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Jesus christ do white people love to fall all over themselves vilifying the Japanese so they can make colonialism look better
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Jun 27, 2015 05:17
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Taiping Tianguo Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 A New Hope You may have noticed I've been focused primarily on the Taiping perspective thus far, with little consideration to what is happening in the imperial court. This is largely because the revolving door of commanders and governors being assigned,demoted, exiled to Xinjiang, or executed for incompetence is a mess to keep track of. It's also becuase it pretty much didn't matter what the court did. No matter who was in charge, the untrained, poorly disciplined troops inevitably inflicted more damage on unlucky civilians than they did on the Taiping army. It is not a coincidence that the biggest defeat the Taiping have suffered thus far was at the hands of Jiang Zhongyuan's militia, not the regular troops. The local militia was organized based on the tuanlian system, literally "grouping and drilling". This system arose out of the White Lotus rebellion 50 years earlier. The White Lotus were a rural insurgency, and the garrisons based in the cities were ineffective in their attempts to track down the rebels.The Tuanlian system involved erecting stockades around villages in which people would be gathered. All inhabitants would be registered, and local leaders would be given responsibility and funding to maintain order in their community. Inhabitants from the register would be conscripted to form the militia. This "strategic hamlet" system can be readily understood as a system of rural control, rather than a means of recruitment. The fighting power of the militia is secondary to the surveillance and control of the population. It's less about fighting rebels than it is denying them safe havens in which to operate. It also creates a method by which imperial rule, often rather abstract at the local level, can be given concrete form by empowering local elites. This explains why tuanlian groups are of little use when asked to fight organized groups like the Taiping. Tuanlian groups drill rarely, have crude weapons (legally, guns are forbidden to all but regular troops until 1854), and lack pots, tents, and other field supplies needed for operating in the field. A more professional force is required for pitched battles against small rebellions or large bandit groups. The forces that fill this need are known as yong, or braves. The yong are paid in cash wages, as opposed to the conscripted tuanlian. Because the tuanlian is about local monitoring and control, recruitment of outsiders is forbidden, while the yong forces will have more freedom to recruit bad motherfuckers. The lines between the two types of forces will be intentionally blurred, as yong forces may not be legal according to the strict letter of the law. Those organizing them appropriate the legal forms of tuanlian to provide an aura of legitimacy. Nevertheless, the line between braves and bandits is sometimes dependent solely on who's paying them. The yong forces are nevertheless restricted in size to no more than one or two thousand men, and limited to small areas of operation. As desperation mounts in the crumbling empire, the idea emerges to take the yong off the leash and see how far the concept can be taken. Official funding from a provincial government will be provided to a talented official, and he will be tasked with building an independent force, outside the official system, with freedom to build the force as he sees fit. These armies will be the yong ying (勇營), the brave battalions. A Bad Dude 40 years old at the outbreak of the rebellion, Zeng Guofan (曾國藩) was a distinguished scholar and philosopher, but had little military experience (he had led a small force during the siege of the Hunanese capital of Changsha) when he was given an imperial warrant and tasked by the empire to raise a force from his native Hunan. He does not seem eager to accept the task (largely as he was mourning the death of his mother), but he obeys. Because Confucian relationships demand that the ruler be obeyed, and Zeng is the ultimate Confucian. If the Taiping are the vanguard of revolutionary world historical change, Zeng is the man standing athwart history crying "Stop!" He will not show great talent for dashing, brilliant tactics, but he considers strategy carefully, and will show an ability to identify the most important objectives and focus his forces toward clear goals. Once decided on a course of action, he pursues it relentlessly and thoroughly, and refuses to panic in the face of sometimes severe setbacks. His actions during the rebellion will have him posthumously immortalized as the exemplar of the Confucian gentlemen, only to be later denigrated as China's great "traitor and executioner."  The force Zeng raises in Hunan will differ radically from the organization of the regular troops. The Xiang army, the Hunan braves, will be based entirely around personal relationships. Neither commander nor men will be interchangeable. Zeng picks his immediate subordinates, and tasks them with recruiting their own men. Their subordinates in turn recruit their own troops, and so own down to the sergeants who assemble squads from the men of their own villages. The relation of officer to men will be explicitly modeled on the Confucian relation of father to son. This mode of organization has several advantages. Each man knows and trusts his commander, and more importantly his commander knows where he lives so desertion is a nonstarter. The homogenous makeup of the force allows for local pride to elevate to a kind of proto-nationalism that will enhance discipline and morale. The fact that the Hunan braves are much better paid than Green Standard troops certainly doesn't hurt. The rule of personal relationship is ironclad. If an officer is killed, his successor must re-recruit the man before the battalion can exist again. Zeng will base the design of his new army on the Jixiao Xinshu, a text from Ming general Qi Jiguang. The basic unit of organization will be ten man squads, which could be divided into groups of five for some tactics. four squads of spearmen, two 12-man squads with three jingals each, and two matchlock armed squads form a company, numbering 108 including officers. These are combined with the commander's bodyguard of 72 men to form the battalion or ying of 505 men. Cannon will be assigned to two of the squads from the bodyguard. These battalions are designed to be logistically and administratively self contained, with their own auxiliary porters permanently assigned.  Page from the Jixiao Xinshu Zeng will also direct the construction of a new navy. Credit for starting this effort goes to the hero of Suoyi, Jiang Zhongyuan, but Zeng will take over the effort. Unlike the hodgepodge of dissimilar junks in the old river fleet, this navy will be purpose built for war. Zeng brings in shipbuilding talent from Guangdong and Guangxi, but the navy will be manned by locals. Zeng purposely refuses to use anyone with experience in the regular navy, not wanting them to bring their bad habits into his new force. Several types of standardized craft are built. A variant of the local junk, specialized for its new purpose, is built, and used largely for supply craft. The Guangdong builders bring a design for the kuaixie, or "fast crab" a popular design with smugglers. A relatively large craft with a crew of 45, these will eventually be phased out as too unwieldy for the river. More successful are the changlong, or "long dragons". These narrow galley like craft are 45 feet long and can mount up to seven small guns. Finally, the most common craft will be small, low 30 ft sampans, with a single forward facing gun on each end.  Fast Crab Confucian Holy War Zeng will provide not only the most effective military response to the Taiping, but an ideological one as well. He will issue a proclamation outlining the Taiping's crimes and the necessity of all right thinking Chinese to defend their culture from the bandits and their alien faith. He first outlines their horrible atrocities, some of which may have actually happened. He next outlines their crimes against the proper Confucian relationships. Instead of father and son, elder brother and younger brother, the Taiping refer to all men as brother and all women as sister. They have seized all land and all commodities (Zeng doesn't mention that they also redistribute these things.) They have replaced the works of Confucius, which have governed China for thousands of years, with the doctrine of Jesus. Furthermore, they have blasphemed against China's gods with their iconoclasm. Zeng wisely doesn't touch the anti-Manchu ethnic component of the Taiping ideology, instead focusing on their alien religion and disrespect for long standing Chinese custom. Few men are interested in dying for the Manchu dynasty, but thousands will flock to defend their ancestral customs and traditional way of life. Zeng will, by 1854, have 10000 men in his combined land and sea force. The army's loyalty is not to the nation or the dynasty, but to Zeng himself. He won't always have money to pay them, despite his best efforts to appropriate supplies and funds meant for their bitter rivals in the Green Standard (At one point, Green Standard troops burn down his headquarters). Nevertheless, his men trust in him and stay loyal. His force will train daily in drill and martial arts, practicing marching, digging fortifications, and throwing fireballs. Zeng will focus on building this new army, and resist calls for assistance from imperial commanders until events force them into action to defend Hunan itself. These yong ying forces will be the dynasty's salvation, but there is a certain ambivalence to that success. As one councilor said, "A man with no more official power than a commoner goes to a village, gives a speech, and immediately has an army of 10,000 men. This is not good news for the dynasty."
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Jun 27, 2015 05:25
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LimburgLimbo posted:Jesus christ do white people love to fall all over themselves vilifying the Japanese so they can make colonialism look better Asian people vilify Japan a lot more than white people do.
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Jun 27, 2015 05:26
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I'm skeptical of that reasoning. Do you have a source? From what I've always understood it was simply because the bullet was the only thing solid enough to attach the priming compound to. Attaching it to the paper would have meant the soldier would have to be very careful about correctly aligning primer and firing pin. Attaching it to the back of the bullet means the primer always ends up in the same place, where the (very long) pin can hit it. It also provides a solid surface for the pin to strike against. The Chassepot had the primer at the back of the cartridge, so it wasn't that. But that also means it wasn't the burns-front-to-back bit, either.
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Jun 27, 2015 05:40
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LimburgLimbo posted:Jesus christ do white people love to fall all over themselves vilifying the Japanese so they can make colonialism look better Let me make this easier for you. As Japan moved out of the Shogunate era the more put together leaders looked around at the world to see what was going on. The lessons of the Opium Wars were pretty clearly laid out; it was better to be the colonizer than the colonized. What followed was a rapid, break neck, ultimately very successful crash course in the very best practices of 19th century colonialism. I'd rather castigate the Allies for their actual hyporisy (internment camps in the Philippines, subcontinental shittyness, loving with China, Vietnam, Algeria, poo poo like nearly handing Libya back to the Italians, turning everybody into proxies for their Cold War bullshit) then how they dealt with the Japanese who, pretty much by their own admission, were merely trying to stay fashionable. There, now you can hate the Imperial Japanese and Western Colonialism at the same time..
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Jun 27, 2015 06:26
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LimburgLimbo posted:Jesus christ do white people love to fall all over themselves vilifying the Japanese so they can make colonialism look better 
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Jun 27, 2015 06:30
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Phanatic posted:The Chassepot had the primer at the back of the cartridge, so it wasn't that. But that also means it wasn't the burns-front-to-back bit, either. The Chassepot was invented 30 years later and likely a derivative of the style created by Dreyse, so it was after the "burn front-to-back" idea would have been tested and found to be flawed. The new setup of the Chassepot also conveniently made it extremely easy to convert to metallic cartridges.
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Jun 27, 2015 06:44
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the JJ posted:There, now you can hate the Imperial Japanese and Western Colonialism at the same time.. Yep! I do. Any discussion of the imperial era in Asia is pointless without placing things in the proper context, which people often very conveniently do when talking about said era, and especially about the Japanese, because they're easy villains (not without good reason, because they did some terrible poo poo!) to make westerners feel better about themselves by saying "Hey well at least we're not as bad as the japs right guys hehehehe"
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Jun 27, 2015 07:13
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HEY GAL posted:
David Simon, creator of The Wire, spent all of 1988 following homicide detectives around and all of 1993 documenting one drug corner and the people who bought and and sold drugs there. He wrote books about both of those years: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of a Inner-City Neighborhood. His co-writer for the second book was Ed Burns who later created th Wire with Simon. Ed Burns was a Baltimore cop for 20 years and worked many of the cases that inspired the show. That's a bit beyond hanging out. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 07:32
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What is the Imperial Court doing during all of this madness P-Mack? I assume the loss of many of the richest, most populous provinces is wreaking havoc on the national budget. I remember the Ming Dynasty fell in part due to the enormous expense of paying for the defense of Korea during the Japanese invasion, and that was a small inconsequential frontier province. What are the impacts of the rebellion in northern regions isolated from direct conflict during all this?
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Jun 27, 2015 07:32
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I'm working on updating the weapon models for a standalone mod called "Pirates, Vikings, and Knights 2." Would you guys be interested in seeing them, as in would it be OK if I posted them in the thread? Here's some of the stuff I've already completed.
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Jun 27, 2015 08:47
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LimburgLimbo posted:Jesus christ do white people love to fall all over themselves vilifying the Japanese so they can make colonialism look better point to the place in the thread where we want to make colonialism look better edit: have you been reading the stuff that posters like Trin Tragula put out? every time colonialism comes up he gives us his opinion of it and spoiler alert, he doesn't like it HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 09:11
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HEY GAL posted:point to the place in the thread where we want to make colonialism look better Colonialism is like crystal meth for countries - it turns you into a raging rear end in a top hat, there's a pretty good chance people you associate with will do it too, and it's really addictive. There's something kind of incredible about how quickly New Zealand Maori went from doing battle with stone and wood weapons to LET'S BUY TONS OF GUNS AND CANNONS AND HIRE A BOAT TO SAIL 700 KILOMETRES TO gently caress OVER SOME PEOPLE WE'VE VAGUELY HEARD OF - like, literally a decade. Not that this did them much good vis a vis the British who outassholed them in every way possible fairly quickly.
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Jun 27, 2015 10:27
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Squalid posted:What is the Imperial Court doing during all of this madness P-Mack? I assume the loss of many of the richest, most populous provinces is wreaking havoc on the national budget. I remember the Ming Dynasty fell in part due to the enormous expense of paying for the defense of Korea during the Japanese invasion, and that was a small inconsequential frontier province. What are the impacts of the rebellion in northern regions isolated from direct conflict during all this? I suspect that they weren't really getting that money in the first place. The system had been so corrupt that any cash flow would be getting embezzled at every level, and any revenue would remain stuck out in the provinces instead of making it into the centre. This leads into warlordism and breakdown of central authority. And even if it did make it to the capital, that money would be unlikely to be spent effectively to keep the country together.
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Jun 27, 2015 10:57
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Actually, question about imperialism - I've always understood the basic driving force behind imperialism to be "If we don't do it, someone else will, and if they get too strong they'll bowl us over and dismantle our empire and then everything will be horrible." Question is, prior to WW1, how many European Great Powers did actually fall behind enough in the imperialism race for something like that to happen and provide what is presumably a salutary example for the other empires of the time? And for that matter, of those empires who DID get carved to pieces after WW1 (notably Austria/Hungary and Turkey), how did things go for them after they lost their empires? Did everything, in fact, become horrible?
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Jun 27, 2015 11:15
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Nude Bog Lurker posted:Colonialism is like crystal meth for countries... Content: "Was ist er für ein Vieh und was führt er für ein Leben." Wallenstein on the Elector of Saxony. It's super great for us that he told everyone exactly what he thought of them. Not so much for him, though
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Jun 27, 2015 12:31
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Nude Bog Lurker posted:LET'S BUY TONS OF GUNS AND CANNONS AND HIRE A BOAT TO SAIL 700 KILOMETRES TO gently caress OVER SOME PEOPLE WE'VE VAGUELY HEARD OF Where do I sign up.
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Jun 27, 2015 12:57
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Hunterhr posted:Where do I sign up. http://www.eicfinefoods.com/the-company/careers/
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Jun 27, 2015 13:44
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Nude Bog Lurker posted:There's something kind of incredible about how quickly New Zealand Maori went from doing battle with stone and wood weapons to LET'S BUY TONS OF GUNS AND CANNONS AND HIRE A BOAT TO SAIL 700 KILOMETRES TO gently caress OVER SOME PEOPLE WE'VE VAGUELY HEARD OF - like, literally a decade. Please tell me that story. I've heard the Maori went up 5 tech levels, but it didn't actually change anything in the end. What's the boat story?
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Jun 27, 2015 14:05
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Cyrano, odd question but with your comments in the last few pages about teaching a class on the Holocaust and a lot of your remarks about how you teach it, you sound a lot like an old professor of mine. Did you by any chance teach at Florida Gulf Coast University four or five years ago?
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Jun 27, 2015 14:18
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I'd like to think Cyano would be smart enough to avoid getting bogged down in Florida. 
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Jun 27, 2015 14:27
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Squalid posted:What is the Imperial Court doing during all of this madness P-Mack? I assume the loss of many of the richest, most populous provinces is wreaking havoc on the national budget. I remember the Ming Dynasty fell in part due to the enormous expense of paying for the defense of Korea during the Japanese invasion, and that was a small inconsequential frontier province. What are the impacts of the rebellion in northern regions isolated from direct conflict during all this? The national budget started out hosed with the Opium War and has only gotten worse. With China's internal trade wrecked by rebellion, customs revenue from Shanghai will be the biggest single source of income. Most of it goes right back to foreigners to pay the massive indemnities, though. Eventually, the foreigners just straight up take over the customs administration, which, national humiliation aside, works out pretty well financially. The major solution to paying for the armies will end up being the likin, an internal tariff on goods in transit within a province(to give an idea how hosed the budget is, this temporary emergency measure will be maintained until 1934). The huge sums raised from this tax will almost never reach the capital, as provincial governors retain them to maintain local armies . So guys like Zeng Guofan will have an enormous private army loyal only to him, supported by taxes raised locally in the region he controls. It should be clear what the long term issues may be with this kind of system. Zeng Guofan is too much of a straight arrow to take full advantage, but if we could only drop Wallenstein into his place... The northern provinces have their hands full with the Nian Rebellion, which I'll probably have a separate post about. Yes, the Qing have more than one enormous decade long war to fight simultaneously. I'll talk more about some of the other rebellions, but first I think I'll get started on the Taiping's northern and western expeditions. Everything is all tied together and there's way too much going on to continue in a strict chronological way.
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Jun 27, 2015 14:43
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Klaus88 posted:I'd like to think Cyano would be smart enough to avoid getting bogged down in Florida. P-Mack posted:So guys like Zeng Guofan will have an enormous private army loyal only to him, supported by taxes raised locally in the region he controls. It should be clear what the long term issues may be with this kind of system. Zeng Guofan is too much of a straight arrow to take full advantage, but if we could only drop Wallenstein into his place...  that deserves an effortpost that right now I am too tired to make
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 14:50
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HEY GAL posted:lol the academic market is so hosed, you should be prepared to drop your entire life and go literally anywhere they offer to pay you without forcing you into adjunct faculty It's entirely possible I'm wrong. I had an excellent history professor for a few classes when working on my bachelor's in history, including a history of the Holocaust class, and Cyrano's remarks about teaching a Holocaust history class sound an awful lot like that professor I had. IIRC he left to teach at the University of North Carolina or some such in 2011 or 2012. Wouldn't be at all surprised if most professors who teach a Holocaust history class come to the same conclusions and have similar experiences, though. Was just something odd that jumped out at me.
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Jun 27, 2015 14:55
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Cythereal posted:It's entirely possible I'm wrong.
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Jun 27, 2015 14:57
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HEY GAL posted:no, what i mean is, if cyrano has a job in florida he's lucky, because having a job at all means he's lucky Yeah, I know, I was just clarifying that Cyrano sounds like an old professor of mine and I was curious, not prying or anything.
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Jun 27, 2015 15:04
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Hunterhr posted:Where do I sign up. How good looking are the uniforms? are the hats tall? And Kanine those models look pretty great, stay the course pal. I am curious about the Japanese style one, you guys adding Samurai to that mod to compete with those younger hipper games these days?
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Jun 27, 2015 15:33
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100 Years Ago Herbert Sulzbach is released from hospital, and when he arrives at the reinforcement-depot for reassignment, he gets a very nice surprise indeed. Meanwhile, there's high comedy in Mesopotamia; the latest sailing-trip has begun, but when they blow up a dam to make passage for themselves, the current is far too strong for the rather crappy ships and they're left going nowhere fast. And on Gallipoli, General Hunter-Weston makes an overwhelming bid to shift his reputation from "donkey" to "butcher", with a quotation so aggravating that if I try to describe it any more than I have already, I will hit the character limit typing rude words.
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Jun 27, 2015 15:37
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LimburgLimbo posted:Yep! I do. Nobody is loving saying that you moron. Maybe take this racist axe and grind it elsewhere please, the nice people are trying to discuss history.
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Jun 27, 2015 15:56
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There was a lot of very, very nasty racism on both sides of the Pacific War, and from the Japanese to every other Asian nation, and from the Americans to African-Americans. World War Two was not a pleasant conflict for anyone and every side participated in atrocities. The atom bomb, however, had nothing to do with racism and everything to do with forcing an end to the Pacific War with a recalcitrant nation without the bloodbath of Operation Olympic or the slow death of famine and deprivation that a full-scale blockade would have meant. Shocking as nuclear weapons are to modern sensibilities, in 1945 the atom bomb was one of the best options available for ending the war, and perhaps the single least costly in human lives.
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Jun 27, 2015 16:03
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if you respect a group of people as equal to yourself, you have to be prepared to criticize them as you would criticize groups to which you belong. some times i've seen discussion of japanese war crimes that looks like cover for racism to me, but the stuff i've seen in this thread doesn't seem that way at all.
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Jun 27, 2015 16:09
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The original point that started this - that nuclear weapons were dropped on Japan and not Germany because of racism - is fundamentally absurd. By the time nuclear weapons were available for use Nazi Germany was gone and the Allies occupying Germany wouldn't have appreciated getting an atom bomb dropped on them by another Allied power.
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 16:17
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Cythereal posted:There was a lot of very, very nasty racism on both sides of the Pacific War, and from the Japanese to every other Asian nation, and from the Americans to African-Americans. World War Two was not a pleasant conflict for anyone and every side participated in atrocities. The atom bomb, however, had nothing to do with racism and everything to do with forcing an end to the Pacific War with a recalcitrant nation without the bloodbath of Operation Olympic or the slow death of famine and deprivation that a full-scale blockade would have meant. Although I believe the primary objectives were testing it and impressing Stalin.
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Jun 27, 2015 16:18
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I think it's a bit weird that there were like 5 people jumping in on that original post over the course of a couple of hours chomping at the bit to say essentially exactly the same thing, like they were waiting for an excuse to vent on that topic. But then that happens pretty often here for all sorts of things that aren't related to race in the slightest too.Cythereal posted:Limburg's original point - that nuclear weapons were dropped on Japan and not Germany because of racism when did he say this Squalid posted:I remember the Ming Dynasty fell in part due to the enormous expense of paying for the defense of Korea during the Japanese invasion, and that was a small inconsequential frontier province. lol
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Jun 27, 2015 16:21
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Koramei posted:when did he say this My bad, double checked and he wasn't the one who said that. Editing my post accordingly.
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Jun 27, 2015 16:28
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HEY GAL posted:wallenstein's relationship to the Empire at various points in his life (and, towards the end of his life, what he may or may not have known the people around him were doing in his name) is a 400 year old Please remember when you're not tired.
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Jun 27, 2015 16:43
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Disinterested posted:Although I believe the primary objectives were testing it and impressing Stalin. That is, at best, a matter of some debate. I'm sure there were some people in the US government who already had an eye on the post-war world, but I'd say most would have considered it a distant second to finishing the war they were in with a minimum of allied bloodshed.
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Jun 27, 2015 16:52
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Disinterested posted:Although I believe the primary objectives were testing it and impressing Stalin. Testing, no. They had already tested the plutonium device, and they were so confident in the uranium device that they didn't bother testing it before dropping it on Hiroshima. But you're right that sending a message to the Soviets was also a goal in addition to the primary objective of ending the war.
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Jun 27, 2015 17:19
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The primary objective, though, was ending the war. As I understand it, there were three options on the table for ending the Pacific War: atom bomb, Operation Olympic, or blockade. Atom bomb was the least costly in lives on both sides.
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Jun 27, 2015 17:26
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Chamale posted:Testing, no. They had already tested the plutonium device, and they were so confident in the uranium device that they didn't bother testing it before dropping it on Hiroshima. Did the nuke have some kind of contingency built in? It'd be embarrassing to have the Japanese get their hands on a near-functional nuclear bomb even if they'd basically lost the ability to repair or deliver one by that point. edit: Hell, "we might give this mostly functioning bomb to the Russians" would be a powerful bargaining chip. Grand Prize Winner fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 17:34
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