It has taken a while but I have finally completed my Tianxia updates. It has been a long road and I am glad to say that I can now work on the Cyberpunk updates. That does not mean that I am finished with Tianxia though. I at the very least want to redo my Central and South Eimerica update which will be based on Kaiserreich Documentary [E07] ~ 'Crown and Crescent' but I think I will hold off on that until the reworked WOK Ottoman video and the KRDOC7.1 Bulgaria video that talks more about Bulgaria both come out before I do that. Anyway thanks again for sticking with me as well as a big thanks to
@zenphoenix for help on this update. Now all that is left is Cyberpunk.
Tianxia-Legacy of the Great War:
Chinese Empire
Chinese Mainland
The Southern Provinces
The Far Eastern Provinces
Anthems: "China Heroically Stands"
"His Imperial Majesty's Anthem"
Motto: Harmony Under Heaven
Capital: Nanjing
Official Language: Mandarin Chinese, Classical Chinese
Demonym: Chinese
Government: Administrative constitutional monarchy
Head of State: Emperor
Head of Government: Grand Secretariat (Chancellor)
Legislature: Imperial Assembly
Upper House: House of Dynasties
Lower House: House of Citizens
Population: 955.26 million (Approximate)
Currency: Wen
Intro
The Chinese Empire (大中华帝國 Da Zhonghua Diguo, literally "Greater Chinese Empire") is the state that evolved out of the Mingzhi Reforms of 1868. Throughout the 1900s, China aggressively industrialized in its quest to surpass the Romans and Indians under the slogan Fuguo Qiangbing (富國強兵, "Rich country, strong army"). In 1900, the Empire controlled territory on three continents, marketing it the second largest empire on Earth after the Reich.
Terminology
The state is frequently referred to as "the Chinese Empire," "Empire of China," “China,” or "Imperial China" in all relevant translations from Chinese. In Chinese it is referred to as Da Zhonghua Diguo (大中华帝國) which literally translates to "Greater Chinese Empire" (Da "Great", Zhonghua "Chinese" [referring to the civilization and cultural heritage, not the government], Diguo "Empire"). However, due to the nature of the Chinese language , the phrase can be variously translated as "Empire of China" and "Chinese Empire."
"Zhonghua" in the post-Mingzhi interpretation is significant in terms of geography, encompassing geographical and historical China, its surrounding areas, and anywhere with substantial Chinese populations and cultural influence. The name had existed since before unification, though before the Fuxingyundong dynastic names were used as names of the political state (“Ming,” “Tran,” etc.). Following the Mongol conquests and the scattering of Chinese populations outside of the traditional heartland, the rise of multiple imperial dynasties across the Pacific significantly expanded the definition of China, which was seized upon by the reunification movements of the 19th century. Following reunification, the names "China" and "Chinese Empire/Empire of China" were promoted with the intention of establishing a new state transcending and subsuming the preceding dynasties into a new single imperial state that would reclaim world hegemony from the Reich and India.
From literal translations of its name and a quick look at its flag, foreigners also gave them the exonyms "Empire of the Dragon" and "Middle Kingdom," although the former is never used by Chinese and the latter is archaic.
History
“My brothers and sisters, our journey has been long and arduous. From squabbling dynasties in 1860, long sundered by the Mongol barbarians centuries ago, to a united empire that spans the world over, we cheer the return of our glorious Celestial Empire. When the Daqin prince was assassinated in 1914, starting the war to end all wars, it was a turning point in history. Finally, the great gears of time had turned for us. The time had come for China to take down the arrogant Romans and their misguided world order, and defeat them we did. Nobody doubted that our empire would crush the upstart barbarian hordes and put them in their place. The Roman army collapsed, the Indians retreated to their cities and plains, and Russia crumbled. But China was victorious! Let us drink to the Emperor! May he reign ten thousand years!
“But that was what we believed before, when the guns fell silent and we returned to cheering crowds. My brothers and sisters, I was young and arrogant, and so was China. Yes, we won the war, but we didn't see the consequences of our actions. By crushing Rome and India, we created a much greater evil. Defeat broke our old enemies and changed them into something else, but it did not break their will to fight. The Vermilion Banner rose in Paris and Bengaluru, and the specter of syndicalism now haunts the world. The weak Russian Republic turned to nationalism, and once again China is under threat from a barbarian menace. I knew then that the old grievances of the war were never settled. Our victory only gave our enemies the burning desire for revenge. We face them everywhere. In Europe, Africa, the lands of the Far East, and now at home. Now the enemy stands at our gates once more, and they challenge our possession of the Mandate of Heaven. But defend it we must, for it is the natural order of things that China be at the center of the universe. We will win the coming war as we won the last war, but the victory must not be as before. No longer must China dominate, control, and contain without a new order. We must restore lasting harmony to the world. Let this war be the last war. Let the deaths of our soldiers mean something. Let us become the sword of the heavens and use it to put the barbarians back in their rightful place. We will win this new war, and this time we will also win the peace. The balance must be guarded, and the Mandate of Heaven will remain with us. Harmony will be restored.”
Traditionally, the Chinese people claimed to be part of one of the oldest civilizations in the world. However, this did not overlap with the idea of a unified Chinese nation, nor did the Chinese people rule themselves the whole time. For millennia, the lands of China were ruled by various dynasties and kingdoms, some coexisting or competing with others and some ruled by non-Chinese. As the Zhou Dynasty lost power and eventually ended, the lands between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers were filled with dozens of Chinese states. The collapse of the Han Dynasty led to the rise of the much storied Three Kingdoms era, and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period followed the Tang Dynasty's end. The Song Dynasty was destroyed by the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty, which reigned over all of China with an iron fist for a century.
The Mongol conquest itself led to a further sundering of the Chinese people, scattering them across the Pacific and giving rise to the political and cultural dynamics of the next few centuries. Chinese refugees fleeing south from the Mongol conquests arrived in Vietnam and established the Tran Dynasty, blending their Chinese culture with native Vietnamese influences to create an imperial dynasty that spanned Southeast Asia and much of historical southern China. The remnants of the Song imperial court, rallying around the last imperial prince, fled on the navy and arrived on a new continent far to the south, which they named Penglai. Other refugees, led by the remnants of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, fled north and crossed into North Eimerica, reestablishing their imperial court on the other side of the Pacific. Finally, the Yuan themselves lost control over much of central China in the mid-14th century to a rebellion led by the peasant Zhu Yuanzhang, who declared himself the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty in 1368. For the next five hundred years, the Chinese world and the people of China were split between these dynasties: the Ming, Yuan, Tran, Song, and Jin.
While the five dynasties all declared themselves the rightful emperors of all China, the four non-Yuan dynasties had established an unspoken recognition of each other's existence, understanding that it was impractical to strive for full reunification. However, that changed with the shift in the balance of power towards the Ming as they absorbed both the Yuan and the Song, subjugated the Manchus, brought Korea and Japan into the fold, and established overseas colonies. Although the Tran Dynasty had embraced industrialization and established colonies of its own, while the Jin Dynasty was the dominant power in North Eimerica, the former was unable to compete with the raw economic output of the expanded Ming Dynasty, and the latter was bogged down in constant wars with the crumbling Mexica Empire, the rising Meskwaki Empire, and the Kingdom of Kanata. The decline of the Tran and Jin led to the discrediting of the multi-emperor system and calls for a full reunification of China, something that the new Fuxingyundong movement seized upon. Initially staffed by a handful of revolutionaries scattered across the three remaining dynasties, they launched a grand campaign to reunite all of China under one emperor and one dynasty. Five hundred years after the proclamation of the Ming Dynasty, the Fuxingyundong overthrew the Tran and Jin governments and proclaimed the restoration of a unified Chinese empire, under the Ming emperor Mingzhi. The new China presented itself as a keeper of peace and the balance of power, declaring that it would restore world harmony and protect the natural order of things after centuries of imbalance.
This, however, changed in June 1901, when the Roman navy announced its newest warship. Called the Furchtlos, or dreadnought, this new battleship possessed a heavy caliber guns and a steam turbine propulsion system that made it much stronger than any previous warship. In response, the Chinese government ordered the manufacturing of its own dreadnoughts, provoking a naval arms race with the Reich. Within five years, two classes of battleships dominated the world's oceans: the Roman Saint Wilhelmina and Chinese Zhu Yuanzhang.
With this military buildup came many Chinese leaders who began to envision a world free from Roman dominance. This led to the proclamation of the Chinese-led Tianxia Alliance, a military pact and modernization of the old tributary system opposed to Roman-Indian hegemony, on October 12, 1911. The alliance established a free trade zone between its member states, which received Chinese military protection in return for supporting China's military campaigns when needed. However, by 1914 only Scandinavia and Lithuania were full members of the alliance, with the Meskwaki alliance being only nominally aligned yet independent.
China's erratic and undiplomatic behavior on the global stage and its massive militarization between 1900 and 1914 scared the Reich and India. To challenge China, a counterbalance had to be created, and so the Kaiser and the Roman government established their own alliance with India, Russia, and other likeminded nations, promising not only military protection from Chinese and Meskwaki aggression but also a free trade deal where Roman goods and services would help their respective countries.
In many ways, a Great War between the two superpowers was inevitable. What many believed would be a short war, however, became a long and bitter war of attrition. As a generation of youth was slowly ground to dust in the killing fields of Eurasia, the long hoped for Roman breakthrough did not come. India collapsed, Russia sued for peace, and the Roman alliance fell apart. In late 1919, China and her Tianxia Alliance allies emerged victorious, if barely. Against all odds, a China barely fifty years reunited had asserted itself against Rome, India, Russia and Kanata, the dominant powers of the last century, on two fronts, which reinforced the belief that China was restoring the natural order and natural harmony, and its cause was just and moral. Unbeknownst to China at the time, this watershed victory would become a catalyst for world wide turmoil. From the crumbling Roman, Indian, and Russian empires, new ideologies such as syndicalism emerged to challenge China, waiting for their chance to strike.
In 1920, the world entered the age of the Celestial Empire, or rather returned to it. However, as is often the case, appearances were quite deceiving, and China's new age was built on a rotting foundation. Like China's defeated enemies, the Tianxia Alliance had been pushed to the breaking point. Hunger and poverty were rampant, and an entire generation had been sacrificed to win the war to end all wars. Even in victory, the Meskwaki and Tawantinsuyu were on uneven footing, barely clinging on to their vast multiethnic empires, while the Purepecha struggled to rule their overextended empire. In China itself, the situation was not any better. In September 1918, equalists attempted a failed uprising in many southern Chinese cities, which resulted in an expansion of the military's power. Over the years, the Imperial Chinese Army had fallen under the direct control of the generals Duan Wenchang and Li Jiankao, who effectively led a dictatorship during the war. While democratic institutions nominally remained in place, the legendary reputation and perceived irreplaceability of the two generals gave them a political blank cheque, enabling them to dismiss rivals and halt political reforms, bending all matters of state towards the needs of the military.
After the end of the war, long-boiling tensions between the military and the people surfaced. The general population, represented by the Imperial Assembly, and even the Emperor himself increasingly disapproved of the military. With the economy in shambles and societal upheaval overwhelming many cities, large protests demanded political reform and the normalization of relations with India and Russia. While Li opposed any kind of political concessions, he was eventually overruled. Now that the war was over, the military leadership was not seen as indispensable anymore. The final nail in Li's coffin was Duan's betrayal, which led Li to denounce his former ally as a "modern day Lü Bu." Duan sided with the Emperor and the government in exchange for protecting the military against future reforms. In February 1920, Li was ousted in the most unspectacular way possible: simply being dismissed by the Emperor. Now, nothing stood in the way of the long-awaited reforms. Only a month later, the government passed a set of progressive constitutional reforms that would finally turn China into a constitutional monarchy in all but name.
Thanks to Duan's deal, the army remained largely untouched by these reforms and continued to enjoy a vast degree of autonomy. It took much time for China to recover both politically and militarily from the Great War. Luckily, the Empire was blessed with the appearance of new talented statesmen to help China navigate the difficult postwar years. The liberal and internationally respected diplomat Huang Zhitong was appointed Grand Secretariat after China's first peacetime election. Immediately, Huang withstood his trial by fire by negotiating China away from a new war with India in the Orissa crisis of May 1920. Thanks to his cabinet's keen action, peace and stability quickly returned, and China's global reputation began to improve.
China’s new diplomatic foreign policy was to shepherd a new era of Chinese political and cultural hegemony. Buoyed by a newfound sense of optimism, the political winds shifted in Nanjing. Bolstered by progressive reform, the city's liberal elite had begun a rapid transformation. With Berlin and Delhi in decline, the sprawling Chinese capital saw an enormous influx of foreign artists, dignitaries, writers and intellectuals. New music and art influences raged throughout China, bringing with them a sense of exoticism and hope. As the Middle Kingdom, China was supposed to be the center of the world, and its bars and cafes bustled day and night with the ambitions of a revitalized Asian elite. Although the exact shape of what the new Chinese hegemony would take was still being debated, that did not stop the Empire's young radicals from trying to make their visions a reality. In their eyes, Chinese victory in the war could be the catalyst for a future where democracy and traditional Chinese culture went hand in hand. Some called for a federation of equals under the emperor as the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, which would be wider economic bloc using the Chinese wen that would initially span the Pacific and Asia but eventually encompass the entire world.
Immediate Chinese postwar politics were defined by a sharp break between old and new. The conservative and national-liberal old guard, among the military elite and traditional aristocracy, suddenly found themselves in opposition against progressive forces that only a few decades prior had been defamed as enemies of the empire, with the social democratic wing of the Fuxingyundong gaining prominence. On the other side of the spectrum, nationalists and militarists began participating in government under Huang and his successor, modestly shifting politics to the right. By the mid-1920s, the Fuxingyundong's centrist and right wings sidelined the social democratic wing after its ambitious social reforms scared the political establishment. The difficulties faced by the civil government were only exacerbated by the whims of the emperor, who had for his entire reign and even before unification had patronized the Fuxingyundong, making it difficult for any other parties to replace it despite its current problems.
That changed in 1929 with the ascension of a new and more conservative emperor who courted the nationalists and helped form a new conservative "Spring Coalition" which aimed to maintain the accomplishments of the 1920 constitution without radical reforms. This entailed excluding the far left and far right from government. On the civilian side, the Spring Coalition's main backer was Grand Secretariat Zhou Yinghao. However, after Zhou's death in 1928, the Spring Coalition began losing popularity and authority.
As the decade went on, China's emerging order seemed to be more and more challenged by its resurgent neighbors. The people feared that the Imperial Assembly's weak foreign policy had gambled away China's hard-earned victory for the politicians' own interests, while nationalists felt China had not done enough to contain the defeated powers in Europe and Asia and would lead to another political encirclement of the Sinosphere as had happened in 1914. These fears weakened China's moderate cabinets, strengthening opposition further to the left and right. The effects would be far-reaching, leading to the rise of popular movements like the right-wing intellectual Tai Fangchu's Society of Practice of the Three Principles of the People (The Society for short) and various militant leftist movements. This further bolstered China’s rising nationalism, which sought a newly assertive foreign policy for a darker age.
In the early 1920's, fearing the rise of syndicalism, China attempted to normalize relations with the Reich. With India in the throes of syndicalist revolution and Russia in tatters, China understood that a second stabilizing monarchy was needed to maintain the natural harmonious order. Relations between the former Tianxia Alliance members had cooled, mostly over disputes over land in Mitteleimerica, so China hoped the Reich could be a balancing counterweight in the Far West. However, the talks failed. China could not have relations with the Reich, Berlin claimed, while at the same time working to undermine the thaler as a global currency, which was the tattered Roman economy's last lifeline. In the end, Nanjing decided to focus its attention inward. Apart from internal stabilization, the first order of business for the government was to restore order in the newly conquered territories. In the fall of 1921, the final peace treaty between China and the provisional government of Russia was signed, forcing the Russians to recognize Chinese hegemony. In 1918 and 1919, as Russia's civil war raged, the Chinese government initially gambled on an equalist victory, believing that it would be easier to keep an entirely isolated and unstable Russian equalist regime under Chinese control than a Russia dominated by revanchist nationalist forces.
This approach changed after the sudden assassination of Volodymyr Ligdan, the equalists' leader, and the following military setbacks of his troops. At this point, the war could still tilt either way, but the Equalist emerged as the less reliable and more internally divided partner without a clear successor to Ligdan. To Nanjing, it was now apparent that the firm hand of China was needed to restore order to these barbarians, and via proxies in the west, China began smuggling weapons—ironically many Russian weapons captured during the war mere months earlier—to the nationalists. While many Russians despised China, the collapse of the Roman alliance meant that the nationalists had lost precious allies on the world stage. Eventually this alliance with their former enemy helped the nationalists defeat the equalists, finally leading to the end of the civil war in 1921.
However, the nationalists refused to bend the knee to China. A new populist leader by the name of Sergiy Bezruchko rallied large sections of the Russian populace with a distinct anti-Chinese rhetoric. Bezruchko capitalized on the deep-seated frustration and hatred of the Russian people against their humiliation in the Great War and economic and military subordination to China. He promised a renewal of Russian power and prestige, with himself as the leader, or Vozd, of all Russians. The threat he posed not only deeply worried Nanjing but also the Chinese client states in the steppes and Central Asia that made up the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Major economic leaders, particularly Chinese ones, feared that Russian military action, which called for an end to exploitation by Chinese businesses, would destabilize the carefully crafted Chinese economic hegemony that had been secured by treaties like the Vilnius Agreement of 1926.
As the Chinese Empire rose, the Reich fell. A major world power for centuries, sharing hegemony with the combined Sinosphere for much of the early modern period, it was unthinkable to imagine it being as vulnerable as it turned out to be. The Roman Revolution was not a singular event or even a single revolution but rather a spark to ignite international leftist frustrations. While China survived the coming revolutionary storm, the Reich was not so lucky. Revolution claimed the empire in waves, spread across province by province as Berlin's authority waned with the collapse of the economy and military. Britannia, later Albion, and Gallia fell to the revolutionaries, cutting off overseas colonies and spurring neighboring provinces to declare independence in a massive domino effect. By 1925, the collapse had been completed, and the resulting power vacuum forced Nanjing to take notice. Initially, the Chinese government took a pragmatic approach, believing that socialist but internationally isolated splinter states would not only remove China's only remaining rival but also remain firmly in its sphere of influence. But after Gallia successfully supported likeminded revolutionaries in Albion, who took over the entire island in less than 18 months, the government was terrified by the spread of syndicalism and feared a further spread of the ideology to its own colonies and client states. With the revolutions happening on the other side of Eurasia and the people still tired of war, China was unable to do anything but watch as the armies of the vermilion banner swept across Europe, calling not for peace with China but peace under a syndicalist world order. For the first time ever, China understood and feared the words "World Revolution."
The world found itself at a crossroads. China had upended the world order with its victory in the Great War, but its leaders never anticipated what the new world order would look like or the responsibilities that would come with being the new hegemon. As syndicalist and nationalist powers adopted an increasingly anti-Chinese and anti-monarchist stance, China found itself surrounded by new enemies with an increasingly overstretched economy and military that was being dragged into wars and crises around the world that it was ill-prepared for. In a macabre twist of fate, it was now Roman colonial leaders calling on China for protection, starting with the Roman province of Indochina in July 1925. To many on the Chinese homefront, globe-spaning Chinese interventions would amount to geopolitical suicide, compleatly disturbing the global power balance and potentially risking renewed conflict with India and Rome.
As emergency conferences were called, heated debates raged through the Imperial Assembly, with fistfights, rivalries, scandals, and even assassination attempts punctuating the vast divides emerging in Chinese politics. In the end, the combination of fear and greed was too much for the empire to resist. China declared itself the protector of the natural harmonious order according to Confucian thought as a direct counterweight to its rising ideological rivals. Leaders and governments who sought protection would find it under Chinese guidance and were ensured their positions would remain intact, provided that they submitted to the emperor and knew their place within the celestial hierarchy.
Facing challenges worldwide, China had finally reclaimed its rightful place at the center of the world, only to find the rest of the world falling further out of balance and into chaos. As a new decade dawned, only time would tell whether China would succeed in restoring balance and returning the world to how things should be, with all of the barbarians submitting to the civilized leadership of the emperor and the Chinese people. The cruel irony was that the very victory that restored China's hegemony now also threatened to undermine it. With the Reich, Russia, and India in chaos, the Meskwaki Empire constantly on the verge of collapse, and the syndicalists and Bezruchko steadily amassing more power, China faces its greatest test yet. For the Mandate of Heaven is something to be earned, and even after earning it, it must be kept. Should the Mandate be lost, it was morally just to overthrow those in power. The stakes could not be higher. This was China's only chance to restore and maintain the order that had dominated the world and human civilization for centuries, with China as the supreme and only hegemon and all others paying tribute to it. Yet the barbarians threatened to end all that with their new talk of syndicalism and nationalism, having forgotten their place in the natural order. It was China's duty to remind them of their place, for if it couldn't, then that would lead to a terrifying realization: that the barbarians themselves possessed the Mandate of Heaven, and it was their turn to rule All Under Heaven. Such a notion was unthinkable.
So as the world once again marched towards war, a single thought permeated all of the Chinese political and military establishment, transcending parties and generations and ideologies. A new Great War was coming, one that would test if China was still worthy of the Mandate of Heaven. The natural order and balance must be guarded at all costs, or else all would be lost to the barbarians.
Government
The Chinese Empire is a semi-constitutional monarchy. The official constitution is the Mingzhi Constitution, written after Chinese unification. The emperor is head of state of the empire, and as Son of Heaven all sovereignty originated from him. Being synonymous with the state itself, the emperor is commander-in-chief of the military and can appoint ministers. Yet his direct political power was constitutionally limited, so as to not dilute his spiritual power. This was something disputed by many ultranationalists who believed any attempt to limit his divine sovereignty as heretical and treasonous, calling for the emperor to be granted unlimited absolute power.
The Imperial Assembly consisted of a House of Dynasties and a House of Citizens. As its name suggested, the House of Dynasties consisted of people from the highest echelons of Chinese society, mainly the traditional nobility from pre-unification times, other imperial family members not in the direct line of succession, and modern elites who had proved themselves through merit in various ways, such as through scientific accomplishment, military successes, or political leadership. The House of Citizens, meanwhile, was elected by all male citizens over the age of 25, with some seats reserved for non-ethnic Han minorities. To prevent the gridlock common in many democratic governments of the century, both the emperor and the Grand Secretariat together with their court and cabinet retained significant power and could veto the Assembly's legislation if so desired. Furthermore, electoral laws gave more weight to established parties and their associated candidates, as well as to upper class and landowning voters. From 1868 to 1928, the Fuxingyundong dominated the Chinese government, alternating between its various wings. More often than not, power was vested in the centrist and conservative wings, with occasional periods of progressive leadership. As of 1936, the Spring Coalition remained in power yet significantly diminished from its heyday in the previous decade.
Military
The Chinese military was the strongest in the world as of 1936. Many of its troops were equipped with modern equipment and backed by a large military-industrial complex, making China a force to be reckoned with far beyond its borders. However, the military was also massively overextended due to the empire's far-flung colonial possessions, which threatened to create dozens of new fronts and resulted in a shortage of modern equipment for many troops. But all was not, and the Chinese military was hardly united. Three factions dominated the military as of 1936: the traditional aristocracy and Great War veterans who wanted to keep the current system as it was, the reformists who want to restore the power of central command and reunite all of the chains of command as during the Great War while also making it easier for commoners to receive officer commissions, and the militarists who want to restructure Chinese society into a state where everything supported the military.
There was an intense interservice and regional rivalry centered around certain generals and political leaders, many of whom were frequently both. The navy was split into several fleets, each nominally assigned to a specific region but answering to a different chain of command. For example, Admiral Liao Fuxiang, a member of the House of Dynasties, commanded the South Sea Fleet during the Great War and refused to support any naval engagements made by Admiral Hong Zhongtang, commander of the East Sea Fleet but also his chief political rival, for fear of any victories boosting Hong's political career. This nearly resulted in several major crippling defeats for the Chinese navy. Similarly, the Chinese army was dominated by a small group of region-based military aristocrats from families that had been granted field commands for generations. Not only did many of these aristocrats lack the basic officers' training that was needed to effectively lead troops, but they used their armies as bargaining chips to further careers within the imperial court or the House of Dynasties. Although the Mingzhi reforms intended to promote a meritocratic officer corps, the prioritization of nobles and the financial burden placed on officers indirectly ensured that few commoners could receive and keep a field commission. In both the army and navy, troops frequently showed stronger loyalties towards their commander, whether out of promises of political or financial gain or genuine support in the case of a competent commander, than to the government itself. Due to this factionalism and a lack of strong central command, each army and fleet competed for government funding against each other, leading to significant overlap with factions within the Imperial Assembly. Although the Grand Secretariat's cabinet included a Minister of War, the power of central command had been significantly weakened so as to prevent a return of Duan and Li's wartime dictatorship, preventing the above issues from being effectively addressed.
Although the Chinese military could count on a large manpower pool and industrial base to support it, due to the above factionalism, each commander could not count on other commanders to come to their aid. As a result, on the tactical level each army followed a quality over quantity approach, similar to the Reich's historical military doctrines. Since an army could not rely on the help of other armies, it must secure victory through a series of swift and decisive maneuvers performed by highly trained and organized units to maximize enemy casualties, if not outright annihilate the enemy, and minimize the usage of its own resources in preparation for future battles. This also served a political purpose: the more efficiently an army performed, with more enemy casualties and fewer ones of their own, the more prestigious it would appear to the Imperial Assembly and the court, and it would presumably receive a bigger budget, better gear, more honors, and political favor. A similar mentality was present in the navy, which had the added incentive of victory guaranteeing greater government investment in a fleet's home ports and the surrounding towns. The lack of support from other fleets during operations led to the prioritization of aircraft carriers as a significant force multiplier to replace inefficient and slow battleships. The navy almost wholeheartedly embraced and encouraged the development of aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers became a symbol of prestige and status among Chinese admirals. Possessing one would be akin to being elevated to nobility. As a result, every time a new aircraft carrier was completed in a shipyard, admirals rushed to Nanjing to be the first to claim it for their fleet.
Fortunately, the newest branch of the Chinese military, the air force, managed to escape the political jockeying and factionalism that plagued both the army and navy. Headed by the legendary Great War ace Shen Tiankun, the Imperial Chinese Air Force was established in 1927 and quickly became the largest air force in the world. It had a main focus on supporting army operations with a fleet of tactical bombers. However, some believed that the air force's doctrine should shift to strategic bombing in line with the concept of total war, while others saw little issues with the current policy of close air support.
Economy
The Chinese economy was the strongest in the world. After the end of the Great War, the Chinese economy prospered in a massive economic miracle in the 1920s. Standard of living was among the highest in the world, with the average Chinese worker earning the most productive wages in the world. Investments in client states, resources from the colonies, and a liberal welfare program also helped cement China’s economic hegemony. However, this did not come without its problems. The economic miracle wound down in the 1930s, and although the economy remained prosperous, there was a concerning lack of financial regulation that could spiral into a massive crash if something went wrong. Furthermore, the prosperity was not shared equally, as poverty and income inequality remained ever present in Chinese society, and syndicalist agitation seized on this to gain many recruits to the vermilion banner.
Religion
Following unification, the Chinese government promoted the formalization and institutionalization of traditional folk religion, or Shen, into a new political-religious framework known as State Shendao, which also incorporated elements of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism into its doctrines in a bid to unify Chinese religion for a unified society. While independent temples to each religion and philosophy were allowed to remain without having to affiliate themselves with State Shendao institutions, those that had joined the hierarchy were prioritized and given government grants to remain in operation. This was open even to temples for non-Chinese religions. For example, temples to the Mongol and Russian gods were allowed to join the State Shendao network, effectively absorbing their gods into the Chinese pantheon, and could even benefit from the financial incentives. For example, an oak tree in Lhasa, brought by the Ghaznavids as a seed centuries ago, was dedicated to the god Perun, but one of its branches was carved into an eagle dedicated to Tengri, and a Buddha statue sat among its roots. All three were registered State Shendao temples. This encouraged loyalty from their worshippers towards Nanjing, particularly because the emperor carried out the highest rites in the organized religion for their gods as well as China's own. However, the emperor had no new religious titles along the line of head priest, although there were high priests underneath him, as it was already assumed that the imperial title already had spiritual responsibilities, so a new title was unnecessary.
Culture
As a large empire spanning the Pacific, China was host to many different cultures. Each region had its own unique subculture that was still recognizably Chinese, and each social class, limited by their financial circumstances and geography, expressed themselves however they could. Outside of China proper, many non-Chinese cultures remained, only now under the same rule from Nanjing. Former historical rivalries became merely provincial rivalries within China, though certain exceptions—continued Vietnamese and Japanese separatism in particular—constantly stymied Nanjing's attempts to assert power.
Before unification, the various imperial dynasties used Classical Chinese as a lingua franca, much like western European medieval kingdoms prior to the Restoration used Latin. Internally, each dynasty used their own language for administrative purposes. The Jin Dynasty used the Jinshan dialect of Jin Mandarin (Jinhua), which had evolved from the language of the Jin court in Northern China in the 13th century but with North Eimerican and Jurchen influences. The Ming Dynasty used Mainland Mandarin (Guanhua), which evolved from the same sources as Jin Mandarin but with greater southern and central Chinese influences (as a note, the word "Mandarin" is an exonym used by foreigners for convenience and to show the common ancestry of the Ming and Jin dialects). The Song Dynasty used Fungwa, a divergent dialect originating from the Middle Chinese spoken in the 13th century. Finally, the Tran Dynasty used Vietnamese.
As a result, after unification the new empire found itself ruling over a Sinosphere that spoke many diverging forms of Chinese as well as other languages. Many Chinese communicated via written Chinese if they could not understand each other's dialect, which was a common occurrence even in China proper. To rectify this, the Chinese government expanded the Ming Dynasty's enforcement of Mainland Mandarin as an official language, ordering all administrative duties and educational lessons to be carried out in either Mainland Mandarin or Classical Chinese. While this did make it easier for people to communicate and participate in society, this had the downside of marginalizing other languages and dialects and the cultural heritage that came with them.
China prided itself on a long tradition of meritocracy and social advancement through hard work. Although Confucianism encouraged a social hierarchy, it also encouraged people to cultivate their own talents and rise up through that hierarchy as far as they could go. After all, many historical emperors, including the first Ming emperor, had once been born as peasants and now had even been deified. The biggest symbol of social advancement came from the prestigious imperial civil service examination system which had inspired systems and political institutions in other countries like the Reich. Passing the highest ranks of the examinations was a ticket to financial stability, a well paying government job if not a seat in the House of Dynasties, and even elevation to the nobility. Following unification, the traditional examination curriculum was reformed to include testing for practical subjects and specialized for specific fields. For example, an examinee hoping for a military commission could take the military-focused exam, while another examinee who aimed for political office could take the political theory exam, and examinees pursuing higher education would take a comprehensive exam focusing on math, science, literature, and the humanities. Efforts were undertaken to make the examinations open to all Chinese regardless of social or financial status, and the government established and expanded a public education system that would prepare all Chinese children for ultimately taking the exams upon graduation of high school.
In 1929, following the ascension of a new and conservative emperor, the government promoted elements of traditional Chinese culture, such as calligraphy, painting, music, and opera, and attempted to sideline foreign culture for being non-Chinese. Even so, this policy was only loosely enforced in many regions and merely a formality in major cities with large foreign populations. Roman and Indian art remained highly popular among intellectual circles, while a synthesis of Chinese and foreign culture took place in cities like Shanghai, giving rise to unique and experimental forms of art.
Foreign Relations
The Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, better known as the economic side of the Tianxia Alliance, was formed in the 1920s to cement Chinese economic hegemony. While all of the initial members were Chinese client states, membership was still open to other independent nations. However, economic agreements were written in such a way as to prioritize Chinese economic interests, ensuring that China would dominate the bloc economically as well as militarily. Although the terms of the GACPS included assurances that the Chinese military would protect all other member states, it was expected that the member states would first protect China, forming a new Great Wall against barbarian aggression that threatened the Middle Kingdom.
The GACPS had its origins in the Treaty of Vilnius at the end of the Great War. Nanjing had kept an eye on independence movements around the world, believing they would make for valuable client states after the war ended. China had no desire to directly annex territory far from its heartland, and instead thought it would be prudent to organize its gains into new nations that would be eternally grateful to Nanjing for freeing them yet also economically and militarily tied to China. Six countries were of special importance for this new plan.
First were Mongolia and Khazaria, the client states protecting the western frontier in Central Asia. Mongolia was without a doubt the client state with the closest ties to China, as Chinese elites dominated its government, while Khazaria elected a Chinese prince as their head of state. From the beginning, the two client states were plagued by Yavdian resistance, as non-Chinese populations were treated like second-class citizens by their Chinese overlords and syndicalist agitation spread like wildfire. The Chinese military was forced to constantly prop up the unpopular governments out of fear of giving the syndicalists or Russians any new allies.
Next came the Muisca Confederation. The Muisca question had been one of the Tianxia Alliance's most contentious issues for the duration of the war, as China and Tawantinsuyu frequently disagreed on what to do with the region. After years of conflict, the two nations agreed to place the region under a new nation with a Chinese prince as king, much to Cusco's disappointment. Despite this, relations between the new confederation and Tawantinsuyu eventually normalized, and the confederation's control of the Panama Canal led to an economic boom that brought prosperity to its people. The success of the "Muisca project" led many Chinese elites to believe that their cause was just and it was possible to do the same for China's other projects.
For most of the war, eastern India had not even been a declared Chinese war aim because Nanjing barely understood the culture of the region and had little desire to carve out a new nation there. Yet the presence of Chinese troops marching through Bengal on their way to targets further west provoked an uprising from Bengalis dissatisfied with the Rajput-led government in Delhi. The Republic of Bengal was proclaimed not long after. However, the Chinese occupation forces barely noticed the rebellious state at first, but once it proved its stability, Nanjing threw its full support behind it. During the final peace treaty with India in 1921, Delhi was forced to recognize Bengali independence as well as the land that was ceded according to the Treaty of Vilnius. Yet after independence the new republic found itself with the dubious honor of being the least developed nation under Chinese suzerainty.
To the south, the Madagasikara Revolution of 1917 only drove out the Roman colonial leadership thanks to massive Chinese military aid, and after the guns fell silent, Nanjing made sure the bill was repaid. After the war, the island became the most important Chinese military base in the Indian Ocean. Due to its proximity to Africa and Arabia, its airfields and ports were expanded to house as many air wings and fleets as possible, while dozens of forts and military defenses were built all across the island. By 1936, Madagasikara had effectively been turned into a giant fortress, through which China could project its power into Africa and beyond. Politically, although the government nominally enjoyed significant autonomy from Nanjing due to its distance, the fledgling republic was dominated by Chinese military cliques, who bent each political faction to serve their own ambitions. The militarist faction in particular enjoyed significant influence here, its members drawn by the opportunity to test out their "state subordinate to the military" ideas in Madagasikara, without any harm done to China itself or their own careers. The authoritarian rule of the Chinese military enraged many Malagasy, who blamed them for all of their problems. The military responded by cracking down, further radicalizing the Malagasy towards syndicalist and nationalist movements.
Luckily, the Chinese would find a more stable and reliable ally to the far south. At the southernmost fringe of the former Reich, Sudafrika had gained its independence by using the chaos of the civil war in Europe to oust its colonial government in 1925, yet it fell into its own civil war between natives and settlers which was ultimately won by the latter. In an attempted compromise between the two sides, the Sudafrikan government elected a Chinese prince to the throne and accepted an invitation to join the GACPS. As they had chosen to accept a Chinese prince and join the alliance of their own free will, the Chinese government gave them expanded privileges and recognition within the alliance, treating Sudafrika not as another client state but as a equal and allied nation that would help the Celestial Empire in the fight against syndicalism.
These six nations formed the core of China's geopolitical ambitions, as the first pillars in a new plan to restore the old Sinocentric world order. Each nation had been built, sometimes from the ground up, with Chinese support and investment instead of becoming yet more provinces of China. Nanjing hoped that the successes among them meant that the rest of the world could be harmonized in the same way. As syndicalism ravaged Europe and the rest of Africa and nationalists rose to power everywhere, the GACPS stood as a bastion of the natural order, ready to restore balance to the world and once again put barbarians in their rightful place under heaven. Only time would tell if China's new ambitions would succeed, bringing with it a new era of harmony, or lead to the loss of the Mandate of Heaven.
