A New China (Guangdong AAR) - Part 3: Western Winds (1875-1889)

Author: johnr754
Published: 2017-03-23, edited: 1970-01-01

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A New China (Guangdong AAR)

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A New China (Guangdong AAR) - Part 2: Modernization (1852-1875)

Images: 41, author: johnr754, published: 2017-03-22, edited: 1970-01-01

Welcome back to the AAR.
On September 9th, 1875, Governor Charles Elliot passed away from a heart attack in his sleep. Having died at the age of 74, Elliot was the Governor of Kwangtung for 36 years - nearly half of his life. His body was brought back to Britain, where a funeral was held attended by people like Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and Albert Edward of the British royal family.
Sir John Francis Davis was selected by Disraeli and the rest of the British parliament as the new Governor of Kwangtung. The 80-year-old man was a noted Sinologist, as he had already published many papers on how the Qing dynasty and the Kwangtung Presidency operated, and the cultures of China.
By the time Davis arrived in Kwangtung, the reorganization was nearly finished. With the exception of the Changchiang (廣州灣) regiment, every regiment in Kwangtung was armed with 15,000 cannons.
Welcome back to the AAR.
On September 9th, 1875, Governor Charles Elliot passed away from a heart attack in his sleep. Having died at the age of 74, Elliot was the Governor of Kwangtung for 36 years - nearly half of his life. His body was brought back to Britain, where a funeral was held attended by people like Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and Albert Edward of the British royal family.
Sir John Francis Davis was selected by Disraeli and the rest of the British parliament as the new Governor of Kwangtung. The 80-year-old man was a noted Sinologist, as he had already published many papers on how the Qing dynasty and the Kwangtung Presidency operated, and the cultures of China.
By the time Davis arrived in Kwangtung, the reorganization was nearly finished. With the exception of the Changchiang (廣州灣) regiment, every regiment in Kwangtung was armed with 15,000 cannons.
By March of 1876, the Changchiang regiment was also armed with artillery, finishing the reorganization.
Davis, due to the changing economy brought upon Kwangtung by the usage of artillery and land reform under Elliot's governorship, created another budget to reaffirm the economic realities of the time, by increasing taxes for everyone and decreasing naval and military spending.
The HMS Asian Warrior, renamed the HMS Ton'Chi, is the first ironclad in the British Canton Squadron.
However, due to the expansion of the army and navy, the economy in the Kwangtung Presidency started to slowly, yet gradually collapse. Lower spending was put onto the education, the bureaucracy, the education and naval services of the country, in order to keep up a profit to prevent the possibility of bankruptcy and losing the autonomy of the Presidency.
To solve this, the Kwangtung Bank (廣東銀行) was founded after some more progress to make sure the Presidency doesn't lose any and all money. Furthermore, the possibility of bankruptcy is introduced; if the Presidency goes bankrupt, any and all funding is lowered immediately.
As the progress to the West continues, the Chinese Revival Movement continues to have a dedicated amount of soldiers ready to rise up against the British when ready. However, only half the population supports it now; complete opening to the West is fait accompli.
Finally, on the First of November, 1880, the Presidency shelves any and all traditions, and becomes Western in the eyes of many.
No longer an uncivilized nation piggybacked by the British, Kwangtung is now as Western as any nation in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps more western than some Latin American nations.
In order to show this, Davis signs the Geneva Treaties (日內瓦條約), complying to international standards of war to care for the horrors of the war and allow the Red Cross (紅十字) to cure for the wounded during a war.
However, the economic crisis continued, and showed no signs of stopping. The so-called Kwangtung Panic (廣東恐慌) didn't seem to slow down; rather, it continued to hit the nation hard.
In 1881, Outer Manchuria was completely subjugated by the Russians, and cities like Haishenwai were renamed to Vladivostok (Вiадiвосток). Interestingly, plans for the deportation of the Manchus are made to replace the cities with Russian settlers.
Combat engineers are introduced in 1883, further modernizing the Army.
The Self-Strengthening Movement (自強運動) was commenced in the Qing dynasty in 1883. Realizing that the only to catch up with the West was to embrace it, a series of reforms were attempted in the country to bring the standards of the declining Empire up with that of the Western nations.
However, Empress Dowager Cixi (葉赫那拉氏) was not willing at all to accept any reform. The Empress of the late Tongzhi Emperor and the regent of the Guangxu Emperor (光緒帝), she did not want to see any pro-Western reform happen at all within the Empire. In late 1884, she launched a self-coup where she dismissed every reformer and put an end to the attempted reform movement in China. Reform in the Qing Empire is looking like an impossibility with someone like the Dowager.
Meanwhile, Davis used the modernization techniques of the Japanese to westernize the Kwangtung army and administration. The Army was brought up to Western standards, and became better than the armies of the Balkans and Latin America within seven years.
However, the economy continued to tumble, and there were no signs of improvement. The massive cost put upon the country by the Army's reorganization caused a massive amount of trouble. Funding in general decreased, as the economy continued to fail.
The cities of Kwangtung became less and less administrated, and started to look increasingly dirty and trashy. Crime was starting to build up immensely in the cities of Kwangtung, and the government couldn't afford to do anything about it.
Although the Chinese Revival Movement had fizzled out ever since the country was brought up to Western standards, the economic troubles and high taxes revitalized the movement. Even then, however, the movement remained small, as the British helped the Presidency in suppressing the Movement and making sure that Kwangtung was not a bastion of liberalism in China.
Yet a new man showed up to lead the movement - Sun Yat-Sen (孫逸仙), a young medical student of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (香港華人西醫書院), was frustrated with the oppression in the Kwangtung Presidency. Alongside some other Chinese who emigrated to the Presidency from the Qing, such as Cai Yuanpei (鶴卿) and Zhang Binglin (章炳麟), he became the effective leader of the Chinese Revival Movement.
The Chinese Revival Movement was renamed the Chinese United League, or T'ung-Meng Hui (同盟會). Sun Yat-Sen had based the United League upon what he called the Two Principles Of The People (二民主義) - Nationalism (民族主義) - a united Chinese nation ruled by the Chinese people - and Democracy (民權主義) - a Western, Constitutional Republic, with five branches within the government: the Executive Yuan (行政院), the Legislative Yuan (立法院), the Judicial Yuan (司法院), the Examination Yuan (考試院) and the Control Yuan (監察院). All of the five branches were to check each others power, to make sure no branch of government was to have too much power, and to make sure the Two Principles of the People are upheld in a future Republic of China. It was largely based off of Kwangtung for the moment - which obviously didn't consist of the whole of China - but the hope was that a massive large-scale revolution would happen in the Qing Empire after a revolution in Kwangtung and would unite the revolutionaries in the Qing with the revolutionaries in Kwangtung to form a united Republic of China. The movement gained criticism for being largely led by students in their young 20s who had yet to graduate from college, but it still became popular in Kwangtung nonetheless.
The economic crisis became increasingly critical, and no government institution was fully funded. The government was running a massive deficit.
What failed to help was Davis' advanced age, who was 94 years old. His mind, body and ability to think were getting weaker and more and more feeble as time went on. He was, quite possibly, on his deathbed, and was almost certainly unfit to serve as Governor. Despite this, he remained the Governor of Kwangtung, despite increasing protests from both the Kwangtung people and the British management of the Presidency.
In January 5th, 1889, a massive amount of starving homeless artisans in Hai-nan started a massive protest over the lack of food and ability to live with such high taxes. However, when the Hainan Regiment was ordered to fire on the protestors, they mutinied instead due to a lack of decent pay and homelessness. The protest turned into a massive riot, as the angry and poverty-stricken people started to smash buildings and riot against the British administration.
The riot spread across the entirety of the Presidency, as the poverty-stricken people of Kwangtung were also fed up with the high taxes, the lack of ability to fund anything, homelessness, and a feeling that the British were stealing what was rightfully Kwangtung resources. As it spread to the capital, the soldiers rallied around the United League, mass-mutinied from the British government, and raided the home of Davis.
Davis, alongside other British ministers, were ordered to leave to Hong Kong immediately and end their presence in Kwangtung. Davis and the other British bureaucrats complied and left to Hong Kong.

As soon as Davis evacuated to Hong Kong, the Army declared an end of the Kwangtung Presidency and its compliance to British interests. Led by the United League, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Kwangtung (廣東共和國臨時政府) was declared, led primarily by Sun Yat-Sen.
The Earl of Roseberry, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was absolutely outraged to learn of the end of the Kwangtung Presidency. He ordered the Provisional Government to cease any and all activities and re-establish British rule by March 7th, or else be faced with war. When the Provisional Government got the ultimatum, no message was sent in response. Finally, on March 7th, 1889, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland declared war on the Provisional Government of the Republic of Kwangtung.

Next chapter:

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A New China (Guangdong AAR) - Part 4: The Cantonese Revolution (1889-1893)

Images: 63, author: johnr754, published: 2017-03-24, edited: 1970-01-01

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