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First Lieutenant
Apr 19, 2004
235
0
GAME REPORT – 1836-7

Hello, all. This is a China AAR in VIP .2b. Hard, with Aggressive AI, and a ten-month autosave. China is, like everyone, not allowed to colonize until late (though it is much more restricted than most, not being allowed to touch Africa until the 1880s at best). There will be some surprise events which I’ve coded to represent the unique aspects of the alt-history of the game, but none of them are overpowering, and they interlock with the storyline of the Narrative Report of the campaign. My strategy: Industrialize cautiously, arm aggressively, and hope I can smack around some Englishmen in the 1840s.

So:

I begin with a huge land area and a fabulous population advantage. For those of you who haven’t played the behemoth that is China, this is what it looks like:

Dmographics of Chinese Society:
POP1.jpg

Minority groups:

POP2.jpg


The total population:

POP3.jpg




I’m not up-to-speed on techs, but I do have the fruits of a several-thousand-year history of being the most materially wealthy and advanced civilization on Earth: No Standard and Guild Based Production, as well as Publishing Industry, Mechanized Mining (added by me in the scenario file – if you think this is crazy, do some research on Chinese gold and coal mining, or charcoal burning), Basic Chemistry, Water Wheel Power and my one, lonesome military tech: the precious flint-lock musket.

My first diplomatic point is quickly spent throwing the growling Russian bear Mongolian peasants for a snack, netting me +10 relations and a little less worry.

Next, money: The way forward is obvious: the historical one. So I jack my 400-million man tariffs up to 100%, drop my taxes to 20% for all classes, and watch the cash roll in for a few days.


ChinaMoney1.jpg

I love money!



Money2.jpg

That's the kind of budget I like to see on Jan. 10!


However, beneath the tons of cash I can extort from POPs buying their basic needs, the economy underlying this is not particularly strong. No sir-ee. This is my production screen on that same money-grubbing Jan 10:

Economy.jpg

Eww...unprofitable indeed.

So one of my priorities it to wait for the inventions to fire (factories are mostly activated via inventions in VIP), and get some cement, steel, and lumber factories up and running to use some of these raw resources. Fortunately, I don’t have to wait too long. In early February, the event allowing steel and cement factories fires, and one of each begins building in the south. Historically, the south was the area where industrial development took place without specific Imperial encouragement, and these factories represent the slow growth of industrial infrastructure among the prosperous cities of Kiangsu and Kwangtung (the two richest provinces, historically).

INDUSTRY!!! The way of the future?

Now, with some infrastructure in place, 3 Machine parts still in the bank, and a ton of money in the treasury, the Emperor decides it’s time to look outwards for expansion. But first: building an army that doesn’t suck…
<there will be a picture of the 8 divisions of the banner army, with about 10 org each, here>
An army that sucks…


The Tsar, newly pacified by tasty Mongols, is now offered Fish-Flavored Uighur-snacks for some military advice, which is sadly illegible because it is in Russian.

On the plus side, however, we get Post-Napoleonic Thought and Military Staff System for our Sakhlain and Turkestan claims, and within the month, Jominian Attitude fires.

SCORE! This is especially useful for China, because it can only build native-quality troops with very unreliable morale until it becomes civilized, and If I intend to kick on England (perhaps in India), I’ll need the staying power Jominian gives me. It might be a disadvantage later, but right now, who cares.

As my POPs run out of money, the income plummets at the same time as small arms begin to come onto the market, joining other expensive items like Wine, Liquor, Luxury Clothes, and Canned Food on my import list. Can you guess what I’m about to do?

GunsAreExpensive.jpg

Guns are expensive!

StupidPeasants.jpg

Stupid peasants, running out of money for me to tax…

However, the sheer amount of money I’d built up (35,000+) meant the training of the new Chinese army could begin apace. I trained hussar-cavalry in the plains-provinces of the Hunan and Anhui, to be historical, and Guards infantry in Shandong and Guangdong, for the same reasons. For more detail on this, read the fiction posts!

By the end of 1837, an army that didn’t suck had begun to emerge…

Militia.jpg

The New Army! Now with Horses!

ArmiesDon_tSuck.jpg

Deployment begins....

What will I do with the Army That Doesn’t Suck as 1838 dawns on a much less rich (but much more dangerous) Chinese Empire? Tune in next time, and be sure to read the historical and fictional background in the other thread!

SPECIAL WORLD DIPLOMATIC BULLETIN UPDATE:
Elsewhere in the world, someone is quietly weeping, and it ain’t France (screen Nov 1836):Aldjazair is getting owned by France...
 
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Story Update!

The Rebirth of the Celestial Kingdom: an AAR of China

“I have, by all accounts, lived an interesting life. This was not so much a curse or blessing as it was an opportunity to stand, for a few moments, atop a grinding avalanche and imagine I had control of it…”
-From the memoirs of Tseng Guo-Fan, 1811-1875

“The eternal cycle of dynastic splendor, decay, and fall has historically been the onus of the Chinese people, sweeping over lives and lands like the floods of the Huang He (Yellow River). But just as today we can easily dike away such floods, so must we have done with our dynasties, for this newest one, too, shall decay and fall upon the people like a tree on a house…”
-Speech by Lu Hsun, revolutionary. Speech given in 1918.

1836 was a year, seemingly, like any other. The days came and went in the fields and farms like they had for hundreds of previous years, rice and millet were harvested, tea was sold to waiting foreigners on the crowded docks of Canton, the Manchu Emperor in all his glory sat on the Dragon Throne, and his armies maintained the peace.
On one particularly harsh autumn day in 1836, Tseng Guo-Fan paced restlessly back and forth across the courtyard of his family home in Henan, raising a small cloud of dust as he stared down at the ground. His grandfather watched from beneath the roof, and he could feel the old man’s eyes burning into him, like always.
He dared not look up.
He heard his grandfather spit – a disgusting habit – and then the old man’s reedy, tough voice lashed out across the yard.

Henan, 1836

“You failed the metropolitan examinations, and yet still you sit here mooning like some young woman! You should be studying, young one, you should be preparing.”

Kuo-Fan continued pacing. He could not respond without disrespecting the old man.
“Hah!You put on such airs after you passed the Prefect-exams. And we all had hopes, even the field-hands knew and we made them burn incense on the exam day. So? What shall you do now?

Kuo-Fan continued pacing.
“You have duties to attend to, you know! After all, a young scholar can’t afford to be unfilial, now can he, any more than the farmer can be inattentive to the weather. Though perhaps you could be a farmer, eh…”

Kuo-Fan stopped pacing.
“Abandoning my pursuit of scholarship, would not be filial. I can succeed! The examination should test only my strength of scholarship, which will not be found lacking again. As you know, I spend much of my time studying…”

Grandfather laughed. “Studying! You don’t know how to learn the classics, Kuo-Fan, you just read them and pretend to know them. And besides, you spend more time doing paperwork for that town of yours than you do studying.”

Tseng could not contain himself any longer, and his voice rose as he moved across the courtyard towards his grandfather, rising to his full height.
“Second only to filial duties are the duties of the official to his post, grandfather. And should I do well in this post, the examiners may be more likely to appoint me to a higher one. After all, it is not such a small town that it has escaped their notice…”

A cough from the back of courtyard cut him off. There stood his father, holding a paper with an official seal on it, dull yellow and full of frightful promise. All three generations stood silent in the summer heat and dust, tasting the metallic anger of possible confrontation, and all three slowly, lingeringly letting it go.

Or, in Kuo-Fan’s case, simply filing it away.

His father spoke up, wiping sweat from his brow.
“Son, a messenger from the provincial governor. Grandfather, perhaps we should go and see to the arrangements for the next shipment of millet to Kaifeng?”

Grandfather shot a venomous look at Kuo-Fan as he swiftly trudged past, and the two exited through the gate, disappearing into the summer haze. Under the blazing sun, Kuo-Fan cracked open the wax seal on the letter, then moved into the shade, where he sat quietly for ten minutes, silent and still as the Buddah that dominated the courtyard.

Forty minutes later, he was leaving through that same gate, on a fast horse from the family stables. He told only his mother where he was going, and he rode out across the field, towards the Huang-He road.

Winter, 1837
Southern Henan Province


Xun Ji-an enjoyed the feel of a sword. It was heavy in his hand, yet when he swung it right, it moved like a wind, like a silver pattern hung in the air. It was cold enough that he could see the sword slice through his own breath, hanging like a shroud in the winter air.

Up, around, over. Block, slash, block. All the men in the field were practicing the same maneuvers, under the watchful eye of mercenary instructors -- and, of course, the ever-watchful Governor. Xun liked the Governor, which was not, of course, his real rank – Xun just called anyone above a local prefect the Governor and left it at that. He had personally picked out Xun from the crowd seeking army employment, and let Xun bring his cousins with him to the training camp.

He had even eaten with Xun once – though truthfully, the Governor spoke too strangely for him to understand everything. It was amazing, though to sit by the cook-fire wish such a great official, eating and laughing at foolish, ribald soldier’s jokes together.

Up, around, over. Slash, advance, block. It was a hard drill, but he enjoyed it – he felt like a man, a warrior. And he was even learning to read, a little bit, from the clerks that the Governor had brought along. The academy that did the recruiting was also teaching the soldiers, so they could understand battle commands.

Up, around, back. Block, advance, slash twice. Then the excercize was over, and men began to talk and file towards the academy building. His cousin would want to know what exercises he was to do – they were not in the same training groups. Xun smiled – he would keep his cousin in suspense for a few minutes, and instead ask him if there had been any news of their father. Yes, that would get Shen just frustrated enough to be funny.

Mid-Spring Spring, 1837
Southern Henan Province


Shen Qi-li had never seen a musket before in his life, but like all his family, he could ride a horse well enough. Since the new town governor-official had arrived, though, he had become intimately familiar with his musket.

He had joked with his cousin Xun Ji-An that it was at least better than becoming intimately familiar with his horse, which had gotten some laughs.

The barracks were a good enough life, he supposed, though drilling in the cold of winter wasn’t too pleasant, he liked it better than waiting to be given loads to carry down at the logging camps, or living off scraps from the Buddhist poor-houses. The summer before, he had almost become a monk, simply in order to get out of the heat and hunger. Since the spring rains had come, they’d stopped drilling with their muskets and started learning sword exercises, swirling back and forth across the wet fields, feeling like children playing soldier again.

Tonight, though, the fires in the great-tent were thankfully warm, and he sat next to Xun, warming his hands and listening to the rain outside. Xun gave him a funny look after a few minutes, and spoke quietly:
“Why do you think we’re here, Shen?”

“Ha! To get fed and play at shooting these muskets of the governor’s. You are a fool for wondering about that.”

“No, no. I mean, when could we Han carry weapons, and use them under Han command? My grandfather was executed by a mandarin for carrying a sword, and now we do this? Do you think perhaps the governor plans a revolt?”

To Shen, this was merely ruining the warmth and companionship of the fireside with worries – after all, it was this or the rain, and the Governor seemed nice enough – he even had some of the farmer’s look about him.

“Xun, my little thinking-man Xun. Great things are beyond us, eh? Look around – the grasses are coming up, the rivers are rising, and the world is alive. It’s raining out there, we are warm in here. Don’t question fortune too much.”

“But –“

“Here, I have a dumpling left. Eat, and enjoy the fire.”

The two again lapsed into silence.

Thirty feet away, Tseng Guo-fan finished adding up the pay totals for this month. These men were hard men, farmers and fishermen and herders, and though not at home on horseback like some of the Northerners he had met, they learned quickly enough. Quickly enough for what?

Guo-Fan began to think, and stared into the rain, half-blinded by the fires on his left and mesmerized by the sound of the rain across the leaves

Untangling the skeins of the million possible reasons for this posting, he stared into the dripping trees, which swayed like restless ghosts in the wind.

He had gotten the order out of the blue to take charge of these towns and raise his militia. But then, it was a new Emperor now, only 10 years into his reign, and who knew what a new Emperor could plan for? No one wished for war and death, but perhaps it would be better than the examinations, perhaps he could show the Manchu Emperor his singular ability.

He was to go and meet the rest of the new armies at the marshalling point in the Pearl River valley as soon as he could march, and he knew no more than that. His correspondences with his family yielded little, but his father, too, had raised troops and trained them with these new muskets, stamped with markings in some barbarian tongue.

The black of the night revealed no more to him than what he already knew, but he stared out into the rain for a few minutes more anyway, running over passages from the Analects and, perhaps, thinking of his home.


From Hsueng’s End of the Chi’ing Dynasty:

The Daoguang Emperor, convinced by Russian emissaries that there was great wealth to be had in India and the Khanates, and lured by old writings about the Silk Road, began his own undoing in the mid-1830s by issuing a series of military edicts. The first of these allowed the formation of new Green Banner units by local governors acting under orders, and the second freed governors from the constraints of Manchu commanders at each training camp – after all, the Han Chinese hadn’t had any real revolutionary zeal for a hundred years, said his advisors.

Local academies, usually simply centers for administration and town gatherings, quickly became recruiting centers, and the many unemployed degree-holders made the transition to the life of military commander fairly easily.

However, the Imperial Treasury couldn’t truly bear the strain these massive programs put on it, especially in the area of buying firearms from the Dutch and Russians, and soon those same officials were out taxing the provincials to pay for their militia-in-training.

When the Emperor’s appointment of Li Zexu to eliminate the opium trade, and thus restore the Canton traders to profitability and taxability went horribly wrong and English ships began to bombard the harbor-forts in Canton, it seemed the perfect opportunity had come – both for the Tsar to cripple English efforts in Asia and for the Emperor to get his dangerously bored soldiers where they belonged – into the fight.

They could not have been more wrong.
 
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China! :eek: Good luck. I'll be watching.
 
What the fug happened to your images? :confused:

Edit: They've been fixed. :)
 
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Pics...

Yeah, about that. It seems Monkeyview isn't very reliable. I'm looking into other services as we speak. In the meantime, enjoy the fiction bit.

-Adso
 
Hmm, China is quite tough. Good luck beating Britain. I've done it but it took about 15 years. Also, I'd recommend building factories in the North of China. If you don't have Southern Chinese culture, there's no point converting them to clerks, although you need to convert masses of Northern Chinese to clerks to get any rp bonus at all.
 
Try photo-bucket to host your images, they've always been reliable for me.
 
Update today!

OK, photobucket was upgrading its servers for about three days and not allowing new members. However, I now have an account and should be able to switch over the last pictures, as well as give a new update, sometime this afternoon.

Huzzah!

-Adso
 
Awaiting an update ;)
 
Game Update, 1838-45

PART II Bloodshed = Prestige?

The first step in becoming civilized is getting a lot of prestige – this is not easy to do, given that you can neither (feasibly) research the prestige-techs or colonize (VIP restrictions). So how does one gain the needed standing?

Obviously, the old fashioned way – by killing people who don’t recognize the glory of your nation!

AnnamPreWar.jpg

A tempting target...

Now that my new “Armies of Non-Suckage” are ready to go, the first choice is Annam – it has a goodly number of provinces, hence a nice boost with annexation, and it has some resources none of the home provinces of China do – specifically, tobacco and fish. And so, in the spring of 1838, China decided to re-assert her authority over her vassals in Annam.

In the meantime, cement production is slowly coming online, and the lumber-factory event fires, so my last few Machine Parts get spent. During the war with Annam, my steel factory opens as well, netting me this beautiful info screen…

NotSizeThatCounts.jpg

It's not size that counts!

Lumbefactory.jpg

Industrializing the peasants....

After the battle of Hue, Annamese resistance crumbled, and it was only a matter of time until the war was over, and my cav divisions captured land very quickly...

Annaminainting.jpg

The Annamese retreat to Saigon to fight another day...

But nothing can save them:
AnnamAnnexed.jpg


Within a year, the Annamese are annexed, and the only coastal province of their Cambodian allies is snatched up in a peace deal.

In the meantime, I've been working on a cunning plan to take the main cities of British India. I will, however, need a navy that can run the blockade that'll surely fall on my coasts.

Oh, yeah, about that navy…

Navy.jpg

BWAHAHA! My floating tubs ‘o doom will crush the Royal Navy…

During the war, it seems the Brits finished beating up on the near-helpless Burmans and have annexed the whole damn country, thus giving me a 2-1 province border with them. Gulp.

BritishBurma.jpg


However, I have caught on to this useful practice of "Annexation", and in May, my prestige is looking healthy again:

PrestigeAfterAnnam.jpg


I like this whole “The world respects you for taking over bits of it” approach. It appeals to the megalomaniac in me.

However, on a darker note, it seems that the initial relations boost with Russia is wearing off, and I haven’t any more diplomatic points to spend.

This worry is quickly subsumed into bigger ones, however, when the Opium War goes off as scheduled, and the English begin marching their forces in Burma back and forth in confusion, and doubtless the Royal Navy is stirring in the west.

However, I have been preparing for this, and my troops are quickly deployed along the coast and in Dali to take care of this...24,000 in all the major coastal provinces, 46,000 in Dali, and my cavalry armies gather in Yunnanfu.

ToIndia.jpg


My evil plan: Push through Dibgurath into India, while transporting divisions around the Malay penninsula into Cuttack and Calcutta, then attack from Dali into Burma once the Burmese forces are cut off by my seizure of the Indian cities.

However, about a week after these plans go into motion, I stumble into a VERY unenviable situation:

UnenviableSituation.jpg

It appears the Russians have developed a taste for Mongol. <gulp>

Hrmmm. The top two world powers, ganging up on China? My north sector is completely undefendended, with the exception of a few recently “Deployed to Home” armies in Gansu and the anti-amphibious landing forces in the north. The Manchu Banner Armies begin hoofing it towards, well, Manchuria, as do a few infantry divisions I have lying around. But my focus will be on weathering the crisis and letting the Russians spend valuable time occupying Mongolia and Turkestan, while I take out the Brits according to my original plan and then can turn my fronts back north…

RussianHordes.jpg

The mountainous provinces of Gansu, where the Chinese are digging in and waiting until the Russians finish going through Mongolia.

Tseng Guao Fan is finally given command of the initial advanc into India...and how:

FabulousCommander.jpg

I like this Mr. Fan....

The Chinese encounter their first Sepoy ambush in Digburath…

FirstEncounter.jpg


But under the inspirational command of Tseng Guo-Fan, move quickly down the Ganges, into Dhaka, and begin capturing it.

After quick victories, Fan meets his new nemesis, general Turner her in Dhaka, for the first time, as he enters Dhaka

FanvTurnerRd1.jpg


But these easy victories mean little, as UK reinforcements begin to land at Rangoon and march north.

HereComeRedcoats.jpg


Meanwhile, the incompetent political appointee Zhang takes command from Fan at a critical juncture, and Dhaka is re-invaded with a substantial force before if can be fully captured…

ZhanginCommand.jpg

at least we're defending this time...

Zhang draws out the battle, hoping that the British will eventually fall back. But the superior firing discipline and open-battle tactics of the Sepoy and regular English infantry begin to tell, as casualties mount in the cavalry divisions...
ZhangLosesMen.jpg

Numbers ain't everything...especially when your native divisions suffer 15% attrition.

In the North, the Gansu Corridor is holding against tentative Cossack raids, and the Manchu banners are fighting firecly in their homelands. But…oh crud. English in the North, too? 60,000 Englishmen have landed in Ninguta, left empty when my coast-watchers went to help fend off the Russians.

While the battle of Dhaka continues to rage, the English cleverly attempt to cut off the cavalry’s supply lines by taking Dibgurath. However, they did not count on the fierce Lee, who has entrenched himself there and won’t seem to let the devil himself move him. The English division attacking takes nasty casualties…

GoGoLee.jpg


Lee is triumphant by the end of March, but in Dhaka, the bloodshed won’t seem to stop, as Zhang insists that holding a single fortified position is the key to victory.

DhakalookingBad.jpg


Finally, Fan (acting against Zhang's orders) turns the flank of the British in a critical engagement, and they’re forced to retreat and lick their wounds, despite superior numbers…

VictoryinDhaka.jpg

Run away! Run away you English pig-dogd!

Now that Dhaka is mine, my plan can begin to take shape.

First, Fan takes 4 divisions of cavalry into Calcutta, and 4 more follow through before Calcutta is captured, into Cuttack.

Meanwhile, our only Admiral, Chang, makes the perilous journey through the Strait of Malacca with 4 divisions of reinforcements while our three recently comepleted war junks distract the brits in the waters off of Guangdong, with predictable results…

RoyalNavy.jpg


But thanks to his derring-do, reinforcements get through to Calcutta and Cuttack as the even bloodier Second Battle of Dhaka takes shape…

Finally, in late August, Calcutta, Cuttack, and Gauhati are in Chinese hands, and an offensive begins in cut-off Burma, this time with hordes of infantrymen swarming into the British garrisons, bled dry by the battles for Dhaka far to the west.

The British in the south are finally tasting defeat...HAH!

Things in the North, however, take a turn for the worse when the general commanding the Banner Armies – our only hope in Manchuria – dies while they are pitted against their toughest foes yet…

BannerArmiesinTrouble.jpg


And the Russians are continuing to eat the rest of my territories alive...
RussiaProblem.jpg


But back to happier thoughts in the South:

After two months of Chinese troops holding the main cities of South India, and with their armies in Burma threatned with absolute destruction, the historic treaty of Calcutta was signed, and my armies began to march home.

However, as my armies from the southern campaigns arrived throughout 1841, rebellion began to brew, and in 1842, my other home-coded event fires: Yeh Ming-Chen's Rebellion.

For those of you who know very little about the historical background, the foreign disturbances of the 1840s and 1850s made the survival of the Manchu dynasty very unlikely for a time, since the dynasty itself was corrupt and coming to rely on Chinese troops rather than the Manchu bannermen. The idea of Manchu ruling China had never sat very well, and as recently as 1817-20, major rebellions had threatened the dynasty, with some the most serious coming in the 1680s and 1770s, each time with anti-Manchu, pro-Han feelings.

And so, had large Chinese-commanded forces been raised to fight in India, and had come back home to hear of the Manchu armies reeling in defeat from another foreign menace they had courted, it is not unlikely that a dynastic revolt might have ensued. I picked one of my favorite figures in history to lead the revolt, and at the end of Febuary by the English calendar, in 1842, he did. The event did a number of things, but first, here’s a screenshot as Manchu loyalists and the adherents of the new Min dynasty duke it out:

Rebellion.jpg


Fully 1/3 of my armies rebelled, all those of Manchu ethnicities passed into the hands of a new nation, as the Manchu dynasty retreated into the North, and turned to the Tsars for aid, who were more than happy to give it to the isolated court…

ManchurianMandate.jpg

This event set up Manchuria (Manchubei, the Northern Manchu) as a Russian satellite.

With this new enemy lined up against us, our own armies in rebellion (the event also dropped 3 divisions of Cavalry and 8 of Infantry of the rebel persuasion in Zhili province…), and the vital resources of Mongolia and Manchuria in the hands of a puppet Russian dynasty, the worst possible news came: Lee, who had held off British armies in Gauhati time and time again, could not replicate his feat against the more mobile Russian Cossacks…

LeeLoses.jpg

Translation: Your New Imperial Majesty, we are royally screwed in the North..

Also, since the rebellion event was based in the Yangtze Valley and Kwangtung, I added the southern minority cultures, Hakka and Yue, to my national cultures as part of the event. They’re not terribly large, and exist only in Gunagdong province anyway – they don’t make up for the loss of Manchu as a culture.

As peace is quietly made with Russia for almost all of Turkestan (sigh), and my armies finish quashing rebels, I glance down at my population. My, but civil war is costly…

The population in 1841:
Pop1841.jpg


The population in 1843:
Pop183.jpg


Allowing for population growth during those periods, that’s about 30 million lives lost in the civil war – about right, since estimates in the 1854 Taiping uprising run from 25-40 million.

However, I am left with peace treaties with all my neighbors, even if I’ve lost a good chunk of territory, which allows me to begin expansion in several directions.

The first is inward. With rebellion and war temporarily halted, the new dynasty is officially declared, and Yeh Ming-Chen is enthroned as the new Emperor. This is the “pro-western" choice, and grants all the real first-level Commerce techs, sans Stock Exchange, and two naval techs, but drops relations with Russia a lot and gives only a very small prestige boost.

The new capital for his dynasty is at Nanjing (The Ming and Song Dynasty capital earlier in history), represented by Nantong for my purposes, to show its vulnerability from the Yangtze delta and Grand Canal.

NewCapital.jpg


Having fought and gained respect for the English, and nothing but contempt for the Russian Cossacks, relations with the UK go up via DPs, and Hong Kong is opened as a treaty port, as English engineers begin instructing their Chinese counterparts in Ningbo, and commerce begins to flower as the new dynasty sweeps away the corruption of the old…by which I mean trade Hong Kong for Mechanical Production and Experimental Railroad…

And by October, the iron mines of Wuchang are shipping their good to the Imperial Iron Office in Nanjng.

Wuchang.jpg


My armies are slowly replenished, and after the daring voyage of Admiral Chang, the old tales of the Eunuch-Admiral Zheng He are brought out, and the Chinese Imperial fleets expands, adding many ‘native’ quality war junks, built by talented but independent artisans among the Yue seafarers in Guangdong, to its new fleet..

ChineseNavy.jpg

The Chinese Navy in 1845…more are on the way, trust me.

Money pumped into defense, and the small prestige bonuses in the Calcutta Treaty, Dynastic Revolt, and New Dynasty events, result in the following China as autumn falls in 1845:
MuchReduced.jpg
China1845.jpg


My military rating is low due to the loss of those ‘’regular’ quality Banner divisions, and the loss of many divisions quelling or defecting to the rebels.

Where will China go from here? Have the progressive choices of her dynasty turned her toward the sea and commerce? Or will the Celestial Kingdom turn inwards again, and prepare to regain her empire?
 
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That was a good (and very detailed) update. I'm terribly sorry about those losses. :(
 
Ho-kay...

obvious typos will be edited tomorrow.

Any requests for pictures I should go dig up and post as well?

Also, narrative will be updated by friday.

-Adso
 
I think you have enough pictures there ;)
 
Henry v. Keiper said:
I think you have enough pictures there ;)

It like a bloody illustrte book! LOL ;)
 
A trooper said:
It like a bloody illustrte book! LOL ;)

Heh. Observing Memmnon's AAR, I figured people liked pretty pictures of military campaigns...

-Adso

Note: Many typos and narrative gaps fixed in an edit of the original post.
 
BrotherAdso said:
Heh. Observing Memmnon's AAR, I figured people liked pretty pictures of military campaigns...

Screenshots are nice, and people can be quite picky about them. However, I've found give people the RIGHT screenshots and you'll make your readers happy. The ones they seem to enjoy are mainly maps of your nation and screenshots of how your campaign is going (the exact battles aren't necessary, just show your progress).
 
I love all of the screenies. Of course, I'm not on dialup like some people are. I can understand how they might be frustrated.

Anyway, good AAR. I'm enjoying it.