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by Namjyut. . 9 reads.

Imperial Consolidation



The Imperial Consolidation (皇一體化; jyutping: wong4 jat1 tai2 faa3) is a period of reform and rapid industrialization for Namjyut starting in 1846. Lou Kei (路麒) had recently became Emperor after his father Lou Yip (路燁), the former emperor, died. The new Emperor Lou, who commanded armies during the huge failure that was the 1836 Opium War, decided that he could do better at running Namjyut than his father, who by the end of his life had left running the country to a bunch of greedy eunuchs. Proclaiming that he was different, Emperor Lou would declare the beginning of the Yun (願) Dynasty (even though he was a direct descendant of the former emperor) and ushered in his totally radical reforms he had been working on with some of his supporters.

The idea behind his reforms, the creatively named Imperial Consolidation Policies, was to go around consolidating local commanderies that weren't under his control and start modernizing all of them. Technically the warlords who ruled these commanderies were submissive to the Empire, but in reality the warlords had filled the government to the brim with incompetent yes-men by bribing the court eunuchs with a lot of money. Emperor Lou started to kick these yes-men out so that the government could actually get work done, like industrializing and centralizing the country's military power.

There were a bunch of people who didn't like his reforms, particularly all the people who had just lost their swing in the Imperial Government one by one. A lot of conservatives also didn't like the reforms, since they pretty much turned the class system upside down and invited some of the foreign influence that everyone was apparently afraid of. These people raised a fuss when Emperor Lou took down the isolationist Single Port Trading Policy because foreign traders can now trade their wares wherever, but the influx of foreign investment as a result really shut them up. Plus, by learning the strategies and engineering of developed foreigners, Emperor Lou was able to strengthen the military and industrial base in a way that proved that they were all worried for no reason.

Emperor Lou got a lot of supporters when the Imperial Consolidation started to strengthen the military. Warlords who were afraid of foreign colonization started to join with the Emperor, and when the Imperial Consolidation started to bring in a ton of money, pretty much everyone wanted to hop on that gravy train. The wealthy warlords who were convinced by the sweet, sweet gold would found companies that would eventually become massive vertically-integrated conglomerates called Tsinfat (錢閥).

All in all, the Imperial Consolidation is divided into three parts: the part right after Emperor Lou started the reforms, the part that happened when the Germans showed up to invade Indochina, and the part after that lasting until the first Zhigao-Japanese War.

Background



Namjyut ships getting destroyed in the 1836 Opium War
Before the Imperial Consolidation, most of the power laid with the warlords of local commanderies. Technically they served the imperial government, but because they had bribed their way into filling it with yes-men, they basically did whatever they wanted. The Emperor didn't try to stop this, since by the end of his life he wasn't very interested in actually ruling the country anymore and left that to his corrupt court eunuchs. The one commandery that was 100% allied with the imperial government was Kwongtung (廣東), and that was only because it was the capital commandery and Lou Kei was assigned to rule the place before he became Emperor.

Whenever there was a war that had to be fought, the warlords would make temporary alliances, send levies of troops to their buds, and they would all fight together until the war was over. This was fine for the most part, since before they had been fighting other people whose military tech was mediocre at best. Plus, they had a couple guys with gunpowder weapons since Namjyut annexed the Song Dynasty who invented it a few centuries back. Unfortunately when European colonization was in high gear, the Namjyut military was still a bunch of disorganized burly soldiers with pointy sticks and the occasional gunpowder weapon. Similarly, the navy was just a bunch of guys on variously-sized wooden boats who were trained to board other variously-sized wooden boats. This culminated in the defeat against Britain in the 1836 Opium War, when they showed up with armored vessels and soldiers unified under a common banner and started spinning heads. Lou Kei, who commanded the defense against the Opium War, saw that there was a huge deficiency in the military of Namjyut and started to work on the Imperial Consolidation Reforms. Everyone who was with him that day, including itinerant generals from the Hoinam (海南) and Kwongsai (廣西) levies and all of the soldiers within, agreed that things had to be different.

When Lou Kei's father, former Emperor Lou Yip, died to illness in 1845, Lou Kei tried to take his place as Emperor and introduce all his cool new reforms. Unfortunately, the court eunuchs and some of the guards sent by warlords to stop him barred him from entering the royal palace, backing his younger brother Lou Tung (路騰) as Emperor because he was a young, impressionable twelve-year-old lad. Lou Kei wasn't having any of this, so he got all of his supporters, including the soldiers who had served with him during the Opium War, and marched right through them. He then banished the eunuchs and his younger brother. Declaring the beginning of a new Yun Dynasty and how everything was going to change with his Imperial Consolidation.

Imperial Consolidation Phase 1, 1846-1862


  • Emperor Lou Kei strengthened Imperial power by culling yes-men from the Imperial Court, weakening the influence of local warlords

  • The imperial government made a unified military force, convincing the pirates to join him and introducing conscription

  • State-sponsored growth of modern industry, such as steel, mining, and ship building

  • Navy cadets are sent to train in other countries, returning to establish Naval academies

  • Various former commanderies were consolidated into Imperial rule. This marks the beginnings of Namjyut's Tsinfat, massive vertical conglomerates

  • The Hoinam consolidated commandery led the unauthorized 1855 Recapture of Sama from the British. The Namjyut Navy joined in, lengthening a naval battle until it was too expensive for the British, and Sama was returned to Hoinam

  • Namjyut tightens oversight on consolidated commanderies

The first thing the new Emperor Lou did was start banishing the worthless peons who agreed with everything the local warlords said. He started by banishing those loyal to warlords who ruled commanderies with armies who at this point were actually loyal to him. Without the support of their armies, such warlords were easily convinced to join Emperor Lou's consolidation plan. A lot of the commanderies that were consolidated into provinces or circuits at this time still had considerable autonomy; the warlords who were easily convinced often continued to rule there in some capacity. However, whenever the warlords were doing something naughty, they did it in secret.

Emperor Lou had difficulty consolidating the Onnam (安南) commanderies, which also prevented him from consolidating the Siamese tributary state. Siam had been paying tribute to Namjyut for a while, and Emperor Lou didn't want to lose that just because of some meddling foreigners. He believed that by consolidating Siam into the Namjyut empire, he could keep the pesky colonizers away. But since he was still struggling to wrangle Onnam, he didn't get the chance to do that.


Armored steamships built at subsidized drydocks and state arsenals were used to fend off meddling foreigners who wanted a piece of Namjyut

In 1847, the imperial government wanted to get rid of the pirate problem. In the 18th Century, when the pirates had peaked, the pirates kept raiding merchant ships and were generally being a huge pain in the backside. The Namjyut Navy and the Dutch VOC greatly diminished their influence, and by the time of Emperor Lou's accession were reduced to infighting in a small part of the sea, but still pillaging merchant ships every so often. Emperor Lou started some incentive programs for the now weakened and desperate pirates to join the Namjyut Navy. He added them to the government payroll and eventually integrated them completely. During this time, national conscription for fighting aged men was introduced also.

The imperial government wanted to bolster the navy, since the British had basically showed up during the Opium war with all their ships and showed them exactly how behind they were. The shipbuilding, mining, and steel industries were greatly supported by the government for this reason. The companies that grew out of these would eventually become the Tsinfat, huge vertically-integrated conglomerates. Namjyut cadets were sent to train with foreigners famed for their naval prowess, such as the Dutch, in order to bring back their tactics for the Namjyut Navy. Naval academies sprang up as a result, training the navy with modern tactics and outfitting the fleet with modern armor and weapons. At the time, less attention was given to the army, since the navy could not only be used to resist foreign incursions but also convince the Onnam commanderies to consolidate with the Empire by showing up at their doorstep with a huge navy and threatening them.

The navy was moderately successful in the role of resistance against foreigners, like during the 1855 Recapture of Sama. Prefect and former Warlord of Hoinam Lei Sau Tsan (李秀珍), who resented the cessation of the port town of Sama to the British during the Opium War, started scheming to take his town back. He had some connections, so he went around asking his friends to supply him with troops under the nose of the imperial government, and even went as far as negotiating an arms deal with Russia. Some messages and a transfer of a ton of money to Russia later, Prefect Lei marched out from the highlands with his men and some locals who wanted in on the fun to drive out the British. Taken by surprise, the British retreated to the sea. When the imperial government got word of the situation, the Imperial Navy rushed to Hoinam. By putting pressure on British supply lines coming from Singapore, Namjyut was able to drive up the cost of fighting for the British while the Imperial Navy forced a stalemate. In the end, the British had basically wasted a bunch of money fighting over some town on an island somewhere, so they gave up and Sama was returned to Hoinam.

The Recapture of Sama also made the Imperial Government realize that its circuits were doing things like raising armies without it even knowing. Even though this happening was good for Namjyut in this one instance, the Imperial Government feared that some disgruntled prefect would rise up against the government suddenly. Thus the government first incorporated Hoinam into the capital circuit, since Prefect Lei was KIA, and started to tighten its oversight in all the rest of the circuits.

During the Recapture of Sama, the Imperial Government was pleasantly surprised how useful the foreign weapons were, and were up for getting more foreign goods. The Imperial Government decided that it was safe to open up the ports again, since all the Namjyut industry was in domestic hands, and so lifted the old One Port Policy that previously diverted all foreign trade into Hong Kong.

Imperial Consolidation Phase 2, 1862-1868



Marching across the Annamite Mountain Range would be one hell of a hike
  • The 1862 German Invasion of Indochina makes Namjyut consolidate faster

  • Germany and Namjyut are slowed down by mountains and jungle in the highlands

  • Namjyut and Germany face off in the Annamite mountain range and Fuon. Front lines are frozen in deadlock

  • At the end of the war in 1868, Central and Northern Onnam are consolidated, but the Southern Onnam and various Siamese territories are lost to the Germans

  • The plan to consolidate the Siamese tributary state never happens

The Imperial Government was going south trying to "convince" (threaten) the commanderies in Onnam to consolidate with their big navy when the Germans suddenly arrived. The Germans were less subtle about it, since they had just showed up in the southernmost Onnam commandery and started running them over, signalling that the Imperial Government had better get moving or there wouldn't be anything left for Namjyut to consolidate. The Imperial Government went with a full-scale military campaign and just started getting rid of all the warlords who were holding out on consolidation, which wasn't too hard in North Onnam and the coast because they were either lowlands or easily accessible by the big navy. Everyone who wasn't a fool knew that with the imperial military on one side and the Germans on the other, joining Namjyut wasn't so bad after all. It became harder and harder as time went on, because when the easy parts had been consolidated, the thick jungle and tall mountains were in the way of the rest of the land.

Meanwhile, Germany started moving north into the Siamese territories that Namjyut wanted to consolidate but which were on the other side of the mountains. By the time Namjyut had made it past the mountains, Germany had taken all of the Siamese lowlands and were veering east into the Namjyut position. Then, the two armies faced off. A big problem that the Imperial Army had was that they had just used a bunch of resources to consolidate northern and central Onnam, and because the government had invested so much into the navy compared to the army, they were lacking in army resources. Meanwhile, Germany came prepared in resources, but lacked the geographical knowledge that the locals had supplied the Namjyuts. The military advancement on both sides culminated in battles in the southern Onnamese chokepoint at Fuon (賦安) and the difficult terrain of the Annamite Mountain Range. The front lines stalled, and by the end of the war in 1868, trying to consolidate Siam was unsustainable and Namjyut had already lost southern Onnam.

Imperial Consolidation Phase 3, 1868-1894



A train on the Kaulong-Kwongtung railway established during third phase Consolidation
  • Peacetime ushers in more civilian projects

  • Public schools restructured with focus on practical knowledge and opened to all social classes

  • Continued assistance to industry, including foreign engineering support

  • Army undergoes similar strengthening to the navy

  • Namjyut starts reverse-engineering foreign-bought weapons, leading to the modern Namjyut arms industry

  • Fortifications and defensive tunnel systems built along border between Namjyut and German Indochina

  • Namjyut establishes air force

The war with Germany was over, and the military got good at crushing petty rebellions. This is the Namjyut interwar period, and the time when the third phase of the Imperial Consolidation began. With the budget loosened up during peace, the government started to pour funding on civilian projects. Infrastructure projects benefited the military and kept up the civilian quality of life, reducing riots and uprisings.

Civilian Developments


Namjyut Model As were initially built with HMC unbuilt parts, and eventually cars were built with all-Namjyut parts long after the original deal with Horne Motor Co,.
The first civilian developments were justified because they were useful for the military as well. Projects like railroads, telegraph networks, and radio networks could be used to get soldiers to places and issue orders faster. When telephones and cars became popular, landline and highways were built. When the Japanese invaded, these infrastructure projects were instrumental for the country's defense.

Schools were changed completely in phase three. Schools used to be segregated by class, and only members of certain classes were allowed to go to public school. Others went to private school or didn't even get an education at all, which was common among poor people in the mountains. Opening up the schools and changing the curriculum to be more STEM-based meant that there would be more people learning things that are good for the economy. To do this, western science books got translated and classes became more teacher-guided. The schools also promoted unity, instilling the Imperial ideals on the youth. At first, when youth education was made compulsory, a bunch of rural farmers complained because their kids had to go to the city and couldn't help them on the farm, so the government built more schools.

Changes to the national school curriculum also meant changing the Imperial Examination questions. Some people wanted to get rid of the Imperial Examination system, which are high-stress exams often compared to the SAT except required to hold office. The government didn't drop them, opting to change the material instead by getting rid of things like shooting arrows from the testing standard.

The government kept going with supporting industry, expanding to industries like shipping and cars. The established old industries and the growing new industries supported each other symbiotically, so much that companies were able to compete with their European counterparts. Shipping between Asia, Europe, and the Americas was one such breakout industry. By having foreigners give their expertise in new industries, Namjyut also grew its manufacturing industry; in 1928, Namjyut and the Horne Motor Company (HMC) in Washington signed an agreement where HMC would provide engineers to build assembly line factories in exchange for buying a ton of unassembled car parts. The Namjyut-built Model As made from this deal marked the start of the car business in Namjyut. As the manufacturing industry grew, so also did the service industry. The first Namjyut stock exchange was established in 1887, and the growth of banks raised capital for upstart businesses.

Military Developments


Where jungle-topped mountains weren't defense enough, there were walls. Walls everywhere.
The fact that the army deficiency stopped Namjyut from taking Siam during the German Invasion ruffled the feathers of the government, so they strengthened the army the same way they did the navy some years before. They sent people to train and learn from western generals, then come back to establish military academies. Foreign influence in military led to new schools of thought when traditional war philosophy combined with western strategy, like nighttime fighting, mixed arms, and modern weapons.

As the government started buying weapons for the army, they started to realize that it was getting expensive and tried to get its own arms industry going. At first, everything were just shoddy copies of foreign weapons, and production was rushed to equip all the new army recruits. Later development in Namjyut's arsenals and eventually the private sector made domestic arms important staples in defending against Japan during the Great War.

Still, doing all this costs money, and there definitely wasn't enough money left to stage an invasion into German-occupied Indochina. The focus of Indochina became defense and fortification. What are the Chinese famous for? Walls. Walls were built along the mountainous border, existing walls were repaired and maintained, and even underground tunnels were made to secure the border. Combined with the difficult overground terrain, these fortifications would make it virtually impossible to invade across the mountains and force land-based invaders into chokepoints. Some proposed to do the same in the northern border with Zhigao, where medieval walls built to defend against the Mongols still stood. This idea didn't work out, since most officials didn't see Zhigao as a threat compared with Germany and the rapidly militarizing Japan.

As military tech advanced, Namyjut set out to study and roll out those techs as well. The advent of warplanes led to making an air force, and motorbikes became well integrated in the highlands for their maneuverability. Namjyut tried to keep parity with the military of Imperial Japan, but with civilian projects underway, this was not entirely successful.

Namjyut

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