1937 - The Offensives of False Hope
"We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotting structure will come tumbling down"
President Chiang Kai-Shek
The outbreak of war was an interesting experience for China - because technically speaking they were not 'in a state of War.' The Chiang government had never accepted Manchurian independence - only doing so at gunpoint. Now that China was strong - she was continuing the Northern Expedition. This meant that the Manchurian government was not legally treated as existing - any captured prisoners of war would be treated as 'liberated' Chinese citizens.
When the conflict broke out on May 1 1937 there was a false sense of optimism among the ranks of the Kuomintang that the war would be quick, short and decisive - war planning had only been taken up to Christmas. The whole nation believed - and was encouraged to believe that Manchuria was in a state of unreadiness - and even Civil War. Before the Third Northern Expedition Started Emperor Zhang Zhoulin and his Prime Minister played elaborate games of disunity with Yan Xishan apparently accepting the terms before being 'sacked' by the Emperor. This - along with events such as the staged desertion of entire companies lulled the Chinese leadership into a false sense of security. Although the Bureau of Information and Statistics encouraged caution - this was mostly ignored in the face of evidence that seemed to support their ideological mindset. China would receive some very painful lessons in the early days of the conflict...
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Lieutenant Fong Chen-Yieuh huddled in position his eyes lit with excitement. The time had come to unify China and he was to be part of it! He nearly shook with excitement as he clutched his machine pistol. He looked around him and saw that the men around him were all excited too.
Fong thought he was too mature for this sort of thing. Too grown up, he had been bloodied - by the Xinhai Revolution, The First and Second Northern Expedition and he had recently come back from the stalemate of the Spanish Civil War. He has seen men brutally maimed and killed in horrific ways
and women and children too... he thought uneasily of Madrid.
But Madrid was 2000 miles away and Fong was here now. He was a rare breed - a career soldier who had fought with the Kuomintang since 1911. He was no spring chicken anymore but he was the right sort of age to be commanding a section of men. He rose through the ranks through sheer bravery - as well as by virtue of survival.
Artillery fire broke the eerie silence of the night as Chinese guns marked the start of the Third Northern Expedition. All was going to plan... Fong checked his watch.
15 minutes of this and then we go...
15 minutes passed. Flares shot up and lit the night sky. Fong blew his whistle and leaped over the parapet. "Advance for China!" he screamed.
Type 1 Tanks formed a core component of the May Offensives...
Ahead of Fong Type 1 tanks clattered into action, their mechanical dim adding to the clatter of the night. There were no enemies around... Fong pondered susipciously... This was too easy - it had to be a trap somewhere...
Fong was right. All around him planted explosives ripped up the ground - it was almost biblically with hellfire and brimstone opening up cracks on the ground and destroying the vanguard of the Nationalist advance...Miraculously Fong was unhurt. He was beginning to compose himself from the shock wheh shells started exploding all around him... Fong was unhurt no more.
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"The opening salvo of the Third Northern Expedition resulted in failure for the Nationalists... at this point it should have been clear that they had encountered an enemy far more willing and able to fight than original. But they would have none of it. The rest of May would be spent on futile offensives against the Yan Xishan wall with blood, bones and bullets proving unable to scratch the hard, reinforced masonry of the walls... Gradually it was realized that a new strategy was needed...But this was not after the whittling down of the elite "Shock Route Armies" in pointless and futile offensives...The death toll has been put down to tens of thousands of China's most elite fighting men squandered in the opening days of a bloody and destructive conflict...The tank and the aeroplane which had promised to end the stalemates of The Great War only seemed to add more ways to die...By the end of July it was clear that there would be stalemate...Chiang and his War Council would deliberate and form a new strategy against what was now proven to be a very determined and able foe..."
- History of the Second Great War
David Lio
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"...Our work was quite a tedious affair. We would load up the mortar, adjust the position slightly, fire and reload. It was at the same time a time consuming process...Each mine shell took about half an hour to reload and shoot...Occasionally there would be the odd airplane that flew overhead - we paid no attention to those and they paid no attention to us... Although our jobs were boring - we know that our work in scattering mines all over the North China Sea was important in denying access to the Japanese invaders..."
- Private Dinghy Yu, Special Mortar Unit
From: Voices from the Second Great War
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Pete McGill was bored in Manila. Inevitably he contrasted the high life in Shanghai and in China compared to the sleepy, stuffy conservatism in what was one of the most Roman Catholic countries in the world. There was literally nothing to do for an off-duty American Marine other than listen to the radio.
And so Pete did, albeit halfheartedly "...Fighting is reproted in the desets of Inner Mongolia...meanwhile there seems to have been a lul of fighting outside of Beiping in Hopei province...The Chinese Foreign Minister has said that the troops are 'completing preparations"
Pete snorted. The Chinks had been 'preparing' for about three months now. It probably meant that they just couldn't break past the Manchu's. Or more likely it was some goddam Japs. The Japs had been renting out armies to the Manchurians calling them "Volunteers." The Chinese Embassy had originally complained but when an angry mob burnt down the embassy - and the hapless diplomat to a crisp there was no-one and nothing to complain about anymore.
Yawning, Pete dazed steadily off into the hot muggy air of Manila while a hundred miles away from him people died....
PS: Yes I am taking Turtledove characters. I feel no regrets
. Plus it's hard coming up with names....
