AH challenge: What Japanese victory in China?

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to either have Nationalist China defeat Japan on its own, without any intervention from other states, or avoid any new Sino-Japanese war completely by the present day with a POD no earlier than the Northern Expedition.

[Braden]

First off I don't know what a POD is so I am going here.

The Japanese soldiers dresse up as Chinese men and attacked the Japanese railway in Manchuria.

The Japanese now have an excuse to invade, they invade quickly and have a victory in Manchuria, they quickly build up forces in the province in expectation from a response from China.

The League of nations intervenes by sending a delegation who finds (wrongly all be-it) That the Chinese had sabotaged the railway and that the Japanese had a valid point and that the occupation was valid.

Japan remains in the LoN and continues to build up forces within Manchuria.

The German's already quite cockey now use this excuse instead of Abyssinia to send troops into the RHineland, quicklt world attention is turned away from China and into Germany.

The Japanese launch a full scale war against China, they start carpet bombings of cities across the east coast including shanghai and Beijing. Quickly the infrastructure of China is reduced to barely nothing, civilians can not get around, soldiers can not transpot around the country.

The USSR or USA do not bat an eyelid as they're not members of the LoN, France of The UK do not condemn Japan for attacking China, they are trying to please Japan by keeping them in the LoN And Japan can be a strong stanse against Germany.

Quickly the Japanese have killed over 1 million chinese and the Japanese soldiers have not touched Chinese soil, this is too much now, the UK and France condemn Japan and they withdraw from the LoN.

The Japanese now attack China from Korea and invade Liaoning and Jilin, recieving little resistance from The Chinese army, they are concentrated in the main cities and trying to cope with bombing damage, the Chinese airforce is none existant and the navy can barely cope. The army is set about to restore order to the large cities which are experiencing mass riots.

2 days after the invasion of Liaoning and Jilin the Japanese take Taiwan and set up mass air bases for the carpet bombing of much of southern China

The Germans meanwhile re unify with Austria against the treaty of versailles, the west does nothning.

3 months Later the Germans have an army, airforce and navy to rival that of France and quickly invade POland. The UK France and US intervene declaring war on GErmany, The war is bloody and is expected to last for years to come.

The japanese in the meantime launch their bombers which flatten much of southern China from Guanxi to Liangsu. The chinese make the fatel flaw of sending in their troops believe that is where the next invasion will take place.

The Japanese continue their bombing runs, death tolls now excede 5 million civilians.

The Japanese tanks quickly enter China taking much of the north from Liaoning.

The Chinese government evacuates their government to the far western states of xijiang, Japan continues their bombing and quickly takes control of all but 3 provinces - xizing, quinghai and xinjiang.

The slave labout Japan now has is huge and quickly a military railway linking much of china to Korea and the major ports is established

Japan fortifies bases in existing terrotries around the 3 provinces, their army now numbers of 500,000 soldiers and several thousand tanks.

2 days later they invade the final provinces, China surrendours and the Japanese execute the Chinese leaders for "war crimes" China is now under Japanese rule and annexed.

SO, how do you like?

[B_Munro]

Methinks someone did not read the challenge too carefully....

"Avoid war" - Jiang dies in the early 30's, and a power struggle breaks out, badly weaking the kuomintang. China's move towards a more centralized government is temporarily reversed. Seeing no immediate danger to their position in Manchuria, Japan sticks with a policy of sponsoring friendly warlords and piecemeal territorial nibbles rather than open warfare. They still make a grab for European territorial pelf in '41, get into a fight with the US, and are soundly beaten. The Soviet Union liberates Manchuria, and may or may not hand it over to the Kuomintang, depending on how well they've done in getting their act together while the Japanese were busy fighting the US.

Bruce

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by B_Munro

Methinks someone did not read the challenge too carefully....

"Avoid war" - Jiang dies in the early 30's, and a power struggle breaks out, badly weaking the kuomintang. China's move towards a more centralized government is temporarily reversed. Seeing no immediate danger to their position in Manchuria, Japan sticks with a policy of sponsoring friendly warlords and piecemeal territorial nibbles rather than open warfare. They still make a grab for European territorial pelf in '41, get into a fight with the US, and are soundly beaten. The Soviet Union liberates Manchuria, and may or may not hand it over to the Kuomintang, depending on how well they've done in getting their act together while the Japanese were busy fighting the US.

Bruce

Keeping the Japanese out of "China Proper" will make the Pacific War immensely more difficult for the allies.

[B_Munro]

Originally Posted by Wendell

Keeping the Japanese out of "China Proper" will make the Pacific War immensely more difficult for the allies.

Not necessarily. The japanese were able to conduct the war in China relatively "on the cheap" - the backwardness of Chinese forces meant the Japanese didn't have to build lots of heavy tanks and artillery, bombers, etc. The Japanese not being in China releases some money and industrial resources, but not enough to pay for a vastly enlarged navy. As for the extra manpower, it's not like the Japanese couldn't mobilize more people OTL: they just didn't have the logistics to support much more ambitious projects than they did. Note how when people try to game a Japanese invasion of Hawaii, it usually goes down in flames.

I may be misremembering, but I think the US strategy wasn't to engage the Japanese army on every isle and attoll: it was taking the strategic bits and let the remaining Japanese forces "die on the vine" once they were cut off from naval support.

I'd say the Japanese do _marginally_ better than OTL, but the end is the same: that 10-1 industrial advantage isn't going away.

Bruce

[Faeelin]

Better?

Okay, I can't see them winning on their own, but.

If we start right before the Northern Expedition, with Sun Yatsen uniting China by hook and by crook. His regime becomes progressively more socialist as time goes on. Land reform gives the peasants land; they, in turn, get to joyously labor for the Sun as they construct railroads. (The army helps too; can't have the troops idling in barracks).

Mmm. I think Germany will still want to invest in China, so let's say they do, and the Soviets provide more economic support than OTL.

By 1937, China has major steel and electric works in Central China, indigenous aircraft production, and a population that's thoroughly indoctrinated with the belief that a war with Japan is a fight to the death.

Could turn ugly, actually.

[Braden]

Oh well, I enjoyed writing it, we did all of that in history

Originally Posted by B_Munro

Methinks someone did not read the challenge too carefully....

"Avoid war" - Jiang dies in the early 30's, and a power struggle breaks out, badly weaking the kuomintang. China's move towards a more centralized government is temporarily reversed. Seeing no immediate danger to their position in Manchuria, Japan sticks with a policy of sponsoring friendly warlords and piecemeal territorial nibbles rather than open warfare. They still make a grab for European territorial pelf in '41, get into a fight with the US, and are soundly beaten. The Soviet Union liberates Manchuria, and may or may not hand it over to the Kuomintang, depending on how well they've done in getting their act together while the Japanese were busy fighting the US.

Bruce

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

@Braden: Not only did you completely misread the challenge, but you forgot that Taiwan had been held by Japan since 1895.

@Faeelin: Sun Yat-Sen dies 2 years before the Northern Expedition, which is the earliest date for the POD.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by VoCSe

@Faeelin: Sun Yat-Sen dies 2 years before the Northern Expedition, which is the earliest date for the POD.

Correct. This is because, IMO, it's ASB with the date you provide.

But prove me wrong!

[Max Sinister]

I wonder what'd happen if Stalin allied with the Japanese to divide China, while the west is busy with Hitler. But then the US might join China.