Great Arsenal
The Great Arsenal (大炮) is the name colloquialy given to the modernized armed forces of the Qian dynasty during the 18th and 19th centuries. The impetus for the creation of the Great Arsenal was the Truce of Caserges signed in 1728 that ended the Daxian Polynesian Wars, Daxia's failure to achieve its objectives during the conflict led the imperial court to conclude that its forces were increasingly inadequate to face all its competitors. Beginning in the mid 18th century the Qian state poured vast resources into both the development of new weaponry and the theft and copying of foreign designs. Supporters of the Zhangwo ideology such as Marquis Gong were enthusiastic about the creation of the Great Arsenal, an enlarged military would allow Daxia to assert itself more effectively around its Audonian periphery and secure its far flung colonies. Qian military naval theorists put forward that in order to face a theoretical coalition of hostile powers in the western Polynesian Sea, Daxia should possess at least an advantage of two to one in surface ships. Consequently the Harmonious Flotilla Invincible and the Fleet of the Southern Waste saw a dramatic increase in the number and tonnage of ships in their ranks. The Great Arsenal saw combat in the Second Great War and other smaller conflicts with mixed results. The long period of building and constant upgrading of the Great Arsenal greatly contributed to the industrialization of Daxia, with many firms such as Diaoyu emerging from the process as industrial and manufacturing giants.
Background
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the territorial expanse and military power of the Qian dynasty appeared to be at its greatest to the outside world. In truth it may have been an elaborate deception as Qian military planners were very deliberate in what wars to fight and against who. Qian military power was being eroded by pressures on the imperial budget and overspending on frivolities became the norm during this period. Emperor Tengu the Sot diverted large parts of the imperial budget to maintain his personal Grog Fleet and build lavish palaces all over the country. Reduced funding for military maintenance and regular expenses led to issues in the army such as delayed wages for soldiers, lack of field rations and poor quality uniforms. In the navy it simply meant a marked decrease in the building of new ships and slower and less frequent repair of the existing fleets. Foreign scholars term this period of the Qian dynasty the 'era of doves', a time where the dynasty was slightly more accommodating to foreign interests. To counteract any apparent weakness, the Qian frequently engaged in very over the top warfare against much weaker opponents such as during the Capture of Truk or faced 'westerners' only when it could muster much greater force at the local level such as at the Siege of Dun-Kurrengev. Even during the height of the Daxian Polynesian Wars where the Qian were the clear aggressor, they went to great lengths to ensure they were fighting a single opponent at any one time; after the failure at Dun-Kurrengev an 'eternal truce' was signed and ambassadors exchanged with Kiravia before attacking Burgundie. The crisis of the budget came to a head in 1725 when a mutiny by units stationed near the summer capital of Daguo threatened the dynasty's grip on power. Under pressure and with his military advisors wavering and doubting the mutineers could be repelled, Emperor Lushu who was Tengu's grandson, accepted demands to reduce imperial wastage and give increased funding to the armed forces, with prioritization of the wellbeing of the common soldier and the expansion of naval power to safeguard the Daxian mainland from threats.
To his credit Emperor Lushu was earnest in adhering to the compromise, genuinely scared by the dynasty's brush with oblivion. Scholars coined it the building of the Great Arsenal but much of it was expanding and modernizing the already large existing Qian military. The wars in the Polynesian were winding down but it was hoped the changes would help Daxia win future conflicts. Lushu named the dwarf Fengbao Wa as minister plenipotentiary to oversee the military modernization programs. Fengbao Wa was given total control to oversee the work as he saw fit, he created a military commission composed of the nation's top generals and admirals with himself as chair, to help him with the workload. He made maximum use of the bureaucratic apparatus to keep local governors in line and on task. To start with, the Grog Fleet was greatly reduced, as much as eighty percent of its ships were transferred to either the Harmonious Flotilla Invincible or the Fleet of the Southern Waste and fitted with cannons. Fengbao went about establishing new shipyards and military arsenals at Qianling, Xidian and Nonglin to produce new ships. In addition to the significant enlargement of the known two Polynesian fleets, Fengbao ordered the creation of two more fleets to operate on other seas. The first was the Adamant Flotilla of the Sunset Sea that was to operate in the Taizi Sea and face Burgundie's Audonian squadrons. The second was the Fleet of the Enclosed Sea which was to be based on the island of Cao and operate in the Nysdra Sea and guard the Cronan colonies from Varshan and Urcean encroachments. To help fund the onerous expense of these new fleet formations, a new tax on salt, pepper and various other spices was implemented; this had the effect of making Daxian food blander until the repeal of the 'navy tax' with the downfall of the Qian dynasty almost two hundred years later.
The unprecedented amount of funds earmarked for the military also made its way to the scientific community. Not only court scholars such as Avidor Boruch benefitted from research grants, the funds trickled down to schools and academies founded by them too. The 19th century was a febrile time for scientific progress, the adoption of the steam engine revolutionized the Qian navy, giving rise to a new class of ships known as ironclads. Powered by steam engines instead of sails and covered in thick steel plates for protection; the fleets of the Qian became a formidable force. In 1855 a royal dwarf by the name of Xiao Sha invented a type of gatling gun based on old schematics by Wang Ming. Operated with a hand crank, the gun had five barrels that could fire up to two hundred rounds per minute, capable of mowing great masses of enemy soldiers in moments. Sha's gun would enter mass production in 1862 and service with the Qian army by 1865 and would be deployed in wars in Huoxia and Rusana and famously to repel hordes of Varshanis during the Battle of the Blood Plain in southern Xisheng.
Land forces
The Great Arsenal period army of the early Qian Dynasty was characterized by its widespread adoption of modern black powder firearms, having adapted from the previous usage of what was effectively downscaled cannon as imagined by Avidor Boruch. The tactics of massed handheld firearms were normalized during the early Qian Dynasty and specialized convergently into the style of line units of musketeers known from contemporaneous Sarpedon and Levantia. The late nineteenth century saw the system of regional quotas of the previous Zhong Dynasty done away with, replaced instead by the system of recruitment and universal conscription normalized elsewhere in the world (particularly Sarpedon and Levantia) at the time. The central bureaucracy at this time took control of all recruitment efforts away from local governors with a system of recruitment offices in every province; governors were merely ancillary to the process and ordered to make available their law enforcement forces to corral recruits. New industrial concerns and weapon factories were sponsored by the government. The standardization of the rifles in use by the army was an important step forward as it allowed for more efficiency in the use of material inputs; some 300,000 breech loading rifles and hundreds of cannons of various types had been produced domestically by 1856 in factories belonging to the Daxian Gunsmith Guild(one of the antecessors of Diaoyu). Railroad expansion was also lavishly funded to increase the logistical capacities of the army. Prior to 1860 a mere 20,000 km of track had been laid down, by 1900 this number had increased to almost 190,000 km of track.
The imperial navy was of paramount importance for the government. Known as the Left and Right Tridents of the Qian, the two Polynesian fleets were one of its most potent tools of state. The lack of investment put them in danger of being overwhelmed by their 'western' counterparts in due time.
Air force
The Qian dynasty did not operate any airplanes of its own until the 20th century. Daxian dynasties had previously utilized small balloons with lanterns as a means of military signaling. During the last decade of the 1800's Qian forces operated a number of hot air balloons mainly for reconnaissance and collecting information to create accurate war maps. Later still they were also used to drop improvised bombs on enemy lines but their limited weight capacity and vulnerability to enemy fire made them not very effective in these tasks. Daxian spies had made attempts to secure the schematics for western biplanes but what was procured was usually incomplete. Daxian attempts to build its own biplanes were not successful and ended in at least two reported fatalities. It was not until the years before the outbreak of the Second Great War that in cooperation with the Caphirian Air Force, Daxia acquired the technological know-how to start building its own planes. The war balloons had been part of the imperial army itself but when biplanes entered production, a new separate branch called the Daxian Imperial Air Force was created. By the time Daxia entered the war it was operating some seventy biplanes in five squadrons and had around 100 available pilots who were graduates of the Special Purpose Aviation Institute in Mirzak.