NationStates Jolt Archive


A Brave New World (E1914)

Dontgonearthere
10-07-2007, 06:49
A few years of slow, but steady, modernization had given China something it had never had before. Downtown Nanjing now had a downtown that was more than a bunch of peasants and artisants skinning cows, there were factories, there were warehouses. In some places the city looked practically European now.
Every now and then a car would roll down the street, although they never made much progress against the huge crush of people which populated the streets of ANY Chinese city. Telegraph wires ran up and down the coast, linking the major cities and providing the Emperor with something that every Emperor of China had wanted since the Shang. Instant news...or close enough to instant that it made no matter. It meant more paperwork of course, but that was fine. It was easy to afford more beurocrats with the extra money that this marvelous industry provided through trade.
It was quite amazing what European nobility was willing to pay for Chinese pottery turned out via machine. Not as much as the hand-made stuff of course, but more often that not the merchants in question didnt bother to educate their customers on the fine art of telling the difference between mass produced junk and a piece of art.
Such is the eternal struggle between store owner and shopper.
The Confrence of Ten Pavilions had yielded many promises, but few results. The planned wargames had been cut short by some silly European bickering. Nonetheless, the Emperor HAD managed to secure a few deals with various businesses, contracting the supplies and material needed to establish an industrial base for China to operate on, and eventually re-establish its former greatness.
This industrialization also brought on a new need. Importing iron and other materials to feed the ever growing demand was expensive, China was filthy rich of course, but not quite THAT rich.
Looking to the west, the Emperor saw mountains. He was, of course, no geologist, but typically mountains were where you found resources such as iron, copper, tin and the other items essential to the diet of the Industrial Dragon. Explorers had said that these places were rich in such resources, and they had a modest local population ripe for the taking.
And, even better, there wasnt a government there already.
At least, not an IMPORTANT one.
Within weeks of recieving the geological reports, the Emperor had assembled the Gold and Black banners on the Empires western borders, hired local guides and paid the explorers to go with the armies.
The forces had set off with great pomp from Beijing, where the Emperor himself had made a public apperance and gave a short speech, extolling the virtues of the Chinese people and the greatness of the Empire, and the need to re-take historically Chinese lands. 'They were ours once, and so shall be again', the prevailing logic of the Imperial city said.
Reports were that the local governments were little more than bandit lords holed up in ancient forts on top of mountains, usually wielding the same weapons their ancestors had five hundred years ago. Both the forts and the weapons would be no match for the Imperial Banners' firepower, with modern European artillery, rifles, and machine guns backing them up. China's great drive to the West was, in the Imperial City, deemed to be a guaruntied success, with no strong resistance expected and no Europeans to say otherwise. The Chinese armies marched along ancient roads build hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago, worming their ways toward the various strongholds scattered throughout the mountains.
Chang Sha was the first such fortress encountered, its brick walls already crumbling by the time the Imperial Armies arrived. Its defenders, armed with bows, spears, and swords, later said that the fortress walls fell at the sound of the Imperial guns, rather than the impact of their shells.

Military conquest is all well and good, but the true foundation of the Great Expedition, as it was called, was the explorers. Ouyang Ziyuan, one of the first, reported that he traveled all the way to Turkistan, contacting the various Emirs and tribal leaders in the name of the Emperor and, in a few cases, establishing friend contact. The old Silk Road was, in a few places, still operating sporadically, mostly between a few of the larger cities, sending a few camels between them every now and then.
Such expeditions yielded more than mere maps, but vital information on the locals themselves, and scientific results abounded. It was as a result of these expeditions that the Emperor founded the Chinese Geographical Institution, the Botanical College, a variety of societies and numerous other scientific bodies to study the flora and fauna of Asia outside of China. Soon enough there was a booming scientific community in the Imperial City, complete with imported Europeans, and there were streets where Chinese occasionally gave way to English, French, or German as various nationalities collided.

But, alas, it is seldom the province of writers of this particular forum to dwell on the acomplisments of mere explorers, so on to the blood and guts.

The Storming of Chang Sha was a bloody affair, but, ultimatly, one sided. Some thousand rebels stood for a day against five thousand of the Imperial Army, while the rest of the Chinese force simply flowed around them, moving on the more profitable targets to raise the Imperial Banner there.
In this endeavour, the Chinese airforce proved its worth, its efforts in scouting and information gathering proved invaluable, especially since the natives didnt seem to realize what the planes were. The largely barren lands could not hide the local guerilla fighters from above and, as a consequence, virtually every move was spotted and tracked in a methodical fashion only possible because of the dogged Chinese loyalty to paperwork. Virtually every large guerilla force within a hundred miles of any given airstrip was noted, catalouged, tracked, and, eventually, eliminated with due expediency.
The attack on Chang Sha began and ended quickly, an artillery barrage leveled its walls and send a number of defenders scrambling for the hills.
This was followed up by a charge right up the hill into the maw of what, if the defenders knew what they were, would have been a massive hail of machinegun and rifle fire.
The defenders didnt have either, so there wasnt.
What followed was a vicious close quarters battle where the Chinese discipline paid off, an ordered rank of bayonets met the countercharge and quite nicely broke it, scattering more defenders and killing those not smart enough to take their leave of the city. Those that were captured found themselves subject to Chinese martial law, which largely consisted of having their limbs cut off and their heads displayed over what was left of the city gate.
Such was the story in ever center of resistance that the Chinese encountered in their first few hundred miles of advance. However, as they went West, the resistance grew stronger and the supply lines got longer. Eventually they came up against barriers which provided actual resistance, Mongol and Turkish forts which were strong enough and well supplied enough to resist immidiate conquest, not to mention constant raids by locals on horseback who couldnt be isolated and destroyed as the foot soldiers in the east had been.
Over by the Midwinter Festival indeed.

((Since the Chinese government is keeping quiet about this, I doubt that anybody would notice much aside from the fact that two Banner armies moved westwards and a lot of neat stuff showed up in Beijing.))
Dontgonearthere
11-07-2007, 07:43
While the armies went Westward, the politicians in Beijing sat and thought. A whole wing of the Imperial City previously left to its own devices was converted into a massive foreign relations office, housing trainee diplomats and scribes scribbled away at the entrance examinations, filled out paperwork and read letters to and from European and other nations.
For the first time in...well...forever, the Imperial City played host to the buildings called 'embassy' by Europeans. The Imperial Guard patrolled between buildings which, despite the materials they were constructed off, contrived to look European, ensuring that the local populace didnt get too curious for their own good. The Emperor had made it clear that European learning was good and all, but anybody caught trying to enter a European embassy without authorization would be dealt with most harshly. Thus far only a few people had found themselves in the stocks at either end of what the citizens reffered to as the 'street of barbarians.'
And within the heart of the city, the Forbidden City, the Emperor sat under a recently constructed pagoda, as finely constructed as any other in the city, but built of polished steel instead of the more traditional wood. The first batch of steel from the Hong Kong Steelworks had gone directly to the palace for this monument and the impressive artillery which know guarded the Imperial City.
Underneath his monument to moderninity, the Emperor was engaged in a vicious battle with the forces of conservatism.
"O Light of the World, it is simply not done. Your divine presence cannot grace such petty kingdoms as those of the Europeans, and never before now has a kingdom upon this earth proven worthy of the presence of the Son of Heaven save our own!" Most of the arguements of the day had run along these lines, and the Emperor was starting to lose his regal poise.
"Indeed, oh WISE minister, however it is a key point of the traditional philosophy of rule that subjects must see their master, correct? So, it is VITAL that I travel to the Kingdoms of Europe, there to meet with their lords and assure our supremacy."
It was, of course, vital to phrase arguements correctly. The older ministers typically held to the philosophy that China ruled the world and all other states were subject to it. Never mind that China was, at most, a regional power in this day and age.
"And to be perfectly honest, Minister, your opinion on the matter holds no authority. I am the Son of Heaven, correct?"
"Yes but it is vital to observe protoc-"
"No, it is not." The Emperor ignored the collective gasp, "I am the Emperor. Protocol is what I say it is. Now be silent, and bring me the blasted budget report!"
The Emperor was proposing that, in the European tradition, he celebrate his ascencion to the throne with a 'grand tour', a trip to the great cities of Europe and perhaps even America, acompanied by, in another fine Chinese tradition, a fleet on such a grand scale that even the present naval powers would be impressed. Records of the last Imperial Treasure Fleet still existed, and reportedly the 'presents' dispensed with its passing had destabilized the economies of a number of nations for some years after its passing.
Even now Chinese dockyards bustled with pre-construction activity, keels were laid and other nautical terminology was applied. Guns and boilers, some built in China, some imported from Europe, were stored, ready to be melded with the great floating fortresses of steel which awaited them.
Across the way in the much older sections of dock, three ships of an entirly different mould were taking shape, built of wood on a model which hadnt been seen since the 17th century, based on the mighty treasure ships of Zheng He, these ships were built to accomidate the Emperor, essentially floating palaces of ultimate luxury built to transport the Son of Heaven across the seas, each one appointed in the same fashion as the Imperial Palaces, although slightly tinted to suit the Emperors somewhat strange tastes, with tapestries displaying Chinese industry and military power, as opposed to the traditional swallows and such.
The ships had as many as fifteen masts, and were huge beyond measure, easily the largest wooden ships built in the history of the world, exceeding even the legendary ships of the Zheng He fleet. The largest ships, the Emperors 'main' vessel, was easily 800 feet long, two hundred wide and would, once completed, be host to a whole city of servants, sailors and managers.
The tops of the ships were covered in buildings, not the simple 'superstructure' of warships, but palaces, temples and houses, looking on such ships was like watching a city float by...once they were finished, of course.
Acompanying this construction was a small fleet of supply ships, to contain food and supplies for such a long voyage, holding the food to feed the men, the coal to feed the ships and the water to keep the both going.
This massive undertaking was paid for by the simple expedient of stopping construction of six palaces planned by the previous Emperor, diverting the labour from those endeavours to the shipyards and selling off the material to various nobles and well-to-do persons. It irritated the Emperors brother, who had wanted his own palace, but nobody seemed to mind except him.
With Chinese metalworks unable to meet the demand, massive imports of European and American metal began to flow into China, purchased from companies abroad, the cost was great, naturally, but the benifits to the nations economy were visible from the get-go. With thousands employed on the Imperial Paycheck, slums blossomed into something like working communities and whole neighborhoods, up until now trapped in the fuedal ages, sprouted electric lights, running water and paved roads.

Planned construction summary, between 1916 and 1922:
5 Dreadnaughts
8 Cruisers
18 Destroyers
20 Frigates
50 Patrol boats
20 Submarines

3 Treasure Ships
Bautzen
12-07-2007, 09:16
OOC: Just a couple things that I noticed and thought I'd bring up, nothing really signficant but I'm gonna nag. Its just that I would be very suprised if the entire defence force at each castle was armed solely with spears, swords, bows, etc. I think there would most likely be a detachment equipped with some guns, though certainly not modern European models, and no machine guns or heavy artillary. Its just the way of the black market that people near a much higher tech level, inevitably end up with at least some of its older weaponry which just happens to be centuries ahead of what they have. Other than that though, I for one think that you wrote it well and damn was I impressed by what you plan on spending on your fleet. Honestly my government would lead a coup on me If I proposed building a third that many ships. By my account my PM had a hard time trying to get 1 dreadnaught, 4 cruisers, and 20 destroyers to replace nearly obsolete vessels. So in short well done, and I am impressed by your free spending ways, how nice it must be to control an absolute monarchy.:p
Dontgonearthere
12-07-2007, 21:11
(OOC: Rebels with swords have a better chance than rebels with muskets :P
Right now the majority of the arms in China are in the hands of the army, since historically China has had some pretty draconian arms-control laws to keep the peasants in-line. Thats one reason martial arts are so popular. But yeah, when Russia went into Central Asia, the only 'nation' around with decent amounts of modern weapons was Afghanistan >_>
In any case, I was mostly just talking about the rebels and bandits directly ON the Chinese border, further away from China, things got more complicated.
As to the ships, the Emperor is calling up the past here, which is something the Chinese government traditionally does when its in trouble, as far back as the Sung, I think. Basically:
Problem: Europeans think we're silly barbarians who cant build stuff without their help
Solution: Built a freakin' huge fleet and sail it around showing off how awesome we are. Just like good ol' Zheng He.
And yes, it IS good to be the Son of Heaven ;) )