Nanking what if

[CCA]

I was reading the book "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang just the other night and a thought struck me "What if the Chinese ARmy had fought for nanking, I mean there were several ineffective fighting but I mean Chiang Kai Chiek actually decided to stay in the capital along with the Government and decided to fight till the bitter end Berlin or Stalingrad style.
WOuld this have affected the IJA advance?
Would the Rape of Nanking still happen?
Will CHiang emerge a hero assuming he comes out alive?
Would this become the turning point of the SIno-Japanese war?

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by CCA

I was reading the book "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang just the other night and a thought struck me "What if the Chinese ARmy had fought for nanking, I mean there were several ineffective fighting but I mean Chiang Kai Chiek actually decided to stay in the capital along with the Government and decided to fight till the bitter end Berlin or Stalingrad style.
WOuld this have affected the IJA advance?
Would the Rape of Nanking still happen?
Will CHiang emerge a hero assuming he comes out alive?
Would this become the turning point of the SIno-Japanese war?

And, what happens if Chiang Kai-shek dies then and there?

[Chris]

The Chinese lost most of their best troops at shanghai. After a logn batter, the Japanese would probabuly have burnt though and commited worse atroctites, destroying the ChiNat govt in the process.

Chris

[blysas]

I think that if the Chinise had decided to fight for Nanjing to the bitter end, it might last a few week, maybe even a few months. The problem is, if you keep the battle going the city will evanually become stargically usless to all, except fighting over ruins.

Let's add to the flavour here, let's say we hace China fight for all cities like Nanjing, turning them into rubble and avoiding been encircled tthen thewar might heat up a hell of a lot

Let's make a timeline out of it

[CCA]

Originally Posted by blysas

I think that if the Chinise had decided to fight for Nanjing to the bitter end, it might last a few week, maybe even a few months. The problem is, if you keep the battle going the city will evanually become stargically usless to all, except fighting over ruins.

Let's add to the flavour here, let's say we hace China fight for all cities like Nanjing, turning them into rubble and avoiding been encircled tthen thewar might heat up a hell of a lot

Let's make a timeline out of it

Does china have the resources?

[The Sandman]

In people, obviously. In actual useful war materiel, probably not; also, the death of millions more Chinese would have vastly simplified the Japanese occupation by reducing the number of potential partisans and Chinese mouths to feed.

[Martel]

Originally Posted by thesandman

In people, obviously. In actual useful war materiel, probably not; also, the death of millions more Chinese would have vastly simplified the Japanese occupation by reducing the number of potential partisans and Chinese mouths to feed.

Ruthlessly pragmatic as that sounds, the math just doesn't hold up. Between the civil war and the Japanese invasion, China lost something like 50 million people OTL and the guerilla campaigns continued until the early 50s. I'm not seeing how the Japanese are likely to seriously "improve" on that without massive extermination camps (making Germany look indecisive) or nuclear weapons.

[The Ubbergeek]

China is a country that can win war merely by overflow of soldiers at least... In the Taiping Rebelion, 20 milions died - at LEAST, if you don't add up the 'collateral' death due to famine and epidemy...

The death count would have been insane...

[NFR]

Originally Posted by CCA

Does china have the resources?

Good question. The answer is no. The average 'Chinese' division (there are central, warlord, communist, rival generals under central command... and they all tend to use different weapons) has nine heavy machine guns and a couple of 76'ers as heavy support, and most of the time they are out of ammunition. The communists don't even have enough rifles for their line soldiers, and often designate a second as a crude bomb/ grenade thrower. Riflemen were issued with bullets in the single figures. And the best German-equipped divisions all ground themselves to dust attacking the Japanese in Shanghai.

Which brings us to Shanghai. That was the reason why there was 'no fighting' in Nanking - because China basically exhausted her fighting strength in Shanghai, in the fighting there between August and November. So looking at Shanghai may give you a pretty good idea what would happen if China were to choose to make a stand at Nanking instead - burn out city, lots of dead (the fierce fighting in Shanghai was one of the reason for the subsequent barbarism at Nanking), and lots of sadistically killed civilians.

In other words, not much different from our own.

Of course, the chances are, if Chiang didn't attack in Shanghai, the Japanese wouldn't have driven on Nanking. Not yet, anyway. But one can speculate a more probing attack - enough to infuriate the Japanese army factions into trying to take Nanking but leaving enough fighting strength to make the fight for Nanking a brutal one. Though of course Nanking isn't really good defensive terrain - big navigable river on the other side, flat ground on the other three. Terrible news if your enemy has destroyers and cruisers that can steam up that far and you have machine guns in sampans for a navy.

As for the speculation of 'making a Stalingrad of every city'... There is one crucial difference between the Soviet Union and China. We had lots of factories and can keep ourselves supplied with weapons. China... didn't. Unless you are thinking of some sort of Boxer-like fervour where peasants simply pick up pitchforks and charge the Japanese in waves of thousands...

{addendum: There is a reason why Chiang threw away his best divisions in an attack rather than expend them wisely in defence - the Japanese wasn't planning on full-scale war - yet - not that they were benevolent, but because they just wanted to slice away North China like they did Manchuria - they didn't want a war, not if they could get away with it without one. But Chiang cannot afford to fight the Japanese in set-piece battles in the time and place of their choosing, so he had to force their hand into a war of attrition - and he had to prove to the world that he is worth supporting by fighting in full view of possible foreign sponsors, i.e. Shanghai.

Fat lot of good that turned out to do him - the Western powers kept selling Japan scrap metal and oil well into 41, and it was the Soviet Union which sent military supplies and volunteer airforce to China.)

[NFR]

Originally Posted by Martel

Ruthlessly pragmatic as that sounds, the math just doesn't hold up. Between the civil war and the Japanese invasion, China lost something like 50 million people OTL and the guerilla campaigns continued until the early 50s. I'm not seeing how the Japanese are likely to seriously "improve" on that without massive extermination camps (making Germany look indecisive) or nuclear weapons.

And both possibilities are uhnlikely, as well. Japan tried the limited 'security enhancement procedure' of clearing away certain areas clean of life - didn't really work. And they are very, very far off from the faintest idea of a four tonne weapon type, nevermind an air-deliverable one.

[MerryPrankster]

NFR,

The United States sent a volunteer air force too. Does the term "Flying Tigers" sound familiar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers