The remainder of November was spent recovering ORG and allowing the new Infrastructure upgrades to build up to their full potential. Another French tech was stolen a couple months earlier, the third since the start of the campaign, this one Level 2 Cruiser AA. Overall, I'd say that the Leadership investment for spies in France paid off reasonably well, because I got 4 research levels of 3 different techs, one useful at two levels, one semi-useful, and the other irrelevant, for the initial expenditure of 10 spies plus just a handful replacements over the span of 4 years. That's about what I'd have spent on researching 1-2 techs of my own choice. The first round of that AA upgrade was now done, providing slightly more resilience against air attacks,, and construction of a second INT was completed, giving me 2 INT to oppose the Japanese CAGs for the next attempt to force a landing on Taiwan.
During the first week of December, one of the MTN divisions was back to nearly full ORG, and an assault was made on one of the mountain provinces right on the eastern border with the Soviet Union, around 3 provinces above the Korean border. Japan held a thin ribbon of provinces from the Korean border all the way up to the far north-east corner of Manchuria, where that ribbon attached to a large "balloon" of close to a dozen Japanese-occupied provinces. As long as that "balloon" existed, Japan did not seem to be aware that their entire operation in Manchuria hung by a thread. My assault cut that thread in the middle, stranding about 6-8 divisions north of the break, while over a dozen more still held the base of the "ribbon". Once cut, the AI realized that its units were in fact in a dangerous pocket, and after their attempt to reconnect with the closed pocket to the north failed, a mass exodus began. All but one division per province began a race to the Korean border to get out of that pocket. Chinese troops had little difficulty taking the pair of upper provinces below the break, but that last province above the river at that end, Yanji, resisted heavily. With Chinese troops attacking from 3 directions, and Mountain divisions involved, the momentum gradually shifted from around a 40% balance to positive, and eventually despite an elite Japanese division on the defending side, a couple of days into 1940, the Japanese retreated.
The large isolated pocket in the north was being cleaned up, and only one more province along the river line remained in Japanese hands, Dalizi, which sits astride a narrow gap in the rivers separating Korea from Manchuria. I had delayed taking this province because it's in contact with two other provinces on the Korean side with no river protection, plus the two adjacent river provinces. Holding this province could be difficult, and I needed the troops elsewhere. Now, it was time to deal with that and Taiwan, since there won't be a lot of time left for a counter-attack.
Since I had not spent the IC to license-build a German submarine while I was still close to their corner of the diplomatic triangle, I had to use a couple of Destroyers as decoys. One was sent to convoy raid just south of the Korean Peninsula, between Korea, Japan, and mainland China. The other was sent to the north-east of Korea. My 2xINT was stationed at an airfield within range of Taiwan, and the transports and protective Light Cruiser fleets were just about fully repaired, and waiting just across the strait from Taiwan.
Japanese ships and planes began shadowing one of my DDs, so I loaded up the troops and started the second attempt at Taiwan. As before, one of my landing divisions attacked the Japanese MOT division directly to pin it in place, while two other divisions were landed in the adjacent provinces to outflank it. This time, only a single CAG showed up initially, which was engaged in roughly an even fight by my two INT. It did some light damage to one of my CL fleets, but nothing severe. Two more CAGs arrived and began attacking the transports, so one CL fleet and my 2xINT were diverted to protect the landing at all costs. The second CL fleet was moderately damaged, and the transports were in really bad shape, with one of them down to 4% strength, when the two flanking divisions of troops reached shore. My fleets ran for port, bringing back the third division. Meanwhile, the surviving DD in the north was withdrawn to the nearest port. While my two divisions on Taiwan engaged the single MOT, two more divisions were loaded up, and my INT group was reassigned to ground attack. Another landing was made, this time in the same province as one of the successful flankers, so it did not draw Japanese attention as a new attack. The troops made it ashore unhindered, one of them joined the ongoing attack, and the other moved to surround the enemy unit to cut off its only line of retreat. The MOT eventually broke, the port was seized, and the Chinese units scattered to seize control of the rest of the island. A supply convoy was set up to provide for the units on the island. China received the "Taiwan Strait" bonus, giving a +10% supply through-put boost, as well as other bonuses. I REALLY could have used that a few months back, but I wasn't aware of the bonus.
Cleaning up the last of the pocket in the north-east took a few extra weeks, but by mid-March, the last province of Manchuria was entirely in Chinese hands. Japan accepted a truce, and all of the core territories in Manchuria and Taiwan were formally re-annexed into China.
Three days later, the attack on Guanxi began. Their three VP locations were all vulnerably placed on the borders, and occupied by Chinese forces by the end of March. Even before the surrender, Chinese troops were already moving into position for the attack on Yunnan. That was was started in early April, and completed by mid May, since the capital, Kunming, had a sufficient VP value to make taking its secondary VP location irrelevant. Simultaneously with the attack on Yunnan, war was declared on Portugal for the province of Macau, an epic struggle which lasted the better part of 3 days while a Chinese division moved into the undefended province. A truce was accepted, leaving only Xibei San Ma and the tiny French and UK enclaves yet to re-integrate.
I am no longer under any serious time pressure, as long as I actually declare the war on Xibei before getting involved in the Axis' war against the Allies. As long as they're already at war, Xibei won't join the Allies when I declare war on France/UK. Ideally, I'm hoping to get close enough to the Axis corner and join before France capitulates, since I can then place a war goal for their enclave, which would be enforced when France surrenders to Germany. Otherwise, I've got to wait until the UK surrenders to get both, because France will become a Government in Exile, and I'll only occupy the territory, not own it, until the faction leader is defeated.