrels, and perhaps just as importantly its something Yan's arsenal in shansi can do themselves with no problem."

The machine bureau, as innocuously named as it had been named, would also be able to begin production of the three inch mortar. "Are you okay with this?"

"Lets just say," Griswold remarked, "Is that I understand the logic of why we're doing this. The rifle is more accurate, and is better reflective of service conditions. Do I think it meets all criteria no, but I accept since we're done with the 1914 contract for the Australians we're better off taking those parts and making our own version for our bullet."
--
The cadre wasn't in full session there were actually only about seventy members of the body in country right now. Between the mission to Britain and a swiss delegation and twelve men heading for Guatemala there were also those who were either over the border in Russia, or visiting Japan. They didn't need a full vote for this, and frankly there were only about thirty men in Xian anyway.

Dawes had sailed for England as part of the trade mission, but that had been planned for. It might not have been popular but it had been accepted because it had been the plan. Dawes had the authority and the clout to make arrangements, and more importantly he had relatives in the congress and the state department, and the army... and that the truth was no one was going to deny him the opportunity to go.
Nakamichi's advice on three divisions had stemmed from a parallel perspective. He had been looking at the same set of facts just from an offset angle.

"What's he got?" Cole asked.

"Its a paper."

Cullen rolled his eyes, "I can see that."

"What did Yamagata want? IS Iseburo actually going to come down here?"

He didn't get the chance to answer. The truth was he wasn't sure, but he knew that there would be a mission to come watch the Lewis guns joining the ANZAC proofing officers.

Waite had been keeping the Shanghai paper close at hand, but he hadn't shared it with the rest of them. Its provenance though was not likely to herald good news. The most likely possibility was of course the call for another revolution, some call most likely wanting Yunnan to join with the KMT with the southern doctor being in charge of course... but whatever the case most likely explanation was it was in response to things going on in Hunan... and the stalling of the campaign.

He discarded that for the simple reason that there would have been no reason to guar d the paper so thoroughly from the rest of them. There had been talk already though rumors about another loan being extended, and for that matter it wasn't improbable Shanghai's papers would be complaining about the relationship with the Japanese.

Without the membership in full present it was hard to miss. It was a gesture aimed at attracting attention in the small room. The paper unfolded, and in its crease was a second. The weekly far eastern review...

Millard.

That raised other potential red flags. Millard was the sort of busybody who'd stick his nose over the fence, but he'd also potentially shove his nose from Shanghai to Central America... and that might not be the sort of thing the fellas in Guatemala would be expecting.

Yet on the other hand Millard was a southerner whatever his other failings he wasn't always wrong... just fucking annoying at times... and their positions were not inherently anathema to one another... but Millard's positions did generally bias him to support Sun on account of their friendship.

His thoughts seemed mirrored by the grumbling along the long oak table of the room.

Most likely the first paper was one of Millard's affiliates. His own little coterie of china hands down on the bund. About a year earlier Millard had called for a 'a democratic coalition to form'... of the states, the Kerensky Russian government and China which had been optimistic to say the least... especially since he'd made that proposal basically immediately after Zhang had departed Peking and Duan had retaken the capital.

"Are we gonna have a problem with that muckraker?" The man sitting next to Shellman asked.

"Possibly. Over this maybe not." Waite shrugged at the question, "The thing about muckrakers is they do tend to ferret out things. Ch'en is down in the eastern portion of Kwangtun, he came back from Japan in 1916. He's spent the last two years building up clout, and he's begun pushing into Fukien. Nothing we didn't already know." His actions in Southern Fukien had made the North China Herald... but it was well in the south, and thus none of their damned business. "Ch'en has Japanese support, not a lot in the way of weapons but he gets some from Tokyo Gas & Electric but the bigger matter is his interaction over the constitution."

Or at least that was Millard's position as laid out in his reporting on the facts. Kwangtung was in the area of the south that France considered 'theirs'. It wasn't Millard defending the French, so much as he didn't trust the Japanese associations Ch'en had. Specifically that Millard was quick to announce that Ch'en was inviting Japanese teachers into his newly established, and his planned, primary schools.

It was as Millard put a poison chalice that it presented nothing less than a continuance of former Prime Minister Okuma's efforts. Whether people would listen to the warning was dubious.

"He's right, it all lines up Ch'en's backers are from Okuma's clique." The current government in Tokyo was being undermined in strategy by the previous one's supporters... but that was about normal. Or at least it was normal after a fact, but what wasn't processed at least not in the spring of 1918 were the divisions that this foreshadowed. This was not Wilson and Roosevelt disagreeing on American policy towards perceived similar end goals. The Japanese internals divisions were themselves rapidly moving towards out and out violence against each other. Tokyo's ability to exercise control was continuing to atrophy, and that would have generational repercussions

Millard's article and those of his supports would be overshadowed as a warning. A missed warning because it wasn't all that unusual of something to happen. A year from now the article would have provoked riots, arson, fire bombs and pandemonium in the streets potentially but that would be in May of 1919, but in May of 1918 the article of Japanese support was nothing new, nothing unexpected. It was simply the way things were.
--
Notes: arguably the most important lesson of the interwar years [between world war 1 and world war 2] of the US military was the implementation of our system of large scale unit drills and the lessons that were learned from it. It bears in mind that US divisions at home were paper formations for Headquarters and logistical purposes they were not field formations and part of this is because the US Army post Philippines stood down as it had historically done. It went from a hundred thousand men immediately back to its peace time strength within months leaving the conflict leaving the new territorial these colonial policing responsibilities to a limited number of troops supported by local recruits. Most of the Filipino conflict was fought between Filipinos with US officers and NCOs and the US army had dropped to under seventy thousand men by 1903, and it didn't return to over 100k until 1915. [the military was deploying during those years, yes of course some of that was the marine corp, some of it was the US Naval Infantry (which are period specific shore parties of sailors with rifles) but there were US troops abroad, and as has probably been mentioned Arizona only became a state 1912, (Hawaii and Alaska didn't become states until 49]

 

[Imperator Pax]

June 1918​

Allen rubbed the ink smudge on his fingers and looked up. Soldiers, as Yamagata had told him more than once, didn't need to have beautiful calligraphy... which was greatly reassuring since Allen found his writing downright hideous most days.

"John Allen there is something we need to talk about."

The war had not been presumed to be going well. There had been a fresh set of hand wringing and Percy might have been bringing good news... but probably not. It would have been nice if the German Offensive which was all the papers kept twisting themselves up in knots about carried with it fresh contracts... but Percy had company.

He looked at the uniformed stranger. Another one of King George's men, and English.

Colonel Shan glanced up from the map table he'd been surveying. His aide de camp a captain not young enough to shave, but trying to grow a mustache straightened, barely managing to avoid flooring the stacks of papers. The papers detailing tables for the newest machine rifles.

"This is of sensitive importance."

"Yeah," He almost made a crack about asking what the huns had done now, but Percy must have figured he was going to.

"Its not... about the Germans." Percy remarked cutting him off, his friend, who had pointedly not been introduced but didn't look happy about Percy talking about potential details when it became clear Percy was about, "Its the Russians, the Bolsheviks and Kolchaks people. They're coming to blows, and the Prime Minister, there is a need... we need a body of picked men to do a favor for, for the king."


He looked at the badging of service branch on the khaki uniform and thought of the US Army's Civil Service, "Percy, I'm not going to Russia to put a bullet in Vladimir Illich Lenin's head... much as the son of bitch might deserve it." and he very much did, Lenin and his buddy Felix had turned Petrograd and Moscow into a cutting house hunting for spies... real ones and imagined ones and what was arguably worse was he was gloating about it with all the robespierre esque phrasing of equating moscow with Paris of the terrors. Red Terror had begun back before Christmas, so he had had six seven months of running amok... and given what they weren't bothering to hide he was a little worried about what the Reds were choosing to shove behind a curtain.

"We wouldn't ask that, but His Majesty's government does make the request that you go to ekaterinburg and rescue Tsar Nicholas and the Tsar's family. We have a ship prepared to carry them back to England."

Allen straightened, and looked to Shan, "Shan send a runner go fetch Cole and Bill."

Shan rolled to face his aide, "Captain, send runners to request Generals McCulloch, and Bohannon presence in the planning room." The young captain disappeared through the doorway the Englishmen had entered through a moment before. His chief of staff turned back to the English.

It hadn't escaped Allen Percy had been brevetted a lieutenant colonel, but he didn't mention it.

"Could we perhaps sit?" Percy questioned.

They drug chairs from against the wall to around the table, and sat down. Percy making a point of not looking at the papers, while his partner did the exact opposite. Shan started reading, and occasionally marking things with a red pen.

"Regarding the Tsar and Tsarina... the Romanovs... there were considerations last years, but his majesty's government has for reasons newly gathered become exceptional in our concern for their safety." and Percy would have readily admitted in hindsight perhaps not sending for the Tsar had been a mistake... he just wouldn't admit the reasons at the time.

"The bolsheviks are bandits." Shan grumbled, "It is absurd that they were so successful... even with German money." The colonel complained before reaching into a drawer that slid out from table containing maps, and after taking a few minutes to search pulled out railway charts for central asia that delineated a line running from Urumqi into Russia. "The Line. New Line into Transoxiana, and then north its finished you are aware of this."

Percy shuffled, "Yes. Yes. I know that, and we're grateful." And they'd been paid upfront to build the line, which had made spring busy... never mind the unpleasantness in Tashkent in March. Certain unexpected expenses. "We need you to go to Omsk and from there to Ekatrinburg... to save the Tsar and his family, we think that the Bolsheviks will move them... or worse... if they think they'll lose the city... and frankly the Bolsheviks don't have much to hold the city to begin with but it was far from the fighting before now... and that's changed. We are sure that the Whites, and the Czechs can get there soon, but not soon enough that the Bolsheviks could do something ghastly." Percy shook his hands out in front of him.

A gesture that would have been quite unacceptable in the staid social circles of Victoria, and Edward before him... and probably not that acceptable back home. The war though had made a lot of things excusable.

The doors opened.

Shan wasn't a small man. The Zhili native made a point to participate in the rowing club when in garrison, and as a result there was no contest that the two englishmen were the short fellas in the room with the captain having not returned.

"Brother John." Cullen slung into a folding chair, and looked at the two khaki clad officers, "I heard something about needing to fetch wayward blue bloods back to jolly old england." He was looking at the Englishmen, "I mean thats one way to top what we did last year."

Lloyd George needed a win. Churchill didn't trust the Bolsheviks. The British needed something dynamic and the coalition government had in a gathering over drinks and cigars were looking for anything that might inflate support for the cause.

To that end there offers for support in kind. This wasn't the sort of thing Lloyd George's government could authorize exorbitant sums of greenbacks for but transfers of the latest arms and patent rights and other things well those could shuffled off in contracts as 'for the war effort'. The war had produced a lot of goods.

There were unsavory parts of negotiations involved. The British were offering things that they didn't have, or weren't really theirs but at the same time they were material that had been difficult to source the patents licensing for.

The UK though had in the interest of financing the war had along with French compelled their citizens to give up certain property holdings. The British treasure had reimbursed expropriation of foreign securities with their own notes but they had also had to issue threats as well to cajole the compliance for the war effort. The French had had other problems... more institutional ones even in the face of the supposed 'sacred union' their equivalent of Ordinance had screamed and their stamped their feet at the idea of adopting machine guns not designed by the state arsenals, but that was to be expected. The French had had to expropriate ownership of foreign securities as well, but there had been less of those and the value of the Franc was lower catastrophically lower than the pound was now... and that would be a problem in a years time.

That would have consequences in the post war, it would impact decisions made by governments after the 'war to end all wars' was made and of course there were to be consequences to all the decisions made up to this point. There would be consequences, little things, big things, things that would not truly show results for decades after the seeds had been planted.
--
Waite looked uncomfortable. Part of that was they wouldn't be taking artillery, Griswold was working over time, and he wasn't happy about that either. That was only part of it. A look at the map well... Russia was dissolving at the seams. There was an independent Tungus, Yakutia, Kamchatka, Chukotka... and more it wasn't just Percy he'd called into Vladivostok to talk to Iseburo... and well he'd intimated that there were going to do something... just that he hadn't said what.

"You ain't taking a lot of guys." There wasn't a lot of option there. It was a volunteer force of men and restricted to men with three years of experience. The lowest rankings would almost end up being the specialist ratings. There had been arguments over how this other sort of light company would even function. "This isn't the Philippines, and it ain't the Arizona territories neither."

"I know that." Allen replied. "Have you told Lansing yet?"

Waite scowled, "You ain't worried this is gonna get back to Reinsch before you can step off?"

He really wasn't, and besides, "That the secretary of state has been encouraging the company's expansion of military force?" He wasn't entirely sure what Lansing's intent was it could have been nothing more than the secretary believed in preparedness, but it wasn't a surprise either that Lansing had been expressing support for it. He wasn't the liberal midwestern professor and he better understood the realities of things... but Lansing's support made more sense why Waite had been so adamant about moving forward with expansion proposals when he'd been more cautious about expansion before.

Griswold had fabricated suppressors for their Mauser rifles, but had complained that as a result of the function of the action there was no practical way he could suppress their 1911s... and certainly not fast. They didn't have the time to wait for Liu or a response to Lewis about the potential engineering problems.

The tables were being outfitted with everything they might need otherwise. The tables full of equipment were not dissimilar to experimental sections drawn previously from 1st​ Battalion's ranks... but this body of men would be disproportionately high in her ranks. There were colonels and majors cursing they weren't being allowed to go on this expedition.

... of course some of those were red legs complaining that engineers were coming but with no battery attached to the company this wasn't 1913.

"this is not you taking some body of Philippine scouts into the brush, this is not some volunteer force riding off at dawn."

"The first one maybe not, but for all intents and purposes it is the second." Allen shrugged, "I see no practical difference to this. Now have you told Lansing or not?"

"No I hadn't told... not in so many words about this fool thing. How the fuck I am supposed to explain it, other than you're going to be unavailable. God damn it you saw what Yamagata wrote about Russia."
The words on the paper weren't wrong, if anything it was too damned polite of a description of the mess. "I am sure you agree that it is truly worrisome that the situation in our neighbor" [Russia] "Grows worse every day." Yamagata Aritomo.


--
Notes this has been quite a ways coming, the Romanov Rescue was teased a long while ago with the trio of segments in the misc thread of July 1918. And indeed as I've said though its been a while this is the conclusion of the Arc a year after the failed manchu restoration though there is an epilogue touching on 1919 that leads into the broader events of that year.

And of course this is also an explanation to having late ww1 era gear and data of the end of the war as an explanation. The British hand it over, just as they handed over, just as the French handed over, the japanese, the Italians and the US to their respective allies. The exchange of military or industrial technology at this stage was not what it was in two and three decades where governmental control of IP is much closer to what we have now. This goes to the thing with the Browning 1918 machine gun providing the TDP for foreign production during the war was not subject to the same legal protections on patents as it was during peace time.

This is part of what comes out of the global changes that world war 1 brings in terms of international finance and the international industrial economy. World trade changes in so many ways. This doesn't end with the second world war, Atlee gives Stalin British Jet Engine Technology with no strings attached and frankly the British government transfers to the CCP much later in the cold war, and against Component Control, jet engine technology from Rolls Royce in the seventies with further transfers of engine tech in the eighties. If you look this violation with government sanction of the Component Control treaties is not unique to england. Japan, Norway, and France all violate their treaty obligations regarding the transfer of sub tech. Japan and Norway sell computer tech they had agreed not to do under internetional agreement. Toshiba and Kongsberg got into this huge scandal back in the eighties but in 1918 all that was undiscovered country no one was really thinking about it like that.

So this is why in opening of the following arc why we'll start to see things like F1s proliferate, where the Avtomat rifle will finally make an on screen appearance. That will never be common its too expensive to manufacture and it has similar problems when firing a full power rifle cartridge (I think that given its performance with the Arisaka round it would have done really well with the Carcano cartridge in terms of recoil impulse, but thats neither here nor there). Stuff showing up once the war ends, and we get into the high warlord era.

Now that being said, what will need to be mentioned is that in June of 1918 Lu Jianzhang is murdered in Beijing at the behest (or directly complancent) of Xu Shuzheng. By all accounts this is one of the major incidents of internal Beiyang factionalism that foreshadows the Anhui Zhili conflict that begins two years hence. The other factor is that though it hasn't been mentioned the 1918 Parliamentary Elections are now in progress, and this will be relevant to events in 1919 and 1920 since this election called by Duan who is currently PM is responded to principally by the Northern provinces and boycotted by the south (not the least of which is because Sichuan is currently in its own civil war, Hunan is being invaded by the north, and Yunnan is a military dictatorship). These elections will be important in both 1920 and 22, and to a lesser extent the early events of 1919 which will be more directly foreshadowed in the arc epilogue

The other event that occurs is also in relation to the Hunan Crisis is that Wu Peifu's friend and mentor Zhang Qihuang was a hunan magistrate and he seems to have convinced Wu to support peace talks. This is not when it occurs relevant to the cadre, its why its not mentioned, but Qihuang seems to have been the actual author of some of Wu's circular telegrams urging peace. Wu actually joins the peace faction before Cao Kun, and Wu's support for a native hunanese leader in the province may have played a role in convincing Cao Kun.

Alternatively, Cao's principle objective could have been maintaining railway control and he didn't care who was Dujun of the Province per se. There have been people who argue that this was Beiyang 3rd​ Division Leadership Policy under Cao Kun and Wu Peifu, but it is complicated, and I do think that was a factor in their positions if not immediately then by summer 1918 as the elections for Parliament got underway.

That being said, Wu was a native of Shandong (specifically Penglai county, which had had been subject to Japanese occupation during the first war in 1895) his opposition to Duan was very likely influenced by that event as well when the Anhui Zhili war kicks off (in 1920). [And of course there were realistically a lot of factors that shaped the conflict.]

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 3rd​ 1918
It was ungentlemanly sure, but duels and tea and crumpets didn't win wars.

Allen didn't particularly like this part of the work. He never had, but better him than Bill. Bill's daddy could have peeled the answers from the man, but then the colonel had more experience. The McCulloch patriarch would have been faster at all this.

He stood, and the man sagged.

The nine inch dagger was in his hand, and the Cheka one of their regional hirelings never saw the glint before it slipped underneath his ribs and entered his subclavial artery. The technique had been adopted from the Moros. Something learned almost twenty years earlier and able to be used from multiple positions with multiple sorts of knives, curved or straight it didn't matter.

It was much quieter than a pistol. Not that he was overly worried about the noise. He'd seen what the chekists had done... but then the revolutionaries were banking on fear and apathy rather than popular support. Oh they talked about the working class, but in the same breath complained peasants were backwards and so on. No surprise almost all of Lenin's lot were lawyers or the children of churchmen or something other than peasants.

The poor man's iron maiden the revolutionaries had made from nails and barrels was just an exemplar of that policy of Red Terror.

He wasn't here for that. The boots were quiet across the floor, and he opened the door and went down the stairs. There were supposedly other red guards, people's militia and what not but for the most part there were very very few rifles, and only a couple of machine guns.

Nothing that really compared to what they had. There was nothing approaching standardization. The Chekists would stand out even more than the rag tag uniforms of the red's supposed people's peasant army soldiers, who were basically just wearing the old imperial uniform with red fabric armbands.

The colored arm bands reminded him of China, of what had become normal following the Xinhai revolt where the uniforms themselves were mostly the same for every side so you needed something to signal who was who.

It was dark outside. The sun had disappeared over an hour ago. They had time until they needed to move and it was time to organize the final motion of the action.

The table downstairs was covered in maps. Official maps, hand drawn maps, a mix. Maps that had been annotated with changes, and observations. They had had to dismount from their trucks. The roads weren't great but the intention was to signal the rest to come as quickly as possible... then get the hell out of dodge but they'd need to bring the trucks into town, or nearer to a staging point, before sending a signal... or more likely a runner to bring the trucks up to the Merchant's house were the Tsar and his family were being kept.

He passed his notes on the table.

"You believe this?" Bill asked flipping through, "If this is right we've got more ammo than they do."

It was possible. It was equally possible that the stupid bastard was just misinformed of how much ammo there was or that there was some elsewhere... but "Given the state of the trans siberian it is possible that the ammunition kept bunching up at places along the way, and this far in the rear they didn't feel the need to have the ammunition."

Why store ammunition for real weapons in Ekaterinburg? The Germans weren't going to attack here... but it was now a target of the civil war between the russians. The Ural Soviet had recently sent on of their leading men to take over command of the guards. He would have to die. Allen was making that decision executively for no other reason than he didn't want the man around to potentially rally supporters and troops if they managed to get out of here with the Tsar.

He didn't like the idea that the house had been renamed as 'special purpose'. That had been a bad sign... but the telegraph that had supposedly been sent to Lenin was damming in itself. The bolsheviks were about as well armed as some of the bandits back home... and when the Czech Legion that the Entente and the States were so concerned about got here at the end of the month he doubted it would have been any kind of fight.

... but he didn't intended to be here to find out either. They were not here to fight a battle, just rescue some well meaning idiots from a bunch of bandits, and that meant that this could be thought of in normal terms.

"This window is, has been kept open."

"We'll put someone on watch," Allen replied to Guan's observation from the notes, but he'd been thinking about that, "Climbing through it isn't an option." but they would he confirmed have to watch the window... cover of night would give them some movement. "This attic is directly above them, there is supposed to be a man on the maxim gun at any given time," Which sounded like a chore to have set up, and there was a palisade around the house what a mess. "I want you to take a platoon here," He indicated a separate chekist prison offsite of the house. It was where a group of hostages were being held... apparently pending a planned execution in a few days apparently in retalition for some bolshevik being killed.

He had considered moving on the cathedral as an overwatch post, but had discarded that notion.

"Popov House?"

"you're to cover its entrances with Lewis guns, and mortars, and then you're to set it on fire." He informed the Major coolly.

It didn't take a look at the hand drawn maps to realize there were issues, "That may be a problem. If we don't' move on the cathedral we may have to contend with the forces there..." The major frowned, "also according to what we know the bandits bring whores into both houses. They will probably be busy tonight." He remarked.

It was far from ideal. Major Liu was correct. Breaching the house the Tsar and his family were being kept in would be a problem. There was likely going to be the need to sweep the hallways, and that was never an easy or pleasant experience.

A night attack was contingent that the Tsar and his family would be presumably locked in their rooms and thus shouldn't be about, they could break in shoot first and ask questions later of any men in anything approaching uniforms.

"We'll have to open quickly. The Maxim here covers the road," He had surveyed the area and he was confident that he had a shot. The suppressed mauser might still be heard but that was why the popov house needed to be covered first.

It would have been nice to have one of 3rd's 3 Inch mountain guns to directly fire into the house, but they had come in light by train, and with motorization. Two Infantry Platoons, and a Platoon of Engineers supported by one of the Mortar Squads. The mortars could be used for direct lay if necessary but the new ones were finned and rifled thereby had further range

Of course the engineers were also responsible for the trucks. That arrangement had been chosen rather than trying to deploy an ETS Motorized Rifle Company wholesale for other reasons, but petrol was a major concern.

What Allen hoped would not reach Peking, Tietsin, Reinsch, or even Lansing, was that the 3rd​ Regiment under Lee had moved over the border across the Transoxiana Rail Line and was encamped at the railhead the company had built for the British and he supposed on behalf of the 'White Russians'. White, Red, Green, Black, and here he was with a collection of gray backs this was a new century alright... it was not 1901 and this was not some jungle island this was deep into the interior of one of the suppose great european empires.

What could not have ever been foreseen in 1918, nor would survive into outlandish recreations of the 4th​ of July in 21st​ century movies was the myths and the legends of it all, and coming to terms. The Whites and Reds would remain relatively poorly armed, and even worse organized for another year really, both sides would continue to mount 'daring' cavalcades of horsemen even in the 1920s , and the bayonet charge would remain the supposed focal point of people's will and revolutionary vigor in infantry manuals until the start of the second world war for the Soviets.

--
Notes: One idea that I considered doing for the Romanov Rescue was passing off the arc conclusion as a much later media or fictionalization of the events from the perspective of a mature late or even post cold war unified China with attendant exaggerated elements potentially of the point of think WW1 esque call of duty meets Zero Dark 30 but it wraps the really end of ww1 and sets the stage in the long term for the transition to the interwar great political kerfluffles

 

[Imperator Pax]

4th​ July 1918
There was noise enough on the street ... whether the drunks would hear this he wouldn't know. They had taken the precautions they could, but luck entered into it.

He held the take up on the first stage of the trigger and let the breath pass. The four power of the Zeiss scope had been zeroed and adjusted for the heavier 220gr bullet. They had removed under the cover of the darkness that had fallen the window frame and placed it with cloth covered laminate wood sheets except for a gap through which as he lay on the table prepared to fire through.

The idiot in the attic was smoking. A little flicker, and a breath as he sat in the attic window. He hadn't realized it at first but the man was sitting sideways watching the intersection down below, most likely the drunken fraternizing of the guards across the street. He'd never hear the bullet that killed him.

The Mauser, this mauser was, had started life as a commercial hunting rifle and come from his cabinet back at home. It had been selected an accurized first by Mauser in Germany, and then rebedded by Griswold. That bedding was the whole chamber length, and it made excellent for wimbledon style matches against Cole's 6.5 or Bill's own rifle.

It was not the rifle that he normally carried to fight bandits. It wasn't one of the newer guns.

He finished the pull through the second stage of the trigger. The rubber butt pad dimmed the recoil and there wasn't much noise from the gun. He opened the action slowly, mindful of what was in front of him and collected the spent shell.

The man's body was on the floor the cigarette was on the floor. It dimmed, and the man didn't move.

He took the case out and closed the action on a fresh one.

It was their time to move. He looked to his spotter and nodded. They picked up the third man at the top of the landing who'd been on security and began to move. With the exception of the Company's Riflemen Scouts most of the Mausers had been traded off for 35 Remingtons. Trading range for volume of fire. The first couple of chekists found out what taking pistols towards self loading rifles resulted in as they began to respond to 2nd​ platoon opening the attack on the Popov house.

Securing Sections, or breachers, were sergeants and corporals with either Lewis's finalized pistol caliber machine gun that Lewis had managed to get a few working, or with Browning Auto 5s crunched the doorways and unloaded into the men in the hallways. The five man groups of the section were forcing their way forward from the entryway. The men in the rear were aid men serving to support the Lewis Gunners.

Hopefully the trucks would be to their correct position Allen stepped through the ruined doorway and moved further inside. There were no big sword units but it was mostly pistols. Popov House across the street had started to smoke and catch fire, and the lewis gunners were rattling its windows and doors at any sign of movement.

The supposedly fifty odd men inside would either have to force their way into the open and take focused fire... or they would burn to death.

The was a shriek.

The first mortar bomb dropped.

... or the men popov house would die from that.

A man came up from the basement. A tiny little nickel plated gun in his hand. One of browning's pocket pistols and was rushing entirely too fast. He was half way through the room before he realized anyone else was in the room with him. That was about the time his spare hand had closed around the nickel plated 1906 and Allen lifted the much larger browning 45 and pressed the four pound single action trigger. The automatic barked sending a 230 gr as the man's head turned as his own gun was forced up out of the way towards the masonry...

The hardball bullet ripped fairly through throat, and jaw terminating out of the side of the Chekist's clean shaven face and thumping into the frame of the ceiling.

It wasn't immediately fatal, and the Russian, or whatever he was, flailed helplessly grabbing his ruined face and alternatively then his throat gurgling. Allen pointed the gun at his face, and squeezed a second round, and the man fell silent at last, hand finally thumping on the floor in a pool of blood. "Fan out." He ordered over the chatter of machine guns firing from outside.

The 'Red Guards', whatever they were being called this week, according to the man he had interrogated had probably about three hundred men. They barely outnumbered his own forces, and were under equipped in comparison.

That was even more reason to slam them with overwhelming firepower where they could

Bill's heavy footsteps had already forced the first set of stair case.

A pair of men forced the attic and pulled the pins on the grenades they'd been provided by the English. The F1s rolled down the stairs and the men got back in the room as they hit the bottom landing. There were screams of pain and dying Bolsheviks.

A man remained watching the approach his auto five covering the steps down, and he was fixed low and out of the way. Allen moved on to the upstairs with his own detachment in time to reach the next floor and watch a bearded man's broomhandle skid across the floor. Guan had swept his legs and knocked him to the ground. He took a breath, and then came down with his weight bringing the pommel of his fighting knife into the man's adam's apple.

The man's description matched the new Chekist commander... or it did until the Gendarmes lieutenant broke his nose and and drove the blade down into his already swelling purple neck. Two more men, theirs, swept the corners.

"its fine, keep sweeping the floors. GO." He tapped the lieutenant on the shoulder. "Lieutenant?" He checked. The younger man nodded, and wiped his knife on the dead man's clothes.

The place was a pigsty, and he heard the piano break in the nest room.

There was a snarl of 45 ACP from the open bolt of a Lewis-Griswold Pistol Caliber machine gun, which was too long of a name by far. Sam had taken Lewis's action and the 1916 and made Lewis's idea workable. The original plan of a fifteen round magazine in the grip had been binned though, and a man shouted he was reloading.

There were fewer men up stairs. There were empty bottles of liquor on the ground floor, and graffiti that he noticed but that he didn't have time to decipher. He peaked out to check on Popov house, which was now a merry bonfire, and then got away from the window.

"Where are we?" He asked.

"The machine gun in the basement is secure, as is the one overlooking the garden."

There was chatter abruptly from a maxim

The church. He didn't need to see it to track the noise.

Damn it.

"See if you can get mortars effectively on that tower." Returning accurate fire from the street level would be difficult, but maybe not impossible with Lewis Guns from the shoulder. "But make sure our people aren't out in the -

POM POM POM

He watched the flash of tracers eat there way up the bell tower as the auto cannon levied 1 lb high explosive. The QF1 Pom Pom gun was mounted on a flexible mount in the bed of a ford truck and while not immediately silencing the maxim it walked its fire up as the truck came to a halt.

"Sir?"

"Go keep moving make sure nothing across the street checks us, we'll finish here." He told the captain assigned to 2nd​ platoon. They needed to do a head count.

Assuming that the force at the house across the street was dead that was probably fifty something men who'd supposed to have been there. There could still be men alive in there... but from the way the house was burning he wasn't that concerned. Allen holstered the forty five and continued to dispatch orders. This was the more important matter. Him, outlining to the captains and sergeants what their objectives were. He would trust the men to accomplish what he wanted done.

Presumably the Engineering Detachments commander had recognized the opportunity to advice and move forward to the objective and move forward to join them. They needed to join up now. The various retainers of the deposed dynasty and the family themselves were upstairs looking quite confused as he and graybacks swept in. Never mind that they must have resembled Kaiser Bill's troops. "George the Fifth sends his regards." He said glancing around, and then switching to Russian, "I am John Allen Forrest." a decade ago his particular phrasing would have probably been a bit rude to address a monarch, or former monarch but he was a bit out of practice. "On the behest of the British Government I have been asked to transport you to Tietsin. From there eventually, by ship, to England." He looked around at them all, and frowned.

"I do not understand." The man he presumed was Nicholas began in a tired voice, answering in English. He must have noticed the mix of Chinese in the men assembled. Not that it should have mattered he'd noted that a number of the fellas tonight hadn't exactly been 'great russians'.

Allen felt his grimace increase in force, "Yesterday," according to the Chekist he'd interrogated, "The Bolsheviks sent a man to ask Lenin, if they could kill you." Not that this hadn't already been planned. The British had been very worried that given the movement of the family to here that they were running out of time. "Any details you might be curious to, are best reserved for the British." And not asking stupid questions when there was shooting going on.

He spared the chore of that by the sergeant adding, "Colonel McCulloch is coming down."

The big Texan came into the room with all the tact of a steer, "Well Al there's, no worries about that cotton top in the attic. He doesn't have a head. Not much of one anyway, but Sui-lin does say our cubano cossack friends are becoming a mite impatient though its why he brought the trucks forward."

"Then lets go to the trucks." He did a brusque headcount again, "We have everyone we're here for."

"But the guards." Nicholas protested.

Bill gave a shrug, "We've killed all of them." Allen replied with a gesture of ease. They had taken the trans siberian rail to get here. They would get back on the rails ride to Omsk screened by the various Cossack hosts, and make for Lake Baikal. Then they'd ride south, safely back into China. Then it would be Peking, and dropping the Russian family with the mission in Tietsin.

In propaganda films later... someone had the brilliant idea of the daring escape being punctuated by a milleu of fireworks going off to tweak the Bolsheviks nose It wasn't like that. The flares, from flare guns, fired off signaled for the detonation of charges of TNT. It was a purely tactical method of dissuading pursuit as they retreated back to the rail line and to cover loading using TNT normally used for railway work.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
Allen would have absolutely preferred returning the way that they had come into this country to go down the Transoxiana line from the Siberian. Not take the damn rickety trans Siberian... but the British had insisted on carrying the Tsar to Vladivostok through Russia.

... what they hadn't said was the delays involved because of the railway's limitations, and the imposition of the mobs of white Russian supporters. Colchak probably was trying to demonstrate to either the English that their idea of a tsar to rally around was working in exchange for something... or legitimately supporting the tsar from the Cossacks.

He didn't really suppose it mattered. Well that wasn't true the lack of reliable telegraph service did actually irk him. That mattered. He would have preferred if they could have pulled back to Lee and had 3rd​ provide security as they crossed back into China and then ridden through the Gansu Corridor line and to Xian... then from Xian to Zhenzhou and Peking... and then the Tsar could be someone else's problem... but no this was how things were.

It wasn't just the tsar. Colonel Thomas Ellenburg was the regiment's chief surgeon and he had immediately not gotten along with the Romanov's doctor. The feeling was mutual apparently though Allen wasn't sure what argument had prompted his surgeon and the other doctor to disagree... Ellenburg, who had not been among the original hundred, had remained in reserve and had contented himself to looking after their few casualties but it had had been a headache to contend with.

Allen watched the door as it opened. He wasn't the only one. The British officer wore cavalry boots, but so were a lot of people. Technically the Gendarmes uniform issued a variant of the US's pattern of cavalry boots. The man in the khaki uniform stepped over and Allen shrugged gesturing to the seat.

"I must admit General John you rather confound me."

John was his first name. Since he was a general the British system was to address him by that since they were on professional terms. Percy had known him long enough to drop the rank. John Jordan occasionally indulged in calling him John Forrest in copy to how he referred to the English ambassador but Percy's friend didn't have that familiarity. "I'll admit this isn't exactly the same as finding some lost missionary," Despite what he'd said to Waite before they'd left.

"No I suppose there are differences. It is however more than that, my understanding is you represent a government within China on the basis of an army, that has industrial and productive means behind it... and thus Duan has farmed out so to speak the tax collection." It was a comparison to the East India Company, that was what it was... but it was also a comparison drawn to other matters. MacKinder would later on make an untoward response relating a trotsky quote, but the parliamentarian and the officer in the box car agreed that the reality was there were many such small governments cobbling together small realms in Russia, especially in the sparsely populated stretch of Asiatic Russia.

What wasn't yet apparent, and wouldn't be until the fall months was how quickly things were unfolding. Lloyd George had wanted a political feather in his cap in doing this. Much as how his speeches in April had been aimed at bolstering his leadership credentials in the wake of Wilson's 14 Points delivered in January.

"Waite will be replacing me on our Transoxiana board." he replied as the conversation wound around, "I understand there is some disagreement with Semenoff," Something Iseburo had mentioned about the Special Manchuria Detachment getting cozy, and for that matter, "And there is the matter of trying to smooth feathers with the Czechs."

"Ah yes the Czechs."

That was the defining focus of non partisan international efforts among the great allied powers. The czechs. The crisis with semonoff was like with others were local rather than the broader war effort. The czechoslovak legion was supposed to be the linchpin of an entire new army group against the Germans; how was the bigger question. That was the agreed upon 'ideal' the problem was how to use the lever against the Germans, which was of course where the arguments were.

To the ultimate detriment of a unified Siberia, of course. Semenoff would throw in with the Japanese Siberian Stability Commission, which would turn into a pacification mission in the late fall aimed at the Bolshevik sympathizers. The US AEF-Siberia General would object. Semonoff would ignore them, and Semonoff would ignore Kolchak who eventually the Japanese would try to reach their own accommodation of in tandem with the British.

In the long run Britain finding the situation continuing to degenerate would support by arms, and money the flow of white forces and civilians into Kirghiz and central asian region for a second attempt. All that would be later, and after a shake up state side. France and England supported an independent Czechia and Czechoslovak for different reasons than the states it wanted it as a leverage point in central europe and to break up the Austrians... where as support fro an independent country was ideological in the US lacking in broader policy aims and thus could be bipartisan.
--
The countryside passed slowly. The train was slow. He tried to excuse that vexation by blaming the feudalist trapping of the caravan of people, and supporters following the train as it journeyed further east and towards the pacific.

Bill racked the slide on his double stack automatic and tucked it into the holster. "Do you think he'll cause us some trouble?"

"I haven't had enough time with the man... but I frankly doubt it. We unnerve him. I don't like his comparison of us to their east india company," not the least of which was the chance some damned limey might think that gave them room to tell them what to do, "But we have bigger problems and I think the war means they'll hold up their end of the department." The British would give them access to the patents, and examples of things that they had asked for... and that they'd pay for support and goods in turn."

"What about the trans-oxiana line?"

"We'll keep it up." They could fig leaf the legal justification of just saying the Bolsheviks weren't a real government... after all Wilson had yet to officially recognize Lenin and friends.... but the Virginian could change his mind at any time , and that would be a problem. "We will have to figure something out in the long term. If Russia collapses entirely do you think that silly idea of building a railway to Islamabad will happen?"

"How would that even work?"

"That's what I'm asking you, but I can see someone in Whitehall thinking its a good idea." Not the least of which is that it would be expensive but potentially cut China out of the railway question entirely. "I figure if the brits are serious though they'll try and go through Persia, that makes more sense to me."

Bill finished rolling up his cleaning supplied and tucking the bundle into his bag. It would be good to get home. This train was too slow... and he was wearing field gray. In china that wouldn't have meant anything. The last qing uniform adopted had been german based, and in terms of cut most everyone even down south had adopted it, if not necessarily in the standard prussian coloring.. but that was more a matter of local dyes often enough.

The Kuban cossack honor guard that was protecting the royal train's procession through the countryside was not nearly as neatly uniformed. There were a dozen odd models of pistol and revolvers, and lever actions, and other miscellaneous weapons.

"Did you hear Crozier took the lewis guns from the marines."

Bill looked askance, "God in heaven he is a surly bastard, how in the hell did he not have a riot?"

Zhang looked up at the response. Allen shrugged. He was surprised, and then really wasn't. "I expect our English friend will comment on our use of them."

Zhang was quick to point out that the Lewis, if a version in the British dwarf, was in use and had been the whole war. "It makes no sense to deny them to troops." That was true, there was no good reason for it, just petty spite.

They continued the small talk and watched the countryside. Noted the passing of couple of french built 75mm guns being pulled alongside the train. It was one of if not necessarily the first sign of 'White Russian' artillery... but supposedly both sides did have abundance of artillery. Then the feeling came. Something was wrong... it was just one of those things instinct told you about.
--
Notes: So we're rapidly finishing this arc, but among other things this will conclude with the assemblage of parts of 1st​ Regiment as per the original extra snippet but also that the Gendarmes dress uniforms will make an appearance before the Tsar fucks off to England.

One thing we don't see is the French position in east Asia, and part of that was it initially (in the 19th​ century) bound up with its nominal allies, Britain before the 2nd​ Empire really, and then later Russia in the 3rd​ republic bluntly speaking the grand strategy of the French Republic was in event of war with germany have everyone who isn't French or isnt' 'real french' dogpile the germans until they run out of bullets. Very much the Russian attack into eastern prussia coupled von Moltke losing his nerve is what saves France by drawing off the German attack, and the French were counting on those russian imperial troops but also on the ability to leverage colonial troops, and also being able to demand British troops to fight on the continent.

The french war plans did not expect American involvement. Neither did the British, the British naval blockade was constrained by white hall in terms of effectiveness, we've had that discussion the navy could have forced a much more effective blockade but there was opposition at the political level, and in 1914 the misguided belief in Asquiths government that it would be a quick war.

So back to the French the French do not really return to Asia a tangible force until really 20-21 and they're very much an unwelcome return. French expansion is basically done by this point, France begins to have problems in Indochina (in vietnam in particular) and while the French do attempt to force certain issues its largely unsuccessful and part of that is that France burns a lot of bridges with her allies after versailles especially with the trade war and in treaty negotitations and the debt crisis. So that is why for the most part France makes only a limited appearance in the north.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
He couldn't shake the feeling. It wouldn't leave him, even though the train was still moving. He shared a look across the way.

Then he slid out of the booth, and Bill moved up and over, "You want your remington?" the texan asked pulling the heavy waterproof antelope hide case down and opened it to reveal his own 35 Remington self loader and the handful of curved magazines. He nodded and grabbed another case and putting it opposite. "Zhang," He said to the younger officer, who was already starting to get up, "grab the fire squad from 2nd​ platton, and tell Guan to be ready for things to go to shit."

Worst case scenarios tugged at the corners of his mind as he rocked the magazine in and through leather sling over his neck and shoulder. "Well we haven't heard any explosions, and there aren't any bridges in front of us." Bill remarked, "If things are about to go wrong,-" he stopped.

The door opened allowing the viscourt or baron or whatever the brit was back in england entry escorted by a couple of their engineers. The Englishman glanced at the rifles and the forty five that had appeared in Allen's hand. "Trouble then? I suppose it was getting too quiet." The man replied with surprising calm even though his had twitched almost starting to move towards his gun before thinking better of it.

Allen didn't reholster, and rested the pistol against his thigh.

They were on a big train with a lot of cars. Too many cars if he were honest, with too many places to hide. Guan appeared cradling what the brit had termed 'small machine guns', and what he'd told them that the Germans had begun calling Machine Pistols...

The bolsheviks had of course nicked all of the Tsar's large property so they were really sort of lucky in that respect, but the Romanovs were being wined and dined as much as was possible in the the train ride... and beyond them there was no shortage of other nobles of the empire deciding to ride east with their former monarchs.

They were somewhere east of Omsk, which narrowed it down to nothing. There were stops ahead of them but he wasn't sure how long it would take this train to reach Irkutsk or Chita beyond it. "The Mausers, the Lewis guns, ya think?"

"What are you expecting?" The English man questioned.

"Nothing good." He replied to the question, "And yeah, if someone attacks the train from outside I'd like them to regret that decision before we kill them." He was probably over thinking things, but, as he'd been dreading, "The truth is we've been travelling slower than I would have otherwise liked," Bill's observation was right, blowing a bridge would have been better... the train's speed even with a big charge might stop them, but not necessarily for long. "and there is no way they've kept this quiet, no offense." It would have been better to go down the new railway, go back to China through Xinjiang and get to Xian, then they could go to Zhili and put his majesty on a boat to England... he blew out a breath, "Send some of the engineers to ah lend ahead would you." He told the lieutenant who nodded. He glanced to an infantry major, "Observation post see what's ahead of us." The man slung his scoped mauser and gathered a couple of platoon scouts from 1st​ regiment and followed after the engineer.

The train hadn't stopped. It was still trudging along with its cossacks, but there was something off that was bothering him. "We're going to the tsar then?" The englishman had decided it was 'we', but he wasn't really surprised... and the brit agreed that it wasn't feasible to outrun a telegraph. The lines were up so it was possible word had gotten out, and that Lenin should have received word that Eketarinburg had fallen... but that wasn't necessarily the same thing, "As lenin slipping an agent aboard."

"If doesn't matter if there is one or not if they dynamite the tracks it'll stop the train for a couple days." They should have gone south not east. "And do I think its likely no, the Ural commission had to send someone to petrograd to petition Lenin in person to -"

The man knew what he was going to say and got squeamish, "Yes, yes I know. We know, and at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if the huns know, but we don't have to keep having that ghastliness brought up."

Allen blew a breath out and shook his head.

They moved through a couple of cars finally arriving in an ostentatious dining car that just demonstrated the variety of people comprising the White Russian cause. There were other cossacks, there were turkic folk like the yakut, there were czechs... though Allen knew his grasp of the language to be anemic at best. It wasn't just ethnic russians, nor were they strict monarchists, and of course that was why it was like herding cats. They couldn't get along.

The brit was still carrying on about the precautions and the security apparatus and telegrams and everything as they came past a group of men drinking. There was a sudden movement as the source of his paranoia must have decided the jig was up and leapt up holding another of those nickel plated mouse guns in his left hand. He shouted something stupid that sounded like a russian translation of Marx with some one else's good ideas added 'for the revolution' his sufficiently bolshevik diatribe gave everyone else in the car time to figure out something murderous was in the works.

... and then the shooting started and then just as quickly came to a stop. Splinters and broken glass exploded and covered the floor of the dining compartment.

If the idiot had shot first, assuming he could have managed the shot with his left hand he might have gotten at least one clean one off and then he could have shouted whatever he liked and had his frothing diatribe cut off then.

Of course that was assuming one of the little pops from the mouse gun would have cut it.

Instead the 25 ACP shot the window and the would be regicide found himself slumped against the bench most but not all of the pistol rounds having gone wide and into the ornate hardwood. The man was in moaning heap, though possibly because a reindeer hide boot had come down on his wrist and thus kept his hand away from the little browning he'd dropped when he'd fallen back.

"Well he's alive," The brit peered at the would be assassin and presumably fighting to be heard over the tinnitus in his ears, "We should get a doctor, he might know something." The yakut tribesman serving as the tsars honor guard looked a little surly at the notion of medical treatment for people attempting regicide but stepped back as the brit didn't back down.

Allen rested the remington against his hip, and then shrugged, and pushed on.

"Wait where are you going?"

"To the telegraph." He replied as if that should have been bloody obvious at this stage.

He had half a mind to do something peavish or at least mention this to be people who would then let their tongues wag, but he then what. No he would cable Tietsin, and figure out how far they were to Lake Baikal and they'd figure out from there how much longer.

There were just too many people on this train that he didn't know enough about... and it wasn't fast enough... and he didn't need reminding that the only people from the US Army currently in Siberia were a couple of junior officers from the department of military intelligence who had been temporarily assigned from their stations in the Philippines.

He wondered how Nicholas the second was going to feel having to rely on Japanese troops for potential security as he flipped through the various notes that were keeping track of last reported positions. "Why did we agree to this?"

"Besides King George's heartfelt gratitude?" Bill replied leaning against the wall, "The british have thing we're gonna need. They have material examples of things this fool war has invented or just made more common." The brits were welcome to be scandalized at the mercenary or flippancy of hte matter if they wanted, but it was what it was.

It was after all no secret the british weren't doing this for altruistic purposes.
--
Notes: this is somewhat short, because I need to pull ... well frankly a couple of primary sources and a few other books and work on some scenes that along with this mini arc, in part for the 'here and now' and in part for stuff down the line.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
Personally he had no investment in the Tsar's government or in any attempt to use him to rally against the Bolsheviks, and he he doubted the Tsar would be any more use for rallying Russia against the Germans ... but the British could try and do that if they wanted to it wasn't his problem. By the time they had finally reached the fortress city on the shores of Lake Baikal everyone, in the unit, had been complaining about the train, and the condition of the trans Siberian.

All of them were so damn glad to see the japs though. That might not have ordinarily been the case but the truth was he happy to see the meatball flag streaming. Iseburo had had updated maps and diagrams of where he'd been surveying the Trans-Siberian and while there hadn't been time to drink Yamagata's son had been animated in his disgust at the railways condition when they'd put first put into the station.

There were other familiar faces. He wasn't surprised Terauchi had or his staff had probably selected people with experience from Korea.... and it made sense that man ranked colonel then would have his stars now... and that was good for him. Allen was happy to see someone who was good at their job get promoted.

Then of course there was letter waiting with Iseburo. Akashi had penned the letter from his current post as Governor of Taiwan. There was other news besides, a mix of telegrams and newspapers chronicling the world beyond Asia.

He adjusted the strap of his rifle, a motion the British aristocrat noticed and looked up from his journaling. "Still expecting an attack from the reds, I thought your Japanese friends reassured you of our most reliable position?"

"I'll be expecting an attack until we're home." Really it was more until the entourage was no longer his problem bu he would start to relax only once he was back in Xian. Jun had not been happy about this excursion regardless of what might be gained by it.

Iseburo had a labor force under his command though that was presently reinforcing Irkutsk. "Your paranoia seems to have convinced your friends at least."

He shrugged but reframed from mentioning that the Russians pointedly weren't taking it seriously or digging. "You'll notice Iseburo has his infantry digging in those positions along with civilian workers." Iseburo didn't like shouting.... but he'd also tried to get his men to sing instead... which hadn't worked that great for somethings.... it was an admirable attempt, but well... regardless. "those machine gun positions will have open fields. I'll feel better with those yes, but I'll feel better still when I'm back at home."

Iseburo was not a military man... but he was a voracious reader and when something had his attention he'd browbeat people into doing the work to very exacting specifications... but it was a kind of assertiveness that was fleeting. Iseburo just might not have been able to muster the energy to crawl out of his secluded cave of books but every so often. Right now though the dragon was up, and he wanted the killing fields aimed at the west.

In the end that would be what was best. When Omsk fell and the 'autonomous Siberian government' fled back east, the Bolshevik and their red cavalary would pursue. Iseburo would make sure to have the railways from Omsk ripped up behind them, which one of his subordinated officers underneath him had described as picking up trash, but it had meant that the costly overland march through Siberia forced the Reds to attack a heavily fortified Irkutsk... and the mix of Schneider heavy guns and machine guns that their cavalry would charge again and again until the horsemen were forced to retire defeated.

Even so the government of the Autonomous Siberia, and the Green Ukraine were far further east. Kornilov, Semenoff, and other officers were moved to Vladivostok under Japanese guardianship and a proclamation went out.

A proclamation mostly ignored. It would take years for the accepted position and for the UK, and Japan to force as part of the admission of the USSR to accept the independence of those states much as how Lenin had had to accept Latvian and Finnish independence in 1919.

... but that wasn't today. "We'll have to stay here for a bit."

John Allen didn't bother concealing the scowl. He paused looked around the tansbaikal steppe the spread out beyond the lake, and finding what he was looking for he stuck and arm out while slinging the rifle, before grabbing the khaki sleeve of the brit's uniform, "You tell me what you see out there?" he didn't wait for an answer, "Thats a yurt. Its an eight sided felt tent that the mongols have been living out of for thousands of years. There are two hundred thousand mongols," The buryats, "here for the summer camping." That was an exageration, there were Buryats who didn't wear the pig tailed qeue, there were plenty of them, but that wasn't hte point he was making. "Thats without even touching the Siberian cossacks or never mind the rest."

"I don't-"

"Iseburo is making the same correct decision as his daddy did, and the Russians are making the same damned mistake," He hissed, "Those trenches are being dug by civilians and soldiers alike, something the Russians didn't feel they should have to do when they fought the Japs so yeah, I'm worried about the discipline of the army, man. Cause I can just Wilson's face if Iseburo has to whip a bunch of red horsemen like its 1905."

... Wilson would be physically fit enough to contend with that headline though when that prescient envisioning inevitably came to pass.

--
They had good whisky, not the tarasun the locals brewed. Though Allen was aware a couple of the men had purchased a barrel of fermented mare's milk for the evening tonight.

Iseburo nursed the scotch slowly. Their conversation was not the intellectual sort per se. Iseburo had a german education... but he had no strong feelings about the war. It was just ... something that was. It was a background event, noise, background noise, a variable in the equation of his life and one that he accepted and resented depending on how it effected his work.

"Inspector General, you say?" Now, "What will that entail?"

"Making sure that material goes to where it is supposed to." Iseburo would not actually do the criminal investigations he had staff for that, but it was his name that would give things weight. Iseburo was a long standing member of the administrative apparatus. More importantly Iseburo knew how to twist the parliaments arm when it came to getting funding... to the point he'd toppled Sainoji's government over railway funding. "Its not that kind of General... though I will have certain authority. Its a position I've held before." He sipped.

It was a slight tip of the hand, an unnecessary statement that was Iseburo telling him that Japan was moving on their rivals. That they didn't trust the Russians to really deal with the Bolsheviks and that the culmination of that would be the whole sale laying claim to Siberia.

In the meantime Iseburo put the map on the table. "Material." He stated simply and laid out the various stops along the railway eastward. "So much material is stuck in Vladivostok because of this decrepit thing... we should just tear it all up and build a new one." The older railway genius grumbled.

"What's it look like from Harbin?" He asked.

There was a squinting grimace and Iseburo slugged back the last of the scotch, "Not much better... there is a car and engine shortage." The new engines were helping, but the truth was, there was still a limit on rolling stock that those cars could be called a drop in the bucket. Part of it was the need for larger protected depots for material to repair the trans siberian after a decade plus of neglect, but that was one thing that in terms of production couldn't be spared.

"you'll have to get more from the states Ise, engine capacity, and rolling stock is tied up on our western and Transoxiana lines."

There was some grumbling, "Its the same, and Akashi is trying to buy stock for Taiwan so supply is very scarce."

Then of course there was the history of it all.

--
Notes: Now this is obviously part of the timeline divergence. This goes into well for one Iseburo is actually a bit old to be doing this but he was involved in supervision of the railways in Korea (and he did tank the sainoji government either because Aritomo told him to or as a result of failure to provide adequate railway funding (or possibly both)) but also here.

This gets us to the more authoritative organization of the Anglo-Japanese position. Terauachi (and indeed his successor) want a multinational force in Siberia, Terauchi wanted a joint Anglo-American-Chinese-Japanese force, the problem at home was in his cabinet. There was almost a scene where Iseburo admits that the minister of the interior actually wanted Japan to mobilize (and deploy a million men into Siberia, which Japan was absolutely in no way capable of doing and the Genryo under Aritomo would have shot down even if Terauchi somehow went to the diet to ask for the money... and the Diet would have given them the money for it) [Japan did not have the money for it, and the navy would have screamed bloody murder if they didn't get their budget for their new battleships].

And abroad, well the big problem is in the American government is Wilson, because too idealistic for his own good and while he was moving away from maybe we can still convince the bolsheviks to get back into the war against hte Germans he did not want to commit to a Siberian intervention, and he ended up waffling on endorsing it over the course of 1918. He approved then was talked out of it by... (it wasn't House, it was one of the other advisors) and then he was convinced to agree to it, but then he insisted it be in limitted in scope. and yeah it was a mess on that front.

here Japan and Britain (and later the Chinese contingent from Manchuria, so Zhang Tso-lin) are much more inclined to operate without direct sanction or international support from Washington, and part of the way they're getting around this is through Lansing's state department and tactic state acknowledgement of the Siberian mission, but only limited US approval and of course Britain has the option of transferring troops overland from China through transoxiana which the US sort of paid for through war loans to britain but don't tell wilson that.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
There was no need to correct anyone's position at the range. The arrival of the American detachment from Military Intelligence, men who should have been at their stations in the Philippines, had joined them early. Some of the detachment had garrison guns, like Guan, others a majority had personal purchase firearms.

It had been one of the defining layout to sortie was everyone needed a forty five caliber side arm, but that really wasn't so much of an ask. Personal side arms while not universal to Xian units were comparable at rates to the US Army.

It shouldn't have taken them a week to reach Lake Baikal from Yekaterinburg, and every day that they sat here he was waiting for something else to go wrong. The Whites had managed to take the city, but it still seemed presumptive to celebrate.

But maybe that was paranoia. The two intelligence wonks were both young lieutenants and seemed confident in what they were told by the British about the action on the front. Reports that were then being parroted back to Washington... which was a problem, but a problem equally being compounded by their reports on the less rosy news of events in eastern siberian towns.

He knew well the fate of such reports. They would be confined to dust ridden drawers in a file cabinet except when they were trudged out to serve a political purpose. Wilson might have had to join the war , but it didn't mean he was committed to the Anglo-Francish entente's ideas. Wilson would be looking for any excuse to avoid material commitments, and if not Wilson than his advisors who saw this nonsense in Peter, and Moscow as some flowering of Russian democracy... but that was nonsensical wishful thinking from a thousand miles away from the bloodshed.

"Be worried the Japs being here, is gonna give the frogs the wrong idea."

"When do the French ever get the right idea about a situation?" Was the response he mustered to Bill's drawl as they sat around the pot of coffee as men thumbed rounds into magazines. "But I take your point they've been shrilly," all but demanding, "calling for Japanese troops for the war in europe for almost four years now." One would have thought France assumed Japan was their ally not the British. It would be four years soon enough... Allen suspected if there had been no BEF, maybe if their Kaiser Bill hadn't tried to build such an outsized navy or whatever then the French probably would have fallen... it wouldn't have stopped the Russians from crashing into Eastern Prussia, but from the word the Germans had run them back off... and that had contributed to their current mess. "No sense for us worrying about it."

"A million men would help, you know." The British officer remarked putting his cup down while a handful of sergeants reset the plates.

"Not if they freeze come winter." Bill grunted shaking his head, "Sending boats is one thing."

"He's right, winter campaigning is a mess, and that railway, it took us a whole week to get-"

"That's three thousand kilometers, general." It was funny the rank came up now.

"Eighteen hundred miles, what you will end up with back logs," What they already had ended up with, "Are back ups in the system. You're already seeing it, where groups going one way run into groups going the other, and there is no clear order to who moves for who." Not the least of which was because there was no clear chain of command.

"Well how would you improve the white's situation?"

"Pull the czechs off the front."

"What?"


"You hear me out, this french idea of just constantly attacking is going to cause a mutiny." The english man colored, "It will, its amazing the French lasted as long as they did and commend them for it, but their officers are fucking morons for putting their men through the sausage grinder like that." They should have realized it wasn't working in 1914, "No take the czechs, and the rest of the slavs off the line you want them to fight they need time to to train and train others, and be rearmed. Pulling them off for rest, and retraining will let you settle out disciplinary issues, and it will give you time to secure the railway, which means you'll stop bottlenecking transit of men and supplies."

They had an audience. Most likely some of the johny come latelys had come to try their hands at the pistol tables. Not that he fancied their mice guns, their bigger brownings were meant for shooting at fifty and farther targets despite the parabolic arc a 45 government flew at. If you wanted you could drop a bullet on a man at a hundred feet even if that had been demanded with little consideration for being realistic, but that was what ordinance had been demanding in 1907... and Ordinance did tend to get its way.

--
If ... well it hadn't taken long MacKinder's military attaché to figure looking at the map that the Urals would have been the best place to shore up and stop things... but by the summer of 1918 that was too late. It sounded great on paper but the back end things needed to be straightened out, and while it might have still been possible with the White's spate of successes it would never come to pass.

In the future ... on other days looking aback he would wonder what might have happened to their world to the relations if Russia had been sundered between a Bolshevik 'European' / 'western' russia and the Urals... and whether or not the British could have made good on their economic concessions in the Baku oil fields in the caucus.

Of course if that had been, then Wall Street would have likely pressed hard to sink dollars freed by the end of the war into Siberia in the economic concessions promised by the interim government of 1917... and damn what Wilson thought about how American should act.

It didn't matter, that wasn't what happened. The British would talk about a unified White movement, and all of Siberia and Central Asia, and the Urals. The Japanese Home Secretary could take about wanting to put a million men in Russia, and Terauchi could talk about how their needed to be a joint mission of Japanese, English, American, and Chinese all together to stop Bolshevism and its anarchy but getting the details where everyone would sign was a bridge too far.

What might of been...

"The fighting to the west is displacing more people than we thought," The doctor muttered looking up from the telegram, "It seems as if something happened on the southern front," Whatever that was supposed to entail, "And is pushing the Cossacks down the rail lines towards Kirghiz, the ones that aren't the ones following the Whites under Kolchak are heading this way." The surgeon pinched the bridge of his nose... and sighed, "We'll have to write to Wilson, there has to be something to do or we'll have a crisis."

It wasn't an outlandish sentiment. It shouldn't have been a funny suggestion, or some kind of joke... but it kind of felt like one.

"Tch, and what? Wilson can't make up his mind to do a damned thing right." There was a pause and they fell silent. Wilson had overruled the Federal reserve regarding what was good solid data about the insolvency of the French... and for that matter the risk of the British pound, and then he'd turned around and nixed a mere pittance of the money being loaned to the french to in turn buy up midwestern grain to Duan's government in Beijing... and i he wasn't willing to do that what were the chances he'd be willing to approve real aid to the Whites with bastards like Bullit pretending the bolsheviks weren't cutthroats... or for that matter, "Japan can't be sure of American loans and if they can't be sure the diet can't vote to mobilize."

Goto Shinpei could talk about a million men to the British, or people could take the interior minister at his word and and as a rosy idea, but the reality still sat that the money for that had to come from somewhere... and a million men was a lot of mouth's to feed, and Japan was already having problems with food prices inflating. If the US had to ship food here, if it did that would be food probably pushing prices higher at home in the states, and also on the market abroad... which was going to cause discontent beyond what was already mounting.

A million just wasn't going to be practical.

--
Without Wilson being willing to definitively commit to US support for a broad policy of intervention in Siberia, or in Russia in general the British and the Japanese ministries took more limited means... and one nominally reckoning on Chinese involvement. That was going to prompt protests from down south of course, but Canton likely wouldn't have been happy with Duan agreeing to anything on paper... and the British conditions were that Duan had to have parliament ratify the agreements, a condition Terauchi had immediately latched on to as well.

They hadn't specified which parliament, and thus Duan's planned elections made alot of good sense. The list of names that Brit had been able to put from those coming up from Manchuria were largely officers who had been in the Russo-Japanese war, men who had sense made colonel, or even garnered stars.

That presented potential issues. Some of those men, as younger men, had thought at the time that Japan should have walked away from the war with Siberia for their troubles. There had been days back then that Allen had wondered why the Brits hadn't jumped the Russians... he had understood why Uncle Sam was staying out, but at the time he had expected as the ally of Japan and as fairly belligerent towards the Russians as the Brits were why they hadn't taken the opportunity.

That Japan had opened the war, and Japan hadn't asked for British involvement beyond 'neutrality' did probably a role, but at the same time the French had been pressuring the British to stay neutral... but there were days he looked back on 1905 and wondered what would have happened if it had gone differently.

It didn't matter. It hadn't.

"With Peter, and Moscow," The two largest cities in the Empire, "Under bolshevik control," And with the third largest city of the empire under german control, "and Lenin refusing to recognize foreign debts Taka has a point about nationalizing the Eastern Chinese Railway system," The Russian Manchurian line, the only reason they hadn't done that sooner was because in 16 the Russians were officially cobelligerents and so pressuring that that line in the maritime be ceded for outstanding debts made sense... that and the Brits might have been paying the interest up until last year.

But it was gonna spark a fight that was for sure... but on the other hand, "Suppose that explains the telegraph..."

"The french aren't going to like that, but we shouldn't be surprise. The British are talking to Lansing about recognizing spheres of influence , I think they'll expect him to pull an Ed Gray, which I don't think is going to work."

"Won't know until it happens."

Allen got up and walked the edge of the room, and took a glance at the yard, "We have to get home, we're staying here too long, and Nicholas is an idiot, a well meaning idiot, sure but I want stuff him on a ship for England sooner rather than later before he starts wanting to take command of the army."

--
Notes: this is the penultimate July 1918 chapter there is a little bit more to cover and then we go into the handful of sections wrapping up the year as a whole

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
In later years... after the war had ended and especially after the idiots had dictated their peace terms and insured that there would certainly be a continuation of the bloodletting... Allen had fewer problems admitting that he'd misjudged the situation. In July 1918 he was more sure, "Lenin is imicable to the Cossacks. They can't get along." at the time he just couldn't imagine that Lenin would be able to sway the chaos prone frontiersmen and their bands to sign on with the Marxist rhetoric of world revolution or perhaps more importantly that he'd be able to effectively use them.

Lenin had spent hte majority of the war ensconced in the protective bubble of neutral switzerland it was in hindsight all the more the pity that the Austrians hadn't assumed Lenin a member of the Okhrana and kept him in prison. The Franco-British position though remained convinced that the Russians needed to be brought back into the war against the Germans immediately, which was perhaps the greater hurdle with so many other resources tied up elsewhere... all too frequently the British, and the French for that matter defaulted to their standby excuse of their imperial commitments elsewhere.

Daniel's letter from before they'd left for this ... well his brother seemed afraid of missing the fighting... but the AEF was gearing for a grand offensive in the spring. That was the nominal excuse by which Crozier had pulled the Lewis guns from the front. For 'operational security', never damn well mind that the British had been using the Lewis gun for three bloody years by this point, and the Germans had taken some when Belgium had fallen.

There was nothing that good be done though. The AEF, Daniel and Black Jack extended ranks of others were in France. There were members of the Cadre in Switzerland and England both who would pass news as it came, but that would be slowed by the fact they were here in the east, and the amount of wire and switchboards the messages would have to cross would take longer to get there.

Still that brought them back to the Cossacks, and part of the reason he had misjudged. The eventual split between red and white atamans and their bands began like most things. Over small petty disagreements between men with one thing leading to another. Oh some of the Cossack leaders would turn to claims of patriotism and some would need to be strong armed by the Bolsheviks approaching the truly medieval and holding hostages but that wasn't immediately clear in 1918.

"that doesn't change the facts." The surgeon remarked.

Bill echoed the remark with observation of the disorder amongst the whites, and beyond simply the lack of a clear leader... which Kolchak could make all the protests to the contrary but it was clear he didn't have the pull to truly be the indisputable leader of the White Russian cause. It was worse than that Lenin could brow beat if not all of the reds then most of them and force his way through any allegedly parliamentary proceedings.

The British were quick, very quick to insist that if the Kaiser could win in the east he would force a brest litovsk on France as well. It was apples and oranges so far as Allen could see. The balance just wasn't there. The Austrians, and the Turks were there in the east on the Russian border, in a way that they were physically absent further west where it was more than just the French, and the British, but the mustering of the British Empire at large, and the Italians and now the AEF.

There were too many disparate factions and the Tsar was a potential avenue by which to secure British recognition and funding. Whether he could or not deliver that didn't matter, it was the appearance that to the mass of generals and admirals the Tsar's sanction might win them international recognition gave the cliques something to wrangle.

It had taken them too long to get to Baikal, and they were staying too long. "We will need to consider the other effects," There had been a humanitarian crisis that had largely escaped the eastern papers back home in a way the Armenian murders hadn't, but had still shown in China. Now there were hundreds of thousands of cossacks fleeing east into Siberia from the western half of the fragmenting Russian empire, and that was going to reshape a sparsely populated land, and shape migrant communities also in Kirghiz and probably Manchuria as well if they kept going.

There had been little to be done in the wake of the peasant revolt, and suppression in central asia directly. The situation here though, that was different. There was a rail line connecting Xinjiang and from the 'new territory' to Xian via the lake trunk. They were indisputably involved in such things now.

"We're generally agreed that for the time being that Lenin's repudiation of debts owed by the Russian states and seizure of foreign property will cut him from foreign arms." Allen sighed, "The problem I see with that is I don't see either lasting. Lenin sold the Germans the most productive parts of the empire for a fairy tale promise of peace,." That the Germans wouldn't turn around and take the rest and march on Petersburg.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't turn around and promise some sweetheart deal to anyone back home willing to ship him guns for gold."

"He doesn't have the gold though? The states don't need grain either." Ukraine supposedly was going to trade grain for investment from the Austrians and Germans or something... but that didn't do Moscow or Petersburg any good, "The bastard has to be playing for time."

It was probably political theater, and grandstanding. Lenin probably needed to take a stand for the party after Best litovsk and... and the Russian state was a debtor nation it had never had a complex banking system so the outstanding French loans to the tsar from decades previous, never mind England, and the states, and for that matter whoever else simply could not be anything but dead weight on a new supposedly revolutionary nation.

"He has to be," Allen agreed, then sighed, looking out over the trans-baikal surroundings. "We need to get back. We can't make any sort of leverage, and even if we could this is a sufficiently serious matter we're all going to have to vote." That damned railway into central asia had seemed like such easy money at the time.
--
"So what about your Japanese friend then?"

"Iseburo, you know about him."

"No, no, the other gentlemen General,"

"Taro, he's a bulldog." Allen replied, then to avoid confusion "That's a compliment, he's pretty grounded though... even if he does think that Japan should have walked off from the last war with Siberia."

"Oh dear." The British military attache muttered. "But-"

"Taro was a colonel during the war, and he's a good man for stars. He's a good choice to keep order, and him and Iseburo will work well together."

"And the packet he handed off to you." Allen's expression darkened, and the Brit quieted. "I mean-"

"Taro supported the proposal that there should be an exchange between Japanese intelligence, and their British counterparts. It was your government that didn't think it was better for both sides to keep things back... but if you really want to know, or you want to tell Mackinder Yamagata doesn't think enough is being done." Which was an actually an understatement... "He wants Taro to handle the military side of things with a joint allied force." This would be the beginning of the split of the Kwantung army whereby the IJA's anti-russian anti-communist factions split from the more belligerent wing, and also exasperated internal disputes within the Kenseikai and their Mitsubishi financial patrons.

... but that was in the future...

"Machine guns? Artillery?"

"Mostly machine guns," Allen shrugged, "Taro isn't really a red leg or adjacent to them," He wanted airplanes, but he had no way to provide that, and that would have to be the states or the Brits or whoever... even though yes the idea of observing the Russian positions made sense. Especially made sense to a man who'd made his career in intelligence.

There was a rumbling from the train. "We're stopping-"

Allen smirked as he stood. All that drivel spouted ... the real effect of it all was it was going to cause a famine the likes of which Russia had never seen in its whole three hundred years of Romanov rule... "I'll tell you know, the Germans winning is impossible. You have to keep the french from surrendering, as long as you can keep the mutinies in check, the Germans will lose. Its just numbers and even on the defensive they kept hold out if you can keep some still in the French's spine." There was a start of protest of what if the German divisions in the east came over, "If that bothers you that much dump as many weapons as you can to the nationalists in the little nations that stand to become independent of Austria, and Germany and the Russians. But the bigger danger is the French loosing their nerve, and the Italians following suit. As for here, those were Zhang's banners in Chita. Manchuria is going to Siberia."

They had only been able to wave at the combined Japanese Chinese troops at parade rest as they had passed. Waves which had been returned... but it had been hard to miss Zhang's troops having new issue Arisakas. There were three japanese divisions, which was less than he expected but if Yamagata was serious about what he'd written Taro could reasonably expect some reinforcements from Japan forthcoming.

He did have some questions about the weapons stockpiled in Vladivostok, but now wasn't the time. There were other questions besides, there were not quite questions per se but interests about what others were doing. He looked to the Gendarmes officer at the door, cocked his head back to the Brit, "To answer your question, we're stopping because we're here." He replied

The black uniformed officer stepped in behind him leaving the British attaché to file to the rear as the dismount to the platform took shape. Cullen was absent, and there was no larger gendarmes presence... but it was hard to mistake the shape of the 1st​ Regiment at assemblage. Or what it signified or suggested. Griswold had moved the entire regiment, sans those on detached duties, to Peking and by all observable indication, Qirui had not raised issue.

Whether that was because unlike Zhang they were paying provincial taxes or the just general proximity to Zhili province it was impossible to know. Zhang, for all the aid he had rendered to Qirui in returning to power in displacing the pony tail general when the Manchu restoration had taken the capital, had ceased paying taxes to Peking. Of course it was also possible Cao Kun as dujun of Zhili technically had waved their troops through Baoding without even considering Qirui's office of premier.

Given the mechanization of the regiment they would be out of Peking and returned to their half of western Zhili in the original enclave of Yuan Shikai, and the late Qing era soon enough. He spared the Brit a glance, and a look further down to the Tsar, who was shorter by far than any of them, his nearest comparison being the five seven figure of a senior sergeant who was cradling one of Lewis's small machine guns, which looked akin to a toy in hands the size of a small cast iron skilet.



--
Notes: This concludes july and the romanoff rescue along the lines of the original draft with certain additional details.

This is going up as is, and today. This was going to be saturday's update, instead I will be updating twice this week with starting August 1918 Saturday. Unfortunately I had technical difficulties wednesday morning which mulched some updates I had been working on so it was easier to just update this twice this week.

As to the prescence of troops in Beijing, Qirui allowed or at least didn't protest other beiyang armies in the capital. Zhang, Feng, other commanders, indeed this is what actually gets him into trouble is that he doesn't seem to have expected those troops to cause trouble. Qirui's attempt to consensus build with the broader northern chinese military hiearchy involved nominal recognition of regional commanders and of course that meant allowing Cao Kun's 3rd division (one of the original Yuan Shikai Zhili Army units) to enter the capital. So there isn't really a historical issue with having an affiliate military unit in Beijing temporarily

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1918
A krag jorgensen, the rifle most of them had carried in the Philippines, weighed eight and a half pounds. Eight inches shorter than the Krag, with a twenty inch barrel the rifle on the table was the completed version of what Cole's Gendarmes had been testing. It was just under seven pounds before one loaded the magazine. "They'll outshoot them."

Griswold nodded, "That may be true,"

"Its lighter, it'll recoil more." Waite reiterated an observation they had known two years earlier. It was just physics after all. "I can port the barrel but then Shellman will complain about the noise and hurting the men's hearing."

"The suppressor works?"

"Yeah we've had no problems with them." Cullen replied, "What about on your little hunting trip?"

"We had no issues with them." He replied, suppressing their pistols would be something to talk about later, but the carbines and their accurized set up were intended for the commando's scouts. "Realistically what are our options?"

Griswold frowned, "The 14 series is going to be cheaper, we would have to make a lot of these and frankly that would mean producing enough for all of 1st​ and 3rd​ and," He meant the whole rifle divisions not the original regiments, "the brigades and nevermind the spares." There had been a discussion about the consumptive effects when they had started producing the 'enfields' about just how much wastage the Brits expected, "They are shorter and they have detachable box magazines. In the hands of 1st​ regiment boys can put a mad minute down, that's not a question, but these rifles were not designed to take bayonets. Frankly they're carbines." Which was an issue, "Yan wants sword bayonets like the 14 uses and we have had to show off cavalry charges before so he isn't precisely wrong about that."

Waite waved his hands in the georgian's direction, "Well there you go straight from the horse's mouth." There was a pause, "What do we have else to contend with? You wanted something?" He grunted to Cole suspiciously.

Allen turned, he had some idea, "A sniper school?" They had been talking about it off and on, especially

"Separate from the regimental level at least. Standard course work. British do it for six weeks, and I reckon we can start there." Cullen shrugged, "By the way did you hear lenin got shot in a train station?"

There was a pause. "Really, funny that." He muttered. The Bolsheviks had nominally ratified their new constitution while they'd been on the train ride towards lake Baikal. The Tsar and his family had been safe and away by the seventh of July on the trans siberian rail with them when the soviets had put that out.
--
There was a click as the magazine came off, "The inside is as complicated as it sounds?" JP asked continuing to strip down the russian rifle, "I mean, I understand the cartridge problem, we've had that one." Plenty of people had had that problem it was the great impediment.

He nodded looking over the paper. The China Hands and their chinese audience wouldn't use the term rebel yell. Rebel had implications... but a paper in the states, or with a strictly american audience didn't mind terms like rebel yell.

The irony of course was the eponymous 'Rebel yell' of the civil war was of Irish volunteers of the Confederacy... and that same battlecry had been used by blue jacket Irish under Grant and Sherman... but then well Tecumsah Sherman's vanguard had comprised alabama cavalrymen so it was what it was. He creased the paper, and nodded again, "You should see the machining inside for yourself JP." He stopped, "Oh I should mention, that thing is a bitch to disassemble, you want a second set of hands?"

John Paul was looking down at the magazine, and had another hand resting it in a cradle on his work desk. "Uh, yeah, I'd like to look at it for another minute and try and work this out, but, it works right?"

"Yeah, we were lucky Bill would give it up." The truth was the Texan and Nakamichi both had been playing with the thing for the past week. Griswold absolutely refused to allow anyone outside of his machine rifle ETS engineers to touch the trio of rifles he had pinned up in the State Military Works. Cullen had the fifth gun from the crate in Zhengzhou with his commandoes looking at it. "anyway," He muttered idling over and putting the chicago paper aside.

The rifle was a short recoil gun, which had probably contributed to the tolerance issues of managing the full power 7.62x54 Russian even as just a self loading mechanism.

"The magazine sort of looks like a madsen should look like." JP observed.

"If the magazines were interchangeable sure." But that was probably due to how few of these Federov had probably gotten around to building... and probably due to having to make a gun in the Arisaka cartridge, "Pull the band off I'll hold it, then we can flip it over and unscrew the lower receiver." It was not a gun intended to be serviced much in the field.

Kovrov arsenal had been built by the Danes with pratt and whitney tooling but it was too close to moscow to do anything about, "Pft I'd kill to have those machines though." JP muttered, "How did the Danes even get them back order being what it was?"

"The Brits, War munitions boards came to an agreement." There had been some back room chatter about leveraging to try and get the Danes to break neutrality but that had never gone anywhere and parliament had been too squeamish to push too hard but enough that the treasury had managed to get Madsen an order of machines for 'the war effort' from Pratt and Whitney. "But we need to be making more of our own tooling anyway."

"Yeah, well that easier said than done, ah shit." JP cursed as the left side plate fell off.

"Its supposed to do that."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure it rides in that track, and cams, that sheet metal just holds it in plate," Cedar grimaced, and holding the right plate in with his thumb picked up the other, "That's how its supposed to be." Allen reiterated at the skeptical look.

"Its nice machining," He conceded, "But still that's a little queer."

"If it works."

"I suppose." JP concurred.
--
Their own papers were focused on domestic matters. Provincial matters took priority over things in Peking, or Shanghai, people who wanted that news could read the Herald. The circulation was down though from where it had been in June... which could have been nothing... but it was also possible that there was other talk around town.

The only real federal news from Peking of importance was the argument over the parliament, and the elections. The real news that both sets of papers were missing was the forest for the trees of the war, they had recognized that there were going to have to be changes to how the business ran. The vertical integration would make it possible to reduce waste, that was to say that the cadre was attempting to keep as much of its steel consumption in house...
"We will see an increased demand, we will need more rail ties, and we'll need more for engines." Most of those engines would be coal fired, not more powerful diesels, but those diesel engines were going to be limited to specific routes ... and for recovery trains it was easier to have an engineering train do its bit with a diesel, "But-"

"We knew it was coming, the Germans had to give ground some time."

"Still got to get to Berlin," The older artillery man remarked. "The Germans might be spent as an offensive force, but if they fall back into the lines they could surely hold another year."

"We'd still be facing competition from bigger more mature firms in the states," Big firms that had all the same integration benefits that they did, on a much larger scale. Firms that were subject to Wilson's poorly run but still top directed War Board... a board that was stymied by being too slow to start, and then had tried to take off running before they were ready on top of lack of effective leadership. "Restructuring is unavoidable, and frankly we're going to have to see what we can ship to Guatemala too,"

"Its not just Guatemala, United wants a larger rail network through the whole region... and lets not pretend about it. Those coffee plantations are tempting for Powell. The plan is a railway to replace the old spanish roads to the three capitals, and he'll include El Salvador too if he can talk them into it."

"He's been busy," which was probably an understatement, "I assume he and Dulles must think they have a good chance of carrying all that off." But still that was true, they needed to be able to export at least some of their expanded production, but they were going to have to look at drawing down beyond just the temporary need to overhaul the mills once new tooling was available... the market had too much stock, "

That was obvious... the fact steel prices, all metal prices had jumped to their highs of the pervious year before cooling slightly this year just meant that the next few years were going to harsh and mill trading. Demand for finished goods would change too, but in different ways.
--
Notes: this marks the first of two segments of August 1918 back in northern China, and leading into the time skip to spring of 1919 that is after the november armistice and on the cusp of the treaty of Versailles being publicized.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1918
A key part of this was to speak of modernity... but also of normalcy... which would be ironic when the elections... the ones for the president of the united states started to run in a couple years... but that was what it was.

The commencement came to with a lecture that frankly was merely a reiteration of what the Cadre had already been subjected to. Therefore to some of the attendees some of it was likely not new information precisely. The delivery to the gathered University of Xian though was slightly differently charged in tone. Strictly speaking the main targets to this speech were the College of Engineering, and Technical Sciences ... but the A&M program had been based on the Morril act and besides that this was where the Corp of Engineers did most of their learning.

Griswold tapped his foot as the old man leaned over the lectern. Not that Dawes was that much older than any of them, but he'd been a lieutenant with the 5th​ during the boxer rebellion so he'd been technically the old man on account of seeing combat in China before any of them. So he was the old man twice over. "We are a generation behind Japan, at the least. They are that far ahead of us even in spite of the significant gains made as a result of the great war in Europe."

The projector in the back of the room hummed pushing up the light onto the opposite end of the auditorium behind Dawes, "That is the production of Bethelehem and United Steels gross output from last year. That smaller column out beside them is the combined output of the Central Powers. That's the combined output of the Ottomans, Germany and the Austrians."

They were less sure about those numbers, but still pretty confident. Griswold stopped tapping his foot, "I will say that we're getting a lot of use from Wilson's war board... and the English one, tells a lot about what the other fellas are doing."

"Shh." Waite hissed.

Dawes was talking about the respective strengths of the two steel giants back in the states. It was mildly disingenuous to use last years numbers since that had been the year that Britain had finally overtaken Germany in steel production in part due to fuel shortages reported through the Swiss office... but that was another detail to contend with.

"The Europeans are not however so far ahead as to be insurmountable, the states, giants like Scwabb and titans like United, it will be a while, but those numbers are not impossible sums to attain, there must be demand for them."

The war was on the down turn. Production had started to decline in 1917 relatively speaking, and those trends continued this year. The realization wasn't there that the Germans were going to throw in the towel in a couple months, not after Brest-litovsk, but it was obvious that something was going to give.

Schwabb's Bethlehem Steel though had exploded in productivity and they were going to keep growing as a result of vertical integration. They were an excellent example of expanding into adjacent industries and securing the coal fields, while still retaining an emphasis on technical improvements in the process of industry.

... and of course the plan was to license the processes and hire on as many experts that had made the war able to last as long as it had. They wouldn't have to go as far as Bethlehem because they were tied up in ship build... and as Dawes had stated by the time 'we need a navy I'll be dead.' It was morose but probably right... they were expanding but into the interior and away from the coast. If Duan was going to subcontract steel manufacturing for shipbuilding it would have to be someone else and in one of the coastal provinces... which meant most likely the Research Clique and its bankers and industrialists.

The university's opening week was important. This was important, but it was hard to miss the distinction. JP was in civilian suit and tie... and he wasn't the only one. While members of the Cadre were absent, there were other responsibilities to be had there was enough to see a split between the men in the uniforms and those in civilian dress.

That was just the cadre.

Five years earlier if they had envisioned a week of college speechifying, and presentations he and most of the cadre would have assumed it would have all been in civilian dress. They weren't. The world had changed.

Then there was the mix between the corp of cadets, and soldiers with civilians mixed.

The grounds had been built up since they'd founded the college, and there were colleges plural now. There was an overlap of course the Corp couldn't monopolize all the engineers, even leaving aside the company's necessity for machine working... and there was going to have to be something done about the dykes, and waterways.

The University of Xian was different than the other developing A&M colleges because like the original western Zhili institution it was intended to be a flagship research institution... to use the parlance back in the states. The cadre planned to turn the schools over to new provincial government bodies to form the university system modelled on those of the states

There were issues with those comparisons, and the division of the colleges and their relative importance. As important as the cadre deemed it in conversations... and with few other good points of comparison Waite had managed to sneak a march such that 43 members of the hundred had signed on before he had put the planned number of colleges forward officially. That was of course most of the liberal wing of the body, and it could have been defeated, but it was enough of a showing to swing affirmative votes that modelling the number of colleges after Harvard might not be a terrible idea.

In practice though the seminary and law schools were less practically important than the applied science there was no getting around that. Even arguably the schools of history and political sciences outweighed any prospect of law... and most of anyone attending the seminary would be most likely future chaplains in the army... and that would be a limited number. Allen was skeptical the religious studies would attract more than that... but he had no intention of starting a row there with other business taking precedence.

All such plans were contingent on plans for 1920. They weren't there yet, and there was a lot that still needed to be done... and perhaps more in the short term were Qirui's demands for a new parliamentary election. He knew part of the problem was that the Bolshevik's ratification of their constitution while they had been in the Tsar's company had stirred Waite's closest supporters up but they couldn't rush their own constitutional drafting. That'd just make a mess of things, and thus far that wisdom was holding.

"Did you hear Cullen's speech, by they way"

"Marxism in an opiate... the basics of a totemic cult he called it?" Allen asked Sam.

"Thats the one." Griswold agreed, apparently the Gendarmes controlled publishing house had decided to codify the broadsheet into a denunciation of all sorts of superstition and suppositions on a logical or destined path. Opiate was the loaded word in the speech, even as it played on Marx's own writing... that the Gendarmes were actively engaged against the 'grain union', the green gang the controlled a swathe of the Shanghai opium trade wasn't exactly a secret. Cole was also probably amping the anti Bolshevik rhetoric because he hadn't gotten to go, even Gendarmes had had men in the rotation. "More to the point it went out during the campaigning, which I suppose is the more pointed thing."

"The south boycotted."

But that had been somewhat obvious, the writing had been on the wall. So instead of a little under six hundred seats, five seventy four, there were a hundred and four sitting empty because five southern provinces had refused to participate, which was stupid.

"Yeah its a little worse than that." Sam replied handing over a cable from western Zhili... which was tell tale indication that it was probably from Cullen or maybe Su Ming from his staff who had stood for an election in the provincial assembly of Shensi to represent Xian in the national senate, and thus in many respects was their set of ears in the body. "From the sound of it, Cao Kun was supposed to be made VP but it doesn't sound like the votes are there."

Counting Yan's candidates they represented a small party of six small provinces... and change counting western Zhili of which Cao Kun was Dujun of the province as a whole. None of those were particularly big especially not Xinjiang or Tibet and their influence in Tibet was largely limited to the eastern part of the province through the rail head at Urumqi... but that Tibet even had nominal representation in the parliament was something.

It wouldn't have been a lot of votes.

Except that the south had chosen to just ignore the election and not seat a hundred members. That right there had been five provinces... but their lack of participation meant they couldn't be blamed for Duan not having the votes.

It wasn't imaginable at the time the repercussions that this would have. Not that in the long term it was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back... but it certainly didn't help things.
--
Notes: We won't actually cover in depth the election of the assembly of 1918 or its aftermath, it has been loosely touched on but the next segment will time skip forward to spring of 1919 with early May unfolding and Versailles so post WW1 and with the lead into the final act of the Beiyang consensus that governed North China That goes into is that by this point Feng and his Zhili clique had moved to wanting to adopt (and frankly assuming Duan's supporters in period documents are right, he may have made that shift as early as 1917) a Federalized system of government and thats really where the break happens politically.

The southern choice to not participate in elections was irrelevant and arguably by not participating it strengthened Duan's position and that may have actually exasperated the divide within the north. Duan's inability even so to consensus build and have the assembly he called elections for and then Versailles coming out and his failure to appropriately response to the 4th May protests sets the stage of failure for his government and it sets the stage for the three sided conflict over Peking between Duan Zhang and Feng Anhui, Fengtien, Zhili in no small part because Duan legitimately makes some very dumb decisions.

 

[Imperator Pax]

WW 1 Arc Conclusion:
May 1919
The mornings cables had been a headache... but it was the papers that had come out after and the mess after.

The states were never going to sign the treaty, and he had assured the Japanese interrogatives about the matter as much... not that he needed to, Nakamichi had been right that the details about Clemenceau and Lloyd George.... made it all impossible.

That much had been clear as soon as it became obvious that Britain and France had walked into the room with the terms already basically decided and that they were the ones to write it, and that everyone else should just shut up and sign. They had expected a fait accompli, much as they must have expected for for decisions during the war... and...

That was no shocker. Allen idly poured the champagne to top off the glass. It was a little galling the French wanted to be so upfront about showing their ass on petty things like wine labels but it didn't matter. There was no way it would ever survive the US senate reading it. Wilson should have known that given his progress with getting them, the Senate, on board with Latin American issues. It would be lucky if it even got a serious floor hearing... but that wasn't the problem.

He had other problems much closer to home. Problems that Versailles might make complicated because England, and Japan needed to be one the same page when it came to keeping containment of Lenin's bolsheviks.... and from the chatter back in the states... well there were from the sound of it unfortunate blatherings about New York...

"So what do we do know?" and then the younger man, paused blurting out the next question, "What do we do now?"

Waite looked at Carter who had spoken up. "The same damn thing we've been doing."

Allen nodded, "The reformers here," And in the hermit kingdom for that matter, back when "Thought they could get by by just the pieces of industry they really wanted. That's not how it works."

"You can have one foot in the middle ages, and one in modernity," Waite agreed, "But all it does is leave you on uneven ground. Japan understood that to get things going they needed to privatize, they needed men to pursue with vision the modern world, even if it was painful in the short term." The Qing, and Joseon hadn't assumed that was necessary, hadn't recognized that was necessary underestimated the other guys, and overestimated themselves.

If you knew neither your weakness, or the enemy's strengths, you were in peril in every battle... and history had proven Sun Tzu's maxim there. For all the help that England, and France, and Germany, and Russia had made to keep China broadly whole in the 19th​ century under the old dynasty while they had otherwise been hastily carving up everywhere else it hadn't been enough. The dynasty had been being worn away on its western frontiers at the start of 19th​ century long long before Formosa had been added to the Japanese patrimony... and there were the long pressures of the north with the Tsar as well.

"So what do we do about it?" Carter grunted clearly not satisfied with the answer.

"As a market China is playing catch up, we can continue to license and import technology, but we are always going to be behind if we don't get to the point where we're innovating." Not that they had to be first in the running, but there was something to say for being able to make enough for a large domestic market.

Carter let it roll off him, but there was still a hint of petulance from the younger Georgian. "Muh daddy made me read Smith, I understand specialization and the need also to produce public goods because they benefit everyone," And a benefit to everyone such as keeping famine and disease at bay meant that more people could focus on other goods and services rather than subsistence farming." The younger man shrugged, "look I get it, we build here and we sell to the rest of the country. But we can't do everything,"

"We don't have to, that's never been the plan. We're what in Japanese terminology are the first set of ranked companies, but our existence means we can create stability, and safety for other firms to grow up, second, and third ranks."

"If we can keep corruption down, and everyone on the straight and narrow you mean." Carter replied.

Cullen snorted, "Yeah, the rules have to be fair, and simple enough to understand, and they have to actually have to apply to everyone." Then he shook his head. "The russians?"

"That is the consensus," Allen agreed, "We have time. In ideal world Lenin wont be able to reconquer Ukraine that will keep the majority of russian coal and agricultural productivity," and steel and so forth, "Out of the Bolshevik's grasp... that will still leave him with Petersburg, and Moscow's factories, but Petersburg is vulnerable, the Germans took Riga after all," There were nods and murmurs, "We have to industrialize There is no reason to expect that Lenin however he may try to have Trotsky dress it up will not move to invade his neighbors, so we use the time we have to commit to an indepth plan of achieving goals."

Yuan Shikai had been playing a careful balancing game in the Russo-Japanese war. Both at home in the qing court and with the powers abroad. The balancing game had brought in foreign investment, but it hadn't gotten the US alliance that the old general had really wanted.

The first steel mill they'd built in western zhili had been to handle for railway material in house, a step towards vertical integration on the basis of models pioneered by the railroad companies back home, since the other option was buy from back home and wait for it to board a boat in San Francisco bay before being shipped over. By the time they'd moved into other provinces that mill had been expanded, and second and third mills existed for turning out steel.

By the time Bai Lang died, and Augustus had been born they'd been in a very different place. 1914 proved radically different than 1915, and the boom years of the war had meant exporting massive volumes at towering prices. They were already seeing the effects of how that extreme demand had effected supply, but also the firms trying to meet it... but also how it had effected other factors not oft considered. Enough that even though they didn't disagree with the means they couldn't fault Wilson for fixing prices, if anything he probably hadn't done enough, either fast enough or in sufficient volume to put the breaks on things to let the economy cool.

That was apparent since now everyone was seeing it. As expected there were demands for high prices which no longer reflected conditions at market. Prices would have to come down at some point, but that could be in six months or it could be a year... but it was going to come. "We don't buy US coal, and steel anymore." It was true Pennsylvania coal was ideal for industrial but they could and did work around for other needs, "But the demand for it was significantly curtailed after the armistice," roughly six months earlier. "we're seeing the effects that has now. Those are men out of a job, and short wages, and they're also men competing with the downsizing of the federal army." A time table for demobilization had been talked about but Europe was a mess, and there was the need to distribute significant amounts of food aid to France, and Belgium, and Germany. That would likely slow decline in food prices this year, but prices were still high for normal folks in the states, but already declining from what farmers had become accustomed to the entente paying for on credit.

--
Allen was glad not to be in Peking, as he tossed the paper aside. Not that the paper was really the problem. He had to suspect that Jordan had probably been mulling this for a while.. but maybe he hadn't, if he had he'd been playing it close to his vest. There was the chance this was tit for tat, that Jordan had done this as a way to push back on proposed reforms to the tariff changes ... that was to say changes in rates, as well as the Prime Minister looking for a trim to China's outstanding indemnities.

The protests at Peking University though were just an excuse, or maybe the last straw. It was hard to tell Jordan had been different, and difficult to deal with after he'd come back from England... the man was getting on in years. The protests though were limitted, they would have been limitted to just Peking if the government had just left things well enough alone... the shooting was unnecessary it was counter productive because tensions with the south still were settled.

It threatened any hope of parliamentary solutions to achieving a consensus in the legislature to actually fix problems. They had expressed a dissatisfaction with the treaty and those statements had gone out, but with quarantine controls still holding on the train lines there was little chance the protests that had begun in tianamen square would spread... at least it wouldn't spread west, Tietsin's handwringing might well have a point and the cops in Shanghai were on the bund.

"How pissed off was he?"

"Reinsch was annoyed,"

Tch, "He's annoyed?" Allen scoffed, but the US legation shared room and board with the brits there was little chance that any disturbance would molest the US legation...

"He's not happy about opposition to the treaty."

"You tell him to take that up with the Senate." He spared a look towards the office phone, and Waite followed suit. It didn't ring. No most likely the professor had his fill of venting... and it was accurate the senate would never ratify Versailles and that made a useful bulwark. But the senate's refusal to ratify was a reminder to the president that he'd failed to achieve his goals... and that had to sting... and it likely stung at the men appointed.

"You want me to release the minutes?" Waite asked.

"No I don't want you to release the minutes, if he's annoyed with us already, he might start spewing blood if he sees how that conversation actually went." Allen grunted... the European war had financed an industrial expansion in China... and there would be firms who failed now that that demand abated , but also there would be ones who survived and moved on. "No, start floating talk about the inter city line and the new projects."

They weren't going to start laying off people, instead they'd planned to open up new diversified manufacturing... the old method of relying on full line rails as the basis for operations went back to the Qing's land rights. The Qing were gone now, and instead of fully breaking with that they were going to modify it. A spur of full rail could run to a new district but they could run light inter city tramways alongside the mill houses, they could build parks north of the city and generally use the tramways to allow people to move around. It would largely be new construction, unlike Tietsin where the Belgians had spliced their electricity driven city tram into the old city, and that would have its advantages. More than that by spreading out it'd give the workers something to spend on as they started spending wages, and hopefully that would encourage other firms to grow to meet demand. People would need to eat, would want other clothes, there were other not quite essential but desirable goods and services people wanted that large firms just weren't effective at meeting... "Emphasize the electricity, and what electrical power can mean for people."

There was so much that could be done for the common person. Productivity, and understanding of the natural world but that meant education, and more craftsmen.

--
Notes: WW1 is de facto if not de jure over by this point, and this touches on among other things what will be reiterated later the changes in leadership , and political positions (Jordan, and Reinsch will both be out of their positions within the year), there is already significant disagreement in the Japanese, and American legislatures, Lloyd George is going to be in trouble shortly but he is PM until 1922

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1919
... and then there was the ford deal. Electric power and the automobile. In terms of economic productivity Shansi's average work income sat somewhere between Mexico and Japan. Not terrible, but not comparable to say America or Canada... especially not America's wage growth at its peak during the war... but unlike the states and Canada, and England, and France or Japan inflation was less of a concern due to how the trading had been done. Trading goods to jolly old England for the war in US dollars insulated the cadre production centers.

As available as the model T was to the average America it would take time for that to be true for the average Chinese worker... but in a way that was good. They'd need time to develop both a road system for the automobile, and truthfully to contend with the urban planning to make cities safe for having a growing number of automobiles. Personal use of an automobile was also in many respects secondary to mechanization of transport, from field and farm to warehouse to railhead. Such demand though, personal desire for an automobile, was projected to overshadow military demand, though aforementioned commercial need for the automobile as prime mover would dwarf both.

Of course those military demands were now front and center.

The development brigade's motorized Rifle Battalion had new built Ford Trucks. Trucks now fitted with improved armor plating and with a protected turret design from lessons learned from several years. The top of the turret was light weight. It was designed to be folded closed for protection, and offer protection from shell fragments bursting. That saved weight and reduced the pressure on the suspension in turn projected to save maintenance. The V8 engine was more powerful than its pre war design, and more robust reliable, it would make an excellent tractor engine according to Edsel and that was useful since it meant they wouldn't be making too many engine designs.

They were still waiting for peace with Austria to be established but they at least had been able to start recruiting in Germany, though the bulk of the work was being done through the Swiss office... here though...

The production had taken time to spool up. The turret protected an 8mm Mauser chambered M1917 with simplified sights, but there was no questioning what the gun was. The sight ordinance had demanded upon simply had no practical use, and was too complicated to the eye for rapid engagement and suppression of infantry or other targets in the open in real world engagements.

"They're still top heavy."

"I don't know how much we can fix that."

Theoretically you could still dismount the machine gun from the turret... but in practice that wasn't realistic. No the machine gun was there to support the infantry dismounts , who were in turn there to support the bounding forward of non motor born infantry. There was reason these battalions were being tested at brigade level. None of the reserve divisions needed such mobile assault carriages... not when their job remained the protection of protected strong points or supporting larger maneuvers... but for the most part the infantry regiments constituting reserve divisions were to serve as geographic garrison forces insuring peace in the country side both to deter feuding and also to prevent or respond to raids from over the border.

"What does Lee think?"

"For 3rd​? That top heaviness is a problem. Mountain roads are an issue, and frankly the armored cover while probably useful in some cases may not be useful enough for 3rd's needs." That was understandable. The protection from artillery had been included because of the proliferation on their side of mortars in addition to cannon. The men were used to seeing outgoing shellfire. Seeing enough of that warranted looking for ways of protecting them... and that included needing helmets as had been adopted for field use by the European combatants. Of course, helmets were a protective factor that were heavy and not always necessary, and they weren't necessary for all units.

It was a lesson of modern warfare, and one to pay attention to. Specialization went hand in hand with education. That didn't mean there weren't commonalities. The 1917 as a heavy machine gun had been selected for the machining during production requirements but as a replacement for older heavy machine guns that included giving 2nd​ division new and more heavy machine guns.

"There is one thing this idiocy benefits us by."

"What's that?" He asked.

"Jordan's idea of cutting off the flow of arms, well Tso-lin isn't going to go for that, he's got his own people looking for engineers of his own in Austria, hell he's been trying to buy off people from under Kolchak's nose which means he was looking at domestic production even before this." No surprise, Yan had wanted to expand his home province's machinery tooling and production for years, and that was slowly showing fruition, "But I can bet that will mean he'll start shopping around."

The Swedes had given a politically very politely worded deferral to Jordan's bully boying of a proclamation... but that would really mean was that bofors, and for that matter Belgium too would turn around and say they hadn't agreed to anything and sell things. The truth was the offices subordinate to the swiss office were already engaged in talks. It wouldn't just be the Swiss & Swedes, the Spanish firms had no reason to even contemplate agreeing to Jordan's nonsense. There would be others, "Its just a reaffirmation that we have to have local manufacturing we knew that when the war started and suppliers and raw material started getting scarce, it just underscores that." Allen remarked after a minute.
--
Allen looked out from his back door over the garden. Augustus wasn't old enough, he'd be five soon, to start reading Burke... but while Burke was important... much he absolutely loathed making the admission to his own father ... and it was great that the old man was in Tokyo right now... too much of the Harvard classics just didn't apply to a Chinese audience.

On the other hand... much as Reflections had predicted, and Cole had called, Lenin's revolution had turned murderous even quicker than the French had... and Lenin was making no bones about it. Powell once he was sure of the backing for the MAK and apparently still in the loop regarding the university had started angling towards Edenborn's home state of Louisiana and the Jesuit college there, and that coupled with the end of the war would let them start operating more widely in the European heartland, which still remained somewhat complicated with Lenin's recriminations, and the mess in the Baltics there were other concerns.

Then of course there was the international market. There was no way to escape it, but four years of European war had infused capital into the machine of industry for effectively all gain. How much the Europeans could really try and claw back after their war was debatable, especially in things like textiles, and then beyond that the European economies of note on the continent were also going to have to compete with the States, and Japan.

France was not the sort of nation that succeeded economically by creating 'new wants', that meant most likely there were going to be tariffs thrown in... there had already been rumors of French tariffs on English goods being discussed which though mercantilism was a dead theory might be received just as surely as a shot across the bow of the British empire... and if the French were set on tariffing England then the the States would get hit sooner rather than later as well.

Cullen waved to Augustus as he sat down and fished a paper over. "Is this serious?"

"The French?" He blew out a breath, "It sounds serious," He replied.

"How will it effect us?"

"I don't know." He replied, "They would be third and fourth effects. The French treaty," Versailles, "Will never make it through the senate," a final rejection wouldn't come until November, "But Wilson should have never gone to France, that's clear now." it was one thing to stand on traditions of the presidencies past, but ... now... now it wasn't just the perception that Wilson could be forced to accept fait accompli it was going to look like Clemenceau and the French meant to push the same American businesses that had kept the French in the fight out now that they weren't needed, and that was going to rub people the wrong way at home. "But the problem will be when other people start responding to the French," Or worse the implied statement the french were going to act, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that someone would jump the gun on the belief of beating the french to the punch at market.

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1919
Rifle fire cracked along the training field. Several hundred rifles echoing every few seconds. Most of a regiment's riflemen at practice. It was nothing unusual, just that it was one of 5th​ division's new regiments in training. That was the matter at hand. The reservist divisions were standing up, and were being issued out rifles from stocks, but they had been a long time coming.

There were reasons to describe the 1917 derivation as an American Rifle... and the logic had made sense to once they had completed the 1914 contracts for the Australians to produce an analogue to what Winchester had done. "Leaving aside the magazine issue, do we know when the British are going to actually grant recognition?"

"Not unless Tokyo has given you some idea." Dawes replied. "Its gonna queer all the same. Last year the Brits were talking about trying to keep the Finns in the empire or whatever, and now its independent Finland."

Admittedly that was because the Finns were likely to throw in with the Germans against the Tsar, and the anti-red finns looked like they were going to push the Bolshevik ones out now.

The Russian Civil War had turned bloody about a year ago... or really had escalated to the point where it could hardly be ignored. It wasn't going well, and made worse by what had happened at the end of last year. The Great European war had ended in November... well had ended between Germany and France.... with a peace treaty which would only kick things down the road , "You know they haven't." Japan was having its own political difficulties, the arguments in the diet made things shaky.

Since they couldn't get the states to go along with Versailles, Britain and Japan were moving on to the next thing, they were hoping to make the states fait accompli to the matter in the east. The idea was simple. Britain would support an anti Bolshevik White government in central asia, and recognize the anti white governments of 'autonomous Siberia' that were being supported by Japan... and Japan would in turn recognize British supported Kirghiz.

Five years ago he'd have been hard pressed to care about such games.... but then four years ago it had been another world... 1914 had rewritten everything about governments, and trade, and was normal in everyday life.

"Nothing from Japan?"

"From Tokyo no... but from what I understand of Tsolin up in Manchuria, him and the mad baron, and some of the others are leaning towards a mutual defense agreement," Now whether that would be worth anything remained to be seen but what it did change was other factors, "Zhang wants a new service rifle, and he wants it in eight millimeter mauser. I don't think he means to replace all of the guns, but it does bring a point, there aren't any factories to make new ammo for the mosins." and Allen knew from the talks with Iseburo and others that the autonomous movements in Siberia were not necessarily committed to russian reunification even if that was feasible... and those political factions were the ones that Tokyo was most inclined to provide support to. "Kirghiz is all agricultural, the Russians were always a territorial empire gaining land for the sake of land," It was true they had built some railways, but so long as the tsar's rules were suitably catered to the russian state had not meaningfully effected central asia ... at least from the looks of having been in the country a few times, "there is a lot we could do for one another, but leaving that aside, if we're all shooting the same bullet."

They had never attempted to put the Mosin Nagant into production. The Tsarist contracts had been for the production of second line rifles, train guards, police and rear echelon troops of other sorts, but the war had kept on... and the British had needed more rifles for the empire and it was easier to produce the British contracts... but that was just an example of how fast the British army had had to grow in order to meet the demands of the war that had unfolded.

It was over now, but the capacity remained. The production of haversacks and infantry packs that went off the 1908 bags that had gone to the British, and the Australians were still being made for the troops in Russia, and were now also being shipped to the Japanese in Siberia, along with uniform jackets and socks and jumpers.

"I don't disagree with the idea," Dawes drawled, the older man leaned back, "Small problem though hoss, you've got to convince those cossacks. If they're going to make a new country out there they'll need laws... and that's going to be a mess don't you think?"

... and understatement if there ever was one... for they would be soon entering what the history books what the colleges of Cambridge, Princeton and Berkley's oriental departments would call the years of high warlordism.
--
The morning had passed by and the summer was clearly approaching. He pulled back, and wiped his mouth, "I'm sorry say that again." At least he hadn't choked on the tea.

Instead of reading it again, the staff officer handed over the telegram... and Allen frowned. He'd been looking forward to the month calming down. That things were going to cause trouble was one thing...

"Well what do you think?" He asked the man handing the telegraph to Shang he's expression was already turning a puce color.

"We should arrest him." Him in this case was Hu Chin-yi, who had been sulking in his home village for a while not. Hu had been critical of Chen Shufan who had been frankly bad at actually governing the province. Not that any of the last couple of governors civilian or military had wanted to focus on the province, but Chen had been the last. "he is clearly appealing for outside support to disrupt government business."

"Shang?"

"We should delay things. No one will agree to this, Hu may have southern supporters but he has atrophied his support in the province... not with the fighting on the frontier with Szechwan. Whatever the southerners say Hu polled very poorly in the election. He is clearly sore about it, and it is an election that the KMT wants to over turn."

An election that Allen hadn't been present for, but Shang was right. The election for parliament in 1918 had seated new members from the western provinces... the south and its KMT parliament had objected on the grounds that they were still the rightful parliament ... somehow... Allen didn't understand how that was supposed to work since yes Waite was right Yuan should have held new elections in 1915. Regardless of Duan's self serving motives in calling for elections it had been well past time to have an election for the parliament if you were going to have an elected legislature.

The problem was the frontier fighting.. That was probably the biggest thing, the perennial fighting, and Hu had to know that. Szechwan was too divided internally to present a coherent challenge but when the province was sixty million people one guy didn't need to be in charge of it all to be a threat. That was part of the reason they had gradually been replacing the Ma clique in anti bandit operations in certain theaters with the understanding that they could hold the legal borders with infantry while the Gansu independent brigades as they often punched deep into the territory of various Szechwanese warlords and bandit king's personal fiefdoms.

What would define high warlordism would be the break apart of other provinces as the Beiyang clique came apart in the north dividing the coast, and causing bandits to spill over between the north east.

 

[Imperator Pax]

June 1919
Midsummer wasn't quite here, but the longest day of the year was coming. The British Legation estimated that there were a million soldiers in all the various Chinese armies... and that was probably either conservative guess or one with a very strict definition of soldiers. A million was just a number it looked good on paper it was the break down that the northern armies were eight hundred thousand strong in some estimates while the south was probably somewhere in the three hundred thousand range... but that was the problem.

The numbers besides probably underestimated force totals lumped them in broad categories of geography and while the old China hands might grasp that those were provincial forces Fengtien, Zhili, and Anhwei wings of the old Beiyang and in the south Yunnan and a half dozen Szechwan warlords of note there was no national government army.

At one point the Beiyang had been that. That wasn't true now, at one point the Beiyang army had been before the old buddha had died been centrally funded through the dynasty's coffers. "A million men?"

"Its clearly slanted to northern china," The French claimed a sphere of influence in the south, but their power and presence was ephemeral at best, and had been since 1915, "Did they even count us?" Carter almost whined, and sounded offended.

"I think they're more worried about Zhang, and Duan actually meeting quota."

There was some grumbling that it was a mess. Zhang had started contributing troops... well probably had started mobilizing troops around the same time they'd gone to rescue the Romanovs and he was doubling down on that with trying to hire on White Russians for his army and move them around. There were a couple battalions of troops posted at the major Fengtien rail hubs to 'deter bolshevik banditry' or something along the lines.

The result was not just the states it was John Jordan, because his own government was supporting Zhang at least nominally through Vladivostok.
--
Allen looked at the draft documents. This was nearly complete. There were still things to discuss with Yan regarding his province and his version of the provincial constitution... there still needed to be efforts to try and elicit more participation from the Ma elders and from men under them who had taken the old degrees but for all practical purposes they were finalizing drafts maybe august for a final version to be sent to printers.

1920 would be when they entered into effect... and that would mean changes since after the new constitution came into effect they would be implementing the new provincial tax system. The new everything really. There would be new bureaucratic procedures, and a process of putting in magistrates but with both sufficient pay to discourage corruption and a system of checks and balances to make sure there measures to prevent corruption in other ways... and also make sure there were enough magistrates to go around.

Yan, from the sound of it, spent entirely too much of his time arbitrating disputes personally or dealing with problems in his home province on his time that should have been delegated out. That wasn't to say it didn't benefit Yan to do that, but for whatever benefits it had for his popularity in being accessible it wasn't a practical organizational solution.

As a last resort sure, and once upon a time Allen would have agreed that that would have been correct. Community participation and availability of social elites kept you grounded, being involved with your neighbors prevented all sorts of problems, but there were only so many hours in the day and he knew that between military responsibilities in the face of a continued bandit problem... and southern agitation.

"So, November elections? Like the states?"

"It seems the best we can do, I think September we'd still have too many farmers busy, so we give them a little room by not having it in October." Dawes replied, and Waite nodded in agreement, "Its the same logic as the states. We can't hold it on Fridays. Monday elections is probably the best unless there is some reason not to have it the first Monday of the month?"

There were no immediate objections to that... maybe someone would find something later, but this wasn't a final decision. "Its, the lower house is supposed to identify local," Municipal, and county level problems, "And make recommendations."

There were some agreements from the rest of the drafting body, "He's right," a Virginian agreed, "Its the lower house of a state assembly," At least hadn't said burgess, "and besides that they need to find their footing. They'll be a second set of eyes and ears. We can verify what the bureaucrats tell us, and what the constituencies say is going on and we can address it... but frankly Shellman is right this plague," He meant the grip going around in this case, not plague plague, "Needs to be addressed, we have to make clean water available, look organizing medicine, and we have to maintain the quarantine I reckon its the reason we're not swamped as it is." The cavalry man remarked.

Everyone in this room had read the papers. They understood what was happening back home... what had happened and how the influenza had gotten loose in hospitals and what its effects would be if it was allowed to spread unchecked.

It didn't change the fact that both the civil and criminal sides of investigations were still working through a backlog of complaints and cases that went back three and four governors, or that those procedures would be changing with the new provincial constitution with the establishment of new police proceedings and organization.

As they had 1920 to look forward to industrialization for the sake of local consumption. The money had come in from overseas markets had paid for expansion and some of that money from war time highs in prices per goods had gone to wages, but a lot of it had been saved. It had been saved because the money that would have been spent on new tooling, on new better systems of production couldn't be spent on that because of the lack of supply.

That something that cadre had been talking about as the scale of money coming in from Europe financed by US loans became apparent... but that had also been before the realization of what they were talking about set in. So it was no both a business decision and a look at it from the government side... and in part due to how the war had changed the relationship between the two.

They had introduced the eight hour work week early for safety reasons. There were exceptions. There were some jobs where you needed people on hand longer but that was over time. A man who dug coal worked eight hours because he was under the ground digging, there was too much risk to having it longer. Same with the steel workers, and that had been the logic. Tired people made mistakes, tired people got hurt more often. That had been the logic even before they'd moved into the western provinces.

A series of papers went around. "fixed prices," Standard prices for mass produced goods or typical weight dry goods, or the like. The idea was to implement standard store prices for consumer goods. The citizen on the street needed to be paying the same thing his neighbor paid when buying the same thing from the same store. If there was variation between stores on price that was fine, but a pound of potatoes in a store should cost the same for everyone who shopped there, and a pair of workman's jeans should be the same... and of course that was something else that the states had learned from the civil war.

There needed to be standard sized clothes for mass production for military uniforms, and that was something that in turn that could and did get translated out to civilian customers. That was one business where capital had also flowed into China. The Chinese textile firms broadly had all benefitted from the European war because there had been no shortage of demand for it, and also that meant demand from civilian markets too as textile mills in the belligerent countries had been caught up trying, and failing, to meet demand for the millions of men in uniform. That wasn't a demand likely to disappear either there was going to be a market for clothes, and new fashions once the war was over.

Both abroad and at home military styles were impacting clothing cuts, the war had impacted tastes and styles in other ways. Belt loops and leather belts were taking precedence over suspenders. People could easily demonstrate they could afford their ability to wash clothes by having collared shirts rather than relying on detachable collars. Clothes washing required, or at least inclined towards at home conveniences. Shoes and socks were subject to changes. Clothing for cold weather, or wet weather and the list continued for all the conveniences of modern life.

... that was without even touching where people would live. The cities were going to grow, not just Xian, or Zhengzhou or Shijiazhuang all of them were going to grown. The companies had built houses for workers, but company housing was company employees and their families. The barracks and the brick houses for enlisted and soldiers were for the army. Then on top of housing was the matter of moving people and goods around.

"We'll need water for the city, and more effective maintenance of the systems we have." Someone noted, and indeed it would be that... which in a little over a year would unearth the great auspicious find of the summer of 1920. "Irrigation too, we have to fund that."

 

[Imperator Pax]

Summer 1919
Allen surveyed the papers in front of him. He had already tossed the North China Herald to Percy.

"You know historically Parliament wasn't paid. It was the expectation that as a gentlemen you were capable of sustaining yourself and your household without burdening the government."

"Yeah," He replied, and put the paper up, "Its also why we got the sandwich." He added.

"Pardon?"

"Lord Sandwich wasn't a particularly wealthy man." He licked his fingertips and separated a sheet, "Never mind that, what brings you?" The war was over... well the war in the west was over, and given the unpleasantness with John Jordan over his fool arms embargo things had been tense the last couple of months.

Percy dithered, not responding immediately "As you might well be aware certain details of certain acts of gallantry," He looked over the edge of the steel report, that Allen had picked up leaving the Shanghai paper aside, "have been reported upon in the papers, and in society, but also well the reports of certain Bolshevik schemes, and other grave crimes perpetrated by the likes of Lenin and his conspirators. It has, those publications of the intention to murder not simply Nicholas the second but his entire family and their household and the intention to conceal it has the attention of both our own people as well as those of our allies."

Allen leaned back... a moment considering if the dithering was a shot back for the sandwich comment or if he was just running off at the mouth in order to try and read the papers on the table or something else entirely. "What's eating you, Perce?" He reached for his mug of tea.

"John Jordan has been apprised of your war gaming plans, and the exercises expected to accompany them."

"Yes?" and, he shook his head, "What else?"

"You haven't expressed a notion towards demobilization. The war is over."

"No Percy, its not. France and Germany might have stopped fighting, but Szechwan is sixty five million people," Probably, give or take some "split about six ways depending on who all is in charge of any given area this month." Never mind all the little small slivers of the province that were oh so helpfully on the frontiers, which made keeping track of who all was supposed to be in charge a headache.

Szechwan was too fragmented to make easy predictions of, and if something did give and coherent leadership developed they were going to need to be able to rely on regular infantry to defend approaches into the provinces. That meant inexpensive reliable rifles, artillery, and machine guns, but it also meant more divisions based along defensive frontage designed to stop any swarm of manpower that the likes of say Chen Xialing or Xiong Kewu could throw. There was a reason they had 3rd​ under Lee facing Chen who was sitting is the szechwan marches.

Percy wasn't readily prepared for that, but it didn't matter.

The 'real problem' with the legation wasn't really the exercises per se. It was that from John Jordan's perspective that the Xian's military forces were not readily being constrained in their growth by his boneheaded attempt to interfere with global trade... and if Allen were to speculated he suspected that someone in Guandong and someone in Harbin were probably beating their heads on the same wall.

Then of course there was Duan's WPA getting Japanese rifles, in clear obvious flaunting of the Japanese agreement or at least whoever at the legation who John Jordan had brow beat into agreeing to the document back in may. John Jordan's problem was he was trying to keep surplus arms flowing and was just artificially inflating their prices... or also just encouraging domestic manufacture.

Domestic manufacturing which had been nurtured by the European war.

The British problem was well John Jordan expected to be accorded the he had said it so it must be right because he was the British minister sort of position with no regard for actual conditions on the ground. Jordan was just too old, that was clear, the war had taken its toll on him. He was out of touch, which was a pity but it would just have to be worked around until he retired.

"The war between France and Germany is in intermission Percy, but all you have done is kick the can down the road, and the bolsheviks," For all Lenin's professions of friendship with the peasants... the same peasants whose grain he'd steal at first opportunity... well the bolsheviks were almost certainly going to try, Trotsky believed the nonsense he was spouting and fanatics were dangerous because you never knew when they'd do something tremendously stupid.
--
"He doesn't get it does he?"

"To be fair, I don't think anyone in Europe," Maybe anyone at all, "Really understands the amount of money that went into the war." He replied as the sheets circulated around. Unlike the England of Queen Elizabeth China had plenty of forests still... it was just that well there were bandits in hill and dale to deal with... but China didn't lack for coal either... and they had over the last ten years worked out pretty well how to prepare it for coking and then for steelmaking.

In 1915 exports to Europe had no longer been inexpensive trinkets, or luxury ceramics... not that they'd really been involved in the later but that was the change, the voracious demands of the war had seen treasure pour out of France, Russia, and England to sustain them. They had never taken the position that the pound was worthless, but it had been rather clear that given even what they'd purchased before the war, that if England was being loaned greenbacks, it was better that England pay them in dollars.

The English ... were well finicky about the reality of needing to buy things, and about spending money... but they had all figured that congress had to have gotten that from someone and parliament not want to talk about the sundries of finance made sense. That the Chinese had had their own equivalent in textiles to the putting out system had been taken note of but perhaps the reason it had never made the transition was that it dealt in silk and not cotton or woolens... the demand for textiles to equip an army, the increased demand for metals.

Both of those all factories meant an increased demand in industrial sectors, and power generation, electrical power. That had been part of the reason they had hoped to turn to hydroelectric power, and to build dams because... well it would have been a means of river control to partially address problems with the canal system to the east.

"That's true." There was a glance around, "But we are in recognition of the facts?"

There were no objections from the men who actually had the original shares.

Incomes were going to decline, because there were going , they were already exporting less goods to Europe. There just wasn't the demand now. Domestic consumption, in house consumption for new construction would make up some of that, but they were going to have to reduce production. That wasn't just about keep prices moderated, because reducing production would increase overall cost per volume in some cases. They needed to avoid depressing market prices by excess supply.

They'd be able to excuse some of that by taking mills off line for overhaul and upgrading, especially with access to European and experts from the states particularly for looking at automobile production, but that also went to they'd be spending more in the short term.

Domestic production of the rails and the engines had been a cost, and time consideration, even before the European war had driven overseas prices of those assets through the roof. Yuan had wanted business assets like a steel mill in Zhili but it had taken time to set that up. Ironically Yuan had gone into retirement as governor of the province after the old buddha had died, and then come back the Qing prime minister just in time to see the end of the Empire by the time they had finished that first mill.

As they had attempted to be clear on, the principal advantages were structural. Technology, Expertise, and Capital. That hadn't changed. The difference now was that since 1914 there had been a developing Chinese managerial class who had come up from the ground floor who had seen the build up of the firms' newer factories.

... "Then the last thing is final drafts, and we finish with the lawyers we aim to get Ford's people over here and then interchangeable parts and mass production." Peace, prosperity through industry that was the idea, that was the byline to talks. That was the message on internal papers talking about moving to domestic production and improving quality of life for the inter urbans on the expectation that the military challenges were largely limited to the southern frontier with Szechwan and that that could be managed.
--
Notes: So by about July of 1919 we do start seeing complaints out of the legation in Tietsin from Jordan, and Reinsch's offices respectively that people are ignoring the embargo set in May. The firms who in particular did this were Japanese purchasing agents who went to Europe and turned around and sold weapons into north and south China. The French, the Italians would also do this, Vickers would come in latter (I haven't seen anything that early state Vickers was involved yet, but they did start doing it and that started a row in the FSO, which is its own comedy), but the embargo, and specifically Jordan as head of the import commission made it annoying enough that very few people were willing to get involved given there were still some war time restrictions on shipping and that most shipping went through british or american merchant number 3 being Japan.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Late June 1919
It bore in mind that culturally northern china was more homogenous at least of sorts, that the north had been the cradle of the Chinese traditions, and that as a result or perhaps not there would be arguments wherein provincial origin was less important than it was in the south. That wasn't to say it wasn't important, but the truth was in the north there was a greater emphasis on other factors ... and in a way that was why what was coming still came as a shock even though the writing had been on the wall.

For Xian though, the urban renewal of the war years marked a steady development of city and the county administrators alongside the industrial work force of the factories, and mills. The administration though was turning into the provincial administration and also the the cross provincial railway and postal administration... even if technically they hadn't actually ratified the final constitutional draft for Shansi.

... that delay was presently just a holding action and waiting to see what happened, if anything gave on the international scene. The provincial constitution for Shansi, and Shensi while similar to one another in broad scopes were just that provincial constitutions. Whatever Hamilton had written, whatever he had argued for relating to protectionism that wasn't feasible in, or for China. It was no longer the end of the 18th​ century, and divorcing a country from the international market was absurd, especially given the success that the war had brought to domestic manufacturing.

That didn't mean Hamilton was entirely wrong either. There were lessons from the 19th​ century that could be taken going forward. That got back to Smith, and the issue of public goods that were usually better left to a competent apolitical bureaucracy than to industrial concerns looking at long term profitability.

"We are generally agreed," Waite muttered looking around, "That there should be limits on military spending outside of emergencies, and a general cap on the army's size... but we are agreed that we shouldn't make the mistakes of forbearers in Washington, yeah?"

The was a rumble of agreement. Shellman looked like he was about to talk, but then stopped himself. Just as Allen had based a lot of the organizational drafting of municipal county, and then provincial level assemblage on Yamagata's work... Percy had seen Shellman's inspiration in Bismarck's welfare reforms, and the englishman was probably on the mark.

"We're going to undertake the census. That and the provincial constitution together should let us look forward. Five years hence we will figure what the largest weaknesses are, and what needs to be addressed, and we will work on that for the five years following."

That was the agreed upon situation. That they would look at what they had right now, and where they wanted to be and plan for getting there. There would be no jumping around. The quality control established with the new factories of the war, the 'english standards' needed to be maintained as they expanded.

"Preliminary, estimates ahead of the census from Sam's office puts us at roughly the population of France, counting out west." He meant the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Xinjiang, and the rough estimates derived from Tibet... the bulk of the population were really Shansi and Shensi... but everyone agreed that the Ma needed to have their provinces have their own constitutions even as the old man sent his remittances to Peking on the railway. "The way it breaks downs that a little under half of where the states were in 1910." The Virginian remarked. "I do want to bring up we're getting migration in. Frank tells me that Xinjiang and the Ma were getting refugees before this but with the rail line open into Transoxiana we're seeing people come in, and technically there is the migration we expect from trying to convince people from Europe but we're seeing movement already."

It wasn't just them. The migration from the west of Russia east, was filling in Kirghiz as Cossacks moved east, Manchuria, under Zhang, was settling people into the maritime provinces... and so to were Russians fleeing the war in their country to go to western Europe, or board ships for America or England. That was going to have be seen too.

Whether it would spark an argument with the minister it Tietsin or not they had objectively defined democracy as equality under the law. They had not go so far as to take that directly into 'self-interest rightly understood' but the fundamental basic line put forward was to counter anarchists and to establish a foundation for the average man on the street who had no political education. Specific legal terms and understanding were to be spelled out in the constitution.

Even that was bound up in groundwork of institutions that did derive from the army to build up a civil service as well. This would have been unthinkable as a step forward when Yuan Shikai had been alive. Then again they hadn't had anywhere near the manpower involved or the labor force in factory jobs. The latter had been expanding by the time Yuan had passed away, but the peak of the war demand still hadn't quite hit... and Yuan hadn't seen the entry of either China or the States into the war. That had all happened in 1917... and in 1917 that had also marked the turn.

There was no way, in 1919 to go back to the way things were. It was always forward.
--
The signing of the Versailles treaty was hanging over them, as Shellman was telling him as the drill went on. It wasn't going to go away. To be fair it was all the papers could find to talk about overseas, and thus it was all the occupied the telegrams from the states, and from the offices abroad, and thus it overshadowed everything else.

They had to dance around the issue. Versailles had torpedoed Duan's government ... which assuming things played out as they had, that meant he'd probably be out of office until the fall, but it didn't change the fact that Wellington Koo had been told not to sign the treaty either.

... Wellington should have known on the face not to sign the farcical treaty, but it didn't matter. They had to limit how they talked about the thing, because a lot of context was going to be lost. The machine guns chattered. From what Allen understood the Army, the US Army, had lightened the M1917 creating the air cooled M1919 to supplement the water cooled gun... but intended to use both. They had made modifications to the 1917 in the form of simplifications but they were for the time being retaining the water cooling.

It was those guns that 5th​ Division was currently firing on the range.

He stopped watching, and turned to look at the staff officer holding the telegram, "A circular from Wu Pei-fu, general."

He bit down to ask if it was another one, it was indeed that. "Thank you captain." He replied turning back to read the message. Wu's complaints well were unusual in that he was breaking from the current espoused anti Duan position within the Beiyang officers circle to oppose a Federal style government. Feng had criticized Duan for trying to amalgamate too much power personally... sound frankly like one of those old Qing court impeachments... he had always suspected that the whole point of those denunciations was to try and get one or both parties to get so worked up they embarrassed themselves in public and thus 'lost face' by losing their tempers in public.

Whatever the case today's complain was aimed at Hsu Shu-cheng appointment to the bit grandiosely named office of the supervision of frontier affairs... which was hypothetically the National Frontier Army Headquarters, which was what the WPA had been rebranded as with the intention of deploying those troops to Siberia to fight the bolsheviks...

... they hadn't gone any further than Harbin from what Allen under stood, and Hsu's reputation wasn't precisely stellar. He resigned himself that he would probably be reading more of these , more frequently as Wu lambasted Duan and his clique, but there wasn't much to do about it.

Duan wasn't currently the Prime Minister... and really the only one who might be able to get Wu to pipe down was if Cao Kun asked... and right now it didn't seem like Duan and Cao were on the best of terms. The whole election thing last year had backfired and had failed to yield a satisfactory result. The National Assembly was treading water, as the people looked for promises of stability security, peace and prosperity. The failure of the government to deliver the embarrassment of the Versailles negotiations the state of the treasury... the list of 'shames' went on.

Versailles might have been the latest public air of complaints, but but there was little they could do on the messaging, and as Wu's telegram circular demonstrated it was far from the only thing people of means could find to complain about.

Shellman took the telegram, "I wrote something like this up." The Navy saw bones remarked as Fifth Division repositioned their water cooled guns. "I was having a talk with Bill, and there is a lot to be said about how the Europeans have done it." Shellman had been opposed to Sykes Picot when it had gotten out, so he hadn't been favorably disposed to a lot of things, "The treaty is designed to enrich France at German expense, its designed to extract steel and coal from them at below market prices, and there is no excuse for the damn champagne thing either."

"Did you write the senator for your Alma Mater?"

"France is moron."

Allen took the telegram back and tucked it into his jacket, and then glancing at the staff officer, "The US Naval Academy is in Maryland, Captain, the doctor who is a senator for the state, is named France." The joke explained, he turned back to their doctor, "Still, I was under the impression the Senator opposes the treaty?"

"He does."

All joking aside that did settle things at least so far as he considered. He gave the order to pack it in, and prepared for the division for a light, brisk walk of a couple miles to finish out the day. That Shellman had somewhat understated either his conversation with Bill, or his 'something like this' wouldn't really come back into play for another year. The doctor had drawn explicit parallels between Versailles and the idea of unequal treaties. It wasn't an anglophobic paper that had ended up in Shellman's personal archives but its contents could easily be read with existing opposition to indemnities and other financial burdens.

Shellman stretched, "What about you, did you write Medill, he wrote enough puff pieces about your adventures in the Phillipines didn't he?"

Allen followed suit, "Yeah, his brother is talking to Daniel," The two had been fast friends on Black Jack's staff. "He wont agree to the treaty,"

"Because he's against foreign entanglements?"

"Splendid Isolationism sound nice to him, yeah." He replied, before moving to the officers of the division preparing to fall the men in for the run.
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Notes: So first and foremost I have DnD tonight, but I'm going on vacation Thursday till monday, I will still be posting, this will update again on Saturday and BT will update on Sunday but I hadn't realized quite how much we still had to go.

[I had thought we'd be moving to 1920's opening three part prologue, but regardless posting this today simplifies my update schedule for the rest of this week]

EDIT: And I think I've said this before, if I had more time every two two&half months could easily generate eighty k words from the outline, but it would be very much early 20th Century West Wing [quite frankly because there would be a lot (more of) X talks to Y about Z project or policy, and that would General Staff, Corp of Engineers, or their explicitly civilian personnel]