Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

5 July 1917
He grinned taking the steps two at a time. They were going up the stairs not down, and they no longer had the element of surprise. If he had to go through any doors, he'd slow down, and and come across but going down stairs was always easier than up. He'd already pushed another enfield style magazine into the remington's magwell, and the hunt was on.

The blood was up, and they were in it. Chances were Cole was in the fight as well. They had emplaced the men across the street close enough that with glass they could still make out faces, and thus the distinctions of men's uniforms. From the number of rounds fired since the shooting had started though the major in charge of the detachment must have decided he could best secure the objectives by going ahead and eliminating the drinkers on the second floor gallery while they were stupered.

So that left the question whether or not the leg infantry was pushing to the doors of either wing to start coming in behind them. They had figured that the best plan was to pull everyone out of the school if things went loud because if someone started a fire it was scarcely imaginable that they'd get the school cleared of a few hundred students and the staff in time otherwise.

The upper floor's landing was already a mess though, "Down," He shouted in English, rattling the basic command in imperative north chinese dialects. A gray uninformed man with epaulets didn't listen and took the business from the corporal's browning that painted the wall behind him a too red scarlet. The shotgun gave twice more in the hall's confines at men with 88s even as the corporal took over issuing commands to comply.

From the sound of it Cole was at the opposite landing engaging mixed pistol and rifle fire. The lieutenant in his own squad looked wide eyed, "From the number of officers there must be a whole company here, sir."

He shook his head as they stopped at a corner, "I don't think so lieutenant," The hadn't been seeing the right number of NCOs, or rather it seemed likely given what they were encountering lieutenants who were serving in roles that sergeants should have been in... because so far he wasn't seeing sergeants... but this was also a mix, "I think this is a mix of cavalry and infantry men, not a whole unit." A number of them men they'd had to shoot wore cavalry boots in distinction to their leg infantry counter parts.

Allen followed the look back to the stairs they'd come up. "Reinforcements are entering." The Lieutenant observed. Cole's gendarmes were probably coming up the other side as well.

"If there is a company in here, then we'll find out." But it seemed unlikely. Allen pushed the corner rifle slightly above his hip and high as he forced his vision to keep from narrowing to pin pricks as he found another riflemen. At about the same time he fired another Remington barked catching the man in the torso. The two shots pushing the soldier over the bannister and sending the rifle tumbling when it hit the ground the stock broke chipping a long sliver of the toe.

There were too many doors to cover though, and too many people rushing out of various rooms forcing him to call a halt before they pushed any further. The men outside with scoped rifles had stopped firing, suggesting either they'd cleared the gallery or any remainder had had the good sense to keep their heads down, and stay away from the windows. They certainly weren't attempting to return fire... but that raised the question of whether whatever rifles they had, were they pointed at the opposite side. Were they pointed at the doors coming into the upstairs gallery?

The doors to the gallery were big. That was a plus, and the defenders had supposedly been in varying states of intoxication when Percy had come out... Allen spared a look down at the receiver of the Remington, he wished there was a hand sign for reload, the closest was the command to make ready.... which was something of a nice catch all, but catch alls lead to confusion. The other option was to chain instructions passing man to man in the formation.

Entirely different than the sort of fighting that had characterized the July Action thus far. Then again these were not the line service riflemen either. He reiterated the make ready sign taking the partially empty magazine out, and putting in another of Griswold's ten rounders.

--
They had to break down more than one set of doors to clear the upper storey. A couple of college age students had been hogtied in a broom closet with their heads shaved recently, but overall not much worse for the wear. Contingent on the expectation that the troops securing the lower floor, and the men on the train cars and rooftops would keep the exterior windows cover the mix of gray and black uniform troops cleared the rest of the upper story.

"Leave the biggest one for last." He nodded at Cole's remark. The majority of Cullen's troopers were carrying Winchester 351 rifles, Cole was carrying a Griswold modified Remington. "If this is how fighting is going to be brother john this is going to be a problem." The Remingtons had been expensive guns to import, though as part of the deal inked in 1914 FN in exchange for cash they had the technical documents to produce them... but they'd already been doing that before... but the expense still existed in manufacturing.

Allen nodded, and turned to an infantry officer, "Signal that we're about to breach." that would let the rifles glassing the gallery know. He numbered off short sections that would push in, front, left right and then the aid contingent carrying the rear as Cullen did the same for the other door.

Once they were through the big doors they could push to corners and walls and funnel more riflemen in from reinforcing troops but those men would have full length bolt actions. Too long to be appropriate for the confines of building fighting.

He signaled ready, and the gesture was returned. The doors crashed opened within seconds and as a throng the demi platoon opened fire. A couple of defenders attempted to stand and either took frontal fire, or took rounds into their backs from the outside of the building.

In twenty seconds it was done. The gallery smelled of piss, shit, and vomit.

"What a pig sty." Cole grunted one of several who were making similar observations. A sergeant told the enlisted to shut up, and get moving before moving to body check a civilian attire westerner from coming forward.

"Mr Bohannon, Mr Forrest. I had thought that was Mr Graves earlier."

The sergeant grimaced., a gesture that Allen would have been happy to mirror, "Its fine get the rest of these boys out of here." They'd put together a grave detail to collect the dead from Zhang Xun for transport to the field cemetery outside of town. "And let Percy come in," He was chomping at the bit, and it made sense to just wait for the englishman.

That left them to wait and let the schoolteacher natter away. Allen had begun to tune him out as soon as the conversation turned to the school's literature curriculum, but the greasy, combed over, haired man started asking question. "I mean you have schools."

"We went to west point, it has a liberal arts department. I studied language and mathematics." The southerner neglected to mention that while Natural Philosophy had been on the campus it had been ignored in favor of the tactile pursuits of how to build... or explode... a bridge. He wondered if Congress would graduate next year's class early to contend with the European war... he'd heard already that there were predicted officer shortages and that new methods were to be tried.

The philosopher nodded, "and I am sure that must greatly impact your own curriculums. After all," He shakily chuckled, "One does teach what one knows."

"John Allen, ah jolly good." Percy made a show of checking his pocket watch, "You went in with great Elan, I should say. Nakamichi seems to think there is some problem effecting the running gears of Manchuria's railway, it came over the cable. The railway is about borrowing some kind of tension adjustment tool for them." Percy carried on in a tide of nonsensical jargon, as Nakamichi slunk quietly into the room.

Cole elbowed him and leaned over, "You think that call he placed to Korea."

"Was to Isaburo?" He was skeptical, "Maybe but."

"You don't think so?"

"Isaburo isn't the kind of man to suggest scuttling the trains," It was possible of course, but. "Whatever the case if those trains aren't running, that's fifteen thousand modern troops stuck too far north to do anything." It was always possible whoever was in charge of the south manchuria had put two and two together to get four and knew if they let the oil out of the bottle the lack of lubrication would mean the trains wouldn't be going very far.

Percy cleared his throat, "Gentlemen, give all the fuss, if you might join us all for an early tea time."
--
Notes: this gets us through the first portion of the Manchu Restoration. As ATL, this is more action than there actually was, for the most part none of the beiyang commanders were really that keen on actually shooting at one another and while there were small scale skirmishes Duan Qirui basically resolved things by telling Zhang he was outnumbered ten to one, and talked him down by using largely showy flash maneuvers (Duan had peking strafed by the handful of French aircraft Yuan Shikai had purchased before the war, dynamite was dropped. It did neglibile physical damage but it was a novel thing) rather than any real meatgrinding action. Zhang Xun was then basically allowed to retire, without real repercussions against his person.

Then Duan and Feng proceeded to get into an argument, but that is down the road. Anyway the July of 1917 arc still has a ways to go, Yan Xishan shows up, and there are some other matters, but the July Action here sets the precedent for a number of factors that form the institutional basis for Xian military doctrine... and why the Gendarmes [and other specialist / 'elite' elements] are really quick to adopt smgs in a couple years when those become available in numbers.

That being said the July Arc is not going to cover every day there will be a couple of time skips to account for travel, and redeployment as well as the aftermath of the attempted restoration before we move into August.

 

[Imperator Pax]

6 July 1917
The morning after was when the fatigue hit... or maybe that wasn't quite right he had slept like a rock, and the feeling was ... his limbs felt like lead. Cole was the opposite he was jittery and looked like he hadn't slept, moving hither and dither around the ranks a clamor to the next. There was much to be done, as the telegram on his desk from both the American Legation and the British one remarked... but it was good that the telegram lines to the international concession in Tiestin were intact... and that word could come through.

There was a grunt from the other end of the phone line as Sam readjusted himself in his chair, "I will leave that to you lot." The other engineer remarked referring to the breaching of the building, and there was some scratch on the other end of the line. "It sounds like you could use that thing Lewis has been kicking around."

Isaac had access to some of the material the Germans ... 'staff officer day dreams' as someone had called them through the British War Office, and the Germans had talked about the final two hundred meters, needing a weapon for it... and maybe someone was just trying to put something in front of Kaiser Bill to just catch his attention... but the idea was small, compact, automatic firepower to break through resistance. "Has he actually made any headway?"

"Not that I've heard." There was some ruffling, he must have been digging through papers, "Apparently, Lewis writes that BSA didn't forward Savage the papers to the changes to the bolt... and well he's a little invective so I won't read the exact quote."

Allen covered the receiver and glance to Cole who was fooling with the field mug, "Two fingers."

"What was that?"

"Nothing I was talking to Cullen. You were saying."

"Anyway they shrunk the action down, and well Lewis is sure that its an issue with needing more gas in the system, but also that the drum is two awkward." There was a pause, "He references that he's encountered a similar problem with the Assault Phase Rifle he's been working on."

"Has he gotten ahold of one of Federov's guns yet?" Allen interrupted.

"He doesn't say, but I doubt it." Sam huffed. "Some limey has probably considered the thing a distraction, I suppose it was too much to expect Lloyd George would have cleared out the luddites. One of them is probably not passing the 'distraction' along so as to keep things running smoothly."

"The rifle would be thirteen pounds?"

"That's what he says, I haven't had the time to make a prototype from the drawing... I'll do that once this tomfoolery is done."

"There will be time for it then, so the pistol gun?"

"Think its the dwell time, they had to speed up for the 303," And of course 3006 was too much gas in the piston and had needed to be slowed down, even with the smaller bolt it probably dind't have the energy to move right quick, "But if he could get it working well that'd solve your hallway and door kicking problem."

A problem which he had not been considering. "Where is Lewis now?"

"I have no idea, he could be in Birmingham or New York." Cole set the glass down on the table as Sam paused, "Already talks about Crozier going to Europe if you didn't hear, he's not happy, and from the sound of it neither are any of his friends in ordinance. That could be trouble down the road, if those sticks in the mud decide to try anything."

"I wish I could say I was surprised Sam, but shucks its not." It was politics.... the infighting was something that had been there for generations... it was how ordinance was, and how they probably always would be, "Its how ordinance is. We're about done done here, we're gonna swing North and look at the frontage."

"Don't rightly see the point... I mean yeah it was the plan, but if what you've been told is true Duan has the numbers now, and most of the Wu Wei corp is bottled up... did you hear Duan flew aeroplanes over Peking yesterday... they didn't do anything but I reckon it was a shocker."

"It came in over the wire at dinner from Tietsin." He replied reaching for the glass, and suppressed a yawn. "Things are stable?"

"Dawes new guns did well. Battery detered anything further. They pop up, the carriage rotates, a couple rounds go out and if they have any good sense they back up, and quick. Have a good twenty miles of visilibility, and theyve no hint of trying to steal a march at night."

Well, best hope that stayed that way. "You think they might try it."

"No, not if Duan has fifty thousand men."

They finished up the phone call, and sat there as the morning sunlight streamed in through the windows as the staff officers filed in. That was the defining factor, it wasn't just the Gendarmes, but the average age of the combined staffs was something like twenty eight. Shang was one of the oldest men in the room, though he was a full colonel in the service, and the youngest men were Lieutenants like Guan who hadn't even started to grow whiskers. "Gentlemen the particular impositions of operations within town centers creates for us a problem." He gestured to the map of the city. "We have been engaged in Zhengzhou officially for six days that has tied down a signficiant body of the divisional manpower. To the north of us, the engagement and establishment of static defenses south Baoding by the second against their opposition has kept the front largely in fixed, and limitted exchanges. Exchanges which we are in a much better position to sustain."

That opened the floor to discussion, but answer was already somewhat dangled out to the officers present. "Can the divisional corp of engineers be brought in?" The ideas was that even though obvious rifle infantry could dig breast works with their field entrenching tools it would be faster if a couple of tractors were brought in from the divisions assets ... even if that would consume fuel. The division attached unit was about a thousand men, and the only with heavy field moving equipment compared to the regimental and battalion pioneers in company, and platoon strength units.

The idea of course was to allow the staff officers to brain storm deployment formations to answer the question of how best to defend Zhengzhou in the event of any further movements. Obviously they needed a deployment that would neither force them into a sustained high tempo of operations, and would maintain unit mobility if it became necessary.

The answer was geographically determined. A southern defense line needed to be established. That presented really only a single political issue. The rail line that went directly south wasn't theirs. The line that ran down to Hankow ran to Kaifeng which raised also the questions about the status of the arsenal there... but that was a military question.

"We could divide our forces. Cross deploy units. Artillery units could remain, and Gendarmes units could remain in reserve against any push again defensive works." The Zhengzhou 'group captain', and Cullen's battalion Intelligence officer, remarked in suggestion to tying down only a portion of forces to move the others north.

Everyone on the staff understood the goal was to hold the city. There needed to be a strong enough garrison to do that Mobility required meant holding the railway.

--
"Well that still leaves the weapons that are meant for the Australians here."

"Tiestin is blocked Percy. If I leave the 1sts artillery here I'm not comfortable pushing up to Weihaiwei," Hell he wans't comfortable really pushing into the province to begin with... not without a better idea of what the devil was going on. "Besides the legation is telling everyone to remain put. The minister is afraid if we move the guns it'll cause a panic."

Exactly who it would panic was unclear... he might have been under the impression it would look like England was going to turn the weapons over to one side or the other... or that Duan or Zhang might just assume that or that the other side was going to try and steal them... but whatever the case Tietsin's cable, which Percy was looking aghast at, made it clear they didn't want the weapons moved.

That might have put Percy in a problematic spot... but well that was Percy's problem.

"The weapons will be safe here." Or at least as safe as could be promised with the current fracas across the north china plain. "I doubt Zhu even knew about them being in the warehouse, he might have known we had a warehouse here, and probably could have guessed we had guns, but I don't think they were here for the warehouses."

"Then what was all this about?"

"The city." Allen replied before Cole could continue. "Zhu wanted to secure the route to Hankow so that they could mark on to Wuhan and suppress any anti monarchial sentiment. We think one of the local officers jumped the gun and started shooting at Cole's boys, and when he took return fire he went to call for reinforcements ... probably from the troops that were supposed to get on a train and go further south."

"So this whole thing was one drunken pub brawl after another. That we've been fighting for a week for what, a mistake."

"Compounded errors. They shot at us, we shot back. That was it." It was grim but that was how it was, and not much more needed to be said. "Whatever their intentions were on the first it doesn't change that once the bullets started to fly it was too late." Not that those details would ever be framed like that. Officially the story would be the Zhu's commander locally was written off as just a committed royalist who hadn't wanted to back down... that he had also been killed in action by 2nd​ Battalion's artillery and wasn't around to dispute his position in the official histories was ... well history was written by the victors.

Zhu's actions were written up to be exuberance, perhaps not actively malicious, but also avoiding any indication that the whole fight had been a comedy of, a cavalcade of mistakes regarding intentions... and of course that official recollection of events was to be the norm for how North China viewed the farcical attempt to restore the Qing dynasty. North, and even central chinese, papers would lament the unfortunate, and misguided actions that Zhang and his supporters took, but the fighting against the restoration was necessity for one reason or another... depending on the specific politics being espoused by the hundreds of different newspapers.
--
Notes: as I said in the previous segment part of what makes the July Action important is how it impacts the future part of the timeline. As to the Assault Phase Rifle, Lewis's first version was tested the previous year, he had made a second lighter version, these were interestingly 3006 guns not 303 which may have been why they were unpopular with the British establishment... but Lewis really given his grievances with Crozier and his clique within ordinance really should have considered appealing to the British first.

The Lee Enfield had been designed with a magazine capable of working rimmed 303 . it might have been better for Lewis to make a 303 gun first show it to the British and get it working before going to 3006. His development of a pistol caliber lewis gun began life as gas piston system... which wasn't ideal.

Now that isn't to say you can't make an SMG as a piston gun, but he eventually would go to a direct blowback gun but neither of these (either the LMG/Assault Phase rifle, or the SMG) were successful in part due to both political issues in the US Ordinance and of course post war (its 1919 by this point) financial draw downs and as semi automatic pistols they weren't going to be able to compete with the 1911 so trying to make one of those was also a mistake.

We reference the Federov in this segment, those will show up. It has a good magazine design, its curved it will reliably feed 6.5SR which is good... the downside is that the magazines were apparently not always interchangeable (I've read conflicting sources.... but they were also small batch of guns built intermittently so different batches probably had slight manufacturing ... basically in tolerance but that is a guess.) but Zhengzhou as a battle for a military that is only a single division is impactful. This is before Xian writes its constitution, Yan Xishan comes on to the scene in the next (or one following) segments which sets the stage for both Shensi and Shansi as provinces during the period.

Derailed somewhat by IRL events for me, I had planned to post in the misc thread the 'Necromancer's Zombie Apocalypse' project, but its not really ready but tentatively Tuesday I will be trying to update my Isekai litrpg story thread, and move into standard updates for November more broadly with Battletech resuming main timeline updates the following Sunday.

 

[Imperator Pax]

7 July 1917
They were regrouping their forces. Casualties were mild. Injuries, yes, but deaths few. Most of the enemy dead had been killed, somewhat expectedly by fires from artillery, or machine guns outside of the often lopsided routs of shock actions. Of course the latter had been a product of specific tactical conditions. There were talks about motorized ambulances of course, but that talk had been going around... just now they'd seen where that made a difference... but they were having to look beyond that regroup meant more than moving injured men to field hospitals, or further back by train, and using trains to bring them on.

The discussion about cars wasn't anything new. Motorized ambulances, and armored cars as well had seen action at the Woosung Forts, and other skirmishes even before 1913 their greater importance now and the results was in some ways to be expected.

Bill, who had drawn the short end of the stick, tossed a look over his shoulder. In this case the roles for leadership had left the large texan in command of the reserve forces. That left him at the network junction of the rails, the telephones, and telegrams looking at the broader strategic picture rather than the closer to the front tactical one. A decade ago that division of labor would have been unthinkable, but then so to would being in this situation.

The world had changed. The difference in organization reflected that. "So what do we do?"

"Its July now... Duan seems to be winning the support of the other Beiyang leadership... and from the sound of it has unified foreign recognition." Phillips, and Powell shared a look between each other. "What are you two girls fretting about?"

"You ain't wrong. He has Japan, John Jordan, and support from Washington..." There was a pause and once again the two men looked at each other, "but I think its just them." Powell finished a little quieter.

"What do you mean just them?"

"Duan, is getting loans from Japan... but I don't know if he bothered to talk to France or Russia. I can't say for sure, but both of their legations have been mum." The artillery officer remarked, "But we know he's cabled Washington, and London about reorganization loans for when this gets settled."

Allen shook his head... Duan might have been getting ahead of himself... or maybe he was hoping that he could buy Zhang off to avoid a fight if he had promises of loans to the Peking government... or he needed those loans to shore up Anhwei. "Alright, we will see how it plays, Its july I figure fighting wise once we go into September we can open new courses."

The simplest solution would be to just enlarge the previous garrison arrangement . Battalion garrison moving to Regimental Headquarters, Company headquarters becoming Battalion garrisons. "You gonna tell Nakamichi he was right?"

That they should have considered three divisions sooner... probably once the actual shooting was done. They had effectively nine Infantry Battalions. "Besides manpower," he declared ignoring the question, "Is there anything we need to do, that we could correct for in terms of readiness, anything that has stood out?"

"We were slow getting off the line. Getting the automobiles loaded, some units didn't have enough trucks, I think Waite is having shortages of tractors to haul ammo. Materiel shortage, Ammunition shortage. I mean we've engaged on paper twelve battalions?"

"That's what Percy thinks." Even if they were small battalions that that was plenty to deal with. "I don't think we'll know until there is an agreement. "So ammunition?"

"Artillery, not so much shells, but moving the shells to the guns, from the trains from the arsenals. Mortars same situation The three incher is short 'n reach, but we knew that. We could rifle them, or could make them bigger, either should work. It was an expedient design there were going to be trade offs, everyone has heard the bellyaching before."

"Its manpower but we have a shortage of medical, veterinary too, too few mechanics, too few telephone operators." They could have probably addressed that by pulling them from the reserve force, but that wasn't an ideal situation either. "I mean,"

"We could always have more machine guns." Bill remarked throwing into the conversation. "Vickers or Lewis guns, or more Madsens. The latter two are mobile enough to fire and maneuver with. Face facts boys, it don't look like the Europeans are going to stop whacking each other," The Texan drawled resting a hand on the map table, "war could go on a couple more years for as much as the lines in France have moved. So chances are we are either gonna fight another Bai Lang next year protesting whoever is in charge in Peking, or we're going to be doing this."

There were nods from around the train car, "Well the states are involved now." Powell started to protest.

"You miss the part where the French army is well and truly at risk of telling Paris to shove it up their ass?" Bill shook his head, "The french army has been repeatedly been shit out through a sausage maker... only way they're not going to break is if they get pulled off the line, and can be reconstituted. The AEF will have to fill gaps... So I don't think we'd see any big offensives yet, not"

"Especially since they'd be greenhorns." Phillips agreed, begrudgingly, "Feed them in fresh wouldn't do anything. The germans might not expect it, but the Army would get shredded the same the europeans did."

... except that Blackjack was in charge, and Pershing might well have been selected to try for a quick end to the war... whether or not the army was ready for it. "The situation in Europe will have to be let to play how it will." He said tabling the discussions out of the way, that was a conversation that had little place right here and now. "We expand."

"And we focus on our neighbors." The Texan drawled.

"I was thinking about that," He replied with a nod, "You talk to the Mas? I can see about Yan in Shansi." Bill nodded, "No telling when Cao Kun will be back though. Shensi domestically what can we do?"

"That, whole constitutional thing. It needs to be done." Powell started to protest that it was much too early for that kind of talk. Phillips shook his head, and shook his head, "No, we can't keep doing that Philip, Sam is right it was one thing when the Qing were still around, or Yuan, but we're not just in Zhili anymore, and we need to be the ones to do it."

Bill cleared his throat, "That seems a more long term solution... maybe not announcing a constitution right after there is a constitutional crisis ain't the best idea." Phillips, and Powell blinked, "Seeing as how Zhang started shooting because he'd been told one thing about the constitution," Admittedly national one, "and then they tried to do another." It wasn't quite the same ... but maybe not something to risk just yet. "What do you think we should do once the shooting slacks off, Al?"

Allen leaned forward resting a finger on the rim of the cut crystal glencairn, "We talk about farming." A couple of looks passed around the table, "We talk about farming publicly. We talk about water infrastructure." China was a rural agrarian country, and the cotton trade in the north was starting to really get underway as Japanese money rolled in to expand for textiles that were being shipped to English orders, or being sold to fill english orders for France or Russia. "Tube well irrigation," Which was nothing new to be sure, "dykes, dams, we launch a whole spiel about water management, and science. We go big, and hard, we press on it and in doing so we convey that we're not concerned about having had to roll the division along to handle this."

"Anyone who knows will know we've been talking about an electric dam," Bill remarked, "Yeah we'll look pretty even handed that way," and especially given that it would look good, responsible with the way people wanted respectable things like infrastructure put up. The Chinese put a lot of stock in farming, and in people making sure the river didn't flood and get a bunch of people killed.

Just focusing forward, "That should settle anyone overly worried." and if they started losing steel contracts next year to expanding quotas on American firms ... if this War Board thing undercut prices like the French wanted it too... then they could funnel their own production lateral anyway while they readjusted.

He picked up the glass, "And we see if Percy will put the Trans Turkestan, into Kirghiz, line into money that's worth while." He drained the scotch, and rested his hand over the glass. "I think the states are underwriting the loan, I can't see any other reason they'd go for it, not with the way he keeps bringing back to it."

"Something needs to be backed up from the Russians, and from Washington." Even though Phillips was saying that he looked close to salivating at them committing to such a project in the western frontier despite his support that they start looking at a big project in middle America... and no doubt given the expression... the gears in his head were calculating how they might be able to convince the state department to support them in Nicaragua or Guatemala. "I think we could do it, far faster than the old man managing things on the siberian."

Allen merely nodded. He'd let Phillips focus on that rather than the bloody mess of Europe... and he needed to consider how exactly he was going to approach Shansi's Dujun since he'd been quiet through the last week

--
Notes: And of course that railway, minor spoiler, won't be linked in by the time the Romanovs need rescuing since that will go along the trans siberian but it does set up for one of major foreign policy changes in the inter war years where a rump nominal white russian state exists in the south supported by the British in part because of how the early twenties play out abroad as one of the consequences of greater Japanese-British involvement with Chinese assistance in the form of manpower contributions from Zhang Tso-lin and also Xian making industrial work to Tashkent is the splitting off from Russia into a Japanese Far east, and the rump state in central asia.

I 'mnot putting that in spoilers because this has been talked about before. Certainly while that will have effects on politics it doen't really change matters within continental Europe and only becomes particularly important in and after 45 on the global stage.

This segment was going to introduce Yan Xishan, but I ended up flip flopping on that decision again, but definitely next time, which forms the basis of proto-xian's contiguous geographic clique [The Mas (the western commanderies), Yan in Shansi (Taiyuan), and then Shaanxi province (xian) itself]. Mostly this segment and the next are long term organizational ramifications that directly emerge from the attempted restoration, and their butterfly effects

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1917
Diplomacy
To be governor of Taiyuan wasn't .... precisely the most august of positions in the Qing. There was something to be said for hometown loyalty of course, and that Yan Xishan sank so much of his time trying to improve his home state, but Shansi had been a part of China... since time immemorial. Long before Shanghai, or Hong Kong had even been dreamed up, long before even rice probably it had been here the ancient northern kings had fought the Xiongnu horse lords. This wouldn't be the first time he'd come... and despite its closeness to the northern capital for centuries Taiyuan remained a sleepy provincial town.

Yan Xishan had been trying to fix that since he'd come to power in 1912. The problem like so many others had been money... and perhaps shown by the local brigade having their Maxims mounted on the carriages that more resembled those of civil war artillery pieces. John Allen suspected though that if you opened the breech the guns would at least be clean of fouling. Yan was serious, and studious about military affairs, and he had taken every lesson on modern soldiering seriously... which had included Imperial Japanese Army doctrine on the bayonet.

As the wind blew, John Allen recalled the 1893 Chicago world faire, and the sights and sounds off Washington park, the 'midway' as Herbert Spencer had called it talking about the human development. There had been a Chinese opera at the world faire.

... a year later he'd borrowed his grandfather's paper as people talked about the Japanese Navy's daring do charging forward against the larger ships of the Qing fleet. Despite the proclaimed odds, despite the talk, despite all, Japan had hit fast and hard and taken a victory that most had been skeptical they could manage. Ten years after that war Yan Xishan had been at the IJA academy, and John Allen had been in Joseon.

Allen had had received his fresh oak leaves that year to go along with observing the new war. The Russo Japanese one. That was where the problem lay, because as was somewhat normal, as Japanese sources of Yan's schooling attested, Yan had chosen to join the Tung men wei a loose, nominally secret, brotherhood with anti-manchu tendencies. Exactly how sympathetic Yan was to Sun was still up in the air... but the truth was Allen doubted they were strong ties... there just wasn't evidence for that.

The truth was that the southern doctor had failed too many times. Whether it was superstition, cynicism or some other factor, or combination of factors Sun Yat-sen simply did not have any broad popular support in the north. Yan could have made a move to support Sun several times, and hadn't so whatever had been in those years had surely atrophied in the following decade. North China by and large had simply been confronted by a movement that was all talk, and no success.

Allen had never questioned Yuan's commitment to a modern China. He wanted a modern military because that was what made the European great powers great, it was what clearly gave the Japanese the power to stand as one of the old boys in the club of world empires. If the Japanese could learn why couldn't beiyang officers learn what the IJA had learned. It was the motive that Yan had probably gone overseas to pursue.

... But Yuan Shikai was dead now and the fractures in the Beiyang were now self evidentially so ... so much more pronounced than they had seemed even just six months ago. Allen didn't know where things had fallen through, where they had started to go wrong but it had to have started sooner than all of this... this was just where things had finally catastrophically burst. The damage a flood did, was not just the rushing water, it was the damage it left behind, and what it cost to repair things as well.

That was going to cost money. Money that whoever ended up in charge of Peking wasn't going to have, and wasn't going to have the options to finance on. The south was well in arrears in terms of taxes owed, and the truth was foreign sources of loans were going to be limited given how much was tapped extended to the Europeans and their war. He suspected that Qirui didn't care, either willfully disregarding it or so damn concerned about being in charge hinged on keeping a hold on places he couldn't really afford he was going to pour good money into the fire.

After Yuan's failure to cement himself as emperor, and now this, trying to do that ... well if Duan tried it then his eyes were bigger than his stomach, and the result would be that it wouldn't matter who nominally held Peking. Whoever could hold the city wouldn't have the resources to reach much further beyond it and whatever provinces that they were in charge of... and that had been true for Yuan Shikai... but northern influence would retreat even further from the center provinces, and any chance of reestablishing Peking's influence over Mongolia would fade as well.

They needed to readjust priorities and that was why he was here. Yan was almost the model of what a Japanese Infantry Commander was thought to look like, the picturesque ideal. Stern, reserved in demeanor and with a suitably grand mustache he wouldn't have looked out of place in 1905 around a table in some field tent in Manchuria to the north.

Yan's personal chef had cooked up, and had ready, the same sort of buckwheat noodles with chili sauce and bean sprouts that took long enough to make that Yan had probably been stirring on the meeting. They'd only put the phone call in two days earlier, not a lot of time to decide on a menu or to make sure the cook could make the neighboring province's food. That was a good sign.

That Yan was willing to play into Deng's stereotype of how Shansi was a poor backwater province that probably couldn't be much use suggested that Shansi's military governor was prepared to navigate around any potential large requests. The province's main resources were coal and iron, which were the vital building blocks to modernizing in industrial terms. So Yan wasn't ignorant of his potential export market.

But he was also Chinese.so while he recognized the population he had to work with... John Allen wasn't entirely sure he understood the scope of what he had. "You have a population ten million people."

"And?" was the reply as if were stating that the sky was blue. "What does this mean?'

"New York state is about the same," Admittedly Shansi didn't have a population center quite like the big apple, its major population centers were divided across large river basins Taiyuan was one of four such sites. It was four times the population of his native Georgia, and Shansi was safe enough that its population was growing. There were less than a hundred million people living in the states and Szechwan was two thirds that or equivalent to the flagging dual monarchy of Austro Hungary.

A population that could work in factories, but no one had been willing to invest in a small interior province so Yan had been cobbling together nickels and dimes from the provincial budget to build his own. Since the state budget wasn't running much a surpluses to begin with, and in some cases was collecting taxes in the form of goods or even feudal labor Yan's process was slow and inefficient... but it was what the man had to work with.

If all of Yuan Shikai's officers had had the commendable piety and hard work of a confucian like Yan Xishan North China would have been a safer place. Not that Cao Kun wasn't jolly good, but he represented more Daoism in terms of native religious thought. Duan Qirui was a dedicated buddhist.

They weren't proposing Yan stop being governor of the province. They didn't have that kind of authority... and the truth was Peking couldn't really do more than acknowledge someone was in charge. Zhu Zhibao and Zhang Xun might be out of their soon, but Duan was ruling on consent from the other Beiyang.

"Don't you already have a hundred men?"

"Some of the older men are retiring. Some of the others are going to Middle America to start something similar to what we have there, the cadre will be optioning new membership. It'll still be a hundred men in 1920. Everyone will have one vote on projects, programs and directives."

Railways, uniforms, weapons, training, factories and tooling the manufacturing... the little machine shop used to repair and manufacture the old eighty eights could be among the first things expanded and perhaps most importantly was that with fall approaching they could provide a greater common defense against bandits both as September came, and also in the following years.

This was going to be long term. They were going to need to finish connecting Taiyuan's rail system to the towns in the north of the province, and roads supplementing them wouldn't hurt either... and the question turned to how they'd have specialists, another question of people, to do all this... and that was easier. Yan might not like it but there were experts who had migrated to dodge the draft in the states to fight in the European war, but that war wasn't going to last forever either, and when it did there were would be people who had skill sets who needed jobs who could teach.

At the end of dinner Yan reflected that he still needed time to meditate on the proposal. It was clear he didn't want to seem to eager to agree, to come to terms... and Allen wondered if old Man Ma had agreed immediately to Bill's extension of a similar offer or if he also was going to wait.
--
Notes: On the kettering CEP is about ten miles when you can get it up, which isn't a given in 1918, and really the main early interest is a combination Billy Mitchell's endorsement in 1923 (he believed that the USAAF really should have poured more money into it, especially after the British demonstrated you could control the 'aerial torpedo' with radio, which I will admit is very cool for the 1920s. Now Mitchell did have a lot of foresight in these sorts of programs but this could still take quite a while to turn into a functional ballistic or cruise missile system but its potentially one of the earliest that will yield that.

But mostly its Mitchell's enthusiasm during period writings that I think would push that kind of thing, and also if you look at GM's handling of the project this is an airframe that costs basically what a mass production car costs because functionally it is. The engines were sub contracted out to use Ford engines which makes it interesting. But it is not, and I'm not pretending it is, to be a magical solution but I think that it has long term potential to mature as a design especially post war when better engines, and bigger explosives come into play [ALso Mitchell may have let his excitement run away from, and Towers (USN) was not nearly as enthusiastic even in spite of the Navy's work in radio control systems, and I believe his solution was in fact dive bombers.]

 

[Imperator Pax]

10 July 1917
Instead of facing each other in a pitched battle there had been a handful of brief skirmishes that had entailed Beiyang, both sides, firing a handful of volleys from fixed ranks and then breaking off contact. The result was that over the last few days the Royalists had slowly ceded ground falling back to Peking as Qirui demonstrated the much larger allegedly pro republic Beiyang force that he had gathered in coalition. Casualties were sparse. There were more men falling out on the march from heat exhaustion or poor food on the way to Peking than there were wounds from battle.

In western Zhili province the situation had turned into much the same. The royalists had decided that attempting to push an offensive was undesirable. Zhu Xibao had presumably advised not to waste resources attacking fixed strongpoints and since they weren't attacking up the rail line there was little for the governor to do with his troops other than to sit in the fort to the north protecting their position.

If they had wanted to their fifteen centimeter guns could have pounded that position to ash and ruin with high explosive and incendiary but they'd held that option in reserve. Zhu wasn't attacking their position any more so the old fort could stay there and look pretty. If it gave them a false sense of security then so be it.

Allen was confident that with a static front there goals were achieved. They needed to hold the front, until Duan either secured Peking by negotiation or by force, and thus restored the status quo. That was what the British and American Legations and respective foreign services views was the best resolution to the crisis. Once things were back to normal they could ship the Australians their specialized small arms per the contract and collect the rest of the money. Business could resume normal affairs.

That didn't mean they were idle. He'd had the small collection of chaplains in early, one of the first meetings of the day. There had been a lot of talk of early rising, and moral rectitude and so forth. It was all about correct living. Men needed to be physically fit, literate, prudent, benevolent those good things that made men civilized. It had been a long meeting for one scheduled as only an hour.

It was a necessary procedure since Class B recruits had had just received their first taste of modern war looked like... and that they were going to be going further still.

He put the invoice out of the way. Requests for replacement running gears from the line up in the maritime provinces... something about having been run with an oil leak, or insufficient oil for the entire line. The invoice had come with a very insistent letter... and another one that had carried on at length in performative measure that their American supplier could fulfill because of the war in Europe having taking up the backlog. He'd seen these kinds of letters before where they'd get publicized as an excuse to halt or slow work on something.

No one ran entire line's boxes out without oil without realizing they were doing it. Allen was skeptical the north eastern line was even that damaged. That sort of self sabotage was absurd... more likely they'd pulled the oil from the oldest most warn down trains maybe even vandalized some others exteriorly and blamed someone for the misfortune and then exaggerated the damage.

That was wholly speculation on his part, but it meant that the Manchurian trains that could run south to the capital weren't. As long as that stayed this way, then maybe tomorrow, or the next day? Then this should all be over, if talks were going as well behind the scenes as they were rumored to be going.

If not... well what were a few more days? Nothing, so far as he could tell, there was talk in the south, but no action Southern China had no mobilization to speak of. Yunnan, and Szechwan were both looking more across their respective border than the capital. Canton was... well Canton. The Navy clique was making noise but their funds might last two months and then what? He was relatively certain the Fukien boys would have to put into port and ask for money for fuel

... unless they started selling off their assets or threatened to play pirate... he supposed, which was an unpleasant thought to be sure. Percy though seemed certain that all this would blow over very soon, even if he was pacing up a storm in the hotel they'd put him up in for the moment. Still that was mostly over a document published four months earlier and almost four thousand miles away as the crow flew.

... but he supposed that was because the 'argonauts of peace' might put the worm back in the Virginian's apple. There was also the young officers, the Kadets, who'd left the coalition governing in Russia as well that had come up, but it seemed all so very far away, and irrelevant with a fight on the doorstep to deal with.

Nakamichi joined him at the landing of the office, and it was a short walk to one of the large pressing machines knocking out fittings for the bodies of locomotives. "It shouldn't be an issue, if they need spares," He remarked looking at the massive hydraulic driven press coming down on a piece of partially shaped steel. It clanged, and the team working adjusted the piece into the next position for the carriage as started to look a little more like its final shape, "There is some work that needs to be done on the Trans Siberian."

"Is that right?"

"They've got an old hand coming over, but its an old line, I don't know if they've got the rolling stock, and engines for what they're talking about."

"Relieving the Russians offensive."

He wondered what Yamagata had thought about the failure, did he see the Russo-Japanese failures in it. Was that why the offensive had failed? Was it something else? Were there faults elsewhere? There were too many questions for what little they knew.

Nakamchi took the folded invoice without looking at it and put it inside his jacket. The smaller man looked at the forms taking shape inside the engine works, "will these make the gun carriers as well?"

"The machinery," the apparatus which raised and then released the hammer with its many ton of force, " is the same, the molds are different but they can be changed in the span of an afternoon to set up for making another sort of piece.

The tractors really were just tractors. Tractors really were just locomotives with bigger wheels in terms of practical operation. They needed those to operate without rails and get through muddy fields.

"So you could make, any sort of locomotive?"

"Not any, but most." He hedged, "Making the jig is hard part, that hammer will beat steel and extrude it and we can weld and rivet the body, the boiler and such if we have the measurements."

"You have shown this to Iseburo-sama?"

"Oh of course, these are old hat for locomotive manufacture in the states," Not as big as this but, there was one in Dearborn that built tractors for International, "They're part of the reason Australia and India have American locomotives rolling on Scottish railroads."

"Ah, of course. I just happened to consider it."

"These are built for our large rail gauge," Principally because their rails were cut through the hills with more dymanite, and reinforced grading that would support the wider weight, and the greater pressure from a train going faster. Faster train meant that in the straight shot east to west had in turn meant a several hour trip could be made.

It did consume more coal, but there were always trade offs. He elected not to mention the presses could knock out the frames for smaller things en masse if you had a jig... but of course that meant being sure the jig was either very exact, or you were prepared to do a lot of exact filing and lathe work... somethings worked better for one, and other.

"We can replace the gear boxes and any missing oil."

"You said so," Nakamichi paused, "Stevens, he's the old hand coming? I had heard that he was in Manchuria now."

If he was that was news to Allen. The truth was he'd lost track of the venerable old engineer in the mess of things that had come about. "Yes. I think he underestimates the condition of what he's taking on..."

Nakamichi's face belied his agreement before he could smooth it, "Yes, you're correct I think, something to speak with Akashi-sama I believe, as soon as the opportunity presents itself. This may be too daunting a task for the unprepared." Allen would later, realized he'd never been quite certain the extent of what Nakamichi had believed was going on in the summer of 1917 only that the recent offensive had certainly panicked the british, and the growing bolshevik position made the powerful genryo in Japan at least equally as nervous.

Terauchi's priority was still reapproachment with China after the previous cabinet's downfall, and would gradually shift to a policy of Bolshevik containment that would base itself in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance with a broad intent of including the United States that would unfortunately see only limited success.. but perhaps more than it might otherwise have.

In the west though the modd quickly turned to wanting a post war order and especially a 'return to normalcy'', an ability to have a collective security apparatus to maintain the peace where the bill was being footed elsewhere... and that couldn't, and didn't work... for China the narrative around the Manchu restoration of July 1917 was to blame the Germans and use it as an excuse to justify the Beiyang consensus to pressure parliament to declare war.
--
Notes: In the original configuration of this it was going to be slightly different, and part of that is this or began as a vaguely 'gaslight fantasy' moderately magical scenario, but most of that has been segregated off into its own portions, along with the broader GURPS and Destroyermen stories while this thread focuses mostly on the slow progress of state building.

Which brings us to the issue of Green Ukraine, really Ukraine to but Poland, and Finland the Baltics when they declared independence had the advantage of it being basically de facto. Green Ukraine was not this emerged as a product of how the Russian Empire had dealt with 'maligners' 'complainers' 'sedition of all sorts' during the period... and the same with Ukraine's popular national movements also had to compete with the anarchists so the British foreign (since they're principally the ones I have the most access to for this period) were very leery to provide support or recognition to the Blacks, also the British were persistently worried about German collaboration. Britain and France basically came to an accord in 1916 (Siems Picot) and when it became apparent to them that Russians had problems they came to the decision to start dividing up the Russian sphere of influence.

However once everything was said and done, after Versailles the British ran the numbers decided that without a strong US guarantee (really looking for a physical prescience, and since they had basically been the money man) to the collective security apparatus it was better to avoid a significant conflict on the continent. Chamberlain gets a lot of flak but appeasement as a strategy to prevent war was very much British policy in part because of the depression of 1920 and Irish Home rule turning into the Irish free state, there are other factors but the British conservative governments that follow simply were not going to move on continental issues.

France obviously was a little more invested, but it didn't have the resources, much as with Napoleon the first France was facing a major demographic crash and the economic problems of the war, and the war had been financed and in 1920 simply didn't have the resources and they didn't have the political unity, even the cornerstone of espoused French policy was the notion of an alliance to check Germany and that this meant an alliance with Poland.

I do hew closer mostly to the notion that Ukraine failed because of lack of foreign support. Even isolated from the Ukranian heartland by being in the far east the FSO was very leery that they were still politically suspect and of course the Anglo-Japanese alliance comes to mind. [And that goes into the weaknesses of Marshal Potato head's cabinet, the Terauchi government was not particularly stable] The reason that we're focusing on Green Ukraine, the Ukranian community in the far east at the time is because of course its closer and with the differences of how the civil is going to progress as a timeline in international relations. But with Green Ukraine, I'm referring to the settled communities of what is today the Russian Far East

 

[Imperator Pax]

10 July 1917​

The room was already a madhouse. It was hard to hear with seventy plus men crowded into the chamber with boxes everywhere. There were no secretaries, it was a cadre only and they were pressed into the space with tables which had been laid out with maps in addition rolling carts, and large book keeping blackboards with times and dates on and data transcribed from printouts.

"The legation is in a bloody twist." Someone grumbled. Reinsch was all knotted up about the situation, the bankers were complaining, and the state department regulars were a third wheel. And that was just the American side of things. There were at least three sides in the British Legation even in spite of Ed Gray finally getting sacked by Lloyd George. Then of course there was the last of the friendly nations Japan's foreign service position within the Legation had even more internal cliques the army the navy, divisions within each, provincial loyalties of satsuma and choshu, the career civil service, the farm lobby, the heavy industrialists... it went on.

The Russian and French situation... who could say. The danes were taking advantage of Beglium being occupied. It went on. It was nothing new, they knew that. The comment did nothing to draw aay from questions of lead time for manufacturing things. Once upon a time the stock drying process for rifles had been significantly longer. They had gotten around that by first kiln drying, and then a combination of kiln drying, and going to multipiece stocks. Changes in machine, cutting, grinding and the milling operations had changed the rifle receiver.

There was a significant difference between a rifled gun, and a rifle. The receiver and the barrel were some of the longest lead time items to contend with with, with the exception of complex engines that measured horse power in four digits, and holding at seventy miles on the open line... but even that compared to the way things had used to be took less, much less than it had been in Stevens hayday. The problem lay in that two months to put together a whole piece of rolling stock wasn't the problem for today... oh they needed more locomotives, but they had a build schedule that was currently marked out almost two years in advance. They knew what trains they would be building...

"And that's precisely why we need to be getting back to how things were."

"A return to scientific organization of labor, and production." Another member remarked barely audible from fifteen feet away.

That twisted the conversation back up into the situation with the states entering the war in Europe, the Swiss office, and the Middle America discussion that another fifteen minutes to get parsed down and everyone back in their seats. "Gentlemen there will be a contraction of the apparatus of global trade when the war resolves itself. Governments will hastily respond tit for tat as they usually do to perceived unfairness and inflame such behaviors with further tariffs. The French have been pressuring both England, and the States for artificial government price controls on export goods. This is intended to save the French government money. Nothing more nothing less, they're overleveraged." ... and the truth was China was not in good financial situation as countries went...

The Communications Bank, of the Communications clique, which took its name from its 'ministerial portfolio', was tied up with the Japanese Legation with the original idea having been that banking consortium was 'finally' get China's finances sorted out... but of course that had failed. Every intervention and round of reorganizations always seemed to fail...

"Russia then?"

"The French and English divided the Ottomans up last year, they've staked claims out now of Russian territory, and"

Stevens. The whole business with the Trans Siberian while at the same time the English were looking for another route if that wouldn't work if there was a trans Caspian connection anything that could funnel material from pacific ports and shore up the Russian front. England's Foreign Office was looking for figureheads, so they wouldn't have to rely on French puppets, and the old world empires were fine parceling out spoils to get America to play ball with concessions in the Russian far east.

'And we need it in writing.' Was the declared consensus. It seemed clear that France and England had reached their own decisions on how things were going to be and that the States needed to be talked around to agreeing to that...

Whatever regulations were to be born out by Wilson's decision to bring the United States into the European War they had to be out in front of it. As the guns had opened in the summer of 1914 the Cadre had changed, with the entry of the United States it seemed that there would be the much expected change in their ranks as well.

That was the notion to which they adjourned their meeting on giving him time to step outside of the confines of the cadre's 'war room'. "You said it was important?"

"A cable from Terauchi's government went out from Tokyou. Hayashi is being recalled. Mister Nishihara is coming as is, Soho," They had known that Tokutomi was planning a visit in August, but the idea that Terauchi was pulling Hayashi out... that was news. Nishihara, and Tokutomi Soho visiting was one thing, but to pull the minister of the legation out was... Terauchi wouldn't have done that sort of thing without explicit support of the senior statesmen. There was a pause, "Do you think Tokutomi is a second prong?"

Allen paused, "Because he's the advisor on Korea," It took a minute to remember that detail he'd, Soho, been on that post for so long, "No, but I do want you to call Tokyo double check Soho's itinerary." The newsman had only been allowed limitted access, like most of the Japanese press, during the Russo-Japanese war and there was little doubt that if Soho could get in sooner he'd be in Tietsin to see if he could report on the fighting here. His original itinerary had been putting him getting into Tietsin in a few weeks from now, if he was coming early... well they'd have see.

Just because the physical lines to Peking were blocked by troops shooting at each, didn't mean the front interrupted the passage of wires. Telephone and telegraph carried word , and radio would soon make physical lines run alongside the railways that moved goods inland merely a more reliable way. Telegraph, and telephone though had been able to send word hundreds, thousands of miles away and have it delivered in minutes or seconds even to the intended recipient. A change that many had been unprepared for as the technology matured.

He glanced to the trio of teletype copies, "Alright, thank you." He responded,

"What do I need to do?"

Allen threw a look over his shoulder, back down the long hall, and then pulled his sleeve back on his watch, "Its three o'clock now. Sunset is about eight, summon the 1st​ officers and staff put them in a room, I want to know what is broken, and what we need to fix to put them on the line." Soho visiting early had the potentially to be a double edged sword... better that if he came in their bit was done, "as for these, call find out Soho's itinerary and get back, I'll bring this to the cadre, we'll work on it."
--

There was more space to work despite similar office accoutrements filling the space. He had laid out that there were two objectives to the Regimental staff, and attendant battalion officers. The first was the immediate need, and objectives, and the second was to be looking at where their problems in this deployment had been and what they would need to do to correct that.

The electric lights of the long windowed façade created a glare against the night lurking outside the third story. It was pushing eleven, though the bell hadn't yet tolled. The cadre had divided into separate committees with divisions between the regiments, and the small handful of independent sections, but also the lateral wings of corporate interest.

Waite's motion to start pushing for ground clearing was still stalled up, but that was because of the disagreement about the war and the distraction. How long until they could ink the final arrangement with ford, and start taking receipt... the answer was however long the Germans could hold out, because consensus sat that if the US previous wars were any indication as soon as hostilities ended the congress would start wanting to downsize immediately and... the question was could they wait.

The incoming Battalion S3, who'd been in the job just shy of a month now, for third was a stock fellow, basically no neck and forearms of size that wouldn't sit comfortable against his size. In other words the reflected build of a career enlisted. 3rd​ Battalion's operations officer was having to deal with the shortage of of vehicles, and more correctly spare parts. The infantry mustang knew what he was doing, but that didn't change the fact that they were short on parts, and that it had taken them longer to get moving as a result.

The red leg's staff officer was shorter, and skinnier and just younger all around in the spot because Griswold trusted him to run the hammers that actually made the barrels. "Battalion garrison has," a pressing, "need for a dedicated allotment for machine shops."

It was one thing when they'd been encamping in railroad depots. The machine shops there were plenty much sufficient to needs in 1914. Unfortunately putting addition plate armor, and heavier engines put additional on the stress on the forward leaf springs, which meant off road capacity diminished... which... meant you bogged down in the mud. The bigger engine had been required for moving the additional weight of the armor and the slightly higher top speed on roads.

"The British have done some interesting things this past year with their tractors." That had resulted in the development of a dedicated armored tow for recovery of distressed vehicles... which sort of sounded like they needed. "Of course it bears," to be realistic, "reiterating the facts of current limitations." It was all well and good to recognize that one vehicle couldn't do everything. "Our immediate priority is provision of the tractors for the Five Nines. Their mobility is paramount."

The smaller red leg staff officer nodded looking painfully smug at confirmation, but at the same time relieved that he didn't need to argue the point. The rifle officers were less enthused. The problem was that was where the break down was. He doubted the Artillery branch was truly unified behind the heavy guns, some probably would have preferred a tractor with better characteristics to maneuver the light howitzers ... but they were certainly a minority in face of that a tractor that could tow a hundred fifty millimeter howitzer could pull the smaller gun on the same chassis.

"In shortage terms the tractors are in better shape."

"Explain."

He didn't really need it explained. He had an idea where this was going.

"All of the guns use the same chassis, even if a frame becomes damaged, or a wheel needs to be replaced they can be easily be switched out." Obviously, that had been the whole point of the system, "While there is wear to tractors they're not going as far from staging grounds, nor as quickly as cars. Simply put that any tractor from the heavy brigade can be used to move ammunition or batteries from any lighter field piece."

That and there, also of consideration, was they had no entrenched cavalry to fight. There were horse soldiers around, but Cole was too pressed on with the gendarmes and more focused as mounted rifles for anyone under him to contemplate four legs versus wheels. That went back what they had in front of them. "There are already plans in discussion to expand production," And whatever provincial rivalries existed Shansi and Shensi could benefit symbiotically from the other, "There is at this moment a shortage of factories," both domestically, and there was no external slack to make up for demand, "So the priority are the larger guns. Any talk of self motorized gun carriages will have to be for later. Equally the same full mechanization, or expansion of scout cars, armored cars and carriers will need to be put aside."

The thinking six months ago had been that they had been in possession of a reserve of material and with no pressing need that they could afford to experiment. While they hadn't reached the point where there was a consensus to start disbanding the experimental technical sections they had been proven wrong about the volume of spare parts, and machines needed to be kept in reserve for rainy days.
They had ended up putting all three regiments in the field, which hitherto had been an unthinkable situation compared to the idea of simply posting units of reservists as preeminently guard or picket duty. It was July of 1917, a year ago the states hadn't even been in the war, and Okuma had still been prime minister, and the little welsh man hadn't become the English PM until December.

A year.

It felt as if they had fallen behind.

Just a month ago they'd been expecting Duan to make a move on Hunan while the latter was looking at the chaos over the border with Szechwan.

The immediate concern was fixing the cars that were broken, and how quickly they could do that. If it took a few weeks that was one thing, but days would be better, hours better... but doing that would probably meaning pulling from elsewhere.
--
Notes: this is an amalgamation of three separate sections, obviously as history will tell you mechanization largely favored going to a truck based solution for towed goes, there were instances of continued tractors but it really does drop off as automobiles increasingly mature as a technology and tractors become more specialized. Also of course thats because highways become more common and road fuel efficiency drives that adoption since in peace time moving artillery piece A to location B usually involves driving it around rather than going overland. Specialized tracked artillery movers show up in this period but predominantly in this period its horses (or donkeys / mules depending), and then tractors, trucks, and also you need to move ammunition. [And also of course standardization during this period was very much a not a thing, the vehicle list for England and France, 'we had some of these sitting around']

 

[Imperator Pax]

11 July 1917

In hindsight, with the benefit of things they hadn't known this would be a complete and pointless waste of shells. It was just shells. Three casualties on Xian's side would be recorded and none of them serious, no one counted the potential risk of long term hearing damage back then. Still early on the morning of the 11th​ of July 1917 First Regiment before the sun rose began the process of disembarking from the station at Shijiazhuang's northern terminal a hundred fifty miles south of Peking. The Regiment had advanced north by train after a brief respite, and was arriving reinforced by assets from the Division.

By the time the sun was in the sky they were thirty miles north move over the defensive positions erected more than a week earlier. Then forty pieces and three battalions' batteries of artillery pulled by heavy tractors began the process of deploying. At a quarter to ten as the last ammunition carrier moved the final readied carriage of munitions into place the combined guns of first and second regiments opened.

It was now ten o'clock in the morning, and they were in physical sight of Baoding from the hillside. "I thought you said he didn't have artillery."

Waite snorted at the surly comment, "If you want to call those thing artillery, sure." He shook his head, "In all seriousness we didn't push to within range of those old krupps," They were mountain guns not even seventy millimeter, these were the smaller six centimeter guns and it was a wonder that they even worked they were so old. "We will have them suppressed before they get dialed in." He turned to start ordering the field telephone operator into the trade positions.

"I will admit John Allen this is a little surprising." Percy had found solid footing after getting used to the fifteen centimeter guns had begun maneuvering, "I of course understand the need to work north, to focus on restoring direct access to the capital, I just assumed that your position on not committing to moving on Weihaiwei was a disposition against any exploratory action of the enemy's position."

"Well," He began.

"Well we don't want these fellas on the front lawn." Waite grunted throwing Allen a look.

The truth was that this hadn't been the original plan. They had planned to hold, to give the first time to write and digest their after actions to drill at home. They could play this off as close to the vest, rely on the mobility the railway afforded them to maneuver positions close to the front offload from vehicles borrowed from other units have company level artillery units moved in a concerted force ... and then push forward relying on the range afforded by the large caliber field guns. It was hard to deny though that there was an opportunism, they had a chance to hit.

Nakamichi adjusted his field glasses, "There," He extended a hand tracing several miles, "I see there are horses, Cavalry, are they committing, no, I think they are withdrawing, they could be a blocking force," To discourage infantry from routing, "or scouts."

It was hard to tell from here looking at the farmland. There were occasional flashes of glass from reported the other lines which suggested whoever was over there was trying to figure out what was going on. "I do not reckon they can tell the difference."

Percy could have been talking about any number of things. The two regiments were probably impossible to distinguish without the colors posted, especially with fighting positions dug in. They would have looked like any other mass of gray uniforms at five hundred yards plus. The regimental guns were probably impossible to tell because of the obfuscation of the shared chassis. The muzzle flash, and smoke might have been different the sound but with so much artillery going out, and a relatively mild morning shower it wasn't particularly dusty today. A shell capable of flying ten or twelve miles was going to be hard to watch for, to watch its source effectively when it was behind an infantry company.

"They may be pulling back to the city." Nakamichi observed.

"I think he's right."

Allen adjusted the sixty power of german glass, and agreed with the concurrence. That was what it appeared. The enemy had likely realized that their territorial battalions were were now facing a significantly larger force than the one which had checked their march south the past week.

Hindsight of course would tell them that this had been pointless. Zhu, the civilian governor, had been rather leery of giving battle because of course Zhang Xun hadn't expected it be a necessary thing. The entire royalist restoration had been prefaced on the expectation, the misinterpretation that the beiyang clique was still a still a solid foundation supporting the north's weight. The notion of disagreement had apparently so completely failed to register that Zhang Xun had thought the entire grand alliance of provincial military governors, down to beiyang brigade commanders supported the restoration and that they were sick and tired, as sick and tired as he was of the southern dominated parliament.

'The parliament of fools'.

But Zhang Xun had not checked, or if he had asked he received only the answer he wanted to hear rather than the truth, and now that push had come to shove more were willing to nominally throw their support to Duan Qirui than they were to restoring an infant to the throne.

Nakamichi and Percy were here as observers... but the truth was he was going to let Nakamichi handle Soho. Having him along for this would mean he'd be front and center to drawing Tokutomi in when he got in in August... assuming the interary held, and he wasn't on an earlier boat from Tokyo.

It was a newspaper thing. Soho's record of the testimony given would be heartfelt and passionate account of the continental strife even if Nakamichi gave a deadfish delivery of nothing but cold facts. It was unfair to him, but well it needed to be done. "Red Legs have most of the work today." He remarked to the about four hundred men currently on the field from first and the same likewise from second. Each battery filled the role in the state's fourth rifle, and each battery was about a hundred men, and then there were the fellows directly on the headquarter staff, and the observers from division, as well as those forward attached.

"Yeah." Waite grunted leaning into the optic in front of him. "Shit, if I'd known they were going to run back I'd done this."

"We have superior numbers, they can clearly see that." Percy replied. "Fighting a superior force as they are-"

Nakamichi shook his head, as fifteen centimeter high explosive shell brought in and burst near to on top of one of the Krupp 1873. "No you can see their guns are too far forward of their line, their battalions were expecting to be defended by their guns." The blackpowder charges of the hit gun catastrophically cooked off.

"Well that was clearly unstable." Waite snarled. "and yeah after they thought this was just going to be a duel of gunfire they must have settled in for tea and just to sit around and wait."

They must have had no clue what to make of this push. He suspected that was probably true of their own privates. The senior enlisted had been given the objectives of the day pushing instructions down to the platoon level to distribute as they had taken the train a little farther north, and then settled on. They thing that they did not have, were the motorized cars. He doubted the enemy knew to to look. To recognize their absence, because he doubted that the battalion commanders here had been told what had happened in Zhengzhou while they had been checked here.

These men didn't know that the scout cars, and armored cars, and their machine guns and the trucks with men in them were by and large absent. This was leg infantry being supported by direct and indirect artillery fire in the advance. This was not the Philippines. This was the north china plain. This was not an island... and nor were there mountains.

Not jungle forests but farmland and country road path along the railroad tracks. The enemy did not realize that the regiments here were understrength compared to paper, because they weren't willing to bring potentially unreliable cars that needed checks on their axles and spokes, and leaf springs even if they were probably okay.

Okay wasn't good enough.

The goal wasn't to take Baoding. It was to shove and see how far back Zhu was willing to backpedal, if he fell back into the city and didn't want to run on to Peking... then they'd go back to the original plan.

They'd wait. They'd wait a week or two and see what happened.... but there would be no bombardment of the city, and no siege... but he doubted that whoever in charge north realized that... he probably didn't know what to think. This entire last march had been decided for certain before midnight.

Did he necessarily believe Percy when he said that someone had just happened to bring in a manchu officer claiming to have been paid in Mexican silver dollars. No... and even if that was true that a Royalist officer happened to have silver dollars, it didn't prove some nebulous German conspiracy... but it didn't disprove it either. If for whatever reason Zhang Xun was doing this on behalf of Kaiser Bill... then the pony tail general was a god damned idiot.

Similarly speaking even if these were German made Krupp guns it didn't prove anything. More likely the battery of territorial defense were using guns by Kiangnan or another arsenal's license built copies. If Percy meant for it to get in the papers though a reader might well imagine Kaiser Bill borrowing Santa Claus's sleigh to deliver modern Krupp guns like their own 15cm to queue wearing Wuwei corp.

"Pardon me though, if I might ask another question." Percy started, he was a couple steps away from the observation area, nearer to the bank of field telephones and sheltered from the view by the heavy felled timbers notched on the end, forming a simple protected redoubt, "Where is Mr Dawes I would have expected these being his men."

"With the rest of the 1st​ Artillery brigade."

"Ah, yes quite right, what a daft question to ask." Percy clammed up.

It wasn't Percy's fault. He was probably in spite of everything still thinking of early days. In 1913 there had been forty odd pieces of artillery in the company till. This was not 1913 anymore. The guns that Dawes was sitting on were mostly those that didn't have tractors right now to pull them. Guns that were in stationary garrison and protecting the critical cities and strong points like Bashan in the south. "You've been gone a while Percy we do have two brigades of artillery now."

"Even if someone has been off shopping for most of that." Waite grunted, "They've found the range for that other one." he added as another round of shells started to burst into bright red smoke around an enemy battery. Red smoke mingled with white powder smoke.

From the sudden scrambling around of the little smudges in the distance through the glass the Royalists knew what that meant and were rushing to try and get clear as the other two guns in the battery started dialing in corrections. A few men who didn't bother trying to move their gun and just took to their heels probably made it before high explosive started to launch from Waite's crews on the neighboring hill.

There was a shuffle of movement from the bank of receivers, and the scratching of pens on waxed paper. He didn't think anything of it. It was a notice over the wires something was going on north and east in the province. Then other notices, and from other sources. The legations, and Cao Kun, and then others. It was not immediately clear what the development was, just that something had happened.

Those first reports were unclear, and there was an enemy in front of them.
--
Notes: What will likely go up in the notes TOE wise is probably either the current Staff and Force formatting, or possibly since we're approaching that point the distinction between (in organization) Xian's 'Rifle Divisions' versus Xian's 'Infantry Division' [A Rifle Division is a type of Infantry Division, but an Infantry Division is not necessarily always going to be a Rifle Division] as we are approaching the official creation of 2nd and 3rd Divisions.

But yes the irony here is that Xian commits to this push basically too late for it to matter, Zhu is already being told by this point by Zhang 'stand down we're going to have Puyi abdicate' [again] 'everyone can go home' because he's been in talks with Duan Qirui for like the last week.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1917
Reports were filtering in... from the Legation, from the papers, from various other businesses, from other papers, from missionaries, from telegraphs. Information. Tsao Kun's 3rd​ Division had been known to be understrength... and in January that hadn't been a concern... Zhang Xun's wu wei corp being twenty thousand men had been purely academic. What had really mattered was that the Beiyang Divisions were in fact divisions. They had existed as more than simply schemes to steal money from the federal government. That as units they could fight, and were modern implements of war and state.

Percy looked over Zhengzhou's plaza for what sort of was a parade now that the fighting was officially done, and the city was peaceful again. The very tired englishman was conspicuously avoiding looking at the very Manchu dragon banner streaming from the city's flag pole, which was itself a somewhat recent installation a copy of British styles. "John Allen, if could I ask, how many men do you have under arms?"

"Seventy six hundred rifle men." He replied, placing what was already on the books as the portentous 1st​ division, at half its allotted paper strength and awaiting the men in training. The specialists would take longer to train, and longer to equip... but that was how things were. As for 3rd​ Reg, well the last batch of their rifles were due to complete training before the cold came. "We've pulled most of first and second regiment here."

" Yes, yes. I can see that." Percy replied shifting uncomfortably as troops from the second's first battalion moved to shift through some of the debris. The Manchu barricades thrown up had been hasty. "What do you make of all of this?" The englishman tugged at his own uniform's sleeve somewhat reflexively. "How did we even get into this morass, this foolish foolish thing."

He shook his head, "Li asked for Qirui's resignation," and Li didn't have any troops of his own... not really, that and the capital guards might well have listened to Duan instead, "Then the circulars went out..." He trailed off and that was where they got into the suspect matter. Zhang was the chairman of the Beiyang Association, and there had been no reason to doubt his offer to mediate no reason to assume it being a ploy...

His bringing five thousand, a fraction, of his Wu Wei corp hadn't struck... really anyone as particularly strange, especially on the notion that Li had wanted reassurance of the capital's safety. The President of the Republic had invited Zhang to bring the troops for the capital.

If anything had been going to be suspected to happen Allen would have honestly expected that Zhang would have arrested the parliament and Li, and not sent them all packing from the city. It wasn't as if Zhang's association with the Royalist party weren't known, he still wore his qeue for god's sake... so his support for a restoration of the old dynasty had been a shock... but ultimately that at least was in character.

"What now?"

"I suppose that depends on what the Beiyang clique, and the" 1913 elected, "Parliament work out from all of this." He shook his head, "I suppose your next step is what, back to trying to swing China into the war."

Percy's lips pursed into a thin line. "Yes, that is about the scope of it."

"John Allen, pardon me, but I only count Three Companies." Of 'Wolf Hunters' from 1st​ Regiment on the deck.

He grunted, clearing his throat. "That's right."

Percy's confusion didn't abate, "It should be four shouldn't it?"

"No, well, battalions are attached with an artillery battery. We opted when we moved to divisional structure from brigade to to organize battalions as fighting units on that three to one ratio." Then, there was First Battalion presently having even gone so far as to replace a Rifle Squad in each platoon with a lieutenant commanding a four machine gun armed squad. He decided not to mention that as what he said set in, and he exclaimed:

"Good god, I wondered why I had heard so much cannon."

Percy was clearly trying to do math in his head, but it was probably the lack of sleep catching up with him, surely the Englishman wasn't just being dramatic for the sake of it, but it was hard to tell sometimes... Percy had been different after coming back from Europe. "The Division at allocated strength should be about fifteen thousand men." He stated, and most of two regiments present there were nearly seventy pieces of artillery present at this gathering, but he didn't voice that, or that previously battalion level heavy machine guns like the vickers and Maxims had been pushed down to the control of the Company level HQ.

That probably wasn't sustainable not if they were going to build second and third out. The shock factor of so much firepower had paid off, but only being on a rail line had provided them with the ammunition to support the voracious appetites of the red legs' guns. There was no denying Abel Company's lewis guns had been a shock too, but the ammunition they needed was difficult to provide with twenty in the company. Baker, and Charlie hadn't been much easier with their Madsens and in the latter case Potato Diggers.

... and of course there was the fact the Gendarmes in theory fighting as light infantry had been ensconced at their depot, and the hardy brick structures and their reinforced 'factory' in the old term had may as well have been a fort. At least it hadn't been the alamo.

"I need to go, but you are coming to Peking?"

He confirmed, and Percy agained excused himself and allowing him to turn to Shang. "What's the weakness of what we've done?"

"We lack infantry, a strength in rifles to sustain an attack in pitched battle." The Colonel replied with a nod. "We also risk expending ammunition obscenely swiftly."

That was right. That was exactly it. "Indeed Colonel." He raised the glass, "Its important we recognize our own weaknesses even if the enemy doesn't." Because even if the enemy didn't know it they could still benefit from it."

He paused to return the gesture, "Do you really think those silver dollars, do you really think that they came from the Germans."

There had been rumors before, there had been reports... he wondered if the state department had told Percy's superiors about it. If that was the root or if the British had made the accusation independent, and then the question about Qirui's accusation, "I don't know. I don't think we'll ever know for sure."

--
Whatever the truth was, it didn't matter. Not to State, not to the foreign service office, not to the papers... any of the papers. By Jingo it was one more fact... and frankly that was fine. Let Reinsch argue rhetoric about rights of neutral nations that he liked the simple truth was they'd picked side by selling guns and for that matter other supplies to English, and then through them the entente's lot.

The train car continued to roll north pulled by an engine built locally driven by locally dug coal. There was everything here that needed to be so far as resources out of the ground to sustain an industrial society.

... but Industrial -ism had emerged out of the english speaking world. By the time England had exported industrialism to belgium a scottsman was already playing with the forbearer to primers, Shrapnel's shells had born his name had already been adopted been busy scything frenchmen down... and the States had been dreaming already of machined interchangeable parts. Industrialism was already underway in the Isles, and in America.

It came down to money though, wasn't that how it always was? British pounds and American dollars, and it was those tallies of reserves they were looking at. "The fultons did right good."

"Yeah," He grunted, but... They weren't available due to demand state side, "At fourteen miles to the gallon they're useful for moving infantry around. Two tons of truck is uesful, but those are the last of them we can expect to buy until the war ends."

"I was just saying they did good." They weren't the only things that had proven themselves. The Model T was cheaper than the Model A truck... but they both had acquitted well, if not perfectly adding armor put pressure on the front leaf springs, and Ford had never intended for a protected casemate to be put up top to be sure. The Pavesi, of any of the prime movers had arguably done the best, due to its speed overland while under load... but Italy with the Entente and thus at war they were likewise out of the market until the war ended.


There was a ruffling of paper, and Allen looked over his own thick sheets, "Am I not going to like that?"

"Just saying that we need an alternative." Waite replied, but that was a dead letter. There simply wasn't any where to import from and truck production could be covered long term once the deal with Ford executed and gave them a base to work from. That deal was basically agreed to.

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

The major saluted, "We're almost to the station, sir."

"Thank you major." It was perfunctory. It was by the book. The truth was they had already known that. Peking hadn't been particularly far away anyway. Tietsin had only been twenty odd miles of rail line from the capital. That it had taken a week to get from there to the capital was a demonstration that ... probably that no one had really known what to do.

By the 12th​, the previous morning the royalists had already been surrendering positions inside the capital, and things were more or less done... completely anticlimactic. There had been no assault, no serious exchange of fire, just sporadic infantry contacts, and Qirui showing off by having the air school make passes and drop dynamite from the planes a few times. Peking was less modern than Tokyo.. was less modern than a lot of cities, but it wasn't wholly confined to the past. That was visible on the streets beyond just hte handful of cars.

There were people still in traditional dress, lots of people, but the further in they went the more, particularly, younger men in western clothes and with western style short hair cuts, and without any obvious religious affiliation. No obvious crosses, or bibles, but instead attache cases and newspapers, or cigarettes. Men walked, talked, and lived a modern existence surrounded by the streets and shops that had been carved out centuries before with city walls still visible in the distance that dated back to the medieval era.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine what the newspapers had to say about things, no doubt decrying the royalist attempt as the last reactionary gasp of feudalism or something along those lines. It was equally hard though to really take any claims that this was a republican victory when it was Beiyang troops from among others Zhili's native 3rd​ division sitting on the railway between Tietsin and Peking still. The Navy clique could talk all they wanted to reporters down south, but they hadn't been involved.

... no if there was any clique that needed to be really considered it was the now obvious internal divisions inside the Beiyang army. The communications bank dealing with Nishihara, the two serving as intermediaries, came to mind. Then there was Feng who was already making circulars around clearly attempting to figure who stood where, especially in relation to his home province... and then there was a question of Manchuria now that Zhang Xun had said he was retiring from 'politics' whatever that was supposed to mean.

There weren't going to be any repercussions against Zhang, that much was already clear. The southerners who'd been able to sit the conflict out were talking about it, but no one else was. No one who was actually up here, who actually had the resources to do anything was talking about it. The only people talking about how there should be consequences were the people who didn't have any power to begin with.


There was a good reason for that reluctance, and for a preference among the Beiyang factions for a negotiated internal settlement. Zhang Xun was backing down, but he had also only brought a quarter of his WuWei corp to Peking... if a push came to shove he or a nominal successor would have a good rallying cry or excuse to put a lot more resistance into potentially upending the status quo or rejecting a harsh peace... that would have cost everyone else a lot of resources when the treasuries of Peking, Anwei, and the others were probably scarce enough as it was.

... and of course there were other lessons. Though most of what they had heard was second hand, filtering word of mouth, even through the telephone or newspapers, it seemed to validate their own observations... that in a stand up fight the quality of the old qing traditional style territorial defense units weren't really worth much even if they were willing to fight. While round nose, even round nose blackpowder could still be used on the battlefield of today, blackpowder single shot metallic cartridges simply could not compete effectively against modern repeating rifles, and that was even when they were both confined to a stand up infantry engagement. The sorts of engagements that were no longer the deciding factor on battlefields. Thus, even territorial battalions who had 88s or Type 30s were at a distinct disadvantage when their artillery were large from that same period of 'modernization' undertaken by the Guangxu emperor's hundred days reforms.

The train moved passed a plaza where the zouave drill of one Beiyang brigade was ongoing. The 6th​ Brigade had come under the command of Wu Peifu two years earlier.
--
Notes: And of course Wu Peifu 'the jade marshal' had a good reputation as an instructor, and disciplinarian in terms of training troops, not the only one among the warlords in the north, and we'll see more of 6th Brigade later on in the coastal conflicts that define the post war years and early twenties

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1917
For a city that had been in 'hostile hands' for two weeks you would have hardly guessed it. Peking looked fine. Certainly the city guardsmen looked exactly the same as they had when he'd been here a month earlier... but then he doubted they had cared who was in charge Qirui or Xun... that didn't seem to worry Qirui any.

His cajoling to bringing along fifty thousand to Zhang's original five had also let him largely muscle past the royalists without any significant damage to eastern Zhili. Zhu Zhibao had been sacked, naturally, but probably for at least as much reason as having lost confidence from significant numbers of troops being lost as having backed the wrong side. Certainly Zhu's decision to go running to the legation quarter for safety had signaled he wasn't confident in the safety of his position before Qirui had officially resumed control of the capital and the office of prime minister.

Offices were another matter up for discussion. There was a lot of chatter in the legation quarter as it was, but gossip was really the only way you'd have known that Peking had been in 'hostile hands' this part of the city looked the same as it always did.

"Was there much excitement here top?" He asked the army's senior non com who'd been in Sulu a lifetime earlier.

"Not at all, sir." Elaborating that the office had seen no trouble, and that like the fifteenth division the China marines hadn't hadn't had any trouble either. "Legation did ask for more men from the Philippines," and had almost certainly been told no, but even if it had been approved it didn't matter, "but Royalists, or Republicans it made no difference. We had it pretty easy"

Allen nodded. That coincided with what he'd been told, "What's that then," He asked raising his glass to the metal case.

"I had thought it would be of interest,"

He knew that tone, "even though Ordinance seems to disagree?"

"Verily so, sir." The gunnery sergeant replied, and Allen's interest piqued. He'd been curious before, the invitation ahead of the soiree the diplomatic community had planned but well... Crozier and his staff really had been making asses of themselves, and he wondered what idea they'd deemed surplus to requirements.

He was a little disappointed as the M1903/6 Springfield came out, but glanced at it more closely as upon taking it his fingers sank into the bottom of the receiver just ahead of the trigger guard.
"What's that then?" He took the metal box, and studied it. The sergeant took it back, picked up an M1903, and then put it on.

"Twenty round magazine." It was charged using the same 5 round stripper clips of 30-06 Government as the original box magazine.

"When did this go out?"

"Ordinance has been tinkering with them for a few years. Think the leathernecks had the idea first, but like most of their queer ideas it never went anywhere,"

He had heard while in the Philippines of a Marine rifle with 10 rounds in the magazine, but he had never seen the butcher's issue. He had assumed that if there was any truth to it it was just Corp gunsmith fooling around with supervision. If anyone in the Army had tried that the tighter wound Ordinance officers would have wanted the offender drawn and quartered for the temerity. "I take it not many of these, top?"

"Shucks, sir. Lucky just to have the one." He responded. "They only gave me this rifle and two magazines." The senior non com showed him where the magazines had the serial number of the rifle and a -2 added for the second magazine.

Twenty rounds of thirty ought six certainly changed the weight of the rifle, but not so much the balance. It made a big difference in the height of the gun too, which was the bigger issue. It was something though. The advantage though seemed evident, especially given the letters from Winchester about modifications to the Model 1907 being made for the war. Of course you couldn't turn a bolt action into a small machine gun.

It was a pity Remington had shown no sign of adopting a detachable magazine into the Model 8. Not that the magazine for the 08 was removable, without taking the screws out. It was a change he would have to have Griswold look at, for the Gewehrs and the Model 8s... maybe if it worked out for other guns.

He grunted loosely, "Why just this one?" He asked. Allen knew this wasn't revolutionary... the truth was they'd been talking about magazines based off of the Lee patents for years on now, "What prompted it?"

"Can't rightly say. Just that they sent them out to the division." The 15th​, "And they wanted to know how they fared in the field."

"And?"

"And they want them back, I'll admit to being worried that the Ordinance men intend to do nothing with them." The truth was that magazines would end up going to the signals, or at least that Signals, and the branch's aircrews would be issued special cut down guns... so the sergeants concerns were somewhat overwrought.
--
Griswold hadn't bothered to come to Peking for the soiree of course, though a number of the other staff had. It would have been Sunday best occasion, but tailors kept all of their clothes fitted so that meant less than it would have back home. The international community was in turned mingled with a mix of old, and new. As with before there were traditional costumes, blended with newer Chinese fashions, and western clothes.
The Japanese delegation was conspicuous though, especially with Germany, and Austro-Hungary forced to the periphery. Then again, the Swiss, and Swedes were also on the ascent he was going to need to make rounds with them and the Danes given the moves their people were making against the Belgian concession. They, and the Japanese weren't the only ones of course.

"Minister Hayashi seems rather put off by your appearance Mister Forrest," The portly British man remarked waddling up to the second floor banisters where he had relocated to.

No surprise, "There is some lingering business left over from our mutual time in Joseon." He replied, but decided not to elaborate any further on the topic. "I suppose its not surprise that he'd end up coming into China." The formerly German controlled concession seemed to be his area of interest, not Northern China, at least not right now, which was interesting. Not good interesting, just interesting... but on the other hand Liu was probably right that he was worried about the recent dust ups too near Tsingtao.

"Ah, bit unpleasantness from all that isn't surprising I wouldn't think." The Englishman agreed, "And indeed I would say China is quite busy. I suppose you've heard of course of the nastiness in Russia?"

"I've heard the stories."

The man bobbed his head, "Quite. I dare say they're probably worse than what can be printed in the papers. Frightful rabble." Allen considered what he had heard. Yeah, to the Brits mass labor strikes was probably not what the blue bloods wanted to hear peasants doing. "Of course the Japanese are very interested in Manchuria. So any problems the Russians are having, well,"

It wasn't just Manchuria though that the Russians had concessions. He doubted Hankow was much on the man's mind, but there was a Russian concession in Tietsin. "A Japanese colonel I knew in Korea mentioned to me that World War 1 was divine aid for Japan."

"Ah, yes, I believe that was a quote from the Minister Inoue Kaoru, god rest his soul." The Brit replied with recognizable excitement. "Of course there is contending with the Russians are on the same side of course, even with this unpleasantness. Of course, they have loaned the Tsar's government quite a tidy sum, so that could be their leverage you know." He seemed less pleased at the notion. "So I suppose that makes you and Minister Hayashi" There was a pause, "business rivals, of sorts at least?"

Allen shrugged. "He has friends that I compete with," It was odd to think of it like that, "Japan needs raw materials. Manchuria, Central China," He thought of the 21 Demands made to the now deceased Yuan Shikai, "and us between the two. At the same time, Hayashi's been keeping his focus on Shangdong, and its rails. The Japanese are however funding more railways in Manchuria too. I suspect that they'll want to meet in the middle."

"They'd need support from the Chinese government for that. The minister of transportation at least. Well its doubtful he'd be very hard to convince."

No it really wouldn't. Cao Kun was always happy any time he heard about railroad investment that he didn't have to pay for. It was ironic, since the Dujun of Zhili liked to lavish money around in order to get things done. It was something. "What will the Russians do?" What could the Russians do.

The British man chewed his lower lip. "I," He started, but was interrupted as Percy arrived and for a minute glowered at the heavier set man.

"John Allen, hello there, so very glad you could come. I do hope Johnathan here is not being a bother." The portly man bristled slightly at the dismissive tone, and then shrank back down. "Have you spoken with Minister Reinsch today?"

"We talked a little politics in the state room," He replied leaning back on the bannister, and sipped reminded of how Reinsch had clambered up on his moral soap box, particularly about the recent trouble, and the issue of Duan Qirui's finances and the money had surely would have needed to fix things. He wasn't happy with how the Chinese President and Prime Minister's situation had resolved itself, and especially not with how the subsequent devolution to fighting.

"Yes I was told that the Premier was an unfortunate who only had one division he could truly count on, and the rest was little more than bloody minded feudalism." Percy agreed... "and well speaking of feudal powers, I am afraid the situation in Russia has gotten quite a bit worse of late, while things here have been well lively as they have been of late."

"Johnathan," He turned looking at the round man, "I assume you're here about this trans siberian business then, and a link to Tashkent or some other part of the caspian line?"

"The details, yes sir, quite right." Johnathan Boyle extended his hand, "It is quite nice to make your acquaintance." They shook.

Even though he'd been a tad disappointed by the magazine that would eventually become the basis of the air service rifle, this meeting would prove if not that sort of interesting the finalization of a more lucrative sort.
--
Notes: this is 1917 the US Army does still have a Gunnery Sergeant rank, and a Technical Sergeant rank, and a number of other sergeant ranks that have since been replaced, retired, or otherwise done away with.

[Amusingly the US Navy also in certain specialties had sergeants which of course was discontinued because by this point the navy had been moving increasingly from actually commissioning armed shore parties as it had done in the 19th​ century, even into ww2 you will occasionally hear Naval enlisted be referred to as sergeants, but in the USN there are not generally sergeants of course in this period the marine corp becomes much larger and continues to grow becoming increasingly expeditionary, but its funny to read this in period sources talking about Sergeants in the Navy in the 19th century, usually in the context of shore parties]
I will be posting the second half of my summary of QA with Unique probably in the next couple days dealing with personnel

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1917
The englishman handed him a glass, it was brandy but he'd drink it since the other two men were. "Minister Reinsch has been informed of the way things need to be from here on out."

Allen grunted, recalling the conversation with his father at the legation, prior to his own meeting with Reinsch, "You mean State told him that it prefers a unified china than a necessarily democratic one." He replied... oh yeah he'd been told exactly what the professor thought of that. Of the ideas of 'rule through the old dynasty'... "So you know then?"

"That he was the one who told President Li about the loan," in January "Premier Duan was making with mister Nishihara, yes Minister Reinsch was quite curmudgeonly about the prime minister's behavior."

John Jordan behind his great desk looked over at them looking as much school master as Reinsch looked a mid west professor, "The fighting was unavoidable, and our esteemed American colleague did allow his optimism to blind him to that." John Jordan remarked. "My larger concern as plenipotentiary are the weapons Sun Yat-sen is receiving through Canton from Japan, and how it may lead to further unpleasantness." Old Ser John sighed tiredly, "But that is unfortunately not my greater responsibility, I have spoken of it, but we must focus the greater effort of our day on the matter of the war effort."

Edward Gray had been kicked out of the Foreign Service and Lloyd George had begged Reinsch to go back to Asia... the British Parliament, the unified government had its mind on the situation of the empire, and was engaged in a war for the sake of its Empire's prestige and honor. They were committed to fight it.

... and the papers, the photographs, the telegrams painted a bleak picture. Not the least made clear that the Foreign Service was now coming to grips with both a distrust of the French, for previously covering for the Tsarists in the entente, among other complaints, on the basis that either French or the Russians had been lying about the political situation.

This had gone well beyond the pessimism of the Russian Army's ability to sustain itself. In British isms 'no longer an effective ally'. There was a question of how much Kerensky was lying... that should have been asked earlier. There was a now prevailing belief that socialists of any sort were suspects of troublemaking. Certainly the prevailing mood was to suspect any Russian socialist of being a potential German patsy. Doubly so given the labor unrest in England since May.

A paranoia that was apparently contagious since the state department was putting it word for word to Washington and to Wilson where the Virginian was working himself up to fitful episodes of nervousness. There were other developments, but they were hard to read from across the pacific. American grain shipments could reach Petrograd and then Moscow , but the interior of the country side had largely been stripped of manpower, and of the draft animals the year before, and the railroads which were unreliable and slow would make it hard to see grain make it into the far interior. Demand was high, supply was low, prices were thus high.

"Sir Alfred has no confidence that Russians will make it through the winter if thing keep the way they are."

A prophetic warning as it turned out... but not in the way Knox had intended it to be. He'd been looking at the details of the 'southwest', Russian, front, of the conditions of the twelfth army, and of other matters he'd been privy to.

But with Duan secure in power, or at least as secure as he could be, they could turn towards dynamiting through mountains , and laying track with labor crews... if the price was right.
--
This luncheon would have been nothing but an afternoon to laugh an afternoon away if not for recent hostilities. The mug clinked down on the table, "How soon until they mention it to Reinsch?"

That was the question. Reinsch was not nearly as esteemed in his european counterparts eyes as he thought he was.... on the other hand Reinsch did have Wilson's ear. "Not quickly, I imagine. The papers are signed, once the bank drafts are confirmed we can start the work."

"Dollars?"

"Yes."

There was a shocked look, "They didn't try and haggle?"

"Morgan is underwriting from what I'm told." He shrugged. There was a low whistle. "London must be sore about it." He replied in agreement, "Can we do it?"

"Ten miles a day? Certainly." There was a pause, "But well you know, how these things go. Its not going to be completely straight, you can't dynamite a river. We'll make up some time in some parts one of our good crews can manage double that in short bursts." Well you could divert it but, that wasn't exactly the same thing. "And the Russian side of the border? What then, we'll have to change over," John Paul paused, "You know Elliot has the idea that given Powell's Nicaruaga job that we could train up a lot of railway men, and then when this job is done send them over there." He reached for the lobster in front of him before it was barely even on the table good, "I mean it won't be exactly the same, but."

"We're going to have to send people over, its not the worst idea." He replied reaching for the steak knife. It would expand their labor force, "He knows Powell wants to get into mining over there right?"

"It won't compete with us shipping steel to them."

"Oh I know that." It would take time for a mine to get up and running, and it'd take longer before Powell could hope to get any kind of heavy industry, he'd need electricity... hopefully by that point this nastiness in Europe would be over the markets would have normalized, and they could stop fretting about the in-between of right now and back to normal.

In hindsight they would look back on that and realize normal was an illusion, really the idea of normal, normal was just the wrong word. Chasing normal was a mistake, the pivot that the weight was balanced on had shifted, and a new stability was needed. "Whats the word how's that tax business going?"

The Ma clique had made the decision to continue sending the taxes Peking was owed. It was one of the stickler points that the Ma clique was holding to in talks. "We've put an offer to Duan Qirui about it." There were potential sticking points about the salt gable, and such, but they were striking while the iron was hot, and they knew that the beiyang governor's association, the government in peking needed the money. "It preliminary, Griswold is digging through the archives right now, something about the tax system doesn't make sense." Which in hindsight, was the mother of all understatements, but underscored a truly ancient problem... "But if Qirui takes its confirmation of status in being."

"Foreign currency." It wasn't a question.

He paused to swallowed down the morsel of steak, "He's going to take British Pounds. We're pretty confident that he'll accept a fix annual payment upfront. The same thing every year."

Part of it probably was Duan was short on cash, but probably just as much as needing cash now he wanted a reliable amount... and he didn't likely want to start a problem with other provinces about trying to raise tax rates given the fragile state of government.

One thing would lead to another, and by 1919, long after the attempt to restore the last Manchu emperor had faded from popular consequence in favor of then more pressing matters in Peking... well they'd' move on to an actual modern tax system for the provinces covered by the agreement and Peking would still receive a fixed annual lump sum for several years after that regardless of who was actually in power. The coastal warlords would leave things along. Anhui, Zhili, Fengtian would fight and they would sit in the interior as the world changed.

The medieval taxes that the Qing Emperor in the 18th​ century had frozen were to be a lingering hold over of an arrangement that reflected a simpler time, and arrangement of the powers in north china. Qirui for his part was eager for a potential reliable source of foreign currency by which to build up a newer stronger army for his already planned attack into the southern provinces. Qirui was fundamentally operating on the mistaken assumption that the Beiyang governors association were united in keeping the whole country together which Feng would soon deflate after being offered the presidency... but that and other matters would be in the future.

For the time being, "Its one less thing to have to worry about."

"It is that." Allen agreed in between mouthfuls. They might have been able to get Qirui to agree to an arrangement like this anyway even without Zhang xun's misadventure, but it probably wouldn't have been considered a necessary step... but the consensus was that things were not good right now and were probably going to get worse in the future because Qirui and Li had had such a public falling out. "I'm glad Shan didn't run into any trouble on the border while this was going," It was late in the second week of July but the time had stretched out, two weeks of fighting, and train rides had mutilated the sense of time.

"We were lucky." Allen acknowledged the comment with a nod as he chewed, and JP dipped another piece of lobster in a cream colored sauce, "The work in Suiyuan is done, so a couple more days and we can start training people."

"Really? Thats good. We're ahead of schedule then, it would be nice if they could build steam cases for the locomotives." They were going to need more engines. It'd been the whole reason for another shop... well that and SIW had been planned to take advantage of the area's existing iron mines to fuel said iron works.
--
Notes: We may either have one more July update, or just go ahead and skip to August of 1917, because while there is content written taking place on the 28th​ of July dealing with the fallout of the Beiyang civil war for lack of a better less cliche description it can be referred to in dealing with the communications clique, and Feng becoming President in the august chapter. And also the research probably gets introduced, or at least mentioned, I'm about half way through august dealing with the declaration of war on Austria-Hungary and Germany.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1917
Barrel making machinery had been fully relocated now that the British contract ... Anzac, it didn't matter who ended up using the guns, had been completed for the Pattern 1914... or whatever they were being called now, and turned towards manufacture of Lewis guns full scale. To go along with that they'd moved the project to a newer building attached to a larger ammunition factory, that was also turning out mortar ammunition for the same broader contract.

"Percy I am going to ignore that you said that to me," Allen commented, he had gotten between the two men before the Texan who was foreman of the imaginatively named State Military Works could defenestrate the Englishman. Keeping Percy from getting thrown out the window was important, "A million germans fought in the war between the states, and I expect as least as many 'huns'," To use Percy's term, "will fight in the Federal colors to put Kaiser Bill down." Even in the Philippines, much as in grandpappies day the basic languages command, rank, file, and breaking camp had still occasionally had the instructions given in vulgar German even in squadrons and and companies of men who wouldn't otherwise have used the language.

Zhang Xun's Manchu Restoration, farcical as the attempt had proven to be had turned up a supply of Mexican silver dollars, and had turned into accusations that those silver dollars had been paid out by german agents to try and keep China out of the war... which seemed a little silly. There had been rumors previous of course, and both England, and the states had thought something had been going on, but it was more about the accusations being used as a cudgel now that was the real problem rather than whether german agents had been spreading around money to cause trouble.

Making sure to keep between the Texan, Allen continued, "Loretta," Swartzentruber's wife, "and Jacob here have been with us, and were at the CFA since 1911, you want to take an issue with his promotion, or his involvement, you missed the train on that one, Jacob has been on the floor since we took the first contracts of the war." Single shot remington rifles for Russian rail guards in the crunch of 1915.

All the same the texan went back out of the office, and to the floor of the works, past a corporal at the door, and that left him to make his way behind the desk. The third story drafting room was laid out like most of the other buildings. It was larger than the CFA building number 1 drafting room reflecting its newer construction but was almost identical to the other new arsenals. They had relocated all of the British projects to under one roof, that would be no confusion between 303 and 8mm production... and if that happened to mean that they could keep an eye on the British themselves well that was fine. "So the Lewis guns?" Percy was carefully settling back into the chair.

"The machine tooling was installed before... any of the troubles," they hadn't started the current batch until late last month after things were settled, which on the plus side had given them time to finish the reshuffling that had contributed to the drama today, "You want to test the new guns that's fine,"

"No, no that's quite alright,"

Percy didn't do weapons testing in person there were ordinance sorts from Australia, and the Imperials munitions who proofed the almost eighty guns a day being turned out since the twenty first. "I just wanted to know it was being done, there is a chance we will be posting the ANZAC troopers to Russia."

The British had been moving their colonial troops around trying to find everyone the right fit... though to be honest he suspected that there was some truth to the notion that since they couldn't rely on just the 'martial races' of Indians and had to do with 'sub par specimens' to meet quotas they didn't want the Bengali sort used to shooting pale faces. Letting the hindis shoot mohamedans didn't seem that much preferable given grievances in the 'jewel of the British Empire'... but it was a bad situation all around.

--
He thrummed the door shut harder than he had meant to, but no one noticed. The cadre was supposed to be a hundred men. A number that had been the original hundred share holders of the company back when they'd come together to build that first rail road for the Qing... and it had held that way for a bit... but after 1914 the shares of the company had started to accumulate. Other responsibilities, age, or other developments like the war in Europe had sent other members on their way. So the voting shares had steadily accumulated even as the capital pool in the company had grown larger.

"The training is done." and where six months ago it would have been a debate on the floor and in the books whether or not they should, it wasn't that, they should expand further. "Leaving aside all that silver. Szechwan is a bloody mess. It is a god damn miracle that Shan didn't have to fire a shot down there." The cavalry remarked his hat on the table, but he had thrown a look at Cole before speaking. "and the bastards aren't the only problem." That was true too, because they weren't dealing with one province they were dealing with Shansi, and the western provinces as well... and of course there was the prospect of a rail line over the border into Kirghiz... and what that would mean.

"We're officially at the point where where Chen just isn't in the province enough," And as he was officially both Dujun, as well as civilian governor his absentee status was a point of talk... and had been for a while now. Shensi's declaration of independence from the republican parliamentary government had been issued from Tietsin for god's sake. That he had marched the modern Beiyang independent brigades then to go participate in the liberation of Peking was not really an issue, that was comparatively understandable to your average person, his absence in general though, and the Gansu brigades operating nominally on anti bandit operations in the south and west though was much harder to justify, and compounded by his perennial absence from the province. A province that was very much changing quickly.

... but then without Yuan Shikai the whole country was changing. Feng had already started to talk about how they should just get rid of the parliament forget the southern provinces and just focus on protecting the north... or what he appeared to consider 'real china' if that meant leaving provinces like Yuunan, Canton, and Szechwan well enough alone that was fine by him. So far as Feng was concerned that would allow everyone to focus on the actually important provinces, and if the southerners wanted to have anarchy... well then they could just kill each other, no great loss if a bunch of bandits and malcontents did that.

Duan didn't want to hear of it. Not because of the callousness of it, but he wanted to keep the empire together... and part of that was probably money, part of it was that if they started writing off places it would be potentially hard to stop. A larger stronger market would have more influence with the English after all.

The inevitable result of the next three hours of threshing of ideas was to be a longer running conversation, that would culminate in the eventual constitution of 1920... really 1919 but officially as would be eventually known Year 1 would be 1920. In August of 1917 though, even as the war still raged in Europe, problems were focused closer to home. The consensus of things was that divisions still needed to be nine battalions, the triangle. As opposed to the square, a small portion of the Cadre had wanted the square staffed by a regiment of class B recruits in reserve as guardsmen but that had quickly been shot down.

Three divisions of Infantry. That wasn't a problem man power wise, Xian by herself had the population to provide that. The city was growing as the industries grew to export goods to feed the war, and also to the steel mills that were turning out the bar stock, and metal for rail and engine in addition to cannon and gun.

Brigades would be separate independent commands in the new system. There was quibbling over whether to keep the system of attaching company level, batteries, or not to complete battalions that wasn't going to be settled any time soon. The general outline in principle was agreed to by the afternoon that each division should on paper have an authorized strength of some fifteen thousand men, but that the basic unit, the 'active' would remain the regimental command, who direct battalion units at their garrisons, and with company barracks below that level.

The army... which was what it was and the broader security question could not exist without looking at the matter of industry. Diversification into agriculture had started early. Farming had diversified itself into staple crops, and cash crops and from there. Food for people, fodder for animals, cotton, and tobacco as well... and they could focus on export, but in the long term. It didn't matter how much they mechanized the farm, just exporting a cash crop wouldn't be enough. Commodities were all well and good but king cotton had been a damned fool of an idea.

That created the final part of the triangle.... or what would be eventually called the triangle. There would be overlaps in what each corner / point did or was responsible for. In a gross simplification the points were an army, a civilian side administration ... civil service to manage some things... and the private sector of corporate administration and organization of agriculture and manufacturing and to manage others.
--
Notes: I'm apparently missing at least one section what has probably happened is its on a flash drive but deals with the aforementioned taxes that would go to the capital, because the Qing emperor had frozen taxes, and remitted some taxes back to the government but the last time a Chinese government had been capable of conducting an actual national level survey for taxable means was during the reign of the first Ming Emperor... and no one was able to carry another one out, and even purely local tax surveys often ran into severe resistance at all levels. [In fact I speculate that it is this which played a major role in fermenting resistance against Yuan Shikai, because he tried to implement one and then had to back down in April 1916 (likely because of northern provinces in Fengtien who were otherwise part of the core of his clique), thereafter all land taxes became provincial matters, leaving things like the salt gabelle nominally still a central government matter and not everyone followed that, but even in 1916 that tax still brought in 96 Million Yuan in revenue making it the equal of the lucrative land taxes taken in that year (or at least those reported)]

I'm still looking for that content I'll need to check my travel gear , but its that lack of information which impacts how Xian goes about setting up its own tax collection later on. I also need to consider rebalancing August 1917 is a little unbalanced in its pacing

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1917
The wide fan slowly turned in the high ceiling above his head.

At least as an opinion he held, maybe it wasn't empirical, but it certainly seemed like the thousand 'men around town, journalists of note in Peking wanted to model themselves after yankee muckrakers... and certainly that wasn't a bad thing at least not universally. On the other hand they weren't the only sort. The morning article attributed to Zhong Yin was preaching the latest Beiyang talking points about the war.

Tokutomi had no interest in aping the journalists of Boston or New York, or those who wrote for the Tribune. That was a game for younger men, and in his mid fifties now Soho wasn't that man anymore. He was probably going to nag Nakamichi to death though with an uncounted number of questions all the same.

Allen turned, "We can expect questions, but Nakamichi will keep him mostly busy."

"Just as well, Nishihara's and Cao Julin's bank people have been busy." His body posture shifted, and Bert nodded, "Yeah, that was my response since Reinsch made sure it got to the papers the first time... what do you think?"

"Lansing and Ishi are talking. It sounds mostly like Lansing is agreeing in principle to the Anglo-Japanese agreement."

Bert nodded again, "That's good right?"

The notional agreement was that between the nations involved that they would respect the operation of high signatory nationals to conduct business and construct industry, etc etc, within the region, but fundamentally the US recognized the same special status previously established in Manchuria. All that was fine. "The problem is the situation in Europe winding up. France is certainly going to complain. They complained about Siems Carey, and frankly I don't trust the French not to backtrack on this Trans Siberian business..." he trailed off, "Lansing and Ishi will work something out, that should put this business with the 21 demands idiocy back behind." Hopefully Terauchi's government could actually make good on it all, and they could start looking at other ventures.


The word at least preliminary wasn't any thing of a surprise. He'd seen the Trans Siberian during the Ruso-Japanese war and... decrepit was a good enough descriptor for parts of it... and he doubted that it had much improved in the three years the Russians had been at war. Bert grunted, "Well we have the bank drafts from Tom Boyle, and Powell has things at Urumqi ready." The eagerness had nothing to do with the job so much as leverage to handle motions within the cadre. Powell was aiming to support reforms in both the military as well as for the Middle Amerika venture and given absence this was about showing he was still here.

... the fact that he had actually called it 'the military' showed he'd been gone. Powell had seen what the signal corp had already been getting involved in with air planes... but that would be in the future. "Tell me about the banking situation?" or what had developed.

"Julin is," Bert paused, "Has Sam talked to you about public finances in this country." From his tone he clearly hadn't meant it as a question... and that he wouldn't have to be the one to address whatever was the bee that had crawled up, "Anyway Julin is absolutely going to be the center of any kind of funding, collateral for loans."

Cao Julin was a lawyer, by education. His father and grandfather had both been on at Kiangnan Arsenal. They had tried to get Julin to go into railway but instead he'd decided to study at the English Law School in Tokyo... what had since been rebranded Chuo University and was currently rebuilding from a recent bout of arson. Julin had no military experience. He was a conservative politician who had had a role in the old Qing bureaucracy and then had been in the Beiyang apparatus. Julin had been one of those Yuan had named to drafting a modern constitution for China in 1913... but that had ultimately failed to go anywhere... and well Cao had been running a bank since the previous year as a result of that.

"Zhang Xun is retiring yes?"

He paused before affirming the answer, "He is,"

"Whats his involvement?" Allen paused to glance back down from the bannister of the hotel resturant, "Given his stake in the Communications bank?"

"So far as I can tell none. He owns the stake, but," That made some degree of sense. The pigtail general had never been particularly hands on to begin with when it came to his stock ... why he had even bought shares in the bank on opening was somewhat of a mystery since he had probably never bothered to show up at any of the board meeting. Bert perked up and a little noisier than he had meant, "Are, do you think," He quieted, and leaned forward his elbows pressing down on the stained wood, "Does Zhang Xun, he has the specie of the bank?"

"I don't know," But it would have made since that Zhang had the hard currency. Still the truth was he didn't know one way or another about that. There had never been a reason to ask about it... but Bert wasn't prepared to let it go.

"But what about the silver dollars?"

"I don't know, Bert." He just thought it made sense. People were playing games. People were always playing games. "Alright Nishihara is offering a second loan, do we have a figure?"

"Twenty Million Yen, closing in about a month." That lead to the questions of the banks, "Chosen and Taiwan have both confirmed, we have that independently. IBJ is the last of the three." The Industrial Bank of Japan, which was interesting in itself, "Loan seems boilerplate, they have an advisor for restructuring on the board." Bert paused, "if they weren't so damned circumspect about talking about it I wouldn't think anything of it."

... but they'd been quiet about it with the first one... which had been smaller ... a fourth of the present loan and that had been enough for Reinsch to go running his mouth... "I want you to go ask our counterparts, see what they're short on. In particular, don't come back and tell me they're short on everything."

"They are." Bert replied sitting back on the stool, "Coal, iron, cotton, tobacco, wool, and wood. Steel, and if its on the market, oil and gold." Some of which was then be sold to Europe for the war with the benefit of the maritime trade ties of England and Japan... there were ships from South Africa to the Mediterranean flying the rising sun banner to free British ships for the Atlantic. "Food as well. Do you know how much money is in rubber? There is a big market right now, if anything food prices are too high." The production simply wasn't enough to keep up with demands for the goods... which was the scope of things... Bert blinked, "Oh, there is going to be another one coming down, once Ishi and Lansing hash things out on investment."

"If the state department is serious about the Russian far east, then Lansing and Ishi need to work something out and that means the Russians out of the game entirely."

"The French aren't going to like that."

Allen simply shrugged, "they," Neither hte French, nor the Russians had the capital to sustain an objection... not without hte British agreeing. "don't have the cash for it. If we get settled into Russia that likely means a tripartite agreement with Japan and England on the broad pacific... and potentially that could mean free trade between all of us,"

"That assumes Wilson can get that through the senate."

"Lets focus on here and now, let me know about any moves on currency, but Powell should be able to start work as soon as he's ready."

"Why the currency?"

"Because there is no way Chosen or Taiwan have that kind of capital on hand, the Industrial bank, sure, but I want to know who is actually putting Taiwan's share up because that should foreshadow what in Manchuria they're planning to invest in." Timber and gold were pretty likely candidate but there was coal, and iron too... and if Bill was right and that there was oil in the north ... that could be interesting.

Bert paused, "How do you know the Bank of Taiwan doesn't have the capital?"

"Because Akashi told me he wanted them to support his hydroelectric plan but they'd loaned out money to england their shareholders didn't want to overstretch the bank's equity." Britain was good for the money, but there was no way that their currency reserves had replenished... and Akashi was looking at the Diet to put up funding for electrification. "Also what's this about Julin getting a million yen from Mitsubishi?"

There was a small shrug, and a shake of his head, "I have no idea. It would have been the eleventh, fighting was basically done by that point so I can't see why the money would have been needed. Do you think it coincided with him becoming minister of communication?"

He mirrored the smaller man's shrug, "I don't know. It was just odd given the timing." He shrugged again, and wrapped his knuckles on the table, "We'll figure it out Bert, in the mean time we have other things to do."

Bert banged on the able at that and the wider man smiled, "that's exactly what I wanted to hear. I know but the Federal reserve has done a lot of good, when they're listened to." He shrugged, "Aldrich and Wilson did a good thing. Even if they hadn't the local banks," Meaning the old qing era financial institutions in Shansi "took a hit, we need a scientific policy in Xian. Its the consensus, a central bank, whether its modelled on the bank of England or the IBJ or yeah the Reserve. It would help us. Not everything is a mechanical problem an engineer and rivets and steel fixes."
--
And the truth was of course that the European war had created no end of ventures. The British were paying for the war, and that had meant loaning money to the French for the French, and the Russians both to turn around start buying other goods. The comment on food prices stood out.... especially with word from the states... Wilson was trying to contend with things, by involving experts from all fields.. but they'd have to see how these things would really work in practice.

Thankfully the Virginian was an ocean, and a continent away.

The agreements with the Qing laid out extensive matters of land rights, their use, and responsibilities. There was a reason that Old Man Ma trusted them to deliver his tax revenues to Peking. The old confucian general didn't care that Duan was in charge, the fixed sum of money really wasn't that much. The trust though was important. The demonstration of it.

The railways were the first things to be built, because they conveyed land rights... or they had conveyed land rights from the Qing, and then continued by Yuan Shikai, and now nominally speaking by Duan... but frankly. The agreements were in practice common law of sorts. Whether it was mines or mills what followed were the public works of housing for workers. Mess halls served food ... and that would keep food down because that food was coming now from company farms or otherwise from bulk purchases the company conducted. The construction of schools had followed, and then they needed mess halls, and that was that. It had expanded.

It was what Jun summarized as 'benevolent governance' in the modern day. She folded the newspaper over and looked at him. "What is it?" He asked.

"You are doing what with the army?"

"Sam is going to take the 2nd​ Regiment and his own staff and establish a second division." He replied thumbing through the papers. It was more complicated than that, but the general idea was that from there 3rd​ Battalion 1st​ Regiment would establish the 4th​ Regiment of Infantry's Headquarters and training battalion. 2nd​ Regiment would loose it 3rd​ Battalion to establish a training battalion as well for filling out the ranks of 2nd​ Division other regiments as well.

"No." She replied flatly.

She didn't clarify more than that other than she had meant something else. He kept thumbing through the paperwork, and then found Banzai's request for the steam casing work. It would have been so much easier if they hadn't forwarded it, the request, so many times... there were phones now, but the request had circled around and it should have really just been included in the gearing box work. Someone had probably broken something. Cracks in the steam case were usually easy enough work, a day or two with a good crew but even with your average yard hand it took a couple hours to strip it out and then braise the casing let it sit overnight check it and then put it back in... or someone wanted an excuse for keeping a train out of circulation... which given the lengths that the railroad had gone to keep their trains from being used to move troops south they might have still been playing that game. "How are things in Kirin? Have you heard anything?" To the best of his knowledge Ae-sin hadn't written anything to Hina, but she also proving a little more tempestuous than usual.

Jun paused over the question, "Nothing beyond the usual banditry among the forest dwellers, and hill folk. When tigers fight monkeys hide and watch."

He paused and put a letter from Noguchi aside. It would take some asking around regarding the bank of Taiwan, but Noguchi might have some insight into whatever Keiretsu was putting the money up through Chosen. He might even have the answers to both, but it would be something to ask. Shitagau was making a tidy prophet manufacturing the explosives going into naval gun shells by using the hydro electric power the dams he had built generated to make fertilizer or rather that had been their original purpose before the war... and with the IJN having cruisers in the Mediterranean, well he probably had new friends in the Japanese government.

Allen knew that the war was having an impact on the whole system of international trade. Europe's consumption of goods seemed to know no end. It was voracious... and that raised questions of production, and for the British whether American banks would continue to support the war effort... it was to that end no surprise the British had passed on the Zimmerman telegraph... but the British political system had not prior to Lloyd George been prepared to make certain steps. The Munitions ministry had a special sort of thing going for it.

The had to be fought to a knock out. That was a position that Lloyd George might still have issues with in dealing with Wilson... and there was only an ocean between the PM and President.
--
Notes: Historical though I believe it does receive a brief mention, it bears stating that the US federal reserve only came into being in December 1913 what occurs in June of 1917 is changes to how the US Gold Standard was applied, as part of plans to finance the war the US was now party to. The IBJ is as stated in this segment is the Industrial Bank of Japan and arguably the most modern and certainly most reliable bank that Japan had during this period. The Nishihara loans were quintessential 19th​ and 20th​ century Monetary Diplomacy right down to a government official going to a friend in the banking sector to advocate and underwrite loans to advance national policy.

The problem with the Nishihara loans was the optics of attempting to pursue the 21 demands that Terauchi government had for the most repudiated when they came into power as foreign policy. Now [and I'm speculating here] had Terauchi been in power in 1914 and advanced this policy to Yuan Shikai and then Duan Qirui after as opposed to the original 21 demands there would have probably been less controversy just in terms of optics of the action at the time.

The original Japanese 21 demands followed after a table of demands issued by the russian empire and that was probably the driving impetus to their sudden issuing and the perceived secrecy. Indeed as the US state department observes there was little point to the demands because outside of the last section it gave Japan nothing they didn't basically already have, and at the cost of significant good will with their Ally (great britain), and pissing off her major trading partners, and neighbors (US, China, Russia) because it looked like (and was) blatantly extortion-ary threatening. [and of course the irony is that the demands were not issued by militarists they were drafted by men with no military experience, and the idea of using monetary diplomacy came from a career army officer who had little political experience and was largely looked on as kind of an oaf]

 

[Imperator Pax]

9 August 1917
It was the following Monday as a portion of the cadre came in to pick over the mess that that attempted Manchu restoration had continued to make a mess of things. The working comittees were still parsing things out. Powell was absent, but at least he had the excuse that he was on site in the west with crews. Bill had come in from one of his test, drill, sites. That meant that there were just shy of sixty men in the room... and it was indicative of how things had changed.

A decade ago they would have looked different. There would have been more sack cloth suits, but that was just what the pictures of the original cadre would be remembered as. The details of it would be forever lost to history.

A hundred men had been a gathering. Not everyone had been close at the time of the original gathering, but most everyone had had friends or of the same broader circle, recommendations by a backing party. It wasn't quite all inter relations, but between them the graduates from the academy, it was all who one had known. A hundred men, a stock each. That had been put up not too long after the Moroccan crisis... which seemed like a century ago. It certainly seemed longer than it was, but maybe that was just the view back of reading the papers in Korea.

A life time ago.

... just as when the Qing had fallen the start had already seemed like a lifetime to see the ancient regime just come apart at the seems.. and for what really? Not a serious military threat like the Taiping in any event... just exhaustion?

Then just two years later fresh on the heels of the mess with Bai Lang, the war in Europe. The great change over. Suddenly the cadre was no longer a hundred share holders, but a board of a hundred of experts and share holders. Three years since that shake up.

Bert coughed slightly, and then when that didn't get their attention Waite threw a booted foot against the lectern to get everyone to pipe down. "Approximately this time last year the Federal Reserve of the United States began to recommend that it was of imprudent financial sense to extend further credit to the entente." Despite the fact that the bank had been perhaps his defining act of his first term it was advice that Wilson might have ignored hence because he just didn't like bankers recommending policy and thankfully all the set backs that occurred for the European war this year had come after the Germans had decided to toss their bomb onto the front lawn of the States.

It was American loans, private loans, and now government loans to England that funded the war. A war that was very hard to say was going anything other than poorly with the recent set backs. The French and Russian paralysis, British trouble at home... and the Italians having repeatedly thought to run themselves into a wall repeatedly enough that despite entering late were themselves facing mutinies on the front.

Their lot was anything but dispirited. The science, the math had been done, was quite clear whatever the resistance the Germans might present if the war lasted to nineteen nineteen the United States would have such a manpower advantage it would carry. It was the numbers. The Germans had been fighting by and large, perhaps smuggling aside, since 1914, but they didn't have the horses to sustain an offensive, and the fact they'd given ground to avoid encirclement suggested its own things... and more. For rational scientific men who could consider the numbers there was a great confidence that the mobilization that was underway would end the war.

It was just as well Powell wasn't here, Bertie was banging the industrial planning drum quite enough today... "To that end I think perhaps 1920 or the first year of the decade that follows," 1921, "Should be the time frame to which embark on a grand new venture of planned and methodical expansion."

There was some shuffling from Percy tended to refer to as a handful of the 'backbenchers' who started passing around documents down the seating aisles of the chamber.

"Now what has been laid out in these proposals are a series of industrial goals, service goals, our colleagues who aren't here are tending to projects that were not originally planned." Bert continued, "Because who, how could we have planned a war within civilization at least one on this scale. It has changed the make up of this very body twice in as many years. We are looking at a third such shift now ahead of us."

There was a shuffling. Powell's abscence was conspicuous, and Allen cleared his throat gruffly to pull the attention towards him. " "We have an office in switzerland. With the intention that that office that branch of this tree will grow." there was a motion to open a new office or move it to Luzanne from Geneva for space reasons, but that was for the office to ascertain its own needs. "This war cannot go on forever." He thought of planes, and cars, and rested his hands on the desk he frequently used whenever there were enough of them present to warrant this theater like room, "and we will need men of learning beyond those whom we have retained. Let us be clear we have known for some time that England and France have made it their stated goal to punish the powers opposing them, and whatever our highminded president from Virginia might think the French are nothing if not usurious. There will be penalties and there will be men in need of jobs. Jobs that will be here, as well as elsewhere, because it is not just in Switzerland we need to fill. There is a railway, mining, and farming ventures in middle america which we have discussed. The United States has a voracious demand for coffee among those, and that is a trade good we shall replace the germans at, is it not?" They might not be interested in competing in the fruit market, but their agreement regarding the railway construction had said nothing about things other than bananas. They didn't have a banana handy so an orange from California would have to do as an example.

--
Allen leaned back against the office wall. He'd changed from his desk facing the door, and leaned there. He was trying to focus on the colored numbers that he was sorting through in his head head. There was a rhythmic thump as a racquet ball pounced against the opposite wall of one of the offices. The sign of JP in deep thought. There was a knock on the door, and he wondered if the thumping had gotten on Sam's nerves. There was a shuffling as JP missed the ball and had to get up to get it..

Then a rap at his door.

"Allen."

He moved the papers off of his lap, and stepped over the box, to shuffle to the door and pull it open. "Sam."

John Paul was in tow, and antsy looking. "Telegram, from Peking. Duan has the votes."

"For war?" Sun Yat-sen down south in canton had been adamant against the war. That had been holding. Qirui's return to the premiership had not been unamiously panned after all. There were southern delegates happy to see Zhang Xun and his royalists shown off, but there were others who still weren't happy with the state of affairs. "When is the actual vote?"

"Tuesday."

He nodded. Qirui would sign the decree as soon as the parliament came through, because as soon as it was done that would mean money from England with almost complete certainty.... and potentially even arms paid for and supplied directly by Britain as well. "What does the new President think about the situation?" Feng seemed to be a sensible enough fella after all.

"I think he means to remind Duan, that he's may be the head of the association but that doesn't make him Yuan Shikai, and that Feng is not going to let himself get pushed around." Duan Qirui and Yuan Shikai had not always seen eye to eye... Yuan had not been thrilled with Duan's performance chasing Bai Lang (or trailing behind), but that had in itself been a bit unfair and it hadn't been Duan's fault he'd ended up catching pneumonia either. They had had their ups and downs, but ultimately Duan had succeeded to the leadership.

... which meant they were probably going to teeter close to a public squabble. If Yuan Shikai had been pater familias of the Beiyang clique, or clan patriarch or however you wanted to phrase and certainly it was closer to that than more western though... then that meant Duan and Feng were competing brothers, in a household with a lot of brothers.

... and well Yuan Shikai had had disagreements with his actual brother over plenty, and the heirs to his surviving materiel legacy were following suit.

John Paul nodded, "I think if Duan can demonstrate his ability to raise sufficient funds," And he conveyed the statement with a pointed look, "They're going to make a move south like he'd been talking about ... before all this." He grimaced shaking his head a little unsure how to broach. "They're going to make the move against the southern provinces they were talking about prior to this screw up with Zhang Xun." he reiterated

Griswold didn't disagree, "And it doesn't do a damned thing about the situation in Szechwan." which not might be entirely true because it might just might draw off some of Szechwan's forces into Hunan, but that was only a possibility. "But yeah its going to be on the finances I think, but on the other hand Duan has already started replacing the leadership."

... which if one were honest seemed as much about nepotism as anything else. Monday, this past, Duan had announced his intention to put his brother in law, and a cousin of some stripe into military commands along the Yangtze. Not that Wu wasn't necessary qualified for the job, and Fu, who was himself from Hunan could well have been a compromise candidate but then again he might not.

 

[Imperator Pax]

14 August 1917
At the time, he had made a point of taking the recommendation to read the local literature in the Phillipines... not that it had made much difference most of it had been written by landholders, and it hadn't helped him in the moro lands. It had been good advice in principle, but in practice it hadn't helped what the war department had had him doing. He hadn't been able to read Joseon's script when it would have helped any. He had been able to read Japanese and Russian fine... which had been why Wood had recommended him for the posting in the region in the first place once the Phillipines had calmed down.

Zhu Xi had chronicled that the ideal model which governments should base themselves on was the family. Ideal tended to be the emphasis word. The beiyang clique certainly modelled itself as an extended clan... right down to actual sub cliques comprised of various in laws... and that meant contending with all the real disputes a real family had.

Feng didn't seem to overly object to the war declaration against Germany and Austria Hungary... maybe because he didn't think anything was going to come of it, but he certainly didn't like the motions Duan was advocating for down south. Duan was moving not just against Hunan but also suggesting putting northern troops into Szechwan, at least along the river itself if not necessarily the interior of the province.

Percy was too elated at the diplomatic achievement of another country to add to the list of those neutrals who had 'turned against the hun' to pay much heed to it. John Jordan had probably noticed, but put it aside. Reinsch was fretting but also fretting that the United States shouldn't take sides either and that it was an internal matter. The Legation was for all intents and purposes largely useless in terms of that.

Reinsch was more interested in picking over the differences in the people in north and south, "Well I noticed in my most recent visit to the south, these charming halls, and the communal trusts that are common in the southern provinces. They just don't seem to be present in the north." The ambassador was saying even now.

There was a habit, or at least a more pervasive one, in the south particularly in Fukien where John Jordan had just returned from touring, that clan associations were formed to provide charitable contributions to the less affluent members of a shared lineage. Allen suspected the reason they weren't more common in the north was because legally speaking a father was supposed to divide his estate equitably between his sons, and potentially there was some disagreement here to provide dowries to daughters. This meant that in the north where the laws administered from peking were more likely to be enforced more rigorously that familial wealth was more frequently divided across the generations.

He said as much.

"True." Reinsch agreed, though he didn't necessarily like the somewhat unsavory implication of tax evasion and shady implication in general of the benevolent societies... and of course he was probably right some of those halls were probably just what they said they were... but some of them were also fronts for the Tongs and Triads to funnel money to unsavory things. "If of course a government is close at hand its much easier to insure everyone is fair treated... but also Monasteries are more common."

"In Manchuria? Sure, Mongolia absolutely." here... not as much, "But they have a commercial component." Monasteries held land, they raised crops, or livestock. They were businesses, after a point... exactly how much business they did wildly varies, and like the brown robes in Belgium... well had... they brewed alcohol too, which certainly could be lucrative.

... and if he were being honest he suspected that the Mandarins... back when the red robes had still be around had been less willing to tangle with northern monasteries that might have the patronage of the nobility than lesser clan halls... but again speculation.

"you're smirking?"

He lifted the drink, "I was thinking about how congress graduated my class early to fight in the Phillipines, but at the time the war department didn't seem to think the Boxers were a pressing problem." Reinsch tried to explain that, but he'd never been in uniform, and he'd been writing papers on international law... so he was speculating too.

... but then after well all the papers wanted to talk about had been the siege of Peking that had even to an extent overshadowed Teddy's charge up San Juan Hill. Certainly the New York Sun had thought so, claiming the siege the most exciting thing witnessed by civilization.

He certainly could have done without the rehashing of how medieval the lifting of the siege had turned out... especially since now that the states were at war with the germans Reinsch was happy to talk about it since it didn't 'impinge on neutrality'.

"You know the British promised Japan the territories of the Germans." The British probably in 1914 would have given the Japanese more if they had asked. Reinsch was askance at it, Tsingtao wasn't the British to give, but on the other hand there was legal precedent for the Victorious side taking colonies off their enemies and redistributing them ... and that was probably the legal basis for Britain making the argument

"Zimmerman's telegraph,"

While it had largely been overshadowed by the sheer temerity of the bastard yammering about lost territories of Texas and New Mexico it hadn't escaped him that Zimmerman had wanted Mexico to indepently reach out to Japan to try and get around the Anglo-Japanese alliance... but then Zimmerman seemed to be misinformed about a lot of things. That poor dumb bastard. "Well, now China isn't neutral." Allen remarked.

"Right, I have cabled Secretary Lansing." He didn't elaborate on the response.

... Allen didn't mention that they had passed the word to the secretary of state that Duan apparently had the votes, and then when the votes had come down that China would be following the direction of such friendly nations as Cuba to participate. "Yes, I believe that opens the way for US foreign aid to China for the war."

"Yes, yes it does. Secretary Lansing has made it quite clear that US assistance, monetarily and materially will be available once the war declaration passed." Which implied that the minister had yet to receive a response... which probably meant Lansing was out of the office whenever the cable had come in.

"I take it the British are happy?"

"I have not spoken to Minister Jordan today, I am afraid, but I would hazard to guess he will be pleased with the news." It would have been nice to have confirmation, but they'd find out later, it was just good that they were back on the subject of the day.

The truth was the British had put a great deal of effort in swaying the neutrals... but Lord Northcliffe... among others had been pretty adamant that they had to be savvy about it. Britain had also been laboring under the misinterpretation that this was a repeat of earlier conflicts... and in a way it was ... people in england had thought the boer war would be over by Christmas... "I imagine he will."

"Has your opinion Siems Carey changed?"

"It has not mister Minister. It has not." He wondered how connected Reinsch was with the professional service of the state department... not very had always been the reading he had. Reinsch was an academic and more concerned with his own views than necessarily doing what Lansing... or Bryan before him had done. "Has Lansing brought it up?"

"Not since the unfortunate business in July."

The glass clinked... Lansing had brought it up in July? That was news. The problem was that France throwing a fit the year before in particular had really soured the American Railway Corporation's board to trying to ge the project underway. Not the least of which was it was a fairly daunting proposal to begin with, "So what then?"

"The canal everyone agrees needs maintenance, badly. There are other pieces of infrastructure that need construction, and overhauls of the telegraph system are another factor."

"I have a large project underway already, can't be helped."

"I was under the impression your great western line was completed?"

"It was." He replied, "There has been funding to connect it to the other cities of the old silk road."

Reinsch knew nothing about trains but he could still read a book, and read a map well enough. He understood the distances as a detail. "All of them, you're the Russian contract Jordan mentioned?"

"That surprises you?"

The midwesterner shook his head his brows bushy. "Its just a little queer the Russians agree to you building a railway in Central Asia, but Siems Carey is the bridge too far."

He shrugged, "Its not just the Tsar, its the French too, and its not a big railway." Not compared to the volume of work that the American Railway corporation had been preparing to sub contract out on the contract. Siems Carey was a much bigger deal, more liable venture than he was giving it credit for, "And its not just them. The Canal connects the whole east of the country." Well it didn't actually, but for all intents and purposes, "Thats complicated work." Even if the French agreed with the Open Door Policy as the states understood it Fukien wasn't going to be happy.
--
He put the ledger aside.

The issue of financing things was complicated. Coal and iron as productivity were useful... now in terms of export more than ever as demand he continued to go up. Expanding laterally wasn't just about keeping costs down, it had been about insuring supply and at a normal price, at a normal quantity on a fixed schedule. It abrogated any possibility of needing to buy parts from Europe in the business, but it also reduced dependence with the exception of things like machine tools on the states.

That wasn't to say there wasn't benefit to observing what the old empires did. Far from it. "Phillips?" He had been considering suggesting Dawes given the protracted artillery use... and for other reasons Dawes had family ties in Washington, and he was older.


"We send Powell we're just as likely not get him back until this is done. Phillips we can send him to England not even blink." Cole replied. "What do you reckon, Duan serious?"

"I think he is, how much of that is because he thinks Yuan Shikai had the right idea thats the question. I think he wants to be at the table... when France and Britain divvy up the spoils."

"and I think he thinks he needs to make a move."

"The brother in law,"

a nod answered the not really a question, "And the other one too. We send Phillips to England, did the professor ask you about the divisions?"

He shook his head, "No, and I don't expect Reinsch to,"

"He's ostriching?" It was his turn to shrug, because he wasn't sure if that was the case... or because he didn't think to ask about it, "Thats funny given how often the 15th​ gets called up, but then Division HQ says we can't give you more troops because the war department says we're trying to avoid choosing sides." Which was of course a directive from state as well... it didn't matter what the legation asked for Lansing didn't want a swelling of a US division in China with the current president in the white house. Lansing did not want to, even if that danger had largely passed into history, of having missionaries stir up the locals by offending local customs and have them running to American colors to hide behind. If there was an advantage the 15th​ division had it was that the troops were liked for not causing trouble... and why would they the China post was the best posting in probably the whole army. "So the money?"

"Reinsch confirmed that Lansing did mention foreign aid to Duan. Then he asked about Siems Carey."

Cole leaned forward, and finally moved his cavalry boots off of the ottoman, "Lansing, or do you mean Reinsch?"

"Reinsch asked, but I don't know if he was asking on the secretary's behalf. He didn't mention the trans siberian, which I admit could be nothing... but the thing is he said Lansing asked about the canal work in July before Zhang Xun marched into Peking."

"Shit," Cullen grunted, "You told him that'd be poking the hornets nest right, it'd shove a stick right in the nest. It'd be us and the Japs versus the French and Russians, have the Brits told you where they'd fall?"


"No I have no idea right now." Allen replied.

--
Notes: Japan, in 1917 / 1918 (this is the Terauchi government, and the Industrial bank of japan) was supportive of joint Anglo/American-Japanese efforts to finance the Siems Carrey agreement, France and Russia were still opposed, and British opinion was divided and as a result of French legal challenges the year before the ARC's board was still wary of actually agreeing to take the project on (though as we will see in november Carey signed the dotted line in November)... and for good reason there were other factors than just the french legal challenges.

 

[Imperator Pax]

16 August 1917
There were on his desk presently a small mountain of newspapers. Some of them were completely useless. Allen did not for the life of him understand King George's silly decision to change his name to Windsor... admittedly that yes House Saxe Coburg Gotha was something of a mouthful, it was rather the sort of thing that maybe meant a bit more if he'd done in 1915...

... or it was just another queer British-ism. He really didn't get it.

The French were rushing to blame all their recent failures on spies. It was clearly a desperate attempt to save face, but at least it made sense.

There was last week's earthquake down south that people were finally putting the pieces together on. Not that that had in anyway of Duan Qirui pivoting from blaming the Germans for supporting Zhang Xun's attempt at a Manchu restoration to then blaming unwillingness of southern parliamentarians, the KMT and affiliates, as being in the pocket of German interests. There were a couple of papers going on about that... but it was all hot air.

There were no facts just the implication and the outrage.

That might be enough that it discouraged foreign investors from supporting potential southern ventures. It might be enough that overseas aid societies looked a little askance at sending money back to china.

As for the alleged 'evidence'... With as ubiquitous as the Mexican silver dollar was in international trade and in China in particular... it would be bloody hard to prove Sun was taking money from the Germans in particular unless the doctor ponied up receipts... which could be just as useful to the north for other reasons.

He'd been more inclined to dismiss such a German plot if not for the sheer boneheadness of the Zimmerman telegraph. It was a pity they didn't have such an incriminating document to put forward and settle things.

Nakamichi came in and shut the door, then sat down. "I have had an unfortunately timed, problematic conversation." A painful phrase... probably trying too hard to make it sound less harsh than however the conversation had gone.

"Who with?"

"The minister of trade in Tokyo, he had spoken with the Ambassador."

Allen blinked expansively, to slow him, that was a little more information. "Your ambassador or the states, and to which country, and Regarding what sort of trade." cause he could guess where this was going. Purchasing agents had been a thing before this war... every nation had them, but this war had expanded the habit to hitherto unfathomable levels.

... Indeed the winding conversation turned into a rehash of the war. When the war had broken out the global steel market had went crazy. Heavy industry in general had. The lose of German mills and their production had increased prices, but the near complete loss of any European mills on the foreign market with all of their production being redirected to the war effort had forced China and Japan to rely on US exports or on comparatively to the US domestic manufacturing.

That was a problem. Japan produced steel, but there were certain types of steel that Japanese mills couldn't make. This was not a case of the yards not being big enough, that was a different problem.

With British demand the way it was prices rose such that they started buying whatever they could get there hands on to accommodate for their own lack of production capacity. The issue now lay in the US War Board and government inserting itself into production, and pointedly in Wilson looking to, perhaps or perhaps not yielding to French pressure, cap prices but also select which contracts had priority and that certainly indicated French influence because the French were pushing for not just below market prices for commodities but they wanted to be the ones to set the prices and they wanted priority for any goods.

"And your ambassador thinks Wilson will agree with a french preference on orders?"

"We think so."

He could see the logic though in Washington. The French, or the Russians, were the weakest members of the alliance. They were tired washed up, on the verge of collapse whatever, it might be good to give them a little charity to keep them in the war until the US could bring the expeditionary in to put Germany's lights out like Lloyd George wanted. What he called that 'knock out blow'.

"You realize every time we have increased production the British buy up what goes to market."

"Yes."

It hadn't really been a question. Nakamichi wasn't stupid, of course he had known that. The war had been going on since 1914. "Thats not going to last forever, call it 1920. After that the price will contract, stabilize, return to a price not inflated by present conditions. You could save hard currency if you wait."

"This is logical, yes." Nakamichi, "However it does not change that while we recognize our allies need access to steel we also are building things which require steel, and if the French demands are acceded to that pushes us further from our own aims."

"<manganese for soft steels, Nikel, argon, Aluminium, Zinc, Aluminum especially, we can do, but the British don't trust us to manufacture armor plate for them." not the least of which was because it wasn't exactly as if the Chinese had a 'real' navy so far as brass were concerned. It was true that the Royal Navy begrudgingly trusted the US Navy to make spare armor for them, but even that had been purported to require significant arguments since the Australians couldn't do it despite all the investment before the war. "You can make a list and we can talk about it, but I'll be honest even if the war lasts three more years it will take almost that long for us to expand significant volumes."

"I cannot speak for the gentlemen in the navy." And Nakamichi was army so the emphasis he put in calling them gentlemen was ... approaching a little astringent. "We are concerned though that if we do not lock in a production share of new production now, prices will continue to increase," Much as prices were continue to inflate on all other goods, food especially came to mind. "I except that from what you've said regarding the British, and their railway project in the west you have your own needs."

"Technically that's accounted for under allocations," With British money to handle those expenses through December. The British wanted the railway built, if they were lucky they'd be at the border by the first serious snow. "If you can find out the details we can solidify things."
--
Powell's telegram was exuberant, exuberant was probably the best word for it. It rolled off the pages as he made comparisons to how primitive the railways of the 19th​ century had been. How it had taken six grueling years of labor after the war between the states to by hand and with only black powder to link pacific to Atlantic.

Cole, who's father had supervised work on both ends of the line, had rolled his eyes as Bill had narrated the telegram from on top of a stool "If you listen to him," Cole presumably meant Powell even though he jerked his head at the Texan. "We should damn well aim to beat the record."

"We could probably do it." Sam added. Then after a pause shook his head, "Maybe we should wait until 1920 before we make a run at that."

"He's only bringing it up because Stevens is in Vladivostok." Cole stated, "He's preening to state like a peacock looking for a hen." Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing per se, but at the same time there were limits to how fast they could expand to meet new demand. "You know this is about getting us involved in middle America."

There was a knock on the door, and Bill got off the stool, without it tripping over, and since he was closest opened it. "Captain." He greeted the Mongol officer.

"With respect General McCulloch," Cole snorted, "The Minister is here." Allen leaned over to the window pushed the dressings over and made sure that there weren't any cherry red mitsubishi's parked in the yard, but no there was however a long black one with little American flags on the front. Admittedly it would have been awkward if John Jordan had taken a train to them without any kind of forewarning... but Reinsch showing up? Reinsch went down to the train station, would take the train all the way to Canton by himself if the legation didn't watch him so his presence wasn't all that unusual. The presence of the state car suggested that yes the Legation did in fact know where the minister was and that he didn't need to ring Tietsin.

Seeming to read the thought, "You want me to call the Colonel before the professor gets up here?" Allen thought about then nodded, Cole shuffled his feet off of the ottoman and moved to the conference phone.

Sam stood up, "Well I have some work that I need to do for second division allotment of machine guns, and I think I should be going." Or Gone before the ambassador got here. Cole followed out with a similar excuse to the Gendarmes under his command. That left him and Bill while the captain went back to whatever he'd been working on before.

"What do you think?"

"About the record? Its a bit late for us to shoot for it," This decade, "Sam's right we should wait and make a play for it after all this fighting is over." Oil was going to be big business, Kerosene was already big business in the province. They were going to need to run rails through the province in general, for goods and services, and that was without even considering the Ma clique or arrangements with Yan about further branches. Drills were complex machines, the wells were complicated.

That was just one avenue of many.
--
Notes: So the record they're referring to is the amount of rail track laid in a decade. In the 1880s as part of a wealth of new technologies and new practices the US laid down 70000 miles of track in this decade. The United States never exceeded this in a time frame, despite new technologies, such as prime earth movers becoming available within the following decades. They also didn't exceed this number despite needed to extensively regauge existing lines in the following decades of the construction of the 'inter urbans'.

Indeed in this decade in 1916 US mileage of railway is believed to have hit its peak, and again most of this rail was largely constructed by hand tools and blackpowder, though blackpowder was being superseded by TNT (and also dynamite for that matter) post 1870.

Japan's navy had gotten it into their head that they wanted eight battleships, and eight battle cruisers this is the so called Eight Eight plan. It would have bankrupted the country, and also it was unviable for other reasons, Japan in 1916 and indeed even in the thirties simply did not have the ability to domestically produce that volume of modern armor plate without importing.

The result is that in the interwar years during the years of London treaties Japan decides to forgo complex alloy steel that require foreign materials to save money and maintain economic independence. Perfectly reasonable solution, the old armor plate is still function it offers protection, and is done because Japan has some major financial problems post ww1.

The problem is still the navy is still the senior service and doesn't understand that the money just wasn't there. The reason Japan agreed to naval limitations post ww1 is the government knew they couldn't sustain that kind of building program (unfortunately some of the people who made these decisions were civilians, and some were from the army so the Navy screamed betrayal and bloody murder). Japan had been during world war 1 looking for supplies of metals, this was also the period where the US had various metals as duty free (the wilsonian free trade policies) in order to keep for example navy costs down (the USN had been complaining about commercial armor plate costs as well) as well as other metallic at lower tariff prices (which Wilson's successor Harding promptly torpedoes in his two year presidency, and sustained by Coolidge)

In any event, September 1917 runs a bit long, and November 1917, for obvious reasons, is mostly focused on broader international implications of world events

 

[Imperator Pax]

16 August 1917
In the Confucian conception of things your obligation to your superior existed contingent on their benevolence. There were disagreements about exactly how much that obligation was contingent, but theoretical ideal was absolute obedience to ones parents.

Or in the case of a government, which of course was supposed to be modelled on the family, which Reinsch perceived as nothing more than a feudal hold over. The Qing had attempted to implement German corporate law in theory but in practice not only had it not stuck due to cultural differences it also hadn't stuck because the Qing had readily carved out exemption upon exemption.

Part of that had been the Qing had expected a corporate entity to act effectively as a family unit in obligation to its different hierarchies. The concept of committees and staff and board meetings, managerial concepts they could understand... share holding and such had been harder for the Confucian literati to articulate on. That was harder to put into context of a pseudo family hierarchy, and they'd never really come up with a suitable, acceptable explanation... and it hadn't helped that German corporate law hadn't been the best answer for it... the consequence was that there were very few publicly traded corporations.

"The Chinese insistence on gavelkind while noble in its concept of fairness." The minister continued droning on, "Is detrimental to long term business. Yes, with Japan their primogeniture system is itself a feudal holdover but the keiretsu endure generation to generation." He stopped to sip from the tea. "You have long ties to the Japanese, you know how they organize, I don't see why that couldn't be done for China."

"Because the major Japanese families were already tied to the Meiji government, so when the government privatized the mines who bought them up?"

Reinsch put the tea cup down, "So why not do it here?"

"What makes you think it wasn't done here?" Reinsch was either fooling around playing question answer games, or it had just had slipped his mind. "It did. The Qing had recognized they didn't have the experience to run some of their assets and sold them off to prominent families, and that accelerated after the republic was declared," More than a few state owned coal mines in Honan and Anwhei had been sold off to influential provincial families there at cost much like the Japanese had done in the 1870s. "Why are there technically more joint stock companies, I couldn't say." He really couldn't, and he called them technically because the Zaibatsu rarely allowed stock to slip out on the private market when they could avoid it. Stock was carefully managed between main and branch families, "But in Japan the families of means own banks and have holding companies to manage operational arms." Reinsch pursed his lips at what could be construed as militarist language, but it really hadn't been intentional that was simply how he thought of how the manufacturing or insurance issuing bodies of a corporate entity were.

Zaibatsu in its meaning presumed a single family sitting on the majority of the assets. Mitsui, or Okura, it didn't matter what they said. The main family was at the top with shares parceled out to the branch families and then all outsiders in the wings. Reinsch was quick to turn the discussion though onto the 'new zaibatsu' the second generation that ha been emerging growing rapidly on the war time glut of work. These were the companies that had put the majority of shares up, Noguchi's Nichitsu came to mind pretty much immediately, and Allen wasn't surprised when Reinsch zeroed in on the engineer's firm.

"These are shipping charts."

He lifted the documents, "They are." The big man up in New York JP Morgan had tried, before the Philippines, to expand upon the US merchant fleet. It had flopped, which was a crying shame now. Probably the biggest set back the man had had in his entire career and it had lurked over him until he'd died in 1913... and now the US was facing a shipping shortage... and that was not even contemplating the British admission that they'd lost nearly a million tons back in April to the German's submarines.

The British Empire was maybe just shy of half of the world's maritime fleet... but the British shipyards had been choked of labor and steel and had yet to reach their pre war volume of laying.

"There is a shipping shortage back home."

"I am aware," to the tune of the army having maybe a quarter of a million in shipping tonnage to move men and supplies anywhere, "The new construction is late going on, it'll take time to show up, to make the difference."

"Of course of course." There was going to be an Allied Maritime Transport Council. Not that the British were going to let the French dictate the ocean routes that went through Asia. The Asiatic Market transit was absolutely critical to English financial flow. Trade from the British went to India, India went to the US, British shipping carried goods from Australia, to Japan and China as well. The Royal Commissions on the differ foodstuffs ran out of London but had purchasing offices across the whole world. With Japanese ships patrolling the south African coast and in the Mediterranean hunting uboats it was another reason. "There will be complaints about profiteering."

"There will be complaints about allowing foreigners a say in American enterprise. If the senate ever hears a half of what the French say to the English they'll flip the table," but Reinsch had a point that those same concerns had hit last year with the Shipping Act, which had itself been a compromise... but it wasn't going to satisfy everyone. It wouldn't address the issues of needing new berths for the ships needed to meet the voracious appetite. "Its out of my hands. As soon as my goods offload the rail its in British or Japanese ownership, where and how they send it on its way." The Free Trade agreement signed.... what seemed a lifetime ago was managed differently... and the possibility that the Virginian would apply something like the British to transpacific import exports was a little concerning.

Reinsch turned the subject to bulk iron hauls. He'd been misinformed. It would have been nice to make a cool million on each ship, but that the price of the goods, not profit. It was a profit industry.... a million per ship load, he wished.

It was about that point in the conversation that Reinsch sprung the news that Wilson was planning to try and implement steel price controls on the big US firms to reduce price. The negotiations back in the states would last the rest of the month and wouldn't take be announced until the end of September. The president had always been rather acerbic towards steel, and congress had the year before finally approved the creation of a federal mill to actually turn out armor plate over the continuing feuding between the navy boys and business over the costs it took to make armor plate... but then that whole argument had been initiated before the war and before demand had made economy of scale practical.

"If that's the way it falls." He replied... but the British had agreed to contracts, and the British wanted a railway built, they were already talking about some fella named Mackinder would meet them in Russia on the other side to settle out any issues over there... probably at the end of the year, maybe early next year. "I have existing contracts with the British, set prices through next year." Admittedly those prices had been before the continued rise in spring and certainly before those prices had reached their summer extreme in the states where Pig Iron had actually hit a hundred dollars per ton... which was mind boggling. He had never considered that it would go that high... not for a ton of pig iron.

No it was better to hold the price where it was... that was in no way sustainable even without the Virginian trying something... "The market is at risk of collapsing," The trade journals had already been warning about it, "prices stay this high it'll stifle demand," Which if that got time to build up supply, fine, but some producers would want prices to remain high and if they tried to hold prices at such a price... things would come tumbling down at the mills.... and looking at a depression worse than what US steel had been looking at in 1914 before the war had started.

Booms and busts.

As soon as Reinsch was gone the other door to the office opened. "Hell." Bill grunted. "Can they do that?"

"Maintain full employment of the mills?" He shrugged. "Sure. You heard the Minister, the navy is clamoring for a whole new fleet," No surprise there, the navy was the one thing mandated by the founding fathers and the congress had been vexed by that ever since, the Navy certainly wasn't going to let the opportunity slip by them. "There is no way to keep the smaller firms in business. They're not efficient." Full integration of a firm, a firm that ran coal and iron had train connections they could run it all to big mills and churn still out. "If you try and set prices where they're competetive with government contracts ..." US Steel would probably manage fifty percent profits if not better. "The good thing is, even if they look at our books... we're still tied in with the British for most costs from the first of the year."

"I thought at as much." and of course that was steel, billet especially, but steel products in general that didn't need to be shipped over the seas from Pittsburgh. Especially given that in the two years prices had on more than one set had nearly doubled. The topic price change over the last eight months even. "You know with the British blacklisting Guatemalan coffee," For german business partners, "Powell is bound to want to make a move."

He leaned back and shorted. "Yeah. I guess that's true." One thing at a time though. "What do you think?"

"I think somebody pushed Reinsch in our direction and Reinsch didn't know to check the details of things." It wouldn't have been the first time Reinsch had his naivety used against him. John Jordan really felt the professor was out of his depth as an ambassador, that he wasn't up to playing the game... and the French certainly thought the same... and Hayashi's biggest problems were people within the Japanese ministry not anyone outside it... it within the civil service and then perhaps arguments outside say with the Prime Minister's Personal Envoys like Nishihara.
--
Notes: We move into what will ultimately be the failed attempt to weld together that Anglo Japanese alliance into a broader effort against the Bolsheviks in particular in Siberia, but also towards efforts in the baltic. Now over the course of this this touch lightly on a couple of historical figures, for example on the British side there is Harold Mackinder, and Winston Churchill and a couple of a generals who we will get to later. On the Japanese side there are in addition to lesser generals, Yamagata Aritomo and the current prime minister, on the Chinese side there are are for example Duan Qirui and Zhang Tsolin up in Manchuria. Where this will ultimately fail is in the wilsonian presidency, well I say fail, in the sense of that the Siberian intervention doesn't go further, does not commit to toppling the Bolshevik government.

The support for intervention fails due to Wilson for two key reasons, Wilson lets ideology get ahead of national interest, and the second is that Wilson has a stroke, and his wife Edith seizes power and ousts Lansing (from State) and Wilson's infirmity paralyzes the government leading to very little productive happening until after Harding comes to power, and Harding is an isolationist.

Now unlike in IRL the timeline difference here is that the Anglo-Japanese alliance against the bolsheviks is more pronounced, especially due to knock on effects later in the following arc, which otherwise is largely focused on the wars in north China and the introduction of modern maneuver warfare in quick rapid succession followed by months and even years of peace. Basically brief periods of high intensity fighting being the dominant fighting as opposed to seasonal anti banditry campaigns.


Also either in the second half of this month, or in march we will probably resume updating the other story in this thread, the ring of fire story that I let sit on my other computer there is actually a decent volume of 1629 content more or less sitting in the folder I just got side tracked.

 

[Imperator Pax]

21 August 1917

He watched the electric bulb flicker. His thoughts were really elsewhere. When he'd been a cadet the Academy had made a point of showing them, the prospective corp of engineers, one of the brand new commercial power plants. It was a whole new concept back them. Electrical needing to be piped in from offsite had only become a thing really that decade. But there was more and more demand for electrical power, for bottled lightning, and it made more sense to have a big power plant somewhere... and that meant you could just wire houses to have electric lighting... and well not just houses. "And?" Allen shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and lifted his drink, "The Fukien clique doesn't have the money to run those ships, it doesn't matter."

"Sun has a navy now." The englishman remarked more emphasis on Navy, as if that changed things.

"So he's what going to turn to piracy? Or is going to run off to intern them in Japan. Sun does not have the money to man and pay for those ships. Those ships need maintenance, they've sat up in harbor for years now." and the lack of the use of the navy since 1915 made more sense now, "If the Fukien clique thought he did I think they seriously overestimate what the south's finances are." Not with the war on. "What you asking for, what has he possibly got?"

"He approached the Canton legation, British support in exchange for a declaration of war. You haven't heard anything about this?"

Allen sipped, the thought occured to him that Sun might have assumed he could potentially barter China's navy as an asset for the war... but that didn't add up the ships weren't really up to it... "He's a little late." It had been a little odd that Sun had been adamant about staying out of the war but it did make sense he wanted a little qui pro quo in exchange for going along, "Duan has the consent of parliament," How much strong arming he might have had to do for some seats was up in the air, but with the 'Research clique' and the 'communications clique' had certainly helped local down the finances side of things... if there was going to be any kind of problem it was going to be to the south. "No I haven't heard anything about this Percy." Besides of course the railway and the army, there was of course there were all the other things. The RPF had been a long time ago now, a long time, that had been a quick rustling, little more than a posse thrown together short term, part time at first... with the differences in how businesses differed between the countries, they needed to shift some things around, but they couldn't just copy Japan's model.

It was the matter that was more his focus, than... a bunch of rust buckets. That wasn't fair to the navy, but damn it, what good were they going to do anybody. "What do you think they'll do?"

"Go back to Duan or Feng, at least nominally." Someone had to pay the bills, and prestige was the main reason to even keep up a navy... Duan wasn't going to just write the expense off, and Feng ... well that was a harder question. "Get one of them to agree to abide by the constitution," per the agreement from... before the whole mess with Zhang Xun putting the toddler back on the throne... this year was insanity.

He remembered looking back after 1914 and thinking how insane that year had been, and 1917 had well blown it away....so for that if Powell wanted to be ambitious then let him.

"John Allen?"

"Sorry," He exhaled, and then clipped the question as a drawl on the words, "you going to tell me about your Parliamentarian?"

The conversation went that direction in name only. Percy couldn't tell him much so blustered on about social niceties, and so forth. Apparently the man was something of an academic, he probably would have gotten along well with Reinsch. The Minister could have done with another academic who was involved in official foreign service work or whatever... even Percy thought so. "You really can't tell me any more than that, come on Percy."

"There really isn't anything that comes to mind. Very fascinating ideas about the interplay of nations and the role geography has in shaping nations but what can I say beyond that." Mackinder didn't seem to have served in the army or navy. Percy probably would have mentioned that directly... but it also made sense the English Army, the actual British Army while larger than its American counterpart had still been small, and the Royal Navy had devoured the bulk of British spending on defense.

--
The gradual modifications to uniforms, and their manufacture had been simple enough. Dress uniforms were hand fitted for officers and some utility uniforms had Chinese sleeve work which had some practical utility in the field, but it wasn't standard. The true utilitarian changes to the uniforms had begun with changes to the shoulders in 1913, no epaulets. Then changes to the stiching for machine needles to deal with wear and tear in the field triple aught needle work to shore up sleeves, and gussets. Larger pockets, and more pockets, four on the chest. It went on like that , and it went both ways, the Army's dress jacket had turned into the preferred business jacket, slim fit, large pockets, but as much that Europe wasn't exporting as much in fashion these days.

Those manufacturing tasks had been picked up by clothing shops with machine tooling otherwise meant to produce men's wear for the states. It was part of the reason they hadn't considered going for anything in different colors until Cullen had slipped in that the Gendarmes pattern uniforms while identical in cut were to be in black.

"Tch, the navy? What good are those bastards." Cole snorted pulling a handful of six and half spitzers for his scoped rifle, and adjusted the position of his legs feeding them into the internal magazine. He cocked his head towards the piece of wire strung sheet metal, "What do you make that twenty twenty five mile winds."

Allen looked over, "Closer to twenty five," He replied looking at the movement of the trees bending under the western wind.

The hundred twenty three grain spitzer had more of a crack than the thunderclap of a larger 200 gr eight mill. There was a chime as the piece of steel was rattled at eight hundred yards the far right edge having taken the impact right before the wind gusted.

"So what do you think the doc is going to do?"

Allen shrugged, he still didn't think Sun had the money to actually keep the ships up, but that could be why he was ferretting around for British support, "What do you think?"

"He might follow everyone else's recent example, say Canton is independent."

"That's a thought." Allen replied. It might even make things simpler.

Cole eased the bolt back on the rifle, "British money, with the way Duan is accusing him of silver dollars coming from Kaiser Bill?"

He thought back to his comment at the beginning of the year, and then to the conversations in spring. "I would have thought he'd have been taking money from the Japanese. Something like the loans Qirui is taking from Mister Nishihara. The notion it might be German money," It was possible, "It might explain Sun Yat-Sen's opposition to declaring war." Or not. China was a big country. Sun taking the navy and running south put a lot of space between him and Peking... a navy was always going to be pricier than an army... the sea tried a lot harder to kill a fella.

Regardless of who his foreign backers were that kind of money meant he'd be able to pay for troops, and weapons. At the very least he'd be able to carve a niche out in the south. How much, that was the question.

The rifle shouldered as the wind died back down, "On the other hand it could be bullshit to try and erode the support Sun has in the national assembly." That seemed a bit more likely, but stranger things had happened.

"Are you the slightest bit worried about this?"

"Naw, I reckon that's your job. Big stuff is your job brother John, I'll do the detail work" He rang the plate again.
--
They had filed back in the study, short Elliot Kemper and young Carter, "Now." The Texan rumbled, "Say he does say Canton is independent, what then, you can't hold a city with just ships."

Which meant it would probably only last until one of the warlords down south got tired of him, and muscled him out of the rich port city. "Then of course he'll," Presumably he meant Duan, but it wasn't clear, who Cullen meant, "say something about the 1912 constitution to placate the navy." Or whoever else wanted to cling to the document written after the Fall of the Qing publicly. It hadn't been worth the paper it had been written on, and it had never really had much in the way of legal standing before Yuan Shikai had tossed it into the trash.

They continued through the bookshelf lined room, and the Texan blew a breath out, "I suppose they'd have a better point if they'd written the damned thing after they'd toppled the Qing," Or at least something they could claim had actually succeeded the provisional constitution, "So as to say it was what they were fighting for."

Allen was tall, but Bill had almost half a foot of height over him. "What is that?" He asked finally. He had originally thought it was a 1911 but now that he was beside the other man it was clearly not.

"Oh, yeah me and Sam," The other Georgian tossed a look at the two taller men, "took another look at Lewis's idea. The open bolt idea," He shrugged noncommittally, "If it was automatic then you could excuse the weight, because it'd need to be. I was nearly in favor to scrap the whole idea. Fifteen rounds though." He whistled, "This is provisionally mind you the P.45/15. We took Lewis's mag idea," Sam snorted at the 'we', the Texan was using "and built a Browning for it." The gun had a strangle toggle where the magazine release button was on his model 1911. Seeing his look, "Yeah, we took Lewis's magazine release and rotated it ninety degrees to make it ambidextrous. If you look at the magazines you can see where it locks in as well," That more or less confirmed to him that Bill planned to have a second pistol whenever he could needle Griswold into it. "It'll actually take with the way we did the magazine well standard 1911 magazines, but they do wobble in the well."

The gun would probably fit his hands well enough, but it would be too large for most men. The 1911 with its single stack magazine was quite ideal in that respect, though some people needed time to adjust to the sights. It was increasing in popularity over its only real rival the Mauser 96. There were still a number of various revolvers used, but they, and handful of other semi automatic pistols were steadily falling behind. With it nearly impossible to get guns from Europe though even the Broomhandle was losing ground to the 1911 pattern pistols now being produced domestically. The Lugers remained popular but harder to get than the the Mauser pistol.

"The swiss have a set of tooling for that," Cole remarked, handling the pistol, "I saw it when I was looking after our office out there, I think they're the only other ones with a set outside of Germany. Mausers, Tsingtao's arsenal has the tooling to make copies of the 96," and they probably weren't the only ones. Certainly Spain and Italy had tooling if not one of the other arsenals in China.

Sam took the large frame automatic from Cole, "I've been talking shop with Yan's chief machinist, he's worked up a forty five caliber one that runs." To forestall questions, "Its hand made, lovely vine engraving." He made a bunch of squiggly winding motions with his left trigger finger. Before the war had broken out one of the 1906 batch Luger trials pistols had been given to Griswold from DWM's representative on account of their existing friendship with Paul Mauser and the licensing of his rifles. Serial no 5 was in Sam's reference case, but they'd never even considered production of it given that in 1913 there bloody well hadn't been a point... and in 1914 Belgium had been occupied and FN had needed hard cash and had the Browning patents for everything under the sun. That technically had made them beholden to FN's agreement of noncompetition for those patents for pistols in the United States or Canada but they hadn't been aiming to compete with Colt anyway.
--
Notes: A couple of things, firstly it is a little ahistorical that Shansi Machine Bureau / Taiyuan Arsenal would be working on the 96 45ACP this early. Hence the implication here that it is a tool room prototype.

Yan Xishan for whatever reason made the decision to adopt and standardize on 45ACP whether he believed in stopping power or whatever (which I doubt since I've seen pictures of him carrying what appears to be a colt 1903 the 'pocket hammerless'), he authorized the production of both pistols and submachine guns (including Thompsons) in Taiyuan in the late twenties. It is possible that Yan (as indicated here) had already made that decision, and he may have been convinced by his own experts that adopting the 45 made sense (but OTL I suspect that it probably didn't occur any earlier than 1919). Here though he has more reasons to do it earlier

Secondly there may be instances where 93 and 96 are misplaced. This is because originally there was a rifle conversation as well, but I noticed I was making that mistake and dropped most of that in favor of dealing with pistol development. So yes Luger tooling, IIRC DWM made a grand total of four Luger tool sets period through the entire history of the gun. (And two of them haven't been built yet IIRC) Mauser meanwhile had 96 tooling built or contracted out for or just tooling was made in the dozens. Colt and FN and Kongsberg, and everyone else who got tooling to make the 1911 that's really up there there were a lot of tooling sets by the end of world war 1. Its one of those facets of industrial history.

Which brings us to the 1911, the trick with the magwell is actually something that had been done a couple of times in history. You only really see it with niche guns. The Makarov had a service version that would take the original single stack magazines of the design as well the version specific expanded capacity. It never went anywhere. Double stack 1911s basically in the modern day all competition guns but its one of those zany prototype things people did back then (including turning the 1911 in the twenties into a machine pistol). Some of these changes will be incorporated later.

The ambi controls yes, the double stack mag, no that will wait really until when Xian, the Chinese Army and Navy, goes to 9mm after the war for service pistols (and goes to double action), but the controls yes those will change in Xian's side arms (With looking into the future the Air Force and Police largely remaining with the 45 single stacks, we will get to why later). The Grip Safety on the 1911 was requested by the US Cavalry because they liked it on the Luger. There will be mentions of the grip safety being pinned in place, and then in later domestic production runs it being one of the features that gets deleted to save time in favor of the manual safety on the frame

This also sets up for the adoption of a first generation submachine gun in 45 ACP (effectively a 45 acp version of the Lewis gun, which never went anywhere historically because Lewis was hated by Ordinance branch) and that will see some use later on, though as a specialist weapon (and getting into the trend of police usage of submachine guns during the interwar years) in the forthcoming years.

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1917
The map traced the winding concourse from the west of them. Nature being contrasted with straight and level rail tracks. Mostly straight there were towns they needed to reach.

The Yellow River dominated north China. Xian and Zhengzhou were both south of the river creating a natural boundary line... one they had used against Bai Lang, and one that had played a part in how recent fighting near the latter had been shaped. The Yellow River was important to china, was important to them, it geographical fact, but the railroad also made canals no longer truly indispensable... well as a direct commercial artery anyway.

That was part of the reason Gansu's taxes had been put starting years ago on the rail car and sent to peking. Shensi, and Shansi, Kansu, beyond out to Sinkiang the rail ran. Bai Lang had travelled overland being harassed and driven ever westward, and that deepened their own relationship with Gansu's hui.

It wasn't enough to completely silence the anti foreign voices in the community, but it didn't need to be. The fighting in Szechwan between Gansu's independent brigades had picked up, and while Old Man Ma had treated them to lamb soup that the old man was really dancing around the issues that were going on in Peking. Cao Kun had been pretty up front as well that ... there were divisive voices within the Beiyang clique over what to do. The provincial governors association was dividing up into regional blocks running north to south. The premier and the president head up rival factions.

He turned away from the map, and regarded the IBM machines, and their punch cards. "Are we auditing?" Not that there wasn't anything... wrong per se with the abacus most Chinese accountants still used... just that normally his thoughts trailed off.

"Nah," Sam replied, "Calculations. We're going to need to do a census," Griswold admitted to figuring they could also pen that in also for 1920, "I'm taking Rockhill's figures, and trying to estimate the population." There had been a recent publication out of New York citing that China's population was now about five hundred million, that was an estimate.

"And?"

Bill moved to grab the paper, "Says about thirty three million,"

"But that's the 1910 figure that Rockhill estimated, give or take." There was a break down based on that 1912 report for the provinces. Ten million people was a lot. Shensi had more people than New York state, and at the same time, the province was only smaller than Texas... "and that doesn't count that thats small and undeveloped by Chinese standards." Szechwan to the south came to mind in terms of population... it dwarfed them considerably, but was more fractured. He fished back for the paper, and stuck it to the side. "How about the oil?"

"if my arithmetic is right at 40000 barrels a day. Conservative math mind you, and that will be once I've got the derricks up." It had moved them up that Colonel McCulloch had sent some of his engineers over than risk the men get drafted to fight in Europe back in the spring, that gave him extra experts, but it would still only shave a few months off bringing the derricks online.... "It should help."

"Do more than that." Texas oil was cheap but the war was eating it up, the British had devoured that as well. This had been years in the making. The wells in the province had been slated for next year they were ahead of schedule because of necessity Suiyuan coming operational was good, it meant they could build more coal fired trains to use the coal they dug out of the ground anyway, and that would deal with the carriage shortage... or at least help address it.

"If we'd gone to war with Mexico," If Mexico had joined the Germans, "That would also be basically all of," Three quarters at least of, "The brits petroleum." When the war ended, demobilization would be... messy, everyone had been told that much... they had been sure of that a year ago.

"What about Ma?"

There was oil in Gansu as well. They had tentative sights plotted out. It had actually been where they had planned to start full scale drilling first. "Still waiting to figure out things with Ma Fuxing, and his clan." The Ma family, or at least they all said they were related when it seemed convenient, was enormous. "Then there is also Zhang, also." Zhang Guangjian who was the actual Dujun of the province of Gansu, even though the Ma had more influence on provincial events. "But They're both waiting to see whether ... what happens in Honan." Or probably more accurately... what a beiyang division, say the Fifth, going into Honan would do to neighboring Szechwan.
--
The paper this morning had talked about the fire in Szechwan. It was a mess. If they were lucky the fighting wouldn't come over their border... but they probably weren't that lucky.

Allen made no presumptions to actually being in charge of Kansu's brigades, even though he was relatively sure they'd at least listen if he was giving advice while there was shooting going on. He was certainly more comfortable with Yan Xishan's situation than the situation because Yan was unlikely to throw troops over the border... but the base line problems were similar. There were bandit problems that needed to be stamped out.

... and of course besides that human blight there was the risk of famine, and literal plague to consider as well. "And how are your Gansu Braves coming along?"

"There is some discussion whether, were we stick them in which division." Or if there would be so many recruits they'd end up putting a battalion of majority hui in each division. That was an idea. It was one idea out of several, and he wasn't entirely forward on forming homogenous units. Hui and Manchu were disproportionately, to overall population even without a fresh census, in army numbers at all ranks and ratings. Comments of turning iron to steel or iron and nails aside, there really was a need to deal with the bandit problem locally. "What do you need Percy?"

There was a pause, and the Englishman sighed. "The Prime Minister is very concerned about the condition of the war effort. The French are as you've surmised wholly spent as a fighting force and with these... 'bolshies' pressing down I don't suspect the Germans will have much to worry about on the Russian front for much longer either, its a mad house in St petersburg, and in Moscow. There are anarachists, socialists, marxists everywhere."

He grunted.

The US had laid an average of seven thousand miles of rail between between 1880 and 1890. A feat that had basically doubled the size of the national railway network, and of course a period that had among other things marked the zenith of 'narrow gauge'. It was a feat made possible, a record set because the US had had no panics in the market, and of course good strong leadership in the great firms, and the need to traffic large quantities of food stuffs.

But a railway couldn't go across the sea, and both Russia and France were dependent on foreign wheat shipments due to the loss of so much manpower. The men who were tied up to fight the war, the seizure of draft animals... and of course the corruption and profiteering that seemed rampant in the supply trains and administration. "Where is the connection point?"

"Omsk." Before he could speak up Percy continued, "You don't have to go that far, here these are our plans broadly but Omsk is the junction of where we want the projects to meet." The documents that went onto the table detailed the sort of agreement that were almost assured to make the French furious. The three hundred miles of rail in Western China in dugan country was nothing... that the British had footed the bill was useful. "Ayaguz to Semipalatisnk. Is the last leg of the journey, build that ninety miles, connect it to your existing line, and allow British material passage for the duration of the war."

He flipped through the bank notes. Then the other documents. There was already a russian built line in operation, rather than just being talked about from Novosibirsk to Semipalatisnk. He stacked the papers to one side, "MacKinder, your parliamentarian, will meet us on the other side?"

"Yes, He's in Russia already, is there a problem?"

"You didn't mention," And thus Allen had had to have some ask around to find out, "That MacKinder supported Chamberlain..." He glanced at the smaller man, and tilted his head with a raised eyebrow and a look, "certain policies on tariffs. The term imperial preference may ring a bell." There was a pause, and he flipped the papers turning his gaze back to them while Percy formulated a response..

He coughed, "Yes, well that was a long time ago, and I would remind you that when Chamberlain was speaking those words that your own United States had high tarrifs, and more importantly I think those changes and of course his views on industry, and that..." Percy were grasping for something, something to change the subject, "Equality between nations you will get on well I think we should put 1900 behind us."

The quotes reflected what he suspected was a mix of british policy objectives. Parliament had had its share of problems getting private industry interested in railway projects and never mind getting British rail firms to build anything quickly, British pay rates reflected that, the war's effects effected that ... and it hadn't escaped him that the language of the Russian agreement emphasized american mercantile interests in the line... such that Percy's superiors in the foreign office had probably sold this to Wilson, or Lansing at state as a 'generous expansion' on American enticements to the far east in Russia. Then of course there was the plain thinking that shoring up the Russians would help put some steel back in the french's spine. It was all patently British towards coalition building and trading off.

What Allen would not have contemplated were the knock on effects in the long term. How this would effect thing, how it would shape things in less than a year. A few hundred miles was business as usual so long as the crews knew what they were doing and there was dynamite, and earth movers. The political repercussions of the railway it would not shape what the world would eventually call the first world war it was too late for that but it would shape things of after.

Percy this looks find, but since we're on the subject, "What do you plan to do about Baku?"

"Vickers most likely, I should think. They did the work pre war. Oil is the next thing you know that."

He smirked. "It is that." Allen agreed.
--
Notes: Mackinder is a little more involved in the Foreign Service Office than OTL I don't think he actually visited Asiatic Russia for another year at least, but I can't say that with absolute certainty. The bigger change is of course is an earlier railway link.

Historically the linkage in the caspian to the trans siberian wasn't finished until later, to the Trans siberian by the Russian Military Railway (constructed by the whites) and it would be demolished by the soviets and then a new line doing the same thing would be constructed

That link will of course be important after the new year. In the mean time , the main focus is business and bandit hunting in the aftermath of Duan attempting to bring honan inline by force without the unanimous consent or support of the rest of the northern leadership.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1917
Though it wouldn't go into effect until next year 3rd​ Division was to be constituted as a second Rifle division. The more ... potentially argumentative point was its Mountain division designation, which was of course more of a matter of fielding them with principally light field guns and 3inch howitzers. The idea of course was mobility and ease of supplying the unit with ammunition, because very likely its posting would be in the Bashan mountain range straddling the border with Szechwan.

That part wasn't in debate. It was simply an indisputable fact.

Fu, Duan's choice as Dujun, was from Hunan province. The fighting had been going on for two weeks now, since the 16th​ when two provincial military officers had declared their independence. Splitting off a couple of counties should have been an easy fix, or would have been if Yuan Shikai had been around, because he could have rallied the beiyang clique as a whole.

Feng had wanted no part of this from the start, but at the same time he hadn't done enough to buck the trend. Feng should have been a little more vocal about it... but there were reasons why he hadn't. Still as president it was of course his job to issue the proclamation of a punitive expedition... which had lead to confusion causing the 8th​ and 30th​ division commanders to wonder what was going on... and thus they started dragging their feet.

... and of course that was only part of it... but that Feng's successor in Kiangsi and two other Dujun had released circular telegrams admonition this whole mess as a bad idea was not a good sign.... and all of those ... those were all northern officers within the Beiyang... it didn't even touch on the mess in Hunan or Szechwan as a result of the eruption of hostilities. .. which involved no less than six provincial governors having their troops shooting, and a litany of minor military commanders proclaiming they ruled their own small fiefs, and were invading their neighbors.

Cao Kun didn't like this mess either... and when they would look back this was probably the ultimate indicator of what would follow after the European War. It set the stage for everything else after, because Zhang Xun had chosen to retire from political affairs, ceding all remaining political power in the north east, manchurian region, to Zhang Tso Lin... but that wasn't so evident in September of 1917.

They themselves had other things to do. The cadre had steering committees and they now had two major trunk routes in the west. The north reached Urumqi already but the southern line hadn't yet reached Lhasa but it was on the paper work. That had been authorized by Yuan Shikai when he'd still been waiting to be coroneted emperor, but the work from Xining, or Lake Qinghai, was still in progress. The delay was one they had warned him about at the time... not that in 1916 Yuan had wanted to listen... but they were having to bypass Szechwan province entirely, which was doable of course but it was also a lot of dynamite.... and the truth was the southern route was a secondary venture ... with the British paying for the route to the Russian border.

He expected that the eight hundred mile southern, or south western, trunk would finish in the spring of next year. Duan didn't care. As long as the western provinces didn't care, and as long as the fixed payment to cover the salt gable came in the prime minister didn't care. The western provinces not causing trouble meant that he largely ignored them. It was not the same as Yuan Shikai had been in Peking, Yuan had trusted the Ma had lived with them, and they were old men together.

Chen Shufan had his cabinet position and all the more reason to stay Peking. He certainly wasn't going to come back and stir the pot, no really that only left Hu in the south... and Hu was too busy watching the same direction they were... wondering what the Szechwanese or the troops from Yuunan were going to do.

"It is a temporary alliance, one of convenience."

Allen nodded looking at the map. "Not the first person to tell me." Hu though didn't want his home town burned to hte ground and risking a famine if one or more Jia slipped over the border to engage in some bushwhacking. "I'm fully aware we're going to need to watch him."

They already had had a contingency for that. Access to Xian from the south took a well known route whether they were talking about from within the province or from the outside. The 'southern gateway' to access the ancient capital and it was ideal a position to post troops to watch the border with Szechwan, and with telephone, and telegraph and radio broadcast and railroad it was choice ground to occupy. As ridiculous as it seemed this was precisely the normal time of the year for cross border skirmishing, or fights between counties.. .the time table of fighting in the provinces and between the provinces remained essential feudal in character a by product of the harvest schedule of farmers, and the seasonal weather determining when some people had free time and privation.

It was the agrarian economy, and the distance and lack of centralized force projection. Corn, and sweet potatoes had swelled the population and with three quarters of those hundreds millions involved in agrarian labor the Qing bureaucracy had never been able to expand to keep up. A single magistrate being responsible for a quarter of million people simply could not be a functional system.

That was how it had been when the dynasty had finally given up the ghost. "So what then?"

Killing Famine... "Before the French," and to be honest the British, "buying up all the wheat surplus they could get their hands on, "Our solution was always if there was a risk pad out with Midwest grain." When there was a problem, or shortage to be expected buy cheap from the interactional market ship it via the union pacific and sail from san francisco bay.

That had been the emergency option for shortfalls. There was no speculation going on back home. No grain hoarders. The prices back in the states was being driven up because the entente had the money to paying higher prices. He didn't fault them there, there was nothing to fault.

"Domestic production at scale. Mechanization."

"Eventually yes, tube wells, There are lot of things we can do." Mechanization on industrial farms favored large square plots, favored certain crops over others. It would mean reshuffling the labor pool, people moving into towns and becoming wage laborers rather than tenant farmers.

Sam picked up his coffee. "Yeah." He sipped. "You never cared for farming."

"Nope."

"Just saying." Sam commented. "Alright, look my staff is drafting their materiel now. Zhang thinks, October." He didn't elaborate which Zhang, "Wu think he's jumping the gun, and figured divisional headquarters won't be ready until the new year."

The opposite estimation, the opposite extreme, "That's rather conservative,"

"Yeah, I thought so to. He thinks," Griswold paused and blew on his coffee, before sipping, "that even moving into the existing space, we will need more time. I have Cameron and Bridges over there helping them try and get set up, wiring telephone banks, so forth just to keep their hands busy I'd otherwise be hunting work for them."

"No one is expecting you to have barracks space for the entire division up. Just space for the headquarters to actually work out."

"Yep, I know that." Forts didn't pop up over night, and they were talking about the permanent basis of a reservation. "The boot camp will be busy training. We'll be done with the barracks before we need them."

It would come to it that they needed more than one training pipeline for basic training, but the current system while perhaps longer than it truly needed to be was comprehensive and suited their needs for training. It wasn't like how the English did it with each battalion carefully guarding their unique lessons as sacred traditions... or at least that had been been how the old British army had worked, maybe the war had knocked that foolishness out.

"Alright so second is comfortably settled in I take it?"

Sam shrugged, "We haven't done much over the last few weeks other than move them back and forth from Zhengzhou to tell the truth." The funerals for the handful of men lost in July came to mind... there was still something to be said for having artillery when the enemy didn't, but city fights were nasty affairs all the same. "What are you thinking about for 3rd​, you've had time to think about the idea?"

A 'Rifle Division' was an Infantry Division. An Infantry division though was not always also a rifle division. "Powell has a lot of goddamn nerve." He grunted without any real heat, then snorted shaking his head, "Its an idea. Mortars and infantry guns. They'll lack the punch of 1st​ to be sure, but its an idea and he's right it would make them more mobile and less constrained even if they had break downs with their tractors, or trucks," Whenever they could actually buy or build enough to provide for the planned division. "I'm not going to say I'm entirely thrilled limiting them to three inchers but if they're going to be up in the mountains it is an idea."

"It would simplify logistics, and realistically it would help our own production meet goals sooner... and lets be honest if Szechwan comes over the border they don't have a lot of artillery."

Chunking ... the story from the newspaper came unbidden. "That's not the same thing as none." He rebutted. "But you're right, means and needs... and it'll be next year at least before we get that far." There was a lot that needed to be done. There were sergeants who needed to go courses, there were staff officer courses... there were war games run.
--
Notes: So again here 3rd's Mountain division moniker refers to her planned lighter field guns, rather than being an alpini style rifle division as would have existed pre war in Italy. Again this goes to the service branch importance of the artillery branch.

One other thing to touch on, is the line that this finishes on. About War Games. This is referring to both table top wargaming and also field exercises. By this point Wargaming in a table top sense has already displaced games like Mahjong in mainline social circles in Xian. So I'm going to digress into social topics, and the history. Mahjong is was originally a card game, it made the shift to tiles in the latter half of the 19th​ thats when the oldest tile sets a material culture item date.

Mahjong is fundamentally though a gambling game, and as will probably make some comment on in the 20s is fundamentally a southern chinese game. This goes to the distinctions, and the cultural distinctions emerging in China during this period in this timeline, effectively it is type cast as Shanghai's game as a gangsters game as a wannabe gangsters game.

That isn't to say that people don't gamble, but gambling still takes the place of, or resumes moving back to using card games, rather than tiles. Again, though Confucian morales, particularly neo confucian ideas in the song and tang dynasty don't approve of gambling (people still do it), but competitive social gaming begins to be subsumed by things like table top wargaming. Particularly modeling land based armies (Xian is a territorial, army centric military structure with an emphasis on its artillery and infantry, there are technically cavalry rules, but thats a legacy).

This goes to the fact that war gaming emerges from Prussia and is very popular world wide, including into the anglosphere across most age groups, and social classes and genders as well. This is lightly touched on in White Wolf, where its exported out, and remains popular up until really ww2 and then somewhat declines, and wargaming in the US is what ultimately leads to Dungeons and Dragons (the rule set for early DND traces back to Napoleonic war gaming rules, thats why its very simulationist on some stuff.) I digress. It forms a key part of staff education in military colleges and also again its something that children of both genders in the US, in England played prior to WW1.

Its effectively perceived as a tool of instruction, its a 'Educational game' as opposed to gambling, in addition to any perceived status factor for being good at something martial related even if you're not in the army, because in theory in 19th​ century 20th​ century literature, being good at war gaming supposedly translated to being good at business (chess also has this stereotype).

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1917
There were stacks of dark blue books piled on the table up against the side wall, and the boxes they had come in, were sitting by table's legs. The books that would be going out to Rifle School's next class, and the Staff Officers College now that they were printed. Some of the books would also be going to Taiyuan, and to the school out west in Lanzhou.

What had become the basis for the infantry officer's primer was ... had begun life as a chronicle of the lessons learned in the Russo Japanese war of 1905... time in the Philippines had impacted it, but practically speaking at the moment everyone was going to infantry school first before anything else... and thus the lessons were about the last war in Asia.... or at least the last war in Asia between two distinct nations rather than these wars in the pocket.

The issue with the states in the war though. "It was bound to happen." Bill commented a little more gruffly than his usual boisterous nature. The war in the Philippines ... and of course to the imperial pivot to Asia had allowed for promotions in record time... but by the time it had been done... well hot fires consumed more fuel. The Congress after the Russo Japanese war had looked at the expense of the army and been unwilling to spend money for certain things, and there had been a break with old school and new schools of thought and of course it was the war department without a war to fight people had gone to the private sector.

Now there was a war to fight. "Crozier has always complained that the army loses the best minds to private industry." Then just to make the point, "Which is why he's head of Ordinance." Cole snarked. "They may not even post them boys overseas."

There was a pause, his youngest brother was now a major as well, "No Daniel has already been told he's going to France with the AEF. I've heard the same from Black Jack." He replied. "Dawes's oldest boy just made full bird. And the youngest just made captain for one of the new divisions." This preparation craze that had swept in... there were older men who'd been lieutenants for ten years that were finally getting second bars... and it wasn't enough. It should have been obvious it was never going to be enough.

"He's what twenty four." Which in peace time was half of what a Guard Lieutenant averaged.

He'd be twenty five in November. That was the situation. Either the cadre members had siblings, or grown sons being called up or promoted to fill out whole new units. "Where is Dawes he's supposed to be here damn it." Allen grunted wrapping his knuckles.

Cole stood up his cavalry boots clacking over the floor, "I'll get him."

The field artillery man joined them about fifteen minutes after the meeting was originally scheduled to begin. "Was looking through what we had going through Shandong especially after July."

It was on the itinerary. "And? If this-" He started to grab for the pages.

Dawes waved him off, "No, geez, I didn't realize how many melons we grew for export." The whole agricultural sector had been caught up in the war. Sugar beets, melons, cotton. It wasn't just them sugar cane was native to south china and the Japanese in Formosa were making a tidy sum of it over their export of Sugar to the English. "No its cotton. All this talk about the Russian line, that business last year with uprising in Kirghiz." Whose principle cash crop was cotton. A region whose labor had been voraciously devoured by the war effort stripping the fields of not just cotton, but also wheat and elsewhere... and the war effort had also stripped the fields of draft animals. "Productivity is nonexistent. I would estimate that Russian production peaked in 1913 and has been declining ever since, and that's only partially the war. The weather is not helping, but some of it is lack of technical innovation from lack of capital. The farming is, Are the sort of goings on daddy would have considered ass backwards." He stopped and waved his hand, "Sorry I'm getting ahead, the Australians their influenza is bad this year its in the papers. Hell it was elevated last year, but it starts in what we would consider the spring. They're on the bottom side of the world and all... but if the war has done anything it has made international trade it has bound us all together in great markets." Selling to markets back home before the war wouldn't have raised any eyebrows. Japan was right next door as well of course some exports there... but then the war had come and demand for everything had skyrocketed. It was no longer just tobacco or cloth or sugar or some coal. It was a demand for every sort of good imaginable.

Pershing had complaints about the French and their brothels, about the moral sickness, the clap and such all the others... as if the French didn't know to watch for venereal diseases in their whore houses... but disease was a problem. They couldn't possibly have guessed just how much of an understatement that would prove.

Something as simple as the flu. It wouldn't be until later that the Australians who had been invalided out could be back traced... or associated with cases in the British Army in France. All that would be academic. The epidemic would sweep over the world, and of course the states would only start counting the pandemic in the following spring... but it had begun well before, and it would last for after the war.

The papers back east would call it the plague of their time, that it was biblical... which at the time was ironic since of course the plague was still actually a thing on the prairies, and the grassy steppe lands... and of course the reality of the plague being the disease to be mindful of was what impacted their policy of epidemiology.
--
It had been over a month now. Two of hunan's regional commanders had taken their territorial militia and declared themselves independent of both Fu, as well as Tan as Dujun. They were striking out on their own... and there was a good chance that they were just the first two... but that wasn't what was worrying them.

"How many troops are in Hunan?"

"In total? God knows." and it wasn't their real problem. "Its not the real problem."

Allen looked from Carter who had asked the question the first place, and then to Dawes. "You think that number is accurate, Sichuan has another twenty battalions?" even if that was only five hundred men, the ... report put forward by John Jordan's office was alarming.

"That would only been ten thousand men, John." The older man replied, "And we know from the shooting in Chunking that the counties are as much at each other's throats as they feuding with the Yunnanese."

But the question was would that hold. Hunan sat on the rail running south, but Duan had other problems than the question of had he fixed the issues that had plagued Yuan Shikai's expeditions... Kiangsi's government really wasn't happy about all of this. Kiangsi's governor, along with the Dujun of Hupeh, and Kiangsu were now pressuring Cao Kun.

"Yeah what if the Yunnanese and the Kweichow bushwhack them then?" Carter asked leaning forward on table. His southern georgian accent strong as he reached for the whisky, "We supposed to just wait."

"Yeah we're supposed to wait. What do you want me to do, post you to Little Ma?"

"It'd give me something to do. I'd rather you do that then send me to Switzerland."

Allen and Dawes shared a look. Then back to the younger man. They nodded, "Alright," Carter rocked back in the chair and stood gripping his suspenders above his gun belt.

"You mean it?"

Carter had been late coming to the Philippines. His class had graduated on time, and he'd left the service as a first lieutenant rather than dawdle and brindle along in the grade with nothing to do. Rather than going back to Georgia he'd stuck taken a slot that had opened in the Cadre after Bai Lang had caught the bullet in July of 1914.


"Yeah of course he means it." Dawes stood up, and pushed him pack in the chair, "Now sit down before you turn the table wrong side." The artillery man grabbed the bourbon and shook. "Look the brigade is trouncing every which way, and that's fine don't tell Hongkui what to do. They've stuck him on this fool's errand let him do it his way. You've got one job you handle that's keep the artillery intact. Its a supply chain. You make sure that those trains run on time, and those batteries roar when they need to."

Even halfway to sloshed they had the younger man's attention. The idea was pretty simple of course. Ma needed technical services. Artillery. The handful of old Krupp guns were from the Dungan revolts for gods sake, some of the other pieces were even originally Russian.
--
Allen flipped through the postal receipts, and then looked at Percy. "Its disunity John Allen. Disunity. Anarchy even." The Brit grumbled. Then he suddenly shifted and banged his hands on the table in a way he wouldn't have done before the war in Europe, "Goodness gracious John Allen they have counties with their own soldiers like its the damned middle ages!"

"Perce. Take a breath and sit down. " Even as he said it he eased the putnam and weale book Reinsch had sent him out of sight.

He half considered getting up... but after a moment Percy sat and went back to nursing his brandy. "I don't... I don't understand. Hunan is a horrible mess." He repeated that more or less a couple of times. Percy had enough self control most of the time to avoid outbursts like this, but he'd gone to observe the fighting, and then gotten on Peking Hankow line and come straight up north and had torn through two or three bottles the night before.

The Green Standard were... for all intents an army based on the preceding dynasty's model of army organization. That was to say that after the Qing had come to power they had stood up the Green Standard based on how the Ming had done things.

They were the Luying. Tiny regional garrisons meant to keep local conditions peaceable.

Maybe it had made sense back then. The Qing had come to power when the thirteen colonies had still been new. Not that he mentioned that to Percy, instead, "Duan claims he's making progress."

"Oh certainly. Progress, if he wasn't fighting a feudal army. You ever seen men with spears charge machine guns."

"I have actually."

Percy clamped his mouth shut. "Right, not everyone has." he shuddered. "I can't. I don't."

"You've seen men with bayonets its not all the different. Just wagering on luck." he replied.

"Maybe that's it. Then." The englishman coughed slightly. There was a slide from the door and a hawk faced man stuck his head in the room. The oak leaves at the major's throat accentuated his scowl.

"He's fine." Allen waved. He wasn't actually talking to the royal marine but to the hui officer behind him.

"yes sir." The Marine replied almost sounded like his cousin Albert.

The door closed. Percy scowled and straightened. "Goodness he didn't even knock."

"He's a marine they don't knock."

"He's a royal marine."

"He serves on a ship and they drink rum Percy. They don't knock."

"You have marine friends."

"That's how I know." He replied, "Hunan." He reiterated steering.

"Its a mess John Allen. Its a terrible mess." Percy shook his head. "Do you know how we reached the numbers we came to," He was listing to one side, "Well its because we know that the units that are supposed to exist on paper aren't at full strength. You're the odd one." He snorted. "Some of the units are a sixth of the size they're supposed to be in Hunan. You sit across from me and even you don't get it. Is it something in the water? Is it htat fucking bandit you shot. You went out in the woods and killed Bai Lang."

"I didn't personally do it."

"you would have."

"If he'd have sat in my crosshairs." Allen lifted the glass. "The White wolf has been dead three years Percy." Bai Lang was dead, he was no longer the problem. Other bandits had come up, and been put down, and there were different problems now.

"The Qing have have been gone longer, and Zhang Xun still tried to put his bonny prince charles on the throne."

He attempted again to steer the conversation, "Hunan?"

"Its gruesome."

"Gruesome is a nice oxford, sanitized word. Duan says he's making progress, but you and John Jordan are both unhappy, so why is that?"

Percy wasn't having it. He was too messed up.... more than the fortified wine, "Do you remember the new years games, you as Gordon.. the frog's face. It was easier then." Percy cracked a fragile smile. His hand shook holding the brandy, "Its the same as back then... the taiping I mean. The central government's army cannot sustain what they're doing John Allen. The Beiyang is supposed to be modern, but they're understrength like the banners or the green standard. Its only a matter of time before they're fighting not just provincial militias, but outright provincial mercenary units... just hired men."

That wasn't quite accurate to the rebellion. There had been mercenaries on both sides. Both foreigners, and mercenary soldiers recruited from neighboring provinces. They had been the units the Qing had considered to have the most success so those militias had been praised.

The irony of course was in the unit genealogical tradition was the beiyang itself could trace its roots to one such unit. The Huai of Li Hongzhang.

It had been based in Anwei... but there had been others. Including one based in Hunan. One whose ranks had reached a hundred thirty thousand men under the command of Zeng Guofan.

"Is there a man who fill his shoes?"

"Right now? No. No one stands out like that. No one has their own bureaucracy." Not right now anyway... they'd only declared independence last month, but he didn't interrupt. "There is no," He sloppy waved as he searched for the word, "secretariats that have popped onto the scene."

"What do you mean?"

"its just the Yamen." Percy continued waving his hand. "The counties who have declared independence are large I'll grant you but they're not the whole province." He stopped to speculate that Tan might still have some control over his former subordinates, but Percy shook his head, "We thought that too, we hoped even, but that's not it either. Maybe they're working together, but these men have ties to the local finances, we know about the salt gabelle. They've been levying other taxes but thats a double edged sword."
--
Notes: It bears mentioning, especially since ATP has pointed out the Influenza Epidemic, in 1917 at the end of September (so the next update) Eastern Zhili suffered a severe flood that inundated Tietsin. There had been heavy summer rains in northern Shanxi and in southern Mongolia, but the main cause of the flood was that dykes in the canal failed. This wrecked massive numbers of farms in the east because of lack of maintenance and the heavy silting which prevented drainage.

The reason this doesn't get more coverage in the next update is because it effects Tietsin and eastern Zhili almost exclusively, and even if it didn't while it made a big splash in Tietsin at the time, it was quickly forgotten but it was endemic of the problem of lack of maintenance on riverine infrastructure during this period. So its get a very oblique mention among this is in the papers, but it was a once in a generation flood, but it has basically no effect on the interior, most of the damage is concentrated in the south east of the province where silting had been the worst (the northern heights, northern henan and shandong) further inland in Shanxi proper there was no flooding or at least no catastrophic flood the summer rains came in and they went down stream they hit where the silting of the river had been building. The river burst its banks, and continued down stream, but as a flood had no meaningful [direct] impact inland.

I digress, this coming Wednesday I plan to update Dominion on the baltic sea with the next part of spring 1628 and update it the following Wednesday of the month thats what I'm aiming for anyway.

 

[Imperator Pax]

September 1917​

The thing about modern war was that observers, newsmen, while annoying had gotten very could at tallying all the industrial hardware that moved. Trains carrying shells... it was part of the reason that the British had tied bells around their journalists necks, and also threatened them with espionage is they printed things without clearing censors. How well that would work for the states... well only time would tell. British journalists could move pretty much wherever they liked and like unlike Chinese journalists weren't at risk of getting shanghaied into the army or made to carry baggage for your local bandits. In fact local bandits tended to like getting foreign press attention, and posing for pictures, it helped their reputations.

Duan's advantage was fundamentally grounded in his military background. He was a red leg, and his initial successes hinged on concentrating the Beiyang artillery where it mattered... but artillery couldn't hold territory by itself and while his artillery could make life very uncomfortable for enemy infantry he still needed the troops of other Beiyang commanders to contribute to holding territory, especially with as narrow of a rail corridor as there was.

Percy hadn't actually seen the arrival of troops from Szechwan, or Yunnan, or Kweichow, but he didn't need to. Word had begun to get around that other military commanders were coming from the south and west. Not a trickle either.

This wasn't the systematic maneuver of Tsai's troops two years earlier up from Yuunan. This was an unruly mob, mobs really, individual commanders taking their troops and crossing over the border with not little but no coordination that immediately started fights with not just the rebelling provincial battalions but also Fu's new governance and the nominal civilian provincial authorities. Some of the southern troops crossing from Yuunan were reported to still be carrying the banners of Tsai's campaign against Yuan Shikai, probably for luck Duan wasn't attempting to declare himself emperor after all.... and he hoped that Duan didn't plan to try.

That didn't stop the newspapers from eating it up though. There was no Tsai this go around. That much was clear, because as soon as it had looked like some of the little warlords in Szechwan were even thinking of getting involved the fighting had started up in spurts. "Its just a damned excuse."

Which was true, Allen wasn't going to pretend that the allegations that the new fighting wasn't anything more than one county or even one town's militia jumping the next guy over for some much older grievance using things a hundred miles away as an excuse. "That's not the point Sam. We've been watching mountain range down south for years now. There have been bandits in those mountains for centuries its a perennial problem." Old gangs dissolved as leaders passed away, new ones formed, and they needed to distinguish themselves as a result, "Cole?"

Cullen stopped playing with his hat, and smirked. "I'll take a battalion down there and start enforcing law and order." A battalion though was really all that they could spare at the moment, but it was still a demonstration of how things had changed.

The Qing had never expected them to actually have courts. Maybe to deal with their own internal problems, but the ancient regime had expected them to ask a magistrate to at least nominally arbitrate disputes ... or really go ask Yuan who had been governor of Zhili at the time. When Yuan had become president well there had been a succession of various governors to Zhili province... and other problems.

Court proceedings had never been a thing to worry about. The way you dealt with bandits was you shot them. God knew that was a kindness compared to the Qing penalty a magistrate would give them... but even so live bandits were supposed to be handed over the magistrates... and they had done that during Bai Lang's run through the west... but then Yuan Shikai had died... and now well Percy's comparison to the Taiping situation wasn't one for one.

There weren't any, or at least not anywhere near enough, magistrates to administer... and Shansi and Shensi were neither important enough to really warrant Peking to send anyone worth the post. "So what two battalions. Cole, since Shang going back down there, and then Cole's detachment."

"We're thinking of calling it a cordon." Cole and Shang would both be on 'their side' of the border... but Hongkui was going to be going over the fence with young carter in tow. "We have two to three months of potential fighting, and then potentially some space, yeah?"

"I reckon so." Sam agreed.

So they needed to signal that any bandits thinking the province was going to be an easy target should look elsewhere, "The way I figure out numbers is that we can post the Guards," What would be second division as it gradually stood up and filled ranks, "In the spring at the rail head." As the rest of the division filled as the regiments became regiments in being rather than individual battalions they'd have solid border guard.

The problem as of course these things went was that while they had correctly observed the lack of Tsai having left a successor to succeed him... they had failed to contemplate exactly significant the fissures were in the Beiyang. Duan would make successes as he marched south, and while there might be some truth to his protests that Feng would sabotage him in jealously it was not surely not just that. The initial county level rebellions, the signed declarations of independence from the county level in Hunan spread. County level military commanders first in Szechwan... for whatever such telegrams were worth... and then Yunnan, then seemingly Kweichow and Hupeh and others began to circulate as the year would continue to wane.

Part of that problem was the habit of provincial governors had gotten into the habit even going back to before the Boxer rebellion of circulating such telegrams, and now their county level administrators had cottoned on to the fact that they had sufficient local autonomy that they could do the same and that their provincial superiors could do nothing to stop them.

--
They hadn't talked about it, the flooding in Tietsin had hit the papers and had been bad by all accounts, certainly the summer rains had been hard when they had come but they'd rolled on down stream. No, the real problem was the state of the dykes, so in June so what if the rain had been hard, but by September... it was a different story. He put the North China Herald aside. "The Industrial Stage." Percy declared with a flourish watching the mill work. If this turned into the Brit complaining about how easy an eight hour work week again Allen wasn't sure what he was going to do. Instead he looked at the documents, "Well what are those then?"

"Census estimates." He grunted.

"Has this country even had a census? I thought the one in 1910 fell through," Percy trailed off... and made a small noise.

"Well that is the thinking." Allen replied, "Griswold is aiming to take stock of the province in 1920," Not that they didn't use the tabulating machines for other projects. "Szechwan is about the same size Austria Hungary," he tilted his head, blew out a breath looking at the fan rotating, "or the States were in 1890." Thus he wouldn't have been surprised if by 1920 that held and there were seventy million odd szechwanese by then.

Not that they planned to actually try and enumerate Szechwan. There were could be a margin of error of course, but the growth in the provinces they could count along with Rockhill's work and other logisticians should give them an idea. Percy was heedless of this, "and Pensions," Percy mentioned looking at the paper packet.

"1920." Maybe they should have started thinking about it sooner, but things had changed so much in the time since the old buddha had died, "there will be a lot of changes. We're already moving to life time employment," As it was it wasn't as if they weren't turning towards near hereditary employment. He wasn't going to tell Percy that that was aimed at furthering the rapid industirlization. "Have you talked to Soho?"

"Only that I tried to convince him not to go down there." That had been a fool's errand to even contemplate. "I failed to do so of course. To succeed in talking him out of it."

The question was how would the newspapers record events to the Japanese people, how would this be memorialized. The Terauchi government clearly agreed with Duan's interests in trying bring the south back under a centralized organization. Duan probably wouldn't have cared about how civilian policy was pursued if the provinces would just pay the taxes that south had remitted to Peking to Yuan Shikai or the dynasty before him... as it was coffers were alarmingly starting to run dry with the volume of shells Duan's troops were expending.

... and part of that was that Duan's Beiyang troops had more than a dozen calibers of shells in service bought piecemeal and often in small patches so it was difficult to standardize... that was no surprise of course every knew that was a problem but the qing had had financial problems, then Yuan, now the same with Duan.

"Speaking of finances."

He paused, and considered, "Your, have your people in New York have they talked to JP Morgan," The firms, "the French or the Russians?" or the agents trying to negotiate for credit,

"The Russians."

"They're overleveraged. The Federal Reserve said that last year."

Percy grimaced, "To the tune of about ten billion rubbles as it happens."

He had heard it was closer to eleven, but decided at that metric at that volume... it no longer mattered. If you were that overleveraged well that the bank's problem, and that was precisely why the Reserve had been saying stop, "That's just," The "foreign loans." He observed.

"Oh yes. The Russian government is outstanding to some fifty billion in total."

That made sense why the Russian government had been willing to accept significant restructuring of internal markets, and areas. The Russians had always been completely and utterly dependent on French capital ... but the war well French investment had faced other issues as French credit had been tied up elsewhere... Kerensky making those concessions made more sense given the overleveraged state with an actual number put to it.

He thought about the price the Russians had been willing to pay in 1915 for rolling blocks... for any sort of rifle no matter how outdated it had seemed. That the rolling block would take their rimmed modern cartridge was a boon to be sure.

"The bolsheviks have seized power in Tashkent."

The Russian Civil War was underway. Not that it would be called that until later. The irony of ironies was not to be Korlinov's failure, but what the coming year would be, would hold. The British response, and funding as British fears of Russian influence redoubled with the new Bolshevik change... and of course the mergence of distinct White Russian factions with different backers among the great powers.
--
Notes: Ok so technically there a number of start dates to the Russian civil war in just 1917, I'm not definitively saying its September of 1917. You could make the argument the Russian Empire had been in a civil war since 1916 (I know some people who hold that position academically, in addition to some good literature on that topic) or even earlier, and there are plenty of end dates based on how much you count the soviets killing one another never mind the anarchists, or the peasant uprisings, or the whites or the ethnic uprisings.

This however is the big timeline divergence that effects international perceptions and relations, this leads into MacKinder, and on the Russian side Fyodor Keller, Wrangel and among all the other zany cartoon characters like ungern. The reason its the Russian Civil War's consequences is because of Russia's ties culturally, physically, and economically with the powers in Europe. China was a fourth of the planet's population but economically and socially isolated from a europe and as one might expect despite French, and Russian protests and claims throughout the first world war that foreign investment would return it didn't. Belgium investment similarly largely dried up, in part poached by danish firms but also Belgian shareholders sold back to Chinese stockholders this is the case of investments made by the 'Research Clique' who were never militarily powerful but were very economically successful. To the point that a number of them ended up leaving political office went into banking and retired financially stable.

This compounded of course by the events in may of 1919 both with Versailles, and also with John Jordan and the eight power arms control agreement the embargo that would last nominally for really about a decade with most people have broken it fairly soon after, which will be touched on. That kind of agreement only really comes about because of the first world war and changes in international norms Versailles as an international treaty would have been unthinkable before the Russo Japanese war. A good example of this is look at the end of the Napoleonic war and how France as the defeated power was treated versus Versailles. It went well beyond the scope of previous treaties, even though its very much revenge on the French part for the Franco-Prussian defeat.

Economically, and Socially though, British and French exhaustion and Versailles couple to largely remove them from the Chinese sphere of influence. That failure to ratify Versailles had very little tangible effect on european politics, but Versailles itself had serious effects on Chinese consumption of imported goods. (Which surprise surprise, France and Britain then complain about, but politically they do very little about it).

The French reach the conclusion after Versailles (ultimately proven erroneous but they didn't know that) that the anglo sphere was not going to come save france a second time and began looking for a security guarantor in the east. (Poland, the Soviet Union as the natural successor to Russia, they talked to Romania and the newly independent other states). This was the overwhelming french foreign policy concern post war. The British went into a post war depression that lasted basically until the the military build up that would lead into the second world war. [And of course part of the French inability to act besides the demographic crisis is that western european economic interdependence and cooperation before ww1 was at an all time high and that was completely gutted by the first world war and only returned to that level as a result of the Marshal Plan and the creation of the EEC, and the reason it failed to do so sooner was French protectionism post ww1]

So thus in this timeline the first major change and reorienting in politics are the changes in central asia that come out of the alternate Russian civil war that will progress after this point.

This is also in terms of planned updates the first of two, conclusionary segments for 1917, the other will be at the end of October aimed at major reorganization changes that begin to take place. Part of this is due to the fact that in November 1917 due to persistent logistical and financial issues, as well as disagreement with the Beiyang Duan Qirui's advance to Hunan grinds to a halt. His forces there start atritting themselves and additional rebel forces begin to crop up, and this prompts a political schism to emerge from the eastern beiyang provinces. This is the Feng-Duan split of the clique between the President and the prime minister and will set up for the Anhui Zhili war later on between the two men's respective clique but it really has its roots here.

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1917

The papers on the desk painted a grim picture. The letters were worse... but it was the telegrams that really the biggest problem for what was going on south. That wasn't counting the influenza cases hitting Shanghai, and were probably going to do a number in Tietsin, with the flooding... and if Qirui was adamant about sending north chinese troops down... well...


Qirui's successes were all on a timer. He'd hit the logistical tail end for his operations. Shells were limited, and now he was running into manpower shortages because the the other Beiyang divisions weren't sure what was going on between him and Feng. Even Cao Kun was starting to get vocally uncomfortable in his public telegrams.

That situation was at least as responsible for moving Chen's troops to occupy Hankow in attempt to insure the arsenal continued to produce ammunition that then made its way to Duan's various artillery batteries aligned in pairs and spread over an ever widening front.

As a complicating strategic factor was the explosive growth of the population of the lower yangtze in particular over the last century, at the bare minimum, and the effects it had had on an already restive population. There were more people that needed to be fed that needed to still live on the same amount of land in the area.

The premier could not have been ignorant of the pressures his troop movements were putting on the dujun for Kiangsi, Hupeh, or Kiangsu but it was just as likely he thought if he pushed a little harder a little , a little more that things would fall into place and that his successes would bring victory. It didn't look like that was going to happen. The numbers just didn't add up. The papers from the yangtze provinces were increasingly hostile to the whole affair, and they hadn't exactly started out flattering of the adventure to begin with.

George shook his head, "He could surprise us, but if its not done before Christmas he'll have problems." It wasn't just shells it was the coffers running empty to buy other goods. Qirui had needed loans to fight Zhang Xun, admittedly that had been because he had needed money to raise enough troops to avoid a stand up fight. Gathering up those fifty thousand men had probably been a costly proposition in the best of times never mind when the local commanders might have preferred they stay close at home to discourage their own homes from being targeted.

While that was arguably the bigger real problem that the national assembly, the parliament, wasn't happy was another hurdle to Duan's ambitions. Even if Feng had signed off on the necessary paperwork the parliament would have complained about the expense being extracted from the national coffers and Duan knew that. He knew he needed other sources of funding. Reinsch had been told to leave it well enough alone, but they were waiting to see if the minister would actually do what he was told.

Lansing might well have to fight the president over loan reorganization, but that was vastly less likely to upset parliament. They were fairly certainly that at the end of the month the second loan from Nishihara had gone through... they were still trying to piece together where the bank in Taiwan was getting the money for there share the deal was done though.

Mitsui, or Mitsubishi. He knew they were competing. He doubted that the second generation firms of note had the capital to pull it. He had taken time to make a few phone calls of his own and it didn't seem like they were there... but it also wasn't like he'd really expected anyone to want to carry on over the phone. No if they were going to get answers it would have to be in person, and Noguchi was too busy travelling between Korea and Taiwan this summer.

It just didn't occur at the time that the answer was obvious. That it was Terauchi's government themselves underwriting the loans. It should have. Twenty million yen was a decent amount of money and of course Wilson had declared the US government would underwrite the loans to support the war effort to the European partners despite the Federal Reserves concerns about European solvency. France's government had underwritten loans by their private banks, and Britain had also done the same, but it simply hadn't occurred. The war loans ultimately were in theory supposed to be backed by gold reserves... but sometimes you just missed things in front of your nose.

Japan was a partner in the banking consortium the general body of which tried to organize governmental foreign loans as a part of a public body politic. 'No Secret Diplomacy' as Wilson would have called it, though he was not the instigator of that clause to the apparatus.

"This is turning into a repeat of last time." And that was despite no Tsai O to lead in the south, arguably this go around was much more conventional. Tsai had been willing to use skirmishers and cavalry to get around and behind to harass northern positions, and while that wasn't off the table there was a lack of higher coordination to make those harassers effective. "There is an under current of problems."

Unlike most provinces, and as a result of Szechwan's characteristics of geography both in expanse and the topographical traits of the province there was no single fellow in charge. The so called garrisons of the qing era had become succeeded by about a half dozen major regional commanders and then a scattering of dozens of minor part time warlords or bandits on their margins. Stuck in between were the various county and town militias in Szechwan that might be used and forcibly conscripted by one of the big fish to pad his numbers.

"It gets worse." There was a ruffling, "We started asking about the second round of loans, IBJ's portion of the capital. The bank's representatives think there movement on the canal deal, and not just the canal, the whole rail, telegraph overhaul." There were other American firms in China. Standard Oil before they'd been broken up had been ubiquitous as the heating fuel and now while much reduced still had two subsidiaries active in China. There were other factories. There were various textile, and cash crop enterprises... but the problem had been most of the funding for expansion had been based on either a large parent holding i.e. Standard or backing stock on Wall Street or a trading house... the tobacco was doing fine but the problem with a large parent company was most had been wooed towards investing in European war bonds or contracts for production stateside. "Here, that should look familiar."

It was in English. No surprise. English was the defacto lingua fraca of international trade. There were partners from New York and London both signing on. Dawes was right though the project outline was indeed of a familiar layout.

It wasn't finalized, but the format suggested that the filing was done in such a way that... the principles were agreed upon. He wasn't that surprised. It looked like a late Qing document. Hell it probably was, the truth was the work on the canal was decades overdue. The canal had needed massive overhaul during the Taiping rebellion and that had only gotten worse, but that wasn't the issue. "What do you make of it?"

"Japan's position seems pretty clear. I mean this has to be Lansing and Ishii having come to terms."

Dawes was probably right. At the start of the war the British had acknowledged that Japan would take possession of German possessions in Shandong. That was in writing, so even if the French wanted to protest that it would be a hard sale and the Industrial Bank of Japan running the loans and through say Tokyo or more likely Mitsui would just ignore french protests something the American Rail Corp was unlikely to do with their current board. JP Morgan's influence there would make them liable to influence regarding the ongoing war.

He weighed the scales, running the numbers.

The Russo-Asiatic bank though and the French credits lines were nonexistent, even if Yokohama was probably overleveraged it wasn't nearly to the extent of France or Russia, and Belgium certainly couldn't take up the fight.

Jordan and Reinsch had both been quiet about this, which was unusual... Reinsch had pursued the previous iteration of the canal deal and had seemed annoyed when the ARC board had balked under french pressure. Then things had gone into a lull, and the professor had gone back. Japan had had a seat at the table originally according to this, at least in Shandong before hand... "We'll need to see the 1914 papers, but these date to before the war."

"The Japanese cited the open door, whether that was because IBJ is on board, or because it was to tweak the Germans I don't know." The latter was possible too, if not necessarily annoyance at the shandong concession in general. "But I was really talking about the rail rights."

The 1913 1914 agreement would have been signed by Yuan Shikai... maybe even Sun's signature depending on when in 1913 the agreement had been, but probably his successors signature as portfolio of railway development in the cabinet. "Map?" Had they done survey work?

"No, but you can see the writing."

He could see the writing on the wall. The Japanese would cite the open door, and IBJ's earlier participation in the previous planning no doubt, but then to make sure the British got on side would cite British agreements regarding the peninsula. The French would throw a fit, because if the railway went through. The new line would be American money financing a wide ranging list of lines would be into Kwangsi, regions that previously the french claimed to have been given preferential rights toward, but had not had the capital to act on.

"We saw them make those protests this spring."

"The French mutinies the Russians collapsing. Nishihara's loans." All of the above... others still. "Williard," From the money behind the American Railway Corporation, "is in Shenyang almost can bet that that's related to the concessions on the Trans siberian as well... and if that's the case."

Simple process of elimination told them it wasn't John Jordan. It certainly wasn't Reinsch. Looking further up the food chain, it seemed possible that it could have Balfour or Lansing. Balfour seemed unlikely he was pro french, he was rumored to be a staunch francophile.. unless he was taking the legal concession to Japan on Shandong strenuous like.... still seemed unlikely to be him.

Lansing? It was possible, it was no secret he'd been annoyed with the French this spring over their supposed secret rights in Kwangsi. Following the ranks, Viscount Ishi... it was possible that this was something he and Ishi had agreed on. ... but "Jordan hadn't told Reinsch explicitly we're the ones making the link into Central Asia."

"Yeah I heard that, which," He grunted. "I hate people pulling my strings. That's what this feels like... and by somebody who either doesn't know or doesn't care what a mess this will make of down south." He paused, "Speaking of that I'm planning to go over that, Percy is up the wall over this Tashkent Soviet anarchy... he's got some Russian Cavalry general," Probably one of several pro British officers of the Russian Imperial staff... or whatever in Tietsin.

"Things are getting worse."

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1917
Things had used to be so god damn simple, well looking backs thing were more simple than they had probably felt at the time.

Before 1914 Allen could recall every time he'd had to involve a magistrate for something. He'd fill out a letter send it off to the man in Shijiazhuang, and generally he'd get some kind of response by the end of the day because the man had had a phone in his office and would call when he got the letter. Evidentiary procedure varied a little more, but the first step was having the magistrate take things up and then start ascertaining the facts.... which typically meant that whoever filed the petition could shape how things went.

In Zhili that had been one thing. In Shansi ... after Bai Lang had been put down it had become wholly another. They had however taken a step beyond.... whatever the previous level had been. He supposed that technically they had officially replaced an absentee Chen Shufan... besides Chen had other things to deal with... what with his brigade being moved into a new posting at the Hankow arsenal.

The problem with it being official was Chen had rarely dealt with the civilian side of things. There was a significant backlog of administrative business. For the first time in his life he could truly get why so many scholars memorialized the need for people to compromise in their civil disputes with one another in the thousand years...

There was a beginning of a protest from one of the Cadre "I cant-"

"Yes you can." Allen grunted rolling his eyes, and stopped play with the silk lining of his sleeve, "You knew as well as the rest of us that Chen wasn't arbitrating the disputes and had been avoiding pushing them up the chain." Everyone had known. Chen didn't want it making a fuss in Peking so he'd just left it to his subordinates to try and settle out. The problem with that was there had been building issues with the local banking apparatus since the Qing had fallen. The first obviously had been the tumultuous founding of the republic... but the second had been Baiyang in the countryside and the growth of the city afterwards. Li had been able to keep things together but when he'd been replaced for supporting President Li... "Its an eight month backlog of where Chen wasn't dealing with it, plus whatever Li didn't get to doing." The question was how far that went back... three four proceeding governors?

"It is worse than what we thought it would be." Waite interrupted, George flipped through a cover sheet to the documents below. "We can start putting committees together and clearing some of the back log." There was a pause as he confirmed that they had cases that apparently had been put forward during Gao's tenure, and thus sidelined when been replaced in March of 1914. There were probably cases and disputes from before that. Song had replaced him given the problems with the White Wolf but had been replaced in turn at the end of Bai Lang's marauding. Lu had been in about ... maybe a year and a half. "I'll put Cao Pei in charge of civil disputes he can put a team together for digging up the facts and writing everything up. That can deal with the marriage disputes, inheritance, we'll deal with all the civil law stuff."

Cullen snorted, "Right, I'll deal with the fighting." He grunted looking through his own stack, and using the Qing era legal term. That was to be the division. One wing would handle civil disputes particularly over patrimony, debts, land disputes. The Gendarmes would handle a second wing dealing with criminal disorder up to the particularly heinous crimes including murder.

The division in the labor to work on the backlog would also take differing routes in how it pursued the cases. George's first recourse was to appoint one of his accountants, the aforementioned Cao Pei, in charge of a fact finding mission that would pull its staff from primarily corporate rather than the 'army' personnel. Cullen and the Gendarmes route subdivided their pool of the work almost entirely in house within their own ranks assigning young officers like Guan to divide criminal offenses into investigations that could be worked.

The idea was to settle disputes, and solve cases. The archiving of results went into a new building with a card catalog for easy reference... and that would be the basic norm of things until 1920.
--
He looked at one of the posters before turning his attention back to what was in front of him. It was pastel colors. He hadn't met the artist, but the artwork represented a change, a gradual policy. It was a Chinese style art work... trying to navigate around old colloquialisms. The tiger was attempting to explain of crucible steel. Whether it would work, and the analogy to military effort, and strength... well they would have to see.

Allen flipped through the documents for the umpteenth time. The Qing had hoped was probably the wrong word, but their attempt to prompt western style business practices from their merchants was to ... basically wholesale copy German business law. It hadn't worked. He could still remember the hearings and the million questions that covered just the most basic sort of things from officials.

Shansi and Shensi bankers and merchants had been involved in Szechwan's salt trade. It had been Shansi bankers who had helped support Li Hongzhang though their influence had declined before Yuan Shikai had taken power. The war with Japan, the boxers, then the fall of the dynasty in particular. The collapse of the Qing had hit them hard. Szechwan had come apart at the seems and was now divided into a collection of prominent warlords exercising sway over too smile fiefdoms to truly sustain them.

That was not a grievance he could address he wouldn't send the division into the province, but there needed to be some relief. They needed to be restructure and apply a new standard banking law into Xian's banking sector even if the concept of joint, and several obligation was going to give the local banking apparatus a headache because from the sense of things that western corporate notion didn't exist in traditional Chinese corporate law managing contracting parties. The province had never succeeded or perhaps never attempted in placing the translated German practices into... well practice.

As he continued to work through, he supposed that might be itself a small blessing in disguise. If no one had adopted those laws no one abided by them there should be in theory no confusion in place different banking laws in place.

He looked through the pages outlining the railway concession. They weren't identical to the rights the Qing had conveyed to their stockholders, but they were close enough. It hadn't escaped him that Duan agreeing to Siems Carey had... well he had plenty of reason to do that. The ARC could build the two hundred fifty miles to finish the line that would link Hankow, and thus Peking, to Canton. Lucrative wouldn't begin to describe being able to run cargo from Canton all the way to the Yangtze by rail. The other twelve hundred miles of main program track... that would take them more than a year, but, he doubted that would matter.

If there hadn't been a war on he could guess what would have happened. The French would have accidentally lost a whole lot of guns or had someone sell them cheap to the provincial officials in exchange for concession rights, which the French would then promptly try and use as justification to any French investments, and exclusive rights in wherever.

Allen suspected that was the basis of current French objectives. The French hadn't been able to show any written documents to his knowledge substantiating their apparent claims in Guangxi, but he wasn't privy to the whole matter. Had that been what had happened... it was possible... he knew the British had claimed they had certain land rights to build a railway... but the British had actually gone and then built that railway... so it was very possible they had gone to the governor and bought those rights with the intent of acting on it.

It was giving him a headache. He didn't need this, and the knock on the door was welcome. "Nakamichi welcome back. Soho-san, you look well." he replied a little more formally standing up as the two men were waved into the office. "I've spoken with Iseburo," Among other things this whole railway business, but also, that, "He said you were planning to write a book."

"It is just a small thing." The old journalist replied in false modesty. They made small talk that more or less was the circular over infrastructure and investment prompted growth, and so forth. "The printing bureau has expanded." He observed.

"Bigger demand for text books," He replied, and glanced to Nakamichi, after all you needed scientific progress to help commerce and industry thrive, and all that "The change over to printing in the vernacular helps with the schools, but I'm not going to lie its caused some confusion."

"Of course you should write how people speak," The newspaper man chuckled leaning back in the chair he'd taken a seat in, "I told you that years ago." Then a little more self conscious, "Because of course that was the advice I was given when I was a young man."

"Its good advice, no doubt." He replied. Soho always spoke an easy vernacular english. He didn't bother trying to be formal in a private setting, which made him a dangerous reporter. He decided to pivot to things, before Soho could build momentum, "How is the front?"

"I really missed the opportunity when we fought the Russians," and Allen wasn't surprised that that comment followed into an admission he'd been in contact with Akashi... and that ... things in Russia were declining steadily from bad to worse... the degree of how worse they would get he hadn't even begun to consider... "And of course the British know this very well. They have appointed a special commissioner for 'South Russia' as they have called the post."
--
Notes: This is a direct call forward to what happens in several weeks of the Bolshevik revolution and the subsequent terrors, the creation of the Commissioner position for southern Russia is early, as I've already mentioned the British are moving a little faster on things because there are other things going on.

Since we're on the matter of railways and calls forward, I might as well bring up the MAK and the other cadre government, and the differences. In 1919 in may John Jordan presents an arms embargo declaration to the nominal Chinese Foreign minister on behalf of the British Empire and the diplomatic / international body*. The more I look at it I have to assume this idea had probably been kicking around in his head before this but none of my primary sources, and certainly nothing I have explicitly comments on where this idea came from, before the May 1919 protests regarding the terms of Versailles. The * here again as I've said, and will probably repeat is that this appears to have been John Jordan on his own initiative, and he appears to have browbeat some of the missions into agreeing... and for example Reinsch's agreement did not make it legally binding on the US or its citizens; that's a whole other issue. Its really Harding-Coolidge... and their compliance is... spotty relative to what Jordan had in mind.

Anyway there were two (or three if you count direct non compliance by state nationals of the countries who signed on to Jordan's 'decree') main ways this was gotten around the first is that they bought from non signatories (Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, others) or alternatively they bought from Signatories and had them shipped via third party shipping lines i.e. Latin american shipping firms (the UK US, France and Japan were all in principal agreement, but as with the third condition firms from all signatories including the UK (Vickers especially) willfully ignored the Foreign Office and John Jordan and his successors sometimes outright publicly scorning them and sometimes just rules lawyering (see especially on aircraft)).

This brings us to Middle America and the post war (WW1) in order to get around the embargo Xian buys from both non signatories (Sweden, and Switzerland), and also buys also through middle men in this case the middle american branch, who are buying up cheap surplus because bannana wars are going on. Such that while its not the focus of the story, and the timeline if we ever get around to the post cold war (or if the author of the CYOA this originally spawned from does a Mexican civil war / revolution, or Bannana wars CYOA in the same vein) it will get more focus. Lansing gets palace couped after WIlson has his stroke, so the state department under Colby... largely sits around and does nothing substantial in that period

 

[Imperator Pax]

October 1917 [Conclusion]
The official minutes would refer to this as the fall conference of 1917, which looking back was to be read more heavily than that label meant. There was one of these every year so that label was both a continuation of 'tradition' and innocuous in its label. It reminded him of the meeting in 1914 where the cadre had decided that no, expecting every member of the cadre to be responsible for a company sized element was absurd but that something still had to be done. That was the crux that something had to be done.

One hundred men were gathered today. Cadre officers and the proxies of those absent. In the conventional organization of those preceding years the cadre had formed standing committees especially after 1915 and the change in the body. Allen nominally sat on several, but particularly was only an ancillary member of the farming committee. In that committee his vote normally proxied to the chair.

The committees formed sub groups to manage specific projects. The heavy industries committee had a litany of subsidiary units responsible for each of the corporate sides major heavy industries. It was part of vertical integration. Steel, Coal, and the Oil ventures sat among those. There was another body that handled the export goods that had been dominant before the war, chief among them were textiles, and clothing goods that had been shipped to the American market.

Today's gathering was the first step towards actually putting everyone together to contend with the consequences of the United States' entry to the war and the government's assumption of new powers. It also was the first step to major restructuring. To answering questions about education and others.

That was a major indicator ... it was told in the eighty odd men in uniform. Less than twenty men were in tailored civilian suits. Fewer than five were not visibly armed. To be sure part of that was the selection of proxies for votes... all of the selected proxies were officers from either the 2nd​ brigade of Artillery or from 3rd​ Regiment Infantry's staff contingent. There were eighteen Chinese infantry officers present, seven of whom were Hui two of whose number were little birds. Those were the staff's technical service officer, and the staff intelligence officer.

That would have been unusual for staff officers in the states given the commander of a regiment was to be ranked colonel. Intelligence and the TSO billets were ranked as they were due to the unique conditions of their environment. It was also of course a statement on what would be coming in the spring. 3rd​ Infantry was already preparing for its inevitable duty to become the core of a new Rifle Regiment. The selection of her officers to fill that role by sitting here was a statement of that.

He was therefore glad that this meeting was limited to the hundred men in the room. That Colonel Shan was outside with command of the division and responsibility for general security.

"And that is the outline of the 3rd​ Division. A time table to which I consider to be conservative." The speaker concluded... conservative because it had taken the states back home three months to mobilize 17 divisions of the national guard for federal service... for fighting in France.

It wasn't the same thing.

Cole kicked the back of his seat and leaned forward in a comical approximation of their academy days, "Its funny the accountant is the one who thinks we can magic a whole damn division together before the first wheat harvest."

"He's right that we don't have to furlough anyone though." Obviously farming had been a potential consideration. The real consideration had been the matter of financing in general. It touched on that Yuan Shikai had tried to avoid changing the tax system of the republic from what it had been in the Qing, even though as time had gone on he had gradually lost certain revenues to the provinces. Fundamentally though the last national land evaluation had been drawn up by the order of the first Ming Emperor, and that no subsequent monarch nor official had been able to update those rolls for threat of uprising or rebellion. It was not a tax system designed to or even built with the modern international flow of goods, and certainly not the titanic volume of goods of war time trade in mind.

Neither though had the cadre. They were going to have implement tax changes, even though that was not what they had originally started as.

The Cadre had begun first as a railway firm, and expanded into growing into lateral fields of industry. It was not a conventional extend clan kin group holding the shares, and the cadre shares were now far more concentrated in a handful of individuals with the hundred's ranks filled out by experts. It might be thought of as a holding company model.

Reinsch might have used a term like 'group enterprise capitalism'. Such academia meant that, basically underneath the main ownership the capital holders was a clear managerial class of experts who conducted good scientific work. Percy, he was sure, would have looked at it, sniffed dismissively and said it was all very American. They were however taking on the traditional mantle of clan organizations, of a parent firm, of subsidiaries and hierarchical structures that simple didn't exist in the states. There were to be changes in employment, and changes in worker care.

They had been building housing of course for years, but other changes were to come in the face of changes likely to effect the western provinces and new industries. Industries that were being funded by the profits of the war and were largely expansions into lateral or ancillary fields, or investments to be made to support further future growth.

There was a significant interest in what the end of the war in Europe would hold. What new technological wonders and patents licensed ... after all there had to be some trick to explain Germany's ability to sustain its war machine three blood years against the other great empires of the war, and of course recruiting engineers who would need jobs.

It was a portion of the conference dominated by the mechanical. Of tractor and trucks. Inter-urbans were to be considered of course, Allen had always been impressed by the Belgian tram system in Tietsin but it wasn't particularly ideal for the movement of goods.

The conversation was actually aimed at furnishing stores, and more important than even that the movement of raw materials to actual factories to produce finished goods... but it was true that the utility of the truck as a weapon and manpower carrier, and the tractor's utility as gun carrier had been noticed and acknowledged by the assembly.


In historical records penned in future days the Fall Conference's minutes were used to demonstrate a clear continuity of policy, and a clear link to future policy. The Conference's failure to reach a conclusive plan for future long term goals what would become the first five year plan did not represent a failure of the conference per se.

The Fall Conference had never been intended for that. It wouldn't be until later that Yan Xishan working from a model of the US national guard suggested foundations of a much larger body of reserve troops to contend with provincial emergencies both man made and natural. It was not that the idea would not have occurred perhaps at some point in the future. It was that Yan was more cognizant specifically of his province of Shansi's particular conditions. At the time of that proposal though no one had expected that the expected dearth of cheap surplus rifles would be interrupted from China by John Jordan's proposed eight power agreement.

Not that that ultimately was a problem foremost among most aims were the creation of the charters of the provincial A&M colleges which of course included the armories and the armorers to sustain an infantry battalion's rifles. By that point of course there had already been a working model from the school in Western Zhili and by that time of that proposal Shansi's machine bureau had received its hartford tooling.

What, the Fall Conference, had not overlooked was the question of aeroplanes, of the air war going on in europe, and of the US's Signal Corp's new found production control authority over spruce harvesting and lumbering in the pacific northwest. The US had been selling the seasonal stocks to the British, French and the Russians, of Spruce as old world timbers were overharvested from already depleted woodlands, or worse actually threatened by fighting if not poor management, that the US with its entry into the war needed to take control.

The US was now interested in that process, in the Air War. Ironic since of course this was in essence an about face on 1907 the debacle had been the US military leadership. Where command had not been interested in pursuing the idea despite there being some, admittedly, tepid support from the civilian leadership in the war department to let the signal corp experiment. Now though with the air war a proven concept, and the German's Gothas bombing England the states were on board.

There would be American aircraft pioneers holding stars, who had been advocating for all sorts of new gadgets in the technical journals since before the US entry. Those papers had made their rounds... air power was now in vogue.

It would be in this venue, and also that of the equally new weapon of war the 'tank', that would be the downfall of John Jordan's 1919 arms embargo. British legal custom of the state department was to adhere to the letter of the agreement, Jordan's proclamation regarding Chinese arms traffic specifically singled out rifles and prevented artillery the state department was less willing to block aircraft sales by British manufacturers or to block Vickers Armstrong from selling tanks in North China after it was clear there was a market for them.
--
Notes: Regiments are Xians principle unit of organization (and indeed this is the default Anglosphere organization, thus the US until the division replaces it, and only the US makes that transition where as you still see British units tracing their lineage to royal regiments on napoleonic or even earlier lineages through consolidation), and this is still a period in their development where all officers are effectively Infantry officers but this also reflects two factors in that since regiments are relatively self contained their staff component is relatively large with a component to handle railway operations (logistics) telegraphs, early radiotelegraphy, and also intelligence is looking out for bandits in particular in addition to more conventional threats, as well as political intelligence. Secondly as mentioned its contingent reflects that the 3rd​ is the planned basis for another division. This is basically roughly twenty percent of the units commissioned officers. Again as a call back to the White Wolf years, the idea that each cadre member would command a company would have created ten regiments very much hearkening of the old Original US Infantry Regiments. Very much a symbolic gesture, but one ultimately discarded in 1914 as simply impractical.

Also as an economic term, Keiretsu and Zaibatsu are occasionally used interchangeably by me in accounts. This is technically correct in the historical sense... but keiretsu historically (in this period) would have referred to the second or 'group' zaibatsu, i.e. Companies like Toyota (who aren't actually around just yet,) not 'first' zaibatsu like Sumitomo. If anyone is associating keiretsu with its post world war 2 usage that's almost entirely a product of the US Occupation and business relationship post occupation the word was so frequently misused that the Japanese went okay fine we know what you mean and started using it in the 'American' fashion. Keiretsu in its historical usage is different than its modern usage, but summed basically it refers to these large oligarchical companies that emerge out of the meiji period and the early 20th​ century of Japanese industrialization and with the second form are very heavily shaped by the boom years of ww1.

As will be built on later, and further down the road this goes to how Xian's government policies are structured, even before the 1920 constitution goes up, as to where priorities go.

Spoiler: 3 Priorities

Collective Defense: The Army. This is intended as simply an observation that the province's security and well being is contingent on internal and external security in practice this is the reason Britain makes the Prussia jokes.

Public Order: The Law, and Legal transparency, Civil/Criminal proceedings, Law enforcement [This is about both legal governance, tax collection, tax codes as well policing powers, criminal proceedings ultimately]

Public Goods: Public Compulsory Education, and Public Health (Public Health in this case is referring to Epidemic Management in this period, its talking about disease and it is a late addition that makes its onto Three Priorities of Governance because of the dangers of plague, and the Influenza outbreak (So this is basically the same logic behind the CDC's foundational powers).

In practice, down the road, after the 1920 constitution goes into effect, you'd have other public goods, like municipal and county public works projects for things like roads, but also the rebuilding of the dykes, and canals as flood prevention. Public Order, the development of the legal system, the legal code and development of police and public safety apparatus develop but at this point that's limited.

What these priorities are not, is to be philosophical for the cadre, these are put out there as the basis these are to address immediate real world problems in the province of Shensi (and also technically Western Zhili), down the road Shansi, the 'western Commanderies' all adopt variations of the Shensi constitutional. Pre-Constitutional Xian though its still working towards finalizing an actual written constitution.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1917
The roster was starting to be tallied, and it wasn't so bad. They were certainly going to lose Reuben and Ada to the 'Filibusters' they'd go to middle America for sure. That was no surprise, Powell had brought Ada in in 1915 specifically to handle management of the original steel mill at a time when the shares were consolidating into main ownership, and a significant portion of the cadre were management / leaders / experts. Reuben was further down Powell's side of the corporate ladder, arguably his machining background was a slightly bigger hurdle since they'd need a man to replace his skill set in the east.

That was another matter. Expansion had been steady before 1914, but not explosive. They had been active in Western Zhili but hadn't had any where near the customer base or potential work pool of what had happened after Bai Lang, and after war were declared in Europe. It was no longer 1910 or 1911 and things had changed. Sam leaned forward on the other side of the desk. "Its not practical,"

"No its not." They couldn't allocate slots on the cadre for major capital resources... bluntly speaking cadre slots could not be senior factory management, and even major project engineers were likely too numerous for the body size. "It wont come into play immediately, the war in ongoing,"

"Not as much as I'd like." Sam agreed. "Powell is moving that we should go ahead an plan for work over there next year. I suspect he's already on the ground." There were organizational problems at other levels as well. The creation even just on paper created the issue of promotions to general, and admittedly brigade created the same issues. "The war has grown us too large too fast, if the war ends next year I have no idea how we would handle it."

"Have you changed your mind on Siems Carey?" He asked straightening. It wasn't too late if it came to it they could levy for a piece of the thousand miles of rail that the deal outlined.

"No. Its too focused on the coast, and down south. I agree that's no good." The route was very likely meant to go down through fukien that was to say make a route from shangai to run along the coast to hong kong. Something the British had wanted for a while but simply hadn't been able to get started before the war. There last real work had been two years before the dynasty had collapsed. The other connection was finishing the link from Hankow to Canton. "And it didn't occur to me really to me until just now, but think about it the French fuss over it this spring. Duan starts talking about going down south in July. The Japanese are clearly onside, Reinsch is on side." which wasn't an oddity, "Terauchi then yanks Hayashi back to Tokyo." That was different than just being onside... you didn't just pull the minister and send a personal envoy

"Are you suggesting Duan is a wizard?"

"No. Not Duan, this isn't his doing, from the feel of Tietsin. This is the Research clique. They're the only ones with ties to Japan, the states, and England. Liang had helped organize the parliamentary votes for getting China in the war. Liang talking to Reinsch or Lansing, no one would pay attention at all to that... hell no one pays attention to Reinsch talking to anyone." Because Reinsch didn't play the game. Reinsch wasn't an industrialist, or a politician, or a general he was a university professor... admittedly a professor with powerful political connections he'd gotten the job because Wilson thought highly of him. It was no surprise Reinsch bought into Siems carey. He'd bit down on the idea even while Carey was balking at the noise the french and russians had made... and from the sound of it was Reinsch who was badgering Carey into trying to get back on.

So what then... he voiced the question a minute later.

Sam shrugged and leaned back. "Going south of the Yangtze would be a mistake. Feng has a point the provinces there are consuming resources right now that peking's treasury just cannot support. Duan's expedition, regardless of his success is too expensive to manage on feudal taxes, and foreign loans." That was really the problem It was the key problem that continued to rear its hideous ugly head.

He pushed his own papers aside, "Estimated exports to the entente is in the tens of billions of dollars, Sam. Thats not just steel the US is export, but certainly that market is overheated. The French buying up the wheat futures in the midwest is inflating food prices, and the farmers are used to the new prices." US exports to europe were roughly double the value of what the US was taking in from the entente powers. Over a billion dollars in gold had been used to help pay for goods from the states, and credit extended heavily by New York to Paris, and London. The result of all of this was in short, "... New York took London's spot as the beating heart of international finance. There is no going back from that, but for us, even if those dollars are being handed over by the British..."

"When demand stops or slacks off it'll cut overseas capital influx." A recession was likely to follow... that was just the science. "We need to take precautions. That means reforms to insulate that productivity will need to be reduced, and what we can't reduce redirected."

"That might not work," Sam pointed out, "Look I agree the change to employment was my idea. The restructuring to divisions makes sense based on," he waved at the papers, "Who we're going to lose, we're going to be gambling with the change over until we find our footing."

"I can't make Powell stay, he want to leave," A grunt punctuated the short comment, "and they want to go let them go." He replied. "We've made good money." They'd largely been insulated from the wage explosion so costs of operating had remained largely stable, "Powell wants to go down to Nicaragua or Honduras build a railway concession there, better he goes with a blessing than thinks we're holding him back. Besides if we're going to be operating more heavily in Shansi, Yan is the only one with the influence in the province and the brains for it."

Old Ma had refused Bill's extension of the offer. The Ma family, the different branches could agree to participate in the effort and agreement... but the old man was too old and he knew it. If he took a position and died in six months. There would be a fight internally. They couldn't pick Hongkui cause that'd pissed the uncles off... who rather rightly would think they were being sidelined by the younger generation.

Old Ma was more concerned about instituting a public school system aimed at Confucian morals than advancing his position. He was a degree holder. That position wasn't unique among the extended Ma clan either. Hongkui's father had a degree under the old Qing system of examinations, and supported Confucian education as well.

It wasn't even a compromise since the primary school education had been drawn up when Yuan Shikai had been insisting that Mencius be covered in primary school education It was in short he wanted to be sure the current system remained in place. Did he have other interests? Of course, every man had interests... but some men were looking for a legacy. More than just an endowment to the arts in any event.

Yan would take a seat, Old Ma wouldn't, but while that wouldn't effect the provincial development outlook, what the ywere really aiming towards was Shensi province's tax reforms... which was going to be controversial. They needed to enact land reform, and bring people into the system, they needed a replacement to the old Confucian scholarly order... and well that meant both the army as an institution but prosperity more broadly, prosperity and security.
--
"Fire."

Rifles barked.

A mix of the company standing, prone, and kneeling.

The recruits were getting their first taste of real ammunition on a non static range. For Abel Company 1st​ battalion this would have been a turkey shoot. These were younger men, though not the veterans. Greenhorns.

There was a reflexive growl from the NCO, "We should be grateful they're all shooting in the right direction."

Everyone had to start somewhere, but, "Indeed sergeant."

The sergeant straightened at the comment having been overhead. "Go give them some pointers."

"Yes sir."

"They're new troops Al."

He knew that, and realistically most of the shots a rifle man fired under return fire missed. You were always going to make your best shots when you had the enemy by surprise or when he was breaking... once he was broke and running it got harder.

These young men were shooting at and a training unit a variety of targets at both known distances, that was to say marked, and moving iron silhouettes. Unsurprisingly a lot of the shots were impacted the perms and ground around the rough man sized figures particularly the ones on tracks. What distinguished today's class was that it wasn't unique, that it was part of a uniform body of instruction that stretched over several distinct training fields and therefore was in scientific principle capable of producing troops that could be dispatched to any unit.

In Shansi Yan was currently refitting the old provincial examination center. A collection of barracks would be added to the area for dormitory housing but most of the classroom instruction would be able to use older facilities until new buildings went. The process of expansion of training centers meant for the time being pulling experienced NCOs out of the ranks and shipping them by train to one of a handful of towns, and it was the general consensus that it had worked when they had made the move to Xian, and it should work here.

Yan was skeptical of six months of education, but he had relented on confirmation that British professional army had had units that had taken as much as a year to prepare to deploy. Of course that wasn't to say he was entirely as amenable to the curriculum. Yan Xishan wasn't an old man, actually being in their age cohort, but he had his officer's training in Japan and thus placed a greater emphasis on the bayonet, and had been quick to point out that Bai Lang in 1914 had mounted cavalry charges, and almost certainly there would be bandits who would still do the same.

That there were an increasing number of such ruffians, that bandit gangs were trending larger was not lost on them either. Thankfully the bayonet pattern that Yan preferred was nothing unusual. That the British Empire had adopted their Japanese allies pattern sword bayonet had in turn already resulted in the need for manufacturing. So they'd make a little more time for bayonet fighting, and instruction.

"The majority of men bleed out before they can get to a doctor." That was how it had always been... he'd seen the reports from the war between the states, but in the Philippines especially and in the Russo Japanese war medical care and its lack of rapid application cost men's lives. "We barely have doctors for our own people, hell we don't have the manpower to cover second division's medical people."

1st​ Regiment's battalions all had enough experience handling packing a wound, setting a leg, or tying off. They'd learned basically all the lessons that the Philippines insurgency had taught because often enough bandit fighting didn't involve standing line engagements.... but with the situation being what it was, that needed to be distilled to battlefield medicine for aidmen in a standardized fashion. "And that's without Percy fucking complaining about where stick the surgery." He agreed, but, "They have to start learning somehow." The sergeant was presently chewing the younger men's asses out.
--
Notes: I'm going to go ahead and note this here, once we do get to the cold war, or if against all odds there is a banana wars CYOA or some other drive to cover that side of the pond in this timeline, with east asia largely secured much of the conflicts between the Soviet Union and Nato interests will be in Africa and Latin/South America. Particularly to the prior will be the outbreak of the 1st​ continental war at the end of Ike's term, and well the fallout of decolonization. [It bears in mind that Lumumba didn't make it eight months before the coup, June 1960 he comes into power and then he'd dead by January 61]. I do prefer to be somewhat circumspect on this because it is spoilerish for post WWII but Kennedy would have looked for another fight and was susceptible to western European influence in a way that Ike wasn't, Kennedy was just easily lead around by those and didn't know better. LBJ had his own problems as well being particularly subject to getting buttered up. Thats well in the future though.


There is a Russian Warlord CYOA (based on a series of HoI4 Mods admittedly) that can be found here if anyone is curious: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/general-qq-cyoa-thread.1263/page-2347#post-5111391

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1917
They had been in conference preparing for... for a lot of things, there had been a couple of probing raids over there border with Szechwan. A couple of thousand brigands shooting at one another... which was bad because it suggested that instead of coming to an agreement some gathering of confederates had ended up militantly disagreeing, and that fighting had pushed them north and far enough that they wanted to try the way into Shensi.

So that was their priority. How did they reinforce the boundary? How did they check any repeat attempt... and how quickly could they put green troops on the line to cover a wider frontage...

That was just their problems. Their local problems.

Percy should have damned well waited rather than barging in. Nakamichi had at least had the benefit of having been in all morning, but apparently some fool thing had happened in Russia and the Bolsheviks had seized power. "Percy I can't just go to Tietsin at the drop of a hat." That was nine hundred kilometers as the crow flew, and longer by railway.

"So what if Duan having problems. Set backs happen in the field. He's just stumbled a little." The englishman protested.

There were some curious looks at this. Indeed stumbling might not be wholly inaccurate. The initial reports were not so bad taken individually. Some troops had managed to get in Duan's package train, due to of course lack of infantry to guard the train... but that wasn't the problem per se.

If Percy though had come from Peking he may have known something about the goings on in the capital, or with the Beiyang that hadn't yet made the rounds. Of course vice versa was true. The papers were going to talk about the bandits trying the border, coming over the Bashan and the fight with the defenders... it had been in sight of a decent sized town after all... but it wouldn't have gone out yet... and the North China Herald wouldn't have had time to remark on it, so none of the other papers in Tiestin, or Peking never mind any other republishings would have had time to reach the diplomatic community.

They weren't overly concerned about that, even though that was really the news that was making the rounds. Allen stood up, "Cullen."

The cavalry boots hit the floor, "Alright I'll take a brigade," Meaning he'd take a mixed unit, "and go on then." He shook his head and moved by, though not before throwing a look at the englishman. The gendarmes would be only part of the move to reinforce the bashan range to their south, but it would reinforce the troops there with a larger combined arms force... just in case anyone else came over the border in szechwan started feeling froggy.

He doubted they would after having tangled with the 2nd Infantry Regiment, but better safe than sorry.

The problem was how unpredictable those small incursions could be, but also because there was so little warning for what happened over the border.

At the smallest level a village of a hundred might have two or three guards at anyone time and that might rotate between a dozen or so of the menfolk between fifteen to sixty over the year. If it was just the villages as a whole, but it became more complicated thant that at the lowest level it wasn't just hte village. The headman could have a couple guys, but so could the biggest farmer, or the wealthiest merchant. They could have tennants as their guards or they could be subcontracting out to a local private 'bureau' for protection services.

Those were just the building blocks. Collections of groups built up together forming sworn brotherhoods, trusts and alliances, groups of villages would form leagues against their neighbors, men with the same name would find some shared common relation from way back when, or invent one, to organize on behalf of the clan. That could create a pretty large group men with the right leadership.

It was that unpredictability that was the problem rather than say an actual field threat.

Percy barely waited until the door of the adjoining office was shut before he started in about Lenin and his German money. The german's gold, and the Kaiser's other dastardly deeds. It didn't help in the slightest that the French ambassador seemed to have finally annoyed the Japanese counterpart that Reinsch was now afraid that the Japanese might stop cooperating entirely. Personally, though he didn't interrupt Percy to tell him, Allen suspected that was a negotiation tactic to make sure the French didn't object too hard over the canal & rail deal when it came up probably next month.

"How long has he been there?"

"Since we walked in the room." He glanced to the staff officer who had looked up from his papers.

"Should I leave the room, sir?"

"Yes," "No."

Shanyang stayed seated but fully removed the headset he was wearing.

"John Allen."

"I didn't walk in for no reason." He replied shaking his head, "Alright Kang, have we received anything from Tietsin?"

The captain shook his head, "No sir," Then to cover his bases he clipped the next sentence, "Nothing since this morning. Its actually been quite quiet."

"So who is in Tietsin then, I thought you said MacKinder was still travelling." He didn't wait for an answer, "Captain, call the American Legation." The advantage of the structure of the posting was, yes it was shared with the British, but Reinsch was so frequently sight seeing that the elder Forrest was effectively in charge since he effectively served as the channel to bypass the Philippines and run things directly to the state and war department in tandem. "And while you're at it as the watch officer of the 15th​ to send a runner to ask the Russian legation what they think."

Percy wasn't really comfortable with the captain staying in the room, but that was tough shit. He probably wasn't comfortable taking a seat with his back to the officer either. Not the least of which was the shaved pate had his service pistol in a shoulder rig that would have been very easy to draw from sitting, but then again Percy might not have even noticed that and might just thought this was above the junior officer's paygrade. All the same the captain started making calls, and Percy stopped eying him.

Allen rested his arm on the back of the sofa and watched the Englishman shuffle in his khaki uniform uncomfortably. "Well, ahem." Percy cleared his throat. "Our situation is,"

"Bad?" He suggested.

He sighed, "Yes, bad is a word."

There was an eyebrow raised. Allen didn't comment on the gesture, and watched the englishman as Captain Kang waited for an operator to connect him to the legation. "I assume that the Bolsheviks have done something?"

"They seized the foreign ministry in St Petersburg. There are very sensitive documents there... and from the speeches that this Trotsky person has been giving... there going to try buy the Germans off. Make peace."

It was funny how he lead with the seizure of the foreign ministry, and then Trotsky... "Whats Trotsky saying?"

Percy swallowed, "I'm afraid he's borrowed some of your president's earlier talking points..." And that was it... if Russia backed out of the war, and if the French were worried the Japanese were going to suspend cooperation... then it might very well look like the ability of offensives would grind to a halt... especially if the Virginian occupying the white house got it into his head to take things at face value and ordered the AEF to hold in reserve in favor of some idiotic impassioned plea for peace...

... which would do the president no favors after he'd asked for the declaration of war, after campaign for not getting involved... and then having to pivot to 'make the world safe for democracy' ... "You think Wilson will get cold feet?" It wasn't really a question, and he didn't wait for a response, "So tell me what I'm supposed to do about it Percy?" The English... and the French for that matter never could do anything simple. They wanted to keep Russia in the war... and part and parcel of that was to support an eastern front even a limited one. "Japan will never agree to it." He knew from repeated cables not only were the estimates ungodly expensive in money it was a butcher's bill Japan wasn't prepared to pay. Old Man Yamagata opposed involvement in the european for those reasons, and still largely distrusted the Russians... Terauchi was never going to go against the old man.

"No, we're not asking them for full mobilization just a couple of divisions to intervene and hold the railways open."

He didn't believe Percy for a minute, the turn of phrase was entirely too practiced. If the British were asking for that it was probably only so they could leverage it to then ask for a few more to maintain the peace before long start lobbying for something akin to the Boxer rebellion... but he didn't say that... but he wouldn't have been surprised if France or England weren't looking at the Bolshevik uprising as if it were something like the Boxer rebellion.

Whether that was really what was going on, it didn't matter the Bolsheviks were two things. Firstly they were socialists, and secondly they were Russians... it was far from difficult to guess that any requests to Japan was going to play on the inherent distrust of revolutionary political parties and that and existing distrust there in.... and he was willing to wager that the FSO was probably going to start trying to pressure Reinsch in Tietsin to start cabling not just the state department but Wilson directly to try and get the president's ear.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1917
Percy was very uncomfortable about what the Bolshies were going to do about the papers. About the things Trotsky was going to say... and desperately hoping that Washington would clamp down on the papers... that Wilson wouldn't break consensus with London. The Englishman was very, very uncomfortable, to the point of fidgeting as the Russian railwork was laid out in front of him.

Lansing had been publicly, probably privately to Washington's elite as well, but publicly optimistic about Kerensky's coming to power. Enough confidence that he'd put his name on things, but that had soured especially as 'joint rule' with these 'soviets' had started coming up more and more frequently. If Lansing was a little more even handed on his walking back of his public commentaries, the people in Wilson's interior service were more alarmed about Bolshevik success, particularly on the state's domestic front. The Justice Department wasn't at all happy.

The new situation though had spun up like gas on fire. Frankly Allen wanted to laugh at them, all of them, "Russia is as much an agrarian country as China is." He grunted, in part he was trying to placate some of the alarmism... because these were things they didn't have the resources to do anything about, and he wasn't going to hand wring or get the vapors, "Hell most the population lives in one half as well." The map in front of them was the proposed division of Russian spheres of influence, what in the actual literature between nations were called 'markets' put forward by the French and British and agreed to by Kerensky in exchange for support months earlier. Kerensky had agreed to a lot and he was likely to be excoriated by all sides ... and frankly it was hard to say he didn't deserve that... except that Lenin and his friends would be worse.

A protractor and rulers sat on top. He had smudges on his finger tips, and the side of his hand.

Percy leaned on the table and looked at the work, and finally the Englishman seemed to deflate. He nodded at the outline. "That'll do I think. I think it can work."

He was glad when he left the room. Left them to the rest of business. He wasn't the only one. There were some grumblings about the rail project already, about things. The war though, the basically complete disappearance of German and Belgium market presence, and then by 1915 Britain devouring their own production and voracious for more was only part of it.

In the eighteen nineties Vickers had come into Russia bringing the very latest in oil technology. Drilling sites like Baku proved lucrative in the short term, and very productive. Then the fighting over capital and efficiency had started. The French who'd long seen it as their remit to be chief capital source for Russian development and Belgium supporting as well, had started to complain, and complain directly to the Tsar. Then the, russo-japanese war had happened... and well Vickers had been a bit shaken up by the Russian belligerence but also other factors of their business and standing with the public. The Russians had gone from about a third of the oil production to under ten percent before the start of the current war.

The French had wanted the Ukraine as their market area. They were looking for farms, and coal. That wasn't being short sighted. They were looking for coal for its use in steel for the things they needed right now. The British interest in Oil was looking forward. The zones of control had signed off concessions to the US that frankly Wilson probably didn't even want... the Russian government had been in such a mess that they needed the financial reorganization, and the promise of more influx of technology and expertise that simply didn't exist due to historical distrust and concerns over eroding old 'feudal privileges'.

"Should look on the bright side." Dawes observed ruffling through papers. He stopped pulled a printed map grabbed a red pen and circled a few sections of traffic that had come from State... and ultimately Stevens.

... if that was the case... the Russians could be pushed out of China entirely. If there was no Russian leverage, the French pressure was substantively less of a concern. Did that mean there would as a result be no French participation? No. The French would argue that their treaty concessions, real or imagined were still binding, despite the lack of available French capital... and it was the lack of money that would stymie French projects.

Stevens had put out a preliminary report about his mission to Siberia. The port of Vladivostok was not particularly modern, but it was the only one the Russians had really. There was less bellyaching about the Russian gauge size than he'd been anticipating, but the condition of the bridges was atrocious... and that was a limiter on speed... and not the only one. The Trans-Siberian was too long... it didn't have natural intersect points with large towns. It didn't intersect with any major other rail lines... it was a trans continental railroad for the sake of building a railway to the sea...

There was a ruffling of papers. "Outlining the practical solutions the most expedient method of repair is of course the replacement of the decayed, and greatly neglected stretches of track." There was a pause, and some conversation, Some of the 'decay' as it was caused was probably legitimate weathering... some of the problems were that even if you had graded the embankment properly the rains came, floods came, and it washed your work away.

Maintenance hadn't been done on potentially hundreds of miles of track in the last decade... some longer... and an even larger volume of eastern railway had been neglected due to lack of resources during the war. Then, of course the recognition that some of the steel used in the tracks originally simply had been sub par, of poor quality.

Stevens outlined hundreds of miles of track non contiguous that it would simply be prudent to replace them with new American manufactured steel and put down steam driven ties. If that had been a single section of track, even a long section... it would have been perhaps a season's work... but that time expanded because Stevens didn't have a crew under him, he had limited engineers to survey, and he didn't have the material... and because that mess wasn't one section.

The condition of the Trans Siberian thereby forced a reduction of speed. It forced trains travelling along it to not just travel slower, but also stop relatively frequently to clear tracks, as well as to occasionally bridge gaps in the tracks. That was just regular normal delays. He rubbed thumb and forefinger together expunging the dark smudge of graphite from the pencil.

Dawes answered his look. "You know the ask is going to come, don't you?"

"That Percy's," The Foreign Service... hell state too... "scheme is to build some grand coalition to needle everyone to try and leverage the people dragging their heels," And that when everything was said and done credit, and public accolades would be used as political capital to try and sway people with public social fawning for the next thing that needed doing regardless of what they'd really done... that was just how the game, "Stevens is worried," He said changing the subject, as he rested a hand on a circular telegram, "That this kind of work could take until 1923."

Which was conservative an estimate to be sure... the Russian Army had had to build railways for the war... but the British weren't going to want to let Russian troops come off the eastern front to do that kind of thing... which meant an appeal to washington... or maybe Tokyo.

Dawes tapped his temple with the red pen and shook his head then reached over and tapped where he had circled Lake Baikal... or more accurately the fortress of Irkutsk, "They have to hold here. Its just geography, this link has to be held. That means they need a patsy government, someone they can say is Russian, but who will do what London says." and it was what London wanted, Kerensky had been France's poodle as the joke had started going around.

Then there was to be Japan's interest, as history would ultimately hold out... but such things were years in the future, and for now they were concerned about rolling stock, and the rails they moved upon, and the payment for such works... rather than the larger political picture. Green Ukraine as that patsy would be known would not come into recognition by England and her Japanese allies for a few more months... and even that was nothing compared to later political theater as the British and Japanese would hand over arms captured from the Germans, or from their own stocks later still. That was in the future, when there could be no denying that the Russian Civil War was well underway.

"I take your point. That doesn't change that Stevens has a point, he'll need a crew to work those cuts, if he's right about that erosion, those spans."

--
Putting aside the business of international railway ventures there were matters closer to home. The railway was the motive power that kept people and goods moving. To that end four separate tracks pushed westward from Xian's westernmost station. This was a contrast to the two track line expansion work to Zhengzhou, which would still maintain a single line as it ran north into Western Zhili, and then into the east of the province.

It would not, and never intended as an anti invasion measure. It was a non competition measure. Going directly west from Zhengzhou would put them into competition before the present day with Belgium... so they had never built a line to the coast except the short route from Peking to Tietsin, any traffic to Weihaiwei or to reach Tsingtao had to run on existing British or German lines which meant transfers.

As they pivoted west there was less and less industrial competition, but there were still decent sized cities that there were worth building routes to, and decent sized towns that had enough of a population base to pass through. It would be the railway which linked the western circuits. The four tracks went out to Qinghai, to the big lake, and then diverged to individual stations. One went down to Lhasa, but the others went into the provinces of... the 'western commanderies' western trio, whatever one wanted to call the area as one went through the Gansu corridor, that no longer had a governor. Zhang Guangjian was the last sitting governor... but his position was in part a hold over of how things had been when Yuan Shikai had been alive.

The created something of an institutional matter. Ma Anliang had no clear successor right now, and the best they could hope for would be the old man kept chugging along, but that only was delaying the inevitable political fracas of either no successor or the fighting of a successor being chosen and some other part of the clique's disagreement with them.

"We have to establish colleges along the A&M model." The accepted idea from 1912, and not unique to them, other outfits had set up colleges. There was the farming college in Zhengzhou that had nothing to do with them.

"Yeah, and we still have the same problem as when you brought it up last year." Cole declared interrupting JP before he could start up. "Running the ones we have now, is one thing, we do not have the manpower to put one in Lhasa, or Qinghai, or parts west."

Accepting that the resistance to the motion had weakened since last year, the limitation did stand. The protests of government work had largely evaporated over the last thirteen months. "You can take it to the floor." Allen agreed, "But practically speaking we don't have the teachers." He doubted John Paul had the votes already... but he could probably get them. Most likely what would happen is the cadre would then agree that construction of institutions should be done. Staffing though would be trickier.

From the way Powell was tapping his foot he was about to start hearing how they had a moral obligation to stamp out illiteracy, which certainly he found no fault with, but it didn't "Teachers don't grow on trees." Cullen grunted, "And to further you have to count that there aren't the institutions to get people from a to b to c. A college can teach adults, yes, and that will help, but elementary schools are functionally nonexistent, as are junior high and high schools." and logistically it had been one thing to construct schools of childhood education in Xian for a ten year program or a twelve year education. It was one thing in western Zhili where there were large cities that already had factories who's parents were employed in mechanical manufacturing in an industrial world.

You could say that was true for Taiyuan, but Urumqi, or Hsining, or Lhasa not so much... but Sinkiang in the far west had significant untapped resources... and Bill was currently absent because he suspected that included oil, but even if they didn't the province already dug coal. Coal which would fuel steel.

"Do we need to expand production though?"

Japan might buy what they could make, but for how long was the question. It was true Wilson had vented some of the pressure in the market, by capping prices... if for all the wrong justifications to do so... the war couldn't last forever, and was opening another steel mill the right move? Probably not... there was going to be a glut once Europe stopped being at war... there were so many producers ... they could use the coal though.

... and the capital to that steel mill might be better suited for some other metal working good instead... there would be other goods to make after the war... things that they'd need locally.
--
Notes: This is going up early, and Saturday should see the conclusion of November 1917

With the Bolshevik seizure of power it is as good of time as any to talk about timeline divergence, and on a global scale this timeline largely remains fairly similar to the real life in broad strokes, particularly in terms of western Europe. Now the Soviet Union will form in a few years, Lenin will die due to complications of getting shot in a couple month and his pre existing medical conditions, but for the most part the twenties and thirties in Europe and in the european periphery will go along.

There are all sorts of conflicts that take place after November 1918 regardless of whats going on in the western capitals. So WW2 will largely happen in Europe disconnected from events in Asia. It will really only be when the Cold War begins in this timeline that there will be significant divergences in the global historical timeline.

Like I said with PMs, Thatcher may still end up as PM due to the way the stability of British political institutions are, not exactly the same thing, but Nixon is also sort of a given though thats more because he was Ike's VP, and if WW2 happens more or less as normal Ike as president is very probable response to succeed Truman. After though, Jimmy Carter was anomaly of US presidents his elect was one things where specific confluence of social pressures got him elected, and then electorate forgot about why they elected him, and frankly even without the shenanigans he probably wouldn't have been reelected. So yeah really Nixon is the last president thats its likely will share with OTL.

The establishment of the Fifth Republic (France) has its roots in the first world war, thats not a typo, France's political problems are at least that old, and the presidential republic didn't fix all of the problem late 19th​ century france had that the first world war blew wide open. If the second world war goes largely to OTL DeGaulle is a possibl, and if so Pompidou is a pretty strong maybe... but if Degaulle is not a given, then Pompidou, who was PM for deGaulle isn't. Thats going to be important post ww2, but especially after major divergence in the timeline in the sixties and seventies, because as a timeline global oil demand is going to be higher just as one example.

Anyway, just something that needed to be touched on, especially because one of the divergence points here are the changes in Central Asia hinted at here, but those do not readily effect Western Europe. Western Europe, the Franco-Entente, are involved but it doesn't effect their core areas so the consequences don't actually play a role until much later. (There will be knock on effects, but they won't have effects on Europe for decades after 1918)

I also want to make clear that the use of 'the Ukraine' is to reflect period usage standards.

 

[Imperator Pax]

November 1917
[Conclusion]
Baxian was the name of a county in the area under Chunking and because it was an important river port that meant it was of British beyond just Chunking being in the 'British sphere'. The warning of movement in the area wasn't a surprise. Chunking had quieted down a bit after the shelling incident but mostly as they had adopted a wait and see approach to events in the north.

Powell stepped and shut the door and moved to sit down. "Phillip, what do you want?"

He stopped and shut the door, then sat down. "I need an advance out of the operating budget. I know its the end of the year, and I know there is a month left."

He glanced down at the telegraph card, and slid the Szechwan map over it. "What do you need it for?"

"There's been an earthquake in Guatemala. Its made the paper." He added a bit unnecessarily as if would question that such a thing had happened.

"It has." He agreed.

Even if it hadn't came out that the General Staff hadn't been actively monitoring cable traffic coming both ways, which of course Powell should have known, but that those intercepts included all outgoing traffic including those by cadre members... they still would have ended up in a row. "You've already received guarantees from Edenborn. The operating budget can advance you a million dollars." He held up a hand, "No, you listen Phillip, I will back you on this." But he'd better make good on this whole plan, "Coffee, the railroad, electrical generation. The president there has a deal with united fruit that they'll auction off railway concession. Get it done. Buy off anything German investors lost when the country entered the war on the US behalf."

"Churches, hospitals, schools?"

"The latter two sure." He shrugged, "Don't get too far ahead of yourself. Focus on the plan, but make sure if you do outreach its effective. Layout an area then make sure that area gets done." He paused, "I'll cover for you, don't ask me for another advance though, its an advance, and its coming out of this years earnings, so there will be questions, so you can expect Dawes will want concessions."

"I can deal with the old man." Phillip promised straightening.

He wasn't going to argue, now wasn't the time. If Phillip did view this as now the time to jump in with capital, "When does the boat leave?"

He didn't exactly answer the question, "I'm on the next ship to the Philippines, then back to San Francisco."

"It'll be arranged when your stateside." He'd make the calls.

"Thanks Al."

"Telephone, telegraph."

"I got it." The door closed. He was for the stairs and fast from the sound of his boots as if the boat would leave without.

Allen pulled the copy of the telegraph. Not the artilleryman's cable to and Edenborn's response, but Edenborn's cable to him this morning. The cable he hadn't mentioned as coming in. The cable that if Powell had been thinking straight might have figured out existed... or might have stumbled upon by happenstance.

It didn't matter. Bill stuck his head in. "Where the devil is he off to so damn fast?"

"To break ground in middle america." Allen shrugged, "I expect Dawes just solidified his place as colonel general of our artillery."

"Are we actually going to bring that back?" He shrugged, the truth was they hadn't thought that far. Black Jack was the first Full General in US service in nearly thirty years. "He skips lieutenant this time. " Bill's observation referred to the three star rank of the service, and that Black Jack had in 1907 skipped from his regular army rank of Captain to brigadier general skipping the traditional colonelcy period or perpetual major status.

Allen didn't mention that the whole business in Manchuria and the Russo-Japanese war was why, and why he'd left the service as a major. "Regardless I doubt Phil will be back to us anytime soon. Any objection to me sending the rest of the 105s down to shore up Cole and Shang?"

The texan shrugged. "Do it."

It was done. He was glad the British had made payment for manganese ore and steel needs. Otherwise the money would have been harder to justify... of course there were other reasons for that.

They jokingly called the middle america venture the filibusters. The eventual precursor to the state that would emerge later would be a largely dead on arrival suggestion of a federation of central america. That idea though would worm its way into the Middle America Groups head and while El Salvador declined to participate in it. Three countries eventually ended up becoming one... largely made possible by a large trunk and branch railway, a lot of dynamite, and this thing called radio certainly would help.

... but that was someone else's story.
--
He made a point of not speaking to Phillip while he waited in Tietsin for the ship that would carry him to the Philippines. "This is good though." The elder Forrest remarked smoothing his smoking jacket, and that it concealed the forty five caliber government work. "Don't complain, its not like he's taking ten thousand dollars out of your pocket." He reached over to the glass. "Black Jack has Daniel on staff duty."

"I'm aware."

"He tell you that or did you ask him?"

"He told me," In between cursing about being himself stuck away from the front proper, but he assumed his father knew that, and that he didn't need to say that, "What do you make of Mackinder?"

"Were you expecting him to be another of our Minister Reinsch?" He put the glass down without drinking from it. "No, I'm not worried about him." He shrugged, which was non verbal for then what are you worried about. The civil affairs colonel cocked his eyebrow at the gesture, "What do you think I'm worried about?"

"Trotsky?"

"Well that little bastard isn't making things easy, he's got friends, but really its the president, and being an easily duped sort." Trotsky's publication that had gone out had heavily borrowed from Wilson's own talking points in lampooning European secret diplomacy. He then gone a step further on that measure by then sending letters to all the ambassadors suggesting, reiterating a peace without annexations, a white peace without indemnities... or the same damned thing Wilson had put forward this time last year. "We need to be pragmatic about this. Can the British transport troops through Siberia, or into central asia?"

Could they use the rails yes, "Both. I've seen Stevens reports." But it would be slow but the railway work could be done. It wouldn't be the overall work, but Vladivostok to Irkutsk was certainly feasible. "But the British wanted the caucuses," and the French had received Ukraine as a sphere of influence in Russian market space, "I can tell you projecting there from this side isn't feasible. Its too slow."

"The British have a navy for that, or so they claim, I suspect its this balkans thrust they've been talking about, but whatever the case our concern is Siberia. The British wish to secure with their Russian allies," Which was a hilarious thought in itself, "a foothold by which to keep the Russians in the war regardless of what the Kaiser's lackey thinks or attempts."

Banging on rhetoric was all well and good, but that was a much more complicated thing, than simply broad sweeping speeches. "So we're back to the matter of mister Mackinder then?" Officially the parliamentarian had been given some fancy title and the post of commissioner, but he was not a member of Lloyd George's war cabinet, neither was John Jordan for that matter. The welshman's war cabinet was a handful of men that included men like Jan Smuts as Cullen had noted. "I assume that the British want more than just the railway link."

"There is at present a collection of pro British factions assembled. They have apparently convinced and managed to smuggle some generals and nobles out." Lansing was preparing to make sure Terauchi was against the Bolsheviks. A further expansion of secret protocols of his and Ishii's understandings of the other's position, and would in combination with the British support for the Czechoslovak legion, and the British support for the whites combine with Manchurian, and northern Chinese soldiers and labors... that was to say contributions both by Zhang Tsolin and Duan Qirui to be the building blocks of intervention in Siberia as 1917 drew to its close...

... the future was that looking back historians would question whether or not if the British had been more supportive of the Kornilov coup against Kerensky if the Royal Navy had been more present in Petrograd's harbors then perhaps could something more have been done to stop the red terrors... but that was the prerogative of historians and people of the future to ask what ifs. Lloyd George had decided he needed to do something, and it very much was to become a matter of British pride to intervene in the war.

Almost half a million chinese laborers would serve in Russia over the course the first world war, and more than a hundred thousand troops drawn from more than a dozen different 'warlords' Puppet states would be established, international support extended and the game would be played.

The older Forrest shook his head. "There is something else."

"What?"

"Lansing is going to ask Terauchi about standing with us against the Bolshevik, not going to lie the Secretary is a bit embarrassed over the Russian business." An embarrassed Lansing was a dangerous Lansing, "You have plans to meet up with Yamagata's boy, this trip to Taiwan, Akashi has going on."

The eavesdropping on phone calls wasn't a surprise. It was annoying but he wasn't surprised. "The railway situation is a problem. I'm not going to Vladivostok, I'm not putting men up there. I need somebody who can do the job."

"Yeah?" There was an amused skepticism, "Well whatever thats good, getting Japan involved. I've seen Steven's handwringing of a report, but the Virginian is too likely to take it at face value and the Corp of Engineers is probably too busy with France. What do the British know?"

"As of yet, nothing." It wasn't finalized yet hell he had made all of five phone calls this past week, the conversation about Phil leaving for latin america had put him off guard for questions... the British contract had provisions for subcontractors, and for expanding jobs... though not exactly what he'd had in mind... Steven's report was alarming.

"Fine, the truth is Stevens seems to have lost his nerve he's fretting over the Bolshevik situation and the line needs to be done rather than just be written off. Lansing and the British are going to approach Japan about what we collectively can do... and we're not going to tell the French. We're not going to tell Reinsch, and we're not telling John Jordan either."

... what the hell? "What happens when they find out?"

"It'll be fait accompli." As if that would be that simple, but one thing at a time.
--


Notes: There is a reason that El Salvador doesn't join the middle america project is because by this time, that it occurs, or even at this (segment) in the timeline El Salvador already has a strong oligarchic and centralized influence bloc. Yes, it is US aligned (or more accurately in 1917 Anglosphere aligned, it has strong ties to England despite not declaring war against Germany), and does become a defacto military dictatorship, and is anti communist but unlike the other three El Salavador has during this period has a relatively strong central government and as a result no regime change, no banana wars. The great families have a vested interest in not having their power diluted by such a federal government.

The subsequent government has no interest forcing it in. They're both anti-communist, and they're both aligned with other US interests among other factors. So thats why El Salvador declines to participate. The middle america thing is really more of post Russian civil war / late inter war period matter until the cold war era.

And I should mention, because its a useful detail. On the 15th​ of November 1917 Duan resigned from being PM again, he was back in the job effectively 3 months later. He basically goes, "Fine" then in December as will be mentioned takes up in the newly formed War Participation Office... and then gets asked to be prime minister again in the following year. As will be noted in the opening of December, and over the course Duan still wields significant influence in the Beiyang establishment.

 

[Imperator Pax]

December 1917
With the end of the year approaching they were already looking at January... and they were looking at other business as well. Ordinarily Allen would have simply yielded his vote on the agri board, the committee to handle company business on company farms, to the chair. The problem was that 1917 had not been a normal year, and that the end result of grain prices increasing in the states, predominantly as a result of French purchasing up of wheat futures in the Midwest two and even three seasons ahead of time where they could was causing a massive inflation of prices... never mind that with the US in the war and with talks about maritime cooperation of the transport industry there were other problems to export.

The committee had to contend with a number of problems, and as a result the board chair... had dragged them all out here to stump. The war in europe had cut them from purchase of various european manufactured goods, and slowly reduced their ability to source US replacements. The end result was a problem in expansion, they had hit a bottleneck, because their local production of equivalent goods simply up to the task.

There was also the increasing use of tractors they had already had for military purposes, predominantly drawing of supplies, or actually pulling of artillery batteries, which when contending with Bai Lang, or such a threat would have been one thing... but now the farm side was becoming acrimonious.

With wheat futures from the midwest bought up, and at risk of other meddling even if they had gotten a portion of the harvest for 'war time necessities' / 'european needs' they had been looking at other options. So they had among other things brought in Russian grain stocks that grew well in the steppe country and were planted in September. It wasn't new, Carleton and the university in Kansas had been writing about Mennonites growing the crops for two decades ... and singing the praises there in, but it was a change over for them because it meant bringing more land into cultivation...

... and that had threatened to start a whole 'nother fight over matters with the fledgling A&M colleges over rotating students through the fields, never mind the fight over steam tractors, and grain combines.

In the particular case here it didn't help that they were in a field north of the river that hadn't been put into service until after Yuan Shikai had passed away. It abutted part of the Great Western Line that ran out to the big lake.

What would the Qing have said? Well about the farms not much... but they would have never considered growing wheat of any sort this far out back then. It just wouldn't have been worth it. Bringing new farmland under cultivation that met with Qing approval, but it wasn't especially economically productive. The company farms had been to stock company commissaries and cafeterias not actually to go to market... either local public ones, or the international one.

There was a huff beside him, "There this, there's the peanuts, there is the corn... and still got the argument about tractors." That was just scratching the surface. For the first time in years the matter of agriculture was a priority rather than just a line item, or a box to be checked...

"Carleton is already getting head hunted by United, otherwise it'd probably be worth it to bring him out... Kansas is more like here than Georgia would be." Another cadre member added

"Thats a problem with the draft," A third.

Conscription... it was going to fuck with the economy. Pulling men out of the work place by lots would disrupt production... but it had been two generations since the last time the states had had to worry about that. It had been a volunteer force that had ridden out to fight Spain.
--
The dominos down south had started to fall quickly as the temperatures dipped and the new year approached. In Hupeh two county level commanders in the province had declared their 'independence' which ordinarily might have been ignored save that they had marched east, further into the interior of the province, and towards Hankow's rail juncture. It threatened to cut the Beiyang supply lines as they moved increasingly southwards.

Duan, who had resigned two weeks ago in disgust of the complete mess of political bickering effecting the beiyang command, was currently moving into his new office to take up his new position as head of the war participation office. Whatever that was supposed to be about. Feng was apparently left wondering why this new office entitled Duan to a bunch of money to raise entirely new troops and provision of weapons. To say that the President of the Republic was upset with the now former prime minister was an understatement.

... in reply certain people had basically come out to say Feng just wanted to give up on keeping the country together and that there should be a north China and a south china. This was from cherrypicking some of Feng's comments and was being phrased in... unfortunate historical comparative.

The problem for opponents of Feng, both southern parliamentarians and Duan, was that Feng's position as president remained conciliatory, but also that he was recognizing of fairly expansive provincial authority, which meant the provinces liked him. That was in short as long as the provinces largely policed themselves he didn't see it as his business. For the gentry Feng's peace position was eminently reasonable... but there was probably some truth to the claim that it had the potential to cut the country in half. "When's the conference?" He asked putting the newspaper aside from where he'd been scanning the columns.

"Tomorrow." Or it opened tomorrow, and that short notice was possible only because the invitations made it clear that the meeting would be in Tietsin. The current RSVP counted ten provinces attending. Zhang, and Yan both planning to send representatives.

Two years ago he might have only considered it a curiosity. Allen would not in 1915 considered this to be anything more than a beiyang curiosity... but then two years the exact scenario they were in now would have been near to unthinkable.

Sinkiang was about two million people but the truth was just their crescent of Western Zhili, including Zhengzhou, was more heads than that... he knew that without even the census... and with good reason Shensi, and Shansi weren't small. The population that they were 'representative' of was only small relative to the comparison with medium sized provinces like Anwei. Truly bloated provinces like their raucous neighbor Szechwan were another story entirely.

Provinces like Szechwan, like Shantung... Hupeh, Honan, and kuantung were all an estimated twenty five million human beings or more. Szechwan was far and away the outlier being nearly sixty million people. It was a special kind of weight, those numbers, that was a lot of rice. It should have been reassuring the gentry of those provinces were as a result of their great size and near impotence of local magistrates now were more concerned with their own local counties. It wasn't nearly enough of a reassurance. In part because these people who weren't officials had the means to organize small militias of their own and had a tendency to act in a hard to predict way.

This wasn't some collection of Qingyi, low level juren who didn't really have day jobs writing publicly about some complaint they had with some policy. These were men who actually had real power in the sense of the influence to get things done in their local areas in a time where counties were with alarming concern declaring their independence from provincial governments.

Allen twirled the ballpoint pen. It had been a novelty originally, but in the Philippines the pen had proven useful in writing notes, and as a result it and small seaman's logs had become standard practice. Right now he was just rubbing a blue line across his thumb. "What do we expect?"

There were looks around. "Wang is worried they'll cut his lines of supply, that may make his block switch to supporting, or it might convince that they need to step back and rethink this whole thing." There had been a lot of talk in the Peking papers about cutting melons.

It had officially become written policy that new divisions should be stood up using the Infantry Regiment of that number as its core unit. This of course did not prognosticate the notion that they would establish other sorts of Divisions. The thinking in 1917 was much as it had been in the past there were not going to be cavalry divisions, and the idea of 'artillery divisions' seemed a bit obnoxious. It was apart of a series of reforms and codifications laid down.

Generals should be placed provost into their commands that was to say that given their current situation and lack of frankly anyone even themselves being suited to hold a full time major general's position. Temporary command would have to suffice for the time being, while training from the bottom up continued and was carried out by a uniform curriculum. The staff college could only do so much work, so it was expected to take time. That Black Jack had only been promoted to Major General by the United States the year previous, and had just been promoted two grades to full General two months earlier may well have had something to do with it but it wasn't to be mentioned aloud.

The idea though that command should b e a temporary appointment was further buttressed by the idea that the three divisions planned to be active should be supported by a ready reserve. Yan Xishan had used the States' national guard as an example on more than one occasion in conversations as they carried on about greater integration.

How much a year's time had made, where they could talk about ground up changes. Those changes needed to be more than just the army. "I'll go to Tietsin tomorrow, Bertie is already there, anyone else taking the train?" He asked looking around. A couple of men folded their own newspapers. Most had to decline. He'd send a circular out to the cadre at large to find out if anyone else was planning to go, and they'd go from there. "Alright, then there are a few other things then before we call it quits for today."

Firstly was that though Zhang held the title of Dujun he didn't have control of all the militaries of the province. He didn't even control all the Beiyang commands in Gansu. Ma Hongkui's independent brigade went over the border as they liked, and that wasn't a unique arrangement. It created a web of allied, but independent military commanders in Gansu that was a headache. He never really knew for sure if Hongkui was doing more trouble than good.

"If the 1920 date is to be taken seriously." Griswold remarked, "Then we have two years to get as much ground work done as we can. That means a division of labor, while still recognizing our other commitments." that would mean forming new working committees, and planning. They had talked about banks... and that had lead to talks about the matter of equity and stock markets, but the latter had turned into not wanting to end up in a situation like the Shanghai exchange, which was basically a members only establishment, and also that a stock market wasn't necessarily ... well necessary. Public equity needed to be developed. They couldn't just keep retasking shop floor managers like they had been doing.

"I'll start drafting organization," Or rather already had, "but any lines on a map will need surveys, and that may require other infrastructure. Outside of the firms, the army ties up a lot of our technical expertise. Management is similar. I know that JP will just suggest schools, and yes that's true, we need institutions of learning, but how do we staff them... there needs to be an institution for our officers, NCOs to deal with interacting industrial side management." Especially if two thirds of the army was going to be in the reserves. The A&Ms would need to expand, they would need one in each province eventually, and probably more than one as primary and secondary education continued... but the army already had an educated base to it, and people got out and would need an education to be other than soldiers.

More importantly the eventual impact of reforms from the bottom, of town county and province would eventually lead to the issuance of a paper currency... what a decade later would refer to as the North Chinese Dollar... never mind that Manchuria was by that point had been issuing its own currency for years. Zhang Tsolin had begun minting his own currency at, or even before, the start of the decade and had demonstrated its own robustness achieving rough parity with the Japanese Yen. Thus some confusion existed abroad about which was the North Chinese Dollar by that time frame.

Xian's provincial currency would supersede the customs dollar. Xian's system of public administration prioritized common defense, then legal arbitration and property rights, and then the provision of public goods as its primary administrative priorities. This had it origins in the necessity of fending off bandits, but also the gradual creation of a universal public education system, and of course the provincial level medical board in response to the grip pandemic.

--
Notes: This is in the long term a fairly important institutional development, obviously clearly sets up on paper for the national guard being a thing. It bears worth restating again that Xian in this period makes everyone enlisting go through infantry school. The successor to that policy is that standardized training then divides into Infantry basic is followed by specialized training at actual schools as opposed to them shipping you to your unit for on the job training. So in the future Artillery is the first other basic that gets stood up. Then the artillery will have control of tanks when those become the hot new thing, because the goal is artillery support infantry by lobbing high explosive at the other guy. [And then later becomes more cavalry esque get in the back end of the enemy's supply set their stuff on fire, but its more mobile direct artillery fires, I digress that's a ways in the future. This goes to Machine guns were originally an artillery branch weapon.]

Anyway this is the basis for the 1/3 active 2/3 Guard component Xian practices during the twenties and early thirties. [Obviously mobilization during wartime that changes, war time mobilization is 50 something infantry divisions in 41, where a standard Type A Infantry Division is 3 Regiments and 3 Battalions of Artillery and so on. Thats ww2 on the north china plain, and there are a lot of people involved, and thats fifteen years further still in the timeline from the Northern expedition.]


Out of universe: Up front the reason that Xian uses the Regiment to Division model at the start of this segment... is predominantly to save me a fucking headache in the ww2 section. So what that means is 1st​ Regiment is the core of 1st​ Division? Simple yeah. That makes sense right? Well in the US in ww2 the 45th​ infantry division is the 157th​ IR, 179th​, and180th​ regiments. I'm going to have to deal with that to a lesser extent yes, but as far as cadre stand up for those divisions this is a easy cheat for writing alternate history. [Now in universe, this has a degree of historical precedence... before world war 1 makes modern armies explosively large, but the principle is out of universe for my own book keeping.]

And speaking of institutional development the cadre as a corporate institution benefits from its pre Qing collapse origins in both temporal advantage, and that it takes place during a time the qing are trying to both industrialize (they wanted working railways) and also to figure out a corporate legal tradition (they never quite got that far) but also patronage, The cadre's formation, its corporate incorpation as functioning entity takes place in Zhili during Yuan Shikai tenure as governor of the province as part of his local modernization inviting foreign investment, such that the cadre benefits as the Beiyang clique advances and the cadre expands until we get to this point a decade down the road where corporation interests are turning having to take on governmental ones in the province of Shensi. [Part of that is the change in power, Duan is in a position where he wants stability and needs to refill the treasury so he delegates and hands off authority in places he doesn't consider a threat to central china, or aren't important to his government. Feng as president similarly doesn't consider the south worth fighting for, its a case of 'if the western provinces are still paying taxes into the system thats great who cares what their provincial governments are doing.'] Its a continuation of the devolution of federal power to the provinces that dates back really to the Ming dynasty, before the Qing.

Speaking of world war 2 though not on the division mobilization:

This goes to the US UK side of things:

Spoiler

In 1944 Xian in reply to Operation Ichigo in the south launches an airborne assault against Taiwan, it lands first secures Taipei by sweeping the unprepared garrison (who are in defensive air shelters thinking this is a USAAF or USN attack) and constructs air fields to land reinforces from there, by the time Nazi Germany surrenders in spring of 45, Xian has had taiwan promulgate a provincial constitution without recrimination and admitted them to the northern government.

The knock on effect to this, or a knock on effect of this is first, the Royal Navy and USN can now dock at Taiwan, heavy four engine bombers can land on Taiwan, refuel and rearm. The long term effect is that it contributes further to when Atchkinson as SoS draws up the US position for Asia, and of course as historically Hurley has left the state department in a real bind especially with his sudden resignation.

By 1948 once the civil war resumes it sets the stage for Chinese reunification in full, the KMT had burned enough bridges with Truman that he had cut support off IRL by that point, and US support didn't resume until 51, and of course Korea here is very different. The Korean Communist party does exist, it does participate against Japan, but its also not on good terms with anyone. There is not Soviet land border, and as a result Kim doesn't have the support necessary to actually push down into the peninsula (he was actually operating more in Manchuria, which was part of the reason him and Mao beefed historically).

But that is Thirty years in the future from where we are in the timeline at present.

 

[Imperator Pax]

December 1917
The market's air was remarkable, in both how calm things were and how how unnerving that was given how very relaxed everyone was taking this whole conference thing.

On the other hand... the Dujun had done something like this before, and the year before that too not that he thought about it. The truth was that Dujun had at the end of the conference in the spring voted for war against Germany. It had been the parliament that had voted no, it had been the southern dominated parliament and the KMT aligned Members of the Parliament elected in 1912 who had voted no, and then called for Duan resignation, and then in the face of everything turning upside down invited the pony tail general to Peking where he had asked the parliament to kindly if they would get the hell out of town.

An air of normalcy existed as people went about their business. "What about the grip?" The initial cases after the flood season had been thought to have been plague due to discoloration of the lymph nodes under the armpits... and well given the flooding here the diagnosis had been questioned.

"Its worse in Canton from what we're told, not so bad, but yeah its definitely back," Bert shrugged in resignation, "The doctor thinks we can stop it from spreading if we implement strict quarantine, and,"

"And?"

"And if we wear masks."

That was the traditional protection against plague... someone had said the Buddhists had been doing it for two thousand years, but more than anything he thought of the crowheaded doctor's masks of Italy's golden age. Wood had basically beaten the idea of sanitation into them back when, he supposed those lessons must have stuck pretty well, "Do it then. I'll make sure you have the space to raise isolation wards, and print posters." He was glad it wasn't the plague though. "I want you to talk to Yan's doctor friend make sure we're all on the same page, and coordinate. None of this leave it to the next guy over." Too many people wanted to let states do all their same damn thing, to hell with that.

"Yan's here for the conference, isn't he?"

"He is, I'll mention it to him," Yan Xishan had his own experts, people he'd befriended to try and make his home province better he had taken the time to make friends more broadly with the red cross, who while otherwise fine fellows had been known to occasionally brindle at military discipline and medical procedure.

People getting in among the sick. Letting sick people wander around tended to spread disease. He reiterated that he would take time to speak to Yan about coordination, and endeavor to make sure Yan in turn spoke to his medical people, and also the Red Cross in Shansi.

"That isn't the only thing."

He looked sideways, "It never is, what's the matter?" There was a ruffling of papers. Allen was surprised at the list of professors from Peking University, more specifically it was a pledge that their involvement in some newspaper wouldn't be political... "I've been told this is the new thing." He replied referring to the 'solemn vow', he scoffed, "They're doing it in the states, England and France have done it.

'For the war effort' it was a way to muzzle journalists so that they didn't write things that the government wouldn't like. "That's the problem John. It doesn't matter what we're doing, Reinsch thinks it too much."

Allen rolled his eyes and leaned back. Then he looked back down at the names, "Oh let me guess he already knows every body on this list who has promised to not be political?" Bertie shrugged and confessed to not knowing but that he wouldn't have been surprised if that was the case. Allen really had to wonder if Reinsch believed this was truly the best use of the American Minister's time. Par for the course for Reinsch, "He won't listen, you think it'll cause a scandal?"

There was a pause between them. If there hadn't been a war on. If China hadn't entered the war against Austria Hungary then Reinsch would have had support from the French side of the diplomatic body. He paused, "This is that Shanghai paper, comes out of the French quarter...." He paused searching for a name, "Chen Duxiu?"

"They were in Shanghai," came the correction, "with this lot joining him, Chen moved the printing up here. Its been a busy year in Peking, and here... and Zhang Xun really lit a fire under their writing." Which was probably the impetus for this public profession of political neutrality. Neither premier nor president probably wanted them to take sides.

It was not a question of did they have common ground it was the uncertainty of where there would be disagreements, and what the press might print. It occurred to him that before the European war, before the big boom in business he'd have been more aware of the events, the ongoing shifts and changes in staff and big influential papers of Peking, or even Shanghai...

Bert tried to assure him that the paper only had a circulation of 'about ten thousand' but it didn't change that it was recognition that things had changed.

--
It was not lost on Allen that Baoding housed the military academy that Duan had graduated from before he'd gone off to study in Japan. Admittedly it didn't seem to matter. There were no shortage of graduates from the school, and there wasn't the same alma mater inclination of loyalty ... and certainly there were enough Baoding graduates on the wrong side of the fence.

He put the folder on the table. Trasncribed copies of Japanese documents compiled by the kempentai, Army Military Police, on students at the Japanese Staff college handed over during the Bai Lang years. The hui corporal closed the safe back, but didn't lock it, but insured the archive wasn't blocking them from moving around. The gendarmes officer took the copy from the vault and walked over to the typewriter in the office, and racked it.

Clack clack clack went the machine as he hit the keys

He glanced to other 'general' ranked officers'. "He might not try it."

"We were lucky this summer. Luck doesn't always hold."

Dawes grunted. "Bigger question is who's working with whom." Szechwan had broken up into collections of county level fiefdoms, and even taking Hui brigades from Gansu, and the Ma clique coming down wasn't able to effectively unify the province, which was a double edged sword in itself. "And whos actually guomindang."

There were days he considered just taking a boat to Japan and sitting down with Sun in a tokyo hotel restaurant and just asking him that question... but Sun would probably just say they all were... it wouldn't do them any good... no any trip to Japan would be better off aimed at visiting Akashi... maybe even taking time to talk to Terauchi about the war effort... and this marxist shit show russia was turning into. The British were trying to get the Japanese to participate in East Asia, "Do you we know anything about what's going on with Chunking?" He said turning back to the south.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, which told him enough.

The problem was last he had heard there were at least three fellas with decent sized armies who each wanted the city for their personal 'capital', and they weren't really the sharing sort.


"We know they're fighting, but that's about it, the British aren't very clear on what's going on, but that so far they've kept artillery out of it."... which was how the British consulate in the city liked things... even though it didn't stop the charge daffairs from asking for troops... that he had to know he wasn't going to get.


There was a shrug, and they returned to north of Chunking, and to the northern most Szechwanese leaders. Liu, Zhong and Shi. "We don't know for sure they'll start a fight, give it a couple weeks, it'll be impractical to do any kind of wide scale movements, and then... probably is the next we would normally see trouble." The problem was that that was how things normally were... but that that was assuming that the situation in the east ... in Peking and in amongst the beiyang clique hadn't given anyone ideas. Wu's troops taking a beating and getting run back north was a problem, even if it didn't effect Gansu's brigades in the west. The problem was Wu faltering meant Wang was either at risk of getting cut off if the Yunnan troops coming up from the south hadn't already done that... which gave the impression and attack could be launched up the rail line.

A 2nd​ division infantry colonel suggested it would be better to have Hongkui withdraw back over the border to concentrate along the Bashan frontier... which was arguably the best traditional strategic view. The gansu forces, more broadly the western ethnicities, and Hui, were increasing their numbers, which was what they were doing, and what Percy reported was going on in the south, and Duan was doing, what anyone with money was doing.

Money because rifles were the expensive thing. There were talk of coolies being impressed into service in the south by Yunnanese troops, and given past experience that would probably spread to Hunan, Fukien, Hupeh and the rest as southern forces, with less access to rail cars and other transportation became restive. They couldn't use the canals because they didn't want to pay the taxes to keep them in good repair... so it was the backs of men.

Not that it'd limit itself to just the rural south... no give it time, the beiyang army divisions would swell up like the 'second revolution' had and they'd need laborers to fetch and carry... and that'd be after money got scarce.

It also wasn't lost that Ma Hongkui outranked the colonel, and commanded more men... but that hadn't stopped the colonel from suggesting the brigade commander be told to come back over the fence, and stay with the group where he would have the rails to rely. It wasn't bad advice at all but it presented a problem, or problems. They could hold the old gateways to the province those natural chokepoints themselves.

He could already guess that their printing bureau would start making those historical comparisons, to some historical epoch of thousand year old literature... as long as they were the guys who won in the end. "So say he does try it." 2nd​ division wasn't ready... not really... and there were other problems... as soon as second finished standing up...

... well when the pony tail general had put Puyi back on his throne... when the fighting in Zhili had happened Percy had been looking a bit too much at first divisions manpower... and there was all this war participation talk going on. It wasn't just Duan talking about it, either, no Zhang Tsolin was talking about things too, and he had Japanese friends, and Japanese rifles as well... and he disliked the Russians. These things were known.. and there was other sorts of chatter.

--
Notes: So, one thing I want to touch on is, as has been stated previous Sichuan province is fuck huge in terms of population (especially relative to the other provinces in the region). It is also the historical frontier region, alongside tibet, and Xinjiang the result of this is that after Yuan Shikai died there were nominally four major warlords in the province, there were minor warlords, there existing tribal chieftains. There was was influence from outside the province most notably Yunnan from Tsai O, and his successors in the south, but also from tibetan tribal confederation influence and the Ma clique in the north and the borders were very porous. Sichuan province did not have a lot of industry, its various militia, mercenary armies, bandits were often fighting with weapons more contemporary to that of the Taiping rebellion or the 1880s. There was in the 1910s and 20s documented use of swords, and spears being common place, as well as with more well off militarists having modern artillery (the artillery use on Chonqing did historically happen), the British consulate in Chonqing repeatedly requested British troops which weren't available due to the war.