AHC: The Taiping, Ezo Republic, and CSA all survive

I'm already working on an ASB TL that includes all of the below nations successfully gaining independence, but I want to see if anyone has more non-ASB means in mind on how they might all survive in a single TL.


  • The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
  • The Republic of Ezo
  • The Confederate States of America
 
Maybe early British and French intervention in the US Civil War devolves into a massive trans-Atlantic fight which drags on for years and leaves all sides exhausted.

As a result, Britain, France and the USA's influence in East Asia diminishes drastically during this period, which leaves a power vacuum for other Great Powers to fill. And is one other Great Power in the region, and that is Russia.

Russia can now use its little-contested influence to shape East Asia to its liking. First and foremost among its priorities would certainly be securing its 'core' Siberian territories from invasion, which would a) mean creating buffer-zones and b) weakening potential competitors.

So for the Taiping: without Western support, the Qing would probably be much closer to military collapse than OTL considering that Taiping armies that OTL attacked Shanghai can now attack Beijing instead. In this vein, perhaps Russia can make a deal with the Qing, in which Russia guarantees the Qing's position in Northern China, making the latter a virtual protectorate. The quid pro quo is that the Qing must negotiate with the Taiping, letting go of southern China if necessary: justified in Russia's view because the region isn't exactly crucial to its core interests, and also has the benefit of weakening potential peer-competitor Qing China.

And for the Ezo Republic: again, with the Westernization process Japan becomes a potential peer-competitor to Russia. Russia is therefore incentivized to keep the Ezo Republic as a 'buffer-state' of sorts in case Japanese ambitions get out of hand.
 
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