Part 38: The Scramble for Africa
The Chinese would play little war in the war between Baden and Austria - quite simply, China still lacked sufficient power projection capability for an expedition to Austria. All that really came of it was a total embargo of Austria by China, which resulted in some minor economic difficulties for Austria, but mainly just made it harder for the Austrian aristocracy to get their hands on luxury clothes.
Instead, China focused its efforts on preparing for war with Britain. The Emperor approved a massive expansion of the Qing armed forces, with the goal of nearly doubling the New Model Army in size; necessary to counter the massive sepoy armies the British had recruited from India. He also continued expanding the navy, to support Chinese forces in Africa.
Nevertheless, Baden quickly fell, leaving Austria to fight the war alone.
On the diplomatic front, the Emperor signed an alliance with Johore, in which it officially guaranteed Johoran independence against British expansionism. (unofficially the Chinese knew Johore's tacit support would make operations against British Singapore easier)
Meanwhile in Africa, Chinese diplomacy had been hard at work forming tributary relations with the various tribes and nations of Africa. The Europeans grew increasingly concerned as they rapidly lost trade to China. Finally, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Sardinia-Piedmont met secretly and decided to partition Africa between them, before China could. With Machine Guns, they assumed they could easily do what their ancestors had failed to do, and colonize the entire African interior.
Unfortunately for these plans, they were too late. China was leagues ahead of the Europeans in imposing its hegemony over Africa, and catching wind of European expansion in West Africa, Qing swiftly dispatched agents to rapidly expand into Africa's interior.
From bases in the Niger Delta, East Africa, and the Horn of Africa, Chinese soldiers and diplomats rapidly moved to negotiate with or cajole the local Chinese tributaries to sign protectorate agreements with China, and to assist Chinese tributaries in conquering those other African tribes and nations who had refused to join the tributary network. With the diplomatic ground already laid out beforehand, the Chinese advance was unstoppably fast.
However, with tension between Britain and China having been rising for months, the sudden British expansion in Africa provided the perfect pretext for the Emperor to finally publish a formal decree of war against the British Empire.
The Emperor included a list of grievances in his declaration:
1. The British and Britain's Indian subjects have cruelly oppressed the peoples of Burma, treating them as nothing more than subhuman labor to be exploited. Thus, in her capacity as Empress of India (and by extension Burma), Queen Victoria had clearly violated the Confucian covenants of just governance between ruler and ruled, and as leader of the civilized world it was the Xianfeng Emperor's duty to liberate the Burmese people.
2. Chinese nationals in Britain and other parts of the British Empire had been cruelly mistreated under racist British laws that privileged whites at the expense of all others. Even members of the Chinese embassy staff in London had reportedly been harassed on several occasions. China had a duty to protect its citizens.
3. The British had engaged in unlawful aggression against the peoples of western Africa, expanding in a brutal fashion aided by machine guns. Again, as leader of the civilized world, it was the Emperor's duty to punish such barbaric aggression and protect the peoples of Africa.
4. The British had used their control of Heligoland to threaten German trade, violating their own supposed commitment to free trade, and thus China had an obligation to protect its tributary. (this may or may not be blatantly false propaganda. =P )
5. The British had consistently insulted China on the international stage, looking down on China in a humiliating fashion and refusing to give China its due respect as the leader of the civilized world.
Chinese diplomats had manage to persuade both the Germans and Turks to join the war, with Germany eager to secure its control of the Kiel canal; while Belgium and the Netherlands joined the war in support of Britain.
And so began the First Sinocentric War.
(edit: And hiatus is over, obviously. XD)
(although we studied China from the movement of the 4th May to nowaydays in highschool) 
