Capto Iugulum Background Thread

[Circuit]

I remember you had something very similar to this at the beginning of CIEN, and I'm glad to see it has returned.

 

[Gem Hound]

This is what I've been asking for since I started this NES at the BT.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Well, it's not going to be fully implemented until 1940, predominantly just so I can use the next two updates as a testing ground for the concepts before fully enacting it. So far, it's looking good, as it actually takes less time to do than the old system did, which is always a plus in my eyes.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

I just want to remind everyone that with the 1939 coming up quickly, that will be the last update on the current main thread. Following that update, we will be making a new thread, with updated rules, stats, and so forth. After this update, the front page here will also no longer be active, as all background information will be moved/written onto the wiki, rather than here. If you would like to shorten the period between the 1939 and 1940 updates, a good way of doing this would be by helping me fill in the blanks (particularly when it comes to extant NPC nations) on the wiki site.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

Culturally however, and perhaps governmentally, I think that the higher-ups in Guangxi have come to realize that the nationalism sparked by the Fireworks Wars favors a shift away from Anglicization, which really never was popular in the first place. Guangxi its still trying to establish its own identity, which is something that has eluded me through my year of playing it; its Dominion status complicates any attempt to look like a legitimate Chinese government

Typed this up earlier, did not post.

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Guangxi's identity has been pretty clear to me -- it is ten million people, largely Westernized, largely anglophones, concentrated in a single city, among a sea of hostile Chinese - South Africa writ large.

Every aspect of Guangxi culture is designed to alienate traditionally-minded Chinese. The status of John II Qing as a King, not an Emperor; the fact that the Emperor he pays tribute to does not conduct the ceremonial rites; the fact that Guangxi's capital is sited across from the British seat of power, instead of in one of China's traditional capitals -- because of this, Guangxi has zero political legitimacy among its governed. Guangxi is a small colonial elite, centered in Xinjing and focused on extraction and exports to Britain, plus its associated enforcers and compradors.

All of this was done deliberately, to weaken and humiliate China and remind the Dominion that it is subordinate to London.

Thus, regardless of the activities of the Red Army, this is an explosive mix; the Xinjing elite is literally spitting on all of the traditionally Chinese forms of legitimacy in order to preserve its existing power structure. Thus, the Guangxi regime must rule by fear, by brutally repressing political opposition, and by machine-gunning potential dissidents. Guangxi is a country where speaking one's native language is a revolutionary act; any nationalist can easily see how to exploit this.

Furthermore, there must be a language and religious test in order to vote; handing sovereignty over to the average Chinese means the end of British dominance in the country.

This is why the inability to speak or read Chinese, on the part of the Guangxi colonial elite, is such a valuable propaganda point for the Red Army regardless of its truth. John II Qing clearly does not think or act like a traditional Chinese sovereign, and changes in dress and language aren't going to magically give him that legitimacy he needs in order to survive.

On the other hand, the political reforms necessary require a complete break with Britain, and require the British ambassador to kowtow to the Emperor of China, center of the universe; all things revolve around the Son of Heaven, and in order to be perceived as legitimate, China must be recognized as the center of the world by the barbarian kingdoms surrounding it.

Guangxi cannot walk this tightrope; the best-case scenario is ten years of peace before the next rebellion hits, as per OTL France in Algeria.

 

[Jehoshua]

Your argument is bizarre. Firstly on the capital point I must mention that not one of the traditional capitals of China is within the territory of Guangxi. Secondly your whole point about Guangxi = the elite in Xinjing is entirely auto-fabricated, there is little evidence that the people of Guangxi care so much about the nature of their leadership, so long as it governs well. Your creating a strawman argument on your own assumptions about what the people of Guangxi want (and the nature of the Guangxi government as well I add) here without any real logic to base it on. As to legitimacy, you neglect that it is the Qing dynasty that rules in Guangxi, and they have the legacy of the old Empire with them where the ascendants and Red Army do not. Likewise you are completely ignoring the concept of the mandate of heaven (except when it serves your argument ofc).

Now you are correct that Anglicisation is stupid and is want to lead to rebellion and division. However all Xinjing has to do is cut the tether of association with Britain and revert to the traditional model of imperial rule under the mandate of heaven and your argument ceases to be relevant. I think it could easily take such a step as well, considering Britain has seen fit to degrade its power through imperial over-reach and as you yourself note it has already made steps in that direction. This would of course mean the end of British dominance, but the power of the Qing would be maintained (and it is they who are the rulers even if history has led to association as a result of the European wars with China up to the present). The linguistic inadequacies of the Xinjing elite also become irrelevant in that context, considering the history of non han-chinese dynasties (the Tang were Turkic, you had the mongol Yuan dynasty, and the Qing themselves were/are Manchu) and the lack of use of chinese can be, and is being, easily remedied.

I must also point out that no power in China can gather the recognition of the powers around it. The Ascendants bow to some degree to Russia, Japan remains powerful despite disintegration in its Empire, British rule remains strong in Indochina. Its not an "aha, the Red Chinese provide the answer", there is no power in China today which looks like it has the power to recreate the Chinese tributary state system. Only internally could the old paradigm could be re-established regarding the son of heaven be re-established, ergo the ideology can be restored even if other nations don't acknowledge it to be true. Thus your point that foreign recognition is somehow necessary for Guangxi is rendered absurd, since your ignoring that a credible alternative which offers that prestige is necessary for it to be a relevant factor.

 

[Circuit]

The common people pray for rain, health, and a summer that never ends. They don't care what games the high lords play.

And nice to see Jehoshua on my side for a change.

 

[Jehoshua]

Only inasmuch as we agree of course

 

[Grandkhan]

I think its kind of a strange idea to assume that the only way that the Chinese peasantry (which is where the nationalism that the Red Army feeds from comes from) can be appeased is for China to literally go right back to the Imperial days and start declaring themselves Emperors of All Under Heaven again. I don't think the peasantry could care less, and for once its the peasantry that matter because they're the massive majority that is linguistically and culturally distinct from the ruling class, because the way their emperor views the outside world is immaterial.

What the sticking point is that Guangxi is, despite its supposed dominionhood, a British puppet government with zero legitimacy in the eyes of the common Chinese person. Its the Manchu scenario write large, except even the Manchu sinicised and the British haven't and have zero intention of doing so. Thats why people are flocking to the Red Army - remember, the Red Army isn't declaring everybody a hungry vampire ghost either, and seems pretty happy to accept foreign help and aid.

John Qing can sever his ties with Britain entirely tomorrow and declare himself Emperor of All Under Heaven and still be facing the Red Army rebellion, because the Red Army is a peasant army, not an actual state, and they want their concessions.

 

[Jehoshua]

You're conveniently forgetting that the Red Army emerged in the Japanese held regions of China, and extended its campaigns from these regions into the neighbouring Chinese states. Its not a case of Guangxi's peasants rising up in some crude Marxian class uprising, its a case of a conflict spreading into Guangxi with the corresponding war resulting in all manner of difficulties that lead naturally to divisions amongst the people.

As to the focus on an imperial Chinese renewal, its not that the Guangxi peasantry are suddenly yearning for the past, but that with the rise in nationalism sparked by the war and the century of humiliation still in force, the natural response by the Qing and amongst the people of Guangxi is to return to traditional values and beliefs that are deeply ingrained in the culture. Thus why the imperial system is the focus over other alternatives.

As to your point on the British, the Guangxi elite is closely associated with the British, but it remains iirc chinese. The Qing aren't some white Rajah's translocated to the east afterall. Its the domination by Britain that has led to the elite adopting English manners and airs about them, but not that this influence is waning, and quite dramatically waning at that, its only natural to expect that the fashionable façade of Anglicism will fall away, and the deeper Chinese cultural substratum will come to the fore.

 

[Grandkhan]

They first physically rebelled in the Japanese held regions of China, but remember, they managed to pull of a huge terrorist attack on Xinjing itself. On top of that, as soon as Guangxi attempted an invasion the Red Army activated its massive network in Guangxi and completely screwed with their supply lines. Guangxi had a huge network of peasants sympathetic to the Red Army within it the moment the war started, and was dealing with Red Army unrest long before they declared independence in Japanese China.

What did the Emperors ever do for the peasantry? Start a civil war and let them get invaded and colonised by the Europeans? Nationalism in this TL is a liberal democratic thing, it hasn't been picked up by the far right in the way that it did OTL. That kind of concept might make sense if it was 1850, but its 1940 and there's are alternatives - liberal nationalist democracy a la Drexler's Germany, Proletarism, etc. We don't know exactly which ideology the Red Army embraces, because so far its basically just a military dictatorship run by the Generals, but the idea of an actual peasant movement trying to put an absolutist monarchy back on the throne in 1940 is kind of strange, given that the monarchy wouldn't do anything for them.

As for the British issue, its the Red Army. Its a bunch of fanatical nationalists - it doesn't matter if you are ethnically Chinese, to them, if you speak English, you are, technically, an Englishman. Propaganda doesn't have to be true.

 

[Jehoshua]

They first physically rebelled in the Japanese held regions of China, but remember, they managed to pull of a huge terrorist attack on Xinjing itself. On top of that, as soon as Guangxi attempted an invasion the Red Army activated its massive network in Guangxi and completely screwed with their supply lines. Guangxi had a huge network of peasants sympathetic to the Red Army within it the moment the war started, and was dealing with Red Army unrest long before they declared independence in Japanese China.

It activated agents and placed partisans in Guangxi to mess with supply lines true. But that does not necessarily a mass peasant uprising make. I did pretty much the same sort of thing (albeit domestically) by placing a load of agents in the proletarist movement, with the result being the decimation of its lower ranks. That doesn't mean there is a secret papist movement amongst the proletarists though .

What did the Emperors ever do for the peasantry? Start a civil war and let them get invaded and colonised by the Europeans? Nationalism in this TL is a liberal democratic thing, it hasn't been picked up by the far right in the way that it did OTL. That kind of concept might make sense if it was 1850, but its 1940 and there's are alternatives - liberal nationalist democracy a la Drexler's Germany, Proletarism, etc. We don't know exactly which ideology the Red Army embraces, because so far its basically just a military dictatorship run by the Generals, but the idea of an actual peasant movement trying to put an absolutist monarchy back on the throne in 1940 is kind of strange, given that the monarchy wouldn't do anything for them.

Firstly, you're making a strawman point with that first question, since we are talking about the rationale behind the imperialist bent in Guangxi which has been adopted at least in part by the regime, not the attitudes of the red army. As to your point on nationalism that's fallacious, Firstly you ignore that the liberal national movements were based on idealistic experiments of unification of disparate states (Unification of Italy, Unification of Germany, stop-start unification of France and the like). Nationalism in the sense of an existing nation experiencing a patriotic resurgence has been profoundly illiberal. Poland for example saw nationalism based on religious lines, and nationalism in the arab sphere was distinctly Islamic in taste. It can be pretty accurately surmised as well from the rhetoric and the nature of the Red Army movement that has been established by EQ and its player, that its nationalism is based precisely on chinese identity (cultural and historic) proceeding from the historical denigration of China, rather than on an ideological experimental impulse. Sure some may claim the red army to be prole, but our GM himself noted that this is hardly the case.

As for the British issue, its the Red Army. Its a bunch of fanatical nationalists - it doesn't matter if you are ethnically Chinese, to them, if you speak English, you are, technically, an Englishman. Propaganda doesn't have to be true.

Again, we are not talking about the red army. We are talking about Guangxi, the commons of that country, and the trajectory of its rulers. Your seeming equivalence between the Guangxi peasantry and the red army seems to be a false association along the lines of the crude historical Marxism (perhaps unintentionally, but that's the whiff I'm getting) popular amongst the Soviet Unions historian prior to its ultimate downfall. The idea that this conflict is simply a class struggle between the elite and a disenfranchised and culturally oppressed plebeian mass which is rising up after having achieved class consciousness due to its common experience in oppression is quite simplistic. (Marxism today is the orthodoxy in historiography today in many historical questions I add, but its not the crude proto-form I keep getting echoes of in your argument and is rather more sophisticated in its outlook [to the point that I agree with some of its analyses, even if I reject the trend to economic determinism amongst some of the school I'm referring too])

 

[Ahigin]

To add to the discussion, I want to notice that even if tomorrow King John of Guanxi stops speaking English, he is still a Manchu ruling over hundreds of millions of Cantonese. Frankly, I have no idea why the Britts installed a Manchu dynasty to rule over Southern China in the first place. In our timeline, the Qing at least had a power base in the north that helped them control the rest of the country (same way as the Mongol Yuan and the Jurchen Jinn dynasties ruled over China hundreds of years before them). But King John is totally surrounded by an alien population. And I'm talking not about peasants who indeed are more concentrated on mere survival, but about local elites. During the Warlord Era of real Chinese history (same historical period) hardly any warlord succeeded in ruling over a region not of his origin, for the same reason.

If it's EQ's background mistake, then I guess there's no point of arguing about it and we should just accept it as it is. If he placed the Qing dynasty in Guanxi consciously, I see their power base as being extremely shaky.

UPD: A couple of words about the Game of Thrones quote. The peasants sure don't care about the games their lords play, but they sure care about their lords' origin, as history has shown many times. An American Tea Partier may not care about what Obama's administration doing, but he sure cares a lot about his birth certificate. Not like exceptions to this rule never happen (for instance, a Georgian thug and poet Ioseb Jugashvili also known as Joseph Stalin, or a young Corsican officer Napoleon Bonaparte), but they're rare and are based either on very strong personality cults or on rather ethnically open and diverse cultures.

 

[ChineseWarlord]

Wow Jehoshua, I'm surprised that you're making an argument that doesn't have to do with liberalism and moralism.

 

[Crezth]

A Qing ruler was selected strictly to appeal to the legitimacy of the last mandate. It was understood that the complete effect of the mandate of heaven was unattainable, so the next closest option was chosen.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

Your argument is bizarre. Firstly on the capital point I must mention that not one of the traditional capitals of China is within the territory of Guangxi.

...dude, seriously, check a map. Nanjing is right there, on the south bank of the Yangtze. Hangzhou, slightly more defensible and the Song dynasty's southern capital, is right there.

The fact that both of those are currently in the hands of the Red Army is immaterial.

Secondly your whole point about Guangxi = the elite in Xinjing is entirely auto-fabricated, there is little evidence that the people of Guangxi care so much about the nature of their leadership, so long as it governs well. Your creating a strawman argument on your own assumptions about what the people of Guangxi want (and the nature of the Guangxi government as well I add) here without any real logic to base it on. As to legitimacy, you neglect that it is the Qing dynasty that rules in Guangxi, and they have the legacy of the old Empire with them where the ascendants and Red Army do not. Likewise you are completely ignoring the concept of the mandate of heaven (except when it serves your argument ofc).

Irrelevant.

I am explaining how political legitimacy is derived in traditional Chinese thought, based on Confucian norms, and how Guangxi has departed from it.

Now you are correct that Anglicisation is stupid and is want to lead to rebellion and division. However all Xinjing has to do is cut the tether of association with Britain and revert to the traditional model of imperial rule under the mandate of heaven

People are not Victoria POPs. More specifically, they have memories. They are not so easily manipulated, certainly not while there are forces present who would benefit by continued militancy.

I must also point out that no power in China can gather the recognition of the powers around it. The Ascendants bow to some degree to Russia, Japan remains powerful despite disintegration in its Empire, British rule remains strong in Indochina. Its not an "aha, the Red Chinese provide the answer", there is no power in China today which looks like it has the power to recreate the Chinese tributary state system. Only internally could the old paradigm could be re-established regarding the son of heaven be re-established, ergo the ideology can be restored even if other nations don't acknowledge it to be true. Thus your point that foreign recognition is somehow necessary for Guangxi is rendered absurd, since your ignoring that a credible alternative which offers that prestige is necessary for it to be a relevant factor.

Irrelevant. My argument revolves around Guangxi's domestic political legitimacy. Foreign acceptance has nothing to do with this.


Finally, responding to your point about 'confusing' the Red Army with Guangxi's citizenry -- did Poles in Austrian-occupied Poland ever stop considering themselves Polish? Might it, perhaps, be in the interest of the Red Army to have built consensus with Guangxi's citizenry?

 

[Crezth]

ChiefDesigner, if you want to win, just become Catholic. All political legitimacy derives, ultimately, from God. Or, more specifically, the Pope (who is greater than God).

EDIT: Also, EQ, have you ever heard of something called the "quantified judgement model?" I think I have some material that might interest you if you were looking for a new way to do combat for CI: Iteration 3.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@Crezth, I'm quite fond of the combat model already in place, though I thank you for the offer.

 

[Shadowbound]

South Africa was able to maintain apartheid so long because there was a substantial white population and because the non-white population was divided and lacked a common background. None of this is true in China, where the whites are massively outnumbered and the Chinese are, well, Chinese.

It's worth remembering that they were pissed at their own, "legitimate" Qing government for being Manchu and invading them hundreds of years earlier, despite them making every attempt possible since then to Sinicize. In addition the hated foreign devils, who really ticked off the Chinese, don't just have influence over the government and trade rights. They actively control the government and receive tribute from it, and there are no restrictions on British merchants. The Chinese will carry grudges like being partitioned between occupying powers for longer than the occupying nation exists. They will never forgive the British, nor the Qing, who manage to be both Manchu invaders and western puppets at the same time.

EDIT: Quotes!

To restore our national independence, we must first restore the Chinese nation. To restore the Chinese nation, we must drive the barbarian Manchus back to the Changbai Mountains. To get rid of the barbarians, we must first overthrow the present tyrannical, dictatorial, ugly, and corrupt Qing government. Fellow countrymen, a revolution is the only means to overthrow the Qing government!

The Anglo-Qing hodgepodge puppet ruler will never have any legitimacy from the Chinese people. Doesn't matter if he learns Chinese, or cuts ties with Britain, or becomes the major power in East Asia. The Chinese are absolutely insanely nationalistic to an extent that makes Americans seem like hippies.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

However all Xinjing has to do is cut the tether of association with Britain and revert to the traditional model of imperial rule under the mandate of heaven

Actually, let me expand on this point.

Even 100 years after the Xinhai Revolution, which ended the imperial institution in OTL China, we see both the Nationalists and the Communists appealing to the same sources of legitimacy.

Note that the PRC was proclaimed by Mao Zedong only after the capture of Beijing, that there was for several decades an active contest to see which side could receive the most diplomatic recognition, appealing to the logic that legitimacy is derived by tributaries paying honor to the government; and the fact that every cross-strait mission from Taiwan to China involves with the political leadership paying homage to their ancestors' grave sites.