Snow Peak is in charge of the army. That strikes me as Summer Flower setting up his fall guy. He is not in charge of fighting, just in charge of doing what the Emperor demanded after accepting the idea from Desnair. So, he controls the Empire's innovation policy without in any way being responsible for anything beyond execution of that policy. If it goes badly, it was Desnair's idea. If the army get's whacked by Charisian Marines or Rainbow Waters, Snow Peak blew it.
All Summer Flowers has to do is to reorganize the foundries along Charisian lines and set up the manufactories into modified production circles. Modified from what the CoGA instituted during the jihad into powered assembly lines. No, this is not the same thing as what the Charisians are doing. Their managers aren't Harchonese, after all. SH merchant houses will supply managers and supervisors conversant with how best manage a Harchonese work force. Manage that workforce to mitigate social unrest. Oh, if the guilds squawk, tell them to suck it up or tell the Emperor they are unwilling to sacrifice their petty prerogatives in support of the Harchong reconquista.
I suspect the guilds will roll over and accept their adjusted status and the increased income opportunities that come with it.
thanatos wrote:I think Summer Flowers is craftier than you think. You always need to look at interests of such individuals. SH has always chafed at the imperial authority yet now they're playing host to that emperor and to his much diminished court of reactionary feudal lords and bureaucrats. North Wind Blowing reflects that "his" people had a threadbare majority council relative to the SH nobles. So Summer Flowers first move was to achieve dominance over the council by gaining the emperor's support for his policies. The next natural step is to arm their new military with the weapons to at least stop Rainbow Waters and the Charisian Marines in the west. Given that SH did want it's troops back, that army is going to consist mostly of South Harchongese soldiers and officers. After that, they have to land their forces somewhere while somehow getting through the Gulf of Dohlar, which may or may not be blockaded by Charis, Dohalr or both. Assuming they even can, and assuming they acquire at least some Charisian techniques (as an expedient), it would be easier to land in the central region, as you can bet that Rainbow Waters will seek to secure the shoreline and that Charis will protect it's interests in the west with it naval power. And all the while, the emperor will be indebted to SH, as they did everything they could to satisfy his majesty's demands and pandering to his whims. The one thing that could screw this up would be a military failure, which is why it would be smart to allow Northern officers to be put in command of some of their advanced units. That way, once they get killed or captured, Summer Flowers would be in the position to claim with complete honesty that it was the fault of whatever lackeys North Wind Blowing put in charge of the fiasco.