April 1917
[Conclusion]
The first railway they had built had been the wide track line running through north Zhili down to Peking... built for the Qing, and a line that they had then basically abandoned in favor of turning to look south away from the squabbling of the Russians and the Japanese. A line to the new office in Shijiazhuang had been run taking them from the old Tietsin office and and had carved them a place in Western Zhili province. That line had then been run Zhengzhou, and then run out west to Xian... and now that Xian line ran its way west through Lanzhou, and was expanding from Urumqi now that the construction season was in full swing. The plan was to go through all the old caravan cities.... especially now.
A decade of work governed for most of the planning by a scientific regimen of pre planning, and of course regimented construction and organization. The railway was in a nation of dilapidated canals, and dusty provincial roads the lifeblood of modern economic travel.
Scientific, professional... Militarist. The last was the word Reinsch used when he wanted to be uncharitable. The professor, the mid west doctor, and the US chief diplomat to the Republic of China found the particular lack of democratic institutions and the emphasis on 'cold logic' and efficiency to be 'heartless'. That flew in the exact opposite of the British legation's aristocrats complaining about the eight hour work days, among other factors in the corporate environment. The French just complained about prices, the cheapskates.
Wilson's free trade had been the sort of thing that he'd thought would prove excellent for business, an unexpected boon. In 1913 they hadn't known what to expect. If they hadn't known what to expect in 1913 the international impacts on market and goods had been completely unprecedented by the European war.
Augustus would be three in a few months.
In the few months since Tsai O's death Szechwan had begun to fragment, which warranted going so far as to start positioning units that on paper were facets of modern war. The motorized experimental Machine Gun Platoon had already left. The dozen vehicles, which included a few spares Bill was taking along with his headquarters, had been loaded onto flat bed cars with elements of 2/2 in expectation of what had been called the 'summer festivals'... because that had proven increasingly the norm. The summer months approach brought pocket wars, bandit raids, and quarrels within and between the provinces.
Nothing like Bai's uprising... the now heavily mythologized White Wolf Rebellion. No single bandit chief or prince had been able to put together a horde like Bai's, had expressed the breath of ambition like the dead man, and certainly hadn't made an attempt to actually act on it.
Jun reclined on the couch the picture of a tigeress. "The peasants in their villages, may as well be their own distant worlds from one another," She commented, discarding the paper that slid softly onto the low table in front of her. It wasn't the first time she'd made a comment, and as the neighboring province promised to soon turn into a world of bandits divorced from all civilized behavior there were problems with that insularity that dwarfed on preconceptions. The tenant farmers and the coolies in Zhili at least had in 1909 had some understanding of the situations in practical terms.
The Old Buddha had fled to Xian as the relief of Peking had neared. When Bai Lang had pillaged his way through the province some of the villages hadn't even known that the old woman had died... and what was a republic anyway. The Xian of their grandfather's was already transforming to a more modern city, and now several years since that boat tail had evacuated Bai's brain from his head the factories labored.
"Does that make us or szechwan the martians?"
"You think of the martians fighting machines?" She asked and idly folded the fan resting it against her thigh, "Perhaps then instead the bandits are Grendel."
"Lovely I had a great dane as a boy." He lifted the tea cup infront of him, and sipped.
She looked at him, and the shelved the question she'd been about to ask, in favor of steering the conversation back the direction she wanted it to go, "You control the ancient capital, hold the prized city of the noble Tang dynasty, and the basin's farmland. It behooves you to drive away southern barbarians with force."
"I thought you had been all for letting the Gansu braves do their thing?"
"The Ma boy has a slow horse."
The Gansu brigade did actually have cavalry. Actually using large numbers of horses ... to a degree Allen had been shocked at times that they didn't still field bows like some of the tibetans were said to do. Not that a bow wasn't dangerous, some of Bai Lang's bandits had been ambushed by tibetan tribesmen who had caught them unaware because the bows hadn't produced the report of a gunshot, and really who in 1914 would have expected a horse mounted archer.
"What I am saying is his responses are desultory. He can only move to pursue and retaliate after a blow has been struck and his replies only occasionally hit his intended foe."
Ma was in short too slow to get over the border and hit before the bandits realized retaliation was coming. "Bill is already deploying to Hanzhong, and the trucks are experimental," They weren't even sure how well they'd do in the terrain of the Ba foothills.
The Bashan were not exactly a place renowned for their good roads... and really it was likely an area where Ma's horses would have an easier time navigating. As much as he believed in the future potential of mechanization, the Fultons had been selected over their Model T's because of their greater beds. The better able to transport ten men and as it had been initially considered two Maxim guns, but those heavier maxim guns had been replaced by Lewis's... so maybe they could have gotten away with a shorter bed... maybe... but that didn't really solve the issue.
The roads, or lack there of, in rural China outside the main thoroughfares, and passes, and medieval fortresses that had guarded the way for centuries in some cases long before the Ming Dynasty, were not the only way to get from one county to the next.
--
The clang of the factory floor even from outside was still audible a reverberating clang as the large stamping thirty ton presses came down to beat metal into shape. He wasn't here though for the factory tour, to make sure management was collecting the surveys expected or to see if they couldn't make things run more efficiently.
Even with the noise he could here Griswold and Phillips talking with the British ordinance lot about the mortars. Despite the three inch tubes being for the Australians, there was only one of them present, and he might as well have been English by looks and bearing. There were two englishmen alongside Percy and thankfully missing was Percy's most recent associate partner from the legation.
Lloyd George had had to force the adoption of the mortar. The welshman and his office having to fight uphill through people who had argued themselves blue that they wouldn't need the new weapon because the war would be over... and that delay had pushed the full service of the weapon in Europe and there were still persons who obstinately resisted boy George's best efforts to put the three inch stokes mortar into wider scale. Allen half suspected that was why the munitions ministry had turned to overseas production, and why George might well want imperial troops that weren't from the British Army to have them.
Having caught sight of him, Percival stepped away from the conversation, and made a beeline as he came across the paved interior of the factory yard. "Percy."
"John Allen." The brit returned. He paused to watch a tractor steam by towing a fifteen centimeter howitzer, "I swear I saw the same trails being used on your field guns as the smaller howitzers."
"Yes," He replied, and pointed back to the factory he'd passed where the clanging still rumbled. "The Krupps will all take the same trails now, it gives the smaller guns better elevation." The emphasis was on mobility the new carriages were designed to hook to tow behind trucks, and had wide steel wheels not dissimilar to those on the 'Five-nines' like that which had just rolled by. "What's that argument about, over there."
"Ah well, just a disagreement about how useful manuever warfare is, with things bogged down over there." Percy deferred, "Theres no trouble, the mortars are all fine, but some people don't see the point of them."
Ordinance was what Ordinance was. It didn't matter he supposed if they were American, English or French the old men were conservatives protecting what they knew to work, and guarding the purse like old women. "But he doesn't have any problem proofing them?"
"No, certainly not." Percy had half turned to glance at the senior of the two British ordinance men who was carrying on with Phillips. "You missed it earlier but I know that some of the other fellows were around," He glanced around and shuffled a little closer, "I wanted you to hear it from me, before it becomes public."
"You said something about wanting to talk about the Russians."
Percy's face blinked, "Oh, yes, a different thing, but yes that's related to this in a way." The englishman schooled his features, "Alston doesn't know it yet... but John Jordan is coming back. The Prime Minister himself asked it, and has talked him into it." Alston who had seen himself as in line to replace John Jordan was going to be apoplectic when that came out in public. Whether or not Alston was or wasn't one of Ed Gray's lackeys had been less important than his swaggering into the office, and if Jordan was coming back there was sure to be a row over who was entitled to what. "Well, yes I did want to talk about the Russians as well. Its imperative we keep them in the war."
There was that we again. Even before Wilson had gone to congress Percy had insisted on using the we, we, we. "You shouldn't have let let them go on the offensive. The Germans have to be to running out of material without international trade, but that doesn't mean they can't defend." The same reason France's offensives had been stupid repeats of everything proven not to work. Percy started to protest that there had been joint agreements between the entire entente, and that all four, including Italy had agreed to the offensive...
"Besides it succeeded in pulling the Germans back from Verdun."
He had to wonder if that really mattered. So he shrugged, "Lansing has, great confidence in the new government." Which might well have just been the smoke he was blowing up Wilson's ass, especially given Percy's scrunching of his face. "SO what's the matter with Russia?"
"Well, with John Jordan coming back we know that there is a great deal of expectation of railway investment. Japan is going to invest Kaichow," Kiaochow, "and Shangdong more broadly, they've already begun needling for more of that." There had been rumors now of Duan and some banker talking on top of that of course, but he didn't mention that. Nor did he correct the man's slip, just as Percy didn't correct him if he slipped somewhere, "We need to know how far you plan to run the line west."
"Pretty damn far." He replied. The plan now that the main line west was done was to loop the basin cities, put a ring of steel tracks Kashgar and Urumqi in the north to the cities south. "The plan now that the rolling stock is ready to move to open the Kashgar spur in the summer, work our way down."
Percy nodded, "You know about John Jordan's peculiarities with the Japanese. We need a second route."
"Excuse me?"
"Mr Churchill has been rehabilitated," He threw a glance to the lone Australian thirty feet away, "And as a result there is a measure inside the cabinet that maybe it would be good if there was a direct line that didn't have to go through Manchuria."
He placed a hand on the smaller man's shoulder, "Percy, have you been told your government wants Wilson to take over the Trans Siberian, and overhaul it?"
"What if we don't have time for that?" Percy replied, "Mr Churchill has convinced Lloyd George that we need to be able to keep the Russians in the war until overwhelming force can be brought against the Germans... and Kerensky just does not inspire confidence in his majesty's government."
"Who's Kerensky?"
"Oh, yes he's the new Russian minister of war." Allen nodded, and he asked when that had happened, and that just lead into a long spiral of European secret diplomacy and backroom deals that boiled down to it the French had told the British, and the Foreign Office had then by way of someone in the Tokyo office had then told Percy over the telephone. The basic jist was that Kerensky had the job but hadn't been officially given the job yet... which sounded lovely. "In any event the rail?"
He shook his head, "No Percy, that is not feasible, you're asking me to run," He shook his head, "No thats, "Stevens is going to come in and overhaul the line that is already there, and that's going to take time."
"We don't have time John Allen, thats what I'm telling you. The russians are on the backfoot." It should have been clear from Percy's alarm at the time that he wasn't prepared to let things go, but it was equally possible the eastern terminus of the Russian's trans-caspian line documents had already probably been compiled to send out from the British legation in Tietsin before he'd made the phone call earlier in the week... never mind before news of John Jordan made it back, or the French sharing the news of changes in the Russian cabinet were forthcoming.
--
Notes: Churchill gets his first name drop here, and much of the focus remains on the broader war rather than well, the president and the premier arguing about what China should do, which will eventually exasperate the fractures within the northern cliques and set the stage for July. At this particular stage despite heterodox military provincialism the beiyang were still coherent enough to keep everyone largely in line with shows of force, and well, Duan Qirui gets put into a position where that isn't enough any more, and where the provincial military factors the floodwaters can't be held back by that point.
and also the french mutinies are happening so there is that... and the British were aware of these.
r made czech medium tank with 75mm guns - there were few prototypes in OTL.