China Rules the Seas
A Chinese Naval AAR
Operation Fading Sun: Part 1
In the 1930's, there was never any permanent peace in fractured China. On June 11, 1937, Nationalist forces under Field Marshal Feng Yuxiang seized Communist-controlled Beiping and Tianjin. Though they were soon forced out by the superior Red Army, a Japanese soldier went missing during the battle, causing the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The Japanese demanded that they be allowed to enter Beiping to search for the missing soldier. Chairman Mao Zedong, commander of the Red Army divisions stationed in Beiping, refused, and a battle between the Red Army and the Imperial Japanese Army broke out on the Marco Polo Bridge. While the Red Army forced the Japanese back, and returned the missing soldier, the Japanese used the Marco Polo Bridge Incident as an excuse for a declaration of war on China.
The Kuomintang government in Nanjing responded by breaking off all relations with Japan, and transferred all industry in China to the interior, in case of a Japanese penetration into the industry of China. However, Communist forces refused to allow the transfer of any of the industry of the provinces of Shanxi or Shaanxi (or, rather, I commented out the lines that would do that in the event so I wouldn't lose a tech slot).
The Japanese declaration of war did much to help the Communist cause, and produced an influx of new volunteers skilled in mountain climbing:
These mountaineers, along with the mountaineers that had previously defended Kalgan, were moved to the mountainous province of Datong, as part of phase 1 of Operation Fading Sun.
The Japanese forces were also allowed to take the province of Tianjin. The abandonment of both these provinces as part of Operation Fading Sun was used to wear down the Japanese Army by forcing them to retreat as they entered the province, retaking it, and then immediately retreating to lower the infrastructure of the province, seriously hurting the Japanese supply efficiency.
At the same time, the Nationalists proposed an alliance with the Communists, in order to defeat the common Japanese enemy. Chairman Mao made a speech regarding this proposal to the assembly on June 17:
Chairman Mao said:
As much as it pains me to admit it, our glorious Red Army is simply not capable of defeating the inferior Japanese Army on its own. Therefore, we must accept any help that we can get, even if it is from our enemies. So we must accept this Unified Front for now, but once the Japanese Fascist enemies of the People are defeated, then we can destroy the corrupt Nationalists.
On July 4, Nationalist forces entered Communist territory, and despite their inferiority to the Red Army (and the Red Army's doctrinal inferiority to the Japanese Army), did much to help hold the line against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Operation Fading Sun tactic of wearing down the Japanese by counterattacking continued:
Unfortunately, this also took a toll on the leadership of the Red Army:
Eventually, when the Japanese Army seemed to be weakening, an attack was made on the territory of Chengde:
This attack was repelled after the Red Army took Chengde, but, further south, things looked bad: