July 1921
The summer air prompted the running of the fan up above, but it wasn't by any means unbearable, it was really a dry day.
He didn't pay much more mind to the conference plans for November in Washington. They were quickly overshadowed as summer mounted in front of them and hostilities flared along the southern border, as szechwan exploded into seasonal violence.
It was just the way the agrarian village bled off steam... it was just bleeding in this case was all too literal. "We should be grateful that its such a disorganized rabble." Not some levee en masse, by the week of the 11th, sotwo weeks earlier, several, perhaps up to a dozen farming villages had put approximately several thousand total troops in the field. They had known that two weeks back, "They have spears and kropatchecks," Admittedly with actual cavalry, ahorse, actions being fought in the south that was only a mild surprise, but the problem were the numbers of illiterate village boys clogging the roads.
He disliked the images of the talismans taken after the fighting had been done. "They're not boxers."
"No, well in that they think that these will help stop bullets, but for the most part that's where the similarities end."
That was on some level, Allen supposed, reassuring as his fingers moved over the images. Calling them kropatchek was perhaps overstating it. They were tubular fed rifles along those lines, but they were of local manufacture, common enough in Szechwan since the end of the previous century. They were black powder rifles which was another reason for the label. It was simply the vernacular
In Joseon ... a decade and a half earlier the 'Righteous Army', really 'armies' would have been more accurate given the variety in leadership, had hand built single shot rifles on European lines or like the Trapdoor Springfields when they couldn't secure more modern Japanese, Russian, British, French or American rifles through foreign sources. It was in that sense the same. The spears and the rifles were a matter of supply... which was of course why, "Did we get a count?"
"Somewhere north of twelve hundred." Waite replied, "We left plenty of them on the field before the battery came on, and they broke and ran." As the artillery come along to sweep aside the numbers.
Allen turned to look at the silent assembly of other officers standing back from the table waiting, waiting. "And our losses?"
"Forty five dead, 109 were wounded in the action." He scowled, but didn't speak and Waite continued, "Four lieutenants are dead, one captain, it happened fast. Too close to the action" The NCOs had done their jobs though, not that theofficers hadn't... the men who were dead had died at the front of the fighting... and besides that the battery had mostly needed to be called to put fires down range.
"My concern is why they allowed the rabble to get that close in the first place." From his understanding of the report the old ... frankly probably originally Song era road post had been seeing plenty of civilian traffic, but it was still the summer, some degree of trouble with just civilians getting disorderly should have been expected.
"I agree with you, but 5th was only supposed to be filling in for the 8th and they hardly expected real trouble to come over. Probably didn't realize what they were looking at, not really. They weren't clear on whether or not they were supposed to fire , and like you say the rabble got close enough to catch men in the open... and the shooting started at about two hundred yards," Easy killing distance for men used to firing a rifle, which was why casualties were what they were.
5th Infantry Division was supposed to be getting summer practice soldiering... well in this case, this battalion anyway had gotten practice soldiering. "Did we take prisoners?"
"Of course."
"I want to know what villages they're from," He growled, "Get Cullen and then I want his aerial photography done of those villages, and then I want it left to Shang to decide what his division does with that information..."He paused, and then took a breath. A part of him wanted to snarl and spit threats, to send cables over the lines into Szechwan, threatening to rip and tear, but that wouldn't have set a good example, much as he could tell there were other men wanting to do the same, "What do we know about what's going on in Szechwan, and what is little Ma doing right now?"
"The 6th Brigade is still rearming and retraining, ideally they need another month or two even." That was a compromise sing Hongkui really did need to reorganize and rebuild to standard, folding the Gansu majority Hui unit into the ranks had entailed a lot of other work. Organizationally the Brigade would be subordinate to 3rdDivision and in turn would take its equipment cues from the 'Mountain' troops, hence new issue carbines or universal short rifles going out, and pack guns, "Working back from that the province is a mess we're not sure would be the accurate answer."
... it was however the honest. Things in Szechwan were simply to opaque and confused to often make sense of until after the fact. There were too many local strongmen. "I would like what we have for the moment." He replied Szechwan was a confused mess, and it had been getting worse over the last few years... the explosion of summer violence was not unusual except in its volume, and frankly even that was more of a facet of just how many people lived in the province... and potentially if the drought was effecting them.
The various local strongmen had no unifying organization between them. Some were Yunananese aligned, some supported the southern doctor, and some were just local chieftains.. and they all were horse trading amongst themselves for leverage despite any political statements they might make for the papers and the masses. That had been best demonstrated last year when Lu had been forced to tuck his tail and run for Shanghai after an erstwhile ally had switched sides...
Liu the ally in question was probably not responsible for their current scrap... unless one wanted to lay the blame for his fighting for the problem. More likely Liu's inability to exercise control over his outlying villages except by sending foraging 'tax collectors' to the villages was only part of the issue.
That certainly must have contributed, Allen felt, but it also wasn't his particular concern. What had nothing to do with the actual violence were Sun's preening from Canton. He had, Sun had, issued a statement earlier in the month, and indeed a second one back the previous Saturday morning, but the truth was it was irrelevant preening to readers in coastal cities, to people who read urban papers, and to financial supporters predominantly abroad. It was part of Sun's usual playbook... it was a familiar tactic that reminded him of the 'second revolution'...
Sun choosing to reject the Peking government was a nothing. For all intents and purposes the southern provinces, like Canton, never mind Yunnan had done that years ago. They were independent in the ways that mattered from Peking Sun had had several 'independent' governments several times now make similar statements... so did it have any influence on what was going on in rural Szechwan... no probably not.
--
July was proving dry, he had reports that hoped that in a month or so they would get lucky and the spell would break and that come September so would the rains... but the meteorological folks were worried about the smaller less complex...the more traditional farms... and drought. That wasn't the news he wanted to hear, but he had to listen even if famine was not a concern. They would do as they had planned to do and purchase grain from mid west farms through connections stateside, and they had emergency granaries... and the farms in the north of the province had been cultivating potatoes, and with the war over they'd been able to proceed with greater mechanization of the consolidated cadre venture in farming.. Well, that would help, but buying back in the states would let them backfill the grain stocks.
The lower house would be putting in a committee to take a survey, but that ran head long into the lack of good information for an almanac they just didn't have sufficient back details for rainfall per annum. They obviously had to start somewhere, but it this time last year the House hadn't even been elected.
With summer here though and the lack of rain still being a problem, the lower house clearly needed to respond to the issue. "The war is over. We'll be able to buy grain from the states." Buy it and have it shipped over without worrying.
"I know that." Allen replied still looking out the window. It was just money after all, and the real issue had always been distribution. The money wasn't an issue it was distribution of the food, "We'll have to call the guard up and mobilize for food distribution if it comes to it." It would keep the peace... that was really one of the things that kept the peace after Bai Lang, being that the army had enough discipline to get rid of the bandits, and well the provincial militia's in Kansu had started going over the border at bandits further afield.
"I thought you wanted the 8th filling out the Bashan."
"I did, I don't like having a bunch of reservists jumped on the border, but the reality is the 5th is better used handing out supplies of grain and food and deterring bread riots than anything." Waite nodded accepting the explanation.
They were looking at this from a variety of ways. Bread riots were not necessarily a given of course, they were sort of a worst case scenario. The bigger issue was any kind of panic and a run on the markets. The idea was if it came to it they'd open the emergency grain stocks to keep food prices low... if they had to they'd implement rationing.
Company workers and their families, especially the ones who lived in campus... in company provided housing... would already have access to company provided meals. Children frankly wouldn't be an issue they could be fed through schools since education was compulsory as well. All features and options for distribution that wouldn't require troops.
"You're suggesting Jun's family?"
"Not just them, but yeah your inlaws, and Cullen's half siblings and their clan. Bring them along, and frankly... to be honest. We just appointed," Hadn't just, but relative to the changes, "Shang general, hell his family, his brothers, his daddy, frankly his in laws I imagine, and his mother's kin." Waite railed off.
He was right. Colonels commanded regiments. This was not the war between the states with Colonels heading brigades. Generals were appointments and there were brigadier generals, one stars, commanding the Brigades, but division commands were limited and far between, and three stars were administrators on paper more than usually field commanders. With the responsibility of the arsenals they were too necessary... but what was on paper was sometime contradicted by the reality of this chaotic epoch.
"There is also the conference to consider." He added. "The House has certain responsibilities yes, but even if it didn't I'd say we should included. We do a lot of work, and it bares to mind that we have men from Austria, Germany, Russia, and elsewhere, and more than that we have business interests all over the world as well..."
Allen nodded. It wasn't just Powell. There were benefits to pushing out designs and equipment to those who were interested in them. Finns, and Poles, and Czechs were only part of it, but also the possibility of selling arms in South America had come up as well Powell hoped that foreign sales would stimulate a domestic arms industry in Guatemala especially as tensions seemed to be increasing. "Isn't the first one the air meeting?" A meeting that was generally assumed to be dependent on aircraft engines.. but there were other things. There were a lot of engineers who had come over, and given the economic down turn and rapid downsizing of the war industries more were likely.
That was the consensus of the Cadre, here and abroad and supporters. Cynical, or not, the consensus stood that all this talk of peace was nonsense. This rapid demobilization was a mistake for economic reasons. That war perhaps might be avoided between the great powers for a decade, but maybe not. The agreement to divide up the empire of the pasha's between France and England might well lead to a repeat of the boer wars... war was inevitable and likely.
... and regardless of what was being said right now, as soon as another great conflict started he assumed that the previous lessons of the war would come to the fore and the belligerents would go rushing for foreign supplies to fill their stocks for a war.
--
Notes: Now is as good of a time as any to talk about Fiscal Policy and how it structures over the really thenext decade. Xian by this point has begun collecting taxes,implementing tax reform, this is part of the reason the house of representative and provincial constitutions are important. To stepback for a minute, Duan Qirui's modification of / expansion of therelationship that goes back Yuan Shikai in Zhili, is that its stillbased off of Qing and Ming and pre republican China behaviors and relationships. This has a basic in the warlord this happened just noton the scale of multiple provinces.
But Duan basically goes 'hey pay me(the Beiyang Government) a lump sum every year, and you canadminister the province however you want'; its classical Tax Farming.There is a reason the British are uncomfortable about makingcomparison to the the East India Company because its on the nose.
Now, besides taxes there are two otherfactors in financial policy terms. The first is obviously that thecadre controls basically all heavy industry and WW1 meant a massiveexport boom this isn't quite export oriented industrialization. Italso in terms of effects has similarities to import substitution bothas a direct result and as a knock on effect to how productionorients. Firstly of course there isn't a choice in terms of having toswitch to domestic production WW1 happens, and then the Wilsongovernment (in the US) imposes war time controls.
Now historically this removed European,and then later American capital, and also actually reduced JapaneseCapital inflow, Japan became a creditor nation, but it allowedChinese exports to Europe and Japan to be competitive particularcoastal textiles. Historically China's chemical and metalurgicalindustry just couldn't meet demands of the market, the Entente boughtchinese goods, but here its on a much larger basis due to avaialblesupply. This feeds into growing the cadre's already expanding steelindustry (It made sense to reduce imports from the US anyway, butintegration is just as important to business management) so nowthey're exporting during the war while still expanding (particular inthe form of housing expansion in the cities, but also in railwayexpansion).
Then of course here there is the recentLegion evacuation, and the monetary side of that. The gold predatesthe constitution. Its under cadre fiscal control, and the cadre isvery inclined to sitting on that as leverage and emergency currencyreserve which also allows them to spend foreign currency (pounds orUSD) on the market they would have otherwise wanted to keep inreserve. Thus in practice the cadre has access to its own sources offunding for the government beyond taxes, which is part of why theHouse is there. Is it a check on expenditures yes, in bothdirections, but its not quite the same system as in the USconstitutional system.
But again another factor in fiscalpolicy is again a product of WW1, Wilson overuled the Treasurydepartment to continue to extend loans to the French, over treasury'sobjection that the French were insolvent and that it wasn't a goodidea fiscally. What Wilson did not overrule them on, is that thatsame year, is that the Treasury department stated that State loansshould not be made to China in present fiscal conditions. This isimportant, because post war there were reservations due to theTreasury saying we shouldn't extend loans because instability thateffected privated lendor confidence. All of that will play a factor,in conjunction with other finacial factors and political factors asthe Large Warlord era states begin to solidify over the course of thetwenties.
