Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

August 1919
The captain had the hookless fasteners of his windbreaker half up, and the buttons undone. "How is the stitching?" Allen asked conversationally leaning back in the chair. "I know some of 3rd​ has complained about the sleeves."

"For sleeves, they have been fine for me, but the hem split while I was in the field." The jackets were short only going down to a man's hips enough that it could be worn loose and provide some concealment to the pistol on a man's belt, or zipped and or buttoned to allow the pistol to be easily accessed.

"How'd that happen?"

"I couldn't say." The captain replied

Allen shrugged, "Just usual wear then, right write it up."

"Have you had any problems with the jacket?"

"Unfortunately captain, beyond the jaunt into Russia," well before the jackets had been adopted, "I have not had the obligation to be in the field. You are an officer of the first division, you are tip of the offensive it is paramount your equipment is to specification. That its up to the task."

"Sir"

The captain saluted and then departed.

Percy sat down. From the sound of it, the mood in the legation fundamentally misunderstood the purpose of these drills.. in the same way that the papers back home were rushing to misrepresent how the stupid war had happened in the first place. It was vexing.

"You should know there is a good chance that Alston will succeed Sir John when the latter retires, which I think we can all recognize at this point is likely to be sooner rather than later." There were to be consequences of that. Jordan had turned against the Anglo-Japanese alliance and while with Edward Gray's departure from the ship of state there was no single person who had the force or influence to manage, Jordan wasn't alone in his opinions. That Jordan would go on to participate in the post war negotiations on naval limits designed to reduce spending, and avoid a costly arms race was part of that. "There have been operations ongoing in the vicinity in Murmansk since May, but recognizing factors locally, as well as more generally it must be recognized of the need to make common cause. To look forward. Mister Churchill has come to believe that this may in fact be a long conflict with the Bolsheviks fought over many places not just in Russia, a new kind of war, and Mackinder rightly agrees with him."

"And I would take it that Alston is in the same boat?"

"He is."

"And?"

"And in the Murmansk offensive thus far, the Lewis gun has proven once again its great utility."

Allen snorted, "I will cable Isaac and let him know," He replied, which he was going to but he mostly said it to be smart, "I assume thereby there is something to be done?"

"As you know John Allen, BSA produces the Lewis Gun in the Russian cartridge,"

"Yes." He replied, and he knew the next question. If the war had still been going on, maybe would have been on the table, "And no I am not willing to retool to produce that obsolescent cartridge without a bloody good reason. I will be blunt, England would be well served to adopt 30'," Thirty, "06" Aught Six, "Regardless of its own draw backs, just as you would do well to ditch the wheel guns for Browning's forty five. I will produce Lewis's design in the British service cartridge, if you need an extension of that order its in the black and white. I am even willing to continue that contract with improved versions of the gun," Streamlined changes to the barrel shroud that helped keep the barrel from warping, and made the gun simpler to manufacture "But from an efficiency standpoint from a standpoint of manufacture it would be a waste of time to add a third cartridge to manufacture. Even though I freely admit BSA makes fine guns."

"You would be willing to supply them in 8mm," He was a little surprised Percy hadn't called it the 'German Caliber', "As you are doing for your Japanese friend, and as I expect that Zhang Tso-lin will also adopt."

"I can't speak to Zhang adopting the machine gun," There had certainly been no plans to sell them to their Manchurian neighbor, "but yes Iseburo has procured," and order of "the guns." Admittedly what would probably happen would be the Navy would want Lewis guns in 303 probably for just inter service rivalry's sake. "We have delivered three million rounds as of last month." Which, really wasn't in the scope of machine gun ammunition a great deal, especially not since Iseburo or more correctly the Japanese Army had eight millimeter maxims as well. Admittedly the Maxims had probably been German guns provided to Japan by the British but that was merely his guess.

What Percy was able to inform him, and that Allen had yet been privy to, was that the French presence had already begun to be withdrawn. That was he supposed in hindsight was no great surprise. As far as the French were concerned the Russians had done what they were paid to do, bleed so frenchmen didn't why should frenchmen bleed to save Russians from bolsheviks. Not that he said as much to Percy, but if that was the French logic he supposed it made sense.

"Trotsky began his counter attack," Apparently it had begun the 24th​ of July, no doubt the Reds sensing the weakening of allied resolve with the departure of the French, and the redeployment of british troops... plus whatever it was that Percy wasn't telling him.
--
The basic idea remained what it was. The railway was how you moved large volumes of equipment from Point A to Point B, meaning usually City 1 to City 2 or at least City to Town, that was the advantage of China with ten thousand years of settlement or whatever the province had ancient towns. Allen personally figured ten thousand years was just short hand for long long ago, but it didn't matter two thousand five thousand ten thousand at that point it really ended up meaning the same thing a long time back.

People had lived there a long time, so it was actually pretty bad that roads were as terrible as they were... but the Qing hadn't wanted to spend the money, and frankly he doubted the Ming or the Mongols before them had wanted to. The railway alleviated that Was it a fix to every problem, of course not, they were going to build paved roads but they and the railways were increasing 'lateral' moving across a potential defensive frontage.

What Allen understood, what he took from the European war was in many respects a reiteration of the war between the states. Overland marching for a modern army was time consuming because of the significant burden of artillery and ammunition. You needed engineers to bring field guns over water and those bridges had be stout enough to support twenty pounders never mind heavier guns, and yes mountain and pack guns were easier to move but it didn't change the underlying issue.

A man today carried with him more equipment than his grandfather would have. The uniform was different even for the most of infantry man it had changed.

Which was what the Major was exhorting the men.

They had removed the senior officers from the regiment in order to see if the junior officers could, well with the assistance of sergeants naturally, manage to accomplish an exercise objective without a colonel minding them. Could they accomplish the delineated objective of the exercise?

This was different because it was not the abstraction of war gaming at the college. These were actual men in the field moving terrain. It was not one of the Rifle divisions either, nor units from second division. It built off of all of those things, but the idea was one thing, this was seeing what carried into practice.
--
Notes: Some of the dancing around geostrategic changes of the post first world war but we won't particularly touch on the details of the polar bear expedition / murmansk theater and while there certainly did exist some chauvinism between service cartridges and 'British dwarf' to refer to 303 existed its mostly born out Ordinance and an association with England's perceived quaintness , and 7.62x54R was looked on as a case of lack Russian technical sophistication or even backwardness (and the Finns never seem to get this treatment despite using the same cartridge and Mosin rifles), Japan's 6.5 semi-rimmed cartridge similarly gets looked down on as not having enough stopping power... and this eventually leads to 7.7 which is basically a rimless 303 in performance terms, but this is an era where 'stopping power' in a service rifle cartridge and is it 'modern' is very much a topic its also mostly about the logistical burden of equipping the armies that emerge in response to the first world war. So like, yes there is cartridge preferences, but it shouldn't be taken as an objective fact so much as subjective commentary, and needling.

 

[ATP]

1.Uniforms - you could start using camouflage before anybody else tried that.
2.Lewis and other LMG - if you manage to made version which could change barrels on battlefield,it would help.
3.France&Russia - i read,that Kerensky do not leave war,becouse he was french mason,and was ordered to keep fighting.Dunno if it is true,or not.
But - France certainly owned a lot on Russia and lost all of it,so it is strange that they widraw.
They need Russia for their economy,after all,so they should keep fighting.If they feared loses,they could use colonial troops or bretonnians - according to what i read,they treated them as second class citizens.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1919
The book was blue in cover. The lettering on the front was gold trim, and it would be a volume available openly, though it was in English. Powell closed his own copy, and nodded. "This is where we're at then?"

It would take years for the MAK to be in a position of similar. The foundation of Czechoslovakia, officially November of the year before, would play a role in shaping the Middle American Cadre, in more ways than one as the dissolution of the great old European states encouraged the flow people from the old world over the Atlantic.

In many ways though the MAK , not simply due to geographic proximity, proved better able to speak on matters of the war. A chinese audience of the first decades of the 20th​ century had been born in the final years of the old manchu dynasty had different focuses on the philosophical. As Hu Shi had bombastically decried from Shanghai about -isms dominating the thought of his fellow intellectuals, in there were other things that occupied the focus of other men.

The MAK was better positioned, and better prepared to rebut ideas, and the excuses about what would become the first world war. Powell would have more of an audience to critique the war as revanichist old guards looking to sate national ambition and appealing to the middle classes than anything to do with business. The MAK's own blue books in years future would look at the economy, and capitalism as rational, and the first world war, the war between France and Germany as irrational given the ties of coal and steel manufacture before the war.

Blue books that would have an audience outside of select intellectuals.

"I can understand it," Powell replied, "Wilson is a fucking hypocrite, or he's a coward, which is worse." He hissed explosively, "We have the minutes of the senate, and the House, and we know who voted how and for the board."

Allen tilted his head smirking, "Are you a muckraker now?"

"No, but I've got friends back home who will take them. Wilson might be from Virginia, but he has made an awful lot of gentlemen unhappy, the senate is against this treaty, but you know that." It wasn't to be enough, while Wilson had burned a lot of bridges his high handed ness hadn't knit together a real consensus in the government and therefore what would come was the economic recession in steel and coal brought by the end of the war, and then the senate being baited into the tit for tat as France started the trade war that would so characterize what was to be the sharp changes of the market of the inter war years.

The era they had entered as the guns in Europe had fallen silent. In falling silent the old empires that had held sway across much of Europe's landmass had come apart due to the war, "Do what you will," Allen replied with a shrug, "We should move on my understanding from Percy is that the government of England and Japan hope to contain the Russians, and are looking at those were active during the Russo-Japanese war to do so."

"How does that plan to work?"

Japan had been vocally supportive internationally of an independent Poland, of a restored Poland, and that wasn't simply Inanzo or Akashi there were men on either wing who believed it was the virtuous path. It was the difference in method which came to mind. Akashi had Taiwan to modernize, so there was no sparing him not with successfully lobbying for the money for the dam last year. "Diplomatic recognition, financial incentivization, arms shipment will probably their final resort."

"Will it work?"

"Certainly the Poles are better situated than the Ukranians," No clear leadership, "seem to be. Certainly better than the baltic countries," Not enough people in any one of 'em, "more could be done certainly, and we will have to see if the Anglo-Japanese discussions extend further than Poland. Finland perhaps, but its early and the talk is vague."

It was what it was, vague talk could ultimately be just smoke, and Wilson wasn't helping the situation. "They're going to knight MacKinder, the British won't do it until next year," Powell remarked "you know how they are, all this stuff has to be set up in advance... don't get me wrong the welsh wizard is doing a lot of it," and there was grumbling about that, and from the states too about Pershing being promoted again, and above, "What is the plan there?"

"With Black Jack? I have no idea. With MacKinder thats business as usual for the Brits, like you say," He replied, "Percy keeps trying to get me to visit England."

"They posted Daniel as attache to London."

"I know where my brother is posted," He replied, and the truth was he expected that with the war over the old man would probably finally retire, and Daniel would probably stay in the army as intelligence as eyes and ears for the civil service... that meant he'd be in England for a while.

"So are you going to go?"

"Eventually, yes." The decision was to avoid any inflated expectations. That, and "There is too much to do here." The expression turned to the book, "Not that, we'd be fools to think there won't be push back, but how are things on your end."

He shrugged, "The end of the war caught us beside. I mean," he snorted, "It was coming but you know Black Jack wanted to force the Germans to unconditional surrender, since they didn't and then french are shoving this mess down their throat acting like they won without any help from what I hear from Paris, they'll be another war and they know it."

No disagreement there, "I'd like to see Black Jack, or Wood make president. It'd be a good thing for the country."

"Anyone would be an improvement over Wilson."
--
The process of modernization required education. The maths the sciences, "After 1914, and how quickly people want to pretend it didn't happen I really think there is a problem."

"It doesn't matter."

There was a grumbling, from around the table as people quibbled, and waxed philosophical, "No, it doesn't. We were agreed to follow the accepted," The Chinese, the Qing, and thus Prussian derived "rules for the suffrage. A man who is economically invested in civilization," Meaning a man who paid taxes, "and understands his responsibilities," Educational attainment, "Is a man with the vote."

"The states have allowed women the vote."

"Queen Victoria thought that was a stupid idea." The Virginian to Cullen's right snarked to Waite's observation.

"Sam?" Allen pointed the ball point pen down the table.

"Being fair, with compulsory education, and the women working the phone banks making what they do," Everyone paused, because the example in question wasn't the only one which might provide a woman the income to meet the per annum required for the vote. "They should be allowed, if we accept that equality is under the law." He paused, "I also think the more important thing is securing who votes for the assemblage of the lower house, and the local offices. There are some things that have to be handled locally but there are somethings where that is not efficent. We need it to be clear in the document what a prospective voter is supposed to do. What they are responsible for,"

Cullen nodded, "that goes to an educated constiuency. They have to know things." A man needed to be able to reason, and reach logical conclusions of what was within the scope of the law, and for the benefit of a common good.

"They also need to be able to comment on local problems." Waite stated.

Griswold nodded "Look at what we do, how much of society has changed in ten years what hadn't changed in a hundred, or a thousand." He paused, "Regarding the women at the phone banks, how many of them have children at the nursery or ones even old enough to be at primary school. How much has changed in the last ten years?"

The hands on the clock went around as the daylight hours got short, and as they continued to move to a final final draft of the provincial constitution to enter into force in 1920.
--
Notes: One of the things that isn't touched on here, because it would be a call forward is where the Middle American cadre will be in five years, and how that will effect once the US throttles its own immigration with Reed-Johnson in 24 and afterwards. Its not that Xian wouldn't be attempting to encourage central European immigration, but it would be easier for lobbying and it would take for any immigration campaign to see success even if both potential countries were stable and that this point and that goes to Xian isn't acting as an independent state even by 1925 and again geography plays a role. Some people would still come over, but the MAK grows much faster in rate terms than Xian does which starts with a much larger population. and of course both of these boil down to having a much more late 19th century liberal ideology without any of the isolationist policy bent, (i.e. ala Harding who comes to the presidency after wilson).

 

[ATP]

There was book written in 1913 which proven,that war is impossible becouse nations are too involved in sellin various things to each other.Forget title and author,as usual.
War still happened.

Japan really treated Taiwan well,hence why Czang made there genocide of locals after WW2.

Ukraine was nation created by Austriaafter 1849,and state made by germans in 1918 - which fall to infighting,becouse locals hated each other,and most of them do not considered themselves as ukrainians.

Poland survived,becouse our politicians who hated each other worked together,and waited with civil war till 1926.And even then right side decide to surrender after few days to prevent soviet intervention.

Wilson was Wall Street plant,who made Federal Reserve for them to play with.

About Versaile - french Historian,Jacques Bainville farsee in his book (The Political Consequences of Peace, 1920). that germans would start new war,and either they should not be punished at all,or Allies should made old german countries free again.

Democracy - i think,that tv killed it.Johnson hear Nixon-JFK debate in radio and though,that Nixon win,becouse he used better arguments.
But most americans used tv,and they saw young JFK with make-up and older Nixon without one,so choosed make up.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1919​

It had started as a loud morning, and digressed to the present points, "It was bound to happen, frankly we shouldn't be too surprised." Griswold remarked tossing the paper from Zhengzhou. "What do we do?"

"We write a circular."

He wheeled, "What the Fresh Hell is that gonna do?" Sam bellowed.

Allen nodded weathering the shout, "We've dealt with attempted train robberies before, overreacting won't do us any good," and it wasn't like it had been a successful robbery, even so train robberies given the importance of trains tended to spook people... Griswold's reaction was testatement to that.

"And besides the idiots got what was coming to them." Another man added.

"Not the point."

They were just shy of a dozen men in the room, it was mid afternoon. They had other things to do, or rather that was why it was a smaller body the morning had busy enough without this. The problem wasn't banditry itself. The problem was cross province banditry and .. the situation with the borders. Zhenzhou was a vital link between provinces. So important the Qing had made it part of Zhili over the protests of the gentry of the provinces it had previously belonged to, and thus had made it, Zhengzhou, Yuan Shikai's problem.

Honan was complicated. The bigger problem was that it had been a dry summer, too much rain brought floods, but not enough was a drought and that was bad... "It has nothing to do with the rain," Or at least they could say one way or another for sure... it was too early to jump to that conclusion.

Just as they theoretically couldn't lay the blame on Honan's gentry for allow the opportunity to occur... even if everyone in the room was probably thinking it. "We'll need to talk to Yan, and given tensions in Shantung this could be bad if it goes over there."

The logic behind participating in the habit of writing a circular first had less to do, but not nothing, with their own population... that was what newspapers and the press were for. They'd release statements through the papers in Zhengzhou, and elsewhere what they planned to do about it. The circular was for the province of Honan, and also to establish publicly to neighboring provinces an 'indictment'.

That would give Cao Kun an opportunity to say something representing Zhili. It would give the gentry of Honan the opportunity to save some degree of face... to at least do something regarding their own bandits.

The were three particular issues. This had been a problem previously... but not really since 1914 not since Bai Lang had been shot down. It was probably related to some degree by the growing drought , and thereby this was merely an indicator of what was to come when next year's harvest failed. Thirdly it was representative of existing tensions between the provinces as they existed and had not abated from earlier conflicts between authorities holding Peking that were not tied to either the issue of the harvest It was emblematic of weakening central control.

It was not just the border with the honanese, the border reaches the marches between provinces were fraying as the Beiyang clique came apart allowing bandit gangs to swell from thousands to tens of thousand and even larger in heavily populated northern china.

--
Failed train robberies aside so there were a million other things to see to as September had begun, and the year continued to trudge onwards, "We were planning to expand irrigation, and the war is over,"

Which meant tractors could be purchased over seas and the purchases could resume. Of course tractors had elicited other uses in the course of the war, and somewhat beforehand "Look at this,"

The picture was somewhere he couldn't place it didn't look like Europe, a bunch of boys in slant hats were amusing themselves climbing over the large boxed armored form of a tracked machine.

"What the hell is that?" He asked

"German documents and interviews call it A7, Mephisto?"

"I reiterate the question, where is this?"

"Australia, I was talking with one of our liaisons," probably one of the proofing inspectors from the anzac he supposed, "and his friend of a friend said they had just offloaded this big bastard. They say its in excess of thirty tons,"

"And you want to look at it?"

"Its right in our back yard."

True enough, "Fine, go. In the mean time we need to focus on Edsel, Ford deal the tractors, and expanding company farms with the war over I shouldn't need to say that we should see midwest grain come down some call the Chicago office, get them to talk to McCorrmick, and make sure they know to keep an eye on the wheat futures. Keep talking to Kansas and the other colleges."

"University of Texas is working on new vaccines for cattle." Bill waved, "Invited daddy and Phineas up to talk about it, and my brother says it looks promising for the health of calves." [The Vaccine promises a], at least per the paper, "Significant reduction in mortality."

The conversation went on, but it still circled what if the rains continued to be slack, and if this was a drought, "We're really lucky if it is the start of one that it didn't start two years ago."

"The French buying up the futures with wall street's money would have probably pushed off, even without Wilson's damn commission," Shellman agreed, "But on the other hand if the French are going to impose tariffs then its going to cause shots back at them."

Allen glanced to his right, "Powell you'll have agriculture setting up, the MAK won't be able to build tractors or steam engines yet, but we're going to need shipping handled can you do that?"

"Absolutely I figured if you didn't ask I'd volunteer, the states built up a lot of tonnage but they did the work fast, and there is talk. I'll get back to you if I start smelling smoke," If there was trouble. "If we can get a regular line though I think we can probably manage."

"There is always the brits." Someone down the table suggested.

"Not until Jordan's gone." Allen replied, "I don't want him getting the idea to screw about with anything we ship on British ships," or at least anything more than they could... "Percy mentioned aircraft but Holt built tractors for the British, and Black Jack has looked at them, from everything I've been told in terms of earth moving machines they might replace our Italian options, but the object is anything and everything that might help. The British seem to want to open the market, but leaving that thing," He gestured to the Australians playing on the steel monster, "and our first round of hires I want the German chemical industry picked clean. Fertilizer, herbicides we'll combine with tractors and attempt to modernize as fast as possible. If the dry spell holds we will move forward with more irrigation, the dams and the dikes need to be done," droughts were a risk in china, as much as floods were and they lead to famine, and the idea was to kill famine. Large industrial organized farming would be the sword to do that.

"Are we in that big of a hurry?"

Grsiwold beat him to it, "If you hadn't heard from the sound of it some yankee judge on the bench says that Wilson went against the constitution during the war, most likely I expect they'll see damages as a result. We want to hit before Washington actually has to pay." While it was still uncertain, was it a rough step, sure, but the select committee had agreed that moving quickly was more likely to get them the results. "Shellman this was your brainchild," He told the navy doctor, "You read him into it."

"First and foremost I want to make clear the epidemic is not over, we are going into the annual flu season," The doctor declared leaning over the table as he got excited. It lead to them getting beat over the head about over using aspirin and that it wasn't magic, and you had to use the right medicines to treat specifics not trying to use the same thing just because daddy and gran pappy had been doing, "Look the railway has made it possible to handle, and quarantine the sick, and we have been put people up in safe, sanitary conditions and we have good results with some treatments but the Germans have to be short on money, and I need more trained doctors," and they had promised Shellman more funding just as everyone had agreed that pensions were the correct thing to organize and arrange.

In 1920 everything was going to change... more so than they realized. The luncheon meeting going on over agriculture, and procurement for the agribusiness and next door with its committee on the textile industries manufacturing shoes, and trousers, and jackets, as well as other leather and canvas goods were convened as continuation of long formulated policy, long formulated on the expectation of what the end of the war would mean.

 

[ATP]

germans doctors - good idea,A7 tank - not so,it was failure.
If you want good tank,buy french FT17.But - in my opinion,your China do not need tanks yet,armored cars would be enough.

Tractors - dunno which was best,so i am not sure what they should buy.

 

[Imperator Pax]

germans doctors - good idea,A7 tank - not so,it was failure.
If you want good tank,buy french FT17.But - in my opinion,your China do not need tanks yet,armored cars would be enough.

Tractors - dunno which was best,so i am not sure what they should buy.

Click to shrink...

The A7 is a terrible tank, the post war interest in it was in the conception that things would be that big, you see this in some of the writing of post ww1 with english looking at how tanks will be formulated, the australians loaded up mephisto and shipped it back home to Australia as a war trophy because of its size and visual impressiveness. It looked cool, and played as much into the 'myth' the war as anything else.

With tractors one of the factors here is the divergence between where the technology starts to go. Edsel's tractors made very good engines, and if you're already buying from Ford the parent company its economic call because in the short termthere is a glut in the market and Catepillar and hoyt are bottlenecked in terms of production and demand due to the post war shocks. Now somewhat longer term is that Edsel engine which is a v12 diesel is very likely to end up being Xian's engine of choice for its tanks, which when we get there are artillery branch self propelled howitzers driving around three inchers for things like bunker suppression or infantry in the open in doctrine. That goes to interwar doctrine where the expectation is the armored cars are drive with your infantry and disgorge them battle taxi style with machine guns or autocannons even, where as tanks are specifically 'those guys over there needs to be serviced by high explosive and 30mm doesn't cut it for a trench' and all that goes back to lessons learned from the first world war so

that '2nd generation' or first generation of indigenous tanks will be all or nothing armor, big engine big gun used as mobile artillery so more accurately Mobile Gun System Tracked than tank in the sense of tank fighting other tanks, there isn't an AP or HEAT component its pure HE or cluster 3Inch

As an example of use case; circa say the north china campaign c.38/39

The principle instrument of battle is the rifle infantry division, the IJA is launching a frontal attack, a company of tanks is on loan to a battalion of infantry, the Japanese infantry advances into the open a fire call goes out you have probably 21 tanks nominally open fire as suppressive or counter battery across a roughly four hundred meters area of open terrain. [This has the advantage of allowing rapid reployment of the guns ever versus mechanized tractor pulled guns ]

They're not there as break through units, this is before the fall of france this is all inter war doctrine [and this will make more sense as a context when we get to 1927 and the battle of Zhengzhou]

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1919
The changing character of the British Mission to 'South Russia' was a little concerning. If there hadn't been a civil war, if the shooting hadn't started more than a year ago scholarly advisors and lawyers to try and 'democratize' the Russian government in exile wouldn't necessarily have been a terrible idea.

One of the best ways though they had found over the years to having the Chinese, admittedly not the Russians, think positively of capitalism, of the market, was to reiterate that Adam Smith had been a government official, and a member of the civil service in addition to being a scholar. Those credentials did more than anything to give the ideas validity. A reliable civil service was necessary for business, because corruption harmed everyone.

That had taken time to learn to learn that framing would find an audience.

[They had] Taken time to learn how to explain what structures had built the States into what it was, it was a matter of institutions. Burke was another example, an even better one because he was so much easier to explain the importance of old institutions as new ones were built up.

In sharp contrast the British with their Cambridge and Oxford dons and such took the railway up expecting to work some kind of 'civilizing magic'. That wasn't to say Japan was not sending its own people, but Iseburo's biggest focus was making sure that train cars carrying goods and supplies were getting where they needed to go with their cargoes unmolested. He was also ignoring the white government under Kolchak more or less because he didn't like Kolchak personally or his ideas and so he sat east of Omsk on the lake, sending a train west once a week but hardly more than that if he could avoid it without both an American and British presence.

How much Iseburo's involvement of Graves's diminutive collection of US Army personnel was politically driven, and how much of it was a personal attempt by Yamagata's heir to allow the US Siberian Expedition to save face, was being debated whenever the matter came up. "It would help if Graves wasn't such feckless dreamer." Cullen hissed "Now, now, I can accept he's got a lot on his plate, and only so many men, but he sounds more like a preacher than a general. Its all peace and temperance -"

The conversation turned into Graves being the son of Baptist minister and also an embarrseement to the state of Texas according to Bill as he joined in... but it wasn't really the point. The British effort to convince the government, so far as a government could be said to exist, was running into trouble and part of that was that the intervention by the Entente membership was simply too small, but also that there was obstinate resistance to the structural necessity of more troops.

It could easily be summarized as that the British would have preferred a combined front at Omsk, but that the manpower wasn't there. A frontage at Omsk under Kolchak on paper made sense, and especially would have made sense to the British conception of the Eurasian landmass... that was to say protecting British India, but one wouldn't have guessed from the talk and the publicity.

It was a headache, "Waite you're chairing?" What do you think, was the question being asked.

"I've ridden the line, if the Russians could read in any significant numbers the British would have tried to start newspapers. I wish that I was kidding, but the British are stirred up of trying to impart Anglican values in the east, and I think them, and the French, and even WIlson's people thought this lawyer stuff would work. MacKinder is pushing back, but I get the feeling he's got some backbencher in parliament he's arguing with. There is a lot of talk of common law going on from the lawyers, something about inviting some justice or another I assume they don't mean our Supreme Court to the conversation."

There were a series of groans from down the table. "What they need to do is take all the crates of guns they took off the Germans, and the artillery and dump them for the Russians to use." Someone on that end of the table complained. "its putting the cart ahead of the horse."

Waite shook his head in annoyance, "Paddy isn't wrong,"

"Percy says the Bolsheviks are in the process of some kind of offensive, from the sound of it Trotsky might mean to try this bridge," To Germany, "foolishness."

"What about the whites?"

"If we're lucky, whatever they're going to do will catch the Bolsheviks where they aren't, and then can steal a march on Lenin. We will just have to see." The real crux though was to move increasingly towards the consensus that would mean cutting the lines, and ripping up what connected Lenin's capital of Moscow to the far east. That idea had already been gestating... gestating that there was a consensus and ultimately in recognition of how modern war was. By the time the white advance on Moscow stalled due to the failure of its logistics and the tide began to turn a consensus had solidified.

--
The table was covered in papers. "Take a sheet," Bill grunted to one of his staff officers nudging him, "Not the oil, we do that."

There was no point in not talking about it. The commencement of the address at the university last year had talked about it. "These, gentlemen. Is the production as we estimate it of four years of industrial warfare in Europe. They're very big numbers."

Which was an understatement, he wondered if they would ever know with something close to accuracy what the toll of life would be. It would take more than two years for the English to put their estimates out by that point so much had changed.

Waite glanced at him, and handed him a sheet, "Even if we put aside the navy, what was expended on the war boggles comprehension. The British were not ready, no one was ready."

The shell failures were only part of it. They had never touched that part of the war business... the British had entered, everyone had entered the war with too few weapons, and too few bullets. "All of you," They informed the convened officers, "Have been informed of what of late has been said... and I will be blunt I believe in the model of the British Army, and of the American Army as it existed before the war... but I also believe that it is an inherent English flaw due to a lengthy maritime tradition to underscore the importance of the land army." Which was the nicest most polite way he had determined to phrase it. "John Jordan wants the world to go back to the way things were... but America succeeded Britain's position as most prominent economy, as the focal point of trade, all of Europe now sits dependent on New York credit. The world has changed, and that is not a change the states will look fondly on, because America enjoys being aloof from the Europeans and it always has been the preference of the States to be aloof from the likes of Spain, France, and the German speaking expanse of Europe," Mostly because there hadn't been an Italy when the founding fathers had been around, and back then he wasn't sure they had much concerned themselves with Russia either, but even if they had it wasn't the point, "The United States will not ratify the French Peace, and the French peace will insure that there is war. There is no going back to 1900, and to that end we must accept that there must be a reasonably sized army that is ideally surplus to what we think we might need." He declared.

The problem was that if the States could not reach a consensus for peace in Europe , they would almost certainly seek to evacuate from Russian entanglements sooner rather than later. There was also the fact that Wilson had overruled the very financial experts at the Federal Reserve in order to continue to provide money to the French, which was now likely to start creating problems because it was increasingly evident France intended to start a trade war with its former allies.

Though such plans were impossible to envision in three years the French Prime Minister at the time envisioned that the only way to get American capital was to occupy the Ruhr, a term of the treaty that the states would never ratify. Poincare's strategy, he pulling double duty as PM and as Foreign Minister, worked though damaged France's reputation and his own further.

... but if the United States did not consider Europe's security to be paramount to its own, it was impossible to say that China should be with politics of western Europe to be so important. There were too many other responsibilities at home. The briefing on war time economics was critical, but they hadn't expected the driving failures of the white cause , its principle failure being one of organization, and internal unity, and truthfully inability to rally internal and external support for the cause.

In 1919 no one readily expected that the Japanese mission to Siberia would continue into the twenties and that the Japanese presence at Irkutsk and its entrenchment there since the rescue of the Romanovs would mark the changes on the map after Lenin's death... but that was still years off.

The staff officers here were looking at numbers and figures of production. Of tons of steel, of bushels of grain by the many thousands. The hard economic facts so they had been able to come together. The assembly though perhaps also demonstrated where they were falling behind. This was a conglomeration of staff officers, all officers, soldiers.

There were to b e other meetings with floor bosses, managers, and further up for individual factory organization but this series of meetings was of the army. Of highly educated men within the army, but it was to be something of a trend on martial virtue and its place in the emerging central Chinese state of Xian.
--
Notes: We should be done with the calendar year 1919 by Christmas which is good, and hopefully in January we will return to just the saturday update for this since otherwise we'd pretty well over take the finished 1920 sections since the brief conflict in July of 1920 while it is very brief and is more a matter of intrigues behind the scene it is of significant importance to Chinese history, and the legitimacy, and perceptions of legitimacy (or lack there of) of the succeeding governments.

 

[ATP]

The A7 is a terrible tank, the post war interest in it was in the conception that things would be that big, you see this in some of the writing of post ww1 with english looking at how tanks will be formulated, the australians loaded up mephisto and shipped it back home to Australia as a war trophy because of its size and visual impressiveness. It looked cool, and played as much into the 'myth' the war as anything else.

With tractors one of the factors here is the divergence between where the technology starts to go. Edsel's tractors made very good engines, and if you're already buying from Ford the parent company its economic call because in the short termthere is a glut in the market and Catepillar and hoyt are bottlenecked in terms of production and demand due to the post war shocks. Now somewhat longer term is that Edsel engine which is a v12 diesel is very likely to end up being Xian's engine of choice for its tanks, which when we get there are artillery branch self propelled howitzers driving around three inchers for things like bunker suppression or infantry in the open in doctrine. That goes to interwar doctrine where the expectation is the armored cars are drive with your infantry and disgorge them battle taxi style with machine guns or autocannons even, where as tanks are specifically 'those guys over there needs to be serviced by high explosive and 30mm doesn't cut it for a trench' and all that goes back to lessons learned from the first world war so

that '2nd generation' or first generation of indigenous tanks will be all or nothing armor, big engine big gun used as mobile artillery so more accurately Mobile Gun System Tracked than tank in the sense of tank fighting other tanks, there isn't an AP or HEAT component its pure HE or cluster 3Inch

As an example of use case; circa say the north china campaign c.38/39

The principle instrument of battle is the rifle infantry division, the IJA is launching a frontal attack, a company of tanks is on loan to a battalion of infantry, the Japanese infantry advances into the open a fire call goes out you have probably 21 tanks nominally open fire as suppressive or counter battery across a roughly four hundred meters area of open terrain. [This has the advantage of allowing rapid reployment of the guns ever versus mechanized tractor pulled guns ]

They're not there as break through units, this is before the fall of france this is all inter war doctrine [and this will make more sense as a context when we get to 1927 and the battle of Zhengzhou]

Click to shrink...

So,kind of french WW1 tanks with 75mm gun in chasis? it should work good enough for your China.And,would stop japaneese and soviet tanks till 1942,too.

About USA and Japan intervention OTL - USA made Japan widraw in 1923,and gave Wladivostok to soviets/yes,american troops keep it/
They were sovet useful idiots.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1919
There was so much of this that they didn't need right now... especially with the war in Europe having ended almost a year ago now. Allen didn't expect quick turn around, the two captains from the 1st​ Division who had made the cut did have work to do, and there were the others... "Look at this." He took the paper, and scowled. "You going to talk to Bill?"

He looked at Cullen, "This is tomorrow's paper Cole." He noted.

"Yeah, that's right, and its going out, I was lucky to get told, and lets be honest he's right. I agree the circular going out was the right move," Which was also agreed right there in black and white, what the paper was accusing Honan's gentry of was not complicity, but collusion with the bandits. Something they couldn't prove... at least he hadn't, "No we ain't got anything, and I don't think we missed anything. If this was the green gang yeah, maybe, but these came off like normal bandits."

"What were they using?"

"Kropatcheks, some eighty eights," most likely local production of the commission rifle, "we recovered a couple." Allen nodded. "Machine gun burst, and those two fellas got on the wrong end of a browning." An Auto 5, "Their friends decided to discretion was the better part of valor but we didn't catch anyone either." He had known that. "The trains run regular, we have no reason to think anything but they were watching, and the train in question was the usual. I give you they could have been running for wire, or the dynamite, but they probably thought there was crates of guns aboard."

Allen nodded, "I could see that," He agreed. He thought back to the before, "We're going to have problems. Bandits jumping the border."

"Brigade was nominal brother John, maybe it don't need to be so nominal, huh?" Cullen was being somewhat facetious, the gendarmes were allocated an increased paper strength next year, "Then there is the guard too." He paused, "And one more thing, I figure you best hear it from me, assuming our census estimates are right, well a couple of fellas have already compared our population not to France, but to where Japan sits. We're not there with them yet, but if we are going to catch up, we need to do a lot of work."

Right, they had just dropped the production of the war on the desk in front of the best and brightest in the command and of course that would be what they were looking at. With the situation the Russians were in, no even if the Russians had been fine, people would have looked to compare themselves to Japan. "We do that." He agreed after a moment.

Cole wrapped his knuckles on the table, "Be ambitious boys," He remarked with a grin. "Anything interesting from the technical committees?"

Allen shook his his head, "Not so far, the linen department," the textile board more properly, "Found some patent filed a few years ago in the states for a new type of shutterless loom that they think is the future. It has the potential to be very quick, or so they tell me." Other than that though with a delegation off to England, the states, Germany, and the Hapsburg realm the latter two being coordinated through the Swiss office. "And if they're right well it'll give the filibusters," The middle American cadre, "a foot in the door for textiles."

The general consensus was that the British model of industrialization was a series of steps that could be built up on each other. Coal mining wasn't just for fueling the furnaces you needed it later for fueling bigger trains, and also for steel making as well as power. To make goods though, textiles, and porcelain were good starting industries to move beyond simple agrarian foodstuffs, or even luxury agrarian goods. Coal, and iron got you steel, steel and oil took you further still in what you could make, but you could hardly jump the queue.

Of course the Brits had had to largely figure out how everything fit together on their lonesome, and the states had been impeded by ideological factors like Jefferson waxing poetic about the family farmer and probably... just not liking city folk, but the logistics of the railway, and more importantly the modern locomotive's more powerful engine would make getting goods to market much easier than it had been in grand daddy's day.

--
He had let, let that was a joke, Jun handle the mid autumn festival festivities. The cadre, the gathering of the conglomerate sponsored together, and so did the different members of the cadre who actually held shares, so thus his family, Bill, Cole, Dawes and the few others left from the original number... but Jun exercised control over the contributed funds.

It had made the papers of course. Since Jun owned the organized media corporation that owned the printing presses and handled the news bureaus which were underneath it... i.e. The people who actually wrote the daily papers. It was a business strategy and what kept those papers afloat because they could reach to a large enough audience to be self sustaining. It created stability, but it did put pressure on a decision for language.

The recent debates in Peking about language, about literary Chinese and its competition the 'new language' scholars at Peking University their so called baihua was that their new vernacular Chinese was an academic one chockfull of borrowed English, German, French and Japanese loanwords and probably more confusingly was not the use of standard western punctuation but the use of English sentence structure which made it more confusing for the average chinese reader who wouldn't have frame of reference to sudden use of long nonsense strings of latin letters as German words too often settled into. The peking university literati were just too rushed for pushing their version of a Chinese vernacular that wasn't really a common one, but rather a scientific or educated vernacular used for academia.

How things got read by the man on the street was important.

Jun's media monopoly, extended beyond the papers, and if radios became common they'd need rules for broadcasting, and that would go increasingly towards language standards. So for the mid autumn festival there were banners, and broadsheets in bright colors everywhere.

"Its going to be a long night." Bill remarked.

There was no doubting that. "I'd like to hope for a prosperous coming year, but I think," More likely, "Its going to require more work."

"We finished the draft, we're done aren't we?"

Allen looked at the crowds, the massive throngs of people crowding the streets. A banner asking for prosperity in the coming year. "Yeah," The draft was done and officially, the constitution for the province would promulgate in tomorrow's paper, and hopefully Yan was going to have Taiyuan's print house send out his own new provincial constitution. The plan was that constitution wouldn't enter into effect until the new year but that was marked as the 1st​ of January 1920. "Lets go tell the boys take their passes and enjoy the holiday." Not everyone was off today, they couldn't cut everyone loose of course, but it was a paid holiday for almost everyone.
--
Notes: I keep meaning to do a full mid autumn festival scene it just doesn't go on paper to where I'm satisfied, but September 1919 the mid autumn festival here is important because it marks Xian as a prototypical government putting a final draft forward, going this is what we're doing and then putting in the papers as this is the new provincial government system for 1920 that's pretty important, and culturally the festival is auspicious for that... but as a cultural phemennon serious business.

Anyway, I need to figure out if not BT what I'm updating tomorrow

 

[ATP]

Chineese language really was problem for their development.Each language is kind of cage which limit people using it/i read about Piranha indians in Amazonia which,becouse of their language,are unable to develop anything/ but,among civilized nations,chineese language is most problematic.
It really made hard develop technology,or,at least,that is what i read.

About Russia - they were undeveloped,and soviets turned them into Hellhole,but,after 1905 reforms,they really started develop and woud become first world economy about 1950.

Real reason why Wall Street send Trocky&thugs there.

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1919
The map lines were solidifying. He had been just looking at the reported movements of troops, but he was starting to guess as to where this might be leading. Would Lenin do it? He had agreed to Brest Litovsk, they had recognized an independent Finland since then... would they acknowledge an independent Central Asia, and forsake the Russian Empire's holdings gained since the 17th​ century?

Would they? It was a thought... Well maybe it came down to if they thought they could defeat Kolchak, and Kolchak continued to try and push without a coherent strategy and support. If the lines solidified then fine... he could live with that... it wasn't his problem, and plenty of those were already on his plate.

His red pen rolled to a stop on the paper. He had little interest in philosophizing but it galled him significantly how fast excuses were being made to divorce oneself of the whole thing... and how fast the blame was being made. He lifted the pen up, and scratched a reminder to not allow it be forgotten that it had been Wilson who had overruled his own Federal Reserve bankers that loans should be continued to extended to the French and that the business people had been ordered about by an overstretched and unprepared Executive apparatus. This notion that business was to blame was absurd, it was the emotional, illogical, middle class that had driven Europe to war.

He couldn't stand it. It was vexing the way the papers back home were starting to carry on. What was worse was that Wilson god damn him was making it worse with his stump speeches... and the Republicans were probably going to put the Dems on the ropes. If there was anything that demonstrated Wilson was a southerner it was that he was taking things personally, he was personally affronted the Senate clearly thought him a fool. That Wilson had to at least on some level recognize that the French and British had made him look like an idiot probably made the Virginian double down harder for the sake of honor...

So Wilson ranted and raved harder about his position trying to viscerally charge with words because he could do nothing else.

There was a knock on the door, "Enter." He called.

"John Allen." Percy idled to a corner of the map, "These are the latest plots."

"Our best understanding of the war in the west." He replied. Sanctions would not work, especially since Percy had made clear the FSO was willing to ignore the spirit and only agree to the specifics of the sanctions, and the French and Japanese would pay lip service at best that much was clear less than six months on... "Its not good, they're not really armies. Their hordes of men with too limited equipment, and too little morale."

Percy scowled, "Yes, but shouldn't abandon them." Percy replied, and MacKinder did seem to honestly believe that... the problem was that the idealists weren't the ones who controlled the purse in England... HM Treasury were the worst collection of misers under heaven and they had no investment on an emotional level.. and emotion drove war fighting. Then of course on top of that, Percy's use of shouldn't instead of must not was an indictment of the political reality.

"Tell me about the southern front."

"Well I should think you would be well informed with Waite sitting in Kirghiz personally," The Englishman replied.

He blew a breath out, "I want an English view of the conditions there."

"The bolsheviks have been kept out, out of central Asia." Out of the Governor Generalship of the Steppes, and that had been reinforced with the migration from the west of displaced Cossacks and others over the past really two years, but certainly the last one, "but they are on the offensive I know that MacKinder has toured the fortifications at Uralsk," On the west bank of the river

"And?"

"There is nothing to say there."

The hell there wasn't, but Allen didn't voice that. He instead reached for a telegram that unofficially he had already read, but this copy had come from the State Department, "That's from Graves," The preacher's son turned General had been complaining again up the chain about Kolchak. He pulled another telegram, "That is from Iseburo on the condition of the rail lines." They could send him steel but they could not give him engines or cars... maybe cars soon, but engines were in short supply in central asia if they were to send them anywhere.

"This has them working in Mongolia, Baron Ungern is a bit queer."

That wasn't his problem. "Iseburo merely wants to insure the rail lines run in good order," He replied instead; admittedly in defensive.

"He wants the trans Siberian from the Urals to Omsk torn up. It would make a counter to the Bolsheviks thrust impossible."

"It would force the Bolsheviks to march through the winter or do nothing all winter while Omsk is fortified," Allen wasn't ignorant of the Japanese or 'Russian' garrisons appearing through eastern Siberia and attempts to impose law and order throughout, but the main focus remained the normal operation of the railway, oh there were Japanese, Koreans, hundreds of thousands even of Chinese workers coming to build houses and shops but it was all along the rail.
--
The prospect of how quickly the Whites would fade in the west as a fighting force would eventually come to be likened to the collapse of the Russian front... because it ultimately stemmed from the same structural defects in the Russian Army. Both sides could attack, but once supplies ran thin and a counter attack was mustered the troops tended to desert.

At that point it turned into a slog of attrition. The Bolsheviks were able to pull numbers from the factory dominated cities and increasingly seize food from the peasants. That upset the peasants, but the so called 'greens' had been subject to similar requisitions from the whites as well and while they added a third rung or fourth counting the anarchists they weren't pro white. The directive from London became stabilizing the front, but that order might well have been decided on too late... or maybe Omsk had been too far to begin with. Kolchak simply hadn't had the authority to, the accepted authority, to maintain his status over the steppes or behind his position to the east.

At the present though they were still watching... and counting the cars. "The British, well the Australians are in Omsk, but while MacKinder wants to keep them there from the sound of it the talk is to move them south."

Allen tapped his pen and nodded, "What's the reasoning?"

"Officially to shore up the front, unofficially," Dawes shrugged, "To minimize the chance of them being in the line of fire. Omsk isn't ready for an attack, its crowded, its confusing, its all around a mess. The morale is bad," No shit. "The list goes on like that as you can imagine. I wouldn't be surprised if you get down to it, the Brits intend to run their supplies through weihaiwei through us and just skip the trans Siberian all together." There had been grumbling all in the spring in the Dominions about the war being over, there had been grumbling before, but the signing of the peace treaty in Europe was the impetus for more of it. "What do you think is going to happen?"

"Iseburo has flatly refused to have the army move from Baikal," he had made his neat little orderly tables and was admant they stay that way. "I expect that if this goes badly he'll only let them go west with the intention of ripping the railway up." Which was what he thought should have been done anyway, but he didn't want to be in a position where the Diet might question him spending money when the army might want to get expeditionary.

It was a mess.

"Percy knows that I take it?"

"He does. Iseburo cabled Kolchak," all but demanding, [that] "He tear the transiberian down."

"I bet the Admiral didn't like that."

"No from what Graves has said to Washington he didn't." There was no denying Iseburo was conservative, he had no taste for exciting daring cavalry raids, or bullheaded charges if someone told him he had the ability to hold fifteen miles he'd stop marching at ten, he was much more conservative than his father was.

That was the problem and as October wore on, the international disagreements further created a mess. The British, and the Japanese would continue their respective agreements irrespective of American resistance, banking on fait accompli from Wilson which would given Wilson's other distractions prove out.

Dawes leaned back, "The brits are shipping rifles and ammunition into southern Russia."

"We know that," He meant Kirghiz, but southern Russia would for a very long time be the official name of the 'government in exile' as the Europeans called it as the British called it. The Cossacks were getting all the weapons that should have been surpluses out and cheap to buy on the open market as the British army demobilized... but because of the embargo they were kept from paying cash for while Jordan sat in Tietsin.

"This could just be me reading too much into it hoss, but I wouldn't be surprised if its an excuse to justify keeping the australians there. It probably won't hold for long, but it could be leverage to carve off central asia and then try and find british capital to levy British influence in the region."

...it made a certain amount of sense as to why the FSO might angle for that.

 

[ATP]

Ungern was not queer,but barking mad.He really tried to recreate Dzinghis Empire.But - he was good soldier,too.I hope,that he would survive here.
Maybe his polish officer,Antoni Ossendowski,would stay with him.Pity,his famous book about going through those territories/Beasts,Men and gods/ could never be written here.

Really good book,read if you have time.

Japan was right to stop at Bajkal,and i hope,that they stay there.
P.S What about Kazachstan? in OTL Sralin killed 30% of population there,and,as a result,when polis prisoners were send there to work after 1939 and locals undartsnandt,that they would not talk to NKWD about them,they openly said in 1941 to them,that they wait for germans come and liberate them.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Ungern was not queer,but barking mad.He really tried to recreate Dzinghis Empire.But - he was good soldier,too.I hope,that he would survive here.
Maybe his polish officer,Antoni Ossendowski,would stay with him.Pity,his famous book about going through those territories/Beasts,Men and gods/ could never be written here.

Really good book,read if you have time.

Japan was right to stop at Bajkal,and i hope,that they stay there.
P.S What about Kazachstan? in OTL Sralin killed 30% of population there,and,as a result,when polis prisoners were send there to work after 1939 and locals undartsnandt,that they would not talk to NKWD about them,they openly said in 1941 to them,that they wait for germans come and liberate them.

Click to shrink...

Queer in this case does in fact mean 'hes a nut' like the intended meaning was 'I am politely calling this dude crazy' and here Ungern due to different geopolitical positions gets to sit in Mongolia for quite a long time (he's only 30 atm) and with a surviving government, or more correctly with a government that matures into regional administration book would probably get written and published in most likely a similar or approximate format. Because this is an era where such publications are written, and have an audience, and all of the surviving white / anti bolshevik forces have a reason to get their side out especially in the mid twenties for other reasons.

Iseburo, and by proxy Aritomo, are basically sufficiently political heavy hitters to keep the Japanese presence at Baikal especially with a pro Anglo-Japanese position regarding anti-soviet positions

Kazakstan (and more broadly central asia) in general is seeing an influx of White russian, and then later just people n general trying to get away from the Bolsheviks, and the grain seizures gives the white russian/ cossack /anti red buffer state enough of a population and enough of an anti soviet identity to get stable and carve out a niche, and thus it survives as a state as a buffer state in the interwar years growing into its own separate state in central asia especially as the cold war develops.

 

[ATP]

Queer in this case does in fact mean 'hes a nut' like the intended meaning was 'I am politely calling this dude crazy' and here Ungern due to different geopolitical positions gets to sit in Mongolia for quite a long time (he's only 30 atm) and with a surviving government, or more correctly with a government that matures into regional administration book would probably get written and published in most likely a similar or approximate format. Because this is an era where such publications are written, and have an audience, and all of the surviving white / anti bolshevik forces have a reason to get their side out especially in the mid twenties for other reasons.

Iseburo, and by proxy Aritomo, are basically sufficiently political heavy hitters to keep the Japanese presence at Baikal especially with a pro Anglo-Japanese position regarding anti-soviet positions

Kazakstan (and more broadly central asia) in general is seeing an influx of White russian, and then later just people n general trying to get away from the Bolsheviks, and the grain seizures gives the white russian/ cossack /anti red buffer state enough of a population and enough of an anti soviet identity to get stable and carve out a niche, and thus it survives as a state as a buffer state in the interwar years growing into its own separate state in central asia especially as the cold war develops.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! Ungern as leader of Mongolia would be certainly better then commies,with his mongol waifu he could even start dynasty there.
Interesting,what would happen to his state and others/Kazachstan/ when Japan attack USA - if they were allied with England,Japan could attack them,too.
I hope,that it not happen here - becouse then soviets would "liberate" them and they would be genocided anyway,only 15 years later.

P.S i read few books written by people who was there/Siberia,Mongolia/ , and according to them,there really is kind of hominid named as almas , tall ilke human but very strong and with red hairs.Since local hunters told about it,too,here you could discover them and use in your army!

Here:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...usg=AOvVaw3D08groaG4y1tFV8Q-MZjp&opi=89978449

 

[Imperator Pax]

Thanks! Ungern as leader of Mongolia would be certainly better then commies,with his mongol waifu he could even start dynasty there.
Interesting,what would happen to his state and others/Kazachstan/ when Japan attack USA - if they were allied with England,Japan could attack them,too.
I hope,that it not happen here - becouse then soviets would "liberate" them and they would be genocided anyway,only 15 years later.

P.S i read few books written by people who was there/Siberia,Mongolia/ , and according to them,there really is kind of hominid named as almas , tall ilke human but very strong and with red hairs.Since local hunters told about it,too,here you could discover them and use in your army!

Here:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjJ2_3hiJqDAxVjPxAIHe9oC-wQFnoECBMQAQ&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almas_(folklore)&usg=AOvVaw3D08groaG4y1tFV8Q-MZjp&opi=89978449

Click to shrink...

The Geography, and as we will see with how the railroad system works which I have maps drawn out, and plotted, but those are unlikely to be posted makes any kind of real land war tricky.

Kirghiz here, Kazakhstan, has a very narrow very inhospitable land border with Mongolia and the Japanese authorities in the early twenties and into the thirties are the anti-communist anti soviet wing of the IJA's political factions so these are the guys who are largedly pushed into early retirement or sidelined by the army and navy's young officers and its the logistics which insulate Kirghiz from a direct attack, and by the time of an organized counter against Japan which will come in time, the Japanese themselves are over extended, and the soviets are too busy dealing with the Germans which in turn sets the stage for the post 43 and 44 border changes where Xian moves into to take Baikal, and outer mongolia and that sets the conditions for the post cold war territorial doctrines for both the departure of the British Empire, and a counterweight to the soviet union in eastern Asia , which i've loosely touched on previously.

We will later particularly in the late twenties get into the political radicalization of the young officers of the Kwantgung army because for example Tojo while a major and later as a colonel committed at least 3 capital offenses under the military laws of the meiji reforms that were largely either declined to prosecute or was hit with lesser charges (Tojo served a brief stint in the brig but he should have at minimum been cashiered out, but by the late twenties Japanese discipline from TGHQ could no longer effectively control lower echelon officers). This will be an important political shift because the Kwantung army is regionally colocated in manchuria and Manchukuo and the intention to put Puyi to 'restore' puyi to the throne after the previous Manchu restoration is politically relevant to internal state politics.

 

[Neh-Toth-Amon]

Thanks for being clear from the start.

 

[ATP]

The Geography, and as we will see with how the railroad system works which I have maps drawn out, and plotted, but those are unlikely to be posted makes any kind of real land war tricky.

Kirghiz here, Kazakhstan, has a very narrow very inhospitable land border with Mongolia and the Japanese authorities in the early twenties and into the thirties are the anti-communist anti soviet wing of the IJA's political factions so these are the guys who are largedly pushed into early retirement or sidelined by the army and navy's young officers and its the logistics which insulate Kirghiz from a direct attack, and by the time of an organized counter against Japan which will come in time, the Japanese themselves are over extended, and the soviets are too busy dealing with the Germans which in turn sets the stage for the post 43 and 44 border changes where Xian moves into to take Baikal, and outer mongolia and that sets the conditions for the post cold war territorial doctrines for both the departure of the British Empire, and a counterweight to the soviet union in eastern Asia , which i've loosely touched on previously.

We will later particularly in the late twenties get into the political radicalization of the young officers of the Kwantgung army because for example Tojo while a major and later as a colonel committed at least 3 capital offenses under the military laws of the meiji reforms that were largely either declined to prosecute or was hit with lesser charges (Tojo served a brief stint in the brig but he should have at minimum been cashiered out, but by the late twenties Japanese discipline from TGHQ could no longer effectively control lower echelon officers). This will be an important political shift because the Kwantung army is regionally colocated in manchuria and Manchukuo and the intention to put Puyi to 'restore' puyi to the throne after the previous Manchu restoration is politically relevant to internal state politics.

Click to shrink...

Good.Speaking about soviets occupied with their ex-allies - here we could have free Czech and maybe even Hungary becouse soviets here are weaker.
There would be no siberian divisions here for them to help.
No Poland sadly,even weaker soviets would eat us on their way to Berlin.

P.S Who would get Magadan golden mines here? in OTL it was practically death camps/only about 5% of poles send there survived/ but here it could be normal mines.
I read memories of polish partsant who survived,becouse was able to keep american machines there working - they sometimes found mammoths bodie there fresh enough to eat.
Certainly better then what they get to eat from soviets.
Even big slamander-like creatures which,after few hours,get alive again,but die quickly becouse of cold.

Here,if China get that mines,they,except cash,would have also Mammoths for museums,and big slaamanders for zoo.
Although chineese could eat them anyway.....

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1919
It was getting late in the afternoon... or at least was dark outside already.

A man couldn't be a solider forever. If he was lucky he could do it a long time, but modern war was dangerous, and costly in other ways. The papers on the desk were a reminder of that. He could think back to 1910 when they'd bought their first artillery, and then other guns that krupp had had commercially available on order, just pick up a catalog from a sales rep and go through it say this is what I want.

It was expensive, but railwaymen made enough. They weren't unique there. It gave them an advantage. Bai Lang had found that out, as he had attacked fortified defensive positions protected with High Explosive and Canister. Machine guns added another advantage, but a professional army supported with both was a monster on the field.

Allen signed. The pension bill wasn't really a bill but a memorandum, saying that once the constitution went into effect they would ratify the pension bill, which was based off of Bismarck's reforms. They didn't really have anyone else to base it off, but the Bismarckian welfare system was only part of it. The US Army had been granting pensions since the Revolution... whenever congress could be arsed to actually provide funding for such, and that needed to be seen to it. They couldn't leave it to whenever a house of representatives could be seated.

Men discharged for wounds, or those separating under honorable circumstances needed to be looked after. That was where education was to come in. There had to be something a man could do after, and so on... so that was also on the list of what the provincial government would have to look at plan for.

That was the consensus, there was a knock, "Enter." He answered, Shang stepped in and he handed the documents over and since the colonel was currently filling a cadre vacancy rather than commanding troops. Shang picked up the pen and started counter signing but glanced at the ranking red leg.

Dawes followed glanced at the colonel, "Naw, you need to be here for this to," He put the case he was carrying on the desk, heedless of the other papers, "This is coming from Lansing. The president... has had a stroke, its bad." The artillery officer remarked. "From the cable is, its damn bad. He's bed ridden they're not sure he'll recover... and it gets a bit worse."

The documents were from the state department's black chamber mission with the army. They were cable intercepts and memorandums corroborated with other notes exchanged... more to the point they were discussions between France and England. Much of it was stuff already known, stuff told to the Russians, stuff subsequently published in the Guardian on behest of the Bolsheviks after the latter had cracked open the safes of the Russian Foreign Ministry... but some of it was new. Some of it was talking about Siberia, but others... were about Europe.

"I guess we shouldn't be surprised, sykes picot was brazen..." Allen whistled. It made sense though, Versailles terms had to have been largely written before the armistice, oh sure some of it, the status of central Europe and the rest had needed, there needed to be something to mollify the president, but if this did hit the senate, "Has he disclosed this to the senate?"

"I have no idea, but it is, it makes sense." French policy in the black and white of 1916 outlined a demilitarization and enforced neutrality of the rhineland, the germans industrial heartland, "Look I've cabled Washington, Wilson does not have the votes in the senate, and if this gets out, not only will they reject the peace treaty we can expect them to read the riot act out and then there will be fiasco in the papers on top of it."

"When do they plan on voting?"

"They're trying to get Wilson to see reason, but he's bed ridden if he dies it kills the treaty," and it was easy that the Senate might well prefer that, then they wouldn't have a fight, it was just pass in the night with the president, "I don't even know if Marshall has the spine to do anything, he might well resign... and then we would have Lansing."

Allen mused that that might be nice, given the papers Lansing would almost certainly reject the peace treaty, if only likely because he had to, but he would be able to pretend it was because the French not because the republicans wouldn't agree to it; theatrical as that might seem. It went further than that, it would go further than that as they would learn later. "He means to push House under the train from the sounds of it?"

"Yeah, if Wilson does die we can expect Lansing to insist Marshall pack him off, and strenuously tell House off personally before sending him away." Dawes agreed. "here."

Lansing's position, no doubt somewhat shaped by his writing to them was first and foremost to lambaste the treaty for the Shandong issue, whether that was because he knew, which was possible, that any messages would be archived and have a chinese audience at some point, or just because he knew the cadre at present's stance it didn't matter. It moved from there to declared the league of nations to be toothless and utterly worthless which was a damning indictment in words of something that Wilson so highly valued.

"France and England have written the treaty with to their benefit a plethora of unjust gains, and there is naught the League of Nation as put to paper can do being so toothless, it is utterly worthless at hoping to redress such wrongs." Shang read.

Lansing had actually testified to the state department something to that effect already, but in October of 1919 they had no idea of those minutes that would only come out later. Lansing had written what he meant, and with intention.

In a month Lansing would under accusation that he was out to sink the treaty. Without room to negotiate with the Senate Lansing refused to act as go between between the crippled Wilson and the Senate and the treaty would never be ratified. The knock on effect of that was that between France and the Anglo-American relationship, England chose America. The British would not ratify a security guarantee, and British public opinion began to turn against the French... assuming it had not already begun to do so as winter approached given the looming trade war.

"And not to make bigger mess, JP sent this one."

The report was mostly what had been expected.

It started with the numbers, but there ws a lot of red ink hitting numbers on the latter pages.

The truth was even in Shanghai while there had been some inflation due to the war it had been mild, far less than in the States. There had been inflation, yes, but China and for that matter Japan had actually been doing better than the States. That had held true for Japan until the end of the previous year, but then it had hit, it was still an issue in Japan, as the papers adjudicated.

Japan's inflation had over taken the US.

That wasn't what he was all that concerned with... that probably could have been managed. "If this is right..."

"Yeah," Then the trade war brewing in Europe, the trade war that was going to spill over to hit the states, and Japan, was going to drive Japan's balance negative. "I mean admitting that with the war over, Japan isn't going to be exporting as much, but yeah you wouldn't know it from the asking price."

So when the price went down the drain, it would be bad.

He scribbled on the math, "They're over two hundred percent," and the result would be the banking panic in Tokyo of 1920 another feature of the new world.

--
Notes: Short yes, but Japan by this point had extended a lot of bad loans, and otherwise extended a lot of capital, and this played into both domestic problems as well as complicated the global trade when the tariff wars started. Its not just Japan, it is everyone in 1920 that gets dinged in some capacity. The demands for rapid demobilization of the combatants was detrimental. Japan and the US had both superseded Britain at export market and the US market being larger and less effected than Britain meant that there were to be knock on effects. Unlike Japan, and the UK the US continued to be a provider of capital ... up until it wasn't, US capital being really the only player at the game resulted in increasing prices on stocks that would in addition to other factors result in the great depression.

[WW1 and its destruction of the integrated European market that existed pre war lead to the market conditions post war that would cause the variety of banking crisis that would culminate in the NYSE crash, but there were there were other crashes, and there were smaller more immediately post war slumps]

and apparently I never posted the reply to ATP's question, Magadan is currently in Japanese and its going to stay there until like 43/44. The Soviet Union has other gold mines there were plenty of mines with forced labor, given the rates of incaration increasing by 1920 and certainly later, home boy lenin and later Stalin would find some way to get money

EDIT: Ok, Saturday we will conclude 1919 with one final segment of October, and next week we will push on into the prologue of 1920

 

[Imperator Pax]

Good.Speaking about soviets occupied with their ex-allies - here we could have free Czech and maybe even Hungary becouse soviets here are weaker.
There would be no siberian divisions here for them to help.
No Poland sadly,even weaker soviets would eat us on their way to Berlin.

P.S Who would get Magadan golden mines here? in OTL it was practically death camps/only about 5% of poles send there survived/ but here it could be normal mines.
I read memories of polish partsant who survived,becouse was able to keep american machines there working - they sometimes found mammoths bodie there fresh enough to eat.
Certainly better then what they get to eat from soviets.
Even big slamander-like creatures which,after few hours,get alive again,but die quickly becouse of cold.

Here,if China get that mines,they,except cash,would have also Mammoths for museums,and big slaamanders for zoo.
Although chineese could eat them anyway.....

Click to shrink...

Honestly, even without the Russian Far East, or Central Asia, Soviet mobilization would just canabilize more from their existing populations, the consequences of this would be further disruption of the sovet economy and also knock on effects of more soviet casualties. I do not see a prague offesnive not happening, without a significantly more active or aggressive Anglo-American advance and even then Stalin could order the red army to force march there would need to be some kind of physical blocking force, in addition to a political consensus this is one of hte weaknesses i find in my readings for the Anglo-American (of both Roosevelt, and Churchill) political leadership in dealing with Stalin... but also I admit that my view point is probably biased by that I wouldn't have asked congress for Lend-Lease or any extension of aid to the soviet union at all, and frankly I would have tried to launch overlord until arguably later in 44 or even 45 (the decision to launch on the 6th was Ike's call based off of weather conditions, I would not have made that gamble not with that kind of force; EDIT : that is to say with just what Ike knew in 44 I would not have said go like hindsight yes Ike made the right decision but that was a roll of the device for carrying out the landing)

When we get to world war 2 there is still going to be an anglo-american preference a consensus for a Europe first strategy, but Japanese held far east means Vladivostok is in Japanese hands there is still a northern route for lend lease, there is the port in the persian gulf, there is murmansk of course but we really won't get into that for a while even though its outlined.

I am aiming to have 1920 start before the end of the year but even in the abridged format of these posts snippets and the time skips of largely getting through the winter (though 21 will be somewhat more abridged in the current format due to international events) so next year we may get through 20-22 maybe

EDIT 2: With regards to ww1 again I've said this, if we were going to to more indepth in alternate history and butterfly effects I would very much like to do a WW2 where the US and britain get into it with Japan in such a way where there is Pacific first strategy or some alternate pacific war, but that also kind of shafts Europe in more than one way

 

[ATP]

Honestly, even without the Russian Far East, or Central Asia, Soviet mobilization would just canabilize more from their existing populations, the consequences of this would be further disruption of the sovet economy and also knock on effects of more soviet casualties. I do not see a prague offesnive not happening, without a significantly more active or aggressive Anglo-American advance and even then Stalin could order the red army to force march there would need to be some kind of physical blocking force, in addition to a political consensus this is one of hte weaknesses i find in my readings for the Anglo-American (of both Roosevelt, and Churchill) political leadership in dealing with Stalin... but also I admit that my view point is probably biased by that I wouldn't have asked congress for Lend-Lease or any extension of aid to the soviet union at all, and frankly I would have tried to launch overlord until arguably later in 44 or even 45 (the decision to launch on the 6th was Ike's call based off of weather conditions, I would not have made that gamble not with that kind of force)

When we get to world war 2 there is still going to be an anglo-american preference a consensus for a Europe first strategy, but Japanese held far east means Vladivostok is in Japanese hands there is still a northern route for lend lease, there is the port in the persian gulf, there is murmansk of course but we really won't get into that for a while even though its outlined.

I am aiming to have 1920 start before the end of the year but even in the abridged format of these posts snippets and the time skips of largely getting through the winter (though 21 will be somewhat more abridged in the current format due to international events) so next year we may get through 20-22 maybe

Click to shrink...

Lend-Lease was as costly as 5 Manhattan projects,so yes,USA should sell less,and stop sending anything after 1944,where they could win on their own.

But,at first they must do so - soviets contacted germans just after their attack on them,and keep talkinbg about peace till Sralin get everything he wonted in Teheran in 1943.
If allies do not send something,soviets would made peace./nothing come of it,becouse germans always wonted MOAR - but ,if soviets do not get Lend-lllllllease,they could agree to gave almost everything to Hitler.

Vladivostok in japaneese hands - even if Allies want send everythig like in OTL,it would be still less - at least 20% less.

Soviet loses - they lost more then 20M soldiers in OTL,becouse Sralin choose butchers like Zukow as commanders,who simply send waves after waves till something end - either enemy,or his troops.
But,soviets had better commanders,like Konew or Malinowsky,who also do not cared about soldier lives - but,at least spend them wisely.Here,with less soldiers,after 1942 Zukow and other idiots would be purged,and smarter soviet army would advance with lesser loses.


Anoter difference - soviets had some oil wells in Siberia,now they would belong to Japan.More oil for them,in places which could not be bombed by americans.

About Overlord - just attack smartly in Italy,well-commanded Anzio would gave Italy to Allies in 1943,no need for Monte Cassino bloodbath.
In 1944 just push into Austria and Croatia.

And you really could wait till 1945 with landing in France,it was really gamble,and not needed - in 1944 Sralin would not made peace with Hitler,so Allies could cut money for him.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Lend-Lease was as costly as 5 Manhattan projects,so yes,USA should sell less,and stop sending anything after 1944,where they could win on their own.

But,at first they must do so - soviets contacted germans just after their attack on them,and keep talkinbg about peace till Sralin get everything he wonted in Teheran in 1943.
If allies do not send something,soviets would made peace./nothing come of it,becouse germans always wonted MOAR - but ,if soviets do not get Lend-lllllllease,they could agree to gave almost everything to Hitler.

Vladivostok in japaneese hands - even if Allies want send everythig like in OTL,it would be still less - at least 20% less.

Soviet loses - they lost more then 20M soldiers in OTL,becouse Sralin choose butchers like Zukow as commanders,who simply send waves after waves till something end - either enemy,or his troops.
But,soviets had better commanders,like Konew or Malinowsky,who also do not cared about soldier lives - but,at least spend them wisely.Here,with less soldiers,after 1942 Zukow and other idiots would be purged,and smarter soviet army would advance with lesser loses.


Anoter difference - soviets had some oil wells in Siberia,now they would belong to Japan.More oil for them,in places which could not be bombed by americans.

About Overlord - just attack smartly in Italy,well-commanded Anzio would gave Italy to Allies in 1943,no need for Monte Cassino bloodbath.
In 1944 just push into Austria and Croatia.

And you really could wait till 1945 with landing in France,it was really gamble,and not needed - in 1944 Sralin would not made peace with Hitler,so Allies could cut money for him.

Click to shrink...

Yes, as POTUS my response to soviets idea of an independent peace would be 'Brest-litovsk 2.0? Thats your plan? Brilliant," /maximum sarcasm, and Zhukov was a blunt instrument but Stalin (and most of his red cav friends during this period weren't subtle by any extent so Stalin picking ZHukov is foreshadowed by the tactics he advocates for during the RCW) and thats arguably why Zhukov wasn't purged because Stalin 'understood' what Zhukov was doing as a field commander and Malinowsky gets distrusted for political reasons (Welcome to soviet union boys)

and Cassino is the quintesential example of too many chefs spoil the souffle the entire campaign in Italy runs into the problem of having commanders with unreaslistic expectations the entire Italian campaign is a case of British projections of ww1 oh we will invade up from the south, we will have a soft underbelly to attack Germany from, those are from Churchill, but then you have both US and British commanders who don't know what they're doing, or worse are grandstanding in the middle of an actual shooting war and you get failures to communicate, failure to have units move on time, and you get assumptions made (i.e. the assumption Cassino is being used by the Germans, resulting in Alexander ordering the bombing with no confirmation that in fact that germans are present).

'

 

[ATP]

Yes, as POTUS my response to soviets idea of an independent peace would be 'Brest-litovsk 2.0? Thats your plan? Brilliant," /maximum sarcasm, and Zhukov was a blunt instrument but Stalin (and most of his red cav friends during this period weren't subtle by any extent so Stalin picking ZHukov is foreshadowed by the tactics he advocates for during the RCW) and thats arguably why Zhukov wasn't purged because Stalin 'understood' what Zhukov was doing as a field commander and Malinowsky gets distrusted for political reasons (Welcome to soviet union boys)

and Cassino is the quintesential example of too many chefs spoil the souffle the entire campaign in Italy runs into the problem of having commanders with unreaslistic expectations the entire Italian campaign is a case of British projections of ww1 oh we will invade up from the south, we will have a soft underbelly to attack Germany from, those are from Churchill, but then you have both US and British commanders who don't know what they're doing, or worse are grandstanding in the middle of an actual shooting war and you get failures to communicate, failure to have units move on time, and you get assumptions made (i.e. the assumption Cassino is being used by the Germans, resulting in Alexander ordering the bombing with no confirmation that in fact that germans are present).

'

Click to shrink...

About soviet-german talks - soviets at first proposed what germans arleady captured,when germans wonted more.Later soviets demanded widraw to 1941 border,when germans wanted to keep some taken lands.But,with lesser Lend-Lease,soviets actually could agree to that.

It would be better for world,actually - soviets could not demand anything here after mushrooms from USA get to Berlin.

Italian campaign - yes,there should be one commander.Better one average commander,or even bad one,then few geniuses.
And,those commanders there was no geniuses.

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1919~ epilogue
They would look back from 1920 as the end of an era... the closing of a chapter.

He had penned a letter for Fukuoka where Akashi was convalescing he'd fallen on a trip back to the home islands and winter was coming. It was a perfunctory letter though, as at the time it had been written not only had his attention between on other matters, he had not been thinking too much of it and fully expecting him to recover.

His real focus was a continuation of normal duties, and the expanding ones. Shang had a collection of documents that threatened to fall off the table if it got any larger. There were twenty three mounds of documents in the room, all varying sizes. One for each for the cadre members assembled here proxy or otherwise, and each pile collected to address what they thought was important.

Officially the conference had opened this morning, but there had been talks last night, and would last through the weekend until Wednesday. To that end it was doubtful they would get through everyone's piles today, but that wasn't the point. Additionally there was probably some overlap across everyone's pages.

First and foremost were the timetables. What had begun, and what had begun was that Japan had beaten Russian the Russo-Japanese War. If Japan were able to build itself up into an industrial power to fight the Tsar to a standstill then why couldn't China, why couldn't reforms and investment provide for China what it yielded Japan?

That had been Yuan Shikai's question, why couldn't China do what Japan had done? The answer to that was a stew of lingering structural problems preventing the comprehensive reforms... and a lack of time.

That had been a decade previous, and Yuan was several years dead. The principle political answer put forward by Waite, and Bert to a lesser extend was quick to say that it was a matter of economic productivity. Russia wasn't really capitalist, it wasn't liberal it didn't 'follow' market forces, and so on, it was the same argument that had been put forward in 1906 for Japan's success. That because Russia's industries were state driven they were less effective, that there were no 'men of vision' as paper in New York had written, there were no 'titans of industry'. Japan had by contrast privatized its state owned industries for the most part, arsenals excepting for example. It had unleashed the vigor of the zaibatsu and had relied on expert production of foreign but allied nations.

As a Russian admiral had opined many Japanese ships had been built in English yards... admittedly that had been the excuse for the dogger bank incident.

As an explanation it was lacking, it was incomplete, and it was probably a bit rosy... and realistically it did probably underestimate the importance of other factors. That eighty percent of the Russian peasantry had still been farmers probably hadn't helped the Russian cause. Russia though was not the priority much as the situation there would likely slip in.

The matter of the agrarian peasantry though had to be discussed because they were now in a very different position to where they had been a decade ago. For centuries the Qing farmer had been dividing his family plot among his sons, and the Qing had attempted intermittently at best to bring new lands under cultivation, but that had been plagued by a host of other problems.

By that point the old dynasty had abolished the eight legged essay, and the civil service exams had been done away with. That created a problem, problems. The Chinese had been digging coal seasonally for centuries as fueling for heating so that had made sense to get into once they were in a position to expand in that direction.

Building a middle class though hadn't been the point, that would have ascribed far more to their foresight than they deserved. There had been a body of labor there, second and third sons who would have otherwise been scratching dirt on tiny little plots, or second and third sons who ordinarily would have dreamed of the civil service exam as a way up. A way that was forever closed after the reforms.

The product of subdividing generation after generation of sons who stayed home had made it near to impossible for the small chinese farmer to effectively modernize. Even with new world crops, there were liitations in the land in cultivation, and in techniques particularly for non staple crops. The way chinese kept bees came to mind, but that was hardly and far from the only matter.

Getting people tot tkae the step to be entrenpenuers in wholly new fields was difficult. Allen counted himself among such, as while soldiers both sides of the family were in rail. Cullen was the same. Bill's daddy was in cattle and oil, and so the list went on. It was hard to ask a man to do something he never had any experience with, but rather than be entrepenuers adminstration and organization was another matter. They weren't the same thing but you needed a floor boss, and a fella above him who knew how things were supposed to run, and you always needed to be looking for people willing to learn.

The intention had not been to make a middle class. The eight hour work week had been about safety and efficiency. They had brought in American made tooling, well because they were American, but because it was the tooling they themselves understood and had introduced American floor practices in 1911. The steel mill had taken time to get running but company housing had been long established by then... and then there had been the RPF standing to.

The bandit problem had been a problem. China as a whole had had five hundred odd rebellions that had made the papers between 1905 to finally October of 1911.

"To borrow an expression we've discussed before, that the war in Europe represented a great boon to us." China as a whole really, though how much of a boon would be up to opinions, but the trade deficit of the whole nation had greatly been reduced as exports to the combatants had gone out... and they had been settling into Xian by the time war were declared that summer of 1914.

Then suddenly there were opening of markets to Europe with far higher margins than they had considered. "The textile industry is one where our domestic production will hold up best." As people working in cities, as miners worked, people would buy clothes. It was an observation from the middle of hte table that no one fussed over.

There were a variety of goods which were made which had a civilian market, but the driving reason to refuse expansion of arms was because it didn't, because the writing on the wall for how fast those contracts would be pulled now that the war with Germany was over and western Europe wasn't threatened was self evident.

The decision not to was that there wasn't a foreseeable second market for something like the 7.62x54 not when Westinghouse in the US was sitting on a million rifles. It would have been a boondoggle, and as they were late to industrializing taking that risk without payment upfront, which without the war on wouldn't happen, there was perceived to be too much risk.

--
Notes: To reiterate as one might reasonably intuit this is the conclusion of 1919, where we will do a short time skip, and finally move into early 1920 to serve as prologue before because we are looking at the months where all the warning signs are there, where the market is already overheated despite letting off some 'steam' in 1918 but the rumors of a trade war, and then actual tariffs, demobilization and less demand for heavy industrial goods in the combatant countries, and the flu pandemic largely being over all played a role. The issue of circulating of capital is another issue, but we won't really get into that until later.

Anyway, what I probably should have done was just put this and previous one together as one post, but the next update will be the prologue covering the solidifying the lines in Siberia and open the High Warlord Years arc, which will continue until its conclusion with thee current outline of 1925.

Anyway, as I may or may not have said earlier in the thread, I would do some things differently if say every 2 2.5 months of on page content were something like eighty thousand words of novel style paced plot progression, if I were doing that we would probably be further down the AH rabbit hole

Perhaps Lansing would become president perhaps Pershing, or Wood would succeed him, maybe not go that far but we are moving into the interwar years and the period where China has to continue expanding its domestic industry due to the post war economic crisis, and also where from an Alternate History standpoint there are other emerging states. We will see Spain show up in diplomatic chatter, Sweden, Switzerland as arms suppliers and we will also see actual signatories to the arms embargo basically flaunt it but that presented its own problems historically.

 

[ATP]

Great chapter - better fragment of China could not change History in other parts of world,althought...if thanks to your stronger China influenced by USA here England actually keep alliance with Japan and do not betray them for USA,that would be gamechanger !

And,about Russia - peasants there were real slaves.To compare it ti polish serfs in old Poland - polish gentry could buy land with people,and sell land with people,but could not sell people.
And,those peasants still self-ruled themselves,up to death penalty.
Of course,polish magnat with private army could beat them into submission,but average polish Joe with one or two villages and few servants? forget it,he must cooperate with his serfs.

When in Russia gentry owned people,and could sell them till1861.

Even later,peasants were organized in old mongol system named mir,where people do not use the same land,but almost every year each fragment of land was used by another peasant.
As a result,they do not have motivation to work better.

After 1905 revolution Stolypin reforms made peasants really free,and let them own land and buy more - as a result,many become real rich farmers.All of them was genocided by Sralin - Holodomor killed all farmers and many normal peasants in entire soviets,not only Ukraine.


So,every country with normal economy could stand to Russia before 1905.
Interesting thing - why Japan use their chance,when they were closer to potential invaders,and China and Korea fucked it?
My theory is,that keeping Conficius ideas killed them.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Great chapter - better fragment of China could not change History in other parts of world,althought...if thanks to your stronger China influenced by USA here England actually keep alliance with Japan and do not betray them for USA,that would be gamechanger !

And,about Russia - peasants there were real slaves.To compare it ti polish serfs in old Poland - polish gentry could buy land with people,and sell land with people,but could not sell people.
And,those peasants still self-ruled themselves,up to death penalty.
Of course,polish magnat with private army could beat them into submission,but average polish Joe with one or two villages and few servants? forget it,he must cooperate with his serfs.

When in Russia gentry owned people,and could sell them till1861.

Even later,peasants were organized in old mongol system named mir,where people do not use the same land,but almost every year each fragment of land was used by another peasant.
As a result,they do not have motivation to work better.

After 1905 revolution Stolypin reforms made peasants really free,and let them own land and buy more - as a result,many become real rich farmers.All of them was genocided by Sralin - Holodomor killed all farmers and many normal peasants in entire soviets,not only Ukraine.


So,every country with normal economy could stand to Russia before 1905.
Interesting thing - why Japan use their chance,when they were closer to potential invaders,and China and Korea fucked it?
My theory is,that keeping Conficius ideas killed them.

Click to shrink...

I would love to write a continued Anglo-Japanese alliance especially one with the aims whereby to contain the USSR, but the problem, already identified earlier is Canada not either the Imperial General Staff, which is ironic since at present in 1920 the dominion of New Zealand and Australia are both pro Anglo-Japanese alliance, India and South Africa don't give a fuck one way or the other, having Pershing win the Republican nomination would be one way to go about thatbut thats also because Pershing is unlikely to appoint Hughes, is unlikely to support a naval treaty like washington.

Yeah the Mir system will make an appearance more in 1632, the general condition of the Russian peasantry here is in a state of dislocation, with significantly more anglo-japanese political organization being brought in as modernization, this is touched on in the 1920 segments with municipal and county organization and of course with the growing distinction between the Soviet system against the Kulaks under Lenin, and then later stalin post 23 and the changes impacted on the old tsarist frontiers. Finland and Poland remain independent by geographical proximity that keeps the baltic trio independent, but Ukraine is still vulnerable to the soviet tricks of the OTL including their own lack of internal solidary and also that the soviets would just make a 'soviet ukraine' inside russia proper and keep trying to 'restore' the soviets, and of course economically the soviets have much greater reason to expend limitted resources for ideological committments in Ukraine than they do in the far east, first under trotsky and then under stalin's direction as war leader its arguably one of the few things the two agreed.

Confucianism can change, arguably Japan's neo-confucianist model and Korea for that matter (though you can argue that Korea's was probably changed and modfied as a result of contact with Japan) proved to be combatible with western theory and practice. Like what we think of as confucianism in China is really Chinese neo confucianism is from the Qing, and its built off Qing and Ming political realities and dogma. The Yuan, mongol, state managed to be effective under a confucian model and adopted innovations. Japanese modernization in the Meiji era still operated on confucian principles and continues to do so, you see this especially in the literature and you see this in the political reforms. By the time Meiji japan goes through privitization there is already a stable national government and a stable market, that doesn't exist in the Republic of China, the north and south are divided, China just doesn't have the centralized bureaucratic control to make and enforce laws and tax collection

the last shogun retires and then later on goes into the Japanese Diet thats not a viable option for Puyi, or the Imperial clan really in the republic of China by the time the dynasty collapses and I think really the chinese mised the boat with the taiping rebellion due to CiCi and her clique stifling the necessary reforms to the bureacracy and it was too little too late

 

[ATP]

I would love to write a continued Anglo-Japanese alliance especially one with the aims whereby to contain the USSR, but the problem, already identified earlier is Canada not either the Imperial General Staff, which is ironic since at present in 1920 the dominion of New Zealand and Australia are both pro Anglo-Japanese alliance, India and South Africa don't give a fuck one way or the other, having Pershing win the Republican nomination would be one way to go about thatbut thats also because Pershing is unlikely to appoint Hughes, is unlikely to support a naval treaty like washington.

Yeah the Mir system will make an appearance more in 1632, the general condition of the Russian peasantry here is in a state of dislocation, with significantly more anglo-japanese political organization being brought in as modernization, this is touched on in the 1920 segments with municipal and county organization and of course with the growing distinction between the Soviet system against the Kulaks under Lenin, and then later stalin post 23 and the changes impacted on the old tsarist frontiers. Finland and Poland remain independent by geographical proximity that keeps the baltic trio independent, but Ukraine is still vulnerable to the soviet tricks of the OTL including their own lack of internal solidary and also that the soviets would just make a 'soviet ukraine' inside russia proper and keep trying to 'restore' the soviets, and of course economically the soviets have much greater reason to expend limitted resources for ideological committments in Ukraine than they do in the far east, first under trotsky and then under stalin's direction as war leader its arguably one of the few things the two agreed.

Confucianism can change, arguably Japan's neo-confucianist model and Korea for that matter (though you can argue that Korea's was probably changed and modfied as a result of contact with Japan) proved to be combatible with western theory and practice. Like what we think of as confucianism in China is really Chinese neo confucianism is from the Qing, and its built off Qing and Ming political realities and dogma. The Yuan, mongol, state managed to be effective under a confucian model and adopted innovations. Japanese modernization in the Meiji era still operated on confucian principles and continues to do so, you see this especially in the literature and you see this in the political reforms. By the time Meiji japan goes through privitization there is already a stable national government and a stable market, that doesn't exist in the Republic of China, the north and south are divided, China just doesn't have the centralized bureaucratic control to make and enforce laws and tax collection

the last shogun retires and then later on goes into the Japanese Diet thats not a viable option for Puyi, or the Imperial clan really in the republic of China by the time the dynasty collapses and I think really the chinese mised the boat with the taiping rebellion due to CiCi and her clique stifling the necessary reforms to the bureacracy and it was too little too late

Click to shrink...

Indeed,pity that Japan-England alliance could not stand - to be honest,it was last chance for England to keep their imperial status quo.Japan would not question their colonies,which USA later did.Well,Hitler offered the same,but he was mad genocider.

Mir fucked Russia - and,ironically,it was considered as old russian law by russian nationalists in 19th century,when in reality it was mongol system made to tax people more easily/they simply take money from entire mir,and then mir decided who gave what/
Soviets would not let ukraine go,and,becised,ukrainians were divided - and,most of them do not considered themselves as ukrainians.
Poland take Kiev for ukrainians in 1920 and expected for volunteers,but almost nobody come and we must retreat from soviets.

Compare to that,when soviets were near Warsaw in 1920,all able bodied christian males go to army on their own free will.

Confucianism - you are right,japaneese version could adopt,it was rather Quing dynasty fault.
And,taiping war,too.I remember some AT story where as a result of that war we have 2 China fighting each other,and each of them manage to modernize.Forget title,as usual,but - it could happened.
It seems,that sometimes better do not win,becouse if Quing lost part of territory and modernize,they would rule their part of China till our times.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1920 Prologue
The phone rang; loudly. It was dark outside still, and it was cold. Allen swung his feet off the bed and got up to answer... if they were calling the house most likely someone had already sent a car ahead, and given the hour there wouldn't be much time.

As he walked he considered what might have been the prompting for it... the phone call in the middle of the night. He stifled the yawn and coughed into the receiver, "What is it?" He asked. The voice on the other end answered. It was a man's voice a staff officer too young to properly shave, and he was excited... probably for having something to do after being stuck with the late night shift.

Allen scribbled on the pad against the electric lamp's glare.

Then read the numbers back.

The authorization tracked. The train was approved, it had to have been for its contents to come down and cross the border... which meant Waite had approved it. So naturally his next question was if anyone had rang him. Thus far the other operator was waiting for the other end to actually find him.

"Who's onboard the train?" He asked finally. "I see." He got off the phone got dressed and waited outside for the car that was coming, resigned that he most likely miss the morning run. An hour later as four in the morning approached he was sitting in his office cradling the office phone. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"We let them cross the border in November after Omsk fell, and once I was sure that the border with Kirghiz was locked down I made the decision that Kolchak had fucked the situation pretty good. The British wanted the Czechs to go on to Irkutsk, and I have them an alternate option." Waite replied over the phone, "I think you'll understand why I did shortly."

Iseburo's defenses at Irkutsk had pulled the Red Cavalry in and in combination with the schneiders Yamagata's heir had dug in along with no shortage of machine guns, mixes of Lewis guns and Maxims, and Vickers, he had hewed them down but good. It had been work predominantly done by elements of the 12th​ Division of the IJA.

Not Russians, and Iseburo had not allowed a close order pursuit. He had driven the Bolsheviks off, and settled back to see if they would make a second attempt.

That should have reassured Graves, it should have mollified him, but instead Graves had complained about the Japanese use of force It was absurd. Still Grave's foot stamping aside Allen had cabled that it was as fine of a christmas gift as he could imagine given the season. "What about the other troops?"

"They're all here." Waite had never liked the Admiral to begin with, and had probably been undermining his authority anyway, but his actual objective had been to pull troops as many troops and civilians out of Omsk as could be cleared onto the trains before the city had fallen... and then tear the whole railway down to the basics and fortify the border as more or less had been consensus. "And I've promised them passage to harbors where they can take a boat ride back to Europe if that's what they want."

It wasn't just the czechs, though they would certainly be what the state department would care about. It was czechs, slovaks, romanians poles, and probably others. "Have you now?" Allen kept the question short, but the British were going to be pissed.

"We've come to an agreement." He replied cryptically, "I'll call you in the afternoon."

Bill looked at him, and put his own headset down, "He's on a damned train." That much was obvious. It was no wonder it had taken the Transoxiana office hadn't been able to connect immediately. "The whole Legion you think?"

"We're supposed to talk to the state department." The British had wanted the legion to go to Irkutsk to shore up Kolchak, and Kolchak must have upset the Cezechs, generically, again, so they'd gone south instead, maybe Waite had already been talking to them anyway, but regardless it was now apparent that Waite was shipping the legion out of 'South Russia'.

"Well we're what twelve hours ahead of them, call them now."

He knew that... which was also something Waite had probably known. They needed to ring Lansing and figure out what to do about have two or three divisions of the legion on their doorstep.
--
Lansing leapt at the opportunity. It was obvious that with Wilson an invalid that the opportunity to 'succeed', to accomplish the mission must have been of great political value... repatriation of at least half a dozen nations wouldn't .... hopefully wouldn't be their problem. From the sound of it Lansing wanted them shipped to San Francisco and from there put on a train to New York.

... which as quick as that answer had been suggested that the State Department had drawn up plans to handle evacuating the legion months ago, but the pressure to keep them on the front had meant they hadn't needed to be acted upon.

"We're going to need to be there."

"Where?" He asked to bill's statement.

"Tietsin,"

He grunted. Yeah, that was probably true... he'd been evading the legation with excuses... when Akashi had died he hadn't had a choice he had to make an appearance at the funeral, but the Japanese presence had dissuaded Jordan from complaining. "Waite is playing this awful tight to his chest."

"I noticed that, he could have told." Told them sooner, "They have to have been there a month at least."

Because of the need to handle the Australians and the workers, and their own battalions and the Cossack population... and the growing russian population fleeing the bolshevik front. Housing construction had been handled by the corp of engineers... most likely Waite hadn't needed to requisition anything unusual. Millions were fleeing the war what was there to say in a report of I need x beans, and y canned meat, and such.

So the question became what else was going on. "You think its the Brits?"

"I reckon," The texan drawled, "The cable from Irkutsk wanted them to join with Iseburo right,"

"The plan for the whites was to pull back to Irkutsk," Which meant Waite had probably had shipped them the other way, why? It would upset the brits, "The red cavalry smashed its face into Iseburo's fortifications, pretty well. "its said they suffered rates of losses of men and horse comparable to Cedar Mountain, more than half the force scythed down by the red legs before they could make it to the bayonets."

"The infantry officers must be smarting." Bill replied draining his own mug of coffee. "Still better they were prepared for it, I'd never thought Id see horsemen charge prepared infantry, and yet that's what we see."

"When the enemy is making a mistake don't correct them. So the Legion?" He said redirecting to the subject, "We need to talk to the British too, I suppose."

"How do they not know?" Bill had refilled his coffee from the carafe, "We strung the wires," For telegraph and telephone, "But that doesn't stop them from using them, there is no way they shouldn't know."

"The British mission in Irkutsk must not be talking to the one in the south." At least not regularly. "I wonder if the Australians are in on it,"

"Ya think?"

He shrugged, "Alright so we've got a bunch of mouths to feed, I think we should stand first division to those Honglan engines he's got," their model 1917 heavy locomotives, "having to be pulling something more than passenger cars."

"The legion has artillery, machine guns."

That was true, and that could have been it. Waite might have kept things hushed and clandestine like to avoid John Jordan complaining if they took possession of the legions weapons.

--
Notes: this has been a long way coming, and was originally foreshadowed with the original conclusion to the Romanof rescue back in the misc thread. This opens 1920, andthis and 1921 really mark the turning point with the beginning of hte years of high warlordism even though '21 in its present format is likely going to be shorter, a lot of the important financial stuff occurs in 1920, and in 21 much of the important events occur internationally, or are reactions in the coastal cities to events abroad and their repercussions leading to problems. In no small part this is the ZHili-Fengtien war but also Zhang Tsolin loaning the central government a couple million, which really starts Zhang into the throwing good money after bad, and gets him involved in the military cycle which ultimately bankrupts Manchuria historically

ANyway, this update is largely a result of last minute holiday shuffling,

 

[ATP]

Dunno about romanians,but Poland had one dyvision there,more then 10.000 troops with artillery and HMG.In OTL they were fighting as rearguard,but czech betrayed them and destroyed rails so they could not escape.One battalion manage to go through forests to Allies,rest surrender - and even survived prisons and go to Poland.

Here,entire division would go to Poland - but,since we win anyway,it change notching.

Czech was real bastards - they also gave soviets not only Kolczak,but also russian civilians,including womans who was their lovers.Well,here it would not happen.

You would get many settlers,including russian engineers here - they were really good.And artillery officer - i read book wrote by general Dowbór-Muścicki,who served in tsar army,and according to him russian army had officers capable of coordinating fire and hitting targets out of sight,which was not always true for A-H artillery.

P.S Except guns and HMG,you should also get some planes,armored cars,armored trains,and maybe even 406mm or 305mm rail gun.There was at least one there,dunno how long it survived.

That aside - it is little late,but - Merry Christmas !

 

[Imperator Pax]

Prologue 1920
It had been apparent when they'd first set up the development corporation in western Zhili with Yuan Shikai's invitation that just too few people were literate. Not in Chinese, not in English. It had been the same in Mexico, and parts of old Spain's empire and it was still true, the language of the railroad was English. With less than ten percent literacy... it was obvious... it was still obvious given the condition of the rural peasantry living conditions... but merely acknolwedging it in writing wouldn't fix that.

It wasn't that the Chinese disliked books, or letters or any of that... the schools just weren't there, and a man needed to be able to do more than just write the characters for his name. Five years of primary schooling... a sixth year starting in the fall six to coincide with the start of the storm in Europe that had torn the old empires asunder.

Augustus, and his brothers, would get a full twelve years of school, then the boys would go to college. There would be other boys who would go to college too, but his focus was for the moment on all the things that were coming together. Education had to be compulsory. It had to teach math, and science, there had be to be an understanding of the numbers that governed the world around them.

The factories brought second and third sons in from the countryside. Fear of bandits had brought whole families. Housing had been tight, so that had to be accounted for. Without the examination system for magistrates education in the countryside became controversial. If a man could leave his father's farm and earn a living wage in the city he could support a family earlier than trying to scratch at the ground on a small plot of land.

In 1914 in just Zhili that had been one thing. The factories had been limited six years ago. Railway workers had been more varied... but he was also thinking about coal. Before they had come, coal mining had been different and unchanged from how it had been for centuries. It was season work, part timers largely in the down seasons, or miners rushing to meet demand at market for the cold months especially.

That had changed with the corporation in Zhili. One part was hourly work schedules, clocks and what not but it was also that it was no longer about just furnishing coal for heating and cooking at home. It was about all the other things a modern society did with coal. Coal mining became all year around and on a schedule that was the same. That had meant introducing of capital machinery to expand coal mining, engines, pumps, lights, pneumatic hammers, the list went on.

So even before the factories had really begun to grow the miners had been taking hourly wages. It was hard work, even with pumps and dynamite it was hard but they could work it year around and support a family, and that was different than just part time splitting it between working a small plot scratching away at depleted soil.

These were the things that would enter books. In fifty years people would look back and talk about the generation and see the population growth and they'd make the connection. That as people moved into town it created demand for various goods that otherwise had less of a market in a more rural community. A demand for commodities and for housing, and for entertainment.

The population boom after the end of world war one as it was to be known in later history was to be remembered as the generation that would fight the second sino Japanese war. That was a misnomer of sorts, but it was the popular memory would think of them as, as the generation born in the north who would forge Chinese unification.

That was not what Allen considered, or contemplated... even if the British would insist that of course they had been right in projecting the course of Chinese Unification after the fact. Allen did not appreciate the comparisons that were made to the emerging government of Xian, and Prussia... but of course in the present day, in January of 1920 the western provinces didn't think of themselves as independent.

The whole process of a constitution was to modernize, and establish laws, and procedures for the provinces not to declare independence from Peking.

The constitution which in its first article enshrined a legal recognition of racial equality. What was effectively a boilerplate homage to the constitution of the states, and just to facilitate a reiteration that all persons regardless were enjoined equal protection under the law... but Wilson had rejected, and not just the Virginian, a Japanese proposal in similar language to such for his stupid league of nations idea.

--
He watched the bright red engine steam ahead. The Model 1917 engine had been built last year and was a standard enough design. It was coal fired, even though he did believe that diesel would supersede that in the near future... but they had a lot of coal.

That was the point. It was available. Bill was bringing oil fields in Shensi to where they could sell at market was at an important stage, but it had been more profitable to sell that production to Britain and Japan than to rush forward trying to replace every engine and get them off coal. It didn't make sense to get off coal when there had been, and still was an engine shortage.

"We should convene the cadre regardless of what this is." Allen didn't get any objections to the statement.

"There is an upcoming meeting anyway."

The provincial constitution had only just come into effect the first of the month. First elections to the lower house would convene this fall, and that would provide popular representation to provide input to the matters of government. Much as it annoyed him, it would have been appropriate to call it a house of burgesses, even Percy had made that observation given the likely constituency of who would be elected to the body.

The brakes started to sound as the whistle fired... and the big engine started to slow.

"Did you get a response from Iseburo?" Bill questioned

"He says his government would have let the Czechs through, but he already doesn't like the admiral so he'd have probably given them a train ride to Vladivostok anyway." From the sound of it, even with this... 'green ukraine' thing the British and Japanese were talking about as existing the Japanese certainly didn't seem like they were going to leave Vladivostok.... and not the railways to be sure... which was Graves's complaint to the Legation, and the state department, and to Washington... but there was no way to even know if Graves's telegram was actually reaching Wilson.

Sam shoved his hands in his jacket, "You know George is next in the rotation to go to England, we can't spare you," Nor could they spare him, Griswold, for that matter, they probably couldn't really spare Bill but he was officially in the line up... if only because of the chance of sending someone state side.

The Texan frowned, "I don't think George is on this trains boys, and I can already reckon Shellman and the rest of the docs are going to be cursing up a storm."
--
Notes: the reason this prologue is three parts besides other than that's how I typically structure things, this being about just shy of five thousand words in its first draft. Is that its to imply the logistical burden involved in the moving of men and materiel. Again that's also the implication of the reference to crimean war in the conclusion of the prologue but armies in WW1 due to how explosively fast the armies grew overtaxed railways that were never intended for armies of that size.

... and of course looking forward, Xian's construction at the end of WW1 of an overland train route across the old silk road, opens a path for Lend Lease. Now in early 1920 there isn't yet a link to Bukhara, never mind Tehran, especially since the Trans oxiana line is operated commercially in an independent white russian successor state in central asia, not as part of Xian. It does however reach Tashkent, and Samarkand by this point, and it will reach Buhkara by the year's end. Tashkent and Samarkand to either Afghanistan or more likely Tehran facilitates a link into the Persian gulf overland and thus trade that isn't dependent on pacific port for either Xian and more practically for South White Russia (which later on is plus because don't have to deal with the other warlords, or the KMT or later Japan).

This benefits obvious in the interwar years Russian successor state industrially, financially economically, so forth and so on, and in the long term Iran was a major lend lease entreport so Xian isn't dependent on the himalayan hump or the indochina route even in 38.