[OOC] [RP Closed] Warlords of China

[ClocktowerEchos]

<Snipped quote by ClocktowerEchos>

People tend to prefer their own ideas I think, I know I do.

@Lennon79 Idea, how about with all the weapons we've listed for our army we are required to post a percentage number as well? So you know how many modern, old and medieval weapons are present. Maybe we can even go as far as giving a percentage for the armies or divisions we control so you can clevery look at wheter someone accidently send and entire army that has nothing but bows and swords agaist a force with rifles.

@Sven the Silent

Nah, sounds a bit to complex and bound to piss someone off. We can just say we're all using (relatively) modern weaponry and drop the idea of traditional weapons since I was the only person to use them anyways and I'm changing that

[Dinh AaronMk]

To be perfectly honest, the fact everyone has phased out any and all traces traditional units irritates me for some reason >.>

@ClocktowerEchos

Alright, I've been trying to hold back but I got to say something.

They're dead and gone.

Russian or Anglo intervention in China should have and would have saw fit to export modern arms to the warlords of China. Even the warlords furthest from Nanjing - and by that Chiang Kai-Shek and Sun-Yet Sen - could afford to purchase airplanes as far north as Manchuria. There were wide-spread western interests in China due in part to various formal recognition of zones of influence over China with factors like Russia and Britain's Great Game over central Asia, which included areas of China. As a way to extend their influence weapons were often sold en'masse to China in exchange for economic rights or access.

To compound this, the Qing Dynasty had been attempting to implement horribly late-game reforms to salvage their rule. Including purchasing modern weapons to re-arm their armies and modernize their navy. Although being too late for them, this ended pretty badly. As a point: during the Sino-Japanese War, Chinese officers were known to have pawned off the main guns of their destroyers (in addition to sailors storing trash in those guns and all-around terrible maintenance).

So the modern weapons are there, and they'll continue to come in. Even Tibet underwent an incredible degree of westernization under Thubten Gyatso, who chose to build, model, and arm Tibet's own army after the British military. Mongolia as well was receiving support from Russia.

Of course, with the Republic being virtually divided (which OP fails to recognize) between Yuan Shikai's "New Chinese Empire" in Beijing and the actual Chinese Republic in the south; due in part because Yet-Sen lacked the military support Shikai possessed, but all the same divided the Empire.

Yuan Shikai's rule was however just as shaky in the south, but I would imagine Nanjing would have as much influence over the warlords in the south as Shikai in Beijing, since many weapons sales would - and should - be performed by foreign powers through them. As a matter of fact, the meager Republican Navy (which was little more than river boats) was built by Chiang Kai-Shek and Sun Yet-Sen because they were the recognized heads of government in the recognized ROC (more Kai-Shek being the nation's top general, but that's another matter).

But as for Yuan Shikai, if this is set when he declared himself Emperor/President for life then this would more accurately make the RP set in 1915.

[Lennon79]

If the majority of the players agree that more outdated units would fir better, then I'm all for putting tighter restrictions on what people can use in their armies. It's just that the army was supposed to be a side section of the CS, not the main focus. A good 85% of this RP will be personal, not military action.
Sven's percentage idea is a good way to abstract it, but again I'm not going to force anyone to go that far in-depth. If you want to update your profiles to represent it, great, go for it. But it won't be mandatory.

Guys, we're hitting that mountain/mole hill barrier again, so let's just do this. The baseline for armies will be semi-modern, i.e. basic bolt actions (either single shot or box magazine) and basic artillery. That is our 25%. If people wish to supplement their armies with less advanced forces, that is their own prerogative. As much as I hate to do this, this is my final say in the matter as GM.

[Sven the Silent]

@Dinh AaronMk You are forgetting that even though that they were trying to gain influence in later years, the little Chinese rebellions, as recent as 1901 I might add. Were a big factor of why they should not supply arms towards the Chinese. Furthermore, Russia supported the Mongolians, but only briefly. Tsar Nicholas later called the Mongolian actions, and I quote. ''Mongolian Imperialism'' and refused to sell weapons to them. This lead to the Mongolians having to abandon a very succesfull campaign against the Chinese a year or two later because they lacked weapons and ammunition.

@Lennon79 I will be including the percentage standards into my own character profile and I might apply updates to others parts of it as well.

[Lennon79]

@Dinh AaronMk, your points are correct and relevant in many ways, but this is an alternate history roleplay which parted from real life in 1898. Everything that happened after that date was written (albeit badly) by myself and includes significant differences from what happened in real life.
Kinda wishing I'd put this in casual now...

[Dinh AaronMk]

@Sven the Silent

No. No it wouldn't have ended Western Interventionism. It may have scaled it back to the point the Western authorities chose to deal with the Qing directly as opposed to the people as they did before. But the Boxer Rebellion didn't result in a total draw-back of Western Intervention. As a case: Russia refused to back out of Manchuria as spelled out in the Boxer Protocol after the rebellion was put down, effectively being a term to the Japanese-Russian war three-years later.

Any protocol put into place and recognition of the Qing Dynasty died when they did. The only lasting legacy of rejected or apprehensive western support may have been towards or from Northern China under Yuan Shikai whose politics were predominately defined by anti-Westernism akin to the Boxers. But the southern Republican half of China was willing to work with the west as well a anti-Qing and Monarchial, which Yuan Shikai was. Any western support that followed the Boxer Protocol in whatever symbolic manner they wanted would have been done directly to the Republican south or Sun Yet-Sen and his backers.

[Rare]

I agree with @Dinh AaronMk on this one guys. I also agree that there should be outdated units, it's more realistic.

Plus, Dinh is just helping you guys out. There is no reason to get upset on him for helping.

[Sven the Silent]

@Dinh AaronMk I did not say that it ended Western interventionism, I only provided you with a factual source as to the lack of modern weapons that impacted significant areas of China. The weaker Warlords had to go as far as to equip their armies mainly with medieval weaponry such as spears and swords because they could simply not get or afford the rifles available.

I'm not interested in a long argument, either provide me with a source that supports your claims on the matter or agree to disagree.

@Rare I'm not upset at him, he's claiming some historical inaccuries and i'm trying to help him see the mistakes he made by providing him with information.

[Dinh AaronMk]

@Sven the Silent

You didn't provide anything.

[Lennon79]

Right, that's enough. This debate ends here before it kills what's left of my thread. If you want to continue, take it to PMs.
As I said before, 25% is our baseline with basic pre-WWI technology and doctrine. Outdated units are accepted, but not mandatory. As soon as Rare and Murtox are done, we can start.

[Sven the Silent]

@Sven the Silent

You didn't provide anything.

@Dinh AaronMk

I give you an actual quote of the man but you can't seem to figure out google, m'kay. I'll give you a link myself then, free of charge. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mongolia or more specifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_Revolution_of_1911

The bit I mentioned is in the first link provided, it's under the Bogd Khaanate (1911–1924) section.

[Lennon79]

Sven, enough.

[Sven the Silent]

Sven, enough.

@Lennon79

I was typing the post whilst you posted your message, I would have send a private message if I had noticed your message before that.

[Lennon79]

That's fair enough. But from now on any historic debates can be held privately unless relevant to the RP, in which case I will make the final decision.

[Sven the Silent]

Alrighty, I updated my army section with my own idea. I have not included indvidual army units as of yet, but i've given some details in the organisation section as to the whereabouts of the ''good'' and ''bad'' equipment.

[Sven the Silent]

@Rare I was looking at your province sheet and I double checked your population, purely for my own curiousity. My sources put the population at 15,379,000 million in 1911. So you can increase it with another 5 million, if you would like to use my information that is. (Things do not have to be realistic after all.) I figured you might take up that offer seeing as your current population is 10,200,000 million I believe and your army and navy combined 2,900,000 million. That's currently 28,43% of your population, it would put a tremendous strain on your industry, agriculture and just about everything else. These problems normally occur when 10% of one's population is mobilised, 28,43% takes it to a whole new level.

Anyways, to cut my rambling short. Having the confirmed 15,379,000 million population decreased that 28,43% population mobilised to roughly 18,86% and decreases its effects on your province accordingly. :)

Edit: I have found additional information and I will be updating the population of the the provinces currently used by everyone.

Provinces with my updated population estimate:
Jiangsu = 26,172,048 million.
Ningxia = 1,210,000 million.
Quangdong = 25,696,400 million.
Qinghai = 943,000 thousand.

[Lennon79]

Fair enough; I've had hell trying to find accurate census data so gave up ages ago.
Also, Murtox has contacted me and has withdrawn. I'll remove him from the roster.
/edit Wait, I didn't put him on the roster... /shrug

[Chairman Stein]

I come back to a debate on weapons... Dandy.

So, any idea when we start this shin-dig or are we still just trying to get a few more players?

[Lennon79]

I'm happy with 6, though recruitment will remain open. I'll start working on the OP once Rare is finished.

[Rare]

(This is meant for everyone)

So I found this and it turns out that Jiangsu is one of the most populated areas (even the chart above was made in 2010). Since the population in 1900 was 415,001,488 million and 427,662,000 million in 1911, does that mean that Jiangsu have the population of 20,583,200 based on this?

And I also found this to help you guys out as well: