A Throne of Blood: The Rise and fall of Kita Ikki

Chapter 11: The carrot and the stick

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First lady Ladybird Johnson planting a Cherry Blossom tree in 1968, the Japanese gave the first Cherry Blossoms to the Americans long before relations soured but the Cherry Blossom ceremonies continue to this day.

The Japanese had always had a complicated relationship with the Americans. The Americans opened their ports and forced a foreign culture and style of life upon them. But on the other hand, if the Americans had not done so, Japan would not be in the position it is today. Without Admiral Perry, Japan would be a backwater just like China. Kita knew this and was disappointed by it. The idea that the white Americans had jump started Japan ran afoul with his ideas regarding race. Regardless of anyone's views on America, the Japanese government in 1937 was very well aware of how important America's compliance in the Pacific was. Not only were they a large and diplomatically powerful nation, but they also supplied Japan with almost 90% of its oil, steel, and iron. If America decided to cease trading with Japan, it could hamper the war effort significantly.

Therefore, two things were decided in the wake of the second Sino-Japanese war.

The first was that steps had to be made to lessen the need for American iron, steel and oil. This could be done rather easily in regards to iron and steel. Iron and steel could be obtained rather easily once the situation in China had died down. It was estimated that by 1940, iron and steel production could match national military production if military production does not change. This of course is not possible, so trade will always be needed, but it will make expansion and maintenance of the Japanese Navy and Army much less expensive.

Oil, however, was a tad more difficult. The Japanese knew that most of the oil in Asia was in Indonesia which was under control of the Dutch for the most part, although the British and the Portuguese both had land there as well. The Japanese pondered war with both the Brits and the Dutch. The British were already a planned enemy in the future which required a more comprehensive strategy and the British would likely bring in most of the world against Japan in the current geopolitical climate. War was not ripe with the Brits, and it didn't seem good anytime soon. As for the Dutch, they could bring in the Brits so war was avoided, but it was decided that as soon as the Dutch presented an opening, they would take it.

The second, was that things needed to be smoothed over with the US. While the Japanese both expected and planned for war with America, they came to understand that their plan needed logical steps. The war with the United States was to take place many years in the future, and America's oil was needed for the war in China. A Japanese diplomat was send to Washington DC with the goal of improving relations between Japan and America.

April 6th, 1937: Washington DC

A Japanese diplomat met with a number of America government officials. They discussed primarily the future of Japanese-American relations, the new war in China, and opposing the Soviet Union. The Americans were very concerned of both Japan's growing power in East Asia and their newly invigorated foreign policy. The Japanese diplomat was able to clam the nerves between the two parties by pointing out that the new Chinese government was following in the footsteps of Fascists and was very dangerously linked militarily to the Germans. Both of these things worried the Americans by themselves, but when brought together, it made the Americans very concerned for China.

The diplomat also explained that the Japanese had no interest in conquering China, and were planning on reforming the Republic of China under Wang Jingwei. This was both true and false. Yes, the Japanese had no plans to directly administer China as an annexed territory, but they most certainly were going to conquer the territory. Furthermore, Wang's regime was planned to be little more then a puppet state to assist in the war effort in future conflicts in Asia.

As a result, the Japanese were able to calm the fury of the Americans to a palatable degree and attempted the same with other nations of the world. This had limited success elsewhere due to Chiang Kai-shek's almost martyr status as an anti-communist on a global scale. The Japanese were, however, able to turn many of the threats into condemnations and the condemnations into new bulletins.

This would not work again however, and the Japanese were very aware of that, they could not risk another venture such as the one in China anytime soon. If the Japanese were to bring war to the Dutch, the Brits, the Portuguese, or any other nation, they would need be far more prepared first.

The Germans received a wholly separate style of meeting though. The diplomat that was sent to them requested that they remove support for the Republic of China. The Germans had provided the Chinese with both materials and foreign advisers. The result was obvious, a longer and more drawn out war, and more dead Japanese. Neither of these things were desired by the Japanese government. The Germans would ultimately refuse to abandon their new found ally in the east and so the Japanese government decided to avoid working with the Germans in the future. This event would hurt Araki's prestige immensely and he was removed as the Minister of War with General Shunroku Hata. The state of martial law was also upturned several weeks later at the request of General Hata.

Araki's powerblock in the diet was not broken up however. The only post he was removed from was the Minister of War.

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Japanese troops atop Zhongshan Gate in Nanjing, late June 12th

June 5th - June 12th, 1937: Shanghai, Changzhou, and Nanjing

The battle of Shanghai ended and the March on Nanjing began on June 4th after General Feng Yuxiang betrayed the Nationalist forces in Shanghai. His forces pulled away from the fighting and captured then nearby city of Suzhou. He held the city and the Southern front of Shanghai for the Japanese for during the March on Nanjing. The rest of the Chinese army was caught with their pants down. They lost a major portion of their forces and also lost their defensive line set up on the outskirts on Shanghai. Their defensive positions were quickly overrun by the ecstatic Japanese forces and a majority surrendered. Kita had given the order to take as many prisoners as possible and to be as humane as possible. He had realized the need for Wang's government to have legitimacy very early on in the war. Those who surrendered at Shanghai would form the basis of the National Chinese Army.

Those who were not killed or captured, routed. The commander of the remaining forces, General Tang Shengzhi, attempted to set up a defensive line at the city of Changzhou. The line held in an honorable defense until the 9th of June. The strong defense angered the Japanese military under the command of General Iwane Matsui and upon the defensive lines' collapse Matsui gave orders to loot and pillage the area during the remaining daylight hours of the 9th. He went against Kita's express orders (backed up by Araki's guns) and would later earn a court martial for his actions. The resulting massacre and looting gained the title of The defiling of Changzhou. During the massacre, the Japanese committed acts of, but certainly not limited to:

Rape, Murder, Arson, Cannibalism, Looting, Banditry, and other manners of depravity. The exact methods of execution range from lighting the individual on fire to death via insertion of a sword into one's anal cavity. There was also a contest to see who could be the quickest to 100 kills with a sword.

Prince Yasuhiko Asaka arrived on the following day and encouraged the massacre to continue, and it did, until the night of June 11th when General Matsui received a communique inquiring as to why his troops ceased movement towards Nanjing. The defiling of Changzhou was nearly unheard of outside of China until the end of the second world war. Many historians pinpoint this down to the lack of international citizens in Changzhou, if the massacre had taken place in Shanghai, or in Nanjing, then the response would have been much more critical of the Japanese government. Another cause is potentially the relatively low death toll, compared to later massacres that were government sponsored (especially the massacre in Wuhan after a defeat against General Bai Chongxi), the atrocity in Changzhou was much smaller in number. After the end of the defiling of Changzhou, Prince Yasuhiko and General Matsui were forced into retirement at the behest at an angered Kita.

On the early hours of the 12th of June, the Japanese forces in Changzhou departed towards Nanjing and would reach the city within the day. The remaining forces in Nanjing put up a paltry resistance before routing out of the city. In the chaos, a number of important documents and government officials were captured. The Republic of China under Chiang Ching-kuo then moved the capital of the Republic to Chongqing and set up a new base of operations there. The capture of Nanjing signaled the end of the first wave in Araki's plan. The second wave of the plan would be enacted several weeks later as the 1937 Autumn Offensive that would cripple the Republic of China and lead to its downfall.

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Wang Jingwei announces the newly formed National Republic of China

July 2nd, 1937: Beijing

In Beijing, far away from the frontlines, Wang Jingwei announced the formation of the National Republic of China. In his speech his spoke of his plans for the country which included national reconstruction, the destruction of banditry, and finally a final conflict against the Communist Chinese. He also thanked the Japanese multiple times throughout the speech, perhaps truly believing they put him in charge of the country out of the kindness of their hearts rather than because of political circumstances. Wang also took the title of both Generalissimo and President. He also proudly announced the National Chinese Army which was the military arm of the National Republic of China. The army mostly preformed anti-partisan activities but a number of elite soldiers would form an expeditionary army and would fight in both Burma and in India.

Interestingly enough, on the same day a rather strange event occurred. Amelia Earhart went missing while flying her plane on a world flight. She and her navigator Fred Noonan got lost near Howland Island and ended up being forced to make a crash landing on Saipan. The garrison commander executed them, thinking they were American spies due to the advanced nature of the plane and the fact they flew over Japanese airspace but never requested to land. The news got back to the Japanese higher-ups and the plane was shipped back to Japan for study while the bodies were dug up and burned. The whole event was swept under the rug due to the Japanese not wanting to anger the Americans. The Americans would discover strange documents referencing Earhart and Noonan after the end of the war but no definitive proof would ever be found by them.

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Next time will either be a timeline tidbit about Wang's National Republic of China, or a post covering the Autumn Offensive. Whichever I feel like writing about at the moment, of course.

Oh, and I don't plan on totally negating the Japanese doing bad things via Kita, he simply has his own views on things and is more friendly to the Chinese but is totally against anything he views as foreign to Asia (East Asia, specifically). He won't take well to the Hui Muslims, for example.
 
Timeline Tidbit 2: The National Republic of China

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The National Republic of China at its height

Of all of Japan's puppet states, the National Republic of China stands out as the largest, most powerful, and ultimately the most important for the Japanese

The National Republic of China was formed on July 2nd 1937 after a speech by Wang Jingwei. He had left China after the purges that followed the Xi'an incident. Wang Jingwei was the head of the Leftists faction of the KMT that lost the political struggle against the Blue Shirt Society. During the period of his exile, he spent most of his time being looked over in Japan.

Upon announcing the newly formed republic, the morale of the Republic of China's military plummeted over further and more and more men deserted their army to avoid being killed.

The Military

Once the Kuomintang was forced into exile, Wang Jingwei began setting up his own Kuomintang. As far as he was concerned, he had liberated China from both the Rightists and the Communists. It was then when Wang Jingwei began to officially set up the National Chinese Army.

Before the army was officially organized it was mostly a small force of ragtag mercenaries, bandits, deserters, and former prisoners of war. There were very little standards for anything beyond a uniform and had little use beyond a anti-partisan army around the new capital of Beijing. Though there was a small, elite force commanded by President Wang Jingwei personally which would eventually both the Republican Guard (Wang's personal bodyguards) and the Chinese Expeditionary Army.

After the Military Reorganization Act was passed in 1940, uniforms, weapons, ranks, chains of command, training, and rations were standardized for all members of the army. The cost was immense for the Chinese government and took away funds from other important rebuilding projects.

However, once the army had settled into its new digs, the amount of banditry and partisan attacks decrease noticeably. This was both due to the new training, higher morale, and a new strategy. This new strategy was to work with bandits and warlords, giving them land like noble lords and allowing them to enact justice on their lands. The army and bandits working together helped the Japanese further exploit Chinese resources even better.

The Navy of the National Republic of China was a year later in 1941. The Navy of the former Republic of China had largely been brown water river craft, and the few sea-going vessels that the Chinese had were either scuttled or sunk. As a result, the Navy was an arm of the army before 1941. Once the battleship ROCS Sun Yat-sen was launched, the Jingwei regime separated the Navy into its own branch of the military.

Beyond that, the Chinese never established a separate branch for their air force. This was because the Chinese never had the industrial or economic capacity to create their own planes. They typically bought Japanese planes (typically manufactured in China at that point) and assigned them to either the Navy or the Army. There were also cases in which old Republican Chinese airplanes were modified to better fit with the times and as a result, the Chinese had many strange and unique local variants of early 20th century planes.

The primary function of the National Chinese Army (renamed to National Chinese Military in 1941) was anti-partisan actions, government actions (a nice way to say 'watching over slave camps') and also had a small element which was dedicated to fighting for the Japanese. The Chinese would suffer from supply and morale problems until the end of the war and much of the military would make up the Chinese Republican Military after the war.

The Economy and Industry

The economy (and the nation, really) existed nearly exclusively for resource extraction. The mines and farms of China formed the lifeblood of the Chinese and Japanese states in the later period of the Japanese Empire. Most of these farms and mines had a rough quota system and would typically 'employ' political dissidents, prisoners of war, and those who were unlucky. While there were still paid miners and farmers, the large portion of these individuals moved onto other jobs before the end of the war. The job of being a farmer or a miner was tough, when you weren't working hard you were being attack by guerrillas and the pay was horrible. Most farmers and miners simply joined the military and forced laborers took their place.

Outside of resource extraction, China had several areas of commerce and industry. While China never produced their own weapon, plane, or ship designs, they did produce their own physical products. The Chinese industries had been largely refit for military production before the fall of the Kuomintang. The armaments that did not go the way of Japan or one of her puppets would typically go the way of the Chinese. After the end of the war, the factories would go back to work for the new government and many cities across China ballooned in population due to the demand of factory jobs and the safety from guerrillas.

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Decided to do a Timeline tidbit this time. I left out the political history of the NROC intentionally because it gives away parts of the plot. This was just a short one to write up really quick. Nothing fancy really.

As always, I hope you all enjoy.
 
Was definitely enjoyable. Was hoping to see some Manchukuo-style industrialisation, though. :p

There is industrialization in China, but most of it is hampered due to guerrillas and partisans. The NROC would likely have a gigantic army but most of it would be dedicated to fighting to the various anti-government rebels that would pop up.

So beyond what benefits resource extraction and building up military production is limited.
 
Just in case anyone was concerned, I this TL is very much still alive. I've just been taking advantage of the most recent Steam sale and I plan on making a return to this TL within due time.
 
After a long break, it's finally here! Chapter 12 of my TL! Yaaay.
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Chapter 12: Mud Blood

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Chinese troops fighting in the flood waters of a minor tributary of the Yangtze river.

Beginning in July was the beginning of the Chinese monsoon season. The monsoon typically lasted from early on in July and ending in late August. The rains typically caused some degree of flooding, although it is often negligible by typical Chinese standards. In 1931 during the monsoon season, the Yellow, Yangtze and Huai river flooded and killed an estimated 145,000 to estimates nearing 4 million people killed in the mass flooding. It was the deadliest disaster in recorded human history.

Thankfully, the flooding was not on those historic levels. There were still floods however.

The Yellow river flooded the worst and displaced many people. This would normally be something that the Japanese could overlook, but this presented a totally unseen problem. The flooding had nearly totally wiped out the logistics networks around the river. To put it in simpler terms, the troops at the front were no longer receiving supplies.

This was mitigated in part with the help of the Japanese Navy which preformed a number of resupplying efforts. They would land on the coast with supplies and then supplies would trickle out to the forces. The forces closest to the shoreline would typically get the best and the forces further inland had resorted to looting and robbing for food. Even when they did get supplies, it was too little too late.

It also certainly didn't help that the Chinese were not surrendering or retreating anymore. The Chinese were very aware of the Japanese situation and took full advantage. Without the armored and air support, the Japanese felt the sting of Chinese manpower superiority for the first time. Mass wave attacks all along the front forced a number of Japanese situations into dire situations. If they run, the whole front could collapse. If they stay, they could all be slaughtered by a pack of mad Chinese people. Ultimately the monsoon season was not long enough for the Chinese and once the raining had stopped and the logistics fully repaired, the Japanese were back to holding their positions.

Although one could easily write off the Chinese monsoon counter-offensive as a failure, it was something of a morale victory. For the first time the Chinese had managed to hold back the Japanese and did so with incredible ferocity. All of the Republic of China there were stories being told about the heroics at the front. There was even talk that the Communists in Shaanxi had started their own offensive. This was of course not true, but officers didn't dare lessen the morale boost the Chinese had earned.

Sadly, their high morale would prove to be short lived. Their main supplier of arms, ammunition, and foreign officers, the Germans who the Chinese relied upon completely pulled funding to the Chinese. They sent home their officers and no longer provided any supplies to the Chinese. The Chinese could still buy weapons and ammunition, but that would quickly sap the Chiang Ching-kuo's wallet of any money. The Republic of China would likely face financial collapse within two or three years due to military spending.

Hitler's Germany did this largely because of two reasons. Firstly was the fact that the Germans knew the score and because they looked for better relations with Japan, decided to forget their fruitless adventure in China. The second was that Chiang Ching-kuo's was very close to the Italians. Both diplomatically and politically, the Italians and Chinese clicked. The recent diplomatic issues with Mussolini's Italy over Austria caused Hitler to declare China to be worthless militarily, diplomatically, politically, and strategically. He wasn't wrong, sadly.

The damage to China was so strong that Generalissimo Chiang Ching-kuo had briefly debated over giving up his post and leaving with his family to go into exile in Europe. However, his resolve was strengthened when he received news from two individuals.

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'Of all Non-Chinese throughout the invasion of our homeland by the Japanese, Alexander von Falkenhausen proved to be the most noble and the most pure of heart. He outshines all others, even honorable comrade Kim Jong-Il' - excerpt from The Chinese National Encyclopedia of Heroes, 1965

The first was Alexander von Falkenhausen, the head of German forces in China. He had forgotten all logic and reason, promising to stay with the Generalissimo to devise further strategies. He did this more out of loyalty to Chiang Ching-kuo's father, but the sentiment was still the same. Chiang Ching-kuo ultimately forced von Falkenhausen to return home to his native Germany for the sake of his family, but he was officially declared a friend of China and a feast was thrown in his honor.

The second was Benito Mussolini. Well, technically not Mussolini himself, but an agent in China. Mussolini occasionally sent him orders of varying importance. This order in particular was of have one of the Italian agents in China speak with Chiang Ching-kuo. He promised that Italy would pay at least 25% of all military purchases and would allow the Chinese to take out 2% interest rate loans which he didn't need to start paying back until the end of the war. There was also talk of sending Italian tanks and planes to assist in fighting.

While von Falkenhausen's near betrayal of Hitler was nice, Mussolini's promise of money and potential military support was what kept him in China. This was a mistake of a political amateur. Mussolini's promises would quickly be revealed as a smoke in mirrors trick. There was no money or loans for China. But by the time this ruse would be revealed, things would be too late to salvage.

This effected more than just the Chinese however. General Sadao Araki was a well known supporter of Germany and even after Germany's pulling of support to China, the Japanese remained skeptical regarding the Germans. Araki's popularity and power was quickly fading. His actions while working in an official office and his continuous propagandizing for an alliance with Germany. Araki was quickly becoming unpopular and he was very much aware of that. Tensions reached a new height between Araki and Kita. He certainly wasn't the type of person to take a beating sitting down and Kita was aware of what Araki could do. A wounded bear lashing out was still a bear, after all.

September 5th, 1937

Many historians and fans of history spend hours debating on how the second Sino-Japanese war could have occurred. Some believe that if Chiang Kai-shek did not die in the Xi'an Incident, he could have led the Republic through the war. This is a contentious point of discussion in many alternate history communities. After all, if he did not die, how could he survive with now supplies coming from the outside? Some people suggest the Americans, the Brits, or the Soviets could have provided arms. But then again, how could those nations ally themselves with a nation that was ran by a militarist such as Chiang Kai-shek? People will argue the facts until the end of time.

But there is one thing they do not dispute. The Autumn offensive crushed any hope of the Republic of China surviving the war against the Japanese. The Autumn offensive began after the ground had dried and the supply networks of the Japanese had been normalized. At that time, the Chinese were still under supplied and were reeling from the loss of German support. There was promise of Italian support, but many doubted the possible help that the Italians could bring. The Italians were across the globe whereas the Japanese were right on their doorstep.

The first strike was a naval landing at Zhanjiang. It was nearly uncontested and most of the Chinese troops deserted upon seeing the Japanese troops and the Japanese survived a brief Chinese counter-attack. The Chinese suffered another humiliating defeat, further entrenching the idea of an inevitable failure.

The second major move was the invasion of Shaanxi. The Japanese had been dealing with small scale harassment from the Chinese Communists in Shaanxi for awhile at that point and were no longer interested in playing games with the Communists. A military force was assembled to sweep through Shaanxi and clean them out. This was of course easier said then done, but the result proved that the Japanese generals had some sort of lucidity left in their heads.

The Communists under Mao Zedong collapsed after about a week of hard fighting. They were mostly rag-tag militia groups who had been assembled to defend in the case of Chinese forces attacked. Sadly, the Japanese attacked instead. Most of the Communist forces were either veterans who had been around since before the Long March, or were fresh recruits (many times children) who were given a gun and a lesson on how to fire and reload it. Although the conventional Communist army was quickly destroyed, the guerrilla war had just begun. The communist rebels were fantastic at setting booby-traps and setting up ambushes and the Japanese weren't good for anything other than killing locals. The Communist rebels quickly gained the support of the people of Shaanxi and would be a thorn in the side of the Japanese until the end of the war.

The major victory though, was the march to the south. The Japanese army moved the front forward and forward. Their advances never ceased. The Chinese largely began to desert, or surrender about a week into the advance south and Chiang Ching-kuo once again thought over going into exile. He would once again decide to stay in China, this time wasn't due to friendly German generals or lying Italians, but a victory. The victory at Wuhan.

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I'll discuss the Battle of Wuhan later. It's late and I'm getting rather tired.
 
Oh, and I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention what happened to Mao after Shaanxi is occupied. That was a mistake on my part.

For now, let's just pretend he went missing for the sake of storytelling.
 
Chapter 13: The Wuhan two-step

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General Bai Chongxi, the Victor at Wuhan.

September 6th - 19th, 1937: Wuhan
After the start of the Autumn Offensive, the Chinese forces had collapsed. Mass defections and routing was not just common - it was expected. The North of China had totally fallen under direct Japanese control and the Communists in Shaanxi were forced to retreat out of China and over the Mongolian border. It seemed that there was no way to stop the Japanese.

This feeling only heightened over time with the destruction of China's last blue water naval vessel and the near total elimination of the Chinese Air Force during never ending Japanese air raids. By this point, Chinese morale had gotten so low that troops would simply drop their guns upon seeing Japanese troops. How could you stop the unstoppable?

A large mass of Japanese troops poured south across the Chinese countryside and found themselves just outside the city of Wuhan. Thinking it was an easy take, they charged into the city. Instead of meeting scared civilians, they met battle hardened radicals led by Bai Chongxi. Just a month earlier, a grand mufti had declared the war against Japan to be a Jihad and foreign fighters from various parts of the world did their part in the war against Japan. Bai Chongxi's force mostly consisted of Chinese Hui Muslims from which were master horsemen but also proved talented at block-to-block street fighting.

The initial battle of Wuhan lasted a little over a day before the Japanese commander ordered a orderly withdraw from the city and out into the farmlands. The Japanese then ordered a three day artillery barrage on the city. Bombs slammed into the city again and again. The barrage was ceaseless and caused incredible damage to the cities' infrastructure.

However, when the Japanese forces ended their barrage and send in the ground troops, they were shocked. Instead of finding a husk of the former Chinese Muslim force, they found that the forces had been nearly doubled in size. Bai Chongxi's forces had been reinforced with soldiers from the regular Chinese Army. Upon hearing of the victory at Wuhan, forces all over China had redoubled their efforts against the Japanese.

The Japanese had ran into their first major problem during the Second Sino-Japanese war. However, Araki was well aware of two things:

Firstly, that if he did not find a solution for this problem, he could be lose all influence in the government. Taking control and planning an operation as he had was a thankless job. If it failed, then it was all his fault, if it succeeded, well then he did his job. Beyond that, he could not do any better. He could only hope to hold on until the end of the war and then make a move.

Secondly, that Bai Chongxi was holding the Chinese together. If Wuhan was not taken, and Chongxi was not killed, the Chinese could hold off forever. Therefore, a Japanese victory at Wuhan was the first and foremost goal.

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Chinese forces on the outskirts of Wuhan.

After a few days of fighting, the Japanese secured the area around the North of Wuhan. They did not know at the time, but nearly 1 million Chinese troops had assembled. The largest battle of the Second Sino-Japanese war was to begin.

The Chinese forces numbered near 1 million troops. Most of these men were from Bai Chongxi's initial detachment as well as a hefty number of reinforcements. Beyond that, a large portion of Wuhan's population were formed into militia units, most of which did not even know how to clean the guns they were given. Their main advantage was their morale and strength in numbers but there was also something to be said for the terrain. The incessant Japanese bombing and artillery strikes had leveled large portions of the city and it made Wuhan a fortress of rubble. Japanese tanks were unable to traverse through many areas and the Japanese were forced to combat a enemy who was stronger in number and stronger in morale.

Once the Japanese were bolstered from outside forces, their numbers swelled to 200 thousand at its height. Almost all of these troops were typical Japanese Army who had marched all across China at this point, however a notable number were made up of Japanese SNLF who were elite Marines. They came in on from the river nearby and had the best weapons and supplies. Beyond that, the Japanese also had the support of a number of mercenary groups with members numbering at about 5,000 all together. The Japanese had better training, weapons, and supplies. Their morale would be proved totally sapped before the end of the second assault.

After the failed second assault, the Japanese sent a number of detachments to flank the sides of the city. While the Chinese proved to be master fighters when the terrain favored them, the open plains surrounding the city gave little cover for their numbers. The Japanese who had much better automatic weapons mowed the Chinese down and held their positions with little effort. This was not without losses however, as the Japanese SNLF were totally sapped of manpower, morale, and supplies. Most of the SNLF who fought in Wuhan are considered missing even to this day. After the end of the encirclement of Wuhan, the SNLF was given the okay to withdraw and did so as soon as the found the chance to do so. The SNLF was so devastated that they would not see deployment or combat in any capacity for the rest of the 1930's. This was just another thing that Araki was to be blamed for once the debacle at Wuhan was over.

The Japanese threw everything they had at the Chinese for the third assault. With the Chinese encircled, they had no where to run, and no where to receive supplies from. There are rumors that before the second day of the third assault that the Chinese had already begun to resort to cannibalizing bodies. They were expecting to last for months inside the rubble castle of Wuhan. Thankfully they didn't. On the fourth night, Japanese forces charged forward across several main points in the city and force the Chinese to relocate their HQ. After the Chinese received word that there would be no outside support for a breakout operation, most of the officers deserted and surrendered to the Japanese. Only the most hardcore and loyal forces remained with Bai Chongxi.

What he did next was what enraged the Japanese. Yes, they had just lost their friends at the hands of the Chinese and had nearly lost to them, but what Bai Chongxi did to avoid the justice of the Japanese enraged even the most calm and level-headed Japanese commander. Bai Chongxi and his forces who had been reduced to maybe a little over 10,000 simply walked out of the city in the middle of the night. The Japanese hadn't expected something so bold, something so crazy. The remains of the Wuhan warriors simply walked past the Japanese lines in the middle of the night. The encirclement was too busy taking care of prisoners elsewhere and were all drunk from parties prematurely celebrating the victory at Wuhan. The Japanese had never been so thoroughly bamboozled in their entire existence. Never. Not even close.

There were of course small pockets of Chinese troops in the city who were holed up until they were cleared out by the Japanese, but the majority of the fighting was over in Wuhan the morning of 18th. The Japanese were enraged upon their realization that their prize, Bai Chongxi had escaped into thin air. The hatred of General Chongxi, the Chinese people, the Hui Muslims, and those who had fought against Japan boiled over and all hell broke loose. What followed was likely the darkest single event in Japanese history. Massive amounts of men had surrendered before the end of the battle and they were round up and killed. Not just with bullets, but typically with other sick methods. Bayonet, Katana and Grenade contests were a common thing for a few days. Anything and everything living in the city was killed in one manner or another. There are even reported cases of Japanese troops rounding up all the women who couldn't leave the city (most of which were confined to bed due to old age and could not leave) and were gang raped, bayonet and beat to death. Due to the lack of evidence from outside sources the massacre at Wuhan was considered simply a baseless accusation by the Japanese government until pictures recovered from a Japanese veteran's photo album which included over 100 pictures of the various atrocities in and around Wuhan following the Japanese victory there. Beyond being one of the largest atrocities in the war, and the largest battle of the war, it was also the spark which helped set off the Japanese genocide of Hui Muslims. Even with people like Kita and Shumei Okawa (The man who would produce the first Japanese language Koran) in the government, the atrocities would continue until the military's total subservience to civilian government.

As for the genius general Chongxi, he had escaped with his forces out into the territory of the Ma Clique in the West and renounced loyalty to the current government, saying that Republicanism was dead and that his condolences went out to the grand martyr Chiang Kai-shek's son. He would also later wage a war of guerrilla warfare against the Japanese that the Japanese could never fully eliminate and would be forced to deal with until the Japanese withdrawal from China.

September 22nd

Following the debacle at Wuhan, the Japanese government was aflame with movement and political change. The militarist alliance had largely left and went over to Kita's side. They were already heavily influenced by Kita ideologically (as was Araki) and Araki was slowly losing his power and influence. It was an undeniable fact that Araki would be forced to act. Either he would have to attack or totally remove himself and his faction from politics. Kita was pondering on how to force Araki's hand in a bad situation when his friend Nishida burst through the door.

"Ka-Ka-..." Nishida's voice was rough and hoarse "Kawashima needs you to see this telegram. Something's wrong." Nishida quickly forced the telegram into Kita's hand and leaned down on the desk, exhausted. The telegram was upon a tasteful off-white paper with Japanese written upon it. It stated what it was and what it wanted very plainly.

Code:
We know who your associates are. We know what you have been involved in. Cease your activities or reprisals will occur.

Kita wasn't sure how to respond to the telegram. "This isn't Araki. Araki would just confront me directly." Nishida nodded in response.

"You're right Ikki, it's not him. Kawashima told me it came from the Soviets." The Soviets? The Soviets? Was his confidant Nishida correct? Something had gone wrong. He knew he was messing around up North, but nothing to warrant a message like that. Something was going to occur that was outside of Kita's control and he didn't like it. Not one bit.
 
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