El Camino de la Sangre/The Road of Blood

a) I was actually thinking of the scenario similar to the spoof documentary the Confederate States of America, where American society in that documentary looked stale and rather rigid. There could be a larger population of American military veterans, depending on how many wars TTL's US gets involved into. With the Philippine ulcer becoming a bit more dangerous, the grievances of those veterans from the Philippine conflict would become quite dangerous, including both Smedley Butler and George Van Horn Moseley. I would suspect that the American society that would be built by the NatSynds may be a hybrid of an America that never elected FDR, Nazi Germany, and to a lesser extent, the old CSA. Stale, rigid, boring, and not so vibrant. Yet, I would also suspect that American racism might not be a rigid kind of WASP supremacy, since the US also has a large number of Scottish, Irish, and Scots-Irish population, as well as Dutch and German as well. I would suspect that the NatSynd style of racism would be more along the lines of the OTL Nazi racial rhetoric of the Germanic peoples as the dominant group, so politically, the NatSynds would emphasize the Germanic and to a lesser extent, Celtic heritage of the United States. This could also allow Moseley to win support from the Irish population that are fighting the British, and it might also attract the other kinds of Germans that are more prone to anti-Semitism to settle in the US. 

IOTL, there was an organization called the German-American Bund, which was basically the American branch of the OTL Nazi Party. The Bund was basically being backed by the Nazis, which also garnered more support for fascism within the United States. Additionally, there was also the Silver Legion, which was another fascist party that wanted the US to remain isolationist as well. ITTL, while I could see a similar organization to the Bund arising, it might become more of a club for the German immigrant community, even though the US is steadily becoming more anti-German diplomatically, until there would be an event where Britain and Germany would be forced to mend ties with the US.

b) As I have hinted in earlier updates, there might also be foreign volunteers that will join the civil war on either side. For instance, the earlier update mentions a Russian volunteer unit that will be fighting for the French reactionaries, but what if there were some ethnic minorities that despised the Russian Empire, that would be fighting for the French Republic? The seeds of the 1906 Russian Revolution might actually be planted in the fields of France, if the notion of a successful Jewish defense of their community against an attempted pogrom rings true ITTL. 

I would think that it might be the colonies that would be divided up between Britain, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and possibly Italy as well. Yet, we've already seen the US buy the French West Indies, so chances are that France might be forced to sell the less profitable colonies to desperate colonial powers to fund its own war effort. French Indochina in particular, would be a very interesting target for Japan to purchase as well, and given that the American appetite for Asian colonies may go down as a result of their misadventures in the Philippines, they might also be forced to look at the possibility of trying to purchase the French colonies in the wider Pacific region, before Britain buys them. The Italians would be interested in purchasing Tunisia from the French because its proximity to Sicily is a matter of national security for them. France might not even form a protectorate in Morocco, which would now fall on the Spanish to try and conquer them.

One other thing that I almost forgot to mention is that the events that led to the French Civil War was the bungling of the Dreyfus affair. Given that Dreyfus is now being exiled to Madagascar, there might be a desire on part of either Britain, Portugal, or even Germany, to purchase Madagascar from the French. I would also suspect that the Germans may also propose parts of Namibia as a kind of a Jewish homeland to Theodore Herzl if the Palestine plan goes belly up. The diplomatic pressure that Britain and Germany would impose on the Ottoman Empire to create a Jewish entity in Palestine might also become the kind of scenario where the Turks would downgrade their relations with them. 

c) The Philippines in this case would remain culturally Hispanic, though there may also be some form of Japanese influence in the region. Let's not forget that the Philippines might also become a model quasi-colony for other Asians to flee to, especially for Vietnamese fleeing from French terror in French Indochina, or even Indians fleeing from British rule in the Raj. It would basically be Manchukuo as an island, but Christian dominated. 

Given that the US might have a harder time trying to conquer all of Latin America, they might end up propping up Mexico as their junior partner and leave the conquering of the rest of Central America to them, except for Panama, which would become an American puppet state. Technically, Mexico ITTL would be a mix of Mussolini's Italy and Pinochet's Chile, though a bit more mellow than their insane neighbor in the North. I would also suspect that a NatSynd dictatorship would have designs on Canada, which may not bode well in the long run, even if the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan may end up being an attractive location to settle a lot of American immigrants. BC would have the worst race relations ITTL, as IOTL they had the Anti-Oriental Riots of 1907 in Vancouver. ITTL, the larger anti-Asian sentiment would be even more toxic.

d) I don't think Russia would have any interest in annexing all of Mongolia and Manchuria. At most, they would just secure Mongolia as a buffer zone while expanding into northern and eastern Manchuria, while using the Chinese Eastern Railway as the proposed border between Russia, China, and a larger Mongolia. However, at this point Russo-Chinese relations would be poisoned, as the Russian backing of Mongolian independence might be a sore point between the two nations. There might also be another sore point for the Russians in this case, and that may be a British backing of an independent Uyghur state, since that could easily endanger the Russian position in Central Asia as well. If the fear of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Mongolism were large enough, the Russians might end up doing a U-turn and allow the Chinese to reconquer them.

If the Qing royal family were somehow restored into power, then they might be burdened with the responsibility of repaying the loans they've obtained from the international community, and given how large the loans they've taken, it would take decades before they can complete their payment. Likewise, the Chinese republic would also bear the same responsibility if they came to power as well.

I was actually referring to this spoof documentary: the Confederate States of America

The thing is, if this NatSynd dictatorship was too picky in their preference for the type of immigrants that they want, then they'd probably lose them to the Commonwealth countries.


It wouldn't exactly be a kind of successful defense, but the catalyst for the 1906 Russian Revolution. Given that the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks didn't exist yet, it might be more along the lines of the OTL Wuchang Uprising, or TTL's Qing Succession Crisis, as events inside Russia could easily butterfly the birth of Alexei Nikolayevich, leading to a different successor. In one of the earlier updates, we also have a reaction to the revolution with the moving of the borders of the Pale of Settlement, leading to an even bigger problem for the Russian government, as they would now have to expel the Jews from the area of the western half of what was then Novorossiya Governorate. That alone may also contribute to the growing isolation of Russia from the international community.

I'm not exactly sure if Abdulhamid II was seen as a rabid anti-Semite, though he was not really comfortable with the idea of accepting Theodore Herzl's proposal for a Jewish national home in Palestine. As hinted in the earlier updates, Herzl might actually get his wish through the Anglo-German blackmail against the Ottoman sultan, which could sour things with them. The rejection of Herzl's plan actually led to Abdulhamid II's deposition and the rise of the Young Turks, which would inevitably lead to the massacres of Armenians and other Christian minorities. Imagine that event spiraling out of control, and you'd also have the Balkan League itching to launch their reconquest of the Ottoman territories in Europe, and given that they are not in a forgiving mood this time, there is a slight chance that Turkish Thrace could end up under either Greek or Bulgarian control. In this case, the Russian government might have to give up its own ambitions of taking Istanbul from the Ottomans in favor of keeping what's left of their friends in the Balkans.



I agree with this, and also Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier's support of a trade reciprocity with the US was controversial in the eyes of the Canadian conservatives, and that was one of the reasons why he lost the PM post to his successor in Robert Borden. The trade deal that would have been signed, could easily lead to an American economic domination of Canada, thereby reducing Canada to a virtual American economic colony, which the Canadian Tories feared would lose their ties to Great Britain. There's also the fact that 600,000 American immigrants moved to Alberta and Saskatchewan IOTL, which made those two provinces politically different from the rest of Canada, as their culture might resemble that of the American Midwest or the American South. There's often jokes that were made about Alberta being the American 51st state as well.

Agreed regarding Mexico, although American territorial expansion into the rest of Mexico might not be feasible in the long run, especially if the future dictatorship is trying to make sure that the Catholic population would remain manageable. Even within Mexico, the ethnic map is actually a bit colorful, with the northern side of Mexico dominated by lighter skinned Mexicans, while darker skinned Mexicans reside in the southern side.


They could get a friendly regime in Mongolia, but Manchuria would probably be another story, as northern Manchuria is the target of the Russian invasion ITTL. Don't forget that the Qing royal family are under house arrest, so the Chinese republican government might not care one bit about Manchuria, but they would definitely care a bit more about losing any more territories. The British Raj shares a border with Tibet and Xinjiang, but even they might not have the logistics needed to support the Uyghurs. The Tibetans on the other hand, might be open to a relationship with Britain, but as the Tibetan Expedition didn't happen, the border disputes there would still be present.

There was a Han based dynasty that was attempted IOTL: Yuan Shikai, and his attempts to become Emperor in 1915, during OTL's WWI. The lack of support that he had for his ascension into the throne ended the experiment, and he would later die within one year.

ITTL, given that the Qing Succession Crisis nearly destroyed the Aisin Gioro clan, which was probably down to the Renshu Emperor (Puyi's father in this case), there might be some division within the Chinese monarchist circles as to whether or not they should support a new Han based dynasty, or transition into a Republic. However, Sun Yat-sen and his revolutionaries actually wanted the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the formation of a republic, which TTL's First Chinese Republic is, and OTL's Republic of China. So in this case, you would get the London-Berlin-Tokyo monarchial Axis Powers as a form of a pact that would oppose Russian expansionism, and to a lesser extent, American fascism on steroids.

Also, given the potential Russophobia within China, and the possible lack of Asian allies for Russia, the Russian government might be forced to pay more attention to European affairs, even if the Germans managed to take advantage of the growing revolution in Russia. In this case, a France under either the Legitimist Bourbons or the Bonapartists would become a natural Russian ally, alongside the United States. The relationship between France, the US, and Russia might eventually improve in the 1920s, primarily as a response to Britain, Germany, and Japan being allies.

I'll just sum this up in short paragraphs before posting the new update:

- I would say it will be a mix of both, but historically the black slaves escaped to Canada through the Underground Railway, so there could be a precedent for such a thing. However, it's not only political refugees that will flee to Canada, but also economic migrants as well.

- In the case of a fascist US dictatorship, it might also resemble Apartheid South Africa on steroids until the unwanted minorities would be completely expelled. However, US overseas territories could be used to fill it with those same unwanted minorities that don't have the resources to move to another country.

- Agreed for the most part, although by OTL 1912 when the Second Balkan War broke out, there was already the massacre of the Armenians inside the Ottoman Empire. ITTL, if the Balkan Wars break out after the Armenian massacres, then that might also become quite nasty as well.

- Yes, Mongolia has a pro-Russian government, but given that in a few years of TTL, the Russians would descend into a revolution, what would stop the Chinese from going for Round Two? Unlike Round One, Round Two may not have the Russians involved, meaning that the Chinese might actually manage to pull off some more victories.

- Most likely, although that would depend on who becomes the new monarch. 


Anyways, here's the next update:


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TURN 007: WEALTH AND POWER

"Prominent American bankers, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Harry Payne Whitney, had established their new business links with the Tsarist Empire back in 1901, at a time when the Russian Empire was in the midst of improving ties with the United States over their mutual hatred of the rising Japanese Empire. Yet, even after the Kishinev and Slonim Pogroms of 1903, when the McKinley and later on, the Cockrell administrations had scaled back their diplomatic ties to the Tsarist government, various American businessmen opted to remain in Russia, where their businesses were growing. As he bred thoroughbred horses in his spare time, in addition to the management of his business in the Russian Far East, Mr. Whitney's main focus of his business empire in Russia was breeding horses and selling them to the Russian government, which used most of his horses for both the regular cavalry divisions of the Imperial Russian Army and the Cossack hosts of the entire Siberian region. In addition, the introduction of the cotton gin to Russia had increased the production rate of the cotton harvested in the Caucasus and Central Asia, though the manufacturing of the cotton gin was slow and painstaking. As Mr. Whitney did not have the necessary investment funds needed to set up a cotton gin factory, he had to approach his brother-in-law Neily Vanderbilt, or Cornelius III, for funds. Seeing the opportunity for the growth of the Russian cotton industry, Neily Vanderbilt eventually agreed to invest over $4,000,000 USD into the project. However, another prominent American businessman would enter the fray, giving the Russian government an exposure to American business practices. John Jacob Astor IV, better known as McKinley's banker, had began his own Russian business empire in 1902, shortly after he was discharged from the US Army, as the McKinley government did not want him to end up killed in the battlefields of the Philippines, despite his service during the Cuban theater of the Spanish-American War. His financial backing in the creation of the Astor Battery volunteer artillery force, which played a role in the American offensive against Antonio Luna's forces in central and northern Luzon, before facing defeat and capture by Japanese troops during the Japanese-American War of 1904-07. Astor had to approach the Russian government for permission to purchase land in the Russian Far East, where he wanted to expand his real estate business into such unknown territory. As the Tsarist government was hesitant to allow foreign businessmen to purchase property inside Russia, Astor would have to wait until 1909, when he would once again approach the Russian government for the same permission he sought in 1903, but was denied at that time.

The 1909 proposal that Astor would create was that instead of expanding his real estate business into the Russian Far East, he would purchase land in what was a sparsely settled area around Nakhodka Bay. (1) While the village of Nakhodka did exist, the area was not developed. Sensing a rare opportunity, Astor proposed to build a new harbor around Nakhodka Bay that would rival that of Vladivostok, and if the new harbor became profitable, approximately 75% of the profits generated from the use of the proposed port would go to the Russian government, while Astor himself would get the remaining 25%. Not only did the proposal got accepted after a year's worth of political debates in the Duma, but Astor would be approached once more, this time alongside John Thayer, for the Russian government's proposal to build a new urban settlement and a harbor on the strip of land that was purchased by the authority of Sergei Sazonov from the Joseon government that would become the city of Rajin. The Russian Far East was far from being stable during the 1910s, as the lingering resentment and national humiliation that the Chinese state suffered from their defeat at the hands of Japan in 1895, followed by the suppression of the Boxer rebels and the Russian invasion of northern Manchuria that led to the Russo-Chinese War, was causing public anger within the Chinese public. It did not help much that those American businessmen who were making their fortunes inside Russia were also bankrolling the Russian military aggression against the Chinese forces resisting their invasion, and in fact, Japan's own growing distrust for the European and American bankers had forced their own government to sponsor the growth of education in finance and commerce, though with the help of the same kind of European bankers thay they distrusted. China on the other hand, was widely seen as a financial black hole in which no one wanted to invest in, and at the same time, the global finance community dissuaded a few bold bankers from making their fortunes in what was becoming a politically unstable nation, lest their profits be lost rapidly.

Astor and Thayer's true business empire in Russia however, lay with the expansion of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which was in a dire need of double tracking, as the single track had caused logistical nightmares for the Russian military, as evident by the long waiting times and the delays of shipment of reinforcements in the northern Manchurian theater. Additionally, the American businessmen were also lucky to have attracted the attention of a Russian businessman and rising oil tycoon by the name of Alexander Mantashev. Mantashev's business inside Russia had been built at the hands of his family, although his exploration of areas within the Russian Empire for places where oil could be found, was often done with the help of geologists and petroleum engineers that knew how and where to dig for oil. (2)Mantashev also realized the potential of the expanded and double tracked rail lines of the Trans-Siberian Railway could ease up on the delivery times of the oil that was being sold on the international market. Yet, Mantashev was also intrigued by the growth of these American entrepreneurs and wanted to strike a deal with them. Likewise, Astor and Thayer, along with Neily Vanderbilt and Harry Whitney, were relieved to be approached by a local entrepreneur, as they were in a dire need of local expertise and assistance in growing their business. If Vladivostok was meant to become Russia's equivalent of San Francisco or San Diego, then the settlement of Nakhodka, or as it now became known as Astyorsk, would become the Siberian New York and Rajin emerges as the Siberian Seattle." From 'Driven by Financial Hunger: The American Pioneers of Russian Business Culture', courtesy of Canadian National Television Documentary, released on May 17th, 2018.

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Excerpts from 'Clash of Giants: The Russo-Chinese War of 1900-02'
by: Ernesto da Silva
Jagged Peak Publishing Press, released on February 24, 2019

Chapter Three: The Rise of the Nakhodka Six

The presence of a few bold but foolish American businessmen in the Russian city of Vladivostok did not generate any kind of reaction from the rest of China, until when the Russian government had requested for Cornelius Vanderbilt III to built a few new arsenals where the production of weapons could be made, did Vanderbilt jumped on the opportunity. Noted that this request was done before John Jacob Astor IV and Harry Whitney had joined them in 1903, and finally, both Alexander Mantashev and his fellow Armenian compatriot Calouste Gulbenkian would eventually join them in 1910, only after resettling the Armenian population that was subjected to a Turkish pogrom against them in response to protests being carried out by Armenian nationalists operating inside the Ottoman Empire. Vanderbilt was relatively new to the business of weapons manufacturing: his family did not even know how to operate an arsenal in the United States, let alone learn how to build one. Yet, the Russian government's loan to Vanderbilt to construct several new arsenals had been helpful at a time when the double tracking of the Trans-Siberian Railway had not yet taken place. The problem of the Trans-Siberian Railway remaining a one-track railroad had forced the governors of both the Amur and Primorskaya Oblasts to set up makeshift factories to produce the weapons that the Russian military needed to make up for the loss of time that it took for the weapons that were built on the European side of the Russian Empire to arrive at the northern Manchurian theater.

The construction of the Vladivostok and Khabarovsk arsenals had somewhat lessened the burden on Russian logistics in the northern Manchurian theater, as the new artillery pieces, rifles, and ammunition were being shipped out to needy Russian regiments and Mongolian military units in need of such things as they were busy fighting the Chinese forces attempting to reconquer Mongolia. In every part of Manchuria that the Russians have occupied, they proceeded to expel any Chinese or Manchu population that resided there, and their homes would be taken over by Russian troops. Such actions only fueled the anger of the Honghuzi bandits, who retaliated by destroying Russian encampments and executing captured Russian soldiers. The Russian forces who found their dead compatriots only responded by slaughtering innocent civilians by rifle fire, and as the young Roman von Ungern-Sternberg said when he saw those innocent civilians being executed, 'We must show the Chinese the same behavior that the Mongols and Manchus of old had displayed towards them'. (3) Yet, the Russian behavior in China only served to label the invading Russian forces as white barbarians by the Chinese, though in Europe, the so-called cultured Europeans would refer to the Russians as Mongols, Tatars, and Huns. European posters depicting the Russians as semi-Asiatics with bushy beards, narrow eyes, and missing pieces of tooth were displayed in all capital cities of Europe, while anti-Russian posters made by the Ottoman Turks and the Japanese had depicted the Russians as bears with human faces being attacked by the valiant fez-headed Turk, the pigtailed Chinese (though this was later changed with a Chinese wearing a hanfu, as the pigtail was associated with the Manchus), and the yukata-clad Japanese samurai. The Russian government by this point, had increasingly grown irritated by the hypocritical nature of Western European governments, although their main focus had to be on the conflict. Anti-Mongolian posters crafted by the Chinese had depicted the Mongols as horses with human faces, or conversely, yellow eyed monsters that looked like a fusion of a horse face with a tiger's jaw, and they were spread out among the Chinese population in border areas close to Mongolia.

Mass murders of ethnic Chinese by enraged Mongolian troops commanded by Tögs-Ochiryn Namnansüren had also played into the bitter ethnic conflict between the Chinese and the Mongols, as the Inner Mongolian population did not want to remain a part of China, but to join with their Outer Mongolian cousins in a unified Mongolian state. Both the deposed Qing royal family and the renegade Chinese forces that claimed to fight in the name of the First Chinese Republic had viewed the Mongolian separatists as lackeys of the invading Russian forces, and to an extent, they were telling the truth. However, the Mongolian resentment towards the Qing royal family and the First Chinese Republic was simmering for a long time, and the Mongolian War of National Liberation as they called it, provided them with an outlet of anger and revenge against the Chinese on part of the Mongols. The Mongol forces that came from western Mongolia were especially brutal towards the Manchu population, given that their Oirat ancestors were subjugated to the most brutal genocide in the history of the Qing dynasty after the fall of the Dzungar Khanate. The Daurs were also radicalized by the growing sense of Mongolian nationalism and readily took part in the mass atrocities against the Chinese and Manchu populations. The brutal ethnic conflicts however, complicated Russian military plans, as they have no idea where to advance next. It also complicated Chinese military plans for the defense of Manchuria, as they had to deal with a large number of Chinese refugees that were fleeing from Russian and Mongol rampages in northern and eastern Manchuria, in addition to the Chinese merchants that were expelled from the Russian Far East at gunpoint. Yet, even as the ethnic conflict raged on, the Russian forces continued their advances throughout northern Manchuria, with the successful victory over the Qing New Army at the Second Battle of Tangwanggou, which occurred on April 23rd, 1901. This hard fought victory that the Russians had earned, was marked by the introduction of the concept that we now know as the war economy, in which an entire nation's economy would be geared towards war production, although the level of the war economy was at around 27%, which was still considered low. However, the growing economic activity of the Russian Far East had unexpectedly given it an unusual reputation as one of the few areas within the Russian Empire where there was economic growth, but that growth was rather slow. In addition, the arrival of extra materiel from the Vladivostok factories also helped the Russians push forward.

Harry Whitney's role in the Russo-Chinese War was largely minor, as he often helped Neily Vanderbilt with the war production that was taking place in Vladivostok. Moreover, Whitney's connections to various American diplomats enabled him to reach out to the American military leadership engaged in a vicious struggle against the revolutionaries in the Philippines by offering to sell an undisclosed amount of the Mosin-Nagant rifles that were being produced in Vladivostok to the US Army and Marines, and in return, he would give approximately 48% of the profits generated to the US government. However, not a single American officer had snapped up on the offer, mostly because the McKinley administration had grown alarmed at the potential threat that the American businessmen flourishing in the Russian Far East may have on the American government as a whole. More significantly, the American business community in Russia had reached out to friends and family back home, giving them stories of untold opportunities for American corporations to engage in commerce with the support of the Russian government. Vanderbilt's war profiteering, along with the growing foothold of the other members of what we now call the Nakhodka Six, would haunt future administrations, including the NatSynd dictatorship in which George Van Horn Moseley emerged as the leader. Even the other veteran of the Philippine-American War, General Smedley Butler, had criticized the growing power of these financial and commercial families as the backbone of what he called the 'war racketeering culture' that has emerged from both the Philippine-American and Japanese-American Wars, along with the roles that men like Vanderbilt and Whitney played in financing the Russian war effort.

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China - Turmoil Out of Control

The deposed Qing royal family did not learn of their country's emerging conflict with Russia until well into the summer of 1901, but it was Zhang Xun who reported to the Renshu Emperor of China's war with the invading Russian forces. Zhang Xun's decision to give the news of the faltering Chinese defense of the ancient Manchu homeland to the Qing royal family however, had alerted Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong to their paranoia of a Manchu Restoration through the rescue of the Qing royal family from house arrest, and thus the Fuxin Incident that occurred on May 21st, 1901, involved the arrest of Zhang Xun by soldiers loyal to the First Chinese Republic. His replacement as the commander of the New Army was Feng Guozhang, one of the pro-Republican loyalist that was selected by Yuan Shikai himself. General Feng would arrive at the temporary headquarters of the New Army by May 30th, with new orders for the New Army infantry forces to build new defenses along the western bank of the Songhua River. Most crucially, Yuan would authorize the deployment of another 12,000 Beiyang infantry force for an advance into the southern region of Inner Mongolia, with Ordos as the target. The Beiyang forces would arrive at the gates of Ordos by July of 1901, but found the city sparsely defended by the Inner Mongolian militias that took up the defenses of the city. Unfortunately, the Inner Mongolian militias charged with the defense of Ordos decided to retreat when it became apparent that they did not have the required amount of men and weapons needed to defend it, and thus withdrew to the border between Inner and Outer Mongolia, with the Ergeliyn Zoo plateau as their chosen place to defend. The plateau was in the middle of the Mongolian desert, and thus its selection by both the Inner Mongolian militias from Ordos and the incoming Outer Mongolian force of 6,000 infantry and 9 M1877 light field gun that was donated to them by Russia, along with the large numbers of ammunition for the field guns and the Winchester M1895 and Mosin-Nagant rifles that were also provided, and the Madsen machine guns as well.


Inner Mongolian militias pose for a photo while recuperating from their Ergeliyn Zoo base.

The Battle of Ergeliyn Zoo started on July 7th, 1901, with the Beiyang bombardment of the small trenches that were built by the militiamen, followed by a Beiyang infantry advance. While the militiamen kept on firing their weapons, the Beiyang force led by Zhang Shaozeng ordered most of the infantry to flank them, as to stretch the defenders thin. The only problem with this approach was that Ergeliyn Zoo was extremely difficult to reach, as one had to take a tiring hike to get to the top. The fact that the Inner Mongolian militias had used the plateau as a fortress meant that the Beiyang forces had to invest most of their time to capture the plateau, as its high ground would allow them to spot any enemy reinforcements coming from either direction. What was worse for the attacking Beiyang forces was that their supply line was dangerously stretched thin, as the towns close to it aren't connected by any roads at all, forcing some of the Beiyang infantry to spend time constructing a makeshift road to connect two or more towns. Yet, the way the Beiyang infantry built their roads was simply digging shallow enough to mark the sides of the road, and eventually the sandstorms would ruin the road that they built. When General Zhang realized that the plateau would be difficult to take, he sent three messengers to Yuan in his headquarters at Datong with a plea for infantry, cavalry, and artillery reinforcements. By the time the messages arrived at the headquarters, Yuan and Li were having a heated discussion on which theater has the greater priority, as news arrived that the Russians were now besieging the city of Qiqihar, while making an advance on Yichun, Hegang, Jixi, and were also laying siege to Mudanjiang as well. Yuan was arguing in favor of defeating the Russians first, as their loss to them would enable the First Chinese Republic to complete the reconquest of Mongolia and its complete annexation into the FCR. Li argued the opposite, that the reconquest of Mongolia had to take top priority in order to endanger the lightly guarded Russian border with Mongolia in Siberia, plus a complete annexation of Mongolia would also allow the Chinese forces to retake much of the lost territories in northern Manchuria, as well as retake Outer Manchuria as well. In the end, the Russian threat was bigger and Yuan's argument eventually won. Consequently, more reinforcements would now be sent to defend what's left of Manchuria from the advancing Russian forces, resulting in less reinforcements needed to take Ergeliyn Zoo. Most troubling about Yuan's argument was that the main flaw of his argument was that Ergeliyn Zoo's defense would seriously delay much of the Beiyang forces long enough for Mongolian messengers to travel to Urga and request for reinforcements. Even worse, the supply situation became more critical as dehydration began to take a toll on the Beiyang infantry, and the artillery pieces that they brought in was in danger of overheating in the hot Mongolian desert.

While the Beiyang forces were stuck besieging Ergeliyn Zoo, the Eastern Cavalry and Infantry Divisions were advancing from Urga towards the village of Khanbogd, where they established a camp from which they could attack or defend their positions. A month would pass from when the Beiyang forces started to attack Ergeliyn Zoo, and the result of their advance was that only the foot of the plateau and a small chunk of the high ground was taken, though at a dreadful cost. By the time the Beiyang infantry began their second phase of advancing to the top of Ergeliyn Zoo, General Zarubaev received orders to launch a surprise attack on the exposed Beiyang rear as they were too focused on surrounding the plateau in an attempt to capture it. Thus, the Relief of Ergeliyn Zoo would begin on August 24th, 1901, in a devastating surprise attack that destroyed the Beiyang rear and left them exposed to additional attacks from the Inner Mongolian millitias that are now repelling each Beiyang attack. When General Zhang Shaozeng was notified by his subordinates that no additional reinforcements would arrive, as they are being sent to the Songhua River frontlines, he swore and ranted at Yuan for neglecting the Mongolian Theater. As disease also started to ravage some of the Beiyang infantry and some of their artillery pieces began to break down due to the intense heat, he gave his final order to the infantry and artillery units to surrender to the Russian-led mercenaries, before shooting himself in the head with a pistol. The Beiyang forces that survived the battle were stunned at the sudden turn of fortune in favor of their enemy, and with the defense of Ergeliyn Zoo now complete, the Russian-led ECD and EID, as well as their Mongolian allies, were now clear to take the fight to the Chinese.

Another neglected front that Yuan had forgotten was the Kumul Khanate's invasion of Chinese Xinjiang, which had occurred after the ECD and EID forces had managed to drive the surviving Beiyang force out of Outer Mongolia and were now marching towards the partially occupied areas of Inner Mongolia. Maqsud Shah, the Khan of the Kumul Khanate, had organized a small force of only 9,000 cavalrymen, but they were aided by a large number of Uyghurs who were now demanding for a separate nation for themselves as Qing authority had collapsed with the deposition of the Qing royal family. Maqsud Shah would enter the city of Urumqi, where many Uyghurs would proclaim him as the new Khan of all the Uyghurs. The invasion of Chinese Xinjiang however, was a bloodless affair, as many of the Uyghurs who resided within this region had grown tired of both Qing complacency and Russian incursions into the region, with the sole intention of conquering Xinjiang completely. Feeling confident with the bloodless capture of Urumqi, Maqsud Shah would formally declare the unification of the Kumul Khanate with Chinese Xinjiang and proclaimed the independence of Uyghurstan, though his ambitions now turned towards Russian Central Asia. His pleas for international recognition was accepted by Mongolia, who also pleaded with Maqsud Shah to recognize the sovereignty of Mongolia, and offered to send weapons to the new Uyghur state. Realizing the potential of Maqsud Shah as a stalwart ally, the British would recognize the independence and sovereignty of Uyghurstan and became one of its first non-Asian ally. (5) However, Maqsud Shah's increasingly pro-British stance had greatly alarmed the Russian government, which saw the independence of Uyghurstan as a threat to its own Turkic minority in Central Asia. Furious at the possibility of a British-backed Uyghur invasion of Russian Central Asia, the Russian Okhrana would now be tasked with the mission to find a replacement for Maqsud Shah, or to bribe him into siding with the Russians. As Maqsud Shah grew suspicious of Britain's motives, he started to distance himself away from the British government, but still opposed the Russian plans for his country. For a time, between 1902 and 1917, Uyghurstan surprisingly became a bastion of stability, isolating itself from the chaos that was unfolding the First Chinese Republic. (6) Even more surprising was Maqsud Shah's edict that allowed the Hui Chinese Muslims to settle in the greater Xinjiang area, as they were fleeing from the growing turmoil that was unfolding in the First Chinese Republic. Between 1903 and 1918, approximately 5,000 Hui Chinese from the Ningxia province fled from their homes when it became clear that the Mongol ambitions for annexing that province was pronounced.


Uyghur delegates sitting in front of a poster of Islamic calligraphy, Urumqi 1901.

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"The Chinese defensive line around the Songhua River still held firm by the time news of the Kumul Khanate's bloodless invasion of Chinese Xinjiang was reported to Generals Yuan and Li. The shock of presiding over the loss of another Chinese province eventually grew on the two generals as many officers who served them were now reconsidering their positions in the First Chinese Republic. Furthermore, the embarassing defeat suffered by the Beiyang forces at the hands of the Inner Mongolian forces in Ergeliyn Zoo, with the help of the Russian-led Eastern Cavalry and Infantry Divisions one month prior to the Kumul Khanate's independence and invasion of Chinese Xinjiang, had tarnished Yuan's reputation, as he was the one that suggested the growing Russian threat as the bigger danger than the Mongol threat to northern and central China. With the arrest of Zhang Xun, the political strength of the First Chinese Republic grew, and there were more calls for the abolition of the Chinese monarchy from within the Chinese public. The lives of the deposed Qing royal family went on, even as their country was falling apart, but the severe restrictions placed on them by the Chinese republican government meant that various festivals that they used to hold were forcibly cancelled. Needless to say, a good chunk of the Qing royal family had donated all of their wealth to fund the war effort in driving the Russians out of the northern half of their ancestral homeland. (7) Even so, the Russians were determined to either annex northern and eastern Manchuria, or at the very least, convince either the Qing government or the Chinese republican government to stop settling Outer Mongolia with Han Chinese colonists. Worse has yet to come for the Chinese republican government, as the treasury became empty by the time the Russians launched the Songhua Offensive on September 30th, 1901. The Songhua Offensive was aimed at reaching the eastern side of the Songhua River, with the subsequent advances towards Qiqihar and Harbin as a major distraction. To help bolster the defenses of the Songhua River, all of the Manchu banner armies were sent to the Songhua River, with the Han Chinese Green Standard Army would be sent to bolster the defenses of Harbin and Qiqihar. Unfortunately, the Green Standard Army proved to be the worst military formations of all Chinese forces, as morale had declined, and the fighting quality of the Green Standard Army was lackluster. The planned reforms of the Green Standard Army was meant to transition them into a kind of national guard that would patrol the Chinese interior, but over 53% of the Green Standard Army that was sent to bolster Harbin's defenses either deserted or surrendered to the Russian forces. By October 9th, the Russians would take Harbin, and three days later, Qiqihar and Daqing would fall as well. The fall of those three major cities in central Manchuria had stunned the Chinese republican government, and combined with the fact that only Generals Yuan and Li were managing the military side of the government while there was no virtual civilian administration to take care of the needs of the entire population, the Chinese republican government had to scramble to find a suitable civilian figure to rally the government. To this end, they approached both Sun Yat-sen and fellow revolutionary Song Jiaoren, who were staying in the British colony of Hong Kong after returning from their trip to the United States, to help lead the government of the First Chinese Republic. When the two revolutionaries were told of the events that led to the downfall of the Qing dynasty and the imprisonment of the entire Qing royal family, Sun and Song accepted the offer and returned to China. However, Sun insisted on subjecting their presidency to both an election and a referendum, as he wanted to give his legitimacy to the existence of the First Chinese Republic. Before he could push on with his goals however, another trouble would strike the Chinese forces in the Songhua River.

Mudanjiang was captured by the Russian forces by October 16th, in a pincer movement that saw the Qing New Army engage the regular units of the Imperial Russian Army in a desperate delaying action that actually proved successful in helping other Chinese forces evacuate from the city. The Russians however, suffered over 2,800 casualties when they took Mudanjiang, leading to an operational pause in the southern section of the Songhua River, but they were able to consolidate control of the Mudan River. Combined with an attempted Mongol advance into Yinchuan the next day after the fall of Mudanjiang, the Chinese forces were at a loss as to which theater would they need to concentrate, now that the Mongolian forces were now rearmed and replenished with additional recruits and reinforcements from Russia. The British attempt to incite Maqsud Shah to invade Russian Central Asia proved to be unsuccessful, mostly because the Kumul Khanate's annexation of Chinese Xinjiang forced the Kumul Khan to establish a semblance of order and stability in the region. However, Maqsud Shah received delegates from various Central Asian pro-independence figures who grew tired of Russian colonization of their lands, and pleaded with him to support their rebellions. Though Maqsud Shah did accept their offers, he cautioned them against launching their revolt a bit too early, and advised them to wait until Russia was caught in an internal turmoil, and that is when they can easily launch their rebellion against the Tsarist crown. Still, the Chinese plans for the reconquest of Xinjiang would have to wait until the Mongolian issue was resolved." From 'The Violent Death of the Qing Dynasty', released by History Legends Network Canada.

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Siam - Blood in the Water

The Outbreak of the French Civil War between the Republicans and the Reactionaries had also opened an unexpected opportunity for the only independent southeast Asian kingdom to regain some of the territories that they lost during the Franco-Siamese War of 1893. The areas that became French Indochina, mainly Laos and Cambodia, had been taken by the French as they expanded on their southeast Asian holdings. However, the British expansion into Burma and its inclusion into the British Raj had dragged Britain on a collision course with the French. As both Britain and France didn't want to share any more borders with each other outside Europe, they agreed on the independence of the Siamese kingdom. Indeed, one of the most beloved Siamese kings, King Rama V, who was originally born as Prince Chulalungkorn, had been tutored by a British woman named Anna Leonowens, while his father, King Mongkut, was still alive. (8) When he took over as King Mongkut's successor, Chulalungkorn began to implement the necessary Westernization and modernization reforms to avoid his country becoming a playground of the Western colonial powers. By the time France had gotten involved in a civil war over the mishandling of the Dreyfus affair, King Rama V would negotiate with the French colonial authorities on the return of territories lost to them during the 1893 conflict, only to be denied. It is also worth noting that King Rama V had also cultivated a rare friendship with Russian Tsar Nicholas II, having visited the Russian Empire during his Grand Tour back in 1897. However, it was Siam's relationship with Japan that was by far the most important, as both Chulalungkorn/Rama V and Emperor Meiji were seen as symbols of modernization within the Asian continent. (9) Japanese aid to Siam was mainly marked by improvements in agriculture, law and education, although one of Chulalungkorn's sons, Prince Chakrabongse Bhuvanath, had been studying in Russia as a member of the Page Corps. When it became apparent that Japan is a more attractive ally than Russia, Chulalungkorn would send another son, Prince Asdang Dejavudh, to study in Japan, where he would attend a Japanese academy and was placed under the custody of Prince Atsumaro Konoe, who oversaw not only his education, but his health as well. In addition to learning the Japanese language, Prince Asdang also received a formal religious education in Mahayana Buddhism, despite him belonging to the Theravada branch of the Buddhist faith, through the Zen Buddhist monks that were assigned to him. Crucially, Prince Asdang was also exposed to the Konoe patriarch's growing anti-Russian sentiment, as he would often give news of world events to the younger Siamese prince, though he feared the possibility of worsening his relations with his elder brother Prince Chakrabongse, who was a member of the Russian Page Corps.

The French military garrison in French Indochina had been divided between the Republican and Reactionary factions, and as the civil war in metropolitan France intensified, the Siamese court was clamoring for the reconquest of Siam's lost Laotian and Cambodian provinces that the French conquered in the 19th century, but King Rama V fiercely rejected the calls for war with France, as the Siamese Army was not yet completely modernized and he also waited to see which French faction would emerge as the dominant power in French Indochina. Moreover, Japan was also interested in purchasing French Indochina as a means of expanding their influence and to give the French reactionaries a much needed financial investment in their war effort, but at the time of the French Civil War, the reactionaries had managed to seize the region of Gascony and Brittany, as well as the province of Anjou, where they established a temporary capital of what they called Royal France, as opposed to the legitimate French Republican government based in Paris that continued to refer to themselves as the French Republic. However, none of the French Indochinese colonial subjects had any love for either side of the French Civil War and wanted to regain their independence. This was true for the Vietnamese, whose subjugation by the French after the 1885 Sino-French War had been a rather harsh affair. Yet, Laos and Cambodia, longtime provinces of Siam, had a much weaker sense of national identity. In July of 1902, a Vietnamese revolutionary named Phan Chau Trinh would travel to Tokyo for an audience with Emperor Meiji. Phan Chau Trinh's purpose in his Japanese visit was to request for the Japanese government to sponsor a Vietnamese revolt against French rule in his native Vietnam, and recognition of Vietnamese independence. However, he failed to secure a meeting with the Emperor, and instead attended a meeting with Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito on the issue regarding the political division of the French factions and its effects on the colonial administration in French Indochina. While Prime Minister Ito was open to the idea of sponsoring the Vietnamese revolt against the French, the Japanese-American War of 1904-07 would put the Vietnamese project on the backburner. Prime Minister Ito however, advised Phan to develop a cadre of students who would travel to Japan to study in preparation for future revolutions against their colonial overlords. He also told Phan Chau Trinh to organize a small Vietnamese volunteer unit that will receive special military training from Japanese volunteers aiding the Filipino rebels in fighting the Americans as a means of building the cadre of a future Vietnamese force. Accepting Ito's advice, Phan Chau Trinh would travel back to Vietnam and started to secretly recruit volunteers that would travel east to the Philippines and join the Japanese volunteers already present in fighting the Americans.

Siam's own military on the other hand, also sent a few of its officers to Japan for officer training, while sending non-commissioned officers to Germany and Russia for standardized NCO training. The Siamese soldiers who were educated in Germany ended up forming regiments dedicated to engineering and civil service, while other Siamese soldiers that were educated in Russia ended up as instructors in cavalry and artillery training. The Siamese Navy would also send their sailors to be trained in Japanese naval academies, as it was the closest Asian power that is capable of training them. Unlike Japan, which began to experience with labor disputes between workers and employers, the Siamese government began to open its economy to foreign investors as a means of acquiring the necessary technical expertise needed to run its national economy. However, as the United States had become more anti-Asian as a result of the Asiatic Expulsion Act of 1903 (or Asiatic Exclusion Act of 1903), any Siamese civilian who were drawn towards business and commerce were encouraged to study in Germany and Austria-Hungary, as France was too dangerous for any foreigner to be in because of the civil war. One of the most important societal reforms that Chulalungkorn had passed was the abolition of slavery in Siam. Perhaps because of Anna Leonowens's influence when she introduced the book Uncle Tom's cabin and the events of abolition that led to the American Civil War, the current king took gradual steps towards abolishing slavery in Siam. Unfortunately, as the Russian conflict with China continued to escalate, Chulalungkorn had to recall most of his sons who were studying overseas, and bring them home. In 1905, when both Princes Asdang and Chakrabongse returned home, the two princes had a heated discussion on the conflict with China and the growing political crisis inside Korea that led to the outbreak of their own civil war as well. The two princes almost engaged in a fight when Chulalungkorn himself intervened and swiftly admonished his sons for resorting to violence. That such violence among the Siamese princes was unheard of before the 20th century was an indication of how international events would affect the lives of royal princes.

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"Initially, we underestimated our enemies when war broke out between our Motherland and the Chinese state, as we often dealt with regular bandits and Boxer rebels. Yet, we almost paid the price for our own arrogance when those desperate bandits fired their machine guns at us while trying to escape from this one town that I forgot its name. It was not until we suffered a second defeat in Tangwanggou that we were now facing a determined enemy that is not afraid of death. Suddenly, it was as if we were looking at a mirror. It was like when Napoleon had invaded our Motherland, but this time we were Napoleon. (10) We were the Grande Armee, marching into the Manchurian plains with the intention of bringing in another piece of Manchuria into our empire. The northern region was sparsely populated: not a single soul could be found between the Khingan Mountains and the city of Qiqihar. Our Mongolian allies were doing a better job of fighting the Chinese than we were, and they had a score to settle with them. We didn't know that the Chinese had once massacred the Mongols back when I was only a boy, but the Mongols who often accompanied my unit told me that they had relatives that died in that massacre, and that they were itching to pay them back. Paid them with interests, more likely, as I could see the number of empty villages full of corpses that I suspected were from the times that the Chinese villagers there were slaughtered, either by the Mongols, or by us. We didn't shy away from showing the Chinese just how brutal we can be, and all we earned in return is the hatred from other nations. When this hellish war with the Chinese ended by November of 1901, we were ecstatic that we managed to win this victory against them. However, at what cost? We gained northern Manchuria, and all it costed us was the friendship of the Chinese. We would also pay the price for trying to put down this Jewish rabble in Slonim and Kishinev when those fools were condemning us for those pogroms, and yet they had the gall to display themselves as more civilized than the rest of the world, even if they're committing the same crimes as we did.

Before the war ended on that fateful November day, our army was laying siege to one of the most beautiful cities in the entirety of Manchuria, Mukden. You can see with the various neighborhoods that sprung up in response to the migration of the Chinese from their ancestral homelands to this new frontier. I did not know that the Chinese republican government had also come to an agreement with the United States on receiving their ethnic kinsfolk who were being expelled from the United States, and settling them in southwestern Manchuria. Yet, the war did not end with either victory or defeat, but another internal conflict within China. This time, the two renegade generals Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong, would face off against the Qing loyalists who took command of the Beiyang Army and placed the recently freed Zhang Xun under its command. The November Restoration of 1901, as it was called in China, began with Zhang Xun's rescue from captivity and the failed attempt to restore Emperor Renshu to his throne. Yet, the Emperor was the one who forced General Yuan to sign the humiliating Peace of Urga by December 12th, 1901, in which China was forced to recognize the independence of Mongolia, which consisted of Outer and Inner Mongolia, as well as confirm our annexation of northern and eastern Manchuria. However, there was no time for our Motherland to rest, for the impudent Japanese and their chosen Korean mercenaries have decided to launch an uprising against the Korean Emperor, whom we backed so openly." (11) Vasily Biskupsky, on the end stage of the 1900-02 Russo-Chinese War.

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(1) OTL Nakhodka would not be built into a modern port that exists today until Soviet times.

(2) IOTL, Mantashev was known for the discovery of a new oil supply in the city of Baku.

(3) Kind of similar to OTL Kaiser Wilhelm II's Hun speech, which was meant to scare the Chinese and dissuade them from killing more foreigners and Chinese Christian converts. Ironically, it only served to demonize the Germans as Huns by the Allies during OTL's WWI.

(4) There was a massive resettlement attempt by the Oirat Kalmyks from southern Russia to Xinjiang, in an attempt to reclaim the Dzungaria area IOTL, but the only end result of it was that a few Oirats were able to settle back in Xinjiang.

(5) Partially true and partially false, as the British would view Japan and to a lesser extent, Siam, as its primary Asian allies.

(6) Xinjiang was also surprisingly stable IOTL as well, as its remote location enabled the Xinjiang Clique to avoid the chaos of the Warlord Period.

(7) Eating a lot of humble pie would do wonders, though it is unsure if the Qing royal family donated their wealth to prevent China from collapsing IOTL as well.

(8) If the stories of Anna and the King of Siam were to be believed, Anna Leonowens also tutored the other children of King Mongkut as well.

(9) The popular alternate history scenarios involved pulling a Meiji, but pulling a Chulalungkorn is a rare scenario in itself.

(10) Unlike OTL's Russian invasion of Manchuria of 1900, TTL's invasion would be marked by fierce resistance on part of the Chinese, which contributed to the growing casualties that the Russians suffered.

(11) It is also worth noting that Gojong stayed at the Russian legation when his wife, Empress Myeongseong, was murdered by the Japanese. This would contribute to the growth of the pro-Russian political faction in the Joseon court. 

Speaking of France, the next update will definitely focus a lot on them, so it might be a lot longer to complete, as I would need to figure out what theaters of the conflict will it have, and what factions. Plus I would also have to figure out the marriage matches for either the Legitimists or Orleanists, but I don't see any one of those royal houses willing to marry into the Bonapartists.

TURN 009: A HERMIT WITHOUT A SHELL

"The Russian victory over the declining Chinese state in the Russo-Chinese War of 1900-01 had alarmed the other Asian powers in the region, especially Korea and Japan. For the Japanese, the Russian expansion into northern Manchuria has revealed a deeper and bigger ambition for the Russians to eventually conquer all of Manchuria, including the area in which the Han Chinese population now formed a majority. Yet, for the Korean Empire, the Russian victory had also opened up a new opportunity to expand their borders into the area of Jiandao, or Gando in Korean. The borderlands between Korea and Manchuria had been in dispute for a while, and in fact, there were ethnic Koreans living in the Jiandao region as a result of the migrations that occurred in the 1860s to 1890s. However, the First Chinese Republic's leadership would face another political crisis that eventually resulted in the collapse of the republican government and the failed attempted restoration of the Qing under the Renshu Emperor that eventually led to the civil war between the supporters of Yuan Shikai and Zhang Xun, who now formed a rival government in Shenyang. In March of 1902, General Zhang Xun, now released from his imprisonment by sympathetic pro-Qing military officers furious with Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong's mishandling of the conflict with Russia, began to lead the Qing New Army from their bases in central and eastern China towards Beijing, where they would break into the Forbidden City to release the Qing royal family from their house arrest. Accompanying the Qing New Army were several other armies that were nominally loyal to the other minor officers who took part in the suppression of the Boxers. However, when news of an attempted Qing restoration reached both Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong, it was Lu Rongting who was given an order by General Li that was passed by Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat Sun to eliminate the Qing royal family entirely, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the restorationists. Thus, by March 22nd of 1902, the armies of the First Chinese Republic would enter the Forbidden City and proceeded to slaughter the eunuchs first, before proceeding to capture the entire Qing royal family. When the pro-republican Chinese soldier reported to General Lu of their capture, Lu himself read the edict that was signed by the newly formed Legislative Yuan (1), confirming the death sentence on the entire Qing royal family. Numerous Chinese soldiers serving General Lu would drag the males first, even including the Renshu Emperor himself, into the courtyard, and shot them all. Empress Dowager Cixi and Empress Longyu were next to be shot by the Chinese troops, and then the rest of the ailing family members, even down to the concubines and the palace servants. By the time the Qing loyalists arrived at the gates of the Forbidden City, they were ambushed by the newly garrisoned troops loyal to the First Chinese Republic. What would happen next was a series of violent ethnic massacres targeting the Manchu population throughout the Han core of China. For example, in March 29th, 1902, in the city of Xiaogan, approximately 12,000 ethnic Manchus were slaughtered by Han nationalists. (2) The other Manchu population that lived in the rest of China eventually fled from their homes and into their Manchu heartland, where the survivors of anti-Manchu pogroms would then carry out massacres against the Han Chinese population that were resettled there, as well as a few Mongols that remained in Manchuria. For the first five years, the ethnic map of Chinese Manchuria remained unclear, but it was also becoming a dangerous hotspot as well.

It was however, the decision of Emperor Gojong to launch a punitive expedition to protect the ethnic Koreans of Jiandao/Gando, that ultimately proved to be a disaster for the Jiandao Koreans, as the first troops of the Imperial Korean Army marched across the Tumen River into Yanbian unexpectedly met a fierce resistance from Honghuzi bandits who gained experience fighting the Russian forces invading northern and eastern Manchuria. The Honghuzi bandits easily defeated the ill trained Imperial Korean Army and forced them back across the Tumen River. (3) Yet, the disastrous Korean invasion also triggered a violent pogrom against the Koreans of Jiandao, as the Manchu refugees that fled from the violent pogroms in the Han core of China began to kill the Koreans there. Much of the Jiandao Korean population relocated back to Korea, or moved to northern Manchuria, where the Russian government settled them in fertile areas. The failure of the Korean army to secure the safety of their ethnic brethren had given the green light for the pro-Japanese Gaehwa Party and their military arm to launch what would become the Sawol Revolt, because the rebellion took place on May 9th, 1902, and because that day was a part of the Sa-wol month of the Korean calendar. As the Sawol Revolt broke out, it was clear that the so-called anti-Gojong rebels were clearly backed by the Japanese Empire, as evident by the hired mercenaries that were present. In fact, some of the mercenaries that were backing the Gaehwa rebels also played a role in the murder of the late Empress Myeongseong, giving credence that the uprising was a covert Japanese operation. The majority of the Imperial Korean Army soldiers however, fought hard to suppress the revolt, with significant casualties. The elite corps of the Korean cavalry also managed to inflict significant casualties on the Gaehwa rebels just outside the city of Daegu, before receiving orders from Emperor Gojong to make a tactical withdrawal to the emerging Joseon stronghold of Pyongyang, in anticipation of a wider Gaehwa offensive. From the Russian side, there were several Russian officers who were tasked with training and equipping the Joseon loyalists. Veterans of the Russo-Chinese War like Nikolai Zarubaev, Anatoly Stessel, and Mitrofan Nadein, were sent to Lake Khanka, where they built a training camp to help train and modernize the Imperial Korean Army. Additionally, a Cossack leader by the name of Anton Denikin was sent to help train a Korean Cossack cavalry unit, which was modeled on the Persian Cossack Brigade. The Korean Cossack Brigade, like its Persian counterpart, was staffed by Russian Cossack officers, but were supplemented by veterans of the Eastern Cavalry Division, while the veterans from the Eastern Infantry Division also helped with the training of the Joseon infantry." From 'East Asia in Turmoil', courtesy of the National Broadcasting Service of Thailand.

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"We arrived at the camp outside Cabanatuan City, where several soldiers were stationed there. It was because of the Buffalo traitors and deserters that the majority of them were shipped out, and good riddance to those fools who thought they could get away with carrying out a mutiny. Then again, some of those black troops were becoming more hesitant in carrying out pacification campaigns due to having far too much sympathy for them. It does make sense, in a twisted kind of way; both the black troops and the Filipino rebels that we fought against have the same kind of skin color, and it didn't help that we often put them down as useless (redacted). (4) General Funston and Captain Van Horn Moseley arrived the next day to give us a briefing on the planned march to the mountain redoubt that the crazy ass lunatic had built somewhere in northern Luzon. According to General Funston, the rebels up in the mountains had built several traps that hindered our movement, plus they carried out raids against exposed positions and troops that were too far out. I didn't know how many soldiers we lost, but by the time we began our march from Cabanatuan City, and into the jungles that are close to the mountains, the sharpshooters were sniping at us. Poor Corporal Grayson got wounded by a bullet that struck his shoulder, and we had to evacuate our own wounded from the battle field. It was not until we reached the borders between Nueva Ecija and Nueva Vizcaya that we waited for the potato digger (5) troops to arrive. We were lucky to see them arrive, because half an hour later, the rebels began to take pot shots at us. It was not a simple skirmish that they were carrying out, but rather a full scale battle. To make matters worse, we found several highland tribesmen hung on trees, and their eyes gouged out as a warning to the other highlanders to not give us any directions. We didn't realize that the highlanders and lowlanders within the Philippine Islands were also hell bent on killing each other as much as they're trying to kill us. Just as we were about to lose our positions when Captain Moseley and the 1st Cavalry Division charged at the rebel lines. The audacity of then-Captain Moseley had given us much hope, as we followed the cavalrymen into the base of the mountain. Well, the so-called Moseley's Charge would garner much publicity back home, and he soon received the nickname of the Daredevil Horseman. However, the Daredevil Horseman himself would encounter real hell when his unit, along with that of ours, were ambushed by Japanese volunteers fighting for the crazy ass lunatic." Now-promoted Sergeant Henry Kewell, on the American advance into the Cordillera Stronghold.

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Excerpts from "The Japanese-American War of 1904-07 and its Geopolitical Consequence"
by: Yuri Choi
Myasnikovo Publishing Press, released on October 23rd, 2019

Chapter One: The Origins of the Conflict

Although tensions between Japan and the United States had simmered since the American attack on the Nunobiki Maru in the early stages of the Philippine-American War, it only worsened when American troops found themselves fighting against Japanese volunteers during their offensive against the forces commanded by Antonio Luna. The anger that the Japanese had for the Americans as a result of the Nunobiki Maru's sinking had been tempered down, but it didn't prevent the Americans from capturing and torturing a few of those volunteers. The news of the American atrocities committed against Filipino civilians only fueled the retaliatory attacks against American troops, and various American forces often found their comrades tied up to trees, already bleeding to death from various torture techniques implemented on them. When dealing with captured Filipino troops or Filipino civilians who became prisoners of the Americans, they were often subjected to water boarding techniques, until they were broken down psychologically. (6) Once they extracted information out of the prisoners, the American troops would simply nail a large wooden stake on their chest and gouged their eyes out as a warning to the civilians to not resist them. It only radicalized the survivors much harder to the point where Filipino rebels often tortured the captured Americans with the same techniques. At the same time, in areas of the Philippines under enemy occupation, the favorite pastime that American troops engaged in were burning down houses, often with families locked up inside as their own means of pacification. When the Filipino rebels retook the village of Marikit in December of 1901, they found it in a dreadful state, as a makeshift internment camp was erected to intern captured Filipino civilians and soldiers. However, it was the condition of the camps that truly terrified and infuriated them, as the prisoners there were starving and often times, they were on the verge of dying. (7) The Philippine Republican Army would find more of these internment camps as they began to retake several towns from American occupation and encounter the same kind of malnourished prisoners in each of those villages and towns. The Philippine forces were only familiar with the kind of reprisals that the Spanish Army had enacted on civilians during the 1896 Revolution, but the American reprisals in this had put the Spanish to shame. (8) However, it was the nature of the atrocities and the racial element in it that had electrified the Asian continent, as the American genocide of the Filipino people, along with the Russian atrocities committed against the Chinese and Manchu civilians during the Russo-Chinese War, that resulted in the rise of pan-Asian sentiment. This kind of pan-Asian sentiment however, rang hollow when talking about the sectarian and ethnic violence that unfolded in China after its defeat to Russia and subsequent loss of northern and eastern Manchuria.

The growing American relations with Russia before the Kishinev and Slonim Pogroms had also alarmed the Japanese government, as it feared that America would find a way to involve the Russians in any conflict that it would find itself with Japan, though these fears were compounded and diffused by the proxy war between Russia and Japan over Korea, though in the form of the Korean Civil War, or the Sawol Uprising as it is called in Korea and Japan today. Although Britain and Germany had increased its diplomatic relations with Japan in response to the Russo-American partnership, they could not find it in their minds and hearts to extend the same kind of diplomatic solidarity with China, in light of the First Chinese Republic's execution of the entire Qing royal family and the violent pogroms against ethnic Manchus that followed. Most significantly, Russia's unwillingness to throw Korea under the bus, as Japan had hoped, degenerated into a kind of mutual suspicion between the two empires in Asia. (9) The McKinley administration on the other hand, did not like the idea of a rising Asian power that can one day become the leader of a pan-Asian coalition that would end centuries of white colonialism, and thus supported Russian ambitions in northeast Asia as a means of preventing that from happening, but to no avail. Even though the succeeding Cockrell administration would oversee the decline of Russo-American relations, it was the Eastern European Chaos and the growing political power of Germany, coupled with its new ambition of creating a sort of Mitteleuropa in which it was going to be the continental hegemon, that would destroy the Cockrell administration. In fact, the American military struggles against Japan during the Japanese-American War of 1904-07 was primarily because of logistics. The Panama Canal wasn't completed yet until 1915, meaning that the US Navy had to sail around South America for months before it could arrive in the Pacific coast. (10) Equally challenging was the plan for the US Navy to sail through the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope, through the Indian Ocean with a port call in Australia, before reaching the Philippines. That plan however, was rejected by President Cockrell as unfeasible, due to the European governments' refusal to grant the US navy the right and permission to stop at any colonial port under the authority of the various European empires. Even worse, Britain and France would deny the Americans permission to go through the Suez Canal for the purpose of sailing to the Philippines. (11)

The American logistical nightmare however, was complemented by Japanese labor disputes and other growing political power of the emerging trade unions, as they were struggling to come to terms with Japanese workers that were employed in both resource extraction and armaments industry. As Japan did not yet build up its own economy for times of war, the Japanese economy would struggle through a recession, as the value of the yen had been fluctuated. As it was also busy funding and aiding the Gaehwa rebels in Korea against the pro-Russian Joseon court, Japan's attention was divided between the proxy war with Russia inside Korea, and an actual shooting war with the United States. The struggles of both nations contributed to the stalemate between them, though the Filipino rebels would benefit diplomatically with the official recognition of their government by Japan in the aftermath of the Treaty of Oslo, where the independence of the Philippine would be recognized as legally binding, but there was to be no reparations paid. As both Japan and the United States did not complete their objectives, it would also add to the political turmoil facing those nations. For Japan, the imperialist path was nearly discredited, but the necessities of expanding its markets, along with the growing need for the expansion of their national security, had forced the Japanese government to view the Philippines as the only suitable place in which its people could immigrate to. To their surprise, the Philippine government was in dire need of immigrants that could help rebuild the country, and the Japanese immigrant populations of Canada and the United States were happy to leave their adopted countries for the Philippines. Moreover, Pan-Asian leaders like Shumei Okawa and Ryohei Uchida had started to see the Philippines as a test bed to see how well the Japanese population can get along with the various natives of the Philippine Islands, as well as their relations with Chinese immigrants, the leftover Spanish minority that chose to remain in the Philippines, the Muslims of Mindanao, and other Asian peoples that resided inside. It was a kind of social experiment that has never been attempted before, though as a nation entirely being founded by colonialism, the Philippines was in a position to become the only heterogenous nation in Asia, almost on par with the white dominated Dominions of the British Empire.

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"The retreat from Bulacan was orderly, but we felt guilty about leaving our people behind. I still felt awful when we returned from our mountain stronghold to retake several lowland areas around Pangasinan, but my heart was shattered to pieces when I heard from Remedios that her younger sister Dolores was raped and shot by American soldiers when they occupied the village in which they lived. Remedios herself was nearly killed when we stormed the village and fought the Americans to a standstill. I cried to sleep only after burying Dolores in a small grave, and apologized to her for being such a playboy. My behavior during the war costed me my chance of getting married, and even now, I could not bring myself to move on from Dolores's death. I stopped getting involved with women and began to focus more on the war effort, and my steadfast defense of Pangasinan and La Union had impressed General Luna greatly. He would assign me to construct another fortified stronghold overlooking the province of Cagayan, which I completed proudly with my troops and the foreign volunteers that arrived to help out. I noticed the foreign volunteers as being friendly, but they didn't speak any word of Tagalog or Spanish for that matter. Luckily, I hired a Sangley (12) as my interpreter, and he spoke not only Spanish, but Hokkien and even Mandarin. He was helpful when communicating with the exiled Boxer rebels who were driven from their homes in China, but when it came to the Japanese volunteers, I had to rely on a local Japanese interpreter to communicate with Tara Hei's soldiers. It was the Vietnamese exiles, however, that I wasn't able to communicate at all. General Luna on the other hand, was able to speak to them in French,(13) despite the Vietnamese exiles' unwillingness and reluctance to speak in the language of their colonial master. I still stuck around, even when Japan and America went to war with each other in 1904. My unit played a role in harassing the Americans around Luzon, and even fought the cavalry unit that was led by a Captain Moseley, during the Japanese counter-offensive against the Americans around March of 1905. Still, my troops were driven by anger and hatred towards the Americans for brutalizing our country so badly." Gregorio Del Pilar, from his memoirs, published in 1937.

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Portions from the Interview with French Foreign Minister Guilliame de Valons, the Viscount of Rouen
France Today, released on July 16, 2017

Discussing the Sales of Former French Colonies

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) In your book, 'The French Roots of American NatSyndism', you've repeatedly stated in most chapters that the sales of the French West Indies in 1903, and the cession of the former French Guyana, now called American Guyana Territory, had been one of the major steps in which the former NatSynd dictatorship had essentially revived the Manifest Destiny ideology. Moseley's Manifest Destiny, as it was now known, was basically the creation of a Greater American Continental State that would annex Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland, into its empire. Is this statement true?

De Valons: (in FRENCH) Yes, but Canada was the real prize that eluded American nationalists, as its massive size would have given the Americans not only a strategic edge over their rivals, but they could potentially aim to challenge the Russians in the Arctic Circle. Yet, we are seeing Russian and American sailors conducting joint patrols in the Bering Straits, so I'm sure the rivalry would be aimed at the rest of Europe.

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) Did both sides of the 1902-07 Civil War had troubles financially?

De Valons: (in FRENCH) Of course, but it was because of that problem that the sales of the colonies were rather confusing. The Americans bought the French West Indies from the legitimate republican government at that time, but also paid a similar amount of money to the reactionaries. Likewise, the Japanese purchased the Guangzhouwan enclave from the same government, but never paid the reactionaries the same amount of money. By the time our civil war was over, the French treasury was completely depleted and we had to sell the rest of our far flung colonies.

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) That badly?

De Valons: (in FRENCH) Yes. For instance, the French Oceanian territories were supposed to be sold to the Americans, but the British were not comfortable with the idea of an expanded American naval presence in the wider Pacific region, and even Japan wanted to purchase our Oceanian territories, but realized that our Indochinese colonies were also becoming a net drain on our resources. That was why in 1911, we formalized the sale of French Indochina for $40 million US dollars to Japan. The Japanese would then split our Indochinese colony with the Kingdom of Siam, and the Siamese were more than happy to reintegrate them into their small empire. (14)

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) And did the Americans start to bankroll the financial recovery of our nation? It wouldn't be surprisng to say the least, given that we aided them in their revolution against the British, though the British actually got us to give up control of Vanuatu in exchange for receiving the Channel Islands. (15)

De Valons: (in FRENCH) The Channel Islands were more important to us, because it was the possession of those islands that still allowed the British King to claim the title of Duke of Normandy, which was not in use since the end of the Duchy of Normandy. However, the Dauphin of Normandy is a title that is formally reserved for the Crown Prince Imperial.

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) Did the Netherlands express any kind of interest in some of our colonies?

De Valons: (in FRENCH) By this point, they were down to their few Caribbean possessions and the Dutch East Indies. I doubt that the Dutch would be interested in acquring a few more colonies when their prestige was already declining. We must not forget that our civil war, along with the Eastern European Chaos of that same time period, had also affected the global economy, as the wars made commercial traffic of goods unsafe, leading to the recession that we had, starting in 1909.

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) I remember that period in which the global economy had suffered from a long recession. That period also saw our diplomatic overtures with Belgium and the Netherlands, and formed the Brussels Pact, in which we would come to each other's collective security. Of course, the Pact was rather controversial in London, since the 1839 Treaty had basically guaranteed Belgium's neutrality and independence, but at the same time we're offering the Belgians additional protection as well, and we're also giving the Dutch government another option in case their relations with Britain and Germany sour. Do you think that our relations with the Benelux countries are safe today?

De Valons: (in FRENCH) Only Belgium and the Netherlands actually trust us, as well as Spain and Italy. The Balkan nations were slightly more hesitant to trust us, the Germans, and the Russians.

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) Moving on. The political differences between the French reactionaries and the American government was clear as day, but they were also vital to the development of the NatSynd ideology, in that the extreme aspects of Bonapartism was present, with a military leader basically acting as a kind of dictator. General Van Horn Moseley was similar to Napoleon in that he took charge of a country that was in the middle of turmoil. Yet, the only difference was that Moseley did not build a monarchy, but rather he created a new title for himself, called the Chief Marshal, with his second-in-command being referred to as the Deputy Marshal. Did France also develop their own NatSynd ideology as well?

De Valons: (in FRENCH) In France, we had the monarch who was basically the Marechal with royal blood, but Marechal Weygand at the time of the civil war was pretty much the acting head of government. However, the French National Populist Radical Party did adopt the same titles that the Americans had, and much of their platform was similar to exactly like that of the NatSynd Party in America.

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) How was the era of the republican government viewed by the reactionaries after the civil war ended?

De Valons: (in FRENCH) They had mixed feelings, but leaning on the negative. For instance, the Legitimist faction distrusted any political party that claimed to run the government on an ideological basis, but were powerless before the moderate royalist Orleanists or the quasi-revolutionary Bonapartists.

Interviewer: (in FRENCH) And how was the colonial policy formulated by the reactionaries? I assume that the reactionaries would have been even more repressive of native revolts than the republican government.

De Valons: (in FRENCH) I would say that it was a bit more repressive socially, but at the very least the Orleanists were genuine in their desire to help industrialize much of their colonies. French Central Africa and French West Africa were reorganized to help ease up on the gradual industrialization, as it was sorely needed for France's economic recovery. American businesses were vital to the recovery of the French economy, but Japan was also helpful in this regard. The sales of French Indochina and Guangzhouwan enclave to Japan in 1909 has saved much of our money from maintaining the costs of managing the colonies, and the Indochinese natives there were already radicalized by the emerging Pan-Asian rhetoric that was coming from Japan.

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Korea - The Broken Shell

When the Sawol Revolt broke out in 1902, the Gaehwa rebels were aided by various pro-Japanese collaborators within the Imperial Korean Army that deserted their units when it became apparent that the Joseon court was being reduced to a Russian puppet. Indeed, the Gaehwa rebels viewed not only the Joseon Emperor, but even the yangban class as mere slaves of the Russian tsar. Ironically, the yangbans were deeply unpopular within the Joseon court, as they were viewed as hindrances that caused Korea's backwardness to occur in the first place. Additionally, some of the Gaehwa rebels would eventually play a role in the growing Japanese interference in Korean internal affairs, giving credence to the Joseon court's portrayal of the Gaehwa rebels as Chinilpa, or pro-Japanese traitors. The Gaehwa rebels in turn, portrayed the reactionary Joseon court as Chinleosiapa, or pro-Russia traitors and dogs. Yet, in terms of how fully armed and battle hardened the two factions were, the Gaehwa rebels were at a disadvantage, as there were very few troops with actual combat experience. The majority of the Korean soldiers that participated in the disastrous Gando expedition would continue to fight for their Emperor. However, a Korean volunteer who fought on the side of the Chinese against the Russian Army had emerged as the leader of one of these Righteous Armies that sprung up in the early months of the civil war. An Jung-geun (16) , who rose to prominence as a de facto warlord, initially fought alongside the Honghuzi bandits during the Russo-Chinese War, by carrying out raids on Russian supply convoys in the Jiandao region, before he and his unit were captured by Russian troops commanded by General Mitrofan Nadein. Faced with execution or a prison sentence, An was offered to switch sides in exchange for commuting his sentence, which he reluctantly did. The end of the Russo-Chinese War provided An and his men with ample opportunities to serve the Joseon court, and he became one of its most ardent defenders of Emperor Gojong. Yet, his growing sense of Pan-Asianism had become a major liability for both the Joseon court and the Russians, as they feared that he would defect to the Gaehwa rebels, a scenario that was more likely as he envisioned a future alliance and unified community that could consist of China, Korea, and Japan.


Korean refugees in Vladivostok. Much of the Korean settlers that arrived in the Russian Far East came from Korea itself, although the Koreans who were driven from their homes in Jiandao also arrived in the Russian Far East as well.

The Righteous Armies that would fight alongside the Imperial Korean Army were poorly trained, though well armed with the thousands of rifles that were being shipped in from Korea's border with Russia. Unlike the Gaehwa rebels, which relied on Japanese supplies being shipped through the Tsushima Straits, the Joseon court and the Righteous Armies can rely on the land border that Korea and Russia shared. Additionally, the Korean Cossack Brigade also helped the Righteous Armies by acting as scouts and intelligence gatherers, as well as carrying out raids on isolated Gaehwa militias' supply depots. However, the presence of the Korean Cossack Brigades within Korean territory had garnered much sympathy and popularity from the Korean people, as they viewed them as the best guardians of Korean national sovereignty, despite being seen as lapdogs of another foreign power, albeit one that hasn't waged war on them. However, the 1906 Russian Revolution would gradually decrease much of the military aid that the Russian state gave to the Joseon court, allowing Japan to increase much of its aid to the Gaehwa rebels, though their own troubles posed by the Japanese-American War had greatly limited their ability to aid the Gaehwa rebels. Furthermore, the Righteous Armies and the Korean Cossack Brigade were ardent opponents of Japanese incursion into Korea, making them an obstacle to Japanese ambitions in the Korean peninsula. Fortunately for the Gaehwa rebels, Britain and Germany would begin to aid the Gaehwa rebels after 1906, mainly by targeting the naval vessels operated by the Korean navy and using the German enclave in Qingdao as a conduit for the shipment of weapons and ammunition to the Gaehwa rebels. The British had a much bigger stake to the victory of the Gaehwa rebels than the Germans and Japanese did, as they were desperate for new allies after Maqsud Shah had gone cold feet on them during the Kumul Khanate's annexation of Chinese Xinjiang. Additionally, as the Japanese were fighting the Americans in the Philippines, there were virtually few or no Japanese volunteers who would be willing to help train and fight alongside the Gaehwa rebels, and their presence would have also been political suicide for the rebel cause.

Sokcho became the first city within Korea to fall to the Gaehwa rebels, as they were aided by the remnants of the peasant leaders that participated in the Donghak Rebellion. Yet, as the Gaehwa rebels and the ex-Donghak peasants began to bicker politically, and the Donghak peasants rapidly distrusted the Gaehwa rebels. Some of the Donghak peasants who fought during their 1894-95 rebellion would go on to become the leaders of Korea's growing syndicalist movement, which did not take off until 1911. The class divide between the Gaehwa rebels, who were predominantly progressive and liberal, and the ex-Donghak rebellion's peasantry that supported the conservative Eastern learning, also worsened the social tensions within Korean society. Gradually however, the Donghak peasants that gravitated towards syndicalism had began to criticize the very ideology in which they were fighting for. One of the Donghak leaders that emerged from the Sawol Revolt was the founder of the Cheondo was Son Byong-hi, who was often referred by his religious name, Uiam. Uiam had been one of the few Cheondo figures who advocated for Pan-Asianism and was a rarity in Korean politics as he advocated for an establishment of a protectorate over Korea under Japanese supervision. (17) However, the fact that Uiam was openly advocating for Japanese indirect control over Korea had also triggered suspicions towards him and the Cheondo movement from the conservatives in the Joseon court. As one could recall, the Donghak Rebellion had to be suppressed by armies arriving from China and Japan, but the nature in which the military intervention was carried out had led to the First Sino-Japanese War. Eventually, Sokcho and later on, Kumgang, would fall to the Gaehwa rebels, though not all villages accepted the Gaehwa rebels.

The Joseon court, which relocated from Seoul to the temporary royal capital (and also the summer capital of Korea) of Pyongyang, was alarmed at the growing successes of the Gaehwa rebels. Yet, a few Joseon court officials noted that the Gaehwa rebels were only successful in various cities in the southern provinces of Korea, while the peasantry in the countryside were not informed of the ongoing civil war. Eventually however, the peasantry at large became more aware of the political changes occurring throughout the country, and a significant number of them joined either the Gaehwa rebels, or the Cheondo movement. Life in northern Korea under the tranquil control of the monarchy was calm, in contrast to the conflict-plagued regions of the south. Busan in particular, was the most vulnerable city politically, as it served as a conduit for Japanese agents to enter Korean territory. By June of 1902, Daegu fell to the Gaehwa rebels, though this time around, there was no resistance to their takeover, as the majority of the Imperial Korean soldiers evacuated from Daegu, but left behind several hundreds of troops belonging to the Righteous Armies. The Righteous Armies operating in the south would prove to be a major headache for the Gaehwa rebels, who were mostly stuck with whatever's left of the Korean soldiers that deserted from their regiments. Aptly named the Pacification Army, they were different from the Righteous Armies that they fought against in that they were entirely trained by Japanese advisors and officers. What was stunning to the Japanese and Koreans alike was that the Pacification Army used by the Gaehwa rebels were also susceptible to syndicalist propaganda campaigns launched by Shumei Okawa, who visited a Pacification Army training camp in the town of Gimhae on June 17th, 1902. The reorganized soldiers of the Pacification Army were often drilled in the Japanese manner, carried Murata rifles, and wore similar uniforms to those of the Imperial Korean Army before switching to the uniforms that were similar to the ones worn by the Beiyang Army in China. Okawa and his fellow syndicalists carried out ideological training to members of the Pacification Army, and in turn, Uiam and Okawa would often meet for debates and discussions on the nature of the syndicalist movement in Japan. Although Japan still maintained a monarchy, its growing tolerance of the syndicalist movement has been both a blessing and a liability to the Japanese government, as the syndicalists were capable of inciting worker riots in any Japanese city for any reason. For Korean syndicalism to become a powerful force, adds Okawa, one must reconcile Pan-Asian solidarity with syndicalism. Thus, a potential for a larger alliance of Asian nations bound by the syndicalist ideology would be realized, once the other nations around Asia were exposed to syndicalist thought. Both Uiam and Okawa would publish the Pan-Asian Syndicalist Manifesto in 1906, detailing the fine points of what a Pan-Asian community bound by Syndicalism would look like.

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The Pan-Asian Syndicalist Manifesto, or the Gimhae Declaration of 1906
by: Son Byong-hi and Okawa Shumei

The sun rises from the east, and so must the Asiatic peoples who must rise from their slumber of Western colonialism. For centuries, much of the Asian continent has been subjected to a kind of exploitation that we have not seen before. We are confronted with a kind of people that is driven by material greed, jealousy, and hunger for slaves to work the fields, mines, and factories while the rich capitalists based in the metropoles of the European nations live off their labor. The sun sets in the west, and so must the era of white, Western colonialism. Though Japan and Siam have managed to avoid becoming colonies of white nations, they almost failed to lose their own sovereignty and political independence. Yet, there are Asian nations that are in danger of losing their own independence unless we take the painful and politically inexpedient steps of making sure we've reformed and modernized them to our standards. Nations like Korea have been reduced to a target of unwanted predatory imperialist designs of Tsarist Russia, whose influence over the decrepit Joseon court is far too great to remove. The so-called Korean Empire is merely pretending to play the role of an empire, when in fact, their social and political backwardness has left them at the mercy of the Russian state. What is worse however, is that the Russian victory over the Chinese and the mutilation of northern and eastern Manchuria has given them a kind of confidence bordering on arrogance, and their hunger for land and resources knows no bounds. The Chinese state, which has successfully overthrown its own decrepit monarch and proclaimed a bourgeois republic, has yet to solve its own internal issues, from fighting the monarchist reactionary loyalists who benefited from acting as the guard dogs of the Qing royal family. Japan's own war with another emerging white colonial power in the United States, presents another danger posed to Asia in the form of American imperialism. In fact, their genocidal actions in the Philippines, should we fail to stop them, will result in not only the biological extinction of the people of the Philippines, but a worse fate will await them should they lose their struggle against the Americans. Therefore, this is what we must propose to launch for a Pan-Asian syndicalist revolution:

1) That the workers, peasants and intellectuals must organize as a unified bloc of lower and middle classes that can negotiate or wage a class war against the upper classes within our own society.

2) That land reform must be launched with the allowance of a small but significant number of wealthier peasants given permission to purchase and sell land. Landless peasants are entitled to work, but are allowed to enjoy the fruits of their own labor.

3) That a minimum wage set by the state, or as negotiated by the trade unions, should be implemented, as to provide the working class employed in industrial sectors with a decent way of living.

4) The necessity of ethno-cultural nationalism must be encouraged and developed as a means to protect the respective nations of the Asian continent from additional cultural erosion caused by western colonialism. (18)

5) That Japan's establishment of a protectorate over not only Korea, but the territories of Indochina that will be acquired from France is necessary for their national, social, and economic development, but will take no action to annex them. The annexation of fellow Asian nations by Japan will eventually result in the rest of Asia viewing Japan as another imperial power.

6) A series of special colonies will be established as a social experiment to see if various ethnic groups within Asia can live together in harmony, as evident by the Japanese acquisition of the former French enclave of Gunagzhouwan.

7) The Philippines is a special case, as it is the only Asian nation that is completely built on a colonial foundation, having been a colony of Spain for 333 years. Unlike the rest of Asia, the unique Asian values that are found in the rest of Asia are hard to find in the Philippines, as a result of centuries of exposure to Western learning and Western cultural domination. Therefore, the Philippines can serve as yet another social experiment on the model of the newly acquired enclave of Guangzhouwan, but much larger.

8) Christianity is a Western religious concept, having lost its original Asian character by centuries of Europeanization of said religion. Christian missionaries are a menace to the Asian continent, as the converts are now seen as collaborators and sleeper agents working for Western, primarily European and American interests. Therefore the struggle for Pan-Asian solidarity must also include the complete eradication of any Christian influence in the region.

9) When all Asian countries eventually undergo a syndicalist revolution and the establishments of syndicalist regimes, then the entirety of the Asian continent must prepare for the eventual clash of civilizations led by the British Empire, the United States of America, and the rest of Europe.

10) The Ottoman and Russian Empires are in the midst of a cultural and political confusion, having been situated on two continents. Their presence on two continents has garnered a cultural clash that is irreconcilable.

11) Most importantly, a unification of the Asian continent could be best achieved by supporting pro-independence movements in Asia, followed by the spreading of the syndicalist revolution to Latin America and Africa, where anti-colonial struggles can be enhanced by the word of the syndicalist.

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(1) The Legislative Yuan is basically the parliament of TTL's First Chinese Republic, and the OTL parliament of the Republic of China in Taiwan.

(2) Those atrocities were similar to the ones that the OTL Xinhai revolutionaries had committed against the Manchu minority within the Han core of China. However, this time around, it would lead to a large exodus into Manchuria, and the Manchu expellees would in turn, slaughter the ethnic Han Chinese settlers living there.

(3) Based on the OTL Korean invasion of Manchuria, which was launched on the pretext of protecting the Korean minority living in the region of Jiandao, or Gando in Korean. Unlike OTL, the Gando Koreans are subjected to a campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Manchu refugees fleeing from the violence perpetrated by Han Chinese nationalists.

(4) During the OTL Philippine-American War, white American soldiers often used the n-word to describe the Filipino rebels, leading to incidents like the desertion of David Fagen, who went from a Private in the US Army, to an officer in the Philippine Republican Army.

(5) The nickname for the M1895 machine gun.

(6) Water boarding was also used during the OTL Philippine-American War, along with garroting and many other forms of torture.

(7) What actually happened to the Boer civilians during the OTL Second Boer War. Unlike the international headlines of the poor Boer girl that was practically skeleton and flesh, the pictures of starving Filipinos wouldn't garner any sympathy in TTL's 1900s.

(8) OTL American soldiers during the OTL Philippine-American War would describe it as a turkey shoot.

(9) OTL Russia was also unwilling to allow Japan to gain a sphere of influence in Korea, which led to the OTL war that they lost. Given TTL's 1906 revolution and the turmoil that is unfolding, it seems that TTL's Russia might lose this proxy war to Japan too.

(10) Before the completion of the Panama Canal, it would have taken over half a year for the US Navy's Atlantic fleet to sail into their Pacific coast.

(11) The same problem befell OTL Russia's Baltic Fleet, which was denied permission to use the Suez Canal to get into the Pacific. This time around though, the Americans were lucky they didn't have to sail through the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The logistical nightmare if taken this route would be far worse than sailing across the Pacific.

(12) Sangley is a term described as basically Filipinos of Chinese descent.

(13) General Antonio Luna is fluent in Spanish and French, making him a unique interpreter for the Indochinese exiles who may have been taught the French language, but are reluctant to use it in public.

(14) Essentially reversing the territorial losses that Siam suffered in the 1893 Franco-Siamese War.

(15) Basically the co-dominium of New Hebrides was a shared administration between Britain and France. The bankrupted French economy would therefore, be unable to maintain even their far flung Oceanian colonies.

(16) Best known as the assassin who killed Ito Hirobumi in OTL 1909. ITTL, given that Ito would be far too busy managing Japan's affairs as Prime Minister, he wouldn't have any time to travel to a dangerous place like Korea.

(17) Uiam also advocated for Japan to take over Korea as a protectorate IOTL as well, though eventually he had to distance himself and his own movement from the other movements that gradually end up working for the Japanese during the colonial period.

(18) Might be a bit difficult to achieve ITTL, and impossible to achieve IOTL, given that there hasn't been a single unifying language that is used as lingua franca for all of Asia.

That, I would have to correct, as I was already making the update when I had to hold my birthday celebrations. In any case, it would be the attempted restoration of the Qing royal family, only to fail in the process.

You are also right about the Channel islands as well, and given that in any event of war the Anglo-German alliance would easily be able to occupy much of France, and mainland Normandy could end up being occupied by the British.

Another thing is that the reason why Britain eventually started aiding the Korean liberals when Korea was recognized as a Japanese sphere of influence was because Japan's divided attention between the rebellion in Korea and the shooting war with the Americans forced them to limit their aid to the Korean liberals, as the Japanese military needed to use more of their own supplies for the Philippine front. Britain and Germany aided the Korean liberals as another way of trying to bleed the Russians dry.

Agreed on the military traffic as well, and also the US Navy would be consuming more of their supplies going through the Suez Canal than going through the Cape of Good Hope. Although if Australia granted them permission to rest their sailors and their fleet in Perth, that would have been another story, but since Australia is a Dominion of the British Empire, the British government can simply tell the Australians to not give the Americans permission to rest in Australian ports, but they can rest in Dutch ports in the Dutch East Indies.

I might have to update Rogue Generals at some point too, since I still needed to address another issue in that TL as well.