Chapter 283: Post-war Reassignment
On April 14, Xian Han and Eastern Shu signed a ceasefire agreement; this large-scale hot war lasting 70 days ended.
Some military experts from the East and West began to extensively discuss the “quick decisive battle” military characteristics of this battle, as if they had grasped the current state of war in the Industrial Revolution era.
Xuan Chong: “Sigh, it’s only the first Industrial Revolution. And you’re already treating a special case as the norm.”
At this time, industrialization was just beginning to flourish; the contradictions among industrial powers were still concentrated in peripheral areas.
Due to the Industrial Revolution’s radiation not being strong enough, transportation infrastructure in peripheral areas was backward. For example, in southern Africa, any industrial force’s stockpiled supplies in this area could not sustain a war for more than three months. So when two industrial forces compete in such peripheral areas, it becomes “short, flat, and fast.”
This gave contemporary military experts the illusion. They further deduced that contemporary wars are short-term wars.
Little did they know, if war occurs in places with good “railway line” and “city warehouse system,” how protracted it would be.
The muddy lands of colonies do not have the conditions for fighting modern wars. Most Third World areas have too weak infrastructure and social will, which allows industrial countries to resolve resistance in the short term with quota ammunition.
But this does not mean that highly cohesive areas after industrialization can also be “resolved in three months”!
This misconception about war did not only occur during World War I; in Xuan Chong’s previous life, the old Europeans, having seen the American Empire’s flat pushes in second-rate areas, filled their parliaments with the illusion of “high technology weapons quickly flat pushing.” After a group of second-generation Europeans and Americans without industrial common sense took the stage, they believed high technology could achieve “more, faster, better, cheaper,” resulting in European and American military strategies being led astray by a bunch of attention-seeking laymen.
To the extent that during the confrontation between Da Mao and Er Mao, Europe’s weapon and ammunition reserves were prepared according to three months; completely unaware that with Europe’s infrastructure conditions, if conflict erupts, it would inevitably be prolonged.
…World War I was a war where both sides were unprepared…
After flipping through the comments from various military experts in Xian Han, Xuan Chong decided to look at other perspectives in this world. Seeing the European newspapers proposing “all wars will end in the short term,” his mouth twitched!
Xuan Chong translated a European newspaper and found: “Those European whites are gloating over the war between ‘Eastern Shu and Xian Han.’ This also made the whites even more convinced of the idea of ‘war short-termization.'”
After putting down the Latin newspaper, Xuan Chong shook his head in pity: Europe is still that Europe, childish, naive, optimistic.
Now, in foreign affairs, that is, issues involving outer areas like Dongyin and Arabia, the European countries appear very united, but what about those powder kegs within themselves?
All European public sentiments regard the powder kegs as minor issues, treating crises as normalized.
But they all self-proclaim “not ruling out the use of force,” optimistically believing: when it reaches the final step, the other side will concede.
Xuan Chong: These idiots treat war like a “small sparkler,” and believe the opponent is weak and will “spark” out first.
Why is this? Europe’s countries use “unity against the outside” to cover up their internal contradictions. Because they all commonly believe in Emperor Yeshi, the public is influenced by a childish emotion that “war is just for honor,” ignoring the life-and-death interest points that may exist internally.
Before the brutal contradictions erupt, the peoples of Europe: We all share the same faith, we are ruthless only against heretics, if we fight among ourselves, we will surely abide by gentlemanly spirit and fight a civilized war.
After contradictions erupt, the countries of Europe glare red-eyed at their opponents: “Damn it, why haven’t you surrendered yet (rat-tat-tat, machine gun sweep)! If you don’t surrender, I’ll blast you! Gentleman? What gentleman? The wind is right! Everyone put on pig nose masks! Throw poison gas bombs! I’ll make you die!”
Xuan Chong stared at the Balkans and the Baltic Sea outlet, these two areas with complex “sea-land junctions and ethnic compositions.”
Solving the problems of these two areas requires a great power to have high rationality and responsibly divide the regional rights and obligations.
However, Europe has not learned the essence of “rejoicing without excess, grieving without injury.” Under the incitement of monotheism, public emotions sway like half a bottle of water, and “emotionalized” people cannot recognize the terror behind a series of problems.
Ultimately, in “I think,” “you shouldn’t,” “so what,” they irrationally twist together.
A hundred years ago, Xian Han’s series of interactions with Europe also discovered these barbarians’ “fondness for ghosts and spirits, light on reason and righteousness”; thus kept distance from them, letting Europe’s forces gather in their little dormitory, happily narrating sisterly feelings.
…After paying for the newspaper, Xuan Chong began participating in the celebration…
Xian Han achieved victory in the war, Eastern Shu ceded territory and paid reparations. On the streets of various coastal cities, the official held celebrations.
Regarding post-victory celebrations, the common people just join in for the event, because on the day of the celebration, there will be discounts on various rice and flour, oil, and sugar.
For example, in Saga, because it is relatively poor, they just distribute 50,000 kilograms of rice coupons to be done with it, at most the children line up to receive candy to eat. Xuan Chong saw Dongying people waving colored flags on the streets complete the “warm-up work” and then head straight to the nearby security department to collect coupons.
People’s joy is not from the Han Family narrative system, but because of small favors like cheap rice and flour.
Xuan Chong: Pretty normal, Xian Han’s scale is too large, unlike some small countries where after punching above their weight, even the bottom layer can feel significant war dividends. After a great power wins, it’s easy to have the feeling of “what does this have to do with my xxx salary.” Xian Han has not experienced brutal foreign war defeats like in his own time-space. (Strategy simulations like Hearts of Iron can’t even calculate how Da Qing lost with its resources and population.)
Xuan Chong, repeatedly whipped by modern history, knows that defeat in war has serious implications for “monthly salary 3000.”
Speaking of, one tael of silver per person in compensation, this amount of money is already nothing in Xuan Chong’s view, but if it’s because the fist is not hard enough and paid to foreigners, how obstructed the thoughts would be.
Xuan Chong thought to himself: “If a country of this scale can still be defeated, then it’s time for a round of reform!”
And after returning from the street, Xuan Chong encountered the reward order brought by the superior official.
After hearing “promoted to Auxiliary State General,” Xuan Chong’s mind went slightly blank.
Auxiliary State General is third rank, his original Martial Guard General was fourth rank. It seems like a promotion, but in the Navy’s actual positions, there is no position called “Auxiliary State General.”
On the Navy side, third rank Peaceful Distance General serves as captain of heavy cruisers; Peaceful Difficulty General is captain of aviation cruisers; Cross-Sea General, this irregular general, is captain of ten-thousand-ton supply ships. In the Navy’s actual position sequence, there is only no Auxiliary State General.
Xuan Chong pondered: He has been nominally promoted but actually demoted.
After receiving the decree, Xuan Chong hesitated for a moment and asked the superior official; the Minister of War chuckled and said: “No rush, no rush, Your Majesty has important plans for you.”
But then the tone shifted, this Minister of War: “Little heir, you’ve stayed too long in the southern region, you should go home more often! While parents are alive, do not travel far; if you travel, you must have a reason!”
Xuan Chong understood, the higher-ups probably really have arrangements for him. After the Minister of War left, Xuan Chong immediately opened the Qilin Group side’s contact list.
…When in doubt, seek the Imperial Ancestral Temple…
In Jianye, the Qilin Lord had just finished haggling with the old bro in Yandu and came to the office to drink tea, “just in time” to receive Xuan Chong’s call.
The Qilin Lord knew the time when the Imperial Court issued the appointment decree to Xuan Chong.
The Qilin Lord knew clearly that with such a big matter, Xuan Chong must be like a headless fly.
The Qilin Lord put on a smile: “The Imperial Court promoted you, and you’re unwilling?”
Xuan Chong cautiously asked: I heard someone say to me “while parents are alive, do not travel far,” that, is there anything wrong with my father?
The Qilin Lord was slightly stunned, then burst out laughing: “You little thing, you’re overthinking it?” (The Xian Han Imperial Court will find excuses to send disobedient ministers back to their native places, but it would absolutely never threaten them by holding their entire family hostage—that’s a barbarian tactic.)
Xuan Chong let out a sigh of relief: “What about the people on my ship?” (Considering his subordinates.)
Qilin Lord: “After your ship returns, it will be incorporated into the Inner Guard Fleet (equivalent to an honor fleet, not participating in the main decisive battle, but turning into a ceremonial guard, which is the best outcome for an old ship). Don’t worry, the personnel on your ship will all be properly arranged. And those new recruits you brought will have their military ranks promoted to other ships. (After being tested in actual combat, the old ship will undergo comprehensive magnetization refit.) As for you?”
The Qilin Lord said in a playful tone: “What do you still want to come back for?”
Xuan Chong: “I came out here wanting to make a name for myself, so I can hold my own when I go back home; I can forgo a military position, but the Southern Region imperial examination system? I want to, I want to take the exam.”
Hearing Xuan Chong’s sincere statement, the Qilin Lord was slightly stunned—the reason for his stun was that he heard Xuan Chong’s idea was so simple and pure. And it was all about “engaging in legitimate professions.”
Qilin Lord: “Don’t worry, go to the North. I’ll take care of things here for you. You, take these couple of days to stroll around properly. When you’re away from home, buy some things for the family no matter what (reminding Xuan Chong, he knows every move outside).”
After hanging up the phone, the Qilin Lord’s smile slowly faded, he managed his expression, then dialed the phone to Yandu.
The Qilin Lord said to the North in an utterly unceremonious voice: “You take the man over, you have to really use him. If you don’t use him, in five years, I’ll pull him back.”
…There is always a way to travel…
After finishing the call with his “current manager,” Xuan Chong relaxed, then went out to buy some things for home.
Dongying’s specialties are paper fans, canned fish, and foldable wooden panel houses (luxury tents); colleagues invited Xuan Chong to take a rickshaw, but when Xuan Chong saw the little guy under 1.6 meters trying to pull him, he immediately refused. Xuan Chong spent twelve silver dollars to buy a bicycle and pedaled it to tour the entire Edo.
Inspecting Dongying domain’s industry.
Three days later, Xuan Chong unfolded his ruler and released his “measurement perspective” superpower, seeing large areas of light industry in this place called Tokyo Bay, feeling some envy, jealousy, and hate. This place was much more prosperous than his own Dongtu. Sour grapes, Xuan Chong said: “There are a lot of earthquakes here.”
However, after touring around, he discovered that Dongying here only had light industry, no steel, chemicals; all the fuel and machinery for the light industry were shipped over from the land over there.
What was going on? Xuan Chong asked his colleagues and learned from their sneering discussions that Dongying’s artisans were slacking off!—That is, to freeload on legitimate profession staffing quotas, Dongying people would break down one person’s process in a legitimate profession into a dozen people completing multiple processes.
Just like forging samurai swords, from iron smelting, to carving, then forging and tempering the blade, it required seven or eight groups of people to relay it. Whereas in the Central Plains here, groups of swordsmiths with their apprentices in one workshop handled it.
Because under Dongying culture, artisans had to eat under the daimyo, to ensure their rice bowls were stable, they broke down the steps, turning every step into an “immortal.” As a result, when Xian Han was allocating industry here, they played the same game.
A hundred years ago, when Xian Han introduced the most basic version of modern iron smelting business to Dongying. In this large iron smelting plant, Dongying positions solidified too early! So much so that Dongying’s iron smelting industry couldn’t keep up with technological progress and was eventually left behind.
One must know, the iron smelting industry during the first Industrial Revolution was equivalent to 21st-century new energy automobiles, with technology in a phase of constant innovation; the departments within Xian Han were all driven by a spirit of enterprising progress. Dongying’s “artisans” were not suited for new industries.
Dongying’s last steel mill closed eighty years ago, the last introduced machinery manufacturing plant went bankrupt sixty years ago and relocated back to Xian Han. Just like various new energy industries in Japan from Xuan Chong’s previous life, a complete mess.
Speaking of which, in Xian Han here, after the first Industrial Revolution, the five major economic circles were all developing.
When certain factories couldn’t keep up with the times, profits dropped, and if costs were also high to a certain extent, the Imperial Court wouldn’t procure.
The imperial merchants also wouldn’t lend silver, and the official family relying on the factory for merit would immediately be evaluated as having unsatisfactory performance. Even if the factory had a bunch of legitimate profession personnel attached, when the factory was shut down, the legitimate profession personnel would be relocated to other areas.
If one says Great Ming’s scholar-official stratum was sworn to defend their “land means of production” to the death.
Now Xian Han’s scholar-official stratum, after embarking on industrialization, is dead set on defending their “manufacturing legitimate professions.”
Scholar-officials began forming cliques based on this; scholar-officials also had quotas for purging the incompetent and mediocre within.
Of course, Xian Han’s scholar-officials still resist taxes now, opposing every round of the Xian Han Imperial Court’s taxes on industry, and at every turn threaten the Son of Heaven and imperial merchants to use inner treasury funds to bail out the market.
Xuan Chong: Although the scholar-officials don’t pay taxes, these people are inherently doing industry, reinvesting capital into reproduction is inherently a kind of “paying taxes” (Xian Han founders’ marvelous institutional design thinking).
Whereas here in Dongying, the daimyo’s enfeoffment vassal culture is too heavy, they can’t manage new industrial chains. To be precise, without strong external institutional intervention, they can’t integrate technology.
…Island nation disadvantages…
Xuan Chong, who wanted to develop his hometown, originally wanted to see how Japan’s pioneer uniforms developed, but the result shattered his cognition.
Xian Han people’s attitude toward Japan is “These Dongying people can’t handle heavy industry.”
Xuan Chong recalled that in his previous life, the two rounds of industrial explosions in the Wa Kingdom that people raved about both seemed to originate from two rounds of external institutional inputs.
Once returning to their own stable state, probably forty years after “reform,” the Wa Kingdom itself couldn’t produce major institutional innovations for “production progress.”
The first round was after the Black Ships incident, the Meiji Restoration Group fully westernized, Dongying acquiring a complete industrial system from Britain; but twenty years later, its products lost competitiveness in the Asian market. In a rage, they started filling their heads with horse manure, preparing to monopolize the market.
The second round, the industrially developed period, was after defeat bumping into the Western Region Korean War. The little Wa got comprehensive industrial support from the United States.
But after the 1980s, as the United States cut off cheap technology transfers, after the little Wa developed on their own, their tech tree started skewing all over, only “quirky,” without thinking about “application.”
Wa Kingdom’s worship of the strong atmosphere allows them, when humble, to fully accept a wave of foreign systems. Thereby bursting out a seemingly legitimate productivity leap.
However, the “technological progress” dividends produced by relying on influx of new foreign personnel systems is just this one wave; once they get complacent one morning, they become rampant, followed by steady decline.
During the period when Xuan Chong was born, the reason the East Ocean could prop up the “technology-based nation” facade.
Was that in front, the rooster slept too soundly, and after the “blood and fire generation” stood up, their backbone was too straight, “stubbornly sticking to their views,” subsequently strictly guarded against in exchanges, which again let the dwarfs kneeling to beg for rewards show off technologically for another decade.
This made the Wa Kingdom, over a span of 150 years, rely on exchange advantages from Europe and America pioneer forces to surpass the native suzerain in industrial achievements. So much so that Italianists developed the illusion that “Dongying is advanced in all aspects, personnel management can be borrowed.”
In fact, the truly advanced industrial institutions are those that stood up and developed into “red stars shining.”
…Back to Xian Han spacetime…
In this spacetime, the Han Family took the lead in the Industrial Revolution, hence Xian Han’s scholar-officials’ evaluation of Dongying: “Wa artisans are good at lewd ingenuity.”
Dongying’s light industry is developed, those Dongying small merchants forming stock companies are humble and obedient enough. Xian Han’s big financial cliques, to more conveniently recycle funds, set up light industry factories here.
As for whether Dongying here, with so many “parts small factories,” will eventually produce a smart person to integrate the entire industrial chain?
For example, in Xuan Chong’s previous life, this side also started with OEM, then integrated the piecemeal industrial chain, but this was another Zhongguo move—others can do it too, a beautiful illusion.
There are also those who fantasize about Dongying here being able to integrate “industrial chains,” they haven’t seen the cumbersome yielding ritual between two daimyos passing each other. “Yielding the road,” such a trivial matter, might end up with samurai chopping at each other.
Daimyo are like this, flower queen street parades are like this too, neither yielding the road to the other; when the demon monk parades Buddha, he directly declares “Lord Buddha is the greatest” to make the Japan king faction yield the road to him.
Once Japan forms its own little clique, it treats its clique’s rule as supreme; when encountering others’ cliques, it directly clashes head-on. This system can steadily preserve technology inheritance, but once the industrial system makes great progress, it becomes a stagnant pool.
If we let Dongying’s different parts manufacturers internally conspire? That would require a “sufficiently powerful lord” force to take the lead.
After Xian Han politically replaced the local kings here with Liu Clan kings, it locked from the center the ability of Dongying to integrate technology.
…Pitch-black sky-covering giant hand…
Xian Han’s major sea merchants control “sea profits”, but in reality behind the scenes, it is the fourteen great clans headed by the Son of Heaven.
On the economic butt side, the Son of Heaven and other fourteen great clans are equivalent to United States’s Donkey Party, earning “international money”. While Xian Han’s scholar-official group belongs to the Elephant Party, controlling native industries capital.
But the Son of Heaven and other fourteen great clans are not as shameless as the “Wandering Hexagram”.
The Wandering Hexagram can directly flee the country after scooping up the money. The ancestral graves of the Son of Heaven and other factions are fixed in the homeland, politically their butt is firmly seated on native soil.
On the Yoshiwara street, Xuan Chong as Xian Han’s navy officer, walking on the street receives a series of yields.
Xuan Chong encountered all sorts of Japan states along the way, an old samurai begged him to buy his daughter dressed like a flower.
Xuan Chong tossed a silver dollar and left; this Dongying woman was too small, only one meter four. Xuan Chong had no perverted hobbies.
Moreover, such “flower servants” are everywhere on the street; buying one means there will be a second.
Clearly in this current era, within Japan, the old samurai social stratum is undergoing large-scale bankruptcy. And bankrupt samurais are not without having done “downward conquest”, but all were suppressed.
Xuan Chong recalled his hometown Dongtu; compared to Dongying, it is still at the starting line now.
After witnessing the outside world’s cruelty, Xuan Chong suddenly felt his old home receives the treatment of this world’s “Northern European small countries”, relying on the industrial chain bestowed by the great system, now with few people but eating their fill.
Xuan Chong sighed: Industry development requires a cost; without autonomous ability, the “cost” will be continuously amplified by external controllers, with no end.
