AN:
Credits to Readhead, Sunny, gdstriker, and Vasilisa for revisions.
I may make additional changes to this chapter if I think of additional things to add or revise.
Chapter 53 will be released after this, then Chapter 3 rewrite, then Chapter 54, then Chapter 4 rewrite, and so on. During the rewriting process, there may be some rough transitions between a rewritten chapter and a subsequent old chapter that had not been rewritten yet. This is because there will be some plot changes in the early part of the story, but they will enhance the later story plots and not conflict with them.
I will be renaming this story from "The Cold War" to "A Magical Cold War, Remastered" when I finish rewriting the old chapters up to Chapter 6 or 12.
The old chapter 2 is at the bottom of this page.
August 28th morning, 1942, Berun:
With cool winds gracing the city and signaling the coming of the fall season, I stood on the balcony and found myself enjoying a rare moment of peace, almost lost among the many years of recent strife. I couldn't help but dread the years of strife still to come; even in this temporary oasis, I could sense plenty of work coming my way in spite of my attempts at a peaceful retirement. Troubles yet to come would not stop me from enjoying the magnificent sight before me.
After our morning meeting with the Akisushiman ambassador and the hopeful conversations about future military and economic cooperation, Visha had briefly made herself scarce. To my delight, she soon returned to my office with hands covered in rice-powder carrying a small, covered platter. Even with a face smudged with white powder, she greeted me proudly, delicacies in hand.
"They're not quite as good as the ones that the ambassador gave us, but I know you like sweet stuff," she said sheepishly as she set the platter down on my desk. Even though I had been tipped off, the sight of a popular treat from my previous home country was still a pleasant surprise. Neatly arranged on the platter was a set of mochi cakes. A few were slightly misshapen, but practice would hopefully make perfect.
"You aren't trying to seduce me, are you?" I needled lightly, casting a knowing glance to my love. What was the saying? "The way to a man's heart is, after all, through his stomach."
Although, anatomically speaking, that particular road ran both ways. Not that it was really relevant to this conversation.
Just as I was about to grab the first treat, Visha interrupted me, clearly flustered. "Tanya, can we talk about… that?"
Ah, yes… That.
Now wouldn't be the first time I had ruminated upon that particular moral quandary, but for what I could only assume were drastically different reasons than Visha. During my previous life, such situations had attracted only minimal comment, but here and now… Well, the climate was decidedly less hospitable, and far more chilly.
"I suppose, what about it?" I responded as tactfully as I could, erring towards the bland in the name of caution. While I had blatantly expressed my opinion through action previously, I had no way of ensuring how Visha had taken the act of passion. Even with my previous Human Resource work experience, this particular minefield was for the most part unexplored, especially since I had usually been the one warning employees to not get frisky in the workplace. Better yet, I had run headlong into it, in front of a group of people.
"It certainly was a nice… experience, but… the entire cabinet saw. Eyla hasn't stopped pestering me about the rumor mill absolutely exploding in the aftermath," Visha said, her tone serious though she was clearly trying not to anxiously rush. She was certainly blushing, perhaps from embarrassment although I hoped for other reasons as well, but her earnest character continued to shine through, "I care for you, Ma'am, but the last thing I want is for your reputation as Chancellor to suffer."
"Visha, you shouldn't be worried about me," I soothed. "If some fools decide to judge me, then so be it. Back during the People's Car project, I was accused of being a closet communist, and that didn't bother me. During my service to the Empire and for the content of my early speeches, I have been accused time and again of being some slavering, bloodthirsty war maniac, and while that has bothered me to a slight degree, it certainly hasn't stopped me from accomplishing my goals. As they say, 'If you want to make enemies, try to change something.' And I won't stop changing things."
Visha sat silent for a moment, and then asked, "Word has gotten out to the media, and already they are starting to ask questions about it… How should we answer them?"
I waved my hand dismissively. "If they want to make a big deal about it, I'll ask them why they are so interested in our personal life. And then ask if they are perhaps troubled by fantasies, and if so encourage them to pursue their own dreams."
"You intend to question their sexuality as a diversion?"
"It's all about taking control of the narrative and making them flustered," I corrected. "But before I do any of that… are you comfortable about going public?"
"Hmm…" Visha tapped her chin as she hummed. "Well, there's no point in hiding our relationship now. As you said, we should take control of the narrative. Get our words out before the media goes wild with the rumors from the cabinet members."
As I took a bite of mochi, I saw a determined look enter Visha's eyes as she spoke again. "When you said 'control the narrative,' did you also mean directly reaching out to the media first? It sounded like you were waiting for them to come to you first."
"Ah, I was intending on just waiting for the first fool to bother us about that issue before I slapped them down," I replied around the treat in my mouth.
"What if we directly contacted one of them and offered them an exclusive interview about our relationship?" Visha asked as she reached out and took hold of one of my hands.
"With who?" I gasped, startled by her sudden charm offensive and trying not to choke on a mochi piece.
"Oh don't worry about it, I'll handle all of it for you. There are plenty of other things that you have to deal with anyways," Visha smiled, failing utterly to reassure me as she pushed the platter towards me, and then briskly walked out of my office before I could voice my protest.
My face turned red as I coughed up the mochi piece. Looking up as I spat the damned thing out, I caught a glimpse of the formerly cloudless sky, and saw that a storm was approaching.
August 28th evening, 1942, Berun:
While the hard rain and wind pounded on the dining hall's roof, I was enjoying the last of my dinner when Maciej Moscicki, the President of Pullska, made his appearance, already very drunk.
Again.
"An unified military command will ensure that we are ready for a future conflict if the Rus overdose on their revanchist propaganda!" Moscicki slurred, slamming down his now empty wine glass in the process.
"You're suggesting that we combine all of our military forces together?" Luigi Falasca, the Prime Minister of Ildoa, stammered and almost choked on his pasta in his surprise.
"I think he is suggesting a permanent joint command to help synchronize our military actions, while still keeping our military forces as their own organizations," I put in as I aimlessly pushed the remnants of my meal around on my plate. "Joint exercises between our military forces would help keep our coordination sharp. We don't need any complacency. Not to mention that Caucasia is still infested with anti-OZEV insurgents, so it's not like we're lacking for enemies."
I really needed the rest of the OZEV to keep an eye on Caucasia and the other new republics. Elya's report on the recent disturbances in troubling the whole of that fragile region sometimes made me lose sleep. Besides, Major Koenig and his commando team were still out somewhere on the Caucasian steppe and mountains playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse against anti-OZEV insurgents and NKVD operatives. I can't just leave him stuck alone in a hopeless situation; besides, someday one of his commandos would surely come to their senses and surely request a transfer, and then where would we be without a replacement for that institutional knowledge?
"And what about intelligence sharing?" Constantin Groza, the Prime Minister of Dacia, spoke up, mouth half-full.
"We could incorporate military intelligence sharing into the joint command, so that everyone is seeing the same picture while still preserving their freedom to contribute whatever scraps of intelligence they turn up. That way if the Rus, or the anti-OZEV insurgents, want to blind us, they'll have to take extensive measures to avoid our countermeasures and detection capabilities." I set down my knife and fork onto my plate.
"Speaking of more open intelligence sharing," Moscicki spoke up again, this time with only mild slurring, "we need more streamlined border crossings to improve trade between each other."
"How are those two topics related?" Falasca had a deep look of annoyance. "You know what, you really should be watching how much you drink!"
Telling a Pullskan to lay off on alcohol consumption… This is not how I expect OZEV to break apart.
"Tomorrow, I'll have some carbonara for breakfast. Where the spaghetti pieces are broken in half, boiled in water without salt and heavy cream is added," Moscicki smirked, clarity briefly flashing through his very inebriated fog. "You shouldn't have insulted my local cuisine the other day."
I put my hand up before someone could say something that would end our dinner and start the fisticuffs in earnest. The last thing I wanted is for the OZEV to break apart over petty, cuisine-based squabbling! How would I ever live down the shame? "The border regulation is something we need to eventually discuss. The fewer hours it takes for a traveler to cross a border and the less paperwork attached to their transit, the more all of our economies will improve with the increased trade flow. That being said, we will need to iron out specific details so that smuggling doesn't blight our shared economic prosperities."
"Unified police will-" Moscicki was about to finish his sentence but choked off after Thorvald Buhl, the Prime Minister of Daneland, visibly kicked him under the table.
Unified this, unified that. Is Moscicki serious about another plebiscite, so willing to just give up Pullska's sovereignty? I couldn't have that, not without the Albish and other countries fearing a rebirth of the Empire and forming a coalition to take it down. I'll just have to appease people with some half-measures to keep them from continuously demanding OZEV to become a fully integrated empire.
"Sharing of law enforcement information on high risk criminals, especially those that have crossed the border will help us all," I continued, winking at Buhl for keeping Moscicki in check. "A criminal could find loopholes to run from country to country within OZEV, but it won't matter if all of the police forces are looking at the same wanted list, and when the criminal is caught, they get a free one-way trip back to the original country that initially rolled out the red carpet for him!"
Falasca finally seemed to have finished repressing something he wanted to say to Moscicki, and then turned to me. "So what happens when the country that catches the criminal decides to not extradite him?"
"Extradition treaty for OZEV members," I clarified. "For unique situations, it's handled just like how a criminal escapes from one country to another country when neither has an extradition treaty. Group dialogues within OZEV and direct diplomacy."
I heard a noise behind me and looked over to see Visha pushing a cart, with plates of different assortments of mochi treats. I was not expecting her to be here, but her presence was always a welcome, even when it was a surprise. And seeing the creative takes she had with the desserts, her morning's mochi making was probably just one of the many practices.
"What are those?" Falasca raised an eyebrow.
"An Akinese snack, and President Degurechaff's favorite one as well," Visha replied with a cheerful wink as she served a plate to each person.
I tried to hide my embarrassed face by pouring a full glass of wine and chugging it, only to be interrupted when Visha came up to me with a stack of documents.
"The Diet finished revising the Veterans Benefits Bill to add additional benefits, and then almost unanimously passed it," she announced, plopping the wad of papers down in front of me. "All it needs now is your signature."
I skimmed through the highlighted sections where the Diet made their changes. It would be an expensive addition to the national expenditures, but I was in no mood to micromanage democracy. As I whipped out my pen to sign it, Jan Benes, the president of Czechoslovakia, looked over at the documents.
"Veterans benefits? Free trade school or college education?"
"A big thank you to the veterans, and to help ensure that they have a smooth transition to civilian life," explained Visha with a broad smile, and in the process handing me an excellent jumping off point from which I could further direct the conversation away from any questions about how I had "discovered" mochi.
"And at a macro level," I began, looking from politician to politician, "it gives the labor market a few years to reabsorb millions of veterans and for the companies to switch from wartime production back to peacetime business. After all, having large numbers of unemployed soldiers hanging around is just asking for social unrest. For those who were heavily wounded, well, they deserve only the finest medical care, and to not have to pay for it from their own pockets."
Benes rubbed his chin. "Interesting idea. May I get a copy of the bill?"
"Not a problem. I can get it to you tomorrow morning," Visha nodded.
"This is good." Falasca interjected, turning to Visha as he finished chewing one of the mochi pieces. "Do you have a cookbook?"
"Hmm," Visha put a finger to her chin and gazed skywards in thought. "I hadn't considered making a cookbook, Mister Prime Minister..."
"Perhaps you should," I teased Visha. "I love your cooking, but it would be selfish of me to keep that all to myself."
October 10th, 1942, Nanjing:
Zhang Wentian took a bite of the clump of rice and pork as he stared at the notes provided by Kang Sheng, Director of Central Investigation Bureau, who had joined him for lunch.
Swallowing his bite, Zhang looked up from the page and asked, "You want Li Lisan arrested and executed?"
"He started political rallies after you stripped him of his position." Kang narrowed his eyes as he pushed aside his plate.
"He was pushing for collectivization and sparrow exterminations even after I told him to stop." Zhang had a look of annoyance. "Perhaps I tolerated him for too long. I am fine with having him imprisoned for a short duration, to send a message to others that want to follow or emulate him."
"He may have some merits in his arguments, but his previous heated clashes with other senior party members and the aggressive words in his rallies is completely unacceptable. A short prison sentence would not be sufficient," Kang argued.
"Executing him would do nothing but create a new martyr," Zhang sighed. "You can of course kill a person, even their entire family and immediate friends, but as the Shun Dynasty discovered the hard way, you can't kill an idea with bullets. And while he has a relatively small group of supporters, they are equally energetic. A small motivated cadre is more than enough to cause serious problems, should they turn to violence. But," he added, raising a finger, "I already have a solution to deal with his supporters."
"And that is?..." Kang raised an eyebrow.
"Ensuring the success of our Great Leap Forward campaign and avoiding an extended war if an external threat occurs." Zhang confidently smiled. "As long as the Chinese Soviet Republic is prosperous, everyone has their iron rice bowl and every family pot contains a chicken, people won't let ideological problems become actual political crises. That puts a check on how far Li can take things before he starts to drive away people. And I trust that you will let me know if things become dangerous, and help guide me through that security crisis when it comes."
"Li is already a security crisis!" Kang heartily objected. "Just having him behind the bars will invite someone to set him free. He needs to be silenced!"
Zhang noisily set down his chopsticks. "He was one of us, therefore he gets a say in how things are run, even if we disagree with him. I will not set the precedent of executing political opponents, because then people will take drastic actions when their only two options are success or death. He was with us at every major battle, victory and defeat. He shared the hunger and desperation that we all endured in our struggles. I remember when we all had a small bowl of rotten rice for an entire day's march, because the imperial soldiers were right on our tail."
"I remember you giving me your bowl of rice when I was ill," Kang agreed, his tone softening with old emotion and nostalgia.
"I trusted you as a brother, and I still trust you to this day," Zhang nodded.
"And I will protect you with my life!"
A few hours later:
As Zhang took his seat at the council table, the quiet muttering drifted away as the other attendees turned to look at him. Peng Dehuai's assistant finished putting up a map of the Russy Federation, then quickly scurried out of the meeting room and closed the door.
"Comrades, it is good to see all of you," Zhang said, greeting them all with a smile. "I have read the reports of the past few days on the progress of our Great Leap Forward campaign, and unless there are recent updates, I am pleased with how things are progressing. The oil shortage will be a problem, but that can be resolved in the future by tapping into what the Rus has."
Zhang looked at Peng Dehuai, Minister of National Defense. "Speaking of the Rus, what is the status of our operations in the Russy Federation?"
Peng got up from his seat to walk over to the map. "We secured the Trans-Sibyria railway system past Samara, Kirov and Kazan, about 500 to 700 kilometers from Moskva for those three cities. We acquired some of their railroad artillery pieces and will be moving them to our coastal defense system."
Peng then pointed at Kazan on the map. "A faction located close to the city of Kazan has blown up a railway bridge and denounced us for betraying the revolutionary cause. It seems they have taken offense to us using mages on a large scale. Despite their annoyances, it's only a minor setback to our overall operation and they will be swept aside with support from friendly Rus factions."
"Regarding the radical communists that oppose us, it doesn't matter who's right. It only matters who's left." Zhang chuckled. "I remember Secretary Jughashvili ranting about how mages are some sort of a capitalist repression tool. Now he's dead, we're coming in to save what's left of them from OZEV, and they're telling us we're wrong? If they want to keep using eggs to hit a stone, then let them kill themselves for nothing. Anyways, continue."
Peng then looked at Kang and then back at Zhang, "With excellent support from the Central Investigation Bureau, we are making good progress identifying and recruiting Russy Federation scientists, military officers and NKVD agents, as well as recovering their military equipment and vehicles for reverse engineering. We have also found what appears to be copies of Germania's Type 97 model, and our preliminary field tests show their capabilities that far exceed our current orbs."
While Peng paused briefly to take a sip of tea, Kang joined in. "A few of my agents have headed for North Bharat to meet with NKVD agents that may have the Type 97 production schematics. It's evident that all of the Type 97 productions in the Rus territory have been packed up and moved elsewhere."
Zhang tapped his finger on the desk. "All of this is great news. Except, we have to make the decision of either focusing our utilization of the Rus knowledge, experts and acquired machinery for our Great Leap Forward, or our military development. Both need to be eventually accomplished."
"Other than mopping up the hostile factions in the Russy Federation, we are currently at peace, with enough breathing room to focus on developing our industry," Kang noted. "OZEV is busy celebrating their triumph and shows no sign of preparing any further invasions of Rus territory; so long as we do nothing on the international stage to provoke them, they will likely begin demobilizing their military forces. The Akinese are also quiet as well. All quiet on the western and eastern fronts."
"There are things we can accomplish that would achieve both goals," interjected Li Kenong, Minister of the Interior, breaking the brief silence. "Furthermore, economic development will encourage population growth, and while that will require increased investment in health, education and social services in anticipation of a large new generation, the eventual extra manpower and mages will strengthen our industry and military. My decade-long research is still ongoing, but I believe we are on track of determining the heredity of people with magic potential. We will need at least several thousand couples with varying magic potential, or no magic potential to have babies that we can test for magic potential, but once we have isolated the bloodline, we can use the information to boost our mage population. Our people will be our strength!"
"I've read Troskey Lysenka's teachings that refuted that bourgeois pseudoscience of heredity. Why are you sti-" Kang interjected, only for Li Kenong to cut him off.
"Troskey was a fraud, and his wife, Olga, remains a fraud!" Li Kenong angrily spat, almost knocking his tea cup over as he continued ranting. "Especially Olga, in fact, who still believes in spontaneous generation, an obsolete theory that is disproven by the clear fact that properly cooked and sealed canned food doesn't begin to rot until it's exposed to the air! She also claims she could bring dead or destroyed cells back to life, while conspicuously refusing to allow anyone to observe her experiments. And he was very supportive of her!"
Li Kenong then jabbed his hand on the table. "I even allowed them to run a little experimental farm to demonstrate their theories, and my subordinates caught them cheating when they tried buying harvests from elsewhere to pass it off as their own, in order to cover up their poor yields! Neighboring farms, and the rest of the farms in the entire district, that didn't utilize their insane ideas consistently performed better! The only skill he and his wife were good at was political navigation in the Russy Federation, and they had hundreds of Rus biologists purged for the past two decades! Biologists that I could have recruited to advance the agriculture and medical fields in the CSR! I will not allow them to purge our scientists and sabotage us!"
"You gave them only one growing season, and how dare you question Jughashvili's decision to purge tho-" Kang was cut off again.
"I'm so sorry, I can't give him another growing season even if I wanted to waste more of my time reading their fabricated reports," Li Kenong shrugged, aiming for nonchalance but unable to conceal a grim satisfaction. "After I dumped them back into the Russy Federation, someone shot Troskey dead as soon as he stepped off the train. Rumor has it that the shooter was a son of one of the executed biologists who wanted revenge."
Chuckling, Li added, "If Olga can bring his corpse back to life, and I can verify that she didn't have someone pretend to be him, then I'll let her back into our country and give her all of the scientific and hero awards."
Kang intensely glared at Li Kenong. "You dare to mock me?"
Li Kenong crossed his arms. "Leave my scientists alone. Stay in your lane. I can't believe you, the Director of Central Investigation Bureau, were conned by those two science frauds. Honestly, that misstep only reinforces my point!"
Zhang slapped the table to get everyone's attention. "That's enough arguing. Li Kenong, I will approve your mage birth experiment, but your position in the party will directly reflect based on the results you achieve."
Peng cleared his throat while Kang visibly fumed. "Speaking of dual use, the mage augmentation developments that the Rus started on could be useful for us. If we can make weak mages into powerful ones, their magic strength will contribute to our industry and military."
"Mage augmentation?" Zhang perked up.
"Special drugs and an injection system for temporary magic boost. A lot of work is still needed to refine the system so that we don't have high mage mortality rates from the usage."
"Begin at once."
"Thank you." Peng nodded. "There is one military project that we should start sooner than later. The development of a blue water navy. Thanks to Kang Sheng's efforts, Chinese students studying in Francois Republic were able to bribe a Frankish ship breaking yard to get our hands on an intact destroyer before they started cutting it up, along with piles of ship schematics. We also secured a cruiser's major components to be shipped to us with the help of an arms smuggler. Turns out unemployed navy personnel are very receptive towards being advisors in return for a large amount of gold, especially with the Francois Republic's major shift towards a more mobile military that has no need for heavy ships."
"Naval development for what?" Li Kenong looked confused. "We are already building railways along our coastline for the dual purpose of train traffic and coastal railway guns. I already have plans drawn up to hire Rus oil experts to prospect for oil fields in western Sibyria and build the extraction infrastructure, so we won't need to import oil from overseas."
"We don't know what the next decade will look like, and developing a navy takes a very long time. An army can march all the way to Europe, but one can't swim across the Pacific Ocean."
"He has a point. We need to be prepared for the future." Zhang sighed. "Just keep our naval development a secret. I do not want to alarm the Akinese or other countries and provoke them into ramping up their military when we need to finish developing our industrial base."
"I will ensure the secrecy of our navy program," Kang smiled.
"Good. Does anyone else have something to discuss?" Zhang looked around the room, and saw no one offering anything. "This concludes the council meeting. Proletarians and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!"
The rest of the council members all belted out in unison, "Proletarians and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!"
October 11th, 1942, Berun:
With the Navy and the rest of the Germanian military all having their budgets cut as part of the peacetime demobilization, I hadn't expected the military to keep their foot mashed all the way down onto the gas pedal in terms of research and development.
But yet, here I was, sipping coffee as Admiral Albrecht's aide rolled out the design poster for the next project the admiral wanted to discuss. "While I understand that building a new destroyer class would be questionable with the current political environment," he was saying, taking a sip from his own mug, "the Germanian Navy has developed an upgrade proposal for our current destroyers that would allow them to operate in contested waters and remain relevant for at least the next five years before the next upgrade, or a full replacement, becomes essential."
"Mhm," I replied, noticing immediately that all of the 20 and 37 millimeter cannons present on the original destroyer had been replaced by quadruple 30 millimeter revolver cannons in the proposed schematic. That was far from the only major alteration made to the ship's guns: Each of the quadruple mounts would also have their own fire control radar sets, apparently, should the Navy get their way. A small note explained that this would reduce reliance on the ship's main radar systems, and might improve accuracy as well.
Albrecht seemed to have picked up on my attention to that aspect.
"With our demonstration of aviation power in our single, decisive naval engagement against the Frankish fleet, the rest of the world would have likely taken notice and started working on developing their own naval aviation." Albrecht pointed at a section that provided theoretical calculations of how many more bombers or mages an adversary would need to throw at an upgraded destroyer to cause damage. "We expect air threats to keep growing in the future, and this relatively low-cost upgrade would keep us ahead of that. Especially since we also have a surplus of unused 30 millimeter revolver cannons, leftovers from wartime production."
I don't know how modern navy missile exchanges happened, but I figured there was a good reason why China in my previous life was running around with new anti-ship missile designs.
"What's the progress on our missile developments?"
Albrecht looked at air force General Weiss, then at me.
"Our joint development of missiles is still in the very early stages, and there have been conflicting visions over the future of them," Albrecht hesitantly said.
"What kind of visions?" I asked suspiciously.
"Air to air, air to ground, ground to air, ground to ground, and then there are a few controversial ones who proposed 'space missiles' that could go above Earth's atmosphere and come back down to hit a target across the world," Albrecht explained, ticking the types off on his fingers. "The target types also vary significantly. All of those require completely different launch and performance characteristics, warhead designs, guidance systems and other factors."
"Why not all of them, or at least build the foundational knowledge so that future missile projects can utilize them?" I slightly tilted my head sideways in confusion.
"Uh…" Albrecht blinked for a moment, while Lergen stepped in.
"There's not enough funding for that many projects."
"I'm willing to spend extra when I know the effort will have immense pay off, even if it doesn't immediately yield useful products." I set down my coffee cup. "All of those 'visions' are viable, so we should look into all of them. As for the intercontinental ballistic missile, we should look into integrating a nuclear warhead into that."
"Intercontinental ballistic missile… you mean the space missile project proposal? And integrating a nuclear warhead into it? How would we ensure its accuracy?" Weiss stammered.
I shrugged my shoulders. "It bypasses adversary air defenses and delivers the payload to the target at a much shorter time. A salvo of them with nuclear warheads to carpet bomb the general area of an adversary's cities also resolves the accuracy problem."
I looked over and noticed Lergen seemed to have a look of awe. I knew I could always count on his support.
October 12th, 1942, Aegyptus:
"...As a conclusion, I recommend that the Royal Aegyptian Army look into procuring a limited quantity of the surplus military hardware from the currently demobilizing European countries, and develop its own strategies based on lessons from the recent wars, tailored to our geography and local geopolitics. Then we can begin procuring domestically produced, and eventually domestically designed, hardware. While also redesigning our military doctrines to incorporate combined arms and other concepts that were utilized in the recent wars."
Major Izz al-Arab Nasser proudly finished his presentation on the new doctrine that he had spent the past few months working on. The capstone of the piles of reports he wrote and the many photos he took while embedded as an observer in the Frankish military during their war in Europe, and then an observer in the Albish military when the Francois Republic collapsed at a pace that it took him a few weeks to fully understand what happened.
Only to notice General Abdel Sirri Amer had a dismissive look on his face. The general then turned to Colonel Anwar Naguib.
"Why is your subordinate wasting my time?"
Naguib blinked for a moment. "Could you be more specific?"
"Your subordinate, and by extension you, are suggesting radical new doctrines that call for expensive, frivolous military hardware that will drain the state's treasury."
"Our mostly infantry army is hopeless in future wars, and this is the best time to buy military hardware with everyone seeking to jettison it. The Francois Republic had modernized their military and was still overrun within two weeks after running headlong into an enemy that was far more ahead. Then there was the bloodbath in the Ildoan Peninsula and eastern Europe. How will we protect King Ismail against foreign threats?" Naguib was cut off by Amer's harsh laugh.
"Foreign invasion? The Albish military will take care of the matter. And a foreign invasion is unlikely because all of Aegyptus's neighbors are either direct control under the Albish or Frankish, or would never dare to cross the two European powers!"
"What about from a European power that declares war on the Allied Kingdom, such as the OZEV alliance?" Naguib had a deep look of worry. "We have already seen the Albish struggle to defend Legadonia Entente against the initial Rus invasion, and then struggle again with their Bharat colony's communist rebellions. Germania had to intervene to save Legadonia Entente while the Albish were withdrawing their forces, and the Albish gave independence to Bharat to take the popular support away from the communists to stop their advances. Now there are growing political movements across the Middle East and North Africa, in defiance of the established powers."
"You worry too much." Amer sounded more annoyed this time. "I don't think you seem to understand what is important for our military."
Naguib and Nasser stood silent, while Amer sighed.
"The protection of our king, and his family. While the Albish handle the external threats, we focus on the many, many domestic threats that all seek to threaten our king. Communists. Liberals. Nationalists. Religious fanatics. In fact, by reducing our manpower to pay for the expensive military hardware, we would hamper our ability to respond to revolts or coups!"
Amer glared at the two men. "Get out of my sight."
A few hours later:
Nasser quietly chewed on meat stuffed tomatoes at lunch with his colleagues, his eyes staring off in the distance as the men chatted.
Mohamed Salem cleared his throat. "I heard about what happened in General Amer's office."
"It doesn't matter." Nasser sighed, putting his utensils down. "He's content to keep things the same for the next decade, two decades, and so on. Regardless of the world changing around us."
"He's just a symptom of what is wrong with the country," Salem groused, shaking his head in annoyance. "The entire government is ossified. Problems don't get fixed because the ones at the top are busy enjoying their private luxuries, and the only people who get promoted are the ones that slavishly obey. Anytime a major crisis happens, they just wait for the Albish to come fix the problems for them. Until the day when the Albish no longer answers the call for help."
"What do you think would take to break the ossification?" Nasser took a sip of his tea.
"What was the justification that General Amer had for opposing any modernization of the military?"
"He said the purpose of our military is to be the royal family's bodyguards, and crack down on any internal dissenters. Thus no modern hardware or tactics are needed. And also didn't want to 'drain the state's treasury'," Nasser said, summing up the general's words while Salem and a few others at the table made disapproving expressions.
"And what happens when someone invades us?" Abdel Mohieddin asked, apparently out of morbid curiosity, while Salem muttered in the background, almost incoherent, though Nasser heard something about the irony of the general worrying about wasting money when the king was spending it on luxuries and parties.
"Wait for the Albish to rescue us. I'm serious, that's what he said." Nasser took another bite of food as the table erupted in vocalized annoyances and disapproval.
"Be a good, obedient slave to the Allied Kingdom," Mohieddin scoffed. "Pathetic. Amer, and those that put him in power to begin with, are all a disgrace to our people!"
"Have you seen the foreign newspapers and magazines of King Ismail partying in Europe for the past month? There was a photo of him dancing with some woman in Parisee at a nightclub, while our people are suffering in poverty!" Salem scowled. "The censors are very good at their jobs and have succeeded in keeping the local newspaper from mentioning anything about his disgraceful behavior, but they can't stop all of the foreign media from entering this country. I could buy a foreign magazine, newspaper or tabloid from a random street stand and find information about our king being a disgrace. Especially the photos of his misconduct and greed."
"He and his corrupt kitchen cabinet are wasting everyone's time with their 'visit' of Europe now that the continent is done with their war. It's been almost a month now and they are still in Europe," Mohieddin sighed with annoyance.
Nasser stopped chewing his food and swallowed it. "Are we going to do anything about it, instead of just complaining?"
There was an ominous silence at the table.
AN:
The chairman is a loose adaptation of the real life Zhang Wentian, and from my interpretation, he was the closest of an "economist" that the PRC had. Unfortunately for him, Mao and others distrusted him: wiki/Zhang_Wentian
Reference to the "iron rice bowl" phrase: wiki/Iron_rice_bowl
Reference to the "a chicken for every pot" phrase: .gov/id/187095
This is the advertisement that caused Herbert Hoover's opponents to state that he had promised voters a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage during the campaign of 1928. During the campaign of 1932, Democrats sought to embarrass the President by recalling his alleged statement. According to an article in the New York Times (10/30/32), Hoover did not make such a statement. The report was based on this ad placed by a local committee - which only mentions one car !
This item was produced or created on October 30, 1928.
science-nature/when-the-soviet-union-chose-the-wrong-side-on-genetics-and-evolution-23179035/
Michurinist biology, which later morphed into Lysenkoism, was convenient for a Soviet government trying to engineer the perfect social utopia. Under this system, they thought they could quickly force plants and animals, even the Soviet people, into forms that could serve practical requirements. For example, Lysenko claimed that he changed a species of spring wheat into a winter wheat in just a few years. Of course, this was impossible—particularly since the spring wheat species had two sets of chromosomesand the winter wheat had three—and more likely his experiment had been contaminated. But Lysenko held great power and his claims were rarely challenged.
Lysenko came to dominate Soviet biology with a 1948 speech—prepared in part by Stalin himself—in which Lysenko denounced Mendel and declared proponents of such science to be enemies of the people. Scientists who disagreed with Lysenko's theories were purged—some were sent to the gulags while others simply disappeared.
wiki/Lysenkoism
Lysenkoism dominated Chinese science from 1949 until 1956, particularly during the Great Leap Forward, when, during a genetics symposium opponents of Lysenkoism were permitted to freely criticize it and argue for Mendelian genetics.[39] In the proceedings from the symposium, Tan Jiazhen is quoted as saying "Since [the] USSR started to criticize Lysenko, we have dared to criticize him too".[39] For a while, both schools were permitted to coexist, although the influence of the Lysenkoists remained large for several years, contributing to the Great Famine through loss of yields.[39]
wiki/Trofim_Lysenko
After World War II ended, Lysenko took an interest in the works of Olga Lepeshinskaya, an older feldsher and biologist, who claimed to be able to create cells from egg yolk and non-cellular matter. Lepeshinskaya recognized common ground between her ideas and Lysenko's. By combining both of their ideas it was possible to proclaim that cells could grow from non-cellular material and that the predicted ratios of Mendelian genetics and meiosis were incorrect, thus undermining the basis of modern cytology, as well as genetics.[10]
wiki/Olga_Lepeshinskaya_(biologist)
She based her career on claims to observe de novo emergence of living cells from non-cellular materials, supporting such claims with fabricated proofs which were "confirmed" by others eager to advance in the politicized scientific system. In reality, she filmed the death and subsequent decomposition of cells, then projected these films reversed.
/olga-lepeshinskaya-was-the-most-dangerous-woman-in-pseu-1518099210
time/subscriber/article/0,33009,935680,
Context for how the CSR students ended up in Francois Republic: wiki/Diligent_Work-Frugal_Study_Movement
There were also notable Chinese communist leaders who had studied in France, and were involved with the local communist groups in that country. At least one of them was expelled from France for being involved with the communist groups. I don't remember the names, but at one point I had about two dozen tabs opened on each person to build the setting and characters for the CSR's government.
From the Wikipedia article on the "Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement": Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement - Wikipedia
"In all, several thousand Chinese came to France as student-workers, though not all as formal members of a program. They included future leaders of the Chinese Communist Party such as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, as well as others who went on to prominent roles in China."
Paris, and the rest of France, had active radical movements for decades, such as the May 68 protest (initially started out as a students' protest, then the trade unions joined in, and it quickly spiraled out of control while the French government was busy trying to flee):
watch?v=AVWcHxMsMg8
Or the immediate post-WW2 politics where the communist political parties were a major player: watch?v=nbQXCC6O11g
There was also the Paris Commune that popped up right after France surrendered in the 1871 Franco-Prussian War.
As for the CSR's inevitable mage horde, inspired by this HOI4 video. Bear in mind that the player was using "volunteer only" recruiting, and not "scraping the barrel": watch?v=_UrCvbCumUo
And also the GLA faction in the Command & Conquer: Generals game: watch?v=QzpPLo68hEw
wiki/Intercontinental_ballistic_missile#World_War_II
wiki/Aggregat#A9/A10
It was proposed to use an advanced version of the A9 to attack targets on the US mainland from launch sites in Europe, for which it would need to be launched atop a booster stage, the A10.
Design work on the A10 began in 1940, for a projected first flight to take place in 1946. The initial design was carried out by Ludwig Roth und Graupe and was completed on 29 June 1940. Hermann Oberth worked on the design during 1941, and in December 1941 Walter Thiel proposed that the A10 use an engine composed of six bundled A4 engines, which it was thought would give a total thrust of 180 tonnes.
Work on the A10 was resumed in late 1944 under the Projekt Amerika codename, and the A10's design was amended to incorporate a cluster of 6 A4 combustion chambers feeding into a single expansion nozzle. This was later altered to a large single chamber and single nozzle. Test stands were constructed at Peenemunde for firings of the 200 tonne (440,920 lbf) thrust motor.
Early ballistic missile projects:
wiki/RTV-A-2_Hiroc
wiki/SM-65_Atlas
Book reading of a historical analysis of Arab military forces: "Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness"
Book's introduction: "Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern. Reliance on Soviet military methods, the poor civil military relations of the Arab world, the underdevelopment of the Arab states, and patterns of behavior derived from the wider Arab culture, have all been suggested as the ultimate source of Arab military difficulties."
The book analyzes a variety of factors that may have led to Arab military forces underperforming, and determining which ones were actual factors or just excuses. In one particular case example (pages 63 to 67), it looked at how Egypt switched from Soviet equipment and doctrines to US equipment and doctrines, only for its armed forces to completely struggle in the 1991 Desert Storm campaign against shattered Iraqi forces that had been carpet bombed for over a month, in contrast to all of the other coalition military forces. A small section of the writing:
By the morning of the third day of the ground war, the Egyptians still had
not taken their first day's objective of al-Abraq, and so CENTCOM ordered
them to forget al-Abraq and instead turn east and move to al-Jahrah
immediately. Once again, the Egyptian command refused to deviate
from their plan unless they received a formal order from the Coalition
political leadership.
When confirmation of the CENTCOM orders finally arrived, the Egyptians
swung part of their force east to creep toward al-Jahrah, but CENTCOM
found it necessary to give this task instead to an American unit because the
Egyptians were moving so slowly.
By the end of the war, the Egyptians had somehow taken nearly a hundred
casualties and had nothing to show for the effort.
Page 69:
Moreover, the Egyptian pilots would get extremely upset when someone
did something he was not supposed to do. For this reason, there apparently
is widespread dislike of joint training exercises with US forces because the
Americans constantly and deliberately improvise rather than sticking to the
agreed-upon script.
Page 113:
Even lesser autocracies often manifest commissarist traits. When Nasser finally
gained control of Egypt he immediately packed the high command of the
armed forces with fellow coup participants from the Free Officers Movement.
In one of many extreme moves, he promoted his friend 'Abd al-Hakim 'Amr
from the rank of major to major general and made him commander-in-chief
of the Egyptian armed forces.16 The Saudi military also goes to considerable
lengths to ensure that its troops cannot mount a coup. The primary function
of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) is to protect the regime, and
to ensure its loyalty, the SANG is recruited entirely from Najdi tribes loyal to
the House of Sa'ud.17
Page 119:
The Egyptian armed forces furnish a good example of this shift. Prior to
1948, the Egyptian military functioned largely as a true palace guard, responsible
mostly for protecting the king and his retainers. External security was
largely an afterthought. Consequently, and consistent with the claims of this
explanation, when the Egyptian army was committed to battle against Israel
in 1948 it was ignominiously defeated. But this beating prompted the cabal of
the Free Officers to overthrow the monarchy, and one of their primary motives
was to rebuild the army as a "real" fighting force to avenge the disaster of 1948
Page 140:
As the Egyptian defenses collapsed, the levels of deception and obfuscation
from Egyptian tactical formations spiraled, and the Egyptian forces on the west
bank quickly descended into confusion and paralysis. Egypt's senior leadership
scrambled to try to patch together some kind of defense to stop the Israeli
advance, but they were hamstrung by the passivity and dissembling of their
subordinates. For instance, on one occasion, an Egyptian brigade commander
repeatedly told the Third Army commander that he was counterattacking the
Israelis when in fact his forces had never moved from their positions.12
wiki/Gamal_Abdel_Nasser#Revolution
Soon after his return, he was summoned and interrogated by Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdel Hadi regarding suspicions that he was forming a secret group of dissenting officers.[56] According to secondhand reports, Nasser convincingly denied the allegations.[56] Abdel Hadi was also hesitant to take drastic measures against the army, especially in front of its chief of staff, who was present during the interrogation, and subsequently released Nasser.[56] The interrogation pushed Nasser to speed up his group's activities.[56]
wiki/1952_Egyptian_Revolution
wiki/Free_Officers_Movement_(Egypt)
wiki/Hussein_Sirri_Amer
King Farouk in real life was… eccentric, and really loved his parties: wiki/Farouk_of_Egypt#World_War_II
During the hardships of the Second World War, criticism was levelled at Farouk for his lavish lifestyle. His decision not to put out the lights at his palace in Alexandria when the city was blacked out because of German and Italian bombing was deemed particularly offensive by the Egyptian people. This was a large contrast to the British royal family back in England, who were well known to have an opposite reaction to the bombings near their home. Owing to the continuing British occupation of Egypt, many Egyptians, Farouk included, were positively disposed towards Germany and Italy,
…
After the humiliation of the Abdeen Palace incident, Farouk lost interest in politics for the moment, and he abandoned himself to a lifestyle of hedonism as he became obsessed with "collecting" women by sleeping with them, having his closest friend, the Italian valet Antonio Pulli, bring in fair-skinned women from the dance halls and brothels of Cairo and Alexandria to his palaces for sex.[106] Despite his great wealth, Farouk was a kleptomaniac who always took something valuable such as a painting or a piano from whatever member of the Egyptian elite he stayed with, as no one could say no to the king and if he indicated he wanted something, his subjects had to give it to him.[107][108][109] When one of the daughters of the Ades family, one of the richest Jewish families in Egypt, rebuffed Farouk's advances, he arrived unannounced at the Ades family's estate on an island in the Nile with Pulli telling the Adeses that the king had come to hunt the gazelles.[109] Rather than have the kleptomaniac Farouk stay at their estate and wipe out the gazelles on their island, the Adeses agreed that their 16-year-old daughter would go to the Abdeen palace to be courted by the king.[104]
…
Farouk had something of a mania for collecting things ranging from Coca-Cola bottles to European art to ancient Egyptian antiques.[114] Farouk became addicted to eating and drinking soft-drinks, ordering his French chefs at the Abdeen palace to cook enormous meals of the finest French food, which he devoured and which caused him to become obese.[115] Farouk came to be known as "the king of the night" owing to the amount of time he spent in the exclusive Auberge des Pyramides nightclub in Cairo, where he spent his time socializing, smoking cigars and drinking orangeade.[116] Farouk also indulged in much childish behavior at the Auberge des Pyramides like throwing bread balls at the other patrons.[116] Farouks's grandfather, Ismail the Magnificent, had rebuilt Cairo in the style of Paris and during Farouk's reign, Cairo was considered to be a glamorous city, the most Westernized and wealthy city in the Middle East.[117] As a result, various celebrities from the West were constantly passing through Cairo and were invited to socialize with the king.[118]
…
Farouk also met various Allied leaders. South African Prime Minister Jan Christian Smuts called Farouk "surprisingly intelligent".[119] U.S. Senator Richard Russell Jr., who represented Georgia, a cotton-growing state, found he had much in common with Farouk and stated he was "an attractive, clear-eyed young man ... very much on the job ... well above the ordinary run of rulers".[119] The American financier and diplomat Winthrop W. Aldrich discovered that Farouk was very informed about the workings of the international gold market, saying the king had a sharp eye for business.[119] Air Marshal Douglas wrote "I began to genuinely like Farouk. There was no indication then there was anything that was vicious about him, although at times his flippancy became annoying. Another failing of his was that he appeared to be almost fanatically keen on acquiring great wealth ... he revealed all too clearly his shortsightedness in stating openly that one of his main interests in life was to increase that fortune. This led him into currying favor with the rich people in Egypt, as they did with him, at the expense of the common people, in whom he had little or no interest".[120] Douglas concluded that the king was "an intelligent young man ... he was by no means the fool that he appeared to be through the stupid way in which he quite often behaved in public".[121] However, a meeting with the British prime minister Winston Churchill in August 1942 when Farouk stole his watch did not make the best impression; though Farouk later returned the watch, presenting his theft of Churchill's watch as merely a practical joke, saying he knew "the English had a great sense of humor".[122] Farouk had pardoned a thief in exchange for teaching him how to be a pickpocket, a skill that Farouk used on Churchill, much to the latter's chagrin.[123]
…
One of Farouk's mistresses, Irene Guinle, who was his "official mistress" in the years 1941–1943, described him as something of an immature "man-child" having no interest in politics and given to childish behavior like making bread balls at restaurants "to flip at the fancy people coming in and watch how they'd act when he hit the mark. How he roared with that laugh".[129] Guinle in an interview stated: "Farouk never wrote a letter, never read a paper, never listened to music. His idea of culture was movies. He never even played cards until I made the mistake of buying him a 'shoe' and teaching him how to play chemin de fer. He got hooked on that. Farouk was an insomniac. He had three telephones by his bed, which he would use to ring up his so-called friends at three in the morning and invite them to come over to his palace to play cards. No one could refuse the king".[130]
…
In November 1943, Farouk went driving with Pulli in his red Cadillac to Ismalia to see a yacht he just purchased when he was involved in an automobile incident when his attempt to bypass a British Army truck by speeding caused him to hit another car head-on.[132] At attempt to place Farouk on a stretcher failed when the grossly overweight king turned out to be too heavy, causing the stretcher to break under his weight.[132] Farouk had suffered two broken ribs as a result of the car accident, but he liked being in a British Army hospital so much, flirting with the nurses, that he pretended to be injured far longer than what he really was.[133] As a result, Farouk missed the Cairo Conference when the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek all arrived in Cairo to discuss war plans against Japan for 1944, through he appeared to have no regrets, preferring to spend his time flirting with the nurses and buying them gifts that were worth more than their annual salaries.[134]
…
Egypt ended the Second World War as the richest country in the Middle East, owing largely to the high prices of cotton.[12] In 1945 in a reversal of the usual roles, Egypt was a creditor nation to the United Kingdom, with the British government owing Egypt £400 million.[12] The stark income disparities of Egyptian society meant the wealth of Egypt was very unequally distributed with the kingdom having 500 millionaires while the fellaheen lived in extreme poverty.[12] In 1945, a medical study showed that 80% of Egyptians suffered from bilharzia and ophthalmia, both diseases that were easily preventable and treatable.[12] The authors of the study noted both bilharzia and ophthalmia were spread by waterborne parasitic worms, and the prevalence of both diseases could easily be eliminated in Egypt by providing people with safe sources of drinking water. The bumbling response of the Egyptian authorities to the cholera epidemic in 1947 that killed 80,000 people was an additional cause of criticism as cholera is caused by drinking water contaminated with feces, and the entire epidemic could have been avoided if only ordinary Egyptians had sources of clean drinking water.[12]
King Farouk had traditionally posed as the friend of the poor, but by 1945 such gestures that the king liked to engage in such as throwing gold coins at the fellaheen or dropping ping-pong balls from his plane that could be redeemed for candy were no longer felt to be sufficient.[12] Increasingly, demands were being made that the king should engage in social reforms instead of theatrical gestures like handing out gold coins during royal visits, and as Farouk was unwilling to consider land reform or improving the water sanitation, his popularity began to decline.[12]
Farouk's social life also started to damage his image. The American journalist Norbert Schiller wrote "Farouk was seen frequently womanizing at the hottest night spots in Cairo and Alexandria. In Egypt, the king's gallivanting was put under wraps by the palace censorship office, but abroad pictures of a fat balding king surrounded by Europe's social elite were splashed across the world's tabloids."[163]
…
The Egyptian government quickly moved to auction off the King's vast collection of trinkets and treasures,[250] including his seven-piece bedroom suite that was inspired by Napoleon and Josephine's suite at the Château de Malmaison.[251] Among the more famous of his possessions was one of the rare 1933 double eagle coins, though the coin disappeared before it could be returned to the United States. (It later reappeared in New York in 1996 and was eventually sold at auction for more than seven million dollars.)[252] Attracting much prurient interest both in Egypt and abroad was the revelation that Farouk owned one of the largest collections of pornography in the world, as he possessed a vast collection numbering into the hundreds of thousands of pornographic photographs, postcards, calendars, playing cards, watches, glasses, and so on.[253] Farouk's obsession with collecting also ranged into diamonds, dogs, stamps, rubies, Fabergé eggs, ancient Tibetan coins, medieval suits of armour, aspirin bottles, razor blades, paper clips and Geiger counters.[253] At the Koubbeh Palace, it was discovered that Farouk had collected 2,000 silk shirts, 10,000 silk ties, 50 diamond-studded golden walking sticks and one autographed portrait of Adolf Hitler.[253]
…
On 13 March 1953, the former Queen Narriman left Farouk to return to Egypt, where she filed for divorce in September 1953, citing his unfaithfulness as her reason.[261] Farouk chose the Miss Naples of 1953, Irma Capece Minutolo, to be his last "official" mistress.[262] Her parents disapproved of their teenage daughter being courted by a much older, married man, but after Farouk offered a considerable sum of money, they consented to their daughter losing her virginity to him.[263]
perspective/features/2014/01/30/King-Farouk-s-fabulous-wealth-1977
Cars belonging to the king and palace officials were always colored red so they would not get stopped by police, said Philip Mansel, a historian and author of "Levant: Splendour and catastrophe on the Mediterranean."
HOI4's TNO mod developer created a nation focus tree that consisted entirely of King Farouk partying around the world in an alternative timeline: r/TNOmod/comments/9vgf6w/development_diary_xvi_the_last_crusade/
attachments/412766173789421579/510273009148362753/6farouk_
wiki/Dolma
Dolma (Turkish for "stuffed") is a family of stuffed dishes associated with Ottoman cuisine, typically made with a filling of rice, minced meat, offal, seafood, fruit, or any combination of these inside a vegetable or a leaf wrapping. Wrapped dolma, specifically, are known as sarma, made by rolling grape, cabbage, or other leaves around the filling. Dolma can be served warm or at room temperature and are common in modern cuisines of regions and nations that once were part of the Ottoman Empire.[2]
OLD CHAPTER 2, IGNORE THE BELOW WRITING IF YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN SEEING WHAT MY WRITING BACK IN 2021 LOOKS LIKE
AN: I apologize for the delay. I was waiting on Moose-o-Million to complete their part (see if you can identify which part is his). During that time, I've worked my way up to being halfway done with chapter 9 and occasionally going back to the older chapters to polish them or add new ideas that I thought of. There's one chapter that is about double the length of the usual chapters' length. I also have a detailed outline of the next several chapters, and the overall story outline has been expanded from 25 pages to 40.
I would like to thank Gremlin Jack for being the authors' editor for this story, as all of the chapters and the general plot development have some sort of input from him. At one point, I completely revised chapters 2 through 6 to make the plot seem more believable. He was also incredibly helpful for the chapters involving Bharat. I may have annoyed him with my constant editing of previously "completed" chapters (which I'll keep doing). FallQM and L4 of the WEST also provided suggestions.
October 23rd noon, 1942
As I stepped out of the conference room, an aide came up to me with an envelope. "Chancellor, this is the veterans bill from the Germanian Workers Party. There are a few more details that they are still negotiating with the other political parties over, but the final bill that will be voted on in the Diet will look similar to this."
"Do they require a response from me?"
"They said it wouldn't be necessary unless there's something that you want to change. They're just giving you an update to avoid any surprises should the bill end up on your desk to sign off on."
I thanked him for the update and walked toward Visha's office. A few weeks after the Russy Federation's collapse, I recalled in my previous world that the US had this "GI Bill" after the end of WW2. It bought them a few years of time for their labor market to reabsorb the millions of unemployed men that were being discharged from the military, and for companies to switch from wartime production back to making consumer goods. After all, having large numbers of unemployed soldiers is a stability nightmare, because any savvy political extremist could recruit them for their own agenda. I probably would have never gotten involved with politics after the Empire's defeat if it wasn't for the fact that I was left penniless and nowhere to go except back to the orphanage. The Francois Republic and the Allied Kingdom paid for that mistake dearly.
The other thing about that "GI Bill" was it gave education and skills to millions of men to become productive members of society, which certainly helped their economy in the long run.
I already pushed through a temporary bill that would provide half a year of college and trade school education funding, and additional benefits for disabled soldiers. Now we needed a permanent bill that would also apply to future veterans.
… With comfortably tepid winds gracing the Berun populous, I found myself enjoying a rare moment of peace among the many years of strife here recently. I couldn't help but find the years ahead to be even more strenuous, in spite of my attempts to retire peacefully. Still, that couldn't stop me from enjoying the sight laid before me.
After their delegation with the Akisushiman ambassador, Visha had stowed herself away for quite some time. To my delight, my adjudant came into my office with hands covered in rice-powder and a small covered platter. Even with a few smudges of white powder on her face, she carried a proud expression as she greeted me.
"I can't say it's the genuine article, but I know you like sweet stuff." She sheepishly expressed before setting the platter down on my desk. Even when I knew what was coming, I was pleasantly surprised to see the popular treat from my previous home country. On the platter was a neatly arranged set of mochi cakes. There were a few that had been slightly misshapen, but as time went on, I assumed, Visha was able to perfect the craft just a bit.
"You aren't trying to seduce me, are you?" I needled lightly, casting a knowing glance to my now adequately ruffled adjudant. What was the saying? "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." Though in this case, at least biologically, the saying goes both ways. As much as I hate to admit it.
Just as I am about to grab the first treat, Visha interrupts me, "Major, can we talk about… that?" She asks, clearly still flustered enough to refer to my old title. It wasn't the first time I had ruminated upon that specific moral quandary, but for drastically different reasons than Visha. While such situations during my time weren't given a second glance, our state of being was in a far more precarious climate.
"I suppose, what about it?" I responded as tactfully as I could, erring on the side of caution. While I had blatantly expressed my opinion through action previously, I had no way of ensuring how my adjudant had taken the act of passion. Even with my exhaustive experience with dealing in Human Resource quadries, this particular minefield was for the most part unexplored. Better yet, I had run headlong into it.
"It certainly was a nice… experience, but the entire cabinet saw. Eyla hasn't stopped pestering me about the rumor mill absolutely exploding in the aftermath." Visha asserted seriously. She may have been blushing, but her earnest character continued to shine through, "I care for you ma'am, but the last thing I want is for your reputation as the Chancellor to suffer."
"Visha, you shouldn't be worried about me. If they want to judge me, then so be it. I have been accused of being a communist in disguise for pushing the People's Car project, and that hasn't bothered me. I have been accused of being a bloodthirsty war maniac for serving for the Empire and what I said in my campaign speeches, and that hasn't bothered me. If you want to make enemies, try to change something. And I won't stop changing things."
Visha sat silent for a moment and asked, "How should we respond to the media?"
I waved my hand dismissively. "If they want to make a big deal about it, I'll ask them why they are so interested in our personal life. And then ask if they also have similar relationship thoughts."
"You mean to call into question their sexuality as a diversion?"
"It's all about taking control of the narrative and making them flustered. But before I do any of that, are you comfortable about going public?"
"Hmm. Well there's no point in hiding our relationship now. As you said, we should take control of the narrative. Get our words out before the media goes wild with the rumors from the cabinet members."
As I took a bite of mochi, I saw a determined look in Visha's eyes. She spoke again. "When you said, control the narrative, did you also mean directly reaching out to the media first? It sounded like you were waiting for them to come to you first."
"Ah, I was intending on waiting for the first fool to bother us about that issue." I replied around the treat in my mouth.
"What if we directly contacted one of them and offered them an interview about our relationship?" she reached out and held one of my hands.
"With who?" I tried not to choke on the mochi piece.
"Perhaps Gunter Groz? I think he would be a good reporter to talk to. I can check with Elya to hear what she has to say about him. If she doesn't trust him, we'll go with a different interviewer."
My face turned red as I coughed up the mochi piece.
"I'll get in contact with him." Visha smiled as she pushed the platter towards me, and briskly walked out of my office before I could voice my protest.
If I could cause a big enough uproar from trying to push unpopular ideas through OZEV, perhaps the Diet will finally get around to electing a president to put a check and balance on me. Right before I died in my previous life, I recall there was a rise of Eurosceptic political parties in Europe, especially in Greece, Italy and Spain, and to some extent in the Netherlands and United Kingdom. I didn't pay much attention to Europe's affairs, but I figured it was something not to be ignored when the Japanese news mentioned it, especially when Greece was considering leaving the EU.
Being unaware of overall politics in a country that you are operating in is unacceptable for a businessman. If a country is joining or leaving the EU, that will have wide rippling effects on the domestic economy and regulations for businesses operating there. The labor laws that might have been originally used would now be changed depending on the joining or leaving.
But first I need to lay the foundation for OZEV's security if I'm heading out. Major Koenig and his commando team were somewhere out in the Caucasia playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse against anti-OZEV insurgents, NKVD operatives and the occasional CSR operatives. He occasionally checks in just so we know he's alive and not captured. I can't just leave him stuck in a hopeless situation, and while it would be great for him to teach future mages at the academy all about guerrilla and counter-insurgency warfare, I do not want to keep throwing lives into a repeat of the Iraq or Afghanistan War when they could be doing so much more productive things to raise the standards of living.
"And for the last few major topics, we'll need to discuss OZEV's future. In our war against the Russy Federation, the integrated military command was a great asset in helping us withstand the simultaneous attacks on our members. It did have many growing pains as an impromptu organization while the Rus were pounding at our door. I propose a peace time integrated military command so that we aren't wasting time determining who has authority over what forces and what actions they can take, while also dealing with incompatible information sharing. Does anyone have suggestions?"
The conversations went back and forth for a while and I intentionally pressured them for specific things that were modeled on what I recall hearing about NATO, but eventually we built a rough list of ideas.
"All of those proposals are just rough guidelines. It would be best if we establish a commission to work out the fine details and then let all of the members' legislative bodies make final changes as needed before their voting. If the terms are rejected by the members, then it's back to the commission's drawing board to work out something else."
There were some quiet discussions between the representatives, but with no one objecting to it or proposing any changes, I decided to move on.
"For the next topic, it will be regarding trade and border regulations. All of these will be opt-ins where it will be up to a committee to balance the members' needs, and the members' governments voting for it. We had a study on international trade patterns and their effects on wages, so that information will be useful for working out the details."
If there was one thing I could remember about the EU's economic integration, it was the free movement of goods, capital, services and people. And a common fiat currency.
And with that began another round of talks that lasted all the way until it was into the evening and the room having bits of uneaten dinner strewn about. Nevertheless, all of this seemed to have gone too smoothly, with Maciej Moscicki being very enthusiastic about the proposals. I don't understand, why wouldn't they be opposed to all of those proposals that are taking away their countries' freedoms? The Eurosceptics would have been screaming their heads off.
There should have also been serious resistance against the common fiat currency and a central OZEV bank, as I remembered in my previous world that it wasn't until the 1970's when the United States ended their gold backed Bretton Woods currency system and most of the world shifted to a floating exchange rate. The EU didn't implement their Euro currency until the 1990's. I intentionally pushed for the fiat currency, decades ahead of its time, to try to wreck the proposals. But no one seemed to be really bothered by it.
And besides, the coal-backed Mark is doing quite well. They could have at least argued for a coal-backed Euro, or pegging their currency to a single one that is backed by physical assets like how the US did it with their Bretton Woods system. The Diet should go in an uproar upon seeing the fiat currency proposal and finally get around to electing a President.
Maybe the committees will grind to a halt over the individual details or the legislative bodies reject the proposals, thus killing part or all of the proposal. After all, there's a fine line between a visionary and a lunatic.
Then something came up in the back of my mind. There had to be a reason why Maciej Moscicki was so ecstatic about the proposals.
The Pullskan ambassador who met me right after my re-election and begged for a plebiscite after Osterry had theirs, and was only convinced to not go forward with it by offering him "unofficial" military cooperation and arms deals so that they didn't have to worry about the Russy Federation running them over like a speedbump.
They're still hooked on that idea, aren't they? It doesn't make sense. They would be giving up their positions of power and now have a boss to report to even if they still remained in office. The superpower Russy Federation is gone. Kieva, Belarusia and Lithuania would have to get run over by CSR and its puppet first for Pullska to be threatened, and we would still have the Degurechaff Line to fall back to. By the time that line fails, the Allied Kingdom and the Unified States would have gotten off the fence to get their hands dirty after seeing Germania's inability to protect Europe from communism. Maybe Being X is back at it again? Then again, he hasn't spoken ever since I killed Mary.
Surely the other members or Pullska's legislators are more level headed and would derail Maciej Moscicki's dream of having a super Empire all but in name. I'm not too alarmed by the other heads of states playing along with Maciej Moscicki' insanity. I remember when Sony launched their ebook reader tablets, the Japanese publishers told Sony that they supported it, but privately hated it because they saw it as a threat to their book sales, and would limit how many books would be available on the ebook device to sabotage the ebook reader. That's probably what the other heads of states are doing, so I shouldn't be worried.
November 2nd, 1942:
Zhang Wentian had a lot on his mind during the council meeting. With the Russy Federation gone, it was now up to them to carry the torch in a dark world. He didn't like the idea of looting a burning house and turning the Rus into a client state, but it was better for them to do it before the anti-Rus coalition finishes their work. It was a great blessing that the Rus had built such extensive railroad networks across the Sibyria and even connected them to northeastern lands that had previously belonged to his people. It took only a relatively small amount of effort to connect CSR' railroads to the Trans-Sibyria railroads. Normally that would have been impossible, except both the Russy Federation and CSR were using the same railroad gauge, and thus a train could continously run from the CSR's south all the way to the western edge of the Russy Federation. All because the Tsarists and the Shun dynasty had previously hired Albish railroad engineers to build the tracks, and of course the Albish were going to use the railroad gauge that they've worked with back in their homeland.
"Let's start off with the domestic reports. Any updates regarding the Great Leap Forward?" asked Zhang Wentian.
"Some of the provincial governors have asked if they should allow backyard furnaces to increase steel production as they said those would only take weeks to build instead of years for the steel plants." Li Kenong, Minister of the Interior, reported. "But I'm hesitant to approve such a measure because there would be no way to verify that the steel quality would be consistent."
"It's great the governors are showing enthusiasm, but if the steel quality isn't consistent, it's no good." said Peng Dehuai, Minister of National Defense. "In fact, I should point out that in a future war, we would have to heavily rely on mages because we simply don't have the industrial capacity to match OZEV's large numbers of tanks, armored infantry carriers, ships and aircraft, or the oil production to keep all of those machines running, unless the Unified States is open to selling oil to us. And all it would take is the Allied Kingdom to blockade us to put an end to oil exports from the Unified States. Although our soldiers have come across a few Rus steel and aluminum plants that we can study from those to see what improvements their plants have over ours. I can put out instructions to prioritize engineers, especially those that are involved with industrial productions."
"I've read magazines from the Unified States. Based on their popular sentiment, they would rather tolerate a dominant OZEV than a dominant Chinese Soviet Republic." Li Kenong said. "We could pay the Unified States extra for each barrel for them to look the other way, but that would bankrupt us long before OZEV does. Their Chancellor is an economic mastermind who would likely be more than happy to engage in that sort of financial attrition warfare. And I don't want to imagine what kind of terms the Americans would demand if we tried to borrow money from them to pay for their oil. As for West Sibyria, that region needs a significant amount of investment for them to produce a large quantity oil, and won't be easy to build and operate in those remote areas."
The matter was discussed extensively between the council members, the consensus being an adoption of doctrine emphasising mages as the core of the military instead of combined arms.
Zhang Wentian decided it was time to address two budding problems that were bothering him before they gained wide acceptance.
"I've heard some people within the government have called for collectivization now that they feel confident the peasants won't start their own counter-revolution. I've studied Rus agriculture collectivization for about a year. You know it is bad when people are cracking bitter jokes about the best way of dealing with rodents was to put up a 'collective farm' sign and half of the mice will die while the rest will flee, and that's even with their NKVD running around arresting anyone that looks unpatriotic."
He took a sip of tea and then continued.
"It doesn't matter how much propaganda you force into the farmers or how much you threaten them, they will destroy their livestock and equipment rather than give those possessions up. We should be more focused on researching better agriculture methods, breeding better crops, expanding mechanization and finding ways to encourage the farmers to produce more if we want higher food production."
"There's also a myth out there that sparrows damage crop yields. They do eat seeds, but according to biologists that I spoke with, they also eat insects. I'm afraid of finding out what happens if we kill all of the sparrows."
After some murmurs and nodding from everyone else in the room, Zhang Wentian asked "What is the progress of the mage breeding pilot program?"
Li Kenong started his report. "The results from the program have yielded promising results after we have tested the infants' magic potential, and I would like to thank our predecessors for having the foresight to establish the ground work more than a decade ago. We can confirm that certain couple pairings of no magic potential, C-tier, B-tier and A-tier mage categories of parents' magic potential can maximize the average percentage of quality mages, with A-tier mage infants being the highest and no magic potentials being the lowest. This also takes into account their family histories. The most optimal pairing still has greater than 1 mage out of every 100 births, so there's much more work that needs to be done. We can now go from the early stage of 300 couples per pairing option, to either the next stage of having 1000 couples in each of the optimal pairings to further narrow down the data which will take about five years for the results to come out, or immediately begin a nationwide rollout of the program."
Zhang Wentian clapped his hand. "Excellent! What do you think we should do to encourage people to participate in the program?"
Li Kenong cleared his throat. "Benefits for selected couples for each mage child they have, ranging from financial bonuses to parents being exempted from military service. Some propaganda and highly driven community members to apply social pressure to encourage optimal couple pairings would also help. I can't give any hard numbers as that depends on how many optimal couples we find throughout the country, and the level of infrastructure and services to support the large number of children. The benefits are recalculated for the magic potential assessment testing based on how many children are A, B or C tier. Then recalculated again for when the children are old enough to be enrolled into the military, and then once again when they complete their training. If they are unable to be a member of the military, they will have to apply for an exemption and prove how they will still help people, although the benefits for the parents will be reduced."
"As long as we stay ahead of any problems with food and housing supply, medical services, education, military training and then the mage equipment, I don't see any problems with your current plan. If we have too many mages, we can always build more equipment for them instead of waiting for years for the next generation."
"Speaking of medical services, we are beginning to train a large number of farmers as "barefoot doctors" for our rural cooperative medical systems. They will reduce the strain on our healthcare system by handling minor injuries and illnesses."
"That is good to hear, our people deserve quality healthcare. Peng Dehuai, it looks like you have something to say. Is it the status of our coastal defense plan that you mentioned before the meeting?"
"We are close to completion with our coastal defense artillery guns, and we have been able to demonstrate shifting the artillery pieces between two locations within a day." Peng Dehuai said. "Gunnery drills still need work. Anti-aircraft guns on train cars should be entering production soon. The Rus's railroad artillery production license that we acquired years ago have been helpful with building those guns. It will certainly deter any casual naval invasion attempts like what happened to the Shun Dynasty when the Albish leisurely marched their troops to our capital."
"Is that all for the domestic reports?" Zhang Wentian asked. Upon everyone nodding yes, he said "Let's begin the international reports."
Peng Dehuai went first, "We secured the Trans-Sibyria railway system past Samara, Kirov and Kazan, about 500 to 700 kilometers from Moskva for those three cities. We acquired some of their railroad artillery pieces and will be moving them to our coastal defense system. One major faction at Kazan has blown up the railways and denounced us for betraying the revolutionary cause. It seems they have taken offense to us using mages on a large scale. We're working with friendly factions to take them down. They shouldn't last long because they lack mage support and are greatly outnumbered. Bandits and other hostile factions constantly threaten the railways, but that can be resolved by having a large amount of infantry in the train cars and usage of mages for long range patrols as a show of force. The Samara railway will allow us to greatly increase our support for insurgents against the Caucasia and Kazakh Republics."
"Regarding the radical communists that oppose us, it doesn't matter who's right. It only matters who's left." Zhang Wentian chuckled. "I remember Secretary Jughashvili ranting about how mages are some sort of a capitalist repression tool. Now he's dead, we're coming in to save what's left of them from OZEV, and they're telling us we're wrong? If they want to keep using eggs to hit a stone, then let them kill themselves for nothing. Anyways, continue."
Kang Sheng, Director of Central Investigation, was next. "We are making good progress with identifying and recruiting Russy Federation scientists, military officers and NKVD agents, and also recover their military equipment and vehicles for us to reverse engineer. There are many factions that have expressed interest in working with us to help reestablish order. Some claim they still have agents and informants embedded in foreign countries. I'll also put out instructions to look for industrial experts."
He took a sip of tea and continued. "We have found advanced dual core computational orbs that are a copy of Germania's Type 97 model, and our preliminary field tests show capabilities that far exceed our current orbs. We are still identifying where those orbs are manufactured so we can build our own. The NKVD agents that had defected to us do not know where the manufacturing site is located. A few of them said that the ones that might have the production schematics may have already fled for North Bharat to continue their fight against the capitalists, and we may need to track them down. One agent said a group of them were planning on heading to North Bharat, and that if we support them, they can help us find the ones who have the production schematics."
He flipped a sheet of paper to read the next side.
"Our agents had also identified human augmentation projects for mages, and the researchers that were experimenting on mages. It appeared the Russy Federation was seeking an advantage over Germania by integrating the computational orbs directly into their brain or spinal cord, and usage of an energy liquid delivery system for sustained high mana usage. I don't know enough about human physiology to try to explain what they are hoping to accomplish with integrating the orbs into the nervous system, but it does seem to be responsible for most of the test subjects' deaths."
Peng Dehuai perked up at the second to last sentence. "Li Kenong, what was the percentage of C-tier infants of the total number of mage infants even with the most optimal couple pairing?
"About half are C-tier."
"What if we used the augmentations for the C tier mages to make them powerful enough for front line combat? That would drastically increase the manpower that we can field, and losses from the surgery or augmentation complications would be more tolerable compared to using them on the more scarce B and A tier mages."
"That's a good idea, we will need to find how feasible those augmentation surgeries are." Zhang Wentian said. "If we kill or cripple nine C-tier mage for every mage that becomes combat worthy, then that's too high of a cost because there are still uses for those C-tier mages. As for the proposal from the NKVD agent, do whatever it takes to get the Type 97 Orb production schematics."
"Speaking of killing or crippling, the Rus researchers requested a few hundred mages to continue their project." Kang Sheng said. "I asked how many deaths or serious injuries they expect, and they said they have no idea. I also asked what their plan was if they used up the few hundred mages and they said they hope to have made some breakthroughs before that happens."
"Absolutely not." Zhang Wentian set down his tea in a loud manner. "I will not butcher our people for something that might be impossible to accomplish within this century. They will only have access to people that have no chance of leaving prison, the Rus communist radicals that would rather attack us instead of OZEV, or they can test the contraptions on themselves, no more than that. On a different note, are there any updates regarding the new republics that the anti-Rus coalition carved out?"
"We are making progress with identifying and recruiting people that are overall more hostile to OZEV than the Russy Federation. Our priorities are the Caucasia and Kazakh Republics as we will need their oil for our country to progress and to be able to defend ourselves in a war, or at least starve the OZEV's war machine. They will not let go of those two easily, so we will need to be patient and slowly chip away at them. If we are too loud, OZEV under Chancellor Degurechaff's leadership may build justifications to invade to thwart our operations. Once the Russy Federation is reunited under a stable leadership, it will be much easier to support our agendas in the two republics."
"Li Kenong, regarding your earlier question of either conducting another trial or immediately launching the breeding program nationwide, let's skip straight to the full rollout." Zhang Wentian said. "We don't have another 5 years to wait, and we would need to wait a minimum of 15 years or so before using the new mages in frontline combat, as child soldiers usually don't perform well. War will be coming soon, and we must be prepared. As Peng Dehuai pointed out, we can't match OZEV's vehicle production to win tank to tank and plane to plane war, nor keep them running for long, so it will be the mages that will keep our people safe from the imperialists. Anything else to report?"
"Thanks to Kang Sheng, we have been able to bribe a ship breaking yard to get our hands on an intact Francois Republic's destroyer before they started cutting it up. Our people's students studying abroad have been a great help." Peng Dehuai interjected. "There should be minimal risk of detection until it's too late. The destroyer does have to take some long detours as it would raise suspicions if they tried to pass through the Suez Canal or sail by Germania-held Malagasy. The bribing did run significantly over budget, but it'll be worth it when we get the ship. We secured a cruiser's main battery turret, fire control system, gearbox and other major components to be shipped to us with the help of an arms smuggler. We couldn't really get anything more than that because of how badly their fleet was ravaged by Germania. And we also acquired some of the documentation on the Francois Republic navy ships that were sent to the ship breaking yards, such as dimensions of systems and electrical drawings, and even some maintenance documents. It'll take us decades to be proficient in navy operations, but it'll at least give us a reference point to start from. And speaking of our shortage of oil, those ships will need to be coal powered."
"Why are they downsizing their navy?"
"They're just shifting their military focus. Germania and the Allied Kingdom are no longer a threat to them. Their overseas colonies and reconstruction are a much bigger problem now. Germania had also seized all of the strategic resources they could get their hands on as part of the war reparations, including steel, and it just happens that their ships have a lot of it. I've chopped furniture for firewood as a child so I understand why they are cannibalizing those ships." Kang Sheng said. "Besides, all of those big ships and heavy tanks are expensive when they need more transport ships, transport planes and boots on the ground with light vehicles to rapidly respond to revolts and suppress them. That is while running with a weaker economy from the brutal pyrrhic victory after their entire country was occupied for a few years, economic crisis and a failed Second Europan War, and rebuilding their infrastructure. Also, rebellious colonies are difficult to tax or extract wealth from. In short, the republic is a paper tiger now."
"It's one thing to have the physical thing." Zhang Wentian said. "What about knowing how to use them?"
"That was the other reason why we ran over budget. Turns out unemployed navy personnel are very receptive towards being advisors in return for a large amount of gold. Ideology doesn't matter when they're getting paid enough to live comfortably for years without having to work a job, and that's especially useful when their economy is still turbulent. Although some of them have communism sympathies or are disillusioned with their government and how things are going. If we are to make use of those individuals in the future, we will need to ensure that it will have to look like the Rus are doing it for plausible deniability. I'm still disturbed at how the communists in Germania have completely gone silent with no indications of a purge or mass arrests. Even the NKVD is confused."
"Good. This concludes the council meeting. Proletariats and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!"
"Proletariats and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!"
AN:
Regarding Sony's ebook reader, I recall reading a tech article that went into the history of the ebook development and its launch, and it specifically mentioned that Sony presented the ebook to the publishers' representatives at a meeting. The publishers told the Sony representative that they supported the ebook reader, but intentionally restricted how many books would actually be available on the ebook to strangle it in its cradle. This is the closest article I can find as I am unable to find the specific article that talked about the publishers' sabotage efforts: /2011/08/stalled-japan-ebook-development/
"Publishers feel threatened when outside companies try to bypass or shortcut the existing system to gain direct access consumers. As an alternative to Amazon's streamlined supply chain, they are advocating "a (Japanese style) horizontal specialization in e-books," which means a collaborative environment where different stakeholders in the complicated supply chain work together without encroaching on the others' territory."
Context for how the CSR students ended up in Francois Republic: wiki/Diligent_Work-Frugal_Study_Movement
There were also notable Chinese communist leaders who had studied in France, and were involved with the local communist groups in that country. At least one of them was expelled from France for being involved with the communist groups. I don't remember the names, but at one point I had about two dozen tabs opened on each person to build the setting and characters for the CSR's government.
From the Wikipedia article on the "Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement": Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement - Wikipedia
"In all, several thousand Chinese came to France as student-workers, though not all as formal members of a program. They included future leaders of the Chinese Communist Party such as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, as well as others who went on to prominent roles in China."
Paris, and the rest of France, had active radical movements for decades, such as the May 68 protest (initially started out as a students' protest, then the trade unions joined in, and it quickly spiraled out of control while the French government was busy trying to flee):
/DLXnCPkGEbQ?t=93
watch?v=AVWcHxMsMg8
Or the immediate post-WW2 politics where the communist political parties were a major player: watch?v=nbQXCC6O11g
There was also the Paris Commune that popped up right after France surrendered in the 1871 Franco-Prussian War.
As for the CSR's inevitable mage horde, inspired by this HOI4 video. Bear in mind that the player was using "volunteer only" recruiting, and not "scraping the barrel": watch?v=_UrCvbCumUo
And also the GLA faction in the Command & Conquer: Generals game: watch?v=QzpPLo68hEw