I know this has been discussed before, and that the consensus is that China cannot (and should not) be balkanized. Nevertheless, I will raise this yet again-
Assume for the sake of argument that a scenario develops (detailed below, but I want to focus on linguistic theory, not the POD), in which Southern China* de-facto breaks up into STABLE warlord states, Northern China breaking up into somewhat less stable warlord states.
* Southern China being defined for the purposes of this scenario as south of the Hua River and Qinglin Mountains.
Stable for a given value of the term-
a. No open warfare or significant border changes between the states for a more than a generation.
b. No SUCCESSFUL republican revolution in any of them.
c. Most warlords retain their rule until they die.
d. Semi-hereditary change in government upon the death of the reigning warlord.
e. Stable "spheres of influence" between the maritime Great Powers (Britain, Germany, France, and Japan) that correspond to the warlord domains.
f. Loose colonial domination in the form of concessions, schools/ missionary activity, economic investment, control of foreign affairs, subsidiary alliances, military and financial advisors and so forth, but no direct rule outside of concessions.
Further, assume that these warlord domains are (roughly) contiguous with the language divisions of Southern China. That does not mean that each domain does not contain significant minorities but that there is a clear Dominant in each domain which corresponds to the military-power and social (and in most cases economic-cultural) elite.
So here is the question- assuming some form of mass literacy begins to emerge, partly driven by missionary activity, partially by capitalism, and partially by the warlords seeking to create a “national identity” which upholds the legitimacy of their regimes, would it be:
a. Linguistically possible to create a usable uniform written language of the dialects/languages below as was done in the emerging nation states of Europe during the 19th century?
b. To successfully Romanize (or adopt some other sort of phonetic script) for the language/dialect la mode Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_alphabet ?
c. Possible to get most people to adopt the state language as their primary language over 45 or so years? 60 years?
I am leaving aside the question as to what effect this would actually have on national identity- I am interested in the linguistic technicalities.
The domains are as follows. Borders do not EXACTLY follow provincial borders but its pretty close:
Non-Mandarin:
1. Taiwan
Dominant language group: Taiwanese Hokkien (Min derivative)
Main minority languages: Hakka, Yue, Aborigine.
Sphere of influence: Japanese/German
2. Eastern Guangdong
Dominant language group: Hakka
Main minority languages: Yue, Min
Sphere of influence: Britain
3. Central/West Guangdong+ Eastern Guangxi
Dominant language group: Yue
Main minority languages: Hakka, Zhuang, Min, Xiang
Sphere of influence: Britain/France
4. West Guangxi
Dominant language group: Zhuang
Main minority languages: Hakka, Min, Yue, others
Sphere of influence: France
5. Hainan
Dominant language group: Hainanese Hokkien (Min derivative)
Main minority languages: Li, others
Sphere of influence: France
6. Fukien
Dominant language group: Min
Main minority languages: Wu, Hakka
Sphere of influence: Germany
7. Zhejiang + small part of southern Jiangsu
Dominant language group: Wu
Main minority languages: Min, Hakka
Sphere of influence: Japan
8. Jiangxi
Dominant language group: Gan
Main minority languages: Xiang, Jianghuai Mandarin, Hakka
Sphere of influence: Britain/ Germany
9. Hunan
Dominant language group: Xiang
Main minority languages: Southwest Mandarin dialects
Sphere of influence: free for all with Britain/France/Germany, in that order, wielding most influence
Mandarin language domains:
1. Jiangnan (Most of Jiangsu and Anhui, but northern and southern bits possibly clipped off)
Dominant language group: Jianghuai Mandarin (Standardized to Nanking sub dialect)
Main minority languages: Wu, Huizhou, Gan, Zhongyuan Mandarin
Sphere of influence: Britain
2. Hubei
Dominant language group: Southwest Mandarin
Main minority languages: Zhongyuan and Jianghuai Mandarin
Sphere of influence: Free for all. Britain wields the strongest influence; warlord uses Japan and Germany to counterbalance it.
3. Yunan-Guizhou (Yun-Gui)
Dominant language group: Southwest Mandarin
Main minority languages: too many to name, but none very large.
Sphere of influence: France
4. Sichuan
Dominant language group: Southwest Mandarin
Main minority languages: Khams Tibetan
Sphere of influence: Free for all, but very little foreign influence gets there. France and Britain are the main contenders.
As for Northern China, the situation is more fluid but the domains include
1. Rump- Qing (Basically Beijing to the Taku forts)
Dominant language group: Peking Mandarin
Main minority languages: Ji-Lu Mandarin, Manchu
Sphere of influence: Joint/ none (All of the Maritime powers, USA included, effectively officer, sponsor and train one of the divisions of the “central government” army and use it as a clearing house for the maritime customs and debt collection)
2. Shandong + Zhihili (from Baoding southwards)
Dominant language group: Peking Mandarin mostly used for administration
Main spoken languages: Ji-Lu Mandarin
Other dialects: Jiao-Liao and Zhongyuan Mandarin
Sphere of influence: neutralized by treaty, but warlord employs military advisors from all maritime powers + Russia.
3. Henan
Dominant language group: Zhongyuan Mandarin (Henan dialect)
Main minority languages: none to speak of, though Peking Mandarin used officially for much of the period.
Sphere of influence: Officially neutralized by treaty but Britain has strongest, though indirect influence (through Jiangan), with Russia counterbalancing it, also indirectly (through Shanxi)
4. Shanxi
Dominant language group: Jin Mandarin (Possibly adapted into Cyrilic script).
Main minority languages: Zhongyuan Mandarin, Peking Mandarin used officially for some of the period.
Sphere of influence: Russian, and anxiously so.
5. Shaan-Gan (Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai)
Dominant language group: Zhongyuan Mandarin (possibly adapted into Arabic script)
Main minority languages: Jin and Lan-Yin Mandarin, Mongol, Tibetan.
Sphere of influence: Russian, somewhat less anxiously.
Outer China:
Tibet is British, thank you very much.
North of the wall is Russian.
Southern Xinjiang (Kashgaria) is ruled indirectly, with each Beg/Khan ruling his own Oasis-city. Few Han or Hui are left there.
Northern Xinjiang (Dzungaria) is has mostly been directly annexed to Russia and is part of the expanded Semirechye Cossack host some of the Eastern fringe has been appended to:
Greater Mongolia, which ethnically cleansed most of the Han settlers in the early 1900s, only to see some of them replaced by Russians. Russian traders dominate the cities and Agricultural military settlers dot inner Mongolia.
Manchuria, AKA Jianzhou
A Russian satellite nominally headed by the deposed Guanxou emperor. He has rather less real power than Puyi did.
The scenario:
1898: As the latter entry suggests, the hundred day reform went down rather differently ITTL. Guagnxou, with Russian assistance, tried to preempt Cixi’s coup. He failed but a drawn out conflict within and around Beijing erupted. British and Japanese intervention led to his withdrawal to Manchuria under Russian protection (mostly from his own people) and to prolonged Russian occupation. The debacle robs Cixi (who appoints prince Duan’s son as emperor, with herself as regent together with his father and Ronglo) of any shred of legitimacy to her people, and more importantly many of the provincial officials- but fails to offer any alternative center of authority to herself.
1899: The Boxer rebellion hits on schedule but occurs in tandem with the flight of Han (many of them armed and militarized by Cixi) from Inner Mongolia and the closing of Manchuria to immigrants (and some expulsions and flight, though not as bloody as the horror in Inner Mongolia).
1899: Li Hongzhang, recently appointed viceroy of Lianguang (in order to sideline him in the leadup to the coup) knowing he’s on Cixi’s execution list (he put his neck out a bit too far during the strife in Beijing, and on the wrong side) goes rogue and actually calls on popular support in Guangdang, declaring a republic and making common cause with anti-Qing rebels. Copy cat rebellions spring up across the southern provinces, with some governors and viceroys wavering and seeking to accomadate Beijing, surrounded by Boxers, basically gives a carte de blanche to the provincial military governor of Guangxi to put him down the insurrection, including full civil powers and the right to make official appointments and collect taxes, offering him similliar powers over all of Lianguang if he defeats Li. Eventually, with French and British aid he captures Guangzhou, but Eastern Gunagdong is taken over by a exclusively British backed Hakka millita leader who the Qing, and more importantly the British, recognize as military governor of a new province under his titular viceregal oversight. Hainan, however, is excluded from his purview, courtesy of French gunboat diplomacy.
Similar outbreaks, though none with official patrons, break out across southern China. Still, while vexing, these revolutionaries have not had time to learn from previous failed attempts or infiltrate the armed forces. Provincial military leaders, sometimes with the expensive aid of the maritime powers, crush the insurrections outside Guangdong.
1900-1903: The combination overloads the Qing capacity for famine relief and population control and Beijing is plunged into chaos. Ronglo is more firmly in control and Cixi knows better than to piss off the maritime powers TTL so the Boxers are suppressed, rather than coopted, but it takes a long time, the capital nearly falls, and communications between it and the provinces are patchy during the crisis. Yuan Shikai ends the insurrection eventually but demands, and gets, an effectively free hand over his fief in Shandong and Southern Zhihili.
Other provincial (and in some cases viceroys) military leaders, following the example of Yuan pretty much usurp civil and imperial authority in “their” provinces, as they respond to insurrections, or manufactures claims of such to assume power- if for no other reason than to safeguard themselves from neighboring militarists.
With the exception of the governor of Taiwan (which becomes a bone of contention between Germany, which ITTL purchased the Philippines and faced down a disgruntled USA, and Japan), none declare outright independence. However, they are appointing their own officials, collecting their own taxes, sending little if any of it to the capital (except for maritime customs- that is in foreign hands), and fielding their own locally recruited armies, often staffed with European, Russian, American and Japanese instructors and mercenaries.
1904: when the dust clears, Inner China is united in name, but in name only. Still, residual Qing authority, and agreements between the maritime powers and Russia regarding spheres of influence reduce the potential for open conflict. Besides, the warlords/ provincial governors have republican insurrections to put down, heirs to groom and ambitious underlings to coup proof against. Until Europe plunges into war and/or Russia plunges into revolution, No warlord sees much prospects of success in seeking to assume control of “all under heaven”, or even to absorb their immediate rivals. Even if global conflict breaks out there is no gurantee that the configuration will favor such an enterprise.
1910+: Following Cixi's death, and squabbles within the court and between the maritime powers, many of the inland warlords declare outright independence. Dependencies of the "Industrially non-competitive" powers follow suit and in the end the Brits sigh and go along with the flow. Peking remains an awkward, and bankrupt, relic, but a useful buffer which the Maritime powers can agree to maintain in order to prevent Russian expansion southwards.
Assume for the sake of argument that a scenario develops (detailed below, but I want to focus on linguistic theory, not the POD), in which Southern China* de-facto breaks up into STABLE warlord states, Northern China breaking up into somewhat less stable warlord states.
* Southern China being defined for the purposes of this scenario as south of the Hua River and Qinglin Mountains.
Stable for a given value of the term-
a. No open warfare or significant border changes between the states for a more than a generation.
b. No SUCCESSFUL republican revolution in any of them.
c. Most warlords retain their rule until they die.
d. Semi-hereditary change in government upon the death of the reigning warlord.
e. Stable "spheres of influence" between the maritime Great Powers (Britain, Germany, France, and Japan) that correspond to the warlord domains.
f. Loose colonial domination in the form of concessions, schools/ missionary activity, economic investment, control of foreign affairs, subsidiary alliances, military and financial advisors and so forth, but no direct rule outside of concessions.
Further, assume that these warlord domains are (roughly) contiguous with the language divisions of Southern China. That does not mean that each domain does not contain significant minorities but that there is a clear Dominant in each domain which corresponds to the military-power and social (and in most cases economic-cultural) elite.
So here is the question- assuming some form of mass literacy begins to emerge, partly driven by missionary activity, partially by capitalism, and partially by the warlords seeking to create a “national identity” which upholds the legitimacy of their regimes, would it be:
a. Linguistically possible to create a usable uniform written language of the dialects/languages below as was done in the emerging nation states of Europe during the 19th century?
b. To successfully Romanize (or adopt some other sort of phonetic script) for the language/dialect la mode Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_alphabet ?
c. Possible to get most people to adopt the state language as their primary language over 45 or so years? 60 years?
I am leaving aside the question as to what effect this would actually have on national identity- I am interested in the linguistic technicalities.
The domains are as follows. Borders do not EXACTLY follow provincial borders but its pretty close:
Non-Mandarin:
1. Taiwan
Dominant language group: Taiwanese Hokkien (Min derivative)
Main minority languages: Hakka, Yue, Aborigine.
Sphere of influence: Japanese/German
2. Eastern Guangdong
Dominant language group: Hakka
Main minority languages: Yue, Min
Sphere of influence: Britain
3. Central/West Guangdong+ Eastern Guangxi
Dominant language group: Yue
Main minority languages: Hakka, Zhuang, Min, Xiang
Sphere of influence: Britain/France
4. West Guangxi
Dominant language group: Zhuang
Main minority languages: Hakka, Min, Yue, others
Sphere of influence: France
5. Hainan
Dominant language group: Hainanese Hokkien (Min derivative)
Main minority languages: Li, others
Sphere of influence: France
6. Fukien
Dominant language group: Min
Main minority languages: Wu, Hakka
Sphere of influence: Germany
7. Zhejiang + small part of southern Jiangsu
Dominant language group: Wu
Main minority languages: Min, Hakka
Sphere of influence: Japan
8. Jiangxi
Dominant language group: Gan
Main minority languages: Xiang, Jianghuai Mandarin, Hakka
Sphere of influence: Britain/ Germany
9. Hunan
Dominant language group: Xiang
Main minority languages: Southwest Mandarin dialects
Sphere of influence: free for all with Britain/France/Germany, in that order, wielding most influence
Mandarin language domains:
1. Jiangnan (Most of Jiangsu and Anhui, but northern and southern bits possibly clipped off)
Dominant language group: Jianghuai Mandarin (Standardized to Nanking sub dialect)
Main minority languages: Wu, Huizhou, Gan, Zhongyuan Mandarin
Sphere of influence: Britain
2. Hubei
Dominant language group: Southwest Mandarin
Main minority languages: Zhongyuan and Jianghuai Mandarin
Sphere of influence: Free for all. Britain wields the strongest influence; warlord uses Japan and Germany to counterbalance it.
3. Yunan-Guizhou (Yun-Gui)
Dominant language group: Southwest Mandarin
Main minority languages: too many to name, but none very large.
Sphere of influence: France
4. Sichuan
Dominant language group: Southwest Mandarin
Main minority languages: Khams Tibetan
Sphere of influence: Free for all, but very little foreign influence gets there. France and Britain are the main contenders.
As for Northern China, the situation is more fluid but the domains include
1. Rump- Qing (Basically Beijing to the Taku forts)
Dominant language group: Peking Mandarin
Main minority languages: Ji-Lu Mandarin, Manchu
Sphere of influence: Joint/ none (All of the Maritime powers, USA included, effectively officer, sponsor and train one of the divisions of the “central government” army and use it as a clearing house for the maritime customs and debt collection)
2. Shandong + Zhihili (from Baoding southwards)
Dominant language group: Peking Mandarin mostly used for administration
Main spoken languages: Ji-Lu Mandarin
Other dialects: Jiao-Liao and Zhongyuan Mandarin
Sphere of influence: neutralized by treaty, but warlord employs military advisors from all maritime powers + Russia.
3. Henan
Dominant language group: Zhongyuan Mandarin (Henan dialect)
Main minority languages: none to speak of, though Peking Mandarin used officially for much of the period.
Sphere of influence: Officially neutralized by treaty but Britain has strongest, though indirect influence (through Jiangan), with Russia counterbalancing it, also indirectly (through Shanxi)
4. Shanxi
Dominant language group: Jin Mandarin (Possibly adapted into Cyrilic script).
Main minority languages: Zhongyuan Mandarin, Peking Mandarin used officially for some of the period.
Sphere of influence: Russian, and anxiously so.
5. Shaan-Gan (Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai)
Dominant language group: Zhongyuan Mandarin (possibly adapted into Arabic script)
Main minority languages: Jin and Lan-Yin Mandarin, Mongol, Tibetan.
Sphere of influence: Russian, somewhat less anxiously.
Outer China:
Tibet is British, thank you very much.
North of the wall is Russian.
Southern Xinjiang (Kashgaria) is ruled indirectly, with each Beg/Khan ruling his own Oasis-city. Few Han or Hui are left there.
Northern Xinjiang (Dzungaria) is has mostly been directly annexed to Russia and is part of the expanded Semirechye Cossack host some of the Eastern fringe has been appended to:
Greater Mongolia, which ethnically cleansed most of the Han settlers in the early 1900s, only to see some of them replaced by Russians. Russian traders dominate the cities and Agricultural military settlers dot inner Mongolia.
Manchuria, AKA Jianzhou
A Russian satellite nominally headed by the deposed Guanxou emperor. He has rather less real power than Puyi did.
The scenario:
1898: As the latter entry suggests, the hundred day reform went down rather differently ITTL. Guagnxou, with Russian assistance, tried to preempt Cixi’s coup. He failed but a drawn out conflict within and around Beijing erupted. British and Japanese intervention led to his withdrawal to Manchuria under Russian protection (mostly from his own people) and to prolonged Russian occupation. The debacle robs Cixi (who appoints prince Duan’s son as emperor, with herself as regent together with his father and Ronglo) of any shred of legitimacy to her people, and more importantly many of the provincial officials- but fails to offer any alternative center of authority to herself.
1899: The Boxer rebellion hits on schedule but occurs in tandem with the flight of Han (many of them armed and militarized by Cixi) from Inner Mongolia and the closing of Manchuria to immigrants (and some expulsions and flight, though not as bloody as the horror in Inner Mongolia).
1899: Li Hongzhang, recently appointed viceroy of Lianguang (in order to sideline him in the leadup to the coup) knowing he’s on Cixi’s execution list (he put his neck out a bit too far during the strife in Beijing, and on the wrong side) goes rogue and actually calls on popular support in Guangdang, declaring a republic and making common cause with anti-Qing rebels. Copy cat rebellions spring up across the southern provinces, with some governors and viceroys wavering and seeking to accomadate Beijing, surrounded by Boxers, basically gives a carte de blanche to the provincial military governor of Guangxi to put him down the insurrection, including full civil powers and the right to make official appointments and collect taxes, offering him similliar powers over all of Lianguang if he defeats Li. Eventually, with French and British aid he captures Guangzhou, but Eastern Gunagdong is taken over by a exclusively British backed Hakka millita leader who the Qing, and more importantly the British, recognize as military governor of a new province under his titular viceregal oversight. Hainan, however, is excluded from his purview, courtesy of French gunboat diplomacy.
Similar outbreaks, though none with official patrons, break out across southern China. Still, while vexing, these revolutionaries have not had time to learn from previous failed attempts or infiltrate the armed forces. Provincial military leaders, sometimes with the expensive aid of the maritime powers, crush the insurrections outside Guangdong.
1900-1903: The combination overloads the Qing capacity for famine relief and population control and Beijing is plunged into chaos. Ronglo is more firmly in control and Cixi knows better than to piss off the maritime powers TTL so the Boxers are suppressed, rather than coopted, but it takes a long time, the capital nearly falls, and communications between it and the provinces are patchy during the crisis. Yuan Shikai ends the insurrection eventually but demands, and gets, an effectively free hand over his fief in Shandong and Southern Zhihili.
Other provincial (and in some cases viceroys) military leaders, following the example of Yuan pretty much usurp civil and imperial authority in “their” provinces, as they respond to insurrections, or manufactures claims of such to assume power- if for no other reason than to safeguard themselves from neighboring militarists.
With the exception of the governor of Taiwan (which becomes a bone of contention between Germany, which ITTL purchased the Philippines and faced down a disgruntled USA, and Japan), none declare outright independence. However, they are appointing their own officials, collecting their own taxes, sending little if any of it to the capital (except for maritime customs- that is in foreign hands), and fielding their own locally recruited armies, often staffed with European, Russian, American and Japanese instructors and mercenaries.
1904: when the dust clears, Inner China is united in name, but in name only. Still, residual Qing authority, and agreements between the maritime powers and Russia regarding spheres of influence reduce the potential for open conflict. Besides, the warlords/ provincial governors have republican insurrections to put down, heirs to groom and ambitious underlings to coup proof against. Until Europe plunges into war and/or Russia plunges into revolution, No warlord sees much prospects of success in seeking to assume control of “all under heaven”, or even to absorb their immediate rivals. Even if global conflict breaks out there is no gurantee that the configuration will favor such an enterprise.
1910+: Following Cixi's death, and squabbles within the court and between the maritime powers, many of the inland warlords declare outright independence. Dependencies of the "Industrially non-competitive" powers follow suit and in the end the Brits sigh and go along with the flow. Peking remains an awkward, and bankrupt, relic, but a useful buffer which the Maritime powers can agree to maintain in order to prevent Russian expansion southwards.