Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

China and Korea 1914-1936

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
ozman2

ozman2

General
4 Badges
Nov 30, 2005
1.843
1
  • Arsenal of Democracy
  • 500k Club
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Expansion Pass
As I think The Darkest Hour would be incomplete without some China and Korea events, I'd like to know what the team has accomplished in this area and what they still need help in.
For one thing I think at least two additional tags are required:
1) Beiyang China--the original Chinese republic before the GMD took over in the Northern Expedition.
2) Fengtian Clique--one of the most powerful warlords up to 1931.

What historical events have been covered by events?

I'd like to offer assistance.
 
I'll put some of the easy stuff in this post, and submit the rest later by email.
1) Beiyang China (not Nationalist China--they came later) should start in 1914 with the entire former Qing empire, except for Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang, and Shandong which is Japanese occupied. The warlord era started after Yuan Shikai died in 1916. It's actually complex, so that's all I'll say for now.
2) Korea had a March 1, 1919 revolt at which time they demanded independence. Of course there should be the (unlikely) choice for Japan to accept this (would be South Korea under Syngman Rhee--Kim Il Sung was not in the picture)
3) The Korean provinces SHOULD NOT BE CORES of Japan until some time between 1931 and 1936--I would say only after the invasion of Manchuria. There was considerable opposition to Japanese rule in the 1920s to early 30s, including an assassination attempt on Hirohito in 1932--the would be successor was I believe even more militaristic, though, and if the assassination succeeds--the effects of the alternate option to the 2-26 incident should occur then and the event should be slept.
4) However, I've disagreed with the fact that Taiwan is never cored to Japan even though the islanders actually liked the Japanese. I frankly believe they should be cored to Japan at the start of the scenario.

More details by email.
 
Last edited:
Akaki,
Have patience! Partly this should rightfully be the project manager's decision as to the level of complexity desired for China events. I favor just hitting the main points, but there are actually several options. I'll first submit names of cliques, potential flags and important people by email, get project manager recommendations, and then I'll complete my stuff. After that there are several other people I'd recommend consulting, such as Porkman, for review. MIB would be welcome too if he's still active.
 
Good points Nomonhan, but I don't think that Shandong should be Japanese in 1914. As far as I know, Shandong in 1914 had two foreign colonies in it: the British-leased port of Weihai (Weihaiwei) and the German fortress-colony at Qingdao (Tsingdao). The rest of the peninsula was a German area of influence, with German-operated mines and the like. It was only after Tsingdao was captured by an Anglo-Japanese force in 1914, and the British then withdrew from Weihai, that Anglo-German influence was removed from the area. Although the Japanese tried to hold on to Shandong province after the war, they eventually handed it over to the Zhili Warlord Clique in 1922, so the area was never really a proper Japanese colony.
 
Last edited:
Yeah I meant to say that it was German in 1914, and captured by the Japanese in WW1. At the time, Britain and Japan were military allies.
 
I'd also like to point out some inaccuracies in 1936 and onwards China.

On this screenshot:
http://www.moddb.com/games/darkest-hour/images/darkest-hour-screenshot112#imagebox

I've spotted a lot of inaccuracies in terms of control of provinces. I've been doing research on this for HOI3: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?488230-Shanxi-borders
This is already pretty outdated, I've discovered much more details since then. So, what's wrong about your version of China (if that screenshot is still representative of 1936 China)?
I've made changes to the screenshot to show how it should be changed (the dot color indicates which country it should go to):



For the explanation:

China had a lot more cliques and autonomous provinces than HOI has every showed. There was a clique in Xikang, one in Guangdong and one in Shandong. Mengjiang/Mengkukuo was already autonomous from the ROC and in East Hopei was a Jap puppet. For playabilities sake I've amalgated these into other cliques. Guangdong can stay part of Guangxi. Xikang becomes part of Yunnan. Shandong becomes part of Nat China. Mengkukuo and East Hopei are Japanese provinces.

Also the sizes of some of of the countries are too big or too small. Xibei San Ma gets another province from Nat China. Comm China loses all but two provinces (only it's remoteness and the turmoil in Nat China saved it). Shanxi loses almost all of its provinces to Nat China (Shanxi is only the province of the same name at this point, after their loss in the Central Plains War). Yunnan gets the Xikang provinces. Mengkukuo is also only one province big (Nat China controls the rest). Manchukuo gets one more province so that the Japanese only control the border provinces.

Of all these changes, the changes to Nat China are the most important. It gives Nat China the ability to defend itself in the north, instead of relying on Shanxi.
 
Last edited:
I'd say that overall you're technically correct but there may be some gameplay issues, especially concerning Communist China. I'd say Communist China needs at least three provinces, because if they have only two and you take one, they become too easy to take out. Communist China is somewhat inflated to make it difficult to destroy, because if you take the historical forces Nationalist China could have easily crushed them. They did not do so because of political divisions. The Western China changes are correct IMO. With regard to Shanxi, I'd say cede the southeast to Nationalist China but not the north. They did not have effective control over people like Yang Hucheng--that was the reason for the Xian incident. The northern areas were effectively outside government control, even though they were not part of Shanxi province. In fact in 1932-33 they were actually under the effective control of the Guominjun clique, with unauthorized resistance to the Japanese led by Feng Yuxiang and his allies. Chiang Kai Shek actually tried to crush this resistance because he learned that many of the people in it had communist sympathies. Yang Hucheng was in fact made commander of the Northwest Army but he had secret Communist sympathies (his wife was a Communist!) so the area is best represented as Shanxi. In 1936 northern China was effectively controlled by three people not especially loyal to Chiang--Yan Xishan, Yang Hucheng, and Zhang Xueliang.
 
Last edited:
From the Shanxi borders thread:

CaptRobau said:
1. The Sichuan Clique was limited to the Chinese part of Xikang Province. Sichuan was already in the KMT camp by 1936.
2. Xibei San Ma controlled part of Sinkiang. Tunganistan as you mentioned above was controlled by a KMT general of the Ma Clique. The southern oases were definately under their control. Especially if you consider that the Ma's fought battles in that part of Sinkiang during the 30s.
3. The Xinjiang War was a revolt by Chinese Muslims, who had years earlier tried to set up East Turkestan. In '37 they rebelled in Kashgar and they conspired with Ma Hushan to allow a pro-KMT Muslim administration to take over Sinkiang. An East Turkestan country would make more sense than a Tunganistan one.
4. Sheng Shicai, leader of Sinkiang only controlled all of the province after he beat the Ma's in the '37 war. It'd be hard to simulate this if the Soviets and Nat China actively participates in the war. A local war between Xibei San Ma, East Turkestan on one side and Sinkiang on the other would make more sense. Events could simulate the Soviet aid to Shicai.
Click to expand...

I.e., in 1936 Xibei San Ma would have the two border provinces from Sinkiang and the oval province bordering those provinces (behind that river).

Regarding Shanxi, I haven't seen any evidence that those Shanxi leaders you mentioned had much influence outside of Shanxi province. Maybe they had some influence in Chahar I will agree that making the Communists too realistic will end in their demise. They only had about two or three full divisions worth of men at the start of the 1936 scenario, so they need to be beefed a bit.

A possible compromise would be to give Shanxi control of Suiyuan. The Shanxi forces fought a lot in that area against the Mongols (Manchukuo) and Japanese. Nat. China will keep the area of Bejiing so that they can decide where to make the stand (Shanghai or Beijing). As far as I know, while the commanders there were not core-KMTers (switched sides during the 1930s) they were still more KMT than Shanxi. With this solution, Communist China only borders Nat China on one province on the other side of a river. The two province setup also gives a more concentrated force for the Communists than 4 (which means a more realistic Communist force) and three river borders. Shanxi nor Xibei San Ma should be at war with the KMT. I wouldn't even make them allies with Nat China.

Nat China should be able to wipe out the commies if they dedicate all their forces but they should be too concerned with Japan, dissent and Guangdong/Guangxi (see Chen Jitang and Hu Hanmin) to really do that without losing somewhere else.
 
Actually the Communist China setup at the start is right on the money and only includes the three provinces they always had in vanilla. The reason it shows 4 in your map is that your shot is taken in March, not Jan 1, 1936. It is normal for the Commies to pluck off a province or so, until the Xian incident fires. Definitely Shanxi, not Japan should have Xining and Huahaote. I'd say give the 6 far southeastern provinces of Shanxi to Nationalist China, give the 3 provinces to Yunnan indicated (Sichuan warlords were not 100% under control yet - only became fully under Nationalist China jurisdiction when Liu Xiang sacrificed his life to the Japanese) and the one Nationalist China province you indicated should be changed from Nationalist China to Xibei San Ma. Xinjiang should be IMO left alone. Xinjiang was indeed contested until about April 1937 but should stay as is until the event support is written.

The rest of Shanxi is something I'd like to have more debate on before changing. The Japanese should normally be able to chew their way through the northern region and keeping it as Shanxi is a good way to accomplish this.
Whatever we do I'd like this to still be possible:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-Guangxi-Clique-Attempt-at-Chinese-Domination
 
Yes of course not. That tag will be used double duty, since Wang Jingwei was head of both--the leftist Wuhan government and the rightist Japanese puppet. One of the challenges will be to get a large set of credible military leaders. There are only 40 or so who have been documented to serve that regime, but www.generals.dk lists over 2000 Chinese generals, so it should be possible to construct a set out of the lesser known names. After having read the bios of the ones listed, I'm now convinced that a) none of them would have served the Japanese and b) the Japanese would have not trusted them anyway. On the other hand, by the end of the war, the Chinese puppet army was actually larger than the invading Japanese army--so they would have had generals, we just don't know who they would be.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back