Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

June 1923
The papers for things in the east of the country had been put aside as they stood round the pin studded table. The telegram from the Foreign Office sat on the war room map.

The details on the map belied the depth of change. He hoped that the borders held. The real details of the changes to the railway were extensive and had to be detailed in thick books which chronicled the real condition of the Trans Siberian versus what it should have been, and then the changes to the lines as the world changed.

The fall of ekatrinburg had marked the falling back of the white armies, then there had been Omsk but then there had been the butchery of their red cavalry at the lake. The Bolsheviks seemed unlikely to push things...to caught up in their own bloodletting. "Lenin's dead?" He asked.

"Complications of another stroke." Shellman piped in that he suspected Lenin's diet hadn't helped, but then fell silent to allow the head of the artillery to continue, "I don't think the best doctor could have done anything, but the communists are blaming the doctors anyway for not doing anything." But as Dawes had just suggested there probably hadn't been anything for the doctors to do. "They'll blame the doctors, and the doctors are largely jews so," Dawes shrugged, "it'll be a pogrom, and they'll purge I figure the jewish marxists over the doctors not being able to fix lenin."

Allen nodded still looking at the map. He was ambivalent to the comment. He had a limited understanding of the nationalities question within the old tsarist empire, and he knew he had a limited understanding now because of just what a godawful mess the civil in Russia had proven to be. "We should assume regardless that the Bolsheviks still mean us ill will all the same."

"their being distracted is a good thing for us."

That was true. He looked at Kirghiz, the rail line from Ferghana and Kumis, and the way west. So much work. The Trans Siberian was gone. He expected from the reports of the US Railway mission that the Bolsheviks were having to rebuild their part of it. There was no railway connection to the 'Soviet Union'. The cossacks didn't connect to Mongolia, but as the line expanded west would connect in all likelihood to British India, and Persia. Further west wasn't that likely, but the Persian Gulf, and the Indian ocean would give them access to ocean trade... both them and also Kirghiz, it was preemptive ground laying for a future war.

The railway map had been compiled in part because of the corporate side, but also for the lessons they had learned from last year. The Cadre had a rail monopoly, and that was almost a decade old at this point for Xian. That gave the company the power to set rates, but it also gave them encouragement to keep rates at level that encouraged people to travel and ship goods.

They could keep the rail profitable by fair rates, and it let them publicize why things cost what they did. There was uniform code for the rail service and for that it allowed them to pay the men the same way they paid soldiers... or the new bureaucracy. It wasn't the same rate but there were grades, and tabulations. It was a career... and now after 1920 those men would have pensions which was explained in spending reports.

"What are our options?" Carter's question drew sharp looks, "What?"

There was a pause, "We diversify. We will have to make decisions."

As even the optimists had made clear, "We're in no position to replace the main trunk with all diesel engines, the power isn't there yet." The horsepower of a diesel engine just couldn't match one to one a good steam powered engine, but unlike coal fired trains diesel was less maintenance heavy, and you chain them together with the same command staff. You didn't need to add extra firemen for them, "It might get there in another ten years," there was that number again, "but thats a lot of things." And never mind that coal was abundant where diesel was not.

"We'll have to build cities, around forts." Allen stated. "We'll have to start working on it, planning air fields ahead of time for next year, and we're going to need to expand the electrification of the city lines." Coal would still be consumed but the trains servicing the cities and their surrounding expanse that would help. "But we need to take what time we have and if Lenin's death leads to the bandits fighting amongst themselves we use the time best we can."

"Air fields are only going to do us so much good, the range isn't there yet." Waite observed, "Not for what we're going to need."

"My staff has been working with Lee's," Bill remarked speaking up, and of course that was where Lee had been promoted up from anyway and there was a crossover between the staff. "We're not the Germans, but we can take lessons from them, and from Japan. If the bolsheviks come across the border, I have got to suspect that it will still mean they're looking right across to Europe the whole time wondering if a punch isn't going to come flying in that direction. We have to secure and bolster Kirghiz, most of the boys have come to the same conclusion, and I'd lay money that Iseburo has been emplacing those eight inchers of his for the same." There were nods of acknowledgement, "If we get into a fight the cossacks are going to have to fight, we push to the Urals, and we hold there. Let geography leverage our defenses."

The problem was obvious. Firstly was the expectation that if war came the Bolsheviks would be starting it... so they would be on the back foot for mobilizing the Cossacks, secondly the old Russian fortresses outside of Kirghiz were in Bolshevik hands. "The war in Europe established a couple of facts, there was no speedy resolution. If there were any questions to that after the Russo-Japanese war, that was definitively settled on by 1916," Dawes remarked, "We can't take that time for granted but we can plan and preposition material and lets be honest the Germans and the Frogs alike built up their railway anticipating another fight after 1870. Both of them were planning for a second round... we should sell to Britain when that next round starts but we expand our rails here."

"The bolsheviks if they start a war with Kirghiz, or with Japan will probably get them a side eye from the west, and the divisions will have to kept back." Bill repeated, and then gestured to the western most extension across from Ferghana, "These will be coal lines for ten twenty years, if we get into a war we will have demand for coal but it is something we can supply."

Carter moved around to look at the western line. "England's been talking about oil in Persia for ages now." He remarked. "But I suppose that even if we pushed a line through, even one onto Baghdad hell to Constantinople by the end of the decade we'd still have the brits controlling the oil." That was what precluded a diesel train all the way that far west, especially in a war time situation. Coal engines would consume more fuel required more personnel, and so forth... but they had an abundance of fuel that could be used for those trains... and they could use that same coal in urban areas to power electric trains here. "The lines we have are necessary for moving supplies around, that means food, clothing." Things which in peace time still had to be moved... and one day they would get where a diesel train would make those runs.... but that would be decades he imagined and coal might frankly ply lines long after Augustus was grown. It was a plentiful resource, and one long used in China, and less hard to convince people to trust than railways themselves.

--
Notes: I could have sworn I had posted this already, and I swear we're missing a segment at the end. But here we go. Note that Lenin dies slightly earlier here in this timeline, but again to reiterate what has already been said, Coal isn't going anywhere quickly and frankly coal would continue to be used to generate electrical power which then powers interurban lines that run off of electricity as well

 

[Imperator Pax]

June 1923
Li's grasp as president of the republic had always been tenuous. He'd been a compromise candidate for the Beiyang and the last few months would have been trying for anyone. Truth be told his choice had still been controversial given he had invited the pony tail general into the capital in 1917, and now was back in office so soon after the recent struggle. The papers could wag their tongues about that sort of thing, but the truth was he was a compromise candidate because he was toothless.

... thus realistically he probably couldn't have done anything for that alone. Toothless was not what the Republic needed.

"What do you make of it?"

"Of Li leaving?"

"No, the idea of a war against the Russians, we gonna tell Iseburo," It was funny how Cole said we, when what he really meant was 'are you gonna tell him'... not that Allen really had a problem with that. "Don't get me wrong I agree a lot more with Bill's idea of using the geography to our advantage a lot more than with Percy's parliamentarian, but Mackinder isn't completely off his rocker either."

"You see a problem with the strategy?"

"The russians got knocked out the war by the Germans. I could see the bolsheviks collapsing but only if petersburg and moscow both fall. We're not the ones to do that. Neither is Japan." Both men understood and for that matter the staff graduates understood why the Russo-Japanese war had stalled out, "I figure there is a good chance Germany and the Reds are going to make good on Rapallo and team up, where that leads... I figure that its going to be bad for everyone."

The best hope was to apply the lessons learned from the European war, but there were limits to that.

The Western Siberian Plain lay east of the Ural Mountains. It was the geographic expanse that the Bolsheviks had seized after Omsk had fallen. The Whites in Central Asia, popularly Kirghiz to Xian's vernacular, controlled the south, which included the spur of steppe that by passed the Urals and that needed to be reinforced and defended even if it was never used as a springboard for offensives.

"Which is exactly," Cole remarked to the observation that France and England will ask for if we all get into it, "We don't have the manpower, and frankly the Whites are going to want something even if we can't drive the bolsheviks out of power entirely." He paused, "Look this'll sound devious but we'd be best off agreeing in principle that they take and administer Western Siberia and that we hold defensively killing grounds against well the bayonet charges from the reds that we can rightfully expect to come in a fight." Despite the thrashing at the Lake doctrine had not changed.

Iseburo had told him of the lake battle, what he had not expected was that the Japanese had taken film of the battle. It was as surprise, and something of a novelty and frankly the real work had been done by artillery, but Iseburo had let the red cavalry try a brazen cavalcade action before opening them up with shot and machine gun fire from three sides.

It was a brutal display, but one to be commended. Iseburo had enveloped them in a textbook maneuver and settled the business. After chasing all the way from Omsk the Bolsheviks had to run all the way west for fear of a few japanese divisions. What railways that the Whites hadn't torn up in retreating the Reds did or Iseburo did in his forays to clear his frontier. It was also why the Japanese aligned whites, smaller and more fragmented didn't question Iseburo's 'advisory counselorship' to their various local governments.... and in the years since particularly as Japanese and Koreans and chinese workers brought their families in to settle or work in towns first it had been railways and post offices then it had been other civil administration... after Kolchak after Omsk there just hadn't been anyone influential enough to knit the patchwork together and Iseburo's railways brought stability and control to the region, and law followed. Even though Akashi had passed away, Iseburo took his cues from the dead colonel, and from his father on how to establish local administrations which as a result reported to his centralized administration in Irkutsk. That in turn had lead to some reported problems with the Kwantung administration south of Iseburo... which was ironic since Iseburo had been in a slot to be in charge of them but now it was parochial departments squabbling.

Regardless of Iseburo's age, the status of elder statesmen was not hereditary, but he might if he cared be able to be prime minister one day. The problem was Allen couldn't see Iseburo doing that willingly, not with the old man dead. It would have been one thing if Yamagata was alive but even then Iseburo was willing to break the government over budget issues... and the thought of Iseburo ending up in the Foreign Office was potentially a good thing, but also not likely to last long. Iseburo supported the Washington Naval Treaty for fiscal reasons, wanted an Anglo-AMerican-Japanese entente for the obvious economic and military benefits the alliance would provide but all of that boiled down to balance book calculations and he'd didn't really understand other view points.

"We have time, and Iseburo won't support his officers haying off and starting something." Allen remarked, "But we have time because Lenin's dead." Even if he hadn't been the Bolsheviks were in no position to restart the civil war and most of the credit there was probably for the Poles in the west showing the Bolshies away from the Vistula. So for at least now whether anyone liked it or not they had to accept the current status quo as the borders and boundaries.

Those were certainly boundaries Allen could live with. "Right now there is a buffer state, whether there is oil there or not for now the west siberian plain keeps the bolsheviks having to look in three different directions." They didn't have to look north it was just ice up there... then again the Germans had taken the third largest city in the Tsar's empire by amphibious action the Mission they had called Albion, so maybe the reds should look warily at the north... "They have to look east against Japan, against Iseburo, they have to look South to Kirghiz, and they can't leave their western border unwatched."

It was a balancing act. It was grand strategy. "Kirghiz makes a fine buffer for us, but I shouldn't tell you that in the long run, and Bill, and Vickers before him is sure there is oil in that basin, it will be available eventually."

"They'd need foreign investment."

"Ford is making them tractors, and his deal with them isn't much different from ours."

Allen nodded acknowledging the point. They needed to make the most with the time that they had. "Waite will never agree to a foreign service body, he'll stamp his feet, and drag his heels for as long as he can," much as he seemed to want to delay on the matter of staffing the supreme court.

"What's our alternative then, not have an official foreign service?" Cole replied, "The trade missions are just that, and besides Peking is falling apart." Li leaving the presidency presented a problem, because he had been harmless, a compromise candidate who didn't have the resources to be Duan never mind Yuan Shikai. Cao was talking about wanting the presidency and leading China, but that was about policy... Zhili's dujun had no plan to bridge the divide across the Beiyang factions. He didn't appear to feel he needed to.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1923
Xian's discussions ... well the public eye was somewhere else entirely than the issue that dominated in Shanghai, and Tietsin. It had only been a matter of time before the broader General Staff started adding their opinions to the talk. That Bill had not opened his study with oh the bombers will always get through had been a minor mercy. There were no Billy Mitchells in Xian, but on the other hand everyone knew who he was, and they also to a lesser extent knew Churchill's man Trenchard.

The easiest rebuttal was that aircraft could not effectively carry sufficient bombs. Until new engines became available talking of the bombers getting through was premature.

Allen put the papers aside and started to help himself to the bowl of chillied buckwheat noodles. It was not quite as hot as he would have liked it, but it was lunch, and he had a lot to do with summer here in force. Currently speaking Xian's major summer exercise entailed forty four thousand troops in the field for drill. First and Third Regiments were rotated back from their divisions divided into instructional cadres and together with second division here in force were working to familiarize National Guard units and reservists with practices and equipment.

As a result the 8th​ Division was shouldering much of the border duty, looking warily across the border with Szechwan. Even the 8th ​under Shang was getting new things the shiniest were new caterpillar excavators from Holt's company back in the states. Holt's manager had written that they had plans to merge with Best if only they could get the details worked out. The new excavators were earmarked for 8th ​Divisions Heavy Combat Engineer Battalion.

Holt's diesel powered excavator was excellent, though the truth was they had largely used steam engines to build the railways. Steam Excavators were maintenance intensive though and while they were coal fired the same as the railways they were just not suited to modern war. There were concerns and had been for several years now about the safety of using them in the coal mines... deep ones anyway since for surface mines they were great.

If Holt and Best merged that had a number of potential benefits... they would presumably rationalize their designs on offer, and with no war for the states in sight well Holt and Best would continue to sell old stock. That would help the MAK and the work in Liberia, and it would help here.

Just as steam power had allowed them to build the railway here, in combination with dynamite, it would facilitate other projects demand less men and for Powell that was important. Unlike here, where even though they had still used money to buy machines to make the work easier there less people and other reasons. "You think his interest in excavators is a canal?"

Griswold questioned. The engineer was wearing his day uniform, the lighter material summer uniforms for the field which while still sewed with patches weren't quite the same as the dress uniforms that most of the cadre in senior leadership roles wore daily. Then again Griswold had almost certainly spent the majority of the morning at the State Military Works.... and if not to ask about the MAK then he might well have been talking about the continued direction from a minority of the cadre to examine a 6.5 cartridge for an autoloading rifle with the aim of replacing 35 Remington.

"I'd say no, but only because I think he recognizes that its not feasible..."And the panama canal had taken so long to build. It would help probably Powell's support for a united states in central america which the state department supported, but he doubted that State's support was so enthusiastic that it would provide even the political capital for a canal... unless someone at the Navy was really worried about needing to ferry hither and to from the oceans that formed the state's first real defense.

It wasn't that the project for whic h so many men had talked about was an impossible to surmount engineering challenge. It wasn't. It was a capital, both monetary and political question to surmount. "Where are we on the submachine gun project?'

"Rationalization?" Griswold said, "Lewis already recognized we needed to go to an open bolt, and to a blow back," There were trade offs to both changes but by and large the pros outweighed the cons, "I think what we will have to do is moved to a stamped metal design. Lewis likes milling machines, the complaints we got out of 3rd ​were they'd take the guns and they could deal with snow up until the guns melted the snow and then they'd refreeze the action shut."

"How do we deal with that?"

"I'm working on it. I figure we need to keep the bolt from getting mud and dirt out of it as well, which is a much more year around problem than the white stuff," Griswold replied, "Other problem I see is we're going to need a robust enough magazine to feed it, especially with all the interest Yan has in the project." Yan liked Thomspons, but those were even more expensive than the Lewis Griswold 45s that they had already, and those weren't cheap relatively speaking... but Taiyuan's arsenal already manufactured 45 caliber Mauser Broom handles, which in contrast to the other provinces were the service pistols of the Shansi Gendarmes, a provincial level police force and one which employed detachable shoulder stocks. "I have someone working on that as well, and we're going to keep an eye abroad to see if anyone comes up with anything that we can use." For this or other things, that was how things worked.

"Specialist troops will need specialist weapons. Our heavy combat engineers by and large do not need to be lugging rifles, which originally we planned to do by giving everyone 20 inch Universals, but sub machineguns are possibly a better option."

Griswold gave the the man a scowl, "Not if we can't keep them working. I'm working on it." He stated, and grudgingly pulled out a series of reports, the good news is the chemical industry in Taiyuan is coming online. SMB," Shansi Machine Bureau, "is expanding ammunition production. That will help with testing, but Yan is talking about wanting a removable and or collapsing stock like his broom handles. Which, I can do, but magazines and the action. The action, I think if I can get it sealed off from the rest we can keep water or mud from getting in, but that is a tolerance and heat treatment question. I'll do what I can to keep weight down."
--
Notes: Theproblem Griswold is describing here, is he's coming from anengineering standpoint where milling is the primary manufacturingtechnique thats really where tolerance and expense comes into play.Once stamping, and forging parts can be done for the design its a lotmore simple, with a milling based most likely the way you woulddisassemble a gun like this is probably a sprign detente or catch tohold the bolt handle in. The bolt handle as in the owen gun would beconnected to an extension that operates charging of hte system butotherwise isolate the internals but again after that problem is dealtwith its getting magazines to be truly interchangeable (again this is1923 where lots of guns are still being fitted for their magazinesdespite detachable box magazines being something from post US civilwar rifles, as an interchangeable parts concept execution of the idealagged across lots of guns including the Winchester 351 caliberrifles)


On other notes I have some tentative plans to update some Jumpchain stuff over the summer but beyond this story updates are tentative at best.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1923

Allen had gotten on a train the Friday evening, and arrived at Lhasa station this morning after a brief day stop at Qinghai. The Lake though had a permanent cadre presence though, and with Hodges's passing Tibet did not. Hodges had of course retired first and had left instructions and plans for furthering productive economic development, but he had also put an outline for more grand ideas. That had included things beyond his recommendation to the Cadre that a civilian university be prioritized here; given the existing merchant community. Quite frankly if one were being honest he'd left so much for the others to work through that well it taking almost eight months to get through it all was understandable.

The railway was as Mackinder put it an answer to landlocked countries for moving goods, and of course also projecting power. If the soviets could conquer back the extent of the old tsarist realm it was bad for everyone... if only they could convince Hoover, the President and the Senate to see that... it was obvious that the maritime nature of the States disinclined them from seeing the obvious.

That wasn't to say the state department hadn't recognized Kirghiz, which Powell trumpeted as a venue for which capital might move in without being beholden to London. The slump as the states had rushed to demobilize after the European war looked to be correcting so they would see if that might be. The Soviets might MacKinder thought adopt the same geostrategic ambitions as Peter the Great, with wishing to wash their boots in the Persian gulf.

Whether he was on the money or not it was a useful stick to agitate for support Kirghiz as a buffer state for England to thus shield the Jewel in the Crown. That effort was stymied by the penny pinching of bean counters who didn't or willfully refused to see that they only had breathing room before the conflict resumed.

That was the conclusion the Cadre had come to. It was thus the policies for which papers were written about by both staff officers, as well as up and coming managers in arguments for new and better machinery to produce tools and further elements. It was that logic for which Cullen seemed to have secured votes for an Arsenal in Urumqi for the production of the 122mm Krupp guns of the old Tsarist artillery park as well as an improved version. Kirghiz was transitioning away from the Russian rimmed cartridge in favor of the 8mm Mauser but artillery was going to be a different story was always a different story... and as a result the 122mm threw a larger high explosive charge than the lighter 105 that served as the mid range field gun of Xian's standards.

Powell still exercised enough influence and there were enough other reasons that the 105 would remain in a modernized form as well. Part of that was fiscal in origin, there were enough of them in service. Dawes favored a transition to a larger 155mm from the old 15cm cannons. His support meant that upgrade had priority in terms of procurement and the new 155 guns would receive priority funding to complete.


Lhasa was a merchant's town, the economic malaise which the Qing had been had been suffering over had been undone by bringing the railway here. It also undercut the idiot foreign secretary from trying to treat Tibet as independent. Hodges had been able to see to that, and before Curzon had expressed that intention Duan had years earlier recognized their representatives in the senate for the province when'd called for the legislature to hold elections.

All of this as he read through the papers in front of him, scanning the type, was of course going to be an issue. Allen was making an appearance here to show the flag as it were, even if he wasn't here to directly take command over any of the projects. That would likely be delegated by the expected establishment of the Army Industrial College to be built the Lake, but for whom subordinate commands would be posted to each provincial capital. That subordinate office would be headed by a colonel, and total staff would be likely a battalion of signals and engineer men supported by civilians.

It was going to be a busy fall season if summer was any warning... which again underscored the need to make this appearance in Lhasa. He looked at the brigadier general, "Hodges ordered a water resources report eighteen months ago, is that right?"

"Yes sir. The source waters for Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong rivers."

Hypothetically that meant Hodges had been skirting his official authorities as the area in question while geographically apart of the Tibetan Plateau was apart of Qinghai. Oddly managing not to go over budget for his command, which Allen decided not to mention... he'd review the discretionary budget but most likely Hodges had been holding training marches for his engineer companies to handle the surveying, "Did he elucidate why?" He asked Hodges's former chief of staff.

Hodges had been in agreement with the general cadre consensus that locally the most immediate security challenge was 'the bandit world' that was to say Szechwan to their south. The need to project influence along the silk road was the other major policy security question and was made possible by the railway along that ancient thoroughfare.

Hodges however had been looking both to the south east, as well as hoping to check Curzon from coming east from India. Hodges's writing outlined challenges in both procurement planning, but also showed MacKinder's influence in writings about the geostrategic consideration... in this case in looking at the great rivers.

Having engineers look at the river in depth would spark rumors about canals, which would start other chatter... but if Hodges had seen a threat he should have brought it up to the General Staff, or if in the interest of discretion at least the cadre. "Were War planning studies drawn up?"

The man shook his head, there had not been... though he was unsure if that had been in consideration but at the time no such plans had existed when Hodges had retired... and Hodges had not left expansive documents just outlines really. Most of his focus had been on textile production and efforts to support the local presence... which of course had been his primary purpose

Allen stood up, Percy had recently updated the cadre on what the Legation estimated the total number of soldiers in China to be. It was a number that had ballooned and since the legation was really only counting Beiyang armies... and not the 'southern rebels' as 'real soldiers' the real figure for real figures was likely approximately four million according to Cole.

He relayed as much to the general. "You'll need to prepare the documents for further review by the general staff, If Hodges believed there was a threat to the country or national importance in regards to studying the rivers it will need to be pushed on." The European war had established the importance of supply if previous wars hadn't made that clear enough. There was no question that the General Staff would take Hodges proposal and suggest further expansion of the army, and its base of supply even if that might take five more years.

The Cadre had taken the lesson from the states the bureau could not run rough shod over central command thus the General Staff had commanding authority to manage a centralized network of districts rather than allowing something like the Quartermasters Corp to act in a parochial manner as if they were their own fiefdom from Ordnance or the Corp of Engineers or the Medical Department. That meant that in practice after 1920 Xian had been building up both a civilian side municipal, county, Province apparatus, and on the army side systems that were similar but more important were uniform across the uniformed service. Standardization and Rationalization of resources and also protocol were the centerpiece of reform efforts even though usually that meant wholesale foundational construction typically by either soldiers or railway men changing jobs and serving as the nucleus of new cells.
--
Notes: This is mostly a brief glance at Tibet as we move into the end of this 'arc' the next will begin with 1924 but when we get to the interwar years one of the things that will be touched on will be the Tarim mummies as well Tocharian as a language, and also will foreshadow events of those whacky nazis wanting to visit Tibet.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1923
The hefty stack of papers in front of him bore the letter head and other indicator marks of a report from the British Foreign Service's bureaucracy some assistant secretary or some such writing a memorandum doomed otherwise to a dusty archive unlikely to ever be read by anyone in London because London generally only cared what their most senior representative in the jewel of the orient told them. Regardless of whether they knew which way was up or not, "Why am I looking at this Cole?" Allen asked looking up from the papers.

Cullen shrugged, "Cause I had to."

He snorted. "Fair enough." Allen replied. "So why do we care about whatever it is Sun is calling his latest attempt to appear important for the papers?"

"We don't," Cullen replied, "Skip down some, its two or three pages in where the brits are talking about the tax collection and what not to fund the government."

Allen did so and maneuvered through the Foreign Service jargon from some oxbridge man posted to Canton for good king george's government. It was familiar jargon and figures for population figures that he was used to seeing. His brows knit, and he frowned. "Its a corruption report, they're not calling it that mind you but this sounds like their running a shake down racket."

"Yeah." Cullen's boots made a scuffing sound on the teak flooring of the office. "Don't get me wrong the guomindang have other revenue streams and Canton made a mint on textiles during the war, but thats part of the problem." The south had also exported food to the entente during the war when prices had been high. Xian estimated that even with the European war cutting imports from places like German, France and Belgium to basically nothing and severely curtailing by comparison to pre war imports from the English speaking world the Republic of China as a whole had barely scraped out of a trade deficit in 1916-1917 and since 1920 was importing more than ever before.

The problem was lack of rational planning. There could be no rational planning because even the Beiyang was fractured. Zhang had retreated to manchuria and lick his wounds but was furiously building up industry, angrily recriminating against Wu for trickery... which was absurd but then again fairly typical and of course there were other memorial complaints. The problem wasn't Manchuria, it wasn't Zhili, or even Canton. It was the chaos in the center. Yunnan was relatively efficiently run independent as it was effectively from either Canton or Peking but the real problem were the provinces where there was no coherent leadership and were divided between a smorgasbord of bandits and warlords. It was that which bifurcated the country from north to south and made efforts to reunify be squandered along long supply lines.

Warlords, the junfa, militarists and big bandits all related terms and organizations were excising wealth from the countryside to try and buy things that were now available. That seemed especially true in the coastal east south and north. Canton and Manchuria.

"What are the repercussions of this?"

"Sun has ties to the Green Gang, in Shanghai through the business community, we think they also serve as channels of communication between the opium growers in the countryside Szechwan cultivates goes to Shanghai for shipping weapons come in." Cullen deferred that what they could observe was probably just scratching the surface of the illicit trade but regardless it was a problem on the river traffic. Hodges had expressed support in committee and appropriations for Cullen's request for gunboats, which as they were going through the dead man's papers it obviously was a bit more than that. "I have recommendations." Cullen remarked, "But I also think that we'd benefit from pushing more effort into Kirghiz."

"Your Foreign Legion idea?"

"Yeah. Look the European War was a shit show," As Black Jack agreed, and as Wood agreed with regards to various failures about both supply and about time, "The cossacks are letting us keep troops on their soil, but we shouldn't miss that we're friendly with Japan and we may have a problem with men arguing with one another over damned stupid shit. We need to push, and leverage certain things, and lets be honest if we're going to keep the Bolsheviks out we need to modernize society, and be seen as the source of modernity and driving technological progress."

"Cole, I can't spare you haying off to the steppes not with the existing expansions on the books we're going to be swamped next year, and certainly in 25." Allen replied plainly in a serious tone. "And if you're right and there are problems like that," Which there certainly probably were, "I'm not sure we've got someone for the right of it."

"I've got a short list, we can do the program in increments build up." No doubt similarly to how the army had been built up, " The real work probably won't start until the year after next," 1925, "And I will have a built up proposal ready for next year's conference on what I have in mind. What I am saying is we should be glad that Lenin shuffled off, letthe reds argue and scrap amongst themselves it'll give us time to shore up things there, but I want to start pushing new artillery to our neighbors to the north of us, particularly where we can have the Brits see it. Maybe get them away from this air policing nonsense. If not well, I've talked with Dawes about it and it would behoove us to buy surplus naval guns for railway guns to mount there, which is another a Foreign Legion component over there would be good for."

"Czechs?"

"Some of them."

Allen raised an eyebrow.

"Powell?"

"He's recruiting as well, but its really more of a scale thing." Cole replied, "The European war put a lot of men under arms. I figure we start with a brigade, Artillery and Infantry, and we can adjust as we need from there. "Which was a bald faced lie of course. Yes they could start from a brigade but Powell's own papers from the MAK's notes made it very clear that he expected to oversee a large expansion of the armed forces, and that was the same consensus that the General Staff had reached and promulgated reports even as the cadre worked the breaks to keep growth of the army manageable. Heading off that line of argument Cullen continued speaking, "I will enforce standards of discipline, we're not so hard up on men that can lapse, and given the threat I have some idea of how bad things could be, I know what's on the table and what's at stake in the game."

"this might create problems if Powell wants to encourage investors into Central Asia, and we haven't had much luck with the Indian market either." That was in part because of British protectionism, the continuance of war time controls despite making things objectively god damned worse, and also just the response from the civilian population to Dyre fucking up things for everyone... "And most of that can't be blamed on that we don't have the rail line finished." They had basically spent the last three years overhauling the Transcaspian line and with all the work that had entailed he couldn't imagine the herculean task that doing the entire trans siberian would have been if the whole line were under one body.

Small mercies that. He looked back to the population tables as estimated by the British Foreign Office man written for superiors unlikely to read them in any sort of timely fashion. Then, he drew out the cadre's own files and reports estimating the population of Central China, Szechwan, Manchuria, and Kirghiz as well.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1923
The stamping machine came down thousands of tons of weight driven by steam pressure. The die held the part shape which was made by the weight of the machine's action. It was the die the mold which was the important part of the machine though because in contrast to older machines this one was churning out the hull of a truck body not for train engine.

That was part of how the technology here had matured. The steel industry had grown up enough that instead of wood carriages for trains they could afford to use metal ones which were cheaper in bulk required less maintenance and were safer in crashes.

It was all a matter of scale. The workforce learned new better techniques developed or acquired new more capable machines. The company looked after its people. That meant housing, and food, and childcare and looking after the elderly. All of which were made easier by scale. China was a nation of scale with so many large cities... such that Tietsin had had a million people during the Boxer rebellion who; had fled into the countryside of Zhili over the summer of 1900... which had had effects then. Just as Bai Lang's campaign had done the opposite driving people from the countryside to the safety of Xian.

"Does it work?"

"Same as we do trains," Waite replied as the pressure lifted the hammer back up, "That's another thing something that came up, you ever wondered why birds are so funny looking?"

"Not particularly," He replied but knowing Waite had always been something of an amateur ornithologist even when he'd been at West Point.

"Its aerodynamics. Its about airflow. I figure that we burn a lot of fuel trying to push a flat faced train against the wind, which is fine we can burn coal and make up for it. Planes though that's a different story. " The other engineer replied, highlighting that a big engine locomotive could carry plenty of fuel travelling between two fixed points. "We'regoing to have a lot of crossover, planes trains and automobiles. There is something else I want to show you. We started the next round of testing, its promising, very promising."

"The armor plate?" Allen asked.

"Yeah that's right. There are drawbacks," They'd known about the loss of internal usable volume, "but we estimate a thirty percent increase in relative efficacy of the armor using the Virginia model." Waite remarked, "I can build Bill's ETS," Experimental Technical Section "at the lake an armored car that is effectively impervious to small arms fire." Knowing his next question, "We don't have a dedicated anti armor round for the 25mm but the 1PDR is insufficient against the plate. The new auto cannon had better performance characteristics so if you could keep rounds on target it would defeat the armor. That is easier with the 25mm but its a magazine fed gun rather than a belt like the 1PDR..."

"But not on a first round hit?"

"Head on no, the combat cars side armor it would probably penetrate. Our 3 incher in direct fire that's a different story even if the high explosive doesn't penetrate it'll blow the tires or wreck the suspension." Waite continued that he had plans to test other artillery pieces in the new year with another round of tests and with other adjustments but that functionally they had learned a lot. He gestured back to the pressing machine before it came down again, "That'll mean that when we have a die built, year after next maybe, start in 25 maybe the year after that we can start pushing cars to an ETS at battalion level and see how well theyrun with the new guns in tandem. Build up for there, we'll use large tires like our tractors, but I should have a prototype sometime next spring."

Allen nodded, "Can you make the autocannon belt fed?"

"Yeah, that shouldn't be too difficult." The 1PDR was already a belt fed gun so the improvement to Bekker's design shouldn't have presented a major trouble. The improvements here to on Bekker's design had been much the same as addressing the one pounder that it was anemic for what they needed in a rapid fire weapon and thus once the 25mm case length had been worked out then they'd have accuracy and range.

One step at a time. "You might want to earmark that, in the mean time what about the suspension?"

"We're gonna make the transition away from leaf springs to a fully supported torsion bar system, better stability."

"Then that's our priority, "They'd been working on roads a lot longer than Powell had, and that was the impediment. Trucks around town were one thing, in and around a rail hub fine, but they couldn't remain confined to that area of operation forever.

"You know Cao Kun is making a lot of noises about the government."

"Yeah, I know." Allen replied with a grimace. Zhang was as well, and there was Duan, and that wasn't even touching down south. "Next year things are going to have to look at what all we need to do for the next five years." He gestured to the machine, "We're going to need more of those, and realistically bigger ones."

Waite snorted, this wasn't news to him since as he summarized. "they've been getting bigger every couple of years anyway." Still while automobile production would likely dominate most talk at the fall conference the ability to produce them, the means and capital to do so was going to be discussed and how they could efficiently increase output production. "Cao Kun means to make a bid for the presidency doesn't' he?"

"I think so, that's the talk." That wasn't really a problem, per se. It was the seeming desperation that Cao Kun was pursuing the objective he had set, and reason.

--
Notes: This goes into mechanization in the 1920s after the war there is a global automobile craze its overshadowed by aircraft in the broader historical scope which is also very international character Ford's marketing played this up, Fiat in Italy probably did the same because they did a lot of international business in spite of limits on Italian oil. [Indeed Fiat international market share probably did a lot to keep the Italian automotive industry alive with imposition of rationing of domestic fuel consumption]

Before the war the British had had suggestions that in the interest of colonial and frontier security that troops could be mechanized (we're talking about British African colonies here) and this was revisited in colonial contexts for both cars and aircraft. The whole policing the empire on the cheap with aircraft came about in this period. Even in spite of the 10 year plan or freeze on big ticket expenditures in the interwar period the British are considered the leaders of mechanization as a strategic idea. The Germans in the early 20s, most of whose staff writers are prussian general staff types recognize this as early as 1920 and reach the conclusion that warfare in about maneuver.

[The US had been saying the same thing since the civil war, and Pershing had gone to war in Europe with that specific notion in mind it was just that the US army to Europe was not ready for it equipment wise... in addition to failures in leadership with the AEF.]

We will see later on the British response, but from a doctrine standpoint Xian's primary rifle divisions and their supporting brigades are mechanized and if not for Chiang's Northern Expedition attacking Zhengzhou the legislature would probably accept the fiscal conservative argument of waiting another five years for large expansions of the army.

But the Northern Expedition does happen, Chiang does attack Zhengzhou and that battle does involve a tank brigade on Xian's side. Even though its not ground breaking that serves as the public capital to justify those tanks and that armored service being developed... and the result of this is among other things that Xian besides its ties to Kirghiz (central Asia) and England (looking at British armor doctrine) goes to Sweden and participates in tank development there which will eventually lead to Xian's medium tank designs of the war. (This goes to the automobile developments ongoing.)

But again, Zhengzhou when it happens reiterates the basic principle of maneuver warfare, seize choice ground quickly and exploit your enemy's position. The result, the conclusion in tank design is that its about strong front armor reliability and putting high explosive into an enemy position. [That is to say, it is not about fighting other tanks, that idea gets talked about during this period particularly in England] Which as this part has been talked about before Xian's definition of infantry support is the tank has a gun throws high explosive at enemy while the infantry is moving up. [This is basically a response in universe, to the question of where are your machine guns? Because British tank design put a lot of emphasis on machine guns, [in part due to the perception of WW1 trench warfare shaped by the official histories] and during this period(the 20s) most tank production globally is British, again Vickers].

This is a mobile gun concept, most of Xian's tank officers are artillery branch and that reflects development of Xian's tank doctrine especially with the development of a 'heavy tank' which is for all intents and purposes an armored mechanized howitzer but thats also years years into the future from this point. Xian's first and generation tanks are infantry supporting with an emphasis on the cannon to support movement of infantry (mechanized or otherwise). This is not envisioning wide sweeping maneuvers of armor fighting armor, because Xian's only neighbor with tanks at this point in China is Fengtien / Manchuria because Zhang is also chasing this is the latest best thing I can buy. [and he's buying from England, and Italy at this point]