Sven the Silent

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

Accepted Sven, chuck him in the CS tab.

@Lennon79

Done.

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

Warlord CS

Appearance:


Name:
Yan Shikai Hsi-shan.

Age:
56 years old.

Ethnicity:
Han, Chinese.

Military Rank:
General.

Government Position:
Head of State.

Goverment Policy:
Yan believes that, unless he is able to modernize and boost Ningxia's economy and infrastructure, he would be unable to prevent Ningxia from being overrun by rival warlords. He therefor follows an active policy of industrialisation whilst at the same time introducing militarism to develop a strong and nationalistic society, capable of defending its own interests.

In order to maintain public order and control, Yan's government promotes equal rights for both men and women and provides a free, state funded schooling system that is succeeding in producing a population of trained workers and farmers literate enough to be indoctrinated without difficulty.

Yan has also introduced a policy to eradicate the use of opium by rehabilitating addicts, pressuring individuals through their families, constructing sanitariums designed to slowly cure addicts of their addictions and by outlawing the production and growth of opium by instead promoting the growth of Goji berries and their usage in wine.

By actively promoting Christianity throughout his province and supporting the foreign missionaries, Yan has managed to gain some support from the west. Unfortunately the nature of his province, with no access to the sea, limits the aid, if any, he is capable of receiving.

Personality:
In order to maintain Ningxia's neutrality and free it from serious military confrontations with rival warlords, Yan developed a strategy of shifting alliances between various warring cliques, inevitably joining only winning sides. Although he was weaker than many of the warlords that surrounded him, he often held the balance of power between neighboring rivals, and even those that he betrayed hesitated to retaliate against him, in case they might need his support in the future.

Yan implements numerous reforms in an effort to centralize his control over the province. Although embracing the traditional values of the landed gentry, he denounces their oppression of the peasantry, and takes steps to initiate land reforms and to weaken the power of landowners over the populace in the countryside. These reforms have so far succeeded in weakning the position of potential rivals in his province in addition to benefiting the Ningxia farmers.

Despite acting for the good of the people under his rule, most of his policies are also set-up in such a way that it increases his old over the province and his popularity. Effectively reforming the people and the land into what he believes is right for both him and the people.

Biography:
Yan grew up in the city of Yinchuan, Ningxia. His father was an officer in the army of the Qing Dynasty and commanded a small infantry platoon to keep order in this city and the area surrounding the city. His father's position did not give him a lot of power but it did earn him a small amount of wealth and allowed his family to live above the normal standard of living.

Unfortunately that state of living did not continue for very long. His father was executed at the start of the first Dungan Revolt in 1862 and reduced his family's standard of living to below the normal standard of living, in poverty. After several years of living in poverty, Yan decided to join the local Muslim militia at the young age of fourteen, in order to help out his family.

Fortunately, his young age spared him from being used as cannon fodder and he was given the task of spying on the troops of the Qing Dynasty, which he did, for nearly a year before he got captured. His age spared him again, this time from execution. Instead he ended up volunteering for service in the regiment that had captured him, starting his career as a double spy.

Over the course of the conflict he continued to act as a double spy, only openly joining the military ranks of the Qing Dynasty when his cover was blown. The final two years of the rebellion he spend as a soldier on the frontline, fighting throughout the province he once called home. This experience thought him the terrain and his time in the military inspired his amibitions later in life.

His presence in the war also brought out his hatred for Muslims, if you fight someone long enough you will grow to hate them regardless, he had a reason though. The assassination of his father only fueled his dislike of the Hui people. As a result the unit he fought in took part in several war crimes, most of them being the execution of captured prisoners or the large scale of rape that took place. He would grow to deny and dismiss this part of his life but he did his fair share.

With the conflict over and the majority of the Hui people deported to other areas of China or Imperial Russia, he returned to his city to find out that the remnants of his family had been executed because of his service in the Qing Dynasty's military.

Having been particularly disgusted by the events he witnissed he became a strong supporter of every other religion that wasn't based on the muslim extremist ways and their sharia laws. Yan eventually found comfort in Christianity and grew to support it as the sole religion people should follow, a practise that has continued throughout his later life.

He kept his presence in the military, rising through the ranks while also becoming disgusted with what the regime had turned into, the numerous defeats at the hands of foreign power showed that the Qing Dynasty was a dying creature that was slowing down the herd. He pretended to be loyal though, serving loyally in the second Dungan revolt and the Boxer rebellion. By the time of the Warlord era things had become to unstable and Yan decided to take control over his own province, a relatively small area that he was able to control uncontested.

His years as a spy provided him with some experience in Diplomacy and flat out lying without it being noticeable. To best serve his own interest he married a young Mongolian girl, decreasing tensions with the Inner-Mongolian region to his north and eventually obtaining a safe passage from supplies coming from Russia through Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, the formentioned route was long though so supplies and trade were limited and hard to come by.

Other:
- Yan has converted to Christianity and has developed a firm anti-Muslim stance based on events in his teenage years.
- Yan enjoys high prestige as a military commander but in reality is only an average tactician. His policy of supporting the winning side in conflicts has enabled him to often succeed in driving out the larger armies of his rivals. Which unknowst to others were more often then not, suffering from lack of reinforcements, armament, low morale and disorganisation as a result of having engaged in numerous campaigns against others beforehand.

Province CS

Ningxia:

Location:
Physiographically, the Ningxia region can be divided into two parts. Southern Ningxia is part of the Loess Plateau, with the Liupan Mountains as the main ridge. Northern Ningxia is made up for the most part of the Ningxia plain of the Huang He. The river enters Ningxia from the Qinghai plateau in Gansu and flows east and then north into Inner Mongolia. West of the plain are the Helan Mountains. These mountains serve as a shelter against the sandstorms from the Tengger Desert, which lies to the west of the mountains. It is a relatively arid region, including the Tengger desert in Shapotou, but the ancient Yellow River irrigational system ensures the northern part is well watered.

The province can thus be described as having a mostly mountainous and highland type of terrain which features some generally flat regions in the south and a small region of desert in the north, the desert lacks sand however and the ground is mostly covered in a layer of cracked rock. The flat terrain in the north and south heavily favours the defender, giving them a clear view of the enemy on the flat terrain but also providing mountains and hills, which are excellent defensive positions, to retreat towards when needed.

Climate:
Ningxia has a temperate continental climate of long, cold winters and short, hot summers; temperature is lowest in January, averaging from -10 to -7 degrees Celsius and highest in July, averaging from 17 to 24 degrees Celsius. Annual rainfall averages from 190-700 millimeters.

Population:
1,210,000 million.

Ethnic Composition:
91% Han, Chinese.
6% Mongolian.
1,6% Manchu, Chinese.
1,4% Hui, Chinese.

Natural Resources:
Ningxia is rich in mineral resources, with verified deposits of fifty kinds of minerals including coal, gypsum (for which it leads all of China), oil, natural gas, pottery clay, quartz sandstone, and barite. There are also sizable quantities of phosphorus, firestone, copper, iron, and a variety of other minerals. Ningxia is however still developing its industries and is currently not capable of exploiting its natural resources to the fullest extend.

Major Exports:
Traditionally the export of Goji berries has always been present, but recently through government policies, various wines have also started to appear. Ningxia is rich in mineral resources, and is thus able to export the resources of which it has a surplus, such as; coal, gypsum, quartz sandstone, firestone, copper and iron.

Military Forces:

Size of Army:
60,000 active personnel.

Standardisation and Professionalism:
25%

General Arms:

Rifles and Machine guns:

Berdan rifle - 33% or 19,800.
M1867 Russian Krnka - 9% or 5,400.
Mauser Model 1871 - 22% or 13,200.
Gewehr 98 - 8% or 4,800.
Hanyang 88 - 13% or 7,800.
Madsen machine gun - 0,023% or 21.
M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun - 0,020% or 12

Traditional weapons:

Swords, spears and to a lesser extend various other melee weapons - 9% or 5,400.
Bows and crossbows - 15,957% or 9,567.

Organisation:
Yan's officer corps is drawn from Ningxia's gentry, and given two years of education at government expense in order to produce experienced leaders. Each officer is given a large amount of freedom whilst conducting operations, in order to exploit their leadership skills to the fullest extend.

The army itself is devided into 12 brigades, each with a total strength of 5,000 personnel. Each brigade is devided into five regiments with a total strength of 1,000 personnel. And each regiment is devided into four companies with a total strength of 250 personnel. This of course is the situation on offical government records, commanders are free to merge units or companies if one flank is threatened to much.

Most of the machine guns and rifles have been relocated to the flat areas in the south and north of the province to combat possible mass charges with cavalary or infantry. As a result of this the mountain areas suffer some what by having a larger amount of obsolete and traditional weaponry, but make up for this by the excellence defence the area provides.

The some what large mix of different weapons provides some logistical troubles in terms of resupplying ammunition, but proper decipline and detailed military records on troops movements has reduced this problem significantly.

Other:
Yan is attempting, via conscription, to create a civilian reserve that would become the foundation of society in Ningxia. His army is one of very few, if not the only army in Warlord infested China that is exclusively recruited from its own province. This combined with Yan's policy that insists that the soldiers preform work to improve Ningxia's infrastructure and industrial base, including road-maintenance and assisting farmers. Ensures that the entire army is loyal, disciplined and well liked amongst the populace. Yan's discipline even ensures that his soldiers actually pay for anything that they take from civilians, the army in Ningxia thus enjoyes much more popular support than most of its rival armies in China.

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

<Snipped quote by Sven the Silent>

I'd rather keep the current number mostly for balance. Every other province thus far has a larger population and I'd rather not be crushed within the first year.

@Chairman Stein

You control a rather large area and you already have a small population, so I understand. I think even in your current condition it would be very hard to defend. Fortunately, the areas around you. (Including me) mostly have a low population as well. :P

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

My character sheet is finished i'd say. Might put some additional data into the biography though. I tend to ramble on so I cut it short in the end.

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

I couldn't find any information on the population of Qinghai what-so-ever so I just took the modern population and divided it by 25%.

@Chairman Stein

Well, if you like you can always apply the data I've provided you. You'd probably have to substract a few hundered thousand from the 1936 number though if you wanted to do that. :)

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

Before we get too into exact numbers and such, remember that this is alternate history. There is leeway for provinces to develop differently than they did in real life, including variations in population. So long as it's reasonable for the location and terrain, I'm happy for states to have ahistoric stats. Balance is much more important.

@Lennon79

I know, I just get some satisfaction from being able to find information and being to help people out with population numbers and even weapons if they would like some information on that. (I'm aware nobody asked, but I was curious regardless and figured I might as well post population data here.)

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

@Chairman Stein I've been looking through the active characters currently present on the character page, and I have noticed that your population is much higher then it should be. The offical and earliest population census that has been accepted as fact claims your area to have a population of 1,676,534 million people in 1953. The information I have found myself regarding the population of all the provinces gives a number of 1,196,100 million people in 1936. The time table it's on goes back further but has no population information on your province going further back then the year 1936. I would assume that the population would be even less if we go back 26 years to 1910, most likely by a few hunderd thousand atleast.

I don't see any events I have overlooked so I think i'm pretty accurate, just figured you might enjoy some more detailed information on the population. (Don't feel obliged to change things though, we're not bound to be historically accurate. I'm just a sucker for accuracy myself.)

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

Only reason I selected the numbers I did was because I have no idea what I should be making the actual numbers. Seems to be a 'pick a figure and go with it' kind of deal without rules or guidelines.

@Bright_Ops

It requires you to do some research, it really isn't that hard to look for reliable sources or population censuses on the region you're controlling. You can read through some of its history as well, so you know what's up or what's going to be coming your way.

Also, by doing a quick search on your province I found out that you are currently in the middle of an epidemic of the pneumonic plague, it was the worst-ever recorded outbreak of the pneumonic plague which was spread through the Trans-Manchurian railway.

Edit: Some research into your province gives me the number of 15,834,000 million in 1908 for the entire population in the area of what would later become the puppet state of Manchukuo. (Your province is a small area of the formentioned land and thus 10 million for the total population may be a little high.)

Second Edit: My sources give a rough figure of 5,350,000 million for the population of Jilin in 1911, which should be slightly higher in 1910 because of the plague that started in 1910.

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

If you want personal recommendations, I recommend the Nambu, the Type 30, the Type 38, the Nagant, the Madsen and the Type 26 with the 37mm as a support gun

@ClocktowerEchos

I mind you that he needs to look at the number produced. The Nagant for example had 2,000,000 units produced and was in service from 1986 to 1950 in Russia and Belgium. The page gives and average of 20,000 produced each year. Say they produced them untill 1930, which is near the year that they were ''obsolete'' and replaced by better variants. That's 44 years or roughly 45,000 models a year. We're in 1910 at the moment so that makes 1,080,000 produced by then. If we're claiming what i'm using as a ''fact'' that is. I recall his army having 800,000 conscripts. That would only leave 280,000 pistols to be devided between Belgium and the Russian army, the latter being the one it was specifically produced for. Therefor it seems highly unlikely that he would have a high quantity of a sparesly produced pistol. (I'm aware you never said every soldier had one, but you did not include it as a support gun which made me assume it was part of the main armament.)

So basically, i'm being a buzzkill. But I love realism, and I think that people should take things like the above into account.

Edit: Japan would also never-ever supply weapons to any Chinees faction in that time, unless they were a proper Japanees puppet regime. I'm aware there are smugglers, but with the quantity produced of many of the weapons it's very unlikely he will have enough weapons to field such a large army.

Edit to the edit: You are also supplying him with fairly modern rifles, which is not very accurate. Try giving him the single shot old rifles from the 1880's and what not. Because that was much more common those days. There is a reason that the Japanees used Banzai charges against the Chinees on numerous occassions. Simply because they had one shot rifles and couldn't do much to repel the charges succesfully.

(I hope this helps, don't want to be a dick, just giving some information.)

Edit of the edit to the edit: Am I accepted by the way? My character sheet is 95% done, only the biography needs to be added. The rest has been finished, as accurately and historically correct as I could, I might add.

[RP Closed] Warlords of China

Found a population census dating back to 1900, jackpot. The information and figures are debatable, but that's the situation for all Chinees population census's going back that far.