Bushido Code - an HOI3:SF Japan AAR

The wages of sin.

While GEN Yushi was suppressing the "workers revolt" he had no idea that his position had already been filled. GEN Kuribayashi was already on his way to CEA HQ at Peking to relieve Yushi.

Shigeaki Ikeda's investigation into the financial irregularities begun back in May had revealed a deep involvement in an overseas project by the Mitsui zaibatsu. Some discrete inquiries revealed that a large port project was being undertaken at Cangzhou under the authorization of Gen Yushi.

Shortly after this the "workers revolt" had drawn attention to North China and an opportunity to usurp the Mitsui position there was seen by Shigeaki and his friends in the Sumitomo zaibatsu.

The cause of the revolt situation was brought to the IGHQ's attention, and in less than 24 hours Kuribayashi was on his way to Peking and Nishio had been ordered to take over Army Group A, and Nishihara took over 1st Army's continued execution of Operation Aki. The hard charging Nishi took over Motor Corps from Nishihara.

General Yushi was not the only looser in the change of command, as his whole Port scheme had been strongly supported by the North China head of the Mitsui zaibatsu, who was also sent home by GEN Kuribayashi.

The new head of the CEA found the operatives of the Sumitomo zaibatsu to be most helpful in this task and his efforts to restore the situation in North China.

IGHQ had decided to make an example out of Yushi, the message being that the tolerance for "rogue" actions in the imperial marches was coming to an end.


Kuribayashi takes charge



Port is cancelled, Mitsui Zaibatsu looses a big investment

Operation Aki - August 14th to 25th, 1938

Shigeta's mixed brigade once again became the focus of trouble as he surged for Guangzhou and got cut off by the strong Chinese forces in the area.



There were not many Japanese forces in the area to relieve Shigeta.



On the 17th, the Lugan pocket where the Chinese on the Yangtzee had been resisting so strongly had fallen.



Meanwhile, Terauchi's division had moved into a position from which he could mount a relief of Shigeta's brigade.



On the 20th, the Nationalist situation looked like this:



Terauchi had managed to link up with Shigeta on the morning of the 22nd.



Coming down from the north were the IJA forces that had been tied up in reducing the Nationalist pockets.



The evening of the 25th had Japanese forces on the Pearl river again, but from the north instead of the south. The Chinese were still putting up resistance in some places.

Nezha's Organs

In the west the Cavalry Corps had not only passed through MGEN Ando's division, but had retaken ground lost in his ordered retreat and scattered most of the Ma clique's forces in their path. The 24th of August had various elements of the corps closing in on Golmud without sparing the horseflesh.



For the Nationalists, the relentless pressure and horrific losses had finally run their course. Many could not help but think of Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the East Sea, humbling the warrior Nezha with the kidnapping of his parents. The end of that story, Nezha exchanging his internal organs for his parents freedom, was something those who had fought hard for the past year for China's freedom felt.

However, it was done, the collapse had come, and as of midnight of the 27th of August, 1938, China's independence was no more.




The celebrations throughout Japan last almost a week, and there were many who thought that the Empire could take in all of this continental territory. Inside the IGHQ the celebrations were tempered with the knowledge that this victory came at a strategic cost which hobbled the defense of the whole. The strategic POL reserve was exhausted, rationing was widespread, and while promises had been made publicly about the lifting of POL rationing as soon as the disposition of China and the Japanese Armies were done...the uglier truth was that there was no end in sight.

It was decided that in light of what promised to be a chronic problem, there was simply no way a massive occupation force could be supported. It was then clear that tribute regimes like that of Manchuria would need to be organized.

The first had already been planned out before the fall of the Nationalists, as a new Guangxi was raised up.



The fighting in all of China had not come to an end, with Ma clique resistance still ongoing as late as the 28th of August.



The 1st of September saw all the fighting over, the Ma clique was brought low and also reconstituted in a tributary form to Japan. The IGHQ ordered the reserves sent home and demobilized such troops as there were within the home islands.



China itself was also reorganized as a tributary state, with only the Shanxi lands which the war had originally started over being annexed directly to the Empire.

The China War was over and Japan exerted control of one form or another across not only most of east asia's geography, but the lion's share of population also.

Coming Home

After the end of the China War, there was a reorganization within the IJA. Army Group A was retitled the "Expeditionary Armies" and all were returned home to Japan, asides from the Cavalry Corps.

General Nishio remained head of the CEA, which was retitled the China Occupation Army, headquartered at Peking. It was to this entity that Cavalry Corps was attached.

The Southern Landing Force was also returned home, and with it Adachi's heroic 4th Division which had been the pawn in so much of the IGHQ's internal chess games of a year earlier. Once back in Japan, Adachi's troops at last were assigned to the formation they had originally been intended to be a part of, the Motor Corps.




The Amagi and Soryu were added to the fleet, two ultra-modern aircraft carriers that Admiral Yamamoto had observed under construction in the massive docks of Yokosuka Naval Yard back in March when the China War had seemed insurmountable. Now the Admiral's concern, and the concerns of the entire Navy Ministry, was the total lack of fuel oil. The ignominy of these two great carriers being unable to do more than the most rudimentary sea trials...Yamamoto could not even think of the shame when the super-battleship Yamato would be finished...if he would need to have gangs of sailors to pull the ship by hand!



Nonetheless, the Imperial Japanese Navy could be judged a Grand Fleet from that point on!

News from Europe

In December 1938, the German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann sent a manuscript to Naturwissenschaften reporting that they had detected the element barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons; simultaneously, they communicated these results to Lise Meitner. Meitner, and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch, correctly interpreted these results as being nuclear fission and Frisch confirmed this experimentally on 13 January 1939.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Yoshio Nishina, a friend of Niels Bohr and a close associate of Albert Einstein, mostly known as one of the co-authors of the Klein-Nishina Formula, approached GEN Kuribayashi during a train ride and explained what the fission experiments could mean if weaponized and his concerns that the Americans were already well positioned to expand on the technology. He feared that if Japan gave the Americans the chance to "steal a march" on a fission weapon that Japan would never catch up before the bombs would start falling on themselves.

GEN Kuribayashi, who was well aware of American capabilities, agreed wholeheartedly and championed the matter to both Prince Kanin and Admiral Yamamoto before the next IGHQ meeting. Both agreed that some form of work group should be formed to immediately explore the matter, and at that next meeting the almost unprecedented combined front of Army and Navy carried all other voices before it. Dr. Nishina was made head of a top secret research group, ostensibly working within the Army Aeronautical Department's Technical Research Institute on what was euphemistically titled "Non-Traditional Airborne Weapons Project."




The 28th of March the news wire teletypes were buzzing with the simultaneous announcements of Germany annexing Czechoslovakia and Italy annexing Albania. These combined announcements caused a spine chilling shudder through Europe, and the wires between Paris and London were burning especially hot that evening with concerns about the portent of a combined Hitler/Mussolini fascistic front.

Pact of Steel, Stealing the Government

Mussolini's Italy joined the Axis on the 11th of April, creating what had already been dubbed by the press in the west since the dual annexations a couple weeks earlier as a "Pact of Steel" - of course typical western bias ignored the fact that Japan had been a member of the Axis for much longer and likely added far more "Steel" to the alliance than Italy.



Baron Nishi accompanied the Japanese observers to the Italian signing of the pact, and on his return to Japan related news from his friend in Germany, Guderian, who had been posted to East Prussia. It would seem some form of military buildup was occurring on the Polish border.



The Emperor announced during the IGHQ Liaison meeting of the 15th that Admiral Okada Keisuke would be stepping down. The Admiral had intended to retire after the February of '36 coup attempt, however the Emperor had imposed on him to remain in office for the sake of stability and counter-balance to the Army/Navy factions, it was the Admiral who engineered the military restructuring in the Emperor's name.

Okada had come to realize that the post-coup restructuring plan was not working as intended, as successful as the China War had been, it had been brought on by politically renegade policies enacted unilaterally by the Army, and the ongoing POL shortages were beginning to cause people to question the cost of the adventure.

The Admiral did not feel up to the task of wrangling the consolidated powers back from the two military branches. Okada was also at a loss as to how the ongoing POL crisis was going to get resolved, as foreign governments were no longer as open to trading oil products with the heightened tensions in Europe and the fall out from the China War on Japan's foreign relations was settling in.

He was aware that General Hayashi Senjuro had expressed similar thoughts on the military restructuring in the Liaison Meetings and was well connected with the Sumitomo zaibatsu, which was not affiliated strongly with the military as the Mitsui and Mitsubishi groups were, approached him on the subject.

The two officers decided that the Army required more political oversight, and new blood needed to be brought to the top. This would require cleaving the Chief of Army General Staff position from the Ministry position, and if the Army was thus politically weakened the Navy would of necessity be done likewise to prevent an Army coup.

It was decided that the General would become Prime Minister, replacing Okada, and this relatively younger and more vigorous man would enforce the required changes, publicly endorsed by the outgoing Prime Minister, an Admiral, and incoming Prime Minister, a General.

On the foreign front it was hoped that the appointment of General Hayashi would signal a change in policy and the opening of doors which had been closed on Japan during the China venture.

A change in occupation policy was also to be announced, albeit it was too late in some respects, and LGEN Kesago Nakajima would replace the harsher Baba Eiichi.

The Emperor endorsed the change of government, after which Okada stepped down and Hayashi took the reigns of government. Hayashi had already insured that he had added two cabinet officers who were Sumitomo zaibatsu men asides from the Armaments minister already in place.



Around midnight of the 20th, the new foreign minister Abe, was happy to report that the "Old Dragon" of Yunnan agreed to join the Axis, and the western marches of the Empire were felt secure.

Dewirix said:

Excellent work in bringing the Chinese down in under a year!

What are your plans for improving the supply situation - oil and rares suggest a historical attack to the south east to secure the Dutch East Indies and Burma/Malay(si)a.

Click to expand...

That was what i was thinking, but unfolding world events took a hand in the matter as well.

Revolting Development

In the North China (Shanxi) occupied area the communist remnants caused a good deal of unrest on the west side of the Yellow river. While the Cavalry Corps quickly dealt with the situation, it was clear that additional policing was required in the newly acquired territories.



The answer came in the form of "special police" paramilitary units, incorporating reliable Japanese military police cadres with cooperation-minded ethnic Chinese, Korean, and Manchurian volunteers. Four special police divisions were ordered formed for service in North China.



On the last day of May the new government decided to take control and consolidate some key subsidiary military-use companies, mostly from lesser zaibatsu, but some Mitsui and Mitsubishi subsidiaries also.

War in the West

On the 24th of August, Nineteen-hundred and thirty-nine the German government demanded the Danzig corridor from Poland. The Polish refused and a state of war then existed between the two countries, after an ignored ultimatum from the UK and France, these self-styled "Allies" were all at war with Germany.

The buildup that Baron Nishi had been made aware of earlier in the year appeared to have had a purpose.



There had been virtually no warning for the French, they had not mobilized their forces for war and stretches of their vaunted Maginot Line were occupied with caretaker forces which were easily overrun.



Reports had also came from the frozen wastes of Finland that skirmishes were occurring between the Finnish and the Soviets.



While Japan had not taken any concrete diplomatic stand on the events in the West as yet, and certainly was not looking to start a fight with the Royal Navy with the POL situation as it was and most of the IJN effectively confined to port...the UK went ahead and issued a blanket embargo on the Axis, including Japan.

Germany Marches On

Germany was relentlessly pushing the Poles back on their capital in the first week of September. Poland followed the British example and embargoed Japan, an empty gesture on their part.



A few days later the South Africans followed suit, which was more important than the empty Polish edict, since Japan received a number of rare materials from them.



In the frozen north the Finnish and Soviets were engaged in a fairly extensive fight.



The two German fronts were showing great progress by the Wehrmacht.





Mid-month, France also embargoed Japan without provocation. Once again an actual trading partner had caused the Japanese resource situation to worsen.



The Polish front was progressing nicely for the Germans.



While the border conflict between the Finns and Soviets appeared to be over with some territorial concessions.



The fighting in Alsace and Lorraine was back and forth, while in the east the Poles were forced to hold a long salient with Warsaw at it's tip.





As the last week of September came around the strategic consequence of France's unpreparedness for war and the unmanned Maginot Line was becoming apparent with a large German salient formed in Alsace-Lorraine.



Major combat in Poland ceased on the 26th, at which time a secret arrangement with the Soviets created a partition of the defunct state.



With the fortunes of the Axis seemingly unbeatable, Hungary felt itself safe enough to join the alliance and declare common cause with Germany in their war.



In France the war continued...

European War comes to Asia

While the war in France continued on...



Two Asian countries decided to take a hand. The "Old Dragon" of Yunnan and the ostensible Japanese Guangxi "puppet" chose this time to attempt to gain territory at the expense of the colonial powers while their attention was diverted to Europe and the German menace.

Guangxi moved on the long-time British territory of Hong Kong and the French Indochinese territory. The UK countered with a landing on the former SLF enclave on the Leting Peninsula.



While the forces of Yunnan had made some small gains on their southern border at the expense of the UK and France, the British India Army made a serious incursion into northern Yunnan, prompting calls for help from the "Old Dragon" to their Axis allies. The IGHQ advised the Emperor that nothing more than a note of displeasure should be sent at this point, Japan would likely have to join the war soon...but should do so on their terms, not because of the strategic short-sightedness of an ally who did not understand their own purpose in Japan's grand scheme.



In Guangxi and Indochina the British lost their expedition on the Leting peninsula and the southern warlords were shifting forces towards a big Indochina push.



In Yunnan the sage advise of the IGHQ seemed vindicated in the general pull back by the Army of India and the gathering strength of the Yunnan Army.



In Europe, Germany had invaded Denmark and their Western Front in France had stalled.






IGHQ had arrived at a consensus that war with the Allies was unavoidable at this point and ordered plans to be drawn up for action in November.

Total War

The first week of November saw the capitulation of Denmark to Germany.



The front in France was relatively static, but the Germans were generally moving forward.



In Japan, the 2nd Army was embarked aboard transports, their destination was Taiwan.



Once in Taiwan the 7th (Mountain) Corps from the Shanghai landings during the China War was combat loaded onto transports.



Midnight, the 19th of November, the Empire of Japan declared war on the Allies...the 7th Corps was already in their landing boats and began moving in on the beaches of Brunei in North Borneo.



Landings successfully executed the corps beachhead was set upon by the British defenders.



The first clash of arms between the British and Japanese were harshly handled by the seasoned IJA mountaineers.



Another landing was made in French Indochina along the beaches of Cam Ran Bay.



Back in Japan a war naval building program was put into effect, with a whole slew of modern destroyers and much needed cargo ships ordered built.

Winterkrieg

Progression of the German "Winterkrieg" in France of December 1939...









The Italians joined the fight and crossed the frontier into Egypt.

South China Sea operations, December 1st to 18th, 1939

The third prong of the South China Sea operations was the landing of the 5th Corps behind Singapore in British Malaysia. So far all landings had been unopposed in North Borneo and Indochina, and the landings in Malaysia were technically not opposed, however a French troop convoy happened to blunder into the Assault Force 1 group as it was finishing its landings, the French transports escaped but at the cost of their escort, the Pluton.



5th Corps was probed by the Singapore garrison, but this was easily rebuffed after which the British were content to sit in their island defenses.



The overall South China Sea picture looked like this with the three landings and the exploitations of each well underway.



December 7th, 1939 the 5th Corps began the investment of Singapore.



Sinkiang was announced as a member of the Comintern on the 9th.



The early hours of the 10th brought the collapse of Singapore's defenses.



The IGHQ Liaison meeting of December called for a corps of special purpose amphibious landing troops to be raised, the requirement for such troops seemed to be a given with the oceanic nature of Japan's empire.



Along the Saigon river in Indochina, the city of Saigon fell to the Japanese on the 12th, but further up river there was determined resistance from French colonial troops.



By the 18th, with the supporting column coming on the west bank of the Saigon river the French forces were forced to retreat to the Mekong.

Sunk Ships List