Graeme sat on his new swivel leather chair in the presidential office in the heart of Zimbabwe.
He stared glumly at the notes on his desk. They confirmed his worst thoughts. The papers had been prepared by the commisionner that the council of chieftans had sent to China recently and spoke about the 'fantastc' and 'complex' innovations that the country was developing.
The Chinese were now on an easy parralel to the Persians, Romans, Japanese, Russians and just about every other nation on the globe. The most worrying aspect of this was the rapid fire machine guns which muniton plants all over China were apparently being modified to produce.
Zululand alone was lagging in technology. railay lines were only now being laid across the country when they had been over two generations ago in most other parts of the world.
The coal being used to power the locomotives and the coal fired production plants which now appeared in the towns surrounding Ulundi and Bapedi was bought from China at severe cost and the thought that the Chinese controlled so substansial a part of Zululand was a constant worry to the council.
Graeme rubbed his chin and took a sip of brandy, now, he thought, we need machine guns.
He gestured to the clark who sat quietly in another chair in a gas lamp lit corner of the office - "Get a message to the Chiefs of the General staff - I need a little talk"

It was two days later. The Council of chiefs was eerily calm as Graeme stood up and walked to the podium. He'd only told a select few diplomats and military chiefs of his plans however rumour had got out somewhere. It always did.
'People of the Zulu under the eye of Gilgamesh,' he began, the standard phrase for addressing the council, 'I would like to bring to your attention a matter we have all been ignoring for altogether too long. Gentlemen - we are ignorant! Not you or I, but Zululand as a whole - I have here a report from a distinguished commisioner Demeci who uses the words 'fantastic' and 'near magical' to describe only what he has been allowed to see of the Chinese army. Magical? Magical!!," he spat out the word.
"For four hundred years this nation has felt it self superior to the Chinese in every way - And rightly so! For do not more people enjoy the benefits of living under the protection of this council than under any other leadership in the world? They do! And did your Fathers and Grandfathers not fight to bring the Aztecs into this great nation? They did!
Did not Bach build the most magnificent Cathedral to Gilgamesh reveerd the world over, in Bapedi? He did!"

Grame's face was shining now and as he paused for breath, Malikau, Chief of washington stood up and raised his hand, but before he could speak Grame plunged on "And yet the Chinese sit across the American division and build weapons of magic.
But it needn't be like this, what I propose is that we forget paying for more luxurious Cathedrals for just a little while and instead buy a machine gun or two. I have spoken to the Roman ammabasdor and he assures me the senate would be quite happy to provide us with both machine guns and the designs for the facilities for making them at a cost of only 870 million pounds in manufactured goods - this is not an option people, it is our only choice." he finished, his voice low and calm.

As Graeme left the podium he studied the faces of the chiefs. In some he could see horror, sheer disgust at his ideas and before he could sit down he heard Malikau shout "He asks us for 870 million pounds? For the Romans?..." Yet other chiefs were nodding solemn looks on their faces and some even seem to be pleased. He could almost hear the first Zulu soldier firing the first Zulu machine gun.

Five years passed. The complex task of shipping the huge amount of materials to the Roman empire was dealt with and the Yellow Sun, the main supplier of weapons for the Zulu army, began to upgrade its facilities to using the rubber required to build the new machine guns, improved artillery and rifles under the eye of engineers from Rome.

It was winter and a cold wind wipped around Graeme as he stepped out of his carriage and climbed the steps to the majestic entrance to the War office. He stepped through the door, opened for him by his two guards and glanced around. Various high ranking members of the Zulu navy and army commands were talking in huddled groups. He swepped through them on to the war room. In a few minutes all has assembeld inside it around the large and beautifully drawn world map that covered the huge table at the centre of the room.
Lincoln, Joint head of the Chiefs of Staff stopped next to Graeme who was stood silently at the head of the table.
"I presume you have all read the most recent reports," said Lincoln "but for those of you that have not I will give you a quick overview of the situation with China.
Here," he said indicating with a stick "is the American divison - on our side is the city of New york" - With the chinese cities of Atlanta to the south and Philadelphia to the East. Here," he moved the pointer just slightly easy of the border "is the coal seam which supplies all of our country and here to the east of Atlanta, is the only largescale rubber growing area in China - the Chintong district. If we are to strike, which I presume is what we have been called here to discuss, we must do it now and we must do it here. If we do then there will be hardly any new rubber getting into China, this may just give us the edge we need."

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Okay ill continue some other time (whaddya think of it - too boring?)

Just joking. It's a fine story. Keep it coming! :D

mad story man, great attention to detail, more!

merp

(disclaimer: merp is a good word ;))

It was winter in the Rockie mountains but it was mild and the air hinted at a spring that would be arriving soon.

The rockies were on the Chinese side of the border, a fact that was begininng to pray on the mind of Private Hikwal of the 23rd cavalry division. He was 20 and had joined the army a year earlier with a promise of good pay and a secure job, soemthing hard to come by in Bapedi. Things looked different now.

Now he was part of a 20'000 strong preliminary invasion force which had been given the task of capturign Atlanta and, prehaps more importantly securing the rubber plantations to the east of the city.
They had been in CHina for two days now, staying away from the roads and villagesd they had somehow avoid running into any Chinese apart from the odd peasent who was dispersed with easily. Now though they were coming down the mountains and farms and a few small towns were visible.

That they had all been ordered to stop was a telling sign. The marhcing was generally endless unless the generals had somethign important to talk about.
And yes here was Jones. The various groups of soldiers who had been sitting around stood up as the sergeant came up to the platoon.
"Attention! Right men we have a job to do, when we get down this hill all of you are to mount up. Then you're going to follow me. Our company has been charged with taking a paticular farm building slightly to the East of Wu - thats the town you can probably see. We're going to need food and for that we'll need the chinks, however if any of them try to get away we've got to stop them - Lincoln believes we can take this whole area without anyone informing Atlanta - that is what we are going to make happen.'

why did ya stop? it was intersting ya know. keep your madcap plans comin`