thats anotehr thing i dont get...china was largly unstable at the pod and for quite a while after...yet theyve industrialised as fast as western europe...given how long information took to travel and the difference in cultural tastes and attitudes, it seems odd that china would be the ones to create the steam locamotive and to have industrialised and advanced so far
Especially considering that China's biggest coal fields aren't terribly easy to get to - rapids restrict river transport, and mountains curtail routes over land. Basically, you'd need trains to even
get to those coalfields.
Not that there aren't others elsewhere, of course...
I could see China as being TTL's equvialent of Italy IOTL - a relative latecomer to the imperialism buisness, but with lots of ambition.
An industrialising Mughal Empire might be more plausible, but that depends.
I'm rather surprised that one of the more minor European powers, like a larger HRE member, or France, or something invented the train first. Unless it's more like LTTW - steam-powered land transport has been invented, which has decreased the interest in railways, unlike in the more centralised China (equivalent to LTTW's Russia), where they would be able to control where everyone can get to quickly. There could have been foreign investment, I guess, especially if trade with the east has been accelerated.
