Earlier operation Ichi-Go

Deleted member 1487

I just saw a video on the operation...and it wasn't good for the Japanese. They threw in 80% of their total forces, including all the behind the lines personnel, which meant that there was a massive vacuum that the ChiComs flooded into and set up their base of operations. Ichi-Go was a total Hail Mary operation that while it did basically sow the seeds of the collapse of the KMT also ensured the ChiComs ran the country and would have gutted Japanese logistics and ability to function if and when Mao gave the word to start and uprising.

It could be launched earlier IIRC, but would have effectively just multiplied the Japanese problems by several orders of magnitude by eliminating the main threat to the ChiComs and ceding them control over the countryside and infrastructure.
 
There was an intention in 1942 to launch a major China offensive but action in the Solomons ended up diverting the resources allotted for it; this was amplified by 1944 when they finally did launch the attack. A lack of a Pacific War is thus needed for an earlier one. As it were, Ichi Go did push the KMT to a dangerous extent due to serious food shortages it engendered by overrunning a lot of the rice growing capacity of rump China.
 
To answer the OP take a look at the operation that was launched in the summer of 1942. Not nearly as large as the Ichi Go campaign, but large never the less. A examination if its size, resources used, and damage to China would contain part of the answer for the OP.
 
I just saw a video on the operation...and it wasn't good for the Japanese. They threw in 80% of their total forces, including all the behind the lines personnel, which meant that there was a massive vacuum that the ChiComs flooded into and set up their base of operations.
Couldn't they use the forces that would have gone to South-East Asia or the pacific
 
Couldn't they use the forces that would have gone to South-East Asia or the pacific

Sure and lose there more quickly.

Manchuria under the Red Army attack in August 1945 is a example. Repeatedly tapped for 'Japanese' units for offense operations in China, defense in the Phillipines, Formosa, or the homeland, Manchuria was defended by to high a portion of second and third rate formations, and to few of those anyway.
 
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