June 1920
The war in Europe's end forced a number of things to the fore. Things that had been largely delegated to secondary committees in the face trade the brought the money in to pay for everything else
The issue of compiling a modern civil, and criminal law took time, would take time not the least of which was that in a few months they would be holding provincial elections to fill the lower house, and also county and municipal positions. That got into who was eligible for the vote in the first place, that got into then registering them, and that meant pictures and name and address and for some people that was no issue. Anyone in the army already had their pictures taken a hundred times over... because while there might not have been a hundred colonels active there were enough officers across three full time divisions and the two reservists alone to warrant entire books of photographs.
Actually domestic photography had been something of a growing demand of late, which played into yet another matter, beyond simply preparing for the elections in the fall.
Waite rested a hand on the pink of India, "I don't think this map is accurate any more John." Rand, McNally, and Company had printed this one in 1914, before the guns of august had opened, but for the most part it showed the world as it was a decade earlier... with some updates of the Russo-Japanese war, labelling Port Arthur under Japanese control, It showed Japan and her empire in a color that with age and sunlight matched that of England's.
Rand's map said it was a Republic of China and made no comment upon the status of Mongolia or Tibet... but that wasn't the half of it. Yuan Shikai had been dead four years now.. and the Empire of Russia was now gone.
If only they could have kept the soviets from pushing past the natural boundary of the Urals. Instead Russian Turkestan had seen the influx of a million Cossacks, and then Kolchak had been forced to take Japanese hospitality in the trans baikal. "They're lines on a map, George." Cole replied drumming his fingers.
Waite shot him a dirty look, "We didn't start the line out to Lhasa until Yuan was dead, and buried," Allen knew what was coming with the mention, it was a conversation that he had had with Reinsch back in the summer of 1916; Simla. The line to Lhasa had not opened until over a year later, and had been overshadowed by the Guatemala advance. "The Brits were too busy back then," the war too consuming by that point and 3rd Division had started stationing a battalion in eastern Tibet, at the rail head.
That might not have sounded liked much... but Lhasa in 1915 hadn't been but about thirty thousand and it was dwindling at the time. The Qing officials, the old armies were gone, there were still merchants but the economy was in decline as the Xinhai revolt had tossed things into flux.... and the war had done it no favors.
That was the real detail that mattered, not the battalion per se, but the arrival of the railhead... and what it also brought with it. The opening of the railhead brought with it the start of industrial investment, but the war was over now. "What are you suggesting?"
"I want to reallocate the Eighth Regiment, and the 8th Division headquarters to Lhasa, failing that I think we should consider expanding the existing presence to a regimental headquarters, and reallocating 3rd Division's position." That was going to be controversial given the ongoing discussions regarding 7th Division in Kansu.
"You realize its been a little over a week since I've even told Shang that the eighth is to be stood up?"
"I know, and I know the consensus is with what Yan said, that the reserve should be established first," That Yan's overarching model was more the National Guard of the states than the army of Imperial Japan's reserve system had escaped precisely no one, but it wasn't political Yan probably had made that decision for as much financial reasons, for prudence, as he had with an eye towards mobilizing the guard by Wilson in 1917. "We'd have a hard time going off, but I'll be honest, Yan could have a hundred thousand men in the reserves with just Shansi," That was true, which was why the reserve had been allocated at that strength because it was imminently feasible to recruit at that strength for this coming financial year. "The expenditure of a garrison command, and appointing a senior staff officer should settle the public on regards to Szechwan."
That was also true, if they went and put money into the southern border, or into Tibet, but then turned around and put a new division with established leadership... Szechwan's warlords might decide it wasn't worth the effort to poke the dragon.
--
Yan was quick to extol his view of three duties... but he had backed off the notion of conscription along a Japanese model, or a Prussian model, in part for economic reasons but also to avoid protests from his own provincial gentry. The farmers didn't appreciate their sons going off to the army, especially not for a few years and then deciding that they didn't particularly want to go back home to the family farm.
It was from a manpower perspective to have men in urban professions in cities with depots, or other facilities to handle reservist duties in part because it avoided those problems. If a boy moved off the farm, went to the city got a job, and then enlisted well that was that. On the other hand, there was an expectation of literacy. Yan felt the same way... and that meant putting money into Shansi's primary school system.
"If that we had started ten years ago... No?"
Allen shrugged, rubbing his brow, "Would we be further along, maybe, but in 1910? No we couldn't have started that, even with Edenborn's help, 1913, 1914 would have been the earliest I could see us having started," But so much of what had come in had been the transition to farther west, relocation to xian after beating off Bai Lang, and then with the war in Europe starting bringing in so much in the way of capital that they could afford those expenditures... and they couldn't afford to pretend that they could have done things with things they only knew in hindsight... but there were lessons that they had learned during the war years, and even before that they could put into practice. "Its not just the schools that the war is over, we need to look at technological rationalization," New tools, mechanization of the mining, they had already done what they could with work force organization, and integration of adjacent industries.
Part of it was of course that ten years ago, hell most of China was still digging coal for season consumption needs. Most mines operating were small, rural, poor access to roads, and dug most of their stock during the high demand months of the year. That was to say during winter, because most of the demand was for the heating of houses, and for cooking. Sun Yat-sen, and Cao Kun for that matter, were right in that that was in no small part as to the regionalization of the railroads, that while trains consumed coal their demands were largely made on supply chains that were outside the normal scope of demand.
There was just so little heavy industry to actually demand coal otherwise. There was little in demand for most ancient towns, and cities, regardless of how large for electrical energy generation, the demand wasn't there in Yuan Shikai's day... and there was no capital to bring such to the cities in the south independent of outside investment that was from the treaty ports. There were other factors, but it was mostly the lack of confidence and the cause of that was the chaos.
... a chaos which they did not expect was about to get much worse.
"Putting Shansi to one side for the moment," Dawes remarked, "From the sound of it Duan wants to mount another expedition south." There were grumblings from the handful others in the room to which Allen could sympathize with, and the older man rifled through the papers, "Its a couple divisions being called up, but I don't see any talk that suggest they've learned their lesson."
It was the same plan. Go down the railway try and force their way down to presumably where all this mess had begun. That wasn't to say Hankou or its neighboring cities weren't important, they were, but there was too much space between them. "Hupeh, Szechwan? Or does he think to go all the way?"
"To Yunnan, no from the sound of it the talk is replay the last attempt."
"Like I Said." Dawes grumbled to Hodges's statement... the other man was already discussing going to Lhasa personally
