(Hopelessly in love with and) Serving the Dowager Empress

[plattfuss]

(Hopelessly in love with and) Serving the Dowager Empress

1899
There I am – at the head of the world´s most backwards naval power.

This was the personal wish of the young dowager empress - because I was the man who brought the first bicycle back to Beijing – a swift british made „Raleigh“ which I offered to her as a present.

Rumour goes she´s riding it in the palace´s gardens – where nobody but the eunuchs can see her – and she´s greatly enjoying it. (I have a short daydream with myself being a manchu prince, proposing to her….)

Well, let´s get back to business:
What do we have?
• A tonnage limit of our wharves of 4000 ts! (that´s ridiculous)
• The biggest gun we can cast is a bad 8´ gun.

This reminds me of an

old chinese philosophy: „You won´t eat - if your chopsticks aren´t long enough“.

But:
Our legacy fleet is of rather good quality, french built B´s and british built AC´s with a good combination of fire power and stable armour, a bit slow - but never mind….

My strategy will be:
- to build / buy no capital ships (it´s just a waste of money) and to cling as long as possible to the legacy fleet
- to heavily invest in destroyers, submarines (ASAP) and corvettes (to relieve destroyers from TP duties)
- to stuff the shibbuilding industry like a goose for goose-liver to inflate them ASAP
- to invest in coastal fortifications (which in the end turned out to be just another big waste of money…)

And now to the more demanding part of my job:
We´ve got to prostrate permanently before all of the foreign powers,
we´ve got to be always kind to them arrogant long noses
and especially have our head stuck up into the bottom of the british empire (somebody has to do it)
Old chinese philosophy (OCP): „A mighty fortress is entered through the backdoor….“

On top of it:
The heartbreaking dumbness of our men – they are forgetting everything – although we have annual fleet exercises (which are absurdly expensive)….
and advanced training all the time…

they always turn out to be of only „fair quality“ after some time….

OCP: „Nothing but rice in the bowl makes bellies and heads weak“

And:
The extreme corruption of our bonzes –frequently the good sum of 1 mio. just diminishes from our coffers
(I will always behead the perpetrators – loss of prestige or not...let´s call it "to improve our accounting practices"....)
OCP: „Beneath one silver coin you´ll always find two thieves (at least)….“

Not to forget:
The laziness of our workers in the wharves, resulting in all kinds of delays, ships not reaching their designed speeds etc.pp.

If it were not for the charming dowager empress – i´d rather pack my bags and open up a chinese restaurant in Berlin….

Study, research, study, research, read them long-nose-books all night long, you dumb morons!!!!
OCP: „The world is conquered with lead and ink – not with lead and gunpowder….“

1904

We now have the world´s biggest destroyer fleet – and we have clumsy coastal submarines –

but we have A LOT of ´em –
OCP: „Beat ´em with numbers – a million mice will kill a lion….“

We´ve got lucky: a disarmament conference is held, limiting everybody to 15.000 ts and 10´ guns (resulting in a massive scrap of ships all around the world – and our old B´s being surprisingly top of the pops regarding their gun calibre (12´)

With our cruisers ageing and after purchasing and researching direly needed technical knowledge:

We build a long range AC, rather fast, but reasonably armoured and with good 9´ guns –

- this takes a very long time (as work has to be paused frequently because of budget problems, corruption, strikes etc. pp.
- but the concept is good enough and the ship will serve us acceptably even after long years of service

- Why we need long range-capabilities? Well...if possible and prospective we´ll use her as a raider….as a kind of a very fat mouse, I´d say.

OCP: „If you can´t bite the lion – steal his food….“

The dowager empress travels abroad to console every arrogant long nose´s feeling of being not respected enough, of having not enough their ways with the chinese empire… it´s a disgrace and this has to end!!!
Deeply impressed (and a bit in – a hopeless as ever – love) with the DE….

1908
The arrogant japanese want war – they shall have it.
At ´em you little mice. At ´em…..

...

We lose a LOT of destroyers – they lose more than half of their merchant fleet and…

most of their battleships (and are unable to build new ones at the moment – because of the treaty limits….FOOLS)

The Japanese are beaten and have to gulp down their „samurai pride“ with a lot of sake.
We take Formosa – their only base in Southern Chinese waters!

We have invested in railroads and wharves and research all the time.
Now we´re able to build two better long range AC´s – perfect, unstoppable raiders - which will also serve as support to our battle line in an eventual fleet engagement:

the "Great Mandarin" and the "Great Dragon".

But we still cannot build good enough battleships – it would be just another waste of money –
we´ll have to wait til we can build a ship – designed to last at least (!) a decade in active service without becoming obsolete.

Everything else would be unaffordable to us.

OCP: „Who buys a lame duck has to buy another lame duck soon.“

We get a lot of technology from the long-noses –

they´ll sell everything to good chinese man because they love gold and silver and just nothing else. Fools!

Buy everything! At all costs! And copy their plans and steal their designs and always smile.

Smile, smile, smile boys – and ´never get your head out of the bottom of the british lion….

We even wrote the British a blanc cheque against the French – couldn´t do anything to help them really and (with all those french bases in South East Asia) it was a bit risky –

but it was even more risky to loose our security and technology „exchange“ (ehm) arrangement with ´em.

1911

Now the Tzar got itchy with greed for chinese lands and declared war to us.

Some dumb fool obviously told him, that our wharves can now produce 35.000 ts battleships and that – with stolen british technology – we are already designing a 35.000 ts dreadnought

(the second of this class in the world – when nobody else but the british have anything comparable – and when the Russians have only 15.000 ts tin cans in their battle line….

Obviously he wants to crush us – before the chinese behemoth is in active service.

OCP: „Everybody is in fear when the mice are becoming fat as cats.“

Be it as it may…run little mice….run…get at the Tzar´s trousers, nag ´em away…expose the blank arse of good ol´ Nicholas….make his very long nose bleed a bit….

...

Russia succumbs and gulps down her „cossack pride“.
They couldn´t just feed their people with so many chinese mice on their convoy lanes – and our big AC´s beating their Far East Cruisers everytime they left Vladivostok port.

They got nothing but Vodka now – and we got Liaotung Peninsula – their only foothold in chinese waters….

and they´ll never recover…some months later they also got the boshevik revolution and more Vodka –

and poor old Nicholas was shot – without his trousers somewhere in Siberia. Poor fellow.

1914
And now the chinese behemoths enter the scene:
the Manchukuo-class

– 35000ts dreadnoughts with 8x14´-guns,  immune against 14´ fire out of nearly all angles and distances.

In a fleet exercise the" Yang-Tse-Kiang" received ten heavy hits and numerous medium hits – with barely a result…

And they are also fast enough (25 kts.)…

.

OCP: „Duck mother shows up when the ducklings are in danger.“

The next years we´ll modernize our ships constantly and improve our technical knowledge and scrap all obsolete ships (we can only afford a limited fleet size)

OCP: „If you only can have one jacket – have it heavily stuffed.“

1925

We are always as nice and smiling as ever - 

and steal even the pencils from the long nose´s design boards (just from under their nose...)….

but lately the long noses tend to underestimate the chinese man less…
because the toil of so many years paid out and chinese science is becoming more advanced

and some of our scientist are now turning out to be on par with the world´s leading eggheads!

In 1925 we´ve got a fairly modern, capable fleet…
as good or better than many a long nose´s fleet…

1929

And because we don´t like mice in our own granaries, we improved ASW capabilities of all of our destroyers and corvettes up to 6 or 7.
OCP: „If you like food – have enough cats“

Tragically it gets more and more difficult to stay in the race with them new airplanes…
we cannot produce them…
it´s hard to pay for them…

and the long noses won´t always sell their newest aircraft models to the chinese man….

They obviously heard of the OCP:
„Only fools are feeding the mice.“

But we managed to get some really good production licenses – especially the american cowboys imprudently sold us their newest fighter design,

the „Brewster Tigercat“

– rendering all other fighter models obsolete with it´s extremely superiour speed…

Well…in a traditional naval battle we´ve probably got to fear barely something...
but if it comes to naval aircraft…
we´re literally back in the stone age…
it´s like at the beginning of my career...

We´ve got only light AA,

only an aircraft base capacity of 20

and cannot afford the designed „Flying Serpent“ CV (planned aircraft capacity: 60 aircraft, 30 kts, 28.000 ts) at the moment.

OCP: „If you beat ´em in Mah Jong, they´ll start playing Go.“

We also have too few training capabilities, resulting in our naval air service being of rather poor quality….

(I must not remember how many of that precious Brewster Tigercats were just dumped in the pond by amateurs who´d probably better ride Rickshaws in Kowloon……)

OCP: „A duck is a perfect swimmer, but a lame duck in the air.“

It´s a disgrace I cannot have ALL them fools beheaded….
but SOME of them will do as an motivating exemple to the others….

And Japan is expanding and they obviously want something from us…
well….

REVENGE (and a junk of our territory – I guess….).

OCP: „Old enemies are like mothers in law – always distressing and you cannot get rid of ´em.“

[plattfuss]

1930 - Them boshevik moles…

But disaster lured somewhere else….

Suddenly the Russians stirred up a successful rebellion in Shanghai –
and the most important mercantile centre in the chinese empire was lost….
(badly hampering our weak economy….)

The Dowager Empress - now well in her forties - cried like a little girl when hearing the dread news

that the imperial summer palace in Shanghai with all its´ memories of a lucky past was lost to us.

This dreadful scene nearly broke my heart.

And because the „Rule the waves 2“-world obviously is damned anti-chinese
we never got a chance to take it back by an invasion.

Although having several military bases just a stone´s throw away

we were never allowed to invade Shanghai til the end of the game….

Obviously a conspiracy of the long nosed coders with them long nosed bolsheviks!!!

Good Heavens!!!!

Fed up with those dastardly Communists and
glowing with a desire to take revenge for the poor DE´s grief and
(admittedly)

boasting now a much inflated self esteem (because of our Manchukuo-class)

well....

I ordered our diplomats to openly provoke the russian bear into declaring war on us.

THEY SHOULD PAY!!!

Never we were more sure of another crushing chinese victory!

(dramatic pause)

And then…

sailing just out in the morning mist….

we encountered THAT thing:

...and everybody jumped into the boats!

...but someone had brains enough to wire attack orders to every single chinese destroyer in the Yellow Sea -

and with the help of these little friends the russian monster was finally sent to the bottom of the sea.

Them boshevik moles turn out to be clever….

Very soon it turned out that the Bolsheviks were by far a harder nut to crack than good ole Tzar Nicholas.

They just reduced merchant shipping in asian waters to an absolute minimum –
reducing our success in trade warfare….

and began to snipe our merchants by the dozens.

Cunning scoundrels!!!

But then we got the desired fleet engagement and sailed into battle with our two Manchukuos - to smother the red fleet - come rain come shine!

Adventures in time and space....

But alas..... a big surprise was awaiting the chinese fleet:

Out of nowhere suddenly an air base appeared in the midst of the ocean - and just 200 feet directly before the bows of the "Yang-Tse-Kiang"...

The good ship crushed right into the strange air base - phenomenon!

And in a wild fire fight the airbase from hell obviously got the better end of the affair....

Was this the chinese Bermuda Triangle?

Wait...what´s this....suddenly our carrier "Flying Dragon" (which everybody thought a thousand miles away...) landed on top of the airbase....

and then....

gasp....

and then three of our corvettes appeared, two of them strangely inflated to battleship size....

I really don´t know how we managed to prevail in THAT affair.

But we did.

And if the chinese empire last for a thousand years, men will still say: "THIS was their finest hour!" (Give me rice wine, boys.)

1931

The Bolsheviks withdrew from the war with a bloody nose - giving us just minor concessions and some warm words…..

unsporting bunch!!!

well, nothing we could do about it.

Time to call on the dowager empress in the Forbidden City

and tell about our adventures....

...but when I layed my hand on the doorknob of the throne room some eunuch approached me and told me another ghastly story:

Our dreadnought "Yang-Tse-Kiang" had diminished inexplicably from the fleet list.

Maybe she plummeted in the black hole whence the airbase from hell had appeared???

[plattfuss]

Lucky in love – unlucky at the cards…

But when I told the Dowager Empress about our adventures, fighting against anomalities in time and space and russian behemoths – I clearly saw the spark of true admiration in her dark eyes.

Well…

and I thought that my head was far too long on my shoulders now…

and dared to propose to her…
and - unbelievably - I received much better things than a beheading!

Strategic Blunder

Obviously having lost my mental equilibrium because of  that "impossible" love affair I committed a blunder which very soon brought all chinese ambitions (and this story) to a sudden end

In a frenzy to make good the (still inexplicable) loss of the „Yang-Tse-Kiang“
I ordered the construction of a even more powerful ship –
build to withstand the most devastating fire!



What a glorious feeling to have such a monster in the fleet –

…but at what cost:

I couldn´t invest anymore in our ageing submarine fleet (which turned out to be disastrous)!

I could not increase our airforce any further!

And it took much too long to replace the now obsolete Hainan II-class with two modern battlecruisers of the Lian-Shan-Po-class!

And the new "Yang-Tse-Kiang" achieved nothing but make them long noses jumpy and anxious, tensions rocketed up into the air and suddenly France declared war on us.

And this time they caught us with our trousers halfway down.

1940 – The last ride of the imperial chinese cavalry….

From the beginning this war was a tedious affair.

We lost a lot of destroyers - but made no headway.

Our Hainan II-class AC´s were outclassed and barely survived their fights,

and we were never allowed to set sails on the „Yang Tse Kiang“. She never fired a shot in anger, that monstrous ship that soaked up all the silver of the chinese empire.

And the weakness of our submarines, which had become old, unreliable and weak turned the scales against us….the French had garlic cheese on their baguettes and we´ve got less and less rice in our bowls.

With rising unrest even the throne of the Dowager Empress began to topple…..

It was the single chinese battlecruiser, the „Sun Tzi“, which grinded out the direly needed victory points
– to end the war anyhow without losing territories.

In the aftermath it pretty soon became absolutely clear,
that China would never again be able to wage war
with nothing but starving flies in her vaults.

And without any prospect of gaining territories to improve our economical situation I had to admit that my naval policy had led China into a dead end street.

We could still defend ourselves - but we couldn´t advance any further.

Time to resign and to retire with the charming DE in a late honeymoon....

To all my successors in this most demanding office I´d like to say:

Do never forget

„Neither whale nor gulls are China´s friends –

the sardines are decisive in the end.“

And IMO Chin China must be played much more aggressively than I did.

The country needs expansion to boost it´s economy - especially in the late game when everything gets extremely expansive.

Your obedient servant

Ting Ju Chan, admiral - once commanding.

[akosjaccik]

One would think that building airbases onto random rocks barely above the sea level is a rather chinese thing to do, but of course, the bolsheviks are never to be trusted.