Reincarnated as Nikolai II-Chapter 256: East Asian New Order (4)

Previously, when Prime Minister Kokovtsov and the Tsar casually talked about what to do with the Republic of China, I thought I just needed to approve when the agenda came up.

But reading it carefully...

"...Participation?"

"Oh, no. I was surprised too and asked, but they say it’s just support. President Chiang Kai-shek, who has risen to head of state, is preparing to purge the military. Naturally, since we’re the ones who sold weapons to that military, they contacted us."

"That’s right."

"So, the content is that the Imperial Army will support the complete unification of the Republic of China by letting go of the warlords’ hands and joining hands with President Chiang Kai-shek."

Considering public sentiment, they would want to clean house with their own power, but unfortunately, Chiang Kai-shek also couldn’t handle a direct confrontation with the warlords alone.

With the Chinese Communist Party also acting up, it’s not strange that they would seek support from our country, but the timing is the problem.

’I-if this proceeds as is...’

The government’s abnormal austerity and tax increases are signals before the storm.

At this rate, it wouldn’t be strange if Stolypin himself becomes someone obsessed with war.

No, it’s crystal clear that he’ll be criticized for trying to become a wartime prime minister.

Territorial expansion, indirect victory, all good, but if he tries to use it politically, it means he might be immediately expelled even though he’s the Prime Minister appointed by the Tsar.

His hand trembled when he picked up the pen to sign as his thoughts reached this point.

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"F-first, I should see His Majesty the Tsar and handle this."

He couldn’t bring himself to sign.

First, he felt he needed to meet His Majesty the Tsar.

==

Capitalism’s great failure, humanity’s regression, civilization’s retreat.

The Great Depression.

Great Recession - a single word compressing all those numerous modifiers and expressions.

Even I only know through numbers, not through my skin, how hellish and hopeless this event was, which I only experienced indirectly through text and black-and-white photographs.

However, who am I? I am Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich, who revived a country that deserved to die from the Great War.

"Just like the Great War, while we can’t avoid the Great Depression, it’s not completely impossible to endure it."

Actually, there were several countries that successfully overcame this worldwide economic crisis of unknown cause at the time,

Notably France and the Soviet Union.

The victorious French Third Republic. Read exclusive adventures at novelbuddy

They were a country that endured even while experiencing international balance of payments deficit, capital flight abroad, and gold outflow while everyone else was abandoning the gold standard.

How was this possible?

The reason is simple.

When other countries were enjoying the Roaring Twenties, France wasn’t even invited to the party, let alone attending it.

You get hurt when falling from a high place, but falling from a playground slide only results in scrapes and bruises, not broken bones.

"Young people who could work disappeared because of the war, and industrial capacity was completely destroyed rather than increasing, how could they have enjoyed the 20s?"

Sadly, in my view, the reason France stayed one step away from the Great Depression was because they were never in the circle to begin with.

They were only able to rebuild because they still had functioning finance and remaining agriculture and colonies; without those, that country would have followed right behind Japan after the Russo-Japanese War.

Naturally, being less injured made it easier to survive by applying ointment through economic blocks and abandoning the gold standard, devaluing the franc.

The Soviet Union is similar in some ways.

After spending 10 years on the Civil War and establishing their system, the Soviets didn’t even notice the depression had come.

A communist state doesn’t have stock markets soaring to the sky or real estate bubbles occurring anyway.

Factories? State-owned.

Land? State-owned.

Labor market? State-controlled.

That’s right. The Soviet Union didn’t need to solve anything because they didn’t have a capital market in the first place!

Thanks to this, while everyone else was falling, the Soviet Union could shoot straight up to become the world’s second largest power in the 1930s.

These are places with reasons for avoiding the depression so ridiculous that there’s nothing to learn from them.

Moreover, in my view, France was more ruined compared to the original history and the Soviet Union wasn’t even born, so this information isn’t particularly helpful to me.

However, there is a third country that avoided the Great Depression that the world doesn’t know well.

The Republic of China.

"While everyone was enjoying prosperity, they steadily accomplished the Northern Expedition, Nationalist-Communist split, moving the capital to Nanjing, and establishing control."

Separate from the name "Republic" of China, Chiang Kai-shek after Sun Yat-sen established a dictatorship, becoming close to imperial authority transplanted with democratic institutions, but thanks to this at least succeeded in unifying China.

And befitting a country that once endured nearly a century of great powers inserting straws, their weight class hadn’t gone anywhere, as they met a period of economic growth while everyone else was collapsing.

The so-called Nanjing Decade.

During this period, the Chiang Kai-shek government threw off various unequal treaties one by one based on an average annual growth rate of 4% and a unified market after cleaning up the warlords.

The Western powers, so desperate for new markets, couldn’t even think about beating them with gunboats like before and had to allow this.

’What’s even scarier is that this was growth suppressed by the Japanese Empire.’

If they had won the Sino-Japanese War too, perhaps no one could have gauged where their limit would have been.

The alliance with France ended long ago and they will eventually enter economic blocks. They will raise huge tariff barriers.

There’s nothing to learn from the Soviet Union during the Great Depression period. The current empire has already far surpassed the Soviet Union and everything is different, so their methods aren’t helpful.

However, the Republic of China is different.

If we just borrow a few feathers from that country about to take flight, we can exponentially reduce our rate of fall-

"Your Majesty! You cannot do this to me!"

"...What is it now, Prime Minister?"

Stolypin, looking wronged as if falsely accused, entered with a knock.

"I-I’m not doubting Your Majesty’s grand plan, but at this rate I might become the first prime minister to be pulled down! You’re having Chief of Staff Roman cooperate with the Republic of China beyond diplomatic cooperation!"

"What meaning is there in support in name only? We must help Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition to at least secure justification for market intervention."

I heard he was having a hard time lately, but enough to come running to me crying like this?

"I already have the military, upper and lower houses of the Duma, subordinate officials, and even part of the cabinet as enemies. Workers laid off from factories have already announced protests for my impeachment. What will happen if we add external military intervention to this?"

"..."

It’s remarkable you haven’t been kicked out yet.