The Daitouasensou: The clash of the Dragon and the Sun

yamatokreig

Banned
"For a century, the Han people have been humiliated. We have been exploited in every possible way; our women raped, our lands looted. First it was the British. Then the French. Then the Russians. Finally, the bastard barbarian Japanese. But now, the tide shall turn. As China, once again, will ascend to the Jade throne."
-Hu Hanmin, Director of the National State of the Han​
GIBRT


Zuuk7Dcl.jpg


Hello! This is my first alternate history, and I'm posting because a friend of mine recommended that I post it here. Called the Daitousensou, in this timeline the Kuomintang maintains a strong grip on mainland China, but is overthrown by a hyper-nationalist faction of the party. Meanwhile, Japan remains powerful economically and navally powerful due to lack of internal unrest and the Washington, but is threatened by the resurgent China. I will post the first few sections I've finished in little snippets over a few days, and then post as I progress in the story. Enjoy!



Daitouasensou

Book 1: The Prelude


Introduction


The Daitouasensou (translated literally as the Great East Asian War), known in the west as the Chinese Crisis or the Oriental War, took place between 1940 and 1946 between the forces of the Japanese Empire (大日本帝国) and the National State of the Han (漢民国家), more commonly known as the Chinese State in the west. It raged for 6 years across Korea, Manchuria, and Guangdong, killing nearly 11 million combatants and 17 million civilians. In 6 years, the landscape of Asia changed from one of a icy status quo between the dimming sun and the rising dragon into one where an exhausted sun claimed a shaky hegemony in the Orient while the mainland descended into civil war and strife.


This account will attempt to record the war in its near entirety; not especially focused onto a particular front or nation. All Chinese and Japanese names will be accompanied with kanji versions (Note: all of the kanji are japanese, not simplified or traditional Chinese. A version completely in English will be published alongside this account). This chapter will focus on the interwar era and the politics leading to the war. The order of battles of each nation will be accounted in chapter 2.


Chapter 1: China


The Establishment of the Republic of China


The prelude to the Daitouasensou (henceforth referenced as The Oriental War; (大東亜戦争) begins with the overthrowing of the Qing dynasty in Xinhai Revolution (辛亥革命) of 1912 in which Sun Yat-Sen

(孫中山) and the Nationalist Kuomintang party (国民党) established the Republic of China. Despite a brief attempt by Yuan Shikai (袁世凱) to reinstate dynastic imperial rule in 1916 after the failed Second Revolution to depose Yuan Shikai’s seizure of power in 1913, the republic returned through the Third Revolution, also known as the Revolutionary Unification War (革命統一戦争). The KMT revolutionary army fought from 13 June 1916 to 5 May 1918 against to forces of regional warlord cliques such as the Zhili clique and Anhui clique. After the fall of Peking and the repulsion of Yunnan clique forces from Guangdong province, the war was sealed and China was mostly reunited. However, the Ma clique and Sinkiang remained independent as the weary republic could not afford to maintain far-flung and ethnically hostile provinces. The republic remained relatively stable, with rapid industrialization and economic growth through American investment.


Not really sure how long these posts should be or how to format, please provide constructive criticism!
More will be posted tonight, stay tuned!
 
Last edited:

Juumanistra

This should be in the post-1900 forum. Unless you're going for a wacky PoD that has Sun Yat-sen somehow helping make the First Guangzhou Uprising stick, for instance.
 

yamatokreig

Banned
The Kuomintang Civil War


However, in 1925, after the death of Sun Yat-Sen, a power struggle ensued within the ranks of the Kuomintang. On one side was the establishment led by Chiang Kai-Shek

(蒋介石), opposed by the ultra-nationalist right-wing fringe party of the Kuodaotang (国導党; translated literally as the national directive party) led by Hu Hanmin (胡漢民). The Kuomintang Civil War lasted from 12 July 1925 to 20 March 1927 and resulted in the death of a total of 5 million. Hu Hanmin remained on the defensive in Guangdong as Chiang Kai-Shek attacked from the North with rolling waves of attackers assault trenches of the defenders. In Shaanxi, despite the KMT crushing the forces of the province when it defected to the KDT in February 1926, guerilla forces in the mountains harassed the KMT until the end of the war.

azPGSRU.jpg


Despite having a large manpower advantage over the KDT, the KMT was unable to overcome the trench defences of the KDT. By December of 1926 Kuomintang military losses had reached a staggering 3 million compared to the paltry 680,000 of the KDT. Seeing this, the powerful general and former warlord in Manchuria, Zhang Zuolin (張作霖), defected to the KDT in exchange for the creation of a semi-autonomous region in Manchuria (this administrative division was later named Manchuyu; 満洲域) in 3 January 1927. Seeing this betrayal, the generals of the KMT began to panic and send excessive amounts of men up to the newly opened Northern front. Emboldened, Hu Hanmin ordered a sweeping offensive of infantry and cavalry along the coast on 4 March 1927 while the forces of Zhang Zuolin besieged Tianjin and Peking. After a swift and brutal campaign, named the Zhejiang offensive, Peking was captured and Chiang Kai-Shek was executed in public via firing squad in front of the forbidden palace, ending the Kuomintang once and for all.

A bit late of an update, I apologize; also for the shitty microsoft paint-tier map. Tomorrow I'll try my hand at an account of a KDT soldier in the war.
 
XFE

XFE

So Zhang Zuolin survives his OTL death?

But some insight as to what happened to Wang Jingwei might help with world building.
 

yamatokreig

Banned
Xianfeng Emperor said:
So Zhang Zuolin survives his OTL death?

But some insight as to what happened to Wang Jingwei might help with world building.
Click to expand...

Yup, as will be explained in the Japanese section of the lore, Japan doesn't intervene or meddle too much in China as the KMT defeats the warlords early under Sun Yat-Sen. I didn't really think about Wang Jingwei, I'll take that into consideration. Thanks!
 
Jaenera Targaryen

Jaenera Targaryen

To keep the Japanese from being too aggressive (and an implicitly primarily-naval power as you mentioned), this would require other butterflies. For instance, either no WNT, or Japan gets the coveted 70% ratio to the USN/RN. This would strengthen the treaty faction within the IJN (the moderates in other words), and with a strong, hyper-nationalist China looming over the horizon (and thus Japan unable to expand beyond Korea), the military focus may be on strengthening the navy to allow it to protect the Home Islands no matter what, with the army being focused on keeping Korea as a buffer/from being used as a stepping stone for a potential invasion of the Home Islands.

On the other side of things, I don't think it's possible to have Washington be very friendly with Japan from the get-go. Even with Open Door being upheld, Japan getting a 70% ratio/no restrictions on their navy means the IJN is still a powerful threat to the USN in the Pacific. However, things cycle back to hyper-nationalist China, especially if the Chinese go the route the PRC are going for the past decade or so, i.e. threatening traditional spheres of interest in the region and attempting to regain its status as the Asian hegemon. Even at this time (before WWII) the Americans had excellent strategists working at the desks in Washington, and as China grows in power both economic and militarily, the hawks will have to weigh between Japan with its limited industry, manpower, and resources, against China with its vast manpower and resources plus growing industry, and determine which is the greater potential threat to America.

EDIT: The lessening of perceived western slighting from WNT, plus Manchuria being under complete Chinese control (thus weakening the power and influence of the radical hotbed that was the Kwantung Army) may also weaken Japanese radicalism to an extent. To an extent, mind: getting rid of it completely would require a ToV PoD at least, i.e. the Equality Clause isn't rejected. Still, it's an improvement over OTL.
 

yamatokreig

Banned
Jaenera Targaryen said:
To keep the Japanese from being too aggressive (and an implicitly primarily-naval power as you mentioned), this would require other butterflies. For instance, either no WNT, or Japan gets the coveted 70% ratio to the USN/RN. This would strengthen the treaty faction within the IJN (the moderates in other words), and with a strong, hyper-nationalist China looming over the horizon (and thus Japan unable to expand beyond Korea), the military focus may be on strengthening the navy to allow it to protect the Home Islands no matter what, with the army being focused on keeping Korea as a buffer/from being used as a stepping stone for a potential invasion of the Home Islands.

On the other side of things, I don't think it's possible to have Washington be very friendly with Japan from the get-go. Even with Open Door being upheld, Japan getting a 70% ratio/no restrictions on their navy means the IJN is still a powerful threat to the USN in the Pacific. However, things cycle back to hyper-nationalist China, especially if the Chinese go the route the PRC are going for the past decade or so, i.e. threatening traditional spheres of interest in the region and attempting to regain its status as the Asian hegemon. Even at this time (before WWII) the Americans had excellent strategists working at the desks in Washington, and as China grows in power both economic and militarily, the hawks will have to weigh between Japan with its limited industry, manpower, and resources, against China with its vast manpower and resources plus growing industry, and determine which is the greater potential threat to America.

EDIT: The lessening of perceived western slighting from WNT, plus Manchuria being under complete Chinese control (thus weakening the power and influence of the radical hotbed that was the Kwantung Army) may also weaken Japanese radicalism to an extent. To an extent, mind: getting rid of it completely would require a ToV PoD at least, i.e. the Equality Clause isn't rejected. Still, it's an improvement over OTL.
Click to expand...

Washington does not exist in this timeline, leading to better Anglo-Japanese relations, and thus less bitterness and disillusionment with European powers. The lack of the kwantung army's influence due to Chinese stability will also curb radicalism in the military. I'll elaborate once I get to Japan. Thanks for your feedback!
 

yamatokreig

Banned
An unknown mountain pass in Yunnan province, December 14th, 1926
8:47 PM

Thirty days.

For twenty days, 57 men have been encompassed by an overwhelming enemy force by three sides.
The men defending the pass were members of the Kuodaotang party, and had volunteered for the war, not knowing what awaited them.

"Damn it! Are reinforcements coming, or not!" The only officer still alive of the group, Zhu Na, exclaimed as he slammed down a letter he had received from a haggard courier who had arrived from headquarters, 73 miles away.
On the frontier, news traveled slowly, and supplies were scarce. Zhu had received a letter stating that Supreme command was deliberating on whether to send a battalion the reinforce the mountain pass.
The letter was a week old.

Zhu shivered as his men huddled around the bonfire, desperately trying the stave off the bitter cold. He had not expected this situation to unfold this way, to say the very least.
The original expedition of a few thousand men were sent to pacify villages in the mountains that refused to submit to Kuodaotang authority.
When the soldiers arrived, they arrived in time at a mountain pass to intercept a force of 54,000 Kuomintang soldiers. For a month, the KDT forces desperately fought to halt the advance of the KMT.
However, as more KMT soldiers arrived, and with no reinforcements arriving for the KDT, the situation had gone from bad to dire.

Zhu was shot back to reality as a heard a scream pierce through the night.
To the right, a medic was performing an amputation on a young soldier inside a tent as the soldier screamed in agony, begging for his mother.
Soldiers staggered away from the bonfire to vomit into the snow.
Zhu looked away, desperate to forget, and walked over to a sentry on the edge of a precipice.

The sentry nodded, and Zhu silently stared ahead.
The sentry began whistling a tune, one faintly familiar.
Zhu began to ponder what it was, stroking his chin.

Out of nowhere, a gunshot.

The sentry dropped dead in an instant as his cranium was pierced with a bullet.

Zhu hit the ground as the artillery began firing. This was going to be another long night.
 
Jaenera Targaryen

Jaenera Targaryen

I'm guessing from what's said in the OP about an 'exhausted Sun' winning the Great East Asia War (because that's what Daitoua Sensou literally means), the war is going to be Japan's version of WWI, is it? Remembered for how the war starts with militarists and imperialists proclaiming Japanese soldiers and sailors will be returning by the harvest to a hero's welcome, only for years to pass and an entire generation dead by the time the war ends, and with the economy all but destroyed and finances depleted.

America's probably going to find this bittersweet, as on one hand an exhausted Japan would prefer placing its new colonies/protectorates in SE Asia on the track to independence as parts of a Japanese-led trading block as opposed to keeping them down and spending more money and blood doing so than otherwise, but on the other hand, Japan would have little interest in restoring order on the mainland. America would prefer that, as a stabilized mainland would make for a better market, but with Japan going NOPE on sending men back to the mainland, they either have to do it themselves or find some way to get the Japanese to do it for them. Unlikely; the Japanese would more likely focus on securing their shores and shipping lanes, and go back to licking their wounds.

もう一度 ない!

Mou ichido nai!

Never again!

Oh the irony; Japan wins hegemony in East Asia, but in so doing discovers it's barely worth all the young men who'll never be coming home.
 

Clint Beastwood

Banned
Yo, I'm IRL friends with @yamatokreig and I'll start updating this thing.

The Creation of the National State of the Han


After the end of the Kuomintang Civil War, Hu Hanmin proclaimed the creation of the National State of the Han. Based on the idea of the nation for the Han alone, this ultra-ethnonationalist ideology was surprisingly popular in the State, as China had been for centuries been highly ethnocentric; it was popular especially because of the 300 year reign of the Manchurian Qing dynasty. Ethnic purges against Manchurians by the Han were only prevented through the creation of Manchuyu. The Hui people were also safe, as Sinkiang remained independent from the Chinese. However, the Tibetans not in Sinkiang territory and Mongolians in Inner Mongolia were not as lucky. Pogroms and lynchings were daily occurrences began by nationalizing nearly all foreign investments and creating state-run corporations ran by loyalists who fought for the Kuodaotang in the civil war. One notable exception was the South Manchuria Railway company (満州鉄道株式会社) or Mantetsu (満鉄) for short. Acquired by the Japanese Empire after the Russo-Japanese war of 1903, Mantetsu was fiercely protected and subsidized by the Japanese government. Hu Hanmin feared a Japanese military reaction against the republic that had just come out of a civil war if he seized the railway, and reserved action against Mantetsu for later. The railway would later serve to become the catalyst of the Oriental war. After the nationalization effort, the KDT focused its efforts on a long-term plan that encompassed nearly all aspects of the government, military, and economy. It was named the Han 10-year state project. (漢十年国家企画).
 
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