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(Alternate History) The Second Sino-Japanese War

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Oh, I also forgot to mention! The Honved (Hungarian army separate from the Common Army of Austria-Hungary) in its attempts to free the Austrian troops stuck in mountain passes, managed to roll spectacularly awful, and got caught in a mudslide, failing to break out the Common Army. The common army then proceeded to get creamed in its rolls, but was saved by the magical luck of Hindenburg, who has won every roll against Russia except one.

Just a funny anecdote :V
 
[X] "You're toeing awfully close to that line. Make sure you don't overstep it."
 
[X] "You're toeing awfully close to that line. Make sure you don't overstep it."

Not like he personally has any real say about the deployment of the gas. At most it'll delay it slightly.

[X] Plan Kill the IVth
 
We need to make sure our logistics system is up to date. We sometime need to maintain and expand our system of ports, railroads and roads since we are going to need more ammunition, fuel, spare parts and replacement and garrison troops.
 
Traveller76 said:
We need to make sure our logistics system is up to date. We sometime need to maintain and expand our system of ports, railroads and roads since we are going to need more ammunition, fuel, spare parts and replacement and garrison troops.
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Garrison troops will become a problem, but right now, you're occupying mostly ethnic Manchu or Korean territory. The Han in Manchuria, who will be the ones to watch when it comes to loyalist uprisings, are mostly in the cities and further west. Once they start to become a problem, Operation Vermilion, in conjunction with your own push, should have already forced Nanking to sue for peace. Should, being the operative word, given the somewhat anemic start to the amphibious theatre.

Logistics-wise, the Koreans have had a sturdy rail network built over the past decade using German and American technical expertise, and have begun producing railway (but not rolling stock) domestically. Continuing into Manchuria, there is (as we can see on the maps) a decent quality, Russian-built railway that was built to support Port Arthur initially. For ports you have a large one in Busan, in the far south of Korea, a large one in Hamhung in the north east, a small one in newly captured Dandong by Yalu River, and a large one in Dairen on the Liaotung peninsula. In other words, for the most part you're in good supply, the center, where Chinese IXth army is, is where your supply is weakest, and you have already paid for a railway expansion in that area.

Edit: oh and VOTING IS CLOSED
 
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Oh boy, having to use Russian rail gauge. I'm pretty sure they deliberately chose an incompatible gauge (one rail width wider) to make invading them harder, while still being able to run their trains on the standard European gauge (Russian trains could run on the outside of standard gauge track, while trains normally run on the inside of the track).
 
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Interlude: Big Trouble in Big China
  • Threadmarks
    • 11:00, Guangzhou, Republican-occupied China, June 23, 1915​

    For Dr. Sun Yatsen, it seemed all of China had gone insane, practically overnight. He had known for a while that the anti-Manchu sentiment had been festering, but he had thought that the Xinhai Revolution's overthrow of the Manchurian Qing dynasty would have calmed people down. He realised now that it was merely a lull, a short reprieve from the madness that had been so prevalent a few years back. He had thought that the Qing Dynasty's blatant favoritism of the Manchu was what drove this, but now with the Qing gone, the anger was directed at everyone who had benefited from the old system. It felt like a bad, twisted version of his own movement.

    There had been torch-carrying mobs in Guangzhou last night, and they had burned or beheaded every Manchu, or even Northern-sounding man, woman and child they had found. The only Manchu people left in the city at all were probably the small family of five that Sun had ordered his guards to physically yank off the streets, when he had seen them running from a mob from his balcony.

    The worst part is that there is very little he can do, as no one could stand up to the massive hordes of essentially uninvolved civilian bandits that roamed the streets of China. Any attempt to physically stop them would be politically unfeasible, given that even most of his own soldiers were fiercely anti-Manchu, even if they weren't necessarily keen on the mob justice of these "four-stripe bandits". These bandits made it very clear what they thought of Manchu when they physically tore off the yellow bands representing the Manchu people on the flags of the Republic.

    In the Empire, things were even worse as, despite the efforts of reformers like Yin Chang, the civilian population's nationalism was staunchly Han, and left no room for the Manchu in their view of China. An increasingly desperate Yuan Shikai had been frantically trying to shut down the lynch mobs and paralegal "race police" that had sprung up in force has the situation on the Korean front became more and more volatile, but now that the Beiyang army had been mauled, the power base of Yuan Shikai himself is at risk. The majority of the Army remains loyal to the Emperor, but even the non-Manchu officers are furious at the new movement of anti-Manchu (and as an extension of that, anti-Empire, as Yuan Shikai has been a staunch defender of the Manchu) banditry.

    The Four-Stripe Movement is disastrous to anyone attempting to unite or rule China and both governments are fighting losing battles against what is now looking to be the start of a Taiping-level uprising. There is not yet a central figure, and the movement is very much in its infancy, but if this continues to spiral out of control, Sun fears that the bloodiest war in world history may very well play on repeat.

    11:00, XXIInd Army HQ, Chongjin, Chinese-occupied Korea, June 23, 1915​

    Yin Chang is clutching a letter in his hands, knuckles going white with the force of his grip. The letter contains the irrefutable proof that Yuan Shikai's promise to keep the Banner People safe has failed. His clansmen in the Plain White Banner have been murdered en masse and none of the other Banners fared much better. The Manchu prince knows his people, both the Manchu and the Banner People, are being hunted down for alleged sins of the Qing Dynasty. He doesn't understand at all why the lower Banners, the Mongol and Han, and the New Banners, the Tungusic and North Mongolian, are so viciously hunted. His people, the Manchu, and the Aisin Gioro of the Qing in particular, were the ones responsible for the ills of the previous administration.

    Chang was hardly blind to the faults of the system when he was living in it, but the system was on its way to reform, he had living proof right in front of him! An army fighting not for the Manchu or the Hakka, but an army fighting for a united China. Now, it seemed, an army fighting for an ideal its civilian population had discarded and despised. If he had only had a little more time, to reform the system, if only Yuan Shikai hadn't made that fatal mistake of recalling him from Hubei… if! If! IF! He feels the enticing approach of mindless rage, but lets it go with a sigh, slumping over against the wall instead. His mind runs a mile a minute as he struggles to find a way, any way, to save his cousins, to help the other Banners, exploring options of delicate diplomacy or favours from a friend.

    Shanqi had had some contacts in Japan, but he was dead now, murdered with his entire family in Beijing for his prominent political position as the chief Qing supporter in the constitutional parliament, so that was probably out of the question now. It would also be politically disastrous to associate with the invaders, but it was probably the easiest way to get the most Manchurians out of China. The other alternative was one he wasn't particularly keen to rely on, but he began drafting a letter nonetheless.

    Euer Kaiserliche Majestät!

    Vielen Dank für Euren Brief. Ich habe mich darüber sehr gefreut, aber ich war so beschäftigt in letzter Zeit…

    So this was a particularly vicious clusterfuck, and it was really rough to write. The Manchu-Han relations of the late Qing and early Republic are a clusterfuck, and I'll just leave it at that.

    Also thanks to @Susano for help with the German in the letter.

    The German reads:
    "Your Imperial Majesty,
    Thank you very much for your letter. I was very glad to have received it, but I have been so busy as of late..."
     
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    • Oh my god, the sky is turning bloody. Now might be the time to sue for peace or we will be looking at a imploding China with our arms sink in it.
     
    Manchus have a third option; annexation into Korea. That way they'll avoid direct association with Japan that humiliated China multiple times in the past, and will have a much stronger foundation to reconstitute a Manchu nation instead of going at it alone - the additional non-Han Chinese demographics alone will do wonders to stop Chinese revanchism. Plus it'll settle Korean nationalists for generations and more, and thus help settle Manchu-Korean relations too. And as instigators of this union, the Manchus will get to dictate much of the terms and thus make it lenient and equitable.

    The Greater Korean Empire, the East Asian answer to Czechoslovakia.
     
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    I beg literally everyone in the thread to not support big Korea with all of my shriveled heart.

    Seeing as how the result of this war is intrinsically a result of Japanese involvement in the Korean Peninsula, joining Korea will not assuage future Chinese revanchism.

    Koreans in general are unlikely to accept a clunky permanent autonomy solution for "Manchu" provinces that are majority Han, and the Korean nationalists aren't going to be happy until everyone in the new territories is speaking Korean. Manchus in hypothetical big Korea would be outnumbered by a factor of 4 to 1 by Koreans at minimum. You cannot make an equitable settlement with those sort of numbers. Koreans hold ultimately be the power holders in any sort of unholy union and this type of arrangement is just begging for ethnic/national troubles immediately after a honeymoon period of a few years.

    pls

    no big korea
     
    It's either Korean-speaking Manchus or Han-Chinese with Manchu ancestry. Han Chinese can smother the Manchus with demographics, Koreans far less so. Given the power dynamics of East Asia and current China's political trajectory, I vastly prefer the Greater Korea option than anything else. Independent Manchuria is not a realistic option at this point, they don't have a government and half their country identifies as Han Chinese. Letting it return to China is out of the question after the genocides. Korea solves all these issues. We can press on them to play nice with the Manchus, and any Korean oppression is preferred over Han Chinese revenge against the Manchus.
     
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    If you want to go all realpolitik with power dynamics and stuff then why would you give Korea the resources to be able to function as a viable third power bloc in the east that would not have to side with Japan on China issues by default? An independents Manchuria would be a valuable buffer state to Korea and if China ever sable rattled towards it we would have every excuse to intervene. Giving Korea all of Manchuria would only set the stage for even further intensified ethnic and national conflict in the future, massively strengthening a third national claimant all the way to viability so you'll have Manchus, Han, and Koreans all screaming bloody murder about the territory.
     
    From a cynical point of view, China spiraling into chaos isn't necessarily a bad thing for Japan. We'll probably be able to set up various client states along the coast, gobble up those delicious treaty cities while Europe is afire in the name of 'protecting' them from the anarchy, and in general firmly set ourselves up as the Hegemon of East Asia, all the while avoiding the total clusterfuck that was the OTL second Sino-Japanese war.
     
    Sturmi said:
    If you want to go all realpolitik with power dynamics and stuff then why would you give Korea the resources to be able to function as a viable third power bloc in the east that would not have to side with Japan on China issues by default? An independents Manchuria would be a valuable buffer state to Korea and if China ever sable rattled towards it we would have every excuse to intervene. Giving Korea all of Manchuria would only set the stage for even further intensified ethnic and national conflict in the future, massively strengthening a third national claimant all the way to viability so you'll have Manchus, Han, and Koreans all screaming bloody murder about the territory.
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    I don't think for a second that an independent Manchuria at this stage will survive. Their government is non-existent, their economy is trash, half of their demography is Han-Chinese that wants to kill the Manchu half, and their entire military is the remnants of Yuan Shikai's Imperial Army that all supports the Five Stripes One China policy. That state is not viable unless Japan plays nursemaid. It'll fall to China and get ethnically cleansed, or it'll stay as a long term drain on Japanese finances/military/diplomacy for generations. All the while not doing what it's supposed to; counter Chinese power.

    And a strong Korea may not have to side with Japan against China, but given that this China is gearing up to become an ethnic nationalist monstrosity that'll play up China's hegemonic past in reaction to its fall (from what I see that's the core of its nationalist rhetoric and mythos), I'm willing to bet that a Greater Korea will align with Japan against Han-Chinese revanchism in the future. I'll take my strong Greater Korea that we can court over an angry China, thanks.
    LonelyWolf999 said:
    From a cynical point of view, China spiraling into chaos isn't necessarily a bad thing for Japan. We'll probably be able to set up various client states along the coast, gobble up those delicious treaty cities while Europe is afire in the name of 'protecting' them from the anarchy, and in general firmly set ourselves up as the Hegemon of East Asia, all the while avoiding the total clusterfuck that was the OTL second Sino-Japanese war.
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    Holy hell no, absolutely not.
     
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    Have you considered the economic impact with an exploding China? The whole Asia will feel it and Japan will miss its biggest import/export partner, we will be lucky if we enter a mere recession if not a full blown depression. Guess which sort of asshole ideal rises from depression?
     
    LonelyWolf999 said:
    We'll probably be able to set up various client states along the coast, gobble up those delicious treaty cities while Europe is afire in the name of 'protecting' them from the anarchy, and in general firmly set ourselves up as the Hegemon of East Asia, all the while avoiding the total clusterfuck that was the OTL second Sino-Japanese war.
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    Sorry to rain a little on this parade, but Britain and America are both Great Powers with treaty cities who aren't currently on fire, and who will look very poorly on any attempt to seize treaty cities from a nation you aren't officially at war with. Precedents and all that. As for splitting China into little clients along the coast... it's currently more than a little unfeasible, given Japan's support of Sun Yatsen, who is a Five Stripes One China republican. That, and there's basically nothing that will stop one of these smaller states from (seemingly inevitably, given IRL history) trying to make yet another "One China" Chinese Empire or Republic.
     
    On the Manchuria/Korea thing, there is a significant Korean minority in Manchuria that dates back to the 500s AD, from the Korean kingdom of Gogureyo. That minority ranges as far into Manchuria as Harbin, and while certainly not demographically dominant, they cannot be ignored. There may be fewer ethnic groups over a larger area of land, but there's no clean solution that doesn't involve ethnic cleansing of one stripe or another. There has to be some sort of compromise, and the Greater Korea option is somewhat better, especially if we can avoid the more asshole colonial policies of IRL Imperial Japan.
     
    KlinkerKing said:
    Chang was hardly blind to the faults of the system when he was living in it, but the system was on its way to reform, he had living proof right in front of him! An army fighting not for the Manchu or the Hakka, but an army fighting for a united China. Now, it seemed, an army fighting for an ideal its civilian population had discarded and despised. If he had only had a little more time, to reform the system, if only Yuan Shikai hadn't made that fatal mistake of recalling him from Hubei… if! If! IF! He feels the enticing approach of mindless rage, but lets it go with a sigh, slumping over against the wall instead. His mind runs a mile a minute as he struggles to find a way, any way, to save his cousins, to help the other Banners, exploring options of delicate diplomacy or favours from a friend.
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    I know this is off topic, but can we take a moment to appreciate the restraint of this man? His ideal china is being torn apart by the very people he sought to help. Shame, too. Still, if everyone could reign in their anger like this guy, most, if not all, of our problems would be solved.


    On the current situation.... I got no friggin' clue. This part of history is something I am lacking in, and so I cannot contribute much. Perhaps we could attempt to divide up China? Probably a bad idea, but maybe it would prevent people from lynching their neighbors. Could also be easier to deal with them as many states instead of one big blob.
     
    Sgtsoldier123 said:
    On the current situation.... I got no friggin' clue. This part of history is something I am lacking in, and so I cannot contribute much. Perhaps we could attempt to divide up China? Probably a bad idea, but maybe it would prevent people from lynching their neighbors. Could also be easier to deal with them as many states instead of one big blob.
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    Heh.

    From the discord:

    Right now there's basically four sides who have their own opinions, in both Japan and China:

    "Social Darwinism is cool and good." - Ultra-Reactionary Ethno-Nationalists/Fascists

    "Hold the damn phone, the Han can't just go killing people. Ethnic self-determination! Make the minority regions independent with a large Han minority!" - Woodrow Wilson Fanclub

    "Make them independent with a large Han minority? And when the minorities begin to cleanse the Han, what then? No, population exchange is the only way to go." - Balkan Bros

    "Population exchange? You mean robbing the peasants and farmers of their livelihood and tossing them onto the road! You're a damn menace, China has to remain whole!" - One China Gang

    Basically play this on a loop to see the arguments being made.

    There's no really good solution to this monumental clusterfuck, and the only outcome that's really sure to 100% be an absolute disaster is the Ultra Reactionary one. Of course, all the other ones could succeed if everything goes exactly as the planners intend. It could also be a continuation of the shitshow by other means, as shown by the detractors.
     
    We got no good solutions coming up... but hey, I don't think we are the only player on the block. If what I've read is right, Britain is not currently at war with Germany, meaning that German colonies are still German. I'd wager my right hand that Germany is looking to gobble up some chinese clay to add to their empire. Maybe Britain as well. Don't know much about America, though. We only really got foreign territories during the Spanish-American war, and even then that was bescuse the spanish "supposedly" blew up the Maine. Course, I could be wrong. And I am leaving out Alaska.

    Still, before we decide on a course of action, lets see what the colonial powers will do.
     
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