Chapter 284: War and Peace
"The emperor is dead. Long live the emperor!"
-Chancellor Xu Shichang
In late June, the government and the strikers finally agreed to a compromise. The trade unions, having been granted all of their demands short of regime change, called off the general strike, and the economy returned to normal. Within days, industrial production had returned to 1926 levels. The Kaiser had successfully ended the greatest threat to the Reich since the Maximist Wars. Others in the government, though, were not satisfied. Angelos, as usual, denounced the deal as a "sell-out" to the equalists, while Hindenburg was slightly uncomfortable with the former striker leader Konrad Adenauer being given a seat in the Diet. The rest of the cabinet, Ludendorff included, decided not to comment on the deal, as they were more focused on getting the Reich back on its feet. Aid was sent to Jericho and Jerusalem after a small earthquake shook the region, killing a few thousand citizens and slightly damaging the Third Temple of Solomon. Soviet-funded equalist rebels rose up throughout Danmark, primarily on isolated islands, and they proved a nuisance to eliminate. With the legions still being brought back up to full maintenance, Berlin could not direcly intervene in this rebellion, though Hindenburg was confident that Thorbjorn's troops would be enough.
Over in the New World, the collapse of Roman influence in North Eimerica allowed the Commune of Michigan and the Union of Vinland to expand rapidly and violate the sovereignty of their neighbors without fear of an intervention from Berlin. The Union targeted the People's Republic of Assiniboine, while PARA decided to take a less direct route. As PARA was surrounded on all sides by enemies and attacking one would drag in the others, its Politburo ordered extensive funding for its version of the NKVD, which was to infiltrate flashpoints and volatile regions in the UPM, Mayapan, the CSA, Tarascan, Tlapanec, and Tawantinsuyu and incite nationalist and equalist rebellions, hopefully destabilizing their governments and spreading the world revolution.
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The Union of Vinland invasion of Assiniboine was over in less than two months, and the chairman of the tiny nation unconditionally surrendered. Surviving members of the country's politburo were rounded up by the secret police, put on a show trial in Markland, sentenced to death, and shot. Anybody who resisted annexation into the Union was also shot. Less than two weeks later, the Union turned to the rebel state of Potawatomi, intending to destroy it like it did Assiniboine.
The constitutional government of Lenape, wanting to ideologically oppose the Commune of Michigan's aggression, passed a law strengthening capitalist and corporate influences on the country's economy. Pueblo, wanting to strengthen itself and deny the Commune of Michigan as much land as possible, declared war on Pawnee.
Meanwhile, the Reich included Suomi in its sphere of influence, declaring that any further attempts by the Soviet Commune to subvert its sovereignty would be met with Roman military force.
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In late September, a crisis broke out in the Tawantinsuyuan province of Good Air, where Charruan civilians had rioted and demanded greater concessions from Cusco. It seems they were taking advantage of the civil war in the four primary suyu, for when Cusco failed to respond to their demands they immediately declared the independent People's Republic of Charrua and formally asked the Reich to back their freedom. When Hindenburg declined (obviously), Trotsky announced he would "protect the oppressed proletariat of Charrua from their reactionary oppressors." The Reich promptly took the side of Tawantinsuyu in the ensuing diplomatic crisis, the first that the Council of Nations was tasked with handling.
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In October, Fox's former seat on the Executive Council of the Council of Nations was formally revoked and granted to Abyssinia instead, while Osage declared war on the tiny city-state of Chickasaw. Turkestan's elected government passed a law establishing a national bank, and Danmark officially announced that they would send athletes to the Olympics.
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In November, the Chinese government announced that the Guangxu Emperor, who was seventy-five years old, had come down with pneumonia. The empire's top physicians struggled to cure his illness, but the emperor's condition only got worse and worse. By the end of the month, he could barely speak and write, let alone participate in government. He designated his son and heir, Zhu Zhaohe, the Imperial Regent while he retired to a small family villa on the banks of the Yangtze River, near the village where his ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang grew up. As his condition worsened, conventional medicine failed to treat his illness, and he turned to traditional medicine. When that too failed, he realized he would never recover. He summoned the highest ranking Shendao priests, his wife and children, and his cabinet to his villa, and they were all by his side when on the 4th of December, 1927, at 1:25 AM, he suffered a heart attack and passed away.
After a fifty-nine year reign, the Guangxu Emperor was dead. The first emperor of a united China since the Mongol invasions was gone. Generations of Chinese had known only prosperity and glory (ignoring the debacle of the Weltkrieg) under his reign. Many of them hadn't known the reign of his father. The government immediately declared a month of mourning and began preparations for the funeral. The funeral was held at night and consisted of a 4-mile-long procession in which 20,000 mourners and Shendao and Buddhist priests followed a herd of sacred bulls and an ox-drawn cart containing the imperial coffin. The funeral route was lit with wood fires in iron lanterns. The emperor's coffin was then transported to his mausoleum in the Ming imperial tombs outside of Nanjing. After the Guangxu Emperor was laid to rest in his tomb, Zhu Zhaohe was quickly declared the new Emperor of China and given the reign name Xuantong. Preparations for the coronation began at once, but the new emperor advised the government to delay it for at least another year to give him a chance to mourn his father.
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In late December, Pawnee unconditionally surrendered to Pueblo, which decided to annex the entire country. To secure its new gains, the Puebloan government sent out diplomats to the Chinese Empire, asking for Nanjing's protection and offering to become a member of the Tianxia Alliance.
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January began, and the 1928 Diet convened. The fascists continued to gain ground at the expense of the liberals. However, the conservatives gained a few seats, giving their coalition with the reactionary factions a plurality in the Diet.
The People's Republic of Ojibwe was annexed by the Union of Vinland in late January, while Commune of Michigan troops besieged the Cherokee capital of Conoy.
The Council of Nations reached a solution to the Charrua crisis. Nobody gained or lost anything, except for the Charruans, who remained under Tawantinsuyuan control. Although the crisis solution was in favor of Tawantinsuyu, many Tawantinsuyuans had lost faith in their government, which had not been able to prevent the crisis from breaking out in the first place. Several fascists launched a beer hall putsch in Cusco, and though the government crushed it with overwhelming military force, it only intensified the chaos of the civil war.
In February, Osage annexed Chickasaw, and the Reich and the Indian republic formally announced their intention to send athletes to the Olympics.
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China's elections concluded in January, and for the first time a party other than the Fuxingyundong had become the ruling party in the Diet. The Guomindang had surprisingly swept the general election, forcing Chancellor Xu to concede defeat. In March, the Xuantong Emperor officially appointed the Guomindang party leader, Wang Jingwei, as the new Chancellor. Wang announced that he would preside over a new "Zhaohe Restoration" which would restore China's glory and undo the shame it had suffered in the Weltkrieg and immediately began proposing legislation to strengthen the military and reduce the amount of civilian control over it.
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The anarchy in India continued. Famine struck several states, and while Bose ordered aid sent to the affected regions at once, the utter lack of order in the entire country meant that no aid from Delhi could actually be delivered. The Rasa Party, though, managed to organize its own aid program, which was more sucessful and resulted in millions of Indians joining the party.
The UBS finished integrating electricity into its cities' power grids in late March.
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In April, Cherokee sued for peace with the Commune of Michigan. Surprisingly, the Commune's government only demanded the state of Ohio and that the president of Cherokee formally acknowledge the Commune's hegemony over central North Eimerica. A few days later, the Union of Vinland annexed Potawatomi. It seemed like the two equalist regimes were not going to stop invading their neighbors anytime soon...
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