The Reborn Lion: The Republic of China 1914-1936

[HMAS-Nameless]

THE REBORN LION
The Republic of China
1914-1936

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK I: THE RETURN OF THE LION
CHAPTER I: The Republic
CHAPTER II: The Empire
CHAPTER III: The Emperor, the Khan and the Dalai Lama
CHAPTER IV: Yet to be titled (Coming Soon)​

 

[HMAS-Nameless]

CHAPTER I
The Republic
1914​

China at the outbreak of the Great War in Europe was noted as a fallen lion, the aftermath of the collapse of the Wuchang Uprising and the Abdication of the child Emperor and end of the Qing Dynasty and the Chinese and creation of the Beiyang Republic of China. The newly founded Republic of China under the flag of the five races under one union was headed by former military commander of the Qing Empire and President, Yuan Shikai. Throughout the 19th Century the old Chinese Empire had been significantly reduced in prestige and military might culminating in the Sino-Japanese War in which the Empire lost Korea to the Empire of Japan beginning a new era of Japanese dominance in Asia, these effects still ran ramped in the foreign relations of the Republic today. After the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, China lost the valuable territories of Mongolia and Tibet, which became independent nations. Along with low prestige and military might the Yuan’s Republic was forced to deal with the newest political entity in China, the Kuomintang or the Nationalist Party of China which had been created the year before by the previous provisional President of China, Sun Yat-sen who had stepped down quickly to Yuan under pressure. Since Sun Yat-sen had vowed to take the Republic from Yuan Shikai and the Beiyang Faction for himself and the Nationalist Kuomintang has the leader of all China, Yuan knew that I possible coup d'état was in the near future.

President Yuan Shikai​

As tensions rose in Europe President Yuan Shikai knew it was the perfect time for China to return to the world stage as a great power like it was before its downfall in the 1800s. Yuan Shikai planned to take advantage of the world-wide war to return China to greatness. His first action in his long list was the creation of the synchronised Silk Road and New Budget Acts of 1914 which proposed the reopening of Chinese exports onto the world market mainly in the form of tea and silk exports amongst others as well as the subsequent budget change to bring in the new exports into the economy. Due to the new exports and extra revenue gained Yuan was able to institute a publically popular budget offering low taxes to all Chinese peoples and offering surplus monetary offering to the education, crime fighting and defence departments. In this move it meant that he would be able to garner the public support away from the various Nationalist Groups of the Kuomintang.

Yuan's Administration and New Budget Schemes​

Following the return of the common man’s opinion of President Yuan Shikai positively, the President began further moves to the constitution in his aim of Chinese Great Power status. With the Chinese people behind and a temporary relief and loss of the world’s eyes on his shoulders Yuan Shikai was able to reinstate the Republic’s territorial claims to the Bogda Khanate of Outer Mongolia. The old Qing leaders gave independence to Mongolia under Bogda Kaan months before the collapse of the Empire. During the previous two years of the Republic’s existence Yuan had instigated claims against the Khanate but had never followed through due to the public’s opinion until now. Bogda’s Khanate of Mongolia was under a military guarantee to intervene if any nations threatened its survival from the Russia Empire, although the pact was officially a generalisation it was mainly aimed at China. With Russia mobilizing in the west and attention being drawn to Europe, Yuan thought it the right time to begin the road to war with Mongolia. Even if the Russians were busy on the European front against the Austro-Hungarians and the Germans, they still kept a substantial military force in Siberia. Yuan ordered the creation of Northern Line Armies against Mongolia and Russia. The proposed military stationing would extend from Russian Turkestan across the northern border though Inner Mongolia and all the way to the border near Vladivostok in the Russia parts of Manchuria. Yuan to help publicize the move referred to the military stationing as a new Great Wall of China garnering more public support for a war against their “ancient enemies” the Mongols, as was used to Yuan’s advantage as this was the first time the Mongols had been reunited as Khanate in centuries.

The Flag of the Beiyang Republic of China​

 

[HMAS-Nameless]

CHAPTER II
The Empire
1915​

The Kuomintang used Yuan’s military actions as propaganda against him and in December of 1914 Sun Yat-sen ordered the beginning of a new Kuomintang war against the Beiyang Republic of China, a war that would become to be known as the Great National Protection War. In reaction to the new declaration of war by the Kuomintang, Yuan Shikai took the advantage to reform the Beiyang Government under a new Empire. Yuan Shikai recreated his government dissolving the Beiyang Assemblies and creating a new Council of the Emperor. Yuan elected himself the new Emperor of China with other Beiyang commander and the Provisional Chief Executive of China, Duan Qirui as his prime minister following similar political institutions as the European Monarchies. The new conservative Monarchy under Emperor Yuan Shikai was created to counter the Kuomintang Revolutionaries and greater the power of the new Empire of China reborn.

Almost immediately Emperor Yuan Shikai ordered the beginning of campaign by the Beiyang Army to arrest any Kuomintang personnel. The soldiers of the Beiyang army arrest over 5,000 Kuomintang revolutionaries and executed many within the next few months in hope to overt a Kuomintang Revolution in the form of the new war.

The Conservative Empire of Yuan Shikai ​

In February 1915 Yuan sent a messenger to Khaan Bogda with demands of the Ömnögovi region of southern Outer Mongolia to be given to the new Empire of China under its new flag. Yuan knew that this move would be rejected and he would use it as a further ploy to safely declare war once the Northern Line was finished.
Meanwhile the British Army in the adjacent British and German holdings in China had successfully defeated the German Army in China and occupied the German territories on the contested Shandong peninsula which had been a divided British and German overseas territory for decades.
In June during a Beiyang Army anti-Kuomintang raid in the East Turkestan region the illusive Wu Zuolin who was a suspected Revolutionary General was captured by Beiyang soldiers and after he was interrogated and tortured by Beiyang soldiers he revealed that his convoy of Kuomintang soldiers were bound for Mongolia to return a reply to the Khaan Bogda after he had negotiated an alliance with the Kuomintang against the Empire of China with full support from the Russian Empire. Emperor Yuan Shikai ordered the execution of the traitor for June 5 1915. The convict was quiet about his execution apart from denying his right to see a priest before his death and was executed at exactly 6 am.

Bogda Khaan (Khan Bogd of Mongolia)​

After Wu Zuolin had told his captors of the Khaan’s attempt to forge an alliance with the Kuomintang, Emperor Yuan know had a more than one official logical reason to invade the Mongol Khanate triggering a war with the Russian Empire. Once the Northern Line was scheduled to be completed in 1917 after nearly three years of production Emperor Yuan planned to declare war almost simultaneously but watched his alliances and pacts carefully to avoid a war with the great Entente as the United Kingdom and France both had substantial forces in Vietnam and their holdings in China at Hong Kong, the Shandong Peninsula and Kwang-Chou-Wan that the Beiyang Army couldn’t counter as well as the French Indochina Forces. Emperor Yuan learned from how a network of pacts lead to a greater war in Europe in 1914 that China did not want and planned his way through the proceeding politics of the upcoming Invasion of Mongolia.

 

[unmerged(86922)]

Great so far, but can I see a map or screenshot to see your territory?

 

[HMAS-Nameless]

there is an overall map my land in the next chapter i think.

 

[Beamed]

This will be interesting..

 

[HMAS-Nameless]

CHAPTER III
The Emperor, the Khan and the Dalai Lama
1916/17​

Germany launched a new Invasion of the British occupied Shandong Peninsula at Qingdao in February 1916. The Emperor Yuan seemed to follow the European Chinese and Asian territories carefully alongside the events in Europe hoping that the war would not be over by the end of the creation of the Northern Line which would be a substantial preoccupation while the new Empire of China invaded Mongolia unnoticed except for the obvious Russia reaction. The Great War needed to keep going until at least the beginning of the Chinese Invasion of Mongolia.

British Marines hold a beachhead against the invading German soldiers​

The first and second year after the creation of the new Empire of China and the first years of the Great National Protection War had gone horribly for the Kuomintang as the Beiyang Army arrested and executed countless important Kuomintang Officers. Relising that a change of tactics was needed Sun Yat-sen ordered the new capital of the Kuomintang to be Canton in southern China and would be a new station to order a proper war against the Empire of China and Emperor Yuan Shikai.
After the relocation of the Kuomintang in June the nation of Tibet under the 13th Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso finally offered support for the Kuomintang after it became to feel threatened under the new Empire of China due to rising tensions between the Mongol Khanate as Tibet and the Mongol Khanate were the two nations to gain independence after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. A massive supply convoy from Tibet was discovered by Beiyang Chinese Soldiers after a raid in Guangxi against Kuomintang Revolutionaries. The supplies were seized and the Tibetan Guards and transported were arrested and executed by the Beiyang soldiers. Emperor Yuan who although previously thought of directing a war against Tibet know became infuriated by the Kingdom and contemplated whether a war before his intentions in Mongolia was worth while for he know had a reason to invade the land of the Dalai Lama. In November 1916 three Chinese Armies marched to the border of Tibet in wait for the Emperor’s coming declaration of war as he know recognized and claimed that that Tibet had been part of the Qing Empire for many centuries and was officially part of China establishing a territorial claim on all of the Dalai Lama’s land.

The Land of the Dalai Lama in 1916​

In March 1917 the order was given by Emperor Yuan Shikai to invade Tibet officially declaring war on the 20th. Within hours the border lands of Tibet were captured and the Dalai Lama himself offered peace to Emperor Yuan offering territorial concessions to the Emperor. The following day Emperor Yuan Shikai sent word to the Dalai Lama stating that his forces would not rest until Tibet was once again a land of the Chinese Empire. With this reply the 13th Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso and his highest monks and officers left across the Himalayas into British India seeking refuge in Nepal were he would continue to direct the war against the Chinese Invaders from a more secure position.

Chinese Army Positions during the first weeks of the Invasion​

As the Chinese Invasion of Tibet reached its third month and it seemed the war was almost over as thousands of Tibetan soldiers retreated across the Himalayas into India, word came from Russia that the government had been overturned by the soon to be infamous June Revolution that effectively put an end to the Tsardom as Emperor Nicholas abdicated and the Romanov family retreated to Great Britain while the Soviets under Vladimir Lenin took over the government and set up the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic (RSSR). This forced a change in Emperor Yuan’s plan to invade Mongolia for the better as almost all of the Russian soldiers in Siberia dissolved as the Revolution took place and by the end of June 1917 Emperor Yuan had finished his plans for the Invasion of Mongolia as the RSSR had promised to keep its agreements with the Mongol Khanate. Following the June Revolution in Russia many former autonomous regions of the former Russian Empire declared independence including the Democratic Republic of Georgia, the Republic of Finland, the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (ADR) and the Union of East Ukraine and Crimea. The RSSR signed a peace deal with Germany in July under harsh negotiations Belarus and the Baltic Nations would be ceded to Germany while Moldova and Western Ukraine would be given to Austria-Hungary. By August the Reds as they came to be known as were starting face fierce contest in Russia due the creation of the White Movement and recruitment of the White Army with substantial forces throughout the RSSR with military bases in the Caucasian Democratic Republics. The White Movement forced a strict anti-communism ideology and planned to have a complete Democratic Republic set up in Russia. In reality the white movement was a coalition of revolutionary federations that either wanted a Democratic Russia or the return of the Romanov Monarchy. Emperor Yuan sought out these groups to align himself with them and forge alliances with the Turkestan Democratic Independence Movement (TDIM), the Far East White Movement and the Sibir Asian White Independence Movement. These groups would assist the Chinese in the upcoming planned invasion which was scheduled for timing with the peace with Tibet. Peace with Tibet came as the Treaty of Lhasa in which a small Tibetan Nation would remain only in the city of Lhasa and the surrounding area, a pocket satellite nation surrounded by official Imperial Chinese lands. This would be the residence of the Dalai Lama under strict control of the Chinese Empire. The 13th Dalai Lama returned on the 27th of December to his controlled tiny one province nation in the sea of Chinese control. The new tiny nation would be under overall Imperial control. The following day Emperor Yuan Shikai officially declared war on the Mongol Khanate. A few hours later the head of state of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, Vladimir Lenin, honoured his agreement with the Mongol Khanate of Khaan Bogda and declared war upon the Empire of China. Later again the three simultaneous invasions of Mongolia, Turkestan and Russian Manchuria began to almost no resistance by Russian Red Forces. The Sino-Russian War had begun.

The New R.S.S.R begins the mobilization of its armies, mostly leftover soldiers from the old Russian Empire who joined their cause. ​

 

[unmerged(86922)]

Goin great so far.

 

[unmerged(94521)]

Holy crap this is awesome! More!

I assume you are planning to carry this over to HOII?

 

[Jushu]

Ah, Yuan Shikai´s empire. Looks interesting P:

 

[Stuyvesant]

Interesting developments so far and much potential for the future. I wonder how you'll fare against the Russians (or Soviets, or whatever they style themselves). While you have the benefit of preparation, I assume that the Russians have vastly superior technology...

 

[Nikolai]

Sino-Russian war...*drool*

 

[Davisx3m]

Interesting

 

[HMAS-Nameless]

@Misconstruction - if i make it that far i will but the french seem to have started some last minute post war attempts to build up their colonial empire again... and it seems they are attempting something in asia hhmm:wacko:

@Nikolai - i know ayee

 

[volksmarschall]

Great stuff thus far, if the Russians are mobilizing for war; I can't wait!

Keep up the fantastic work!

 

[Enewald]

To the Urals, to the Urals!!!