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Looking forward to your future endeavors in this AAR. Still working on the flag to go with the Short Story for Qingqiu, but I'll have it ready before the AAR's end.
EDIT: Or even sooner: Qingqiu's history is complete
EDIT: Or even sooner: Qingqiu's history is complete
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Thank you kindly! I think one of the most fun parts of Divergences is its preference for the Rule of Cool, as they can say. Anything can happen and often does, and it's a blast to play without throwing plausibility out the window in pursuit of it. I highly recommend giving it a shot; it's kept me interested in Vic 2 for the time being, that's for sure.
Here I am, looking forward to read more. And with Tanzhang and you actually here, we could actually figure out what does the Qingqiu flag letters mean
Btw, seeing the interest in Qingqiu by the community, I dare to say it won't get removed
Glad to have you on board! Qingqiu stronk!
And it seems like Ragriz figured it out
Excellent update
Thanks a lot. It was a bit of a doozy to write, but I think it turned out well, even if I had to go back and take a few extra screenshots.
Glad you're enjoying it so far.Thanks and welcome aboard! All Hail Britannia was definitely a major inspiration for putting this together (and not just because I had an abortive Code Geass Mod AAR with the same name XD). You may not see daschund knights here, but I hope to match the quality of writing therein.
Thanks a lot for all your work on it, and welcome aboard!
Attalus, Althacor: I had to look up who it was, but yeah, there is a slight resemblance. Lebeau is "played by," as it were, William Seward.
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Anyway, on to administrative business. My plan right now is to get started on the next update this weekend, so I'd expect it sometime next week. It's going to take us through about 20 years, so expect either another long one or a narrative diversion covering the 1870s, in which *SPOILER ALERT* not that much happens. There's always room for election coverage, I suppose.
To tide you all over, especially if you're new to Divergences, you should read up on Razgriz's history of Qingqiu pre-1836. It should hopefully provide a little more context into the Federation and where it came from.
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Thanks, everyone! Just a note that I haven't forgotten about this and an update is being written. I've been busy of late, but see no reason why it won't be out by the end of the month, and presumably far earlier. In the meantime, here are a map of Arcadia and the world more generally in 1857, where we left off.
Light Blue: Qingqiu Federation
Maroon: Kita Kaigan (Japan)
Red: Vinlandic Republic
Brown: Kingdom of Platagenia
Grey: Seven Republics of New Burgundy
Yellow: Federal Republic of Gran Colombia
Dark Blue: Republic of Asgard
Teal: Athesia (Venice)
Dark Yellow: Cuba (Spain)
Burgundy: Eendrachtsland (Burgundy)
The world in 1857
Light Blue: Qingqiu Federation
Maroon: Kita Kaigan (Japan)
Red: Vinlandic Republic
Brown: Kingdom of Platagenia
Grey: Seven Republics of New Burgundy
Yellow: Federal Republic of Gran Colombia
Dark Blue: Republic of Asgard
Teal: Athesia (Venice)
Dark Yellow: Cuba (Spain)
Burgundy: Eendrachtsland (Burgundy)
The world in 1857
Muscovy cannot into Russia .
Also, Ottos seem to be going strong, or is it just an illusion?
.Also, Ottos seem to be going strong, or is it just an illusion?
Muscovy cannot into Russia
Also, Ottos seem to be going strong, or is it just an illusion?
But maybe Novgorod can? Guess we'll have to find out
The Ottomans (actually the Turkish Republic) are doing very well indeed, barring Kurdistan seceding. They will certainly be a regional power for the coming century at minimum, perhaps even into the 20th. Great powerhood is out of reach, but they actually have a lot of potential. Turkey is no longer the Sick Man of Europe, by any means.
I'm glad we changed that name
How is Granada doing against the Incans ?
Aw, I liked Asgard, it was cool
Granada is in a bad way at the moment, unable to defeat the Incans, but they are on the mend. Essequibo is not long for this world, and soon they will be able to focus their attention on reclaiming the Incan lands. They have a lot of potential, but for now they are a backwater on the brink of collapse.
And while we're at it...
The Great Powers in 1857. Note that in Divergences, all civilized countries can colonize, and all are thus Secondary Powers. This works fine in most respects, but it does make the ending screen look like this. There's no cure, just ignore it.
Judging by the map and the current GP's, Savoy via the Dual Monarchy.
Yes, indeed. I'm not going to spoil what awaits Italy in the coming years, but it may not be what you expect.
Subbed!
May the great plains become the top producer of rice.
Thanks! Don't worry, the Plantagenians will get what they deserve soon enough
Just a note that some real-life matters have made me obscenely busy lately, but that the next update is mostly done and should be out within a week.
IV. Breaking the Iron Ring
Excerpt from "Building a Nation: A Century of Federal Politics" by Jiahua Zhu
Excerpt from "Building a Nation: A Century of Federal Politics" by Jiahua Zhu
Hongzhang Yu, campaigning for an unprecedented third term after saving the nation from total defeat in the Rohnnst War and successfully taking revenge on Plantagenia in the War of 1857, was one of the most popular Presidents the Federation had yet produced. Like all the Presidents before him, he was a member of the Loyalist wing of the Federalist Party; like all Presidents before him, except his immediate predecessor Qiang Liu, he was a landed gentleman from the coast. Even during the years of 1848 and 1849, as the Rohnnst War and an influx of gold-seeking immigrants began to create more and more of a mass interest in politics, the Federalists' power was dominant; by 1857, with a general sense of quiet returning to the national mood, it was downright monolithic. There is a reason most political historians refer to 19th-century Qingqiu as a "one and a half-party state." Yet the one axiom of 19th century Federal politics, that the presidency would always be a Federalist institution even as the Parliament would change, would be broken once - and only once - by a confluence of factors, resulting in the elevation of Yang Jiang of the Democratic Reform Party to the nation's highest office. To understand how this occured we must first look at the Federalist Party itself.
Immigration data, collected here with the Xiaosu Weekly's preliminary election polling, 1858
The Federalist Party, a generally conservative organization that had produced all the nation's Presidents to date and had controlled a majority of the Federal Parliament in every election since 1836, was an electoral juggernaut in 1857, mainly because it was ideologically diverse enough to appeal to nearly everyone who could vote in the Federation. It had evolved out of what was known as the "Iron Ring" in the days of the Council of Twenty: a clique of powerful landowners and industrialists, mainly based out of Sanbao and Yongle, who between them had their hands in virtually every factory in Qingqiu and owned a vast majority of its organized and settled farmland. They used their grouping as a vehicle to ensure the government would pay generous subsidies to their industrial and agricultural ventures, making themselves very rich and ensuring their continued dominance of the Federal economy. There was little organized opposition to the Iron Ring in the early days of Federal politics, and as they began to coalesce into the Federalist Party by 1836, neither the reactionary wing who wanted to centralize even more power in Sanbao nor the liberals who wanted an end to the Iron Ring's stranglehold over the economy could present a viable alternative program. While liberal candidates were popular amongst the urban middle class who could vote, Federalist political machines helped cancel this preference out in large parts, with the blatant gerrymandering of Parliamentary districts further ensuring that a unified liberal opposition could not make a strong showing.
The caption reads "The Brains Behind the Iron Ring." Political cartoons from this period were anything but subltle
Within the Federalists, there were two large competing factions that each commanded a roughly equal portion of the loyalty of the Iron Ring and their allies. The Loyalists, the dominant grouping, favored restrictive immigration policies and forming a united Qingqiu identity. They also favored military adventurism and an expansion of the navy, though many viewed the ideals of Arcadianism with suspicion, seeing it as a front for liberal ideas. The Moderates, by contrast, favored open immigraton and a more cautious military posture, avoiding war when possible and focusing on domestic development. In these respects, they were hard to distinguish from many more moderate liberals, and indeed were instrumental in allowing the liberal immigration policy put in place during and after the Gold Rush to come to fruition. On matters economic and expanding the franchise, however, they were as resolutely conservative as the Loyalists, and as the purpose of the Federalist Party was essentially to act as the political vehicle of Iron Ring industrialists and landowners, the two factions managed to stay together for the majority of the 19th century.
Excluding the marginally influential Restorationist faction, who wished for the dissolution of the Federal Parliament and a return to the loose confederalism of the days of the Council of Twenty, the remainder of the Federal Parliament throughout the 1840s and 50s could be classified as liberals. Some, taking inspiration from the Septiman National Liberals, supported direct state development of industry; others, like the Democratic Reform Party [1] and the Radical Party favored total removal of the state from the economic sphere. Both groups had the same end goal, however; removing the Federalists, and by extension the Iron Ring, from political and economic power. Opposed to everything the Iron Ring stood for, while they were able to occasionally rely on Moderate support to pass trinket reforms like an open immigration policy, they were continually stymied in their ability to gain power. Iron Ring-allied political machines from Yongle to Xiazhou [2] made it difficult for the liberals to capture many votes from their natural area of support, middle-class voters from the cities who met the franchise requirement but were still poor enough to be excluded from the heights of the social order by Iron Ring dominance. Liberals of all stripes in Qingqiu needed a figure to rally around, and that figure would come in the form of General Yang Jiang.
Brigadier-General (later President) Yang Jiang, taken 1861
General Jiang was an oddity in many respects. Born to a mining family in Qingma, Dayuan [3], he was the third of six children and grew up in abject poverty. His father was a drunkard and often abusive, prompting him and his sister Ai to flee and seek a new life in the city. Riding on a mining train, the pair arrived in Sanbao with little more than the clothes on their backs. Yang decided to join the army, with his sister volunteering to work as a cook. The young man displayed exceptional command of tactics and strategy, and over the span of ten years he worked his way all the way up from Lieutenant to Brigadier-General, serving under Luo Dong in the Rohnnst War. He stood out during his time in the service with his outspoken and blatant criticism of the Iron Ring, infuriating landowners with connections in the army and earning him attention from liberal groups in Parliament. His unlikely rise to prominence made him popular amongst the urban middle class, who saw in him an example of the dream they too were working to achieve, and his no-nonsense attitude made many Liberals believe that he could also be an effective politician. While initially shying away from the political sphere, internal Army politics would push him closer to accepting the Liberal offer.
General Gao Zhao, while an able politician, was a significantly worse military commander, and in the aftermath of the Rohnnst War much of the blame for the Federation's humiliation at Plantagenian hands fell on him. General Dong argued that Zhao had proven himself unfit for command and that he should be removed from high command immediately, with his adjutant Jiang taking over the command. The evidence during the Rohnnst War was clear - General Zhao folded against the Plantagenians with little resistance, while General Dong managed to fight off the Vinlanders with fewer men and fewer resources. The Iron Ring, however, appreciated loyalty over competence, and Zhao was deep within their circle. General Dong's request was denied, and he came dangerously close to being stripped of command himself. Outraged at the betrayal of his mentor by high command, Jiang announced to the Democratic Reform Party that he would accept their nomination and stand for the Presidency in the elections of 1857. The news was met with mild surprise at most in Federalist circles, who revved up their local political machines for what most expected to be a sedate campaign ending in incumbent Hongzhang Yu's re-election. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Liberals joked that Gao Zhao was "all mustache and no brain"
Jiang managed to capture an unprecedented degree of support from the Army and the industries that supported it due to his background, an advantage no liberal candidate before him had. As the War of 1857 began, members in the army called upon Qingqiu citizens to be patriotic and support the war effort - being patriotic, of course, also involving voting for the Democratic Reform Party and its military benefactor. Boosted by this promising start, DRP campaigners started aggressively courting middle-class citizens in the poorer parts of the coastal cities, making the case that the Iron Ring's monopoly on economic power was hurting their own chances at making it big. Having much of the Army and its influence at their command to counter the powerful Federalist party bosses, early polling in 1857 showed that many constituencies that were solidly Federalist were, despite the intense gerrymandering involved, neck-and-neck between local Federalist and Democratic candidates. The rural areas were even more solidly liberal. Passionate arguments on the virtues of free trade and the necessity of breaking up Federalist monopolies could be heard on the steps of city halls all around the Federation.
Free trade and sympathy with the immigrant community were two key Liberal values, and they captured the electorate's imagination in 1858
The President and his party's hold on power, which appeared so unshakable just a year ago, was rapidly falling apart. When election results came in in 1858, the Federalist establishment was shocked - Hongzhang Yu lost to Yang Jiang by a stunning 42 to 58 percent. Federalist control of the Presidency had not just been broken, but decisively so. Jiang, not exactly a humble man at the best of times, summed up the national mood in his victory speech: "Today, the people of the Federation have stood up and said: 'Enough! Enough of the Iron Ring! Enough of the Federalists! Enough of isolation, enough of the stranglehold, enough of the corruption and greed and stodgy traditionalism! We want Jiang! We want change! We want freedom!' And, my bretheren, whether you come from Sanbao or Qingma or Xiazhou or Moscow [4], you shall have it!" As Jiang moved into the Presidential Palace with swagger in his step, he and his fellow ministers would be facing great challenges. The War of 1857, though an Entente victory was at this point a foregone conclusion, still had to be prosecuted. Laissez-faire policies would face baptism by fire in the face of fierce Federalist and Iron Ring resistance. New ideas of liberalism and Arcadianism were rapidly emerging, perhaps faster than even Jiang could control. With a fresh leader full of ambition in charge and Arcadia as its oyster, it seemed as if Qingqiu would enter a whole new era.
[1] - The Parliamentarists, IG. There is no good way to spin that into a party name, so I changed it.
[2] - OTL Vancouver.
[3] OTL Las Vegas.
[4] Russian immigrants were the single largest non-Qingqiuese speaking immigrant population in Qingqiu at the time. Germans and Italians were second, but rapidly overtaking them. Most of the first wave of mainly Japanese and English migrants had largely assimilated into polite society at this point, though they still largely sympathized with their fellow new arrivals.
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Next Update:
V. Constitutionalism
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Next Update:
V. Constitutionalism
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((Pictures incoming. I split this update into two, as with the last one. It's a bit on the short side but I mainly wanted to get something up. I've also decided to delete the other entries in the Table of Contents, as the update schedule will likely be changed beyond recognition going into the future at this rate.))
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Nice! It is always interesting, which stories people can derive from the Divergences setup .
Also, the names of the parties are just placeholders, you can rename them any way you see fit.
.Also, the names of the parties are just placeholders, you can rename them any way you see fit
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Nice! It is always interesting, which stories people can derive from the Divergences setup
Also, the names of the parties are just placeholders, you can rename them any way you see fit
Yeah it's sad there aren't many Divergences AARs. The setup provide so much possibilities.
Anyway, great update
Political manipulations are always interesting to read.