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A Little Trouble in Big China - A Chinese Warlord Quest

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As far as I can see, there is still a bit of H-KMT land, there has not been marked as occupied by the K-KMT.
I do not think, that those areas are going to put up much off a fight, but it is still open for conquest.
 
Mortenkam said:
As far as I can see, there is still a bit of H-KMT land, there has not been marked as occupied by the K-KMT.
I do not think, that those areas are going to put up much off a fight, but it is still open for conquest.
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An excellent springboard for comrade Mao's Long March! Do not worry, you won't be able to regret your mistake for long....
 
Doesn't look like the H-KMT is doing so hot. Maybe better luck in the northwest, if the Qing expedition doesn't squish it. If Mao's partisans survive the trek into Qing (if, the K-KMT forces are huge and powerful and their surveillance is top notch) they could stir up quite a ruckus, though. Qing attentions and central power are currently focused on the corners farthest from the south IIRC, and the only warlord clique in the area that can respond on its own is Anhui. That clique is loosely controlled by Wu Peifu ever since he needed to be bribed to not defect to K-KMT, so I doubt it's incredibly focused on local affairs or of strong power itself but is rather being siphoned from to soup up Greater Zhili's efforts further away. With all of that I don't know how Qing could respond to conflict again erupting.

I'm pleased to see the Mongolian progress, of course. Not sure how they'll fare next turn, my hope is that the loans and what they buy with them can help to give them some halfway-decent equipment to turn their zeal into results. It seems that Soviet attention at least for the moment is falling more so on Xinjiang, I guess due to it being higher population (more important to secure) and less remote.

I'm really curious as to what the head of the Ma Clique must be thinking out in Qinghai. Qing is trying to chip away warlord privileges (at least from ones that aren't considered as important), the Soviets just assassinated his neighbor and made Xinjiang a warzone, and the virulently anticommunist K-KMT seems to be surging ahead in the south while having powerful intelligence agencies developed to counter communist infiltration. Hmm...
 
I love when people ignore plans I have made that have made the development of the Anhui Clique as integral as the Zhili.

Hopefully people continue to underestimate efforts.
 
ZealousThoughts said:
And build up general forces. And build up infrastructure in the region. And push to make it and Tianjin the two made Qing trade hubs into the interior.

That was just this turn.
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You did that in Nanjing, which is not in Anhui and has other local security concerns due to how the Japanese took Shanghai which is nearby. I just don't think anti-partisan defense was set as a priority of Qing this turn, as I think Mao would stay far away from the large city of Nanjing where you're focusing your efforts on in the south.
 
Kipeci said:
You did that in Nanjing, which is not in Anhui and has other local security concerns due to how the Japanese took Shanghai which is nearby. I just don't think anti-partisan defense was set as a priority of Qing this turn, as I think Mao would stay far away from the large city of Nanjing where you're focusing your efforts on in the south.
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Nanjing looked to just about be in the Anhui Clique looking at maps and is the hub to expand into the interior of Anhui.
 
ZealousThoughts said:
Nanjing looked to just about be in the Anhui Clique looking at maps and is the hub to expand into the interior of Anhui.
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Nanjing is in Jiangsu, though, even if it is near to Anhui. The thought of my post was that subordinated Anhui is likely not strong enough to independently eradicate incoming partisans in the southern areas of Qing control (which is probably Hubei province judging by how that's where the strip of formely H-KMT lands [with likely more popular support for CPC partisans and less iron-tight control by K-KMT ] lead) should they lodge themselves in the vicinity without the specific impetus and allocation of resources from a point in a voting plan. Raising an army on the opposite side of Anhui province from the area of concern (Nanjing is 540 km from Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei which is in the eastern part of that province) to me doesn't alleviate that problem, especially since as your own plan acknowledges the local infrastructure is presently terrible and you're needing to build rail into a province immediately adjacent to Nanjing to get reasonable transport between even that distance.
 
Kipeci said:
Nanjing is in Jiangsu, though, even if it is near to Anhui. The thought of my post was that subordinated Anhui is likely not strong enough to independently eradicate incoming partisans in the southern areas of Qing control (which is probably Hubei province judging by how that's where the strip of formely H-KMT lands [with likely more popular support for CPC partisans and less iron-tight control by K-KMT ] lead) should they lodge themselves in the vicinity without the specific impetus and allocation of resources from a point in a voting plan. Raising an army on the opposite side of Anhui province from the area of concern (Nanjing is 540 km from Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei which is in the eastern part of that province) to me doesn't alleviate that problem, especially since as your own plan acknowledges the local infrastructure is presently terrible and you're needing to build rail into a province immediately adjacent to Nanjing to get reasonable transport between even that distance.
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And I am increasing forces in Anhui from 20k to 30k and in Nanjing raising a fully new unit. Fully 44% of Wu's military strength will be in or directly adjacent to the province.
 
@Daadarian, what is the Zhuhai Tong's OOB as of 1927? Is it greatly changed from the 1925 OOB?
 
ZealousThoughts said:
And I am increasing forces in Anhui from 20k to 30k and in Nanjing raising a fully new unit. Fully 44% of Wu's military strength will be in or directly adjacent to the province.
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I don't care about Anhui in this but more so about what Anhui can independently perform to eliminate Mao's potential 25,000 incoming partisans (per the 1925 OOB) in neighboring Hubei without direction on the matter as 1928 comes. You may be raising forces in Nanjing now, but they do not exist yet and thus cannot help defend an area two provinces over, especially as you weren't directing them to. For that matter, I've been looking more closely at the numbers & they do not line up with what you have written. Look again to your vote here.

ZealousThoughts said:
A Sprinkling Of Pride Goes A Long Way - In line with Wu's ongoing 1:2 rule (for every twice that the Little Tiger raises more troops that he cant afford then Wu will expand his forces once in a manageable fashion), Wu will undertake a new recruitment campaign with a difference, advertising the education in reading and writing that NCOs and those who rise in the ranks will get. Advertising the uniform and pay that soldiers recieve regularly without relying on other Warlords to have enough money to pay. Advertising the United Banners as the Emperor's undefeated protectors and the elite of the Imperial Army. This will entail a 60,000 man expansion of the United Banners in total. Fang and Zhang Xun instructed to raised 10,000 men each, Zhili Province to raise 25,000, Nanjing 10,000 and the Western Banners 5,000. The key thing here will be twofold, emphasising the chance to serve the Jade Marshal and through him the Empire and second the painting of a life in the military as a true service to the nation that will reward them.
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ZealousThoughts said:
The Nanjing Fleet - River gunboats are to be purchased to protect the Yangtze and two corps of men raised to be trained as water based cavalry to be the initial spearhead in any future conflict that might occur with the south.
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Before I start, here are two maps for any onlooker to compare between so that there's an easy reference to which province is called what. It's not one-to-one but it's close enough for our purposes here.
Let's check this with the 1925 OOB. There are seven warlord domains in Qing China per the current 1927 map. Wu Peifu of course leads Zhili (the old-fashioned term for the area the map calls Hebei), while the more independent Zhang Xueliang leads the remnants of his Fengtian clique in what are actually fragments of Liaobei (NOT Jehol). The Green (Western) Banner are Qinghai under Ma Fuxiang and the Xinjiang under the aptly named Xinjiang Triumvirate. For the Blue (Eastern) Banner excluding Wu himself: Fang is governor in Chahar, and the two remaining are Duan Qirui as governor of Anhui (this was made after the 1925 update in which Anhui was subordinated to Wu Peifu, so I guess he was retained in office even though he and his forces were made to submit to Greater Zhili and the Anhui Clique is no longer its own entity) and Zhang Xun as governor of Hebei. Now, it doesn't actually make much sense that Zhang Xun is governor of Hebei because Hebei is just renamed Zhili, but the province of Jehol/Rehe is unoccupied (again, it seems that Zhang Xueliang rules bits of Liaobei and not actually Jehol despite the Jehol Clique name) so by process of elimination it seems that Zhang Xun is governor of Jehol/Rehe.

The 1925 OOB gave us a helpful tally of who had what forces in 1925. The only explicitly numbered additions since were your post-1925 vote (which aimed to swell the Green Banner forces, that is, Qinghai & Xinjiang by 20,000) and now your post-1927 vote which I have quoted above. So, looking at these we can discern a rough guesstimate of your current and future force distribution which does not factor in the swelling that wasn't explicitly set as a target. Note, I will ignore artillery and horses for the moment, my only concern is men right now and I doubt those horse & artillery numbers are anywhere near as consistent with all the recent splurging on equipment. I assume you gained all the men you asked for as regulars in the post-1925 vote.

Zhili = 30,000 + (25,000 for Zhili 1928) = 30,000 men now w/ 25,000 to come
Chahar = 10,000 regulars & 15,000 conscripts + (10,000 for Yang 1928) = 25,000 men now w/ 10,000 to come
Hebei (actually Jehol/Rehe via Zhang Xun) = 20,000 regulars & 10,000 conscripts + (10,000 for Zhang 1928) = 30,000 men now w/ 10,000 to come
Green Banner (Xinjiang & Qinghai) = (5,000 regulars & 15,000 conscripts) + (10,000 regulars & 5,000 conscripts) + (20,000 for GB 1926) + (5,000 for GB 1928) = 55,000 men now w/ 5,000 to come
Nanjing = 0 + (10,000 for Nanjing 1928) = 10,000 to come
Anhui = 20,000 men now

Additionally, your Nanjing fleet vote asks for two corps of men associated with the river boats on the Yangtze. A corps is somewhere from 30k-50k men. The only areas you have on the Yangtze are Nanjing and Anhui, so if we combine them for this purpose we get this:
Yangtze = 20,000 + 0 + (10,000 for Nanjing 1928) + (60,000 to 100,000 for Yangtze 1928) = 20,000 men w/ 70,000 to 110,000 to come

So.

Total = 160,000 men now w/ 120,000 to 160,000 to come

This means that presently the Yangtze forces represent 12.5% of your total at this moment. If the military expansions work flawlessly and you get the full possible extension of men that you can in the Yangtze area (the 20k already in Anhui plus the expected 10k in Nanjing and the expected 60k-100k of the corps of "water cavalry") then the resulting figure of 90k-130k divided by 280k-320k puts 32.2-40.7% of your future forces along the Yangtze region, the vast majority of which would have no experience outside of the year's training for riverine warfare with however many gunboats you are able to purchase to ferry them along.

Mao's 1925 forces of 25,000 partisans (which admittedly are uncertain, they may wax with the recent voter support or fall with the trek through K-KMT deathzone territory) is greater than the forces you currently have in Anhui, which to me makes it seem unlikely that Anhui's subordinate leadership would be able & daring enough to independently ride out and squish them out in an entirely different province while they're simultaneously concerned with recruiting and training a force that's potentially 4-6 times their current number. If things have gone well in recruiting then next year you will have a large force with which to steam west and attack (provided enough gunships, which could get quite expensive), but if Mao's partisans were to discern that such a huge host was coming up the river & retreat in the northwest direction then they'd basically be out of attack range. Unless you want those men to operate out of their roles and training & leave the boats to chase partisans on foot, which combined with how green they are seems unlikely to set you up for success.

Edit:
@Daadarian, what is the Zhuhai Tong's OOB as of 1927? Is it greatly changed from the 1925 OOB?
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@kilopi505 Dadarian has let me know in the past that he's not giving anyone specific person the exact sort of economic/OOB information in that 1925 informational post on demand as he thinks it would be unfair if it weren't done for everyone at once. I would imagine though that the Zhuhai Tong's numbers would remain fairly microscopic in comparison to most everyone else. Maybe your Taiwan tong members are now comparable to the number you used to have in Zhuhai & Macau at some thousands since there they've had some substantial growth.

Though, before you get too giddy about that, the Japanese garrison in Taiwan has got to be something like a couple tens of thousands strong or so if it's comparable to our times. It may be more because the IJA has a bit of a bloody nose and so the IJN has more relative prominence, combined with how Taiwan is important for Japanese naval adventurism in the southern direction where juicy European colonies lie. Additionally, the Japanese presence in Fujian is stronger in this timeline and since Taiwan is right across the straight (to the point that Taiwan used to be considered a part of Fujian) there was presumably some buildup associated with that. So I don't think your Tong forces could really go toe-to-toe with the Japanese garrison of Taiwan right now.

They're also dwarfed by neighboring H-KMT forces but unlike the Japanese those guys are pretty distracted right now. DanBaque was leaning on you fairly hard to make an agreeable deal with him or suffer the consequences, but are they really going to add in one more enemy to the long list while the K-KMT is basically at their very gates? To pick a fight at their back as well as the front over the issue of some smuggling and minor shootouts? I think you don't have to let the H-KMT walk all over you like that, you have more options than just Zhuhai anyway (what's dodging a measly death squad or two to Du Yuesheng at this point?) and you can cause them much more grievous trouble if you to step up your cooperation with your good buddy Chiang Kai-Shek by ex. giving him ALL the info you've been holding back than what they would gain from the resources of an occupied Zhuhai.
 
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I am not recruiting 60k or more in Nanjing.

And based on standing numbers 20k out of a total of 50k is around 40% the Western banners are only de facto mine

Edit: And most important, he has to cross the Yangtze. And there are no bridges east of Yibin. And the Yangtze is not an easy crossing without a lot of time, a lot of boats or pontoons made by military engineers.
 
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ZealousThoughts said:
I am not recruiting 60k or more in Nanjing.
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How big did you intend these 'corps' of "river cavalry" to be, then? They're usually multiple divisions a pop. Regardless, they're not created yet.

ZealousThoughts said:
And based on standing numbers 20k out of a total of 50k is around 40% the Western banners are only de facto mine
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OK. That's a good deal less daunting than what I thought you were saying.

Edit: And most important, he has to cross the Yangtze. And there are no bridges east of Yibin. And the Yangtze is not an easy crossing without a lot of time, a lot of boats or pontoons made by military engineers.
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This is a great point. I was grossly underestimating the width of the Yangtze even so far upstream as the Wuhan area. I doubt that the British and other colonial powers patrolling the area would be incredibly eager to allow a bunch of communists to create a pontoon bridge which would block off the flow of cargo and goods. Commandeering enough boats on the necessary scale to ferry thousands of partisans over would likely draw a heck of a lot of attention that they really don't need while still mostly on the K-KMT side.

Were it not for the fact that OTL Mao is the best swimmer who has ever lived, conquering 15 km of the Yangtze in just over an hour at the age of 73 with nothing more than a hearty cult of personality, I might think that he'd be in real pickle right now. :oops:
 
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In appearance, the Qing and K-KMT are strong, but in reality they aren't. They rely on oppressing the people, which makes them weak. They are nothing more than paper tigers! Our cadres on the other hand, are one with the people. Through the revolutionary war, they have been forged into a mighty hammer, whih we shall use to crush the Reactionaries! They are like a storm and the Qing tiger, being made out of paper, will be unable to withstand the wind and the rain.

With sufficient revolutionary spirit, even the seemingly impossible becomes possible! The Reactionaries will never understand this because they only fight for personal gain.

I'd post an image of comrade Mao swimming, but I can't while on my mobile. I also doubt anyone would want to see that. :V
 
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Random Member said:
In appearance, the Qing and K-KMT are strong, but in reality they aren't. They rely on oppressing the people, which makes them weak. They are nothing more than paper tigers! Our cadres on the other hand, are one with the people. Through the revolutionary war, they have been forged into a mighty hammer, whih we shall use to crush the Reactionaries! They are like a storm and the Qing tiger, being made out of paper, will be unable to withstand the wind and the rain.

With sufficient revolutionary spirit, even the seemingly impossible becomes possible! The Reactionaries will never understand this because they only fight for personal gain.

I'd post an image of comrade Mao swimming, but I can't while on my mobile. I also doubt anyone would want to see that. :V
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You should ask the combatants of World War 1 where the spirit of the attack led them.

And no, Chinese forces in the Korean War used a lot of light infantry tactics to push the UN Forces out of North Korea.
 
Random Member said:
With sufficient revolutionary spirit, even the seemingly impossible becomes possible! The Reactionaries will never understand this because they only fight for personal gain.
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Moneylenders and capitalists quake at your achievements in revolutionary zeal, comrade. You shall demonstrate to the world the true miracles of socialism, flaring your nostrils with the patriotic spirit of the modern socialist worker and liberating the people from such archaic chains as the need to breath air- let your brethren see that the new socialist man is as well at home amidst the river beds as in laboring in the factories and fields!

I'd post an image of comrade Mao swimming, but I can't while on my mobile. I also doubt anyone would want to see that. :V
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The balloons and red flags look fun and all, but it's already going to be like shooting fish in a barrel for the K-KMT.
 
Balloons...rubber...

...Latex is invented in 1920...

Waterproof...make business connections with the most unlikeliest of sources in America and Great Britain and France and Japan...a business that no one could scream 'criminals' or 'communists' or whatever political thingy because said industry is...

AHAHAHAHA!

FOR MY NEXT MAGIC TRICK OF MAKING UNCONVENTIONAL WEAPONS, I SHALL INTRODUCE...

Condom grenades!

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/improvised-condom-balloon-bombs-are-being-used-in-syria-1738382546

And yes. I'm serious about putting this in the next turn. Gotta make business connections abroad, after all.
 
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