Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

May 1628 Week 2 (post ring of fire)​

Dominion of the Baltic Sea series / 17th Century Europe​

In the future... years in the future as the decade turned and things sort of reached equilibrium they would look at the other challenges put forward by being in the early modern period. Stewart was currently paging through one of the primers of assigned reading he tormented his freshmen with.

Viktor was staring at a digitized list. An HP Envy 4520, a compact printer connected to the house's wireless, was already churning out pages. Communication was one of those things he expected was being over thought... in the short term. His thoughts about radio while probably not as outlandish as some... well he wasn't sure precisely what the priorities would be.

Modern digital radio stations were too dependent on satellites. That was of course also a facet of commercialization, but even besides that problem there were going to be others. Maintenance and power draw would come to mind to anyone who thought about it... but the reality was not just transmission. It was reception.

They were going to have to make a transition back to wired telephones for home and office to at least some extent. Cell phones would work, either by local internet connections talking to one another even accounting for latency and lag would be annoying but at least it was something, but that wasn't an ideal solution outside of fixed points either.

They wouldn't be able to operate aircraft for very much longer just on the sake of fuel, and he was skeptical there were enough remaining anti fire watch towers or that they were correctly positioned to make up for that. That those tree lines were now not just a fire risk but also a security one was another problem entirely beyond the manpower needed to watch for one or both of those.

Oliver picked up the sheets in the tray and thumbed through them. The first page was nothing special... it was just a reiteration that their transition other than directional orientation was roughly in line with the county dimensions. "Still waiting for those water and soil tests?" T he unspoken part of the question was how important they were.

"Its obviously not that pressing, but I do want to know if it was a perfect sphere... and the water tests are going to be important, but we need to fix the dam."

The dam that had been built by the TVA overhauls not withstanding it was what provided their most reliable source of long term electrical generation. Oliver flipped some pages, "Be like one of those 4x city builders we can build the refrigeration right next to it so the power lines don't get smashed." He observed.

Which while not the best analogy wasn't without validity. Defending the dam from a military perspective was relatively easy. It had wide open sight lines the roads were well situated for defense and there were even old public works buildings that frankly might as well have been bunkers from how the TVA had built them. Concrete would be cheap and relatively resistant to fire and cannon of this era... but even that was getting ahead of themselves.

"What the fuck is this?"

Viktor looked at the page, "Its a boiling vessel, its for a steam tractor," or truck frankly the early 20th​ century had from time to time used them interchangeably, "Coal is going to be mess but in braising terms the vessels shouldn't be hard for us to make," Certainly relative to an internal combustion engine, "They're not your dwarf tanks from Warhammer," they were entirely too fragile for that, given the boiling vessels would have to be hand made, but... "in terms of plowing a field, this is the best old tech I can think of to clear land." It was one of the things he had been asked to find.
The advantage was of course there was there was the train museum and the firms that welded either as their business or as part of the business of fabrication.

"Why would coal be a problem?"

"Transportation mostly, Germany's canal system is at best infantile at this stage," and the small canals that did exist were patchwork little pieces transversing feudal principalities, "There is the stirling engine we could use off of wood fuel but that will quickly deplete any sort of forest reserves we have," And if they had to build something arguably any pine stocks they needed would likely be better used for making plywood... but that wouldn't be his call that would be the county's.

Back in the before, back in the 21st​ century they had come from... the Germans and the French in the EU had been arguing that reforestation back to previous levels of the 19th​ century had met with protests because that meant that Germany and France wouldn't have to do much where as countries like Norway would be on the hook as they had industrialized later. Deforestation was another concern already in the 17th​ century here though, as it had been since Elizabethan times as England had already largely deforested, and the Royal navy was dependent on the export of swedish timber stocks ... but that wasn't relevant yet.
--
A modern county... well potentially barring maybe a couple of the weird ones out west simply lacked the necessary resources to be self sufficient. It was a reality of modern transportation capacity making it possible to supply food to the significant population densities, while also still providing the space for... well everything else.

They were electrically self sufficient... ish.

That was assuming they could keep the hydro electric system running, but that meant in turn refrigeration which would diminish food spoilage, but that didn't address needing to b e able to feed the population. Even if they had been autarky was a stupid concept on anything other than a continental scale, and even then was overrated.

Viktor was currently on the fence over which would have been better. Being here in admittedly post medieval early modern Europe was far from ideal, "So there are what like three hundred states?"

"German principalities, something like that," The post napoleonic war had consolidated those down to a tenth of that, and the Germanic pan nationalism had amalgamated that down further... but German as it was spoken now was much closer to english of the period, and english of the period was still very close to old norse... and technically gothic was still spoken. The issue was that all of the languages in question lacked the technical vocabulary that defined their modern up time counterparts or certain simplifications that the languages had undergone with the mass proliferation of literacy in the vulgar iteration of day to day vernacular.

The next question was predictable but still, "So what do we do?"

They were going to need trade partners, and the thirty years war presented a problem even beyond the sorry state of the transportation infrastructure. They were going to need to find someway to trade with the locals for grain foodstuffs... and that was going to be hard even without Wallenstein's army in the vicinity due to those logistical issues. "They're," Wallenstein's 'foraging' parties, "getting better organized," and with limitations on gasoline they weren't going to be using cars which meant they were going to need horses which meant they were going to need fodder, and it was also going to use up veterinary supplies that they couldn't readily replace.

It would push them into, retro tech and its vaguely steampunk aesthetics of the post settling in period as they acclimated to what was and wasn't feasible in the 17th​ century... but at least in being in Europe there was access to the market resources both to buy and sell goods they didn't have to do everything themselves.
--
Notes: Update for this, though I do want to say one thing that annoys me about this, is that I formatted the original version of this (this is a fairly old project) about ten years ago, so it is spread through a folder and its done in such a way I wonder what the fuck I was thinking in terms of doing it like that.

Also this is going up because I've got DnD tonigh and am still behind from last week. I'm hoping to have rabid fox's update ready by tomorrow but I make no promises.

EDIT: Also if anything stands out in this post feel free to comment this is an older project, so as with the canonical 1632 series there are limits on what tech is available, that is one of the things to which I attempted to hew towards when writing this originally. (In pure nitpicking terms this is why certain gadets and gear don't show up but unlike with 32 this is a post or a late GWoT US community thrown back in time so there is a lot of civilian available gear in play)

 

[ATP]

May 1628 Week 2 (post ring of fire)​

Dominion of the Baltic Sea series / 17th Century Europe​

In the future... years in the future as the decade turned and things sort of reached equilibrium they would look at the other challenges put forward by being in the early modern period. Stewart was currently paging through one of the primers of assigned reading he tormented his freshmen with.

Viktor was staring at a digitized list. An HP Envy 4520, a compact printer connected to the house's wireless, was already churning out pages. Communication was one of those things he expected was being over thought... in the short term. His thoughts about radio while probably not as outlandish as some... well he wasn't sure precisely what the priorities would be.

Modern digital radio stations were too dependent on satellites. That was of course also a facet of commercialization, but even besides that problem there were going to be others. Maintenance and power draw would come to mind to anyone who thought about it... but the reality was not just transmission. It was reception.

They were going to have to make a transition back to wired telephones for home and office to at least some extent. Cell phones would work, either by local internet connections talking to one another even accounting for latency and lag would be annoying but at least it was something, but that wasn't an ideal solution outside of fixed points either.

They wouldn't be able to operate aircraft for very much longer just on the sake of fuel, and he was skeptical there were enough remaining anti fire watch towers or that they were correctly positioned to make up for that. That those tree lines were now not just a fire risk but also a security one was another problem entirely beyond the manpower needed to watch for one or both of those.

Oliver picked up the sheets in the tray and thumbed through them. The first page was nothing special... it was just a reiteration that their transition other than directional orientation was roughly in line with the county dimensions. "Still waiting for those water and soil tests?" T he unspoken part of the question was how important they were.

"Its obviously not that pressing, but I do want to know if it was a perfect sphere... and the water tests are going to be important, but we need to fix the dam."

The dam that had been built by the TVA overhauls not withstanding it was what provided their most reliable source of long term electrical generation. Oliver flipped some pages, "Be like one of those 4x city builders we can build the refrigeration right next to it so the power lines don't get smashed." He observed.

Which while not the best analogy wasn't without validity. Defending the dam from a military perspective was relatively easy. It had wide open sight lines the roads were well situated for defense and there were even old public works buildings that frankly might as well have been bunkers from how the TVA had built them. Concrete would be cheap and relatively resistant to fire and cannon of this era... but even that was getting ahead of themselves.

"What the fuck is this?"

Viktor looked at the page, "Its a boiling vessel, its for a steam tractor," or truck frankly the early 20th​ century had from time to time used them interchangeably, "Coal is going to be mess but in braising terms the vessels shouldn't be hard for us to make," Certainly relative to an internal combustion engine, "They're not your dwarf tanks from Warhammer," they were entirely too fragile for that, given the boiling vessels would have to be hand made, but... "in terms of plowing a field, this is the best old tech I can think of to clear land." It was one of the things he had been asked to find.
The advantage was of course there was there was the train museum and the firms that welded either as their business or as part of the business of fabrication.

"Why would coal be a problem?"

"Transportation mostly, Germany's canal system is at best infantile at this stage," and the small canals that did exist were patchwork little pieces transversing feudal principalities, "There is the stirling engine we could use off of wood fuel but that will quickly deplete any sort of forest reserves we have," And if they had to build something arguably any pine stocks they needed would likely be better used for making plywood... but that wouldn't be his call that would be the county's.

Back in the before, back in the 21st​ century they had come from... the Germans and the French in the EU had been arguing that reforestation back to previous levels of the 19th​ century had met with protests because that meant that Germany and France wouldn't have to do much where as countries like Norway would be on the hook as they had industrialized later. Deforestation was another concern already in the 17th​ century here though, as it had been since Elizabethan times as England had already largely deforested, and the Royal navy was dependent on the export of swedish timber stocks ... but that wasn't relevant yet.
--
A modern county... well potentially barring maybe a couple of the weird ones out west simply lacked the necessary resources to be self sufficient. It was a reality of modern transportation capacity making it possible to supply food to the significant population densities, while also still providing the space for... well everything else.

They were electrically self sufficient... ish.

That was assuming they could keep the hydro electric system running, but that meant in turn refrigeration which would diminish food spoilage, but that didn't address needing to b e able to feed the population. Even if they had been autarky was a stupid concept on anything other than a continental scale, and even then was overrated.

Viktor was currently on the fence over which would have been better. Being here in admittedly post medieval early modern Europe was far from ideal, "So there are what like three hundred states?"

"German principalities, something like that," The post napoleonic war had consolidated those down to a tenth of that, and the Germanic pan nationalism had amalgamated that down further... but German as it was spoken now was much closer to english of the period, and english of the period was still very close to old norse... and technically gothic was still spoken. The issue was that all of the languages in question lacked the technical vocabulary that defined their modern up time counterparts or certain simplifications that the languages had undergone with the mass proliferation of literacy in the vulgar iteration of day to day vernacular.

The next question was predictable but still, "So what do we do?"

They were going to need trade partners, and the thirty years war presented a problem even beyond the sorry state of the transportation infrastructure. They were going to need to find someway to trade with the locals for grain foodstuffs... and that was going to be hard even without Wallenstein's army in the vicinity due to those logistical issues. "They're," Wallenstein's 'foraging' parties, "getting better organized," and with limitations on gasoline they weren't going to be using cars which meant they were going to need horses which meant they were going to need fodder, and it was also going to use up veterinary supplies that they couldn't readily replace.

It would push them into, retro tech and its vaguely steampunk aesthetics of the post settling in period as they acclimated to what was and wasn't feasible in the 17th​ century... but at least in being in Europe there was access to the market resources both to buy and sell goods they didn't have to do everything themselves.
--
Notes: Update for this, though I do want to say one thing that annoys me about this, is that I formatted the original version of this (this is a fairly old project) about ten years ago, so it is spread through a folder and its done in such a way I wonder what the fuck I was thinking in terms of doing it like that.

Also this is going up because I've got DnD tonigh and am still behind from last week. I'm hoping to have rabid fox's update ready by tomorrow but I make no promises.

EDIT: Also if anything stands out in this post feel free to comment this is an older project, so as with the canonical 1632 series there are limits on what tech is available, that is one of the things to which I attempted to hew towards when writing this originally. (In pure nitpicking terms this is why certain gadets and gear don't show up but unlike with 32 this is a post or a late GWoT US community thrown back in time so there is a lot of civilian available gear in play)

Click to shrink...

Last Goths died on Crimea in 1475 when tatars take over,so no gothic there.
Aside from that - yes,germans was much nicer people then - they do not want to conqer world yet,only waged normal religious wars.
Well,normal for their times.

Steam tractors - americans used steam cars till at least 1920,maybe they have plans somewhere.
Radios - they probably could mad one at 1950-1940 level with what they have.Notching better,becouse lack of technology.

Deliver of coal - use river barges.

What could they made...better tools,maybe? They should be capable of mass producing good steel.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Last Goths died on Crimea in 1475 when tatars take over,so no gothic there.
Aside from that - yes,germans was much nicer people then - they do not want to conqer world yet,only waged normal religious wars.
Well,normal for their times.

Steam tractors - americans used steam cars till at least 1920,maybe they have plans somewhere.
Radios - they probably could mad one at 1950-1940 level with what they have.Notching better,becouse lack of technology.

Deliver of coal - use river barges.

What could they made...better tools,maybe? They should be capable of mass producing good steel.

Click to shrink...

Gothic as a language though survived as a language until the seventeen hundreds in the [crimean] peninsula which was what I was trying to reference and yea river barges here and in some other things is about ideal {especially once Grantville shows up in a few years}

I hate typing responses on my phone.

 

[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.

 

[Unique]

How are they gonna get the teachers for their university?

 

[Imperator Pax]

How are they gonna get the teachers for their university?

Click to shrink...

In the mid term, probably from the US and then from Central Europe post war.

But in this case we're talking university in the sense of 1920 not 2020 universities this is very much still an era where your professors are living and doing research at home. This is really the period before the mass expansion of higher education takes place (I would really mark that as 1950 after ww2 and among other causes thats because of the industrial and scientific developments of the war and of the 1930s forcing that rather than the cold war, at least at first).

There is a list, of when which colleges at Harvard were founded and it gives an idea of like how things were changing during this period but Universities as they existed in the early half the century were very different than they were in the inter war years and especially the mass transition of higher education after ww2.

But to address the question in the short term the United States would be the most likely source of teachers until the end of the war in Europe, and that would be heavily skewed towards predominantly ethnic germans and Jews in the US South, or possibly Louisiana's catholic institutions of note (in the original draft this was going to tie into the Jesuits and Loyola which only became a university itself in 1912 and thus would have had a lot of experience in making that transition)

 

[ATP]

In the mid term, probably from the US and then from Central Europe post war.

But in this case we're talking university in the sense of 1920 not 2020 universities this is very much still an era where your professors are living and doing research at home. This is really the period before the mass expansion of higher education takes place (I would really mark that as 1950 after ww2 and among other causes thats because of the industrial and scientific developments of the war and of the 1930s forcing that rather than the cold war, at least at first).

There is a list, of when which colleges at Harvard were founded and it gives an idea of like how things were changing during this period but Universities as they existed in the early half the century were very different than they were in the inter war years and especially the mass transition of higher education after ww2.

But to address the question in the short term the United States would be the most likely source of teachers until the end of the war in Europe, and that would be heavily skewed towards predominantly ethnic germans and Jews in the US South, or possibly Louisiana's catholic institutions of note (in the original draft this was going to tie into the Jesuits and Loyola which only became a university itself in 1912 and thus would have had a lot of experience in making that transition)

Click to shrink...

Jesuits in 1918 were still normal,so go for them.
And use white russians - Lenin basically genocided russian elites,survivors would be happy to teach everytching they could.

About hiring foreigners - after 1918 use A-H teachers,too.
And,speaking about A-H - hire A-H engineer Otto Heronymus.He made stronger engines in Central states/up to 166kW/ and in OTL died in 1924 in car accident - so you could take him without changing anytching in Europe.

You could use them on Albatroses you captured - they used Austro-Daimler engine,but since their craetor was /in/famous Porshe,it is better to avoid it.

About Marxism - after WW2 polish soldier,then monk and sovietog J.M.Bocheński proved that marxism is actually religion.

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1628 Week 2; pg 31

There was no denying that Wallenstein's pillagers were getting more organized. Some of that might have had nothing to do with bushwhacking a handful of outlying patrols, but it was also likely that the increased organization was from the unexpected resistance.

The college had different arguments for that, with out dedicated 17th​ century specialists to argue authoritatively the argument turned into one of politics and economics that might have been off base, but certainly were well beyond the scope of their current issue.

... which was the fucking foraging party. "Should we light them up?"

"No, not yet." He adjusted the binoculars. They'd split up, divided a roughly company sized group of men down to squad sized formations. It would have been nice to have heavy weapons, a couple gooses would have been nice to have tucked in reserve.... but they didn't have those. The terrain wasn't really ideal for machine guns either, and they didn't have the open sightlines for mortars to be walked on targets... even if they had had those.

They did have radios, and even crappy FCC limited civilian radios were better than nothing, which meant they had a fairly good series of overlapping fields of fire from the spread.

Tony grunted, and lowered his field glasses. "Pft most of them don't even have guns, and god they stink." He shook his head. It made sense though these guys were in the field for probably months on end during a time without modern plumbing. There was no fob with a shower, much less hot water to scrub the grime off for these poor smelly bastards. "Why do they have those pikes?"

"The most likely explanation is Wallenstein sent them to pillage the area." he probably didn't think they needed guns... or he didn't want them wasting gunpowder. He also guessed that not having to carry firearms, and powder, and ammo would let them carry more stuff. There was also the possibility they expected horses as well... but who would be attacking from horseback.

In theory. Too much of the shit they were working on was speculation. Given how many of them there were he could shoot them all day, and it really wouldn't have made any difference. It was the difference between a battle and a war. Tony considered the suroudning... german... countryside the divide between them made a pretty noticeable shift in terrain at the boundary. If the circumference of the circle it formed wasn't so huge they could have done something with it. Without any seabees though there wasn't anything that could be done quickly on that angle, which did suck.

"Why are they even here?"

He was getting tired of the questions. "To pillage stuff?"

"Why? They're from here right?"

Probably not, here, here.... or this part of Germany. "They're supposed to be sieging some city nearby, and they are 'living off the land' which means taking it from anyone who has it." This was not what he should have wasting time with looking down the copse of trees at a bunch of homicidal men at arms. They couldn't be going very far so there had to be a more centralized place a bunch of guys on foot could get to nearby, which complicated the idea of attacking them outright.

It was true that most of them didn't have guns, but that didn't mean much if it lead a bunch more of their friends to them. Then again given the abrupt and noticeable terrain shift caused by the event, and the fact Wallenstein's men were definitely getting better organized in the area tehy were settling in for a long siege over summer. That wouldn't be good for them given how big field armies in this period could get.

Anthony Stewart leaned against his rifle. They'd brought Armalite type rifles; mostly the county's bushmaster AR 15, but some had opted for FN, and a smattering of Daniels rounded things out. There were other options, but no one had seen the point of trying to get inventive and risk someone screwing up. As far as he could figure that was why the sheriff's department was strongly discouraging people from meandering out into the woods, which hadn't set well with plenty of the western wald good ole boys in the face of some nebulous foreign threat.

Plenty of men, and it was predominantly men, were agitating about doing something, but like with the military there was a problem with finding people who were physically in shape enough to do the hard part of the labor. Given gas shortages they wouldn't be using cars much, and that meant a whole lot of walking... even if they could use trucks for part of it, there weren't much in the way of roads so double problem there.

He understood it was an emergency... that he was now apart of an actual Sheriff's posse was probably something not to mention. He wasn't precisely sure that they were on the legal side of posse commitatus, regardless of the flimsy argument of 'marine not army'. Then again htat would only matter if they found someway to get home... and he had accepted that probably wouldn't happen. "This saves me the trouble of getting divorced."

A deputy snorted. "You should be glad she didn't hoc all your shit."

"Shut up." Snapped another deputy. "They're going to hear us."

[The] "Fuck they will." Maybourne snarled shouldering his rifle. "Dumb mother fuckers don't know we are even up here." That was the advantage of the OCP pattern camo the army had adopted in that... it blended really well with the surrounding woodlands of the southeast. Better, way better, than the UCP would have been blending in with trees.

Tony pushed his boot emphatically at Maybourne's ankle, and jerked his nose. "They're are a bunch of them." Maybourne took the hint and adjusted his volume. "Just because they don't have guns doesn't mean we have to fight." Yeah he wasn't buying that line of argument either, and from their looks no one else was. Still they'd been specifically told not to start anything they didn't have to... something about unnecessary risks.

Right now they just weren't seeing anything that merited doing something stupid like giving away their position. At least not when they didn't have to, especially without artillery...

He had no sooner thought that than about four hundred yards right and the holler that formed from the boundary of where uptime carolina met down time north germany a started musket query sounded. It was immediately answered by the section in the area, but not by an announcement over the radio.

More white smoke from a handful of guns and more answers and horse whinnies.

"Can we-"

Viktor qued his throat mike, "All sections you're free to engage."

"Fuck yes." Maybourne hissed before squeezing the suppressed rifle's trigger.

Viktor adjusted his own trusting Tony to keep their base of action covered against close in problems that might crop up and held low to account for his zero on the man in the viddles wagon. The wagoneer tumbled from the bench as the match boat tail zipped into his thorasic cavity.
--
The 'attack' came with plenty forward warning thanks to rovers; portable radios. Tony had been heading out with the rest, and Michael had gotten the message through the wifi connection running their cellphone's text messages. He had been at the university at the time, but he had known it was coming because his brother had been there. So too it had turned out had his students, and indeed the city. That was the difference. Oh the local police force had plenty of veterans in it, but not to the extent of the county Sheriff. That had been a political calculation by the previous sheriff before he had retired. Oliver's uncle had hand groomed his successor though, and he had also reshaped the organization he had lead, and part of that had been pushing to expand the department and significantly modernize it. His definition of modern had been to emphasize locals who had come back from war on terror, courting them to go to college, and work their ass off.

Michael knew that Oliver's uncle was probably even now playing advisor to his chosen successor along with their closest political allies about what to do. There was however another political song and dance going on. There was also other smaller law enforcement agencies to contend with in town though small was the operative word compared to the big two. Hah that was funny in hindsight... he wouldn't have thought of them like that before this. "How's it going Dave?"

"Eh," The Poli Sci prof shrugged, "Not off with the Dark Lord, oh right the war." Dave yawned and stretched, and smelled faintly of marijuana, which he supposed that there were worse ways to cope with the situation of being transmitted through time and space into the middle of war torn Europe. "How is that going yourself?"

"Wallenstein came at us again this morning." He made a point of ignoring the jibe, the Dark Lord moniker meant Luke...

"Did he?" A lot of people had for some reason referred to Albrecht Wallenstein, as Wallenwhatsit or some variation of messing up the man's name up. It really was rather petty, though some of it was legitimately that some people werern't sure how to say it in the first place. "I guess they didn't come in force."

No... generally speaking from what he had gathered they hadn't and nor was it likely that the pillagers would come in force. They needed to hold Stralsund in check. "No probably not, but they have to know something is here, which might have Wallenstein's attention." He wasn't sure why he was telling Dave that... especially given the lapse in the man's drug habit, but he pressed on. The situation as it was, was worth talking about.

Dave's fellows the little gathering of other social scientists throwing together were a mixed bag. Some of them honestly believed they could talk this out, and... "I think we need to talk to the locals. I mean sooner rather than later, man." He leaned back... and for a serious moment Michael half expected the man to produce a blunt and light up, but he just leaned back on the metal bench outside of the hall. "Those Stralsund people have to have some kind of government right if they're enemies of well those guys, and we are. It wouldn't hurt to be on the same side."

That was a different angle than Michael had heard, but then as Dave had pointed out he had been absent from campus rather frequently since the event had transposed them here. Some of the administration were still arguing over whether they should be finishing the semester or already adopting the local calendar day. Not that there had been anyone taking seriously the prospect of going to class. Plenty of kids in the library... though it had power still so of course they were there for the AC while it lasted.

They sat there for a moment as a storm of students... probably freshmen given their ages... came barreling through the doors. At least they had energy. That was nice to see. "So Dave what is your opinion of all this?"

"Huh?" was the intelligent response, "What being stuck in early modern Europe with limited electricity..." Limitted electricity was relative, especially when they were the only ones on earth to have it right now but he got what the other professor meant, "this sucks. I mean, like no shit." He shrugged, "They've introduced gas, and water rationing too. We're not going to be able to go anywhere other than biking and walking." Not that they really had a way to buy and sell gas with the way the city was acting.

Well that was blunt, "I meant the political situation, professionally?"

"Oh, yeah we're gonna be hated by everyone." He declared loudly, and some of the students looked back at him. He threw up a hand to wave a them, "Thats why we need friends. The Holy Roman Empire can afford to bury us in bodies otherwise. Since you said we're at war with Wallenstein that means them."

 

[ATP]

Good,but there should be both catholics and protestant pillagers there.Becouse both sides in that war was bad.
Book shoved catholics as monsters,and Swedes as saints - but it simply was not true.Both were worth each other.

P.S armies in those times pillaged even their own allies,no matter in what religion they belived.

 

[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]

Good,but there should be both catholics and protestant pillagers there.Becouse both sides in that war was bad.
Book shoved catholics as monsters,and Swedes as saints - but it simply was not true.Both were worth each other.

P.S armies in those times pillaged even their own allies,no matter in what religion they belived.

Click to shrink...

Of course there should be, but this is more a case of in universe unreliable narrator, mercenary units were not religiously homogenous but no one has sat down and gone, 'hey what religious denomination are you' to any survivors so every just assumes 'oh wallenstein catholic league must be catholic' this will be a point down the road, but atm twoweeks post ring of fire there is a certain degree of assumption (this goes to 'borrowing' your allies kit without asking) that its operating on a much more modern up time notion of warfare

 

[ATP]

Of course there should be, but this is more a case of in universe unreliable narrator, mercenary units were not religiously homogenous but no one has sat down and gone, 'hey what religious denomination are you' to any survivors so every just assumes 'oh wallenstein catholic league must be catholic' this will be a point down the road, but atm twoweeks post ring of fire there is a certain degree of assumption (this goes to 'borrowing' your allies kit without asking) that its operating on a much more modern up time notion of warfare

Click to shrink...

Well,i mean that every army in those time pillaged,no matter their faith.

About 1919 China - dunno about their inner politics,but their assumptions about Ukraine were right - germans created Ukraine as independent state in 1918 under hetman Skoropadsky,if remember correctly - but,after german troops leave,they started fight each other and state fall.

To compare - in 1918 germans created rump Poland from part of territories taken by Russia,and those belonging to A-H had its own goverments.But they all unite without fighting and defeated both ukrainians and soviets.

Till 1926,when Piłsudzki made his putch - but,it was when state arleady existed.

Thing is - if ukrainians behaved like adults,they would keep their state,but they behaved like childs who want everytching now for themselves,and lost all as result.

 

[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.

 

[ATP]

Austria capitulated first,germany later,so you should recruit in Austria - remember Otto Heronymus,dude died in accident in OTL,here he could keep making engines for your planes for next 30-40 years.
Armored trucks - good idea for motorized infrantry,they would be no IFV,but good enough for war with Japan.

In Spain during cyvil war reds made their own version of soviet BA-10 heavy armored car on cyvilian truck chasis.You could do the same,good enough for fighting japaneese so-called tanks.

Spain,Sweden and Swiss selling you everytching you want - very good,dunno what Spain could offer, but Swiss mean 20mm AA guns,and Sweden 37/40/47mm AT guns,and 40 and 80mm AA guns.
You do not need howitzers,if you buyed either Krupp or Skoda prototypes - they were good enough for WW2.

And Lenin purges practically killed russian elites - what we had later was new soviet elites/which was partially purged by sralin,too/

One could argue,that Russia died in 1917,and it waould be not far from truth.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Well,i mean that every army in those time pillaged,no matter their faith.

About 1919 China - dunno about their inner politics,but their assumptions about Ukraine were right - germans created Ukraine as independent state in 1918 under hetman Skoropadsky,if remember correctly - but,after german troops leave,they started fight each other and state fall.

To compare - in 1918 germans created rump Poland from part of territories taken by Russia,and those belonging to A-H had its own goverments.But they all unite without fighting and defeated both ukrainians and soviets.

Till 1926,when Piłsudzki made his putch - but,it was when state arleady existed.

Thing is - if ukrainians behaved like adults,they would keep their state,but they behaved like childs who want everytching now for themselves,and lost all as result.

Click to shrink...

Thats the thing, the ukranian literary tradition, the thing that arguably did the most to keep the polish national identity alive during the partition, was so much weaker. The ukranians were much more prone to regional disagreements and infight, the hetamante did not have strong support from state institutions it was largely staffed by russian nationalists who were more interested in trying to keep the tsarist empire together than creating a viable independent ukraine, and of course that goes to how modern ukraine's borders ended up as they are today.

China in 1919 has almost forty minor and arguably at least a dozen major inter provincial fights going on in the last year of the war. Most of these are concentrated in the south, Szechwan is a good example of this where the province has a division between tibetan tribes in the west, other tribal confederations in the northern border region with gansu corridor, and anywhere from four to six major warlords controlling significant parts of territory including renewed fighting in Chonqing.

Thats 1 province. Never mind that there are three fights at least three sides fighting in Honan, Guizhou is a mess, Guandong is also divided between roughly three factions. Yunnan hypothetically has an agreed upon senior leader but very tenuous. IRL: 'the western commanderies' is less stable than it is here, because there is less infrastructure built than in this timeline

Frankly this is also the year where Duan burns a lot of bridges in the beiyang clique, gets a lot bad pr in the north, and as is touched on Wu basically publicly excorciates him in public telegrams a couple of time sa month in some cases for basically the next year of his government's failings.

But yeah for the capitualations I'm going off the treaty dates of when they're 'effective' ut this is more a matter of legal fiction, or cover for action yes fundamentally austria capitualated first but we're looking at an english anglocentric quirk of constitutionalism, or legal fiction here its a polite convention of the 19th century that is frankly an atavism its a dated concept by this point but its still in practice historically. It is something that will be seen less of as time goes on, and in part due to things like the arms embargo.

The first wave of immigrants and the immigration to not just north china but also into central america from post war europe is basically written it just hasn't hit in the first person focus.

As for trucks, its a logistics thing, its move men and materiel You take a truck from a rail head, or a tractor, move a cannon across country, move ammunition, carry food or ammo to infantry to the field. The idea existed already in 1900 it was just a matter of implementation and implementing for the armies of the great war was not viable the armies grew too fast rapidly for the factories that existed at the time to meet that demand. There wasn't fuel available for one. there were limits on steel for manufacturing. so many other factors that prevented scale adoption

The same with radio in theory most of the things with radio that would lead to the boom after the war existed by 1913 production though wasn't there, demand wasn't there for known concepts, or identified ones. Japan, and China's domestic film industries come to mind for a purely civilian side application of this.

 

[ATP]

Thats the thing, the ukranian literary tradition, the thing that arguably did the most to keep the polish national identity alive during the partition, was so much weaker. The ukranians were much more prone to regional disagreements and infight, the hetamante did not have strong support from state institutions it was largely staffed by russian nationalists who were more interested in trying to keep the tsarist empire together than creating a viable independent ukraine, and of course that goes to how modern ukraine's borders ended up as they are today.

China in 1919 has almost forty minor and arguably at least a dozen major inter provincial fights going on in the last year of the war. Most of these are concentrated in the south, Szechwan is a good example of this where the province has a division between tibetan tribes in the west, other tribal confederations in the northern border region with gansu corridor, and anywhere from four to six major warlords controlling significant parts of territory including renewed fighting in Chonqing.

Thats 1 province. Never mind that there are three fights at least three sides fighting in Honan, Guizhou is a mess, Guandong is also divided between roughly three factions. Yunnan hypothetically has an agreed upon senior leader but very tenuous. IRL: 'the western commanderies' is less stable than it is here, because there is less infrastructure built than in this timeline

Frankly this is also the year where Duan burns a lot of bridges in the beiyang clique, gets a lot bad pr in the north, and as is touched on Wu basically publicly excorciates him in public telegrams a couple of time sa month in some cases for basically the next year of his government's failings.

But yeah for the capitualations I'm going off the treaty dates of when they're 'effective' ut this is more a matter of legal fiction, or cover for action yes fundamentally austria capitualated first but we're looking at an english anglocentric quirk of constitutionalism, or legal fiction here its a polite convention of the 19th century that is frankly an atavism its a dated concept by this point but its still in practice historically. It is something that will be seen less of as time goes on, and in part due to things like the arms embargo.

The first wave of immigrants and the immigration to not just north china but also into central america from post war europe is basically written it just hasn't hit in the first person focus.

As for trucks, its a logistics thing, its move men and materiel You take a truck from a rail head, or a tractor, move a cannon across country, move ammunition, carry food or ammo to infantry to the field. The idea existed already in 1900 it was just a matter of implementation and implementing for the armies of the great war was not viable the armies grew too fast rapidly for the factories that existed at the time to meet that demand. There wasn't fuel available for one. there were limits on steel for manufacturing. so many other factors that prevented scale adoption

The same with radio in theory most of the things with radio that would lead to the boom after the war existed by 1913 production though wasn't there, demand wasn't there for known concepts, or identified ones. Japan, and China's domestic film industries come to mind for a purely civilian side application of this.

Click to shrink...

i once read memories of some Foreigner from western country/forget title and from which country he come,as usual/ who come to Bulgary before WW1 using car - he must buy fuel from tsar/King/,becouse nobody else had car there.
And,roads was made for wagons using horses,so his car had big problems there.

Radios - germans could made radios for tanks and planes thanks to inventions made after 1920,but i forget when exactly,and who made it possible.

 

[Imperator Pax]

i once read memories of some Foreigner from western country/forget title and from which country he come,as usual/ who come to Bulgary before WW1 using car - he must buy fuel from tsar/King/,becouse nobody else had car there.
And,roads was made for wagons using horses,so his car had big problems there.

Radios - germans could made radios for tanks and planes thanks to inventions made after 1920,but i forget when exactly,and who made it possible.

Click to shrink...

Without having a book in front of me I would guess that would be the vacuum tube entering the market in 1924

 

[ATP]

Without having a book in front of me I would guess that would be the vacuum tube entering the market in 1924

Click to shrink...

You are probably right,fun thing is - even after that soviets could still not mass produce it,when they mass produced tanks and planes.
As a result in 1941 only commander of tank company had radio,and when he want gave order,he must send one crew member on top of tank with two flags,and poor dude must keep waving them under enemy fire.

Pilots had it slighty better,when commander want to made order,he must fire race from his plane.Fine if you are in bomber,but in fighter....

Only thanks to USA soviets manage to gave radios to all tanks and planes.Never paid for it,and never say that USA helped them.

 

[Imperator Pax]

You are probably right,fun thing is - even after that soviets could still not mass produce it,when they mass produced tanks and planes.
As a result in 1941 only commander of tank company had radio,and when he want gave order,he must send one crew member on top of tank with two flags,and poor dude must keep waving them under enemy fire.

Pilots had it slighty better,when commander want to made order,he must fire race from his plane.Fine if you are in bomber,but in fighter....

Only thanks to USA soviets manage to gave radios to all tanks and planes.Never paid for it,and never say that USA helped them.

Click to shrink...

Yeah vacuum, especially early production, Quality control is super important, like the soviets failure rate on steel armor was horrendous I don't want to imagine what their actual success rate for VTs were in lab conditions since in the fifties the soviet computer program wasn't doing real hot in terms of reliable vacuum tubes so how much waste was generated due to poor QC and that got did get rectified by the US basically going 'heres radios'

which is why everyone and their mother copied things like the SCR 300/bc1000 model 1943s, the british, the french, and soviets got them, the soviets basically turned them over to China, and Vietnam (also the Vietminese captured them from the French) and they were being used into the eighties though they were being supplanted in use by other radios by that point) China produced copies, Vietnam produced copies and again they were used, the soviets got BC 375 those went into planes and so forth and those got used by basically everyone

 

[ATP]

Yeah vacuum, especially early production, Quality control is super important, like the soviets failure rate on steel armor was horrendous I don't want to imagine what their actual success rate for VTs were in lab conditions since in the fifties the soviet computer program wasn't doing real hot in terms of reliable vacuum tubes so how much waste was generated due to poor QC and that got did get rectified by the US basically going 'heres radios'

which is why everyone and their mother copied things like the SCR 300/bc1000 model 1943s, the british, the french, and soviets got them, the soviets basically turned them over to China, and Vietnam (also the Vietminese captured them from the French) and they were being used into the eighties though they were being supplanted in use by other radios by that point) China produced copies, Vietnam produced copies and again they were used, the soviets got BC 375 those went into planes and so forth and those got used by basically everyone

Click to shrink...

That explain it.I read,that soviets wonted numbers,so ignored quality - but,as a result,get tanks with worst armour,schells which worked much worst then they should,planes which was slower,or,like Yak fighters,tend to lost it wings during dogfight.
Not mention,that at least tanks was built to last top 2 weeks,becouse they would be burned anyway in stupid attacks - so when war ended,soviets discovered that only tanks which could work longer then one week was Shermans and Valentines....

 

[Imperator Pax]

Jesuits in 1918 were still normal,so go for them.
And use white russians - Lenin basically genocided russian elites,survivors would be happy to teach everytching they could.

About hiring foreigners - after 1918 use A-H teachers,too.
And,speaking about A-H - hire A-H engineer Otto Heronymus.He made stronger engines in Central states/up to 166kW/ and in OTL died in 1924 in car accident - so you could take him without changing anytching in Europe.

You could use them on Albatroses you captured - they used Austro-Daimler engine,but since their craetor was /in/famous Porshe,it is better to avoid it.

About Marxism - after WW2 polish soldier,then monk and sovietog J.M.Bocheński proved that marxism is actually religion.

Click to shrink...

Ok just checked my notes, assuming the current draft stays in its current configuration (which is not necessarily a given) Otto is name dropped in august of 1919, I don't think he actually makes an appearancein person esque until scenes dated 1920

 

[ATP]

Ok just checked my notes, assuming the current draft stays in its current configuration (which is not necessarily a given) Otto is name dropped in august of 1919, I don't think he actually makes an appearancein person esque until scenes dated 1920

Click to shrink...

Good,your China need good engineers,and ,since he died in OTL,it would change notching for Europe.
Especially,since genius Porshe would work for germans like in OTL.Maybe this time he manage to made superheavy tank which would be mass produced...and help Allies win war quickly.

 

[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.

 

[ATP]

Good,and plausible,brits tried to defend those regions from Russia in 19th century,but failed.They thought,that Russia would go for India - and,it almost happened at least twice.
Now,they certainly fear that soviets could do the same.

 

[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."

 

[ATP]

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."

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1M army could mean various things.I read,that in 1937 OTL Czang elite dyvisions trained by germans in german uniforms and with german weapons were as werr as japaneese,but average chineese dyvision had aless then 10.000 troops,practically all rifleman with no guns/or old ones/ ,few HMG and no logistic train.Average japaneese regiment could handle them with easy.

I think,that it would be better to have smaller army with real weapons,then hordes of riflemans.

About producing uniforms - in OTL Poland GreatPoland made uprising against germans in 1919 liberating Poznań and entire province,they formed 20 infrantry ,6 artillery and 3 calvary regiments using weapons buyed fro germans or captured on them,and uniforms which was mostl made in homes.
I think,that averahe chineese family could made few uniforms,too - it would be cheaper for state.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1M army could mean various things.I read,that in 1937 OTL Czang elite dyvisions trained by germans in german uniforms and with german weapons were as werr as japaneese,but average chineese dyvision had aless then 10.000 troops,practically all rifleman with no guns/or old ones/ ,few HMG and no logistic train.Average japaneese regiment could handle them with easy.

I think,that it would be better to have smaller army with real weapons,then hordes of riflemans.

About producing uniforms - in OTL Poland GreatPoland made uprising against germans in 1919 liberating Poznań and entire province,they formed 20 infrantry ,6 artillery and 3 calvary regiments using weapons buyed fro germans or captured on them,and uniforms which was mostl made in homes.
I think,that averahe chineese family could made few uniforms,too - it would be cheaper for state.

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China, frankly even the early days of the PLA used German style uniforms because that was what Chinese tailors had been used to making since the late Qing, but yeah the divisions Chiang threw at Shanghai were very well trained, and they were well equipped, this included having tanks like Panzer I as well air support in the ROC's Air Force flying still relatively effective Buffalo but this goes to on the opposite end of the spectrum

On the paper the most common Chinese Infantry division was supposed to be about ten thousand men, and almost none of them were at paper strength, most were short on rifles, very few had their allotted guns, and this goes to that Chiang was short on cash, and had limitted political control. What happed in 27 was as Chiang had moved north he established a consensus with various warlords, and in particularly in Henan and its neighboring propsects, those warlords were quite tired of Zhang Tsolin (and obviously this is very abridged) but for example further south sichuan remained significantly independent of the KMT apparatus, as did Yunnan despite alleged / professed support for Chiang even into the war [against Japan].

Reasonably speaking Chiang had no reason to trust the officers these warlords in charge of these local formations and didn't have the resources to give them stuff anyway. Like he planned for an expansion of the army in 32-33 by trying to go the British for a loan, but that other complicating factors thus even units from the south that Chiang trusted didn't have modern weapons (at least not to the degree where at the division level it actually mattered), and this showed when actual war broke out because they lacked for ammunition they lacked for modern weapons and Chiang was very prone to trying frankly pants on head strategies that sounded awe inspiring and impressive and more often than got a lot of people killed simply because they weren't practical. (and again some of this goes to trying to get low morale troops to launch bayonet attacks across no man's land, and some of it was just not being prepared for a war of maneuver, and then this actually gets worse with Stillwell arriving because Stillwell actually compounded these problems with his own incompetence and being unfit for the rank he had been promoted to)

 

[ATP]

China, frankly even the early days of the PLA used German style uniforms because that was what Chinese tailors had been used to making since the late Qing, but yeah the divisions Chiang threw at Shanghai were very well trained, and they were well equipped, this included having tanks like Panzer I as well air support in the ROC's Air Force flying still relatively effective Buffalo but this goes to on the opposite end of the spectrum

On the paper the most common Chinese Infantry division was supposed to be about ten thousand men, and almost none of them were at paper strength, most were short on rifles, very few had their allotted guns, and this goes to that Chiang was short on cash, and had limitted political control. What happed in 27 was as Chiang had moved north he established a consensus with various warlords, and in particularly in Henan and its neighboring propsects, those warlords were quite tired of Zhang Tsolin (and obviously this is very abridged) but for example further south sichuan remained significantly independent of the KMT apparatus, as did Yunnan despite alleged / professed support for Chiang even into the war [against Japan].

Reasonably speaking Chiang had no reason to trust the officers these warlords in charge of these local formations and didn't have the resources to give them stuff anyway. Like he planned for an expansion of the army in 32-33 by trying to go the British for a loan, but that other complicating factors thus even units from the south that Chiang trusted didn't have modern weapons (at least not to the degree where at the division level it actually mattered), and this showed when actual war broke out because they lacked for ammunition they lacked for modern weapons and Chiang was very prone to trying frankly pants on head strategies that sounded awe inspiring and impressive and more often than got a lot of people killed simply because they weren't practical. (and again some of this goes to trying to get low morale troops to launch bayonet attacks across no man's land, and some of it was just not being prepared for a war of maneuver, and then this actually gets worse with Stillwell arriving because Stillwell actually compounded these problems with his own incompetence and being unfit for the rank he had been promoted to)

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Bufallo? i thought,that they were not yet produced in 1937,and China had only biplane fighters then.American Curtiss Hawk,and italian Breda.

But,since Czang do not fully controlled warlords,i undarstandt why he do not gave them anytching- rifles are enough to deal with bandits,but if they had real army tey could defeat him.
Smart of him.

Althought,i read that one province supported by Japan had relatively good army and even air forves with japaneese planes.Forget name,unfortunatelly.

About sending infantry without support - there is cruel soviet joke about that ,from times when they arleady donot liked Mao:
How China would stop soviet armored dyvision?
Send infrantry dyvision with rifles,tanks would roll over.Then send next,next,and after crushing 10 infrantry dyvision,soviet would stop becouse lack of fuel !.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Bufallo? i thought,that they were not yet produced in 1937,and China had only biplane fighters then.American Curtiss Hawk,and italian Breda.

But,since Czang do not fully controlled warlords,i undarstandt why he do not gave them anytching- rifles are enough to deal with bandits,but if they had real army tey could defeat him.
Smart of him.

Althought,i read that one province supported by Japan had relatively good army and even air forves with japaneese planes.Forget name,unfortunatelly.

About sending infantry without support - there is cruel soviet joke about that ,from times when they arleady donot liked Mao:
How China would stop soviet armored dyvision?
Send infrantry dyvision with rifles,tanks would roll over.Then send next,next,and after crushing 10 infrantry dyvision,soviet would stop becouse lack of fuel !.

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You're correct, I got my birds mixed up.

As for Japanese aircraft probably wang jiangwei's people in and around Nanking I think they got the little tankettes as they had a small cadre of professional reliable troops supported by as was typical a much larger conscript force that didn't get the shiny toys because they weren't trusted with such things

 

[ATP]

You're correct, I got my birds mixed up.

As for Japanese aircraft probably wang jiangwei's people in and around Nanking I think they got the little tankettes as they had a small cadre of professional reliable troops supported by as was typical a much larger conscript force that didn't get the shiny toys because they weren't trusted with such things

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So,China basically had sometching like in ancient Persia or Egypt - well trained and armed royal Guard,and levies which were more or less shitty.