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trekaddict

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Jul 1, 2007
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So then. After my very very emberassing failure of my last AAR ( *tries to melt into floor * ) :eek:o I've decided to give it another try. I hereby swear by all the Suns of Vulcan that this AAR will be finished, no matter what.


HOI2 DDA, normal/agressive, mods: SKIF, some minor graphics mods, maybe some events.


800px-Naval_Ensign_of_Japansvg.png




After the end of the Great War Japan was a nation at a crossroad: It had been victorious against the Central Powers, was closely allied to the Entente and had gained various colonies all throughout the Pacific. Yet the nation was not sure where to go. The Military was growing more belligerent by the week, and the frail democracy of Japan was establishing never really got off the Ground. Emporer Taishō realized that this road would spell doom for Japan in the long run. In an imesurable breach of Tradition he adressed the Japanese nation on January 36, 1925, and announced a drastic reform of the Japanese Gouvernemental system. What had remained of the frail democracy was swept away, the Emporer would once more directly rule the Japanese Empire, like before the Mejji restoration. The Army, who had been plotting to become the predominant power in the State was not exactly pleased by this developement, but did nothing. Despite Japans long history of political assasinations a direct attack on the Emporer was something so unimaginable that it wasn't even rempotely considered. Taishō died in 1926. Hirohito, his son, took the throne only a day after his fathers death. His ascencion to the throne marked the end of the "2nd restoration". Taishō had not only reinstated the feudalism in Japan, but he ahd also tried to dial back on what he called "western decadence" and had moved towards making Japan a 16th century nation in the 20th. Hirohito, although weaker than his father ended that. The Japanese Navy, Army and the under his rule established independent Imperial Japanese Air Force once again recieved all the funding they had been screaming fore since the end of the great war. Hirohito knew that Japans industry, hit hard by the great depression could not exist without more resources. The western Powers however, growing suspicious of Japans Imperial Ambitions refused to sell the much-needed raw materials to Japan, and so Hirohito, who knew that Japan was not yet ready for war against the three most powerful nations on earth, turned his eyes elsewhere: China. In 1932, six years after his crownation, Hirohito ordered the Imperial Japanese Army to move into Manchuria, officially to "protect the manchurian and korean people from the Chaos that reigns in China". The Army established a puppet nation with the former Chinese Emporer Pu Jy as a figurehead. Although Japans immediate problems were now solved the Army grew more and more greedily. The clique in the High Command in Tokio was confident that they could pressure the weak Emporer Hirohito and the rest of the Armed forces into attaking south at the earliest possible date. The plot was uncovered, but the main conspirators could flee, and continued to recruit young officers for their cause, but for the moment the "conflict" between the Emporer and the Army was stalemated. With this instability Japan began the year 1936.


Emperor_Taish.jpg

Emporer Taishō, the father of the second restoration.

Hirohito_in_dress_uniform.jpg

Emporer Hirohito











first update to follow soon.
 
Go Turbo Rangers! Help your emperor achieve victory! Good luck. :p
 
Chapter I


In January 1936 Japan wasn't in the best possible state. Internal strife, especially after the Emporer replaced several ministers on his cabinet and the brooding dissent within the Army wasn't serving to lighten the Emporers mood. The economy was slowly recovering from the very ad hit it had taken during the great depression when Japans already meager foreign trade relations had plummeted into obscurity, but the dissent within the country greatly hampered its efficency.

To combat the threatening economic collapse the Emporer had announced a number of programs, the most prominent beeing the 1935 Naval reorganisation and expansion directive. The directive, issued on December 31st, 1935, directed the IJN to reorganize into several new fleets. The older, great war eara ships would be assigned to home defence. The newer ships, including the IJN most powerfull weapon, the three fleet carriers, were to be reorganized into a new, more powerfull fleet, that would concentrate all the most modern ships and all of the newer vessels. The Japanese Industry was directed to prepare for a massive ammount of new constructions, in total ignorance of the Washington Naval treaty. This earned Japan a sharp rebucke form the League of Nations and diplomatic protest from Washington, but Hirohito ignored those. He knew that the west would not fight. "The Western Nations will not fight, as they fear war. They rather loose face, loose assets and allies than to get into a largescale war."

1tech.png

The Directive was only Naval by name, as it also contained a muchneeded expansion and modernization programme for the Air Force and the Army. The Emporers Aide-de-camp, Lt. General Yamashita, had recently toured Europe, and had been fascinated by the new german Armoured Divisions. Upon his return he spoke to the Emporer about his idea of forming Japanese Armoured Divisions along the lines of the German ones. Hirohito had his doubts, as any largescale war Japan could be in would be fought either in the wooded and mountainious terrain of Manchuria and China or on the Islands of the Pacific. Either terrain did not exactly favour Armoured combat, but Yamashita stayed with his idea. He argued that even a few armoured units could give the IJA a decicive edge of the Chinese, but the argument that finally swayed the Emporer to his side was: "Your Majesty, should we ever have to face the Soviets we will have nothing against their own tanks." Hirohito feared the Russians. Although Japan had beaten them in 1905, the Russian fighting man was almost as good and determined as the Japanese one, and that had given the Japanese some major headaches. The Air Force, still small, but increasing in size each year would also recive new equipment.

The Chinese Situation was much worse. Wher Japan had a stable gouvernement and large and relatively well-equipped armed services, China, once a powerfull Empire and a great Rival for Japan, had literally fallen to bits, with a number of powerful warlords threatening the weak central gouvernement in Nanjing. Its Army, nothing more than a rag-tag band of units scraped together from all over the territory the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Sheck controlled, either directly or by proxy nations. Hirohito had already instructed the IJSP, the Imperial Japanese Secret Police, to infiltrate the Najing clique, in perparation for an eventual Japanese Intervention.

All the work Hirohito was doing was cut short on Febuary 26th.

Young officers from the Kohoda Military Academy did the unthinkable: they couped and thereby openly defied the rule of the Emporer. 1400 men, officers, NCO's and enlisted men, under the leadership of General Kotohito, the IJA Chief of Staff, assasinated several cabinet members and seized key communications. The Emporer, normally a quiet and rather introverted man had the until then only public outburst. Hirohito was personally insulted by this coup d'etat, and immediately ordered the Imperial Guard tu squash the coupers. Most of their scattered holdouts throughout Tokio quickly fell to the Guardsmen, but at the Army Ministry the structure of the terrain and the buildign itself favoured the defenders, and so 356 men, including General Kotohito himself held against all odds.

Image1.jpg

Troops of the Imperial Guards fightin near the Army Ministry

While the bullets hhailed around them, General Kotohito read a declaration that was sent out to the attackign Guards troops via loudspeaker.

Kotohitos speech to the Nation said:
Soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army! The Emporer whom we all love and defend, has been the victim of a dastardly attack! Navy men, who want to take over the reigns in this country have tricked him into attempting to destroy the Army. I was forced to act and have therefore formed a Gouvernement with myiself as its..

His words were cut short when a bullet fired from a M-99 rifle smashed the loudspeaker to pieces. It will be never known what his words were, becuase when the Guards finally took the building three days later, General Kotohito had commited seppuku. ( AN: ritual Japanese suicide, only used by samurais or modern adherents to bushido, also known to us as hara-kiri which is really the civillian form, used by ordinary japanese )

When the purge was over, the almost completely loyal Army almost tripped over its own feet to cleanse itself from the guilt and sahme the 1400 revolters had brought upon them. Several hig-ranked Generals who had had sympathised with the coup also comitted seppuku, and the new Army leadership voluntarily handed over the remaining conspirators before Hirohito could take any measures. At the end of the day after the Army Ministry had been retaken all of the main conspirators had been arrested and handed over to the IJSP.

trial.jpg

After the short trial that sentenced most of the defendandts to death the IJA was in a sorry state. The leadership was badly shaken by the prospect of having lost the faith and the trust of the Emporer. Hirohito however knew that he needed the Army up to speed if he wanted to realize any of the Plans that slumbered in the depths of the Imperial palace and assured the Officers and enlisted men that he still trusted them as the vast majority of the Army had remained loyal the entire time.

The coup was over, and Hirohito, who was supposed to be weakened by it was instead stronger than ever, and, with the help of his new Staff, immediately started plotting. Japans eyes turned hungrily towards its neighbours.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A small and not completely satisfying update ( at least in my opinion ) but the first few months of a Japanese 1936 campaign are pretty boring, and its bloody cold in here. *goes to turn up heat* next update will have more action and quality, promised. bear with me, please.
 
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I've just read through the intro and the first chapter and found a emberrasingly high nmber of spelling mistakes..... :eek:o the next ones will be better, promised.
 
Good luck!

I have never followed a Japanese AAR (have never even played Japan before) so I will follow this with interest.

P.S. You research some later techs awfully early (e.g. basic inf div). Is that really the best way? Can't you handle China with 1936 infantry?

:) Jesper
 
Good Start, ive always wanted to do a Japanese AAR, but have constantly been destracted by my other projects. Hope you don't encounter any technical difficulties in this one. Good Luck!
 
Commander-DK Thank you.


I'm researching them this early because the relatively low IC Japan has at normal doesn't allow me to churn out alarge number of INF Divisions at the start. I need all the advantages I can get.

Gigalocus Thank you. :)

Funkatronica Thanks, I might need it. *thinks of massive US CV fleets*

Volga So do I, but I'll do everything to prevent it. ( Like backing up the savegame every two days or so. yay for portable savegames. )
 
I like how this AAR has started, keep it up, I'll be following
 
Well, if it all falls apart the Emperor will only have himself to blame.
 
stnylan yes, but this Hirohito is way more sensible and thinks more realistic than the Japanese leadership did in the later sages of RL WW2. It will NOT fall apart.



Chapter II



After the coup, popularly called "2-2-6 Incident", Japan setteled down. The Army, still trying to show its loyalty to the Emporer did not object when the Emporer decided in a move to assure the loyalty of the second most important arm of the Japanese Military, the IJN, announced that the official Japanese State Flag was to be replaced by the IJN Battle Flag.

navy_army_ww2_flag.gif

In the same speech Hirohito also announced that a new expansion bill was signed by him, the "1936 Army expansion act" that enlarged the Army by almost 18 divisions in the first wave, to be followed by 36 more once the Armaments industry was up to speed and could equip and supply these forces. This bill finally pulled the Japanese Economy out of the great depression, as a lot of the unemployed found work either in the factories or in the Army. Thios greatly lifted the moral of the ordinary Japanese and so the next months went by. The events in the other parts of the world, the German reoccupation of the Rhineland and the beginning of the Spanish Civil war were ignored, Japan was not to meddle in European Affairs. An exception from this rule were the 1936 olympics were two athletes won medals in marathon running. (AN: in fact these two guys were from korea, they just started for Japan)

The Japanese attention was quickly drawn back to Asia. Hirohito knew that Japan would be drawn into the Chinese Civil War sooner or later, but he preferred sooner and on Japanese Terms and gave orders to dust off the plans for China and to bring them up to date. A roughly cut warplan was presented to the Emporer. The forces on the southern flank were to advance south until they reached a line just south of Bejing. Then the forces on the northern flank, the Mogolian Army that contained most of the Japanese Cavalry would move south. Both pincers would then turn east or respectively west and meet in or near the province of Datong, thereby cutting of the bulk of the Chinese Army. After that all Forces would advance as far south as their strength allowed and then halt, hold the line and consolidate their gains. This was expected to take a year at most. After that the main priority for the second year would be to remove the Chi-Com holdout in the mountains, to free up the forces needed to contain them in place. As soon as the Chi-Coms were destroyed the Navy would land troops at the southern coast to capture and hold the main Chinese ports, therfore cutting them of from foreign supplies and creating a lot of minor fronts to keep them occupied and draw forces away from the major front in the north. The entire plan for the "China Incident" was called for a capign length of at most three years, the war was supposed to be over by late 1939/mid 1940.

Yamashita.jpg

the Mind behind the Japanese plans for China, Tomoyuki Yamashita

Those in the IJA who considered these plans as too optimistic didn't voice their concerns as the plan had been approved by Hirohito himself, and so the secret documents containing the operational orders went out to the respective commands in Manchuria. When 1937 dawned the Japanese forces were far from ready, but Tokio was certain that at least minor gains would be made despite the relatively small number of troops as the Imperial Japanese Army was far superior to the Chinese in both doctrine and equipment, giving the troops a decicive edge on the battlefield. The Imperial Japanese Air Force, how small it was, was still far superior to the few hopelessly obsolete Hawk III the Chinese posessed, and these were stationed around Nanjing to protect the capital against expected Japanese bombings. The High Command was tense t hat year, but the ordinary Japanese on the streets was not. This however changed drastically when the Marco Polo Bridge incident took place in June 1937.

At dawn on July 7th the Japanese army on one side of teh bridge telegraphed the Kuomintang forces saying that a soldier was missing and believed to be hiding inside the town at the other end. The Japanese demanded that its army should enter the town to search for the missing soldier, a request that was flatly refused, and a few shots were exchanged. When word of the incident reached Tokyo Hirohito immediately responded: "The Chinese have played right into our hands. Launch operation Ichi-Go!"

The Second Sino-Japanese war had started.

Lugou_battle.jpg

Chinese Soldiers defending the Bridge
 
Funkatronica if everything goes according to the emporers super secret masterplan there wont be any need for an apology :D

Gigalocus no they dont. judging from experience the chinese will fight bravely though.