Anyone interested in some intellectual exercise?

That is actually a very good idea, sir. It could also be pointed out that over the years many prominent Chinese had sought education in Japan, the revered revolutionary leader Sun Yat-Sen even sought refuge in Japan on several occasions. If I might be so bold, I would suggest that we do both. We send those that you suggested to Japan for education and indoctrination. We send many others with demonstrable aptitude to some other state run higher educational institutions in China. If we are going to prosper in China we need to give them the educational tools to meet China's technical/professional needs without having to rely on western expertise. Some of our Japan trained graduates can then return to China to teach in these schools and expand our indoctrination footprint. Those that excel in the Chinese institutions should also be reviewed and the most promising also sent to Japan. If we expand the Chinese economy, we will need the indigenous brain power to help run Japanese owned industry in China.

This is along the same lines I have been considering. Separate, sovereign Chinese states, then join them in a loose national government. If we build the political structure from the ground up. Local, then district, then provincial, then state. Once we reach the state stage we allow them to elect a governor. This will take several years and in the interim there will initially be an appointed governor. We will select one or more Chinese politicians and covertly support and assist them in gaining elected district office, then the same for provincial office, and when it comes to state wide elections we will have a politician that we have supported all along the chain and one that will be amenable to our influence. We do this in each of the four or more states we create. Then when we form a national government we will insure they have a legislature that has balance between the states. The states themselves will be a check and balance against any one other state gaining too much power. One state then national law I would insist upon would be protection for the property rights, and capital of foreign businesses. This would protect the money we invest in the Chinese economy and insure we derive long term economic benefits, even when China becomes an independent nation and once hostilities cease. I propose we appoint Wang Jingwei as the interim national president based upon the fact that he was one of Sun Yat-Sen's longest and closest associates. His struggles with Chaing have damaged his reputation but if we launch a focused propaganda campaign we can re-rehabilitate his image and more importantly convince the west that he, not Chaing, is Sun Yat-Sen's legitimate spiritual, and political successor and Chaing is nothing but a warlord that seized his position through force, massacre and bribery,

I think the rest of your comments make perfect sense.

 

Maybe " Free Democratic Republic of China FDRC?"

As for the Chinese problem. I believe that Colonel Bobimot and myself are on a good way to solve the problems. It needs a lot of work at the basics and a careful progress with a portion of patience. We also need to clean up our rear areas from insurgents which are a pain in the a$$ for growing a "Democracy". For the moment i think it is enough that both of us concentrating our work at China. It is more important for General Terauchi to concentrate on his tasks in the SRA actions. And he will need the help of our Admirals.

 

Can we unite both past and future in a new name? The old imperial throne was called the Throne of Heaven, was it not? Perhaps something along the lines of

Tiānshàng de zhōngguó guójiā liánhé huì (​

天上的中國國家聯合會) or "Confederacy of Heavenly Chinese Nations" might serve as an official Mandarin name for an entity that was both inclusive enough to satisfy the nationalistic sentiments of an old and traditional people while decentralized enough to pose no immediate threat to us. Of course my Mandarin is worse even than my Japanese. (Sadly.) Thus I have relied on the services of Lieutenant Googaru (Google, according to the Western style) and I'm not entirely confident in his abilities. But something along those lines might serve. It conceptually resembles a Chinese government I'd like to see: one that can facilitate trade and commerce, but without the "ten thousand horses" of China of old. (Or the United States of the immediate future.)

 

How about we combine the two: Democratic Republic of Heavenly Chinese States? Or People's Republic of Heavenly Chinese States? As our name for the new nation. This incorporates a number of the ideals we wish to convey to both the Chinese and the west. We want the people to feel they have a voice and ownership in their individual regional governments, each of which will be sovereign and semi-independent. We want to avoid the internal dissent of one overall entity having complete power over the entire nation. If they control their individual state and most power is vested within the individual states, we avoid having one region feeling it is being exploited by another. Each state should have equal standing and power within the national government.
Anyone care to propose a geographical breakdown of the different states, and propose any leaders? I think we should establish Peking as the national capital. Once we have set up the state boundaries we need to designate state capitals also. I think the minimum number of states would be five, to include Mongolia. We could even further subdivide and make several of the larger cities into small states, territorial wise, but large population wise.


One other effect of our actions, is we should garner good will with the substantial ethnic Chinese populations in Malaya and Indo-China. This should aid our efforts when we undertake operations in those areas.

 

I confess, I wasn't really thinking in terms of protecting China's territories from one another but rather of protecting us from their corporate whole. I'm unaware of any loose confederacies with a long or auspicious history. The few I do know of have all failed for one reason or another, either due to infighting or outside conquest. My greatest fear is that we will find ourselves obliged to protect them from Western meddling since they may well be too weak to protect themselves. But this is little different than the present situation.

But perhaps I have a better idea. Our present problems stem from the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the subsequent and endless struggles for someone to claim control of the empire. It is, alas, something of a tradition in China for a lengthy period of instability and brutal war and starvation to accompany the end of any great dynasty. But it is also the tradition for sufficiently strong rulers who are able to administer to claim the Mandate of Heaven for themselves. On several occasions outsiders have even done so, most notably Kublai Khan who, founding the Yuan Dynasty, claimed it for himself and his grandfather Genghis Khan, and Dorgon who won it for the Qing Dynasty as regent to the Shunzhi Emperor. (Who later disinterred his body and stripped him of his titles.)

I have made much of saying that we must behave differently to the West than anyone before us did, that we must mind our manners and take care. And this is true. But China is old and very traditional and her people may care a bit less about the opinion of the Western press. We might well be able to safely follow a traditional approach to the conquest of China. By usurping the militarists of Tojo's faction and breaking up the Kwantung Army we are already walking a well trodden path. We can paint ourselves as the able administrators who overthrew the corrupt Kwantung Army. (Which will, with luck, be more or less true.)

However, I would suggest abandoning the pretense of the Qing as they have become synonymous with the Western humiliations and have thus implicitly lost the Mandate. We might do better to depose him. If we can explain the problem to him he might accept exile without too much difficulty. If not then we will need to defeat him quickly.

Instead of the Qing in Manchu I propose we found a new dynasty with a member of his Imperial Majesty Hirohito's household as emperor. Shanghai might serve well as a capital. This new dynasty could be called 日出 or

Rìchū. ​

This has several advantages that might make it auspicious. The Qing Dynasty used water symbols for its name, to distinguish itself from the Ming Dynasty. The Richu Dynasty would again set itself apart through its name from the failures of the previous succession. Further, Richu is closely related to, and shares a character with, the Chinese name for Japan: 日本 or

Rìběn.

​

If we then proceed to administer China well; preventing starvation, creating a new and just bureaucracy, and presenting natives with rights commensurate with their service to the new dynasty we should be able to claim the Mandate of Heaven. We can then set up the new dynasty as a constitutional monarchy like our own. Perhaps this way we can have the advantages of a new democratic state legitimized by the ceremonies and traditions of the old.

 

By my informal count, we have 5 votes in favor, no votes against and 2 abstensions (Michizana, Kourei).

Therefor I declare Imperial Council Resolution 001 (ICR-001) to be approved.

While I myself have not voted, there was no need as we had a solid majority in favor. Rest assured however, that this course of action has both my full support, and hearty endorsement.

Prime Minister Belasar Tekisasu

 

Members of the Imperial Council
ICR-002

​

I ask all members of the Imperial Council to endorse or reject the following,

Imperial Council Resolution 002

Resloved, to set a final date for a peacefull settlement of outstanding issues reguarding the resumption of access to those strategic materials currently denied the Empire by the western embargo. That once this target date has been reached, without said end of the embargo, the Empire will use its military force's to end this embargo.

The date of 20 November, 1941 (subject to change) to be accepted as "X" Day, after which the Empire will have considered itself to have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peacefull solution to this intolerable situation, and will act in its own best interests reguardless of existing treaty's and national borders.

Prime Minister, Belasar Tekisasu

 

I endorse ICR-002, 20 November is an acceptable date for me and should allow for all necessary military preparations. I would also suggest that the declaration of war be delivered to British and the Netherlands (government in exile in England), in London at as close to 17:00 London time, 21 November, 1941, as possible. Five hours later at 22:30 hours, London time we will initiate offensive operations against targets in the SRA. This will be 06:30, 22 November, 1941, Singapore time. By striking late at night and at the beginning of a weekend, we should insure a maximum level of disruption to their decision making system, while they try and reassemble all necessary personnel. I would further urge that all units possible be in place and observing communications security, silence, reduced traffic, in order to not give away our intentions. I would further suggest that once we pass the deadline, we send false or misleading diplomatic traffic to our Embassy in Washington, pointing to lack of resolve in our Imperial Council, but indicating we wish to resume negotiations. The U.S. is probably reading our encoded diplomatic communications, let us use this to gain additional advantage and prevent them from intervening.

 

Lets go this way!

 

I vote in favor of ICR-002. I believe it is suitably worded and well considered. How quickly do we wish to deliver this?

 

The next step is to decide command structures. A key factor for Malaysia is that there are no roads between north and south Malaysia which is why the landings on the coast are so important. I suggest an overall commander for the Singapore landings who then can be in charge of the Java assault. I can then deal with the Rangoon attack and then with reinforcements take Mandalay. For future since there are no roads into India we will need to develop them if we wish to go into India

 

I also endorse ICR-002. The date chosen seems like a pretty good fit so I don't really see us needing to change it.

 

I would like to clarify one point, this is an internal deadline, correct? I do not think we need to give our potential adversaries a hard and fast deadline. We do let them know, subtly that we can not go on negotiating forever and press them for a quick resolution, but don't come out and say we resolve this issue by X date or there will be war.

 

Agreed this is our go/no go point beyond which we cannot delay. Honestly I expect us to have to move it up or back a few days to reach our optimal moment. We still will only give a 12-24 hour notice to those we target.

 

i endorse ICR-002 as well.

 

Getting slightly into an area we must touch upon as it is the basis of today’s meeting, Production.

I have a few questions which I would first like to ask regarding the Attachment provided in message 1491 (page 60 of this thread).

Of all our empires Heavy Industry production is the numberyou provided that which applies only to military applications? If this number is solely for production of war goods than I’m not as concerned as I was. If we need to take a portion of our industry to help build our projects of improving the lives of Chinese peasants, than we may be in a bit more trouble than we thought.

Do we need more Airframes than we produce A/C Engines? It seems to me that perfectly good airframes may need replacement engines. I would think these numbers should be reversed at least, with spare engines becoming available for maintenance. Also the fact that we fly 2 and 4 engine planes as well as single engine aircraft implies that either we are not building nearly enough engines, or we are producing too many airframes. I would assume the former.

 

My experience through the game is that not enough engines are being produced.

 

Very good question sir. The answer is yes and no. Light industry is that which supplies most of what we are needing in China. Food, supplies, clothing, hand tools, etc. Heavy Industry is steel production, machine tools, castings, vehicle manufacturing, etc. So bulldozers, dump trucks, freight trucks, locomotives and the like will place additional demands on our heavy industry. Steel, boilers, machine tolls etc. for building or improving industry for China would place additional demand on our heavy industry, but I view this as an investment because we can use their manpower/workers and the new factories to increase our Empire wide industrial capacity. The key is not to overbuild so that your capacity exceeds your available fuel and resources/raw materials. If we seize the SRA we will gain the oil/refining capacity to expand our industry along with their resources/raw materials. All these areas are highly interrelated. Malaysia produces 40% of the world"s rubber supply and 60% of it's tin. The Dutch East Indies produce large quantities of coffee, tea (20% of the world's supply), cacao, coconut (25% of the world's supply), sugar, pepper, tobacco, rubber (35% of the world's supply), quinine (most of the world's supply), and oil (significant portion of the world's supply). So just seizing these two areas gives us control over 75% of the world's rubber supply. We need these resources (and others) to increase our industrial base.

The numbers for HI expenditures are tons of heavy industrial production going into each area daily. Not the raw numbers of aircraft and engines being produced. The engine requires cast crankcases, cylinders, carburetors, crankshafts etc. The actual airframe requires a much larger number/amount of parts, aluminum for the skin, steel and aluminum for the frame, landing gear struts, wheels, instruments, servos, etc. I can provide you with the actual daily production numbers on engines per type, and actual airframe production by type. Engine type must be balanced with aircraft type. An example would be our A6M2-Model 21 uses one HA-35 Nakajima Sakae 12 engine (rated at 950hp takeoff). The G4M2 Betty bomber uses two x HA-32 Mitsubishi Kasei 11 engines rated at 1530hp each. The engines are not interchangeable. We need to produce the specific type engine for the airframe we are producing. If we're producing 40 A6M2-21's per month we need to produce 40 HA-35's, if we're producing 40 G4M2's per month we need 80 HA-32's. I hope this clarifies. We have many factories producing many different engines and aircraft factories producing different airframes. We can build new factories for producing a particular item, improve certain factories that we wish to increase production at or switch factories over from production of one engine type to another engine type, but this results in a production delay while the factory reconfigures it's production line, removes/installs different machinery and makes modifications to it's physical plant. A number of our facilities are also involved in R & D and are not currently manufacturing. We have engine plants developing the next model HA-35 which should result in an increased horsepower output or increased performance at different altitudes. We have airframe factories developing and researching the follow on models of our current airframes and others working on advanced/next generation aircraft. At present it is a huge balancing act, with sufficient resources we will be able to increase our output potential and while we will still need to be careful to maximize our production, it will allow for some room for error.
What does worry me is our pilot training program. If we do go to war with America, our current training numbers will quickly be so outpaced that within a year we will only be able to field 10% of the numbers the allies can deploy, even without taking attrition into account. Pilot training, in my opinion, is our second greatest Achilles Heel after our lack of oil/fuel.

 

actually you need more engines then frames to account for wear and tear. I would guess 20% more as a wag

 

Currently this matter rests as this,

Col. Bobimoto: Support
Prime Minister: Support

Field Marshal Nishio: Yes
Admiral Noka: Yes
Admiral Michizana: Yes
GB 375FA: Yes

General Terauchi: Abstain
General Kourei: Abstain
Admiral Rikanaga: Abstain
Admiral Karonada: Abstain
Admiral Takao: Abstain

We require one (or more) yes votes to pass this measure.

The Prime Minister