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.))
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.))