The Cold War (2024 rewrite, replaced +76K words and first 10 chapters) (2024)

2024 Update: Chapters 1-12 rewrite is in progress

New Chapter 2 link:

AN: I apologize for the delay. I was waiting on Moose-o-Million to complete their part (see if you can identify which part is his). During that time, I've worked my way up to being halfway done with chapter 9 and occasionally going back to the older chapters to polish them or add new ideas that I thought of. There's one chapter that is about double the length of the usual chapters' length. I also have a detailed outline of the next several chapters, and the overall story outline has been expanded from 25 pages to 40.

I would like to thank Gremlin Jack for being the authors' editor for this story, as all of the chapters and the general plot development have some sort of input from him. At one point, I completely revised chapters 2 through 6 to make the plot seem more believable. He was also incredibly helpful for the chapters involving Bharat. I may have annoyed him with my constant editing of previously "completed" chapters (which I'll keep doing). FallQM and L4 of the WEST also provided suggestions.

REVISION: I toned down the number of mage infants that the CSR was getting from their experiments.

2023 Update: Revisions for this chapter and all the way to Chapter 12 is in progress.

October 23rd noon, 1942

As I stepped out of the conference room, an aide came up to me with an envelope. "Chancellor, this is the veterans bill from the Germanian Workers Party. There are a few more details that they are still negotiating with the other political parties over, but the final bill that will be voted on in the Diet will look similar to this."

"Do they require a response from me?"

"They said it wouldn't be necessary unless there's something that you want to change. They're just giving you an update to avoid any surprises should the bill end up on your desk to sign off on."

I thanked him for the update and walked toward Visha's office. A few weeks after the Russy Federation's collapse, I recalled in my previous world that the US had this "GI Bill" after the end of WW2. It bought them a few years of time for their labor market to reabsorb the millions of unemployed men that were being discharged from the military, and for companies to switch from wartime production back to making consumer goods. After all, having large numbers of unemployed soldiers is a stability nightmare, because any savvy political extremist could recruit them for their own agenda. I probably would have never gotten involved with politics after the Empire's defeat if it wasn't for the fact that I was left penniless and nowhere to go except back to the orphanage. The Francois Republic and the Allied Kingdom paid for that mistake dearly.

The other thing about that "GI Bill" was it gave education and skills to millions of men to become productive members of society, which certainly helped their economy in the long run.

I already pushed through a temporary bill that would provide half a year of college and trade school education funding, and additional benefits for disabled soldiers. Now we needed a permanent bill that would also apply to future veterans.

… With comfortably tepid winds gracing the Berun populous, I found myself enjoying a rare moment of peace among the many years of strife here recently. I couldn't help but find the years ahead to be even more strenuous, in spite of my attempts to retire peacefully. Still, that couldn't stop me from enjoying the sight laid before me.

After their delegation with the Akisushiman ambassador, Visha had stowed herself away for quite some time. To my delight, my adjudant came into my office with hands covered in rice-powder and a small covered platter. Even with a few smudges of white powder on her face, she carried a proud expression as she greeted me.

"I can't say it's the genuine article, but I know you like sweet stuff." She sheepishly expressed before setting the platter down on my desk. Even when I knew what was coming, I was pleasantly surprised to see the popular treat from my previous home country. On the platter was a neatly arranged set of mochi cakes. There were a few that had been slightly misshapen, but as time went on, I assumed, Visha was able to perfect the craft just a bit.

"You aren't trying to seduce me, are you?" I needled lightly, casting a knowing glance to my now adequately ruffled adjudant. What was the saying? "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." Though in this case, at least biologically, the saying goes both ways. As much as I hate to admit it.

Just as I am about to grab the first treat, Visha interrupts me, "Major, can we talk about… that?" She asks, clearly still flustered enough to refer to my old title. It wasn't the first time I had ruminated upon that specific moral quandary, but for drastically different reasons than Visha. While such situations during my time weren't given a second glance, our state of being was in a far more precarious climate.

"I suppose, what about it?" I responded as tactfully as I could, erring on the side of caution. While I had blatantly expressed my opinion through action previously, I had no way of ensuring how my adjudant had taken the act of passion. Even with my exhaustive experience with dealing in Human Resource quadries, this particular minefield was for the most part unexplored. Better yet, I had run headlong into it.

"It certainly was a nice… experience, but the entire cabinet saw. Eyla hasn't stopped pestering me about the rumor mill absolutely exploding in the aftermath." Visha asserted seriously. She may have been blushing, but her earnest character continued to shine through, "I care for you ma'am, but the last thing I want is for your reputation as the Chancellor to suffer."

"Visha, you shouldn't be worried about me. If they want to judge me, then so be it. I have been accused of being a communist in disguise for pushing the People's Car project, and that hasn't bothered me. I have been accused of being a bloodthirsty war maniac for serving for the Empire and what I said in my campaign speeches, and that hasn't bothered me. If you want to make enemies, try to change something. And I won't stop changing things."

Visha sat silent for a moment and asked, "How should we respond to the media?"

I waved my hand dismissively. "If they want to make a big deal about it, I'll ask them why they are so interested in our personal life. And then ask if they also have similar relationship thoughts."

"You mean to call into question their sexuality as a diversion?"

"It's all about taking control of the narrative and making them flustered. But before I do any of that, are you comfortable about going public?"

"Hmm. Well there's no point in hiding our relationship now. As you said, we should take control of the narrative. Get our words out before the media goes wild with the rumors from the cabinet members."

As I took a bite of mochi, I saw a determined look in Visha's eyes. She spoke again. "When you said, control the narrative, did you also mean directly reaching out to the media first? It sounded like you were waiting for them to come to you first."

"Ah, I was intending on waiting for the first fool to bother us about that issue." I replied around the treat in my mouth.

"What if we directly contacted one of them and offered them an interview about our relationship?" she reached out and held one of my hands.

"With who?" I tried not to choke on the mochi piece.

"Perhaps Gunter Groz? I think he would be a good reporter to talk to. I can check with Elya to hear what she has to say about him. If she doesn't trust him, we'll go with a different interviewer."

My face turned red as I coughed up the mochi piece.

"I'll get in contact with him." Visha smiled as she pushed the platter towards me, and briskly walked out of my office before I could voice my protest.

If I could cause a big enough uproar from trying to push unpopular ideas through OZEV, perhaps the Diet will finally get around to electing a president to put a check and balance on me. Right before I died in my previous life, I recall there was a rise of Eurosceptic political parties in Europe, especially in Greece, Italy and Spain, and to some extent in the Netherlands and United Kingdom. I didn't pay much attention to Europe's affairs, but I figured it was something not to be ignored when the Japanese news mentioned it, especially when Greece was considering leaving the EU.

Being unaware of overall politics in a country that you are operating in is unacceptable for a businessman. If a country is joining or leaving the EU, that will have wide rippling effects on the domestic economy and regulations for businesses operating there. The labor laws that might have been originally used would now be changed depending on the joining or leaving.

But first I need to lay the foundation for OZEV's security if I'm heading out. Major Koenig and his commando team were somewhere out in the Caucasia playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse against anti-OZEV insurgents, NKVD operatives and the occasional CSR operatives. He occasionally checks in just so we know he's alive and not captured. I can't just leave him stuck in a hopeless situation, and while it would be great for him to teach future mages at the academy all about guerrilla and counter-insurgency warfare, I do not want to keep throwing lives into a repeat of the Iraq or Afghanistan War when they could be doing so much more productive things to raise the standards of living.

"And for the last few major topics, we'll need to discuss OZEV's future. In our war against the Russy Federation, the integrated military command was a great asset in helping us withstand the simultaneous attacks on our members. It did have many growing pains as an impromptu organization while the Rus were pounding at our door. I propose a peace time integrated military command so that we aren't wasting time determining who has authority over what forces and what actions they can take, while also dealing with incompatible information sharing. Does anyone have suggestions?"

The conversations went back and forth for a while and I intentionally pressured them for specific things that were modeled on what I recall hearing about NATO, but eventually we built a rough list of ideas.

"All of those proposals are just rough guidelines. It would be best if we establish a commission to work out the fine details and then let all of the members' legislative bodies make final changes as needed before their voting. If the terms are rejected by the members, then it's back to the commission's drawing board to work out something else."

There were some quiet discussions between the representatives, but with no one objecting to it or proposing any changes, I decided to move on.

"For the next topic, it will be regarding trade and border regulations. All of these will be opt-ins where it will be up to a committee to balance the members' needs, and the members' governments voting for it. We had a study on international trade patterns and their effects on wages, so that information will be useful for working out the details."

If there was one thing I could remember about the EU's economic integration, it was the free movement of goods, capital, services and people. And a common fiat currency.

And with that began another round of talks that lasted all the way until it was into the evening and the room having bits of uneaten dinner strewn about. Nevertheless, all of this seemed to have gone too smoothly, with Maciej Moscicki being very enthusiastic about the proposals. I don't understand, why wouldn't they be opposed to all of those proposals that are taking away their countries' freedoms? The Eurosceptics would have been screaming their heads off.

There should have also been serious resistance against the common fiat currency and a central OZEV bank, as I remembered in my previous world that it wasn't until the 1970's when the United States ended their gold backed Bretton Woods currency system and most of the world shifted to a floating exchange rate. The EU didn't implement their Euro currency until the 1990's. I intentionally pushed for the fiat currency, decades ahead of its time, to try to wreck the proposals. But no one seemed to be really bothered by it.

And besides, the coal-backed Mark is doing quite well. They could have at least argued for a coal-backed Euro, or pegging their currency to a single one that is backed by physical assets like how the US did it with their Bretton Woods system. The Diet should go in an uproar upon seeing the fiat currency proposal and finally get around to electing a President.

Maybe the committees will grind to a halt over the individual details or the legislative bodies reject the proposals, thus killing part or all of the proposal. After all, there's a fine line between a visionary and a lunatic.

Then something came up in the back of my mind. There had to be a reason why Maciej Moscicki was so ecstatic about the proposals.

The Pullskan ambassador who met me right after my re-election and begged for a plebiscite after Osterry had theirs, and was only convinced to not go forward with it by offering him "unofficial" military cooperation and arms deals so that they didn't have to worry about the Russy Federation running them over like a speedbump.

They're still hooked on that idea, aren't they? It doesn't make sense. They would be giving up their positions of power and now have a boss to report to even if they still remained in office. The superpower Russy Federation is gone. Kieva, Belarusia and Lithuania would have to get run over by CSR and its puppet first for Pullska to be threatened, and we would still have the Degurechaff Line to fall back to. By the time that line fails, the Allied Kingdom and the Unified States would have gotten off the fence to get their hands dirty after seeing Germania's inability to protect Europe from communism. Maybe Being X is back at it again? Then again, he hasn't spoken ever since I killed Mary.

Surely the other members or Pullska's legislators are more level headed and would derail Maciej Moscicki's dream of having a super Empire all but in name. I'm not too alarmed by the other heads of states playing along with Maciej Moscicki' insanity. I remember when Sony launched their ebook reader tablets, the Japanese publishers told Sony that they supported it, but privately hated it because they saw it as a threat to their book sales, and would limit how many books would be available on the ebook device to sabotage the ebook reader. That's probably what the other heads of states are doing, so I shouldn't be worried.

November 2nd, 1942:

Zhang Wentian had a lot on his mind during the council meeting. With the Russy Federation gone, it was now up to them to carry the torch in a dark world. He didn't like the idea of looting a burning house and turning the Rus into a client state, but it was better for them to do it before the anti-Rus coalition finishes their work. It was a great blessing that the Rus had built such extensive railroad networks across the Sibyria and even connected them to northeastern lands that had previously belonged to his people. It took only a relatively small amount of effort to connect CSR' railroads to the Trans-Sibyria railroads. Normally that would have been impossible, except both the Russy Federation and CSR were using the same railroad gauge, and thus a train could continously run from the CSR's south all the way to the western edge of the Russy Federation. All because the Tsarists and the Shun dynasty had previously hired Albish railroad engineers to build the tracks, and of course the Albish were going to use the railroad gauge that they've worked with back in their homeland.

"Let's start off with the domestic reports. Any updates regarding the Great Leap Forward?" asked Zhang Wentian.

"Some of the provincial governors have asked if they should allow backyard furnaces to increase steel production as they said those would only take weeks to build instead of years for the steel plants." Li Kenong, Minister of the Interior, reported. "But I'm hesitant to approve such a measure because there would be no way to verify that the steel quality would be consistent."

"It's great the governors are showing enthusiasm, but if the steel quality isn't consistent, it's no good." said Peng Dehuai, Minister of National Defense. "In fact, I should point out that in a future war, we would have to heavily rely on mages because we simply don't have the industrial capacity to match OZEV's large numbers of tanks, armored infantry carriers, ships and aircraft, or the oil production to keep all of those machines running, unless the Unified States is open to selling oil to us. And all it would take is the Allied Kingdom to blockade us to put an end to oil exports from the Unified States. Although our soldiers have come across a few Rus steel and aluminum plants that we can study from those to see what improvements their plants have over ours. I can put out instructions to prioritize engineers, especially those that are involved with industrial productions."

"I've read magazines from the Unified States. Based on their popular sentiment, they would rather tolerate a dominant OZEV than a dominant Chinese Soviet Republic." Li Kenong said. "We could pay the Unified States extra for each barrel for them to look the other way, but that would bankrupt us long before OZEV does. Their Chancellor is an economic mastermind who would likely be more than happy to engage in that sort of financial attrition warfare. And I don't want to imagine what kind of terms the Americans would demand if we tried to borrow money from them to pay for their oil. As for West Sibyria, that region needs a significant amount of investment for them to produce a large quantity oil, and won't be easy to build and operate in those remote areas."

The matter was discussed extensively between the council members, the consensus being an adoption of doctrine emphasising mages as the core of the military instead of combined arms.

Zhang Wentian decided it was time to address two budding problems that were bothering him before they gained wide acceptance.

"I've heard some people within the government have called for collectivization now that they feel confident the peasants won't start their own counter-revolution. I've studied Rus agriculture collectivization for about a year. You know it is bad when people are cracking bitter jokes about the best way of dealing with rodents was to put up a 'collective farm' sign and half of the mice will die while the rest will flee, and that's even with their NKVD running around arresting anyone that looks unpatriotic."

He took a sip of tea and then continued.

"It doesn't matter how much propaganda you force into the farmers or how much you threaten them, they will destroy their livestock and equipment rather than give those possessions up. We should be more focused on researching better agriculture methods, breeding better crops, expanding mechanization and finding ways to encourage the farmers to produce more if we want higher food production."

"There's also a myth out there that sparrows damage crop yields. They do eat seeds, but according to biologists that I spoke with, they also eat insects. I'm afraid of finding out what happens if we kill all of the sparrows."

After some murmurs and nodding from everyone else in the room, Zhang Wentian asked "What is the progress of the mage breeding pilot program?"

Li Kenong started his report. "The results from the program have yielded promising results after we have tested the infants' magic potential, and I would like to thank our predecessors for having the foresight to establish the ground work more than a decade ago. We can confirm that certain couple pairings of no magic potential, C-tier, B-tier and A-tier mage categories of parents' magic potential can maximize the average percentage of quality mages, with A-tier mage infants being the highest and no magic potentials being the lowest. This also takes into account their family histories. The most optimal pairing still has greater than 1 mage out of every 100 births, so there's much more work that needs to be done. We can now go from the early stage of 300 couples per pairing option, to either the next stage of having 1000 couples in each of the optimal pairings to further narrow down the data which will take about five years for the results to come out, or immediately begin a nationwide rollout of the program."

Zhang Wentian clapped his hand. "Excellent! What do you think we should do to encourage people to participate in the program?"

Li Kenong cleared his throat. "Benefits for selected couples for each child they have, ranging from financial bonuses to parents being exempted from military service. Some propaganda and highly driven community members to apply social pressure to encourage optimal couple pairings would also help. I can't give any hard numbers as that depends on how many optimal couples we find throughout the country, and the level of infrastructure and services to support the large number of children. The benefits are recalculated for the magic potential assessment testing based on how many children are A, B or C tier. Then recalculated again for when the children are old enough to be enrolled into the military, and then once again when they complete their training. If they are unable to be a member of the military, they will have to apply for an exemption and prove how they will still help people, although the benefits for the parents will be reduced."

"As long as we stay ahead of any problems with food and housing supply, medical services, education, military training and then the mage equipment, I don't see any problems with your current plan. If we have too many mages, we can always build more equipment for them instead of waiting for years for the next generation."

"Speaking of medical services, we are beginning to train a large number of farmers as "barefoot doctors" for our rural cooperative medical systems. They will reduce the strain on our healthcare system by handling minor injuries and illnesses."

"That is good to hear, our people deserve quality healthcare. Peng Dehuai, it looks like you have something to say. Is it the status of our coastal defense plan that you mentioned before the meeting?"

"We are close to completion with our coastal defense artillery guns, and we have been able to demonstrate shifting the artillery pieces between two locations within a day." Peng Dehuai said. "Gunnery drills still need work. Anti-aircraft guns on train cars should be entering production soon. The Rus's railroad artillery production license that we acquired years ago have been helpful with building those guns. It will certainly deter any casual naval invasion attempts like what happened to the Shun Dynasty when the Albish leisurely marched their troops to our capital."

"Is that all for the domestic reports?" Zhang Wentian asked. Upon everyone nodding yes, he said "Let's begin the international reports."

Peng Dehuai went first, "We secured the Trans-Sibyria railway system past Samara, Kirov and Kazan, about 500 to 700 kilometers from Moskva for those three cities. We acquired some of their railroad artillery pieces and will be moving them to our coastal defense system. One major faction at Kazan has blown up the railways and denounced us for betraying the revolutionary cause. It seems they have taken offense to us using mages on a large scale. We're working with friendly factions to take them down. They shouldn't last long because they lack mage support and are greatly outnumbered. Bandits and other hostile factions constantly threaten the railways, but that can be resolved by having a large amount of infantry in the train cars and usage of mages for long range patrols as a show of force. The Samara railway will allow us to greatly increase our support for insurgents against the Caucasia and Kazakh Republics."

"Regarding the radical communists that oppose us, it doesn't matter who's right. It only matters who's left." Zhang Wentian chuckled. "I remember Secretary Jughashvili ranting about how mages are some sort of a capitalist repression tool. Now he's dead, we're coming in to save what's left of them from OZEV, and they're telling us we're wrong? If they want to keep using eggs to hit a stone, then let them kill themselves for nothing. Anyways, continue."

Kang Sheng, Director of Central Investigation, was next. "We are making good progress with identifying and recruiting Russy Federation scientists, military officers and NKVD agents, and also recover their military equipment and vehicles for us to reverse engineer. There are many factions that have expressed interest in working with us to help reestablish order. Some claim they still have agents and informants embedded in foreign countries. I'll also put out instructions to look for industrial experts."

He took a sip of tea and continued. "We have found advanced dual core computational orbs that are a copy of Germania's Type 97 model, and our preliminary field tests show capabilities that far exceed our current orbs. We are still identifying where those orbs are manufactured so we can build our own. The NKVD agents that had defected to us do not know where the manufacturing site is located. A few of them said that the ones that might have the production schematics may have already fled for North Bharat to continue their fight against the capitalists, and we may need to track them down. One agent said a group of them were planning on heading to North Bharat, and that if we support them, they can help us find the ones who have the production schematics."

He flipped a sheet of paper to read the next side.

"Our agents had also identified human augmentation projects for mages, and the researchers that were experimenting on mages. It appeared the Russy Federation was seeking an advantage over Germania by integrating the computational orbs directly into their brain or spinal cord, and usage of an energy liquid delivery system for sustained high mana usage. I don't know enough about human physiology to try to explain what they are hoping to accomplish with integrating the orbs into the nervous system, but it does seem to be responsible for most of the test subjects' deaths."

Peng Dehuai perked up at the second to last sentence. "Li Kenong, what was the percentage of C-tier infants of the total number of mage infants even with the most optimal couple pairing?

"About half are C-tier."

"What if we used the augmentations for the C tier mages to make them powerful enough for front line combat? That would drastically increase the manpower that we can field, and losses from the surgery or augmentation complications would be more tolerable compared to using them on the more scarce B and A tier mages."

"That's a good idea, we will need to find how feasible those augmentation surgeries are." Zhang Wentian said. "If we kill or cripple nine C-tier mage for every mage that becomes combat worthy, then that's too high of a cost because there are still uses for those C-tier mages. As for the proposal from the NKVD agent, do whatever it takes to get the Type 97 Orb production schematics."

"Speaking of killing or crippling, the Rus researchers requested a few hundred mages to continue their project." Kang Sheng said. "I asked how many deaths or serious injuries they expect, and they said they have no idea. I also asked what their plan was if they used up the few hundred mages and they said they hope to have made some breakthroughs before that happens."

"Absolutely not." Zhang Wentian set down his tea in a loud manner. "I will not butcher our people for something that might be impossible to accomplish within this century. They will only have access to people that have no chance of leaving prison, the Rus communist radicals that would rather attack us instead of OZEV, or they can test the contraptions on themselves, no more than that. On a different note, are there any updates regarding the new republics that the anti-Rus coalition carved out?"

"We are making progress with identifying and recruiting people that are overall more hostile to OZEV than the Russy Federation. Our priorities are the Caucasia and Kazakh Republics as we will need their oil for our country to progress and to be able to defend ourselves in a war, or at least starve the OZEV's war machine. They will not let go of those two easily, so we will need to be patient and slowly chip away at them. If we are too loud, OZEV under Chancellor Degurechaff's leadership may build justifications to invade to thwart our operations. Once the Russy Federation is reunited under a stable leadership, it will be much easier to support our agendas in the two republics."

"Li Kenong, regarding your earlier question of either conducting another trial or immediately launching the breeding program nationwide, let's skip straight to the full rollout." Zhang Wentian said. "We don't have another 5 years to wait, and we would need to wait a minimum of 15 years or so before using the new mages in frontline combat, as child soldiers usually don't perform well. War will be coming soon, and we must be prepared. As Peng Dehuai pointed out, we can't match OZEV's vehicle production to win tank to tank and plane to plane war, nor keep them running for long, so it will be the mages that will keep our people safe from the imperialists. Anything else to report?"

"Thanks to Kang Sheng, we have been able to bribe a ship breaking yard to get our hands on an intact Francois Republic's destroyer before they started cutting it up. Our people's students studying abroad have been a great help." Peng Dehuai interjected. "There should be minimal risk of detection until it's too late. The destroyer does have to take some long detours as it would raise suspicions if they tried to pass through the Suez Canal or sail by Germania-held Malagasy. The bribing did run significantly over budget, but it'll be worth it when we get the ship. We secured a cruiser's main battery turret, fire control system, gearbox and other major components to be shipped to us with the help of an arms smuggler. We couldn't really get anything more than that because of how badly their fleet was ravaged by Germania. And we also acquired some of the documentation on the Francois Republic navy ships that were sent to the ship breaking yards, such as dimensions of systems and electrical drawings, and even some maintenance documents. It'll take us decades to be proficient in navy operations, but it'll at least give us a reference point to start from. And speaking of our shortage of oil, those ships will need to be coal powered."

"Why are they downsizing their navy?"

"They're just shifting their military focus. Germania and the Allied Kingdom are no longer a threat to them. Their overseas colonies and reconstruction are a much bigger problem now. Germania had also seized all of the strategic resources they could get their hands on as part of the war reparations, including steel, and it just happens that their ships have a lot of it. I've chopped furniture for firewood as a child so I understand why they are cannibalizing those ships." Kang Sheng said. "Besides, all of those big ships and heavy tanks are expensive when they need more transport ships, transport planes and boots on the ground with light vehicles to rapidly respond to revolts and suppress them. That is while running with a weaker economy from the brutal pyrrhic victory after their entire country was occupied for a few years, economic crisis and a failed Second Europan War, and rebuilding their infrastructure. Also, rebellious colonies are difficult to tax or extract wealth from. In short, the republic is a paper tiger now."

"It's one thing to have the physical thing." Zhang Wentian said. "What about knowing how to use them?"

"That was the other reason why we ran over budget. Turns out unemployed navy personnel are very receptive towards being advisors in return for a large amount of gold. Ideology doesn't matter when they're getting paid enough to live comfortably for years without having to work a job, and that's especially useful when their economy is still turbulent. Although some of them have communism sympathies or are disillusioned with their government and how things are going. If we are to make use of those individuals in the future, we will need to ensure that it will have to look like the Rus are doing it for plausible deniability. I'm still disturbed at how the communists in Germania have completely gone silent with no indications of a purge or mass arrests. Even the NKVD is confused."

"Good. This concludes the council meeting. Proletariats and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!"

"Proletariats and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!"

AN:

Regarding Sony's ebook reader, I recall reading a tech article that went into the history of the ebook development and its launch, and it specifically mentioned that Sony presented the ebook to the publishers' representatives at a meeting. The publishers told the Sony representative that they supported the ebook reader, but intentionally restricted how many books would actually be available on the ebook to strangle it in its cradle. This is the closest article I can find as I am unable to find the specific article that talked about the publishers' sabotage efforts:

Publishers feel threatened when outside companies try to bypass or shortcut the existing system to gain direct access consumers. As an alternative to Amazon's streamlined supply chain, they are advocating "a (Japanese style) horizontal specialization in e-books," which means a collaborative environment where different stakeholders in the complicated supply chain work together without encroaching on the others' territory.

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Context for how the CSR students ended up in Francois Republic:

There were also notable Chinese communist leaders who had studied in France, and were involved with the local communist groups in that country. At least one of them was expelled from France for being involved with the communist groups. I don't remember the names, but at one point I had about two dozen tabs opened on each person to build the setting and characters for the CSR's government.
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In all, several thousand Chinese came to France as student-workers, though not all as formal members of a program. They included future leaders of the Chinese Communist Party such as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, as well as others who went on to prominent roles in China.​

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As for the CSR's inevitable mage horde, inspired by this HOI4 video. Bear in mind that the player was using "volunteer only" recruiting, and not "scraping the barrel".