Chapter 7: Japan Has Declined
June 20th,1939 - December 31st,1939
By the time of the summer solstice,1939,the National Revolutionary Army had the strategic initiative, it had continued to gain steam in it's advance with the Japanese army already losing upwards of a few dozen divisions during the Manchurian offensive and the clean-up operations, however the Dalian pocket continued to hold out, with more reinforcements in the form of Infantry,Mountain and Marine divisions,but even they were getting worn down due to attrition and lack of supply... however they tried once again to land divisions to attack our armies and their reinforcements on their flanks, first in the west then in the east,they were systematically destroyed with our replenished forces, we haven't ran into severe supply issues for the most part, maybe it's due to many of our corp commanders being so-called logistical wizards...
They're getting ahead of themselves!
If we destroy these before they're evacuated,they can't be used in Korea.
Our air forces and intelligence networks report a Japanese fleet reinforcing Dalian to support the defense with naval bombardment,the Japanese have already evacuated most of their air forces for the area, with most support coming from carrier air wings and medium bombers based offshore and in Korea,we decide to sortie out with Li Shijias 13 cruiser-strong fleet,the result shocked the world, and especially the parties involved in the skirmish, in the week that followed 25 upgunned third-generation light cruisers were laid down, but only around half of these were worked on at any due time, due to resources still being devoted to Infrastructure and 4 Capital ship keels.
First Naval sortie of the war.
We drew First Blood.
Cruisers: Made in China
With the remaining Kwantung Army units retreating into Korea after being battered and broken by the endless Chinese hordes which had sent so many of their other countrymen to their doom, without thought given to form any kind of organized battleplan, since there was no need with the massive opening in the northernmost part of Korea,we wanted to get there before the Japs could bring whatever they had left that wasn't in Dalian or on the western front with Korea, we especially wanted to shut down that extremely annoying airbase at Pungsan and maybe use it for ourselves for a change,speaking of aircraft,our agents in England discovered the secrets of Carrier-based air wings, seeing as how we had no close air support or naval bombers yet, much less carriers, we decided not to build any and focus on our battlefleet.
The path to Korea is wide open.
But can China Carrier?
As our researchers report advances on new support weapons for our Infantry, Mountaineers and Marines, news comes in that shocked the world, the Nazis and the Soviets have signed a Non-aggression pact, and as rumor has it, have agreed to divide Eastern Europe into their own respective spheres of influence,a few hours later, reports come in that the Wehrmacht have begun to mobilize their reserves and the Poles report German armies massing on their borders, some in the upper circles of the Kuomintang wonder if there's anything pertaining to Eastern Asia in their agreement, more start to question the wisdom of being aligned closely with Germany at this point, even Chiang starts to fear that the British will aid Japan to keep China from swarming her possessions in Asia due to China being perceived as a Pro-Nazi state.
The rumbling war clouds across the world continues to grow louder...
The day after,Li Shijia intercepts a Japanese transport fleet sailing to Dalian in a attempt reinforce it with fresh troops and/or possibly evacuate the units that have reached their breaking point,in the ensuing battle 1 light cruiser,1 landing craft and 1 transport are sunk,in the meantime the offensive in Korea is gaining pace,the Japanese managed to scrape together approximately 10 extra divisions in an attempt to seal the gap in the north,but against the entire army coming across the Yalu,they're little more than road bumps, with 2 Marine divisions getting trapped between advancing Chinese columns after being forced out of their initial defensive positions, the end result was all but guaranteed, continuing his patrols,Li Shijia encounters Japanese cruisers a couple levels above his own,the Japanese gain venegance for their earlier humiliations and the fleet is put out of action for a few weeks, in turn, we lay down 4 second-generation Heavy cruisers, to be worked on after our first sets of Infrastructure are done in early October.
Dalian's time is running out.
All the Japanese can do is retreat.
Oh and they have that navy too,Li Shijia has his work cut out for him...
More cruisers,for every one they sink we'll build more to take their place!
On September 1st,1939, Germany invaded Poland after their refusal to hand over Danzig and the Polish Corridor to Germany, German frustration resulted in a staged incident near their border making it look like the Poles attacked first, but the United States knew better than that, as the British and French actually honored their agreements this time around, Germany finds itself at war with the latter 2 powers, but they fail to live up to Polish expectations,on the 22nd the Polish government flees to exile in London, the day after we decide to pursue a foreign policy independent of Germany's, with Zhang Zun being sacked in favor of Wang Jingwei, perhaps he'll be a good enough suckup to Stalin that he won't try to Sovietize China... on a side note, shortly after the Germans finish Poland, they punch through the Maginot line... what a great investment of nearly all of France's Interwar military budget!
In A.D. 1939 War was beginning.
We decided to stop associating ourselves with that madman Hitler, the Nazi's make even the Kuomintang look soft! We never hover far from their corner however, British influence seems to be waning at best,and the Reds have made no such overtures as of yet.
Frances forces are already smaller then the Germans after blatantly violating the Versailles Treaty for 6 years, but Germany also went to war earlier than what many German Generals would have wanted (loan officer von Falkenhausen happens to be part of this school of thought) only time will tell how long France can hold.
While all these going-ons were taking place in Europe and the Chinese Goverment, the campaign in Korea was making great progress, by September 6th we're already on the outskirts of Seoul,a few days later,despite attempts at evacaution by the Imperial Navy, the Dalian pocket has for the most part been destroyed,freeing resources that could have otherwise been used in the rest of Manchuria and Korea,even so,the fact that we're even pushing the Japanese off the continent was something unto itself,the Chinese by this point had absolute numerical superiority over whatever the Japanese could muster and scrape together,and with modern doctrines and nearly up-to-date weapons in addition to the wealth of experience gained during the Civil war and Manchurian offensive,the Chinese Army was confident of eventual victory, on the 8th of October the last push south begins,with the Japanese simply unable to fill all the gaps in the lines,they were quickly brushed aside by the Chinese horde, by the 27th of October Pusan had fallen and the remaining Japanese army,cut off from reinforcements from Saishu island and battered and beaten from all sides, start laying down their arms in larger numbers than before,surprising many in Tokyo and Nanjing alike.
Despite their defiant counterattacks,they are only meant to be sacrificed to buy time...
Time to get boxed in that is.
Japan has finally been kicked off the mainland,even with all the world's eyes focused on Europe, many still take note of the shifting balance of power in East Asia.
In spite of their catastrophic defeat however,they still refuse to give up,in an attempt to either force us to ditch Korea or simply as a last-resort propaganda coup to silence the growing number of pro-democratic protesters in the streets,the Japanese stage a landing just east of Qingdao, forcing our fleet and air wings to sortie out to stop the landing, but as the fleet happened to be led by the Battleship Mutsu, our fleet ends up losing 2 light cruisers and one of the ancient destroyer flotillas,in return for sending the heavy cruiser Asama to the bottom,with our interception attempt having failed,we move our garrisons in Qingdao and Weihai to the landing beaches, where they managed to repulse the sole Marine division that was invading,at the same time we send our forces across the Tsushima strait to raid Saishu Island,despite us having managed wipe out it's defenders due to the fact that the submarine base couldn't funnel in enough supplies to support both the subs and garrisons stationed there, we are unable to take the Island due to interference by IJN patrols,when things start to finally quiet down, our agents in Japan get us some rather interesting numbers about the state of the Imperial Army...
Maybe we should give our pilots more hours in flying school after the war is over, since they couldn't hit a Pagoda even if they were flying straight into it, as a result our navy pays the price.
At least they died for good ol Showa/Hirohito
The rest of the year turned out to be a quiet time for China,giving our men much desired R&R, not so much of either for Finland though, when the Soviets attacked them on November 30th over their refusal to hand over Karelia over to the Soviet Union, despite going up against the full might of the Bear, the Finns managed not to get overrun initially, with limited and reluctant Swedish aid going to Finland shortly after the war begins.
"They better not be planning to reinstall Sheng Shicai in Sinkiang..." That's all Chiang had to say on the matter,despite the fact that China would be ill prepared for such an assault due to the lack of Anti-tank and Motorized forces of her own,the sooner Japan falls,the sooner we can fix these issues and deal with the Bolshevists in due time...
June 20th,1939 - December 31st,1939
By the time of the summer solstice,1939,the National Revolutionary Army had the strategic initiative, it had continued to gain steam in it's advance with the Japanese army already losing upwards of a few dozen divisions during the Manchurian offensive and the clean-up operations, however the Dalian pocket continued to hold out, with more reinforcements in the form of Infantry,Mountain and Marine divisions,but even they were getting worn down due to attrition and lack of supply... however they tried once again to land divisions to attack our armies and their reinforcements on their flanks, first in the west then in the east,they were systematically destroyed with our replenished forces, we haven't ran into severe supply issues for the most part, maybe it's due to many of our corp commanders being so-called logistical wizards...
They're getting ahead of themselves!
If we destroy these before they're evacuated,they can't be used in Korea.
Our air forces and intelligence networks report a Japanese fleet reinforcing Dalian to support the defense with naval bombardment,the Japanese have already evacuated most of their air forces for the area, with most support coming from carrier air wings and medium bombers based offshore and in Korea,we decide to sortie out with Li Shijias 13 cruiser-strong fleet,the result shocked the world, and especially the parties involved in the skirmish, in the week that followed 25 upgunned third-generation light cruisers were laid down, but only around half of these were worked on at any due time, due to resources still being devoted to Infrastructure and 4 Capital ship keels.
First Naval sortie of the war.
We drew First Blood.
Cruisers: Made in China
With the remaining Kwantung Army units retreating into Korea after being battered and broken by the endless Chinese hordes which had sent so many of their other countrymen to their doom, without thought given to form any kind of organized battleplan, since there was no need with the massive opening in the northernmost part of Korea,we wanted to get there before the Japs could bring whatever they had left that wasn't in Dalian or on the western front with Korea, we especially wanted to shut down that extremely annoying airbase at Pungsan and maybe use it for ourselves for a change,speaking of aircraft,our agents in England discovered the secrets of Carrier-based air wings, seeing as how we had no close air support or naval bombers yet, much less carriers, we decided not to build any and focus on our battlefleet.
The path to Korea is wide open.
But can China Carrier?
As our researchers report advances on new support weapons for our Infantry, Mountaineers and Marines, news comes in that shocked the world, the Nazis and the Soviets have signed a Non-aggression pact, and as rumor has it, have agreed to divide Eastern Europe into their own respective spheres of influence,a few hours later, reports come in that the Wehrmacht have begun to mobilize their reserves and the Poles report German armies massing on their borders, some in the upper circles of the Kuomintang wonder if there's anything pertaining to Eastern Asia in their agreement, more start to question the wisdom of being aligned closely with Germany at this point, even Chiang starts to fear that the British will aid Japan to keep China from swarming her possessions in Asia due to China being perceived as a Pro-Nazi state.
The rumbling war clouds across the world continues to grow louder...
The day after,Li Shijia intercepts a Japanese transport fleet sailing to Dalian in a attempt reinforce it with fresh troops and/or possibly evacuate the units that have reached their breaking point,in the ensuing battle 1 light cruiser,1 landing craft and 1 transport are sunk,in the meantime the offensive in Korea is gaining pace,the Japanese managed to scrape together approximately 10 extra divisions in an attempt to seal the gap in the north,but against the entire army coming across the Yalu,they're little more than road bumps, with 2 Marine divisions getting trapped between advancing Chinese columns after being forced out of their initial defensive positions, the end result was all but guaranteed, continuing his patrols,Li Shijia encounters Japanese cruisers a couple levels above his own,the Japanese gain venegance for their earlier humiliations and the fleet is put out of action for a few weeks, in turn, we lay down 4 second-generation Heavy cruisers, to be worked on after our first sets of Infrastructure are done in early October.
Dalian's time is running out.
All the Japanese can do is retreat.
Oh and they have that navy too,Li Shijia has his work cut out for him...
More cruisers,for every one they sink we'll build more to take their place!
On September 1st,1939, Germany invaded Poland after their refusal to hand over Danzig and the Polish Corridor to Germany, German frustration resulted in a staged incident near their border making it look like the Poles attacked first, but the United States knew better than that, as the British and French actually honored their agreements this time around, Germany finds itself at war with the latter 2 powers, but they fail to live up to Polish expectations,on the 22nd the Polish government flees to exile in London, the day after we decide to pursue a foreign policy independent of Germany's, with Zhang Zun being sacked in favor of Wang Jingwei, perhaps he'll be a good enough suckup to Stalin that he won't try to Sovietize China... on a side note, shortly after the Germans finish Poland, they punch through the Maginot line... what a great investment of nearly all of France's Interwar military budget!
In A.D. 1939 War was beginning.
We decided to stop associating ourselves with that madman Hitler, the Nazi's make even the Kuomintang look soft! We never hover far from their corner however, British influence seems to be waning at best,and the Reds have made no such overtures as of yet.
Frances forces are already smaller then the Germans after blatantly violating the Versailles Treaty for 6 years, but Germany also went to war earlier than what many German Generals would have wanted (loan officer von Falkenhausen happens to be part of this school of thought) only time will tell how long France can hold.
While all these going-ons were taking place in Europe and the Chinese Goverment, the campaign in Korea was making great progress, by September 6th we're already on the outskirts of Seoul,a few days later,despite attempts at evacaution by the Imperial Navy, the Dalian pocket has for the most part been destroyed,freeing resources that could have otherwise been used in the rest of Manchuria and Korea,even so,the fact that we're even pushing the Japanese off the continent was something unto itself,the Chinese by this point had absolute numerical superiority over whatever the Japanese could muster and scrape together,and with modern doctrines and nearly up-to-date weapons in addition to the wealth of experience gained during the Civil war and Manchurian offensive,the Chinese Army was confident of eventual victory, on the 8th of October the last push south begins,with the Japanese simply unable to fill all the gaps in the lines,they were quickly brushed aside by the Chinese horde, by the 27th of October Pusan had fallen and the remaining Japanese army,cut off from reinforcements from Saishu island and battered and beaten from all sides, start laying down their arms in larger numbers than before,surprising many in Tokyo and Nanjing alike.
Despite their defiant counterattacks,they are only meant to be sacrificed to buy time...
Time to get boxed in that is.
Japan has finally been kicked off the mainland,even with all the world's eyes focused on Europe, many still take note of the shifting balance of power in East Asia.
In spite of their catastrophic defeat however,they still refuse to give up,in an attempt to either force us to ditch Korea or simply as a last-resort propaganda coup to silence the growing number of pro-democratic protesters in the streets,the Japanese stage a landing just east of Qingdao, forcing our fleet and air wings to sortie out to stop the landing, but as the fleet happened to be led by the Battleship Mutsu, our fleet ends up losing 2 light cruisers and one of the ancient destroyer flotillas,in return for sending the heavy cruiser Asama to the bottom,with our interception attempt having failed,we move our garrisons in Qingdao and Weihai to the landing beaches, where they managed to repulse the sole Marine division that was invading,at the same time we send our forces across the Tsushima strait to raid Saishu Island,despite us having managed wipe out it's defenders due to the fact that the submarine base couldn't funnel in enough supplies to support both the subs and garrisons stationed there, we are unable to take the Island due to interference by IJN patrols,when things start to finally quiet down, our agents in Japan get us some rather interesting numbers about the state of the Imperial Army...
Maybe we should give our pilots more hours in flying school after the war is over, since they couldn't hit a Pagoda even if they were flying straight into it, as a result our navy pays the price.
At least they died for good ol Showa/Hirohito
The rest of the year turned out to be a quiet time for China,giving our men much desired R&R, not so much of either for Finland though, when the Soviets attacked them on November 30th over their refusal to hand over Karelia over to the Soviet Union, despite going up against the full might of the Bear, the Finns managed not to get overrun initially, with limited and reluctant Swedish aid going to Finland shortly after the war begins.
"They better not be planning to reinstall Sheng Shicai in Sinkiang..." That's all Chiang had to say on the matter,despite the fact that China would be ill prepared for such an assault due to the lack of Anti-tank and Motorized forces of her own,the sooner Japan falls,the sooner we can fix these issues and deal with the Bolshevists in due time...
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