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Thread: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

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    Default The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    THE EAST IS RED!
    A Communist China AAR



    Prologue

    It has been twenty-five years since the start Xinhai Revolution in 1911. A quarter century ago, revolutionaries rose up to oust the crumbling, decadent Qing Dynasty. Out of that, the Republic of China was born. The father of this new China, Sun Yat-Sen, promised an era of modernization and democracy for China. China was supposed to brought together by this movement. The people had spoken and risen up against all the arrogance and decadence associated with the distant rule of the Emperors. Thousands of years of imperial rule came to an end and hopes were high for the future China. These hopes quickly began to fade…


    Sun Yat-Sen, the father of the Republic of China.

    Instead, China plunged into herself chaos. Rather than equality and modernity for the people of China, its peasants and workers, this nation was hurled into backwardness and division. Sun Yat-Sen was unable to curb the military powers that once backed the 1911 revolution, and those like Yung Shikai would attempt to seize control. He could not see his principles of empowering the people come to life. By 1916, military commanders were taking it upon themselves to form cliques that acted as independent states unwilling to answer to orders from the central government. These new warlords were mostly military officers and they proceeded to promote old friends from the military academy to key posts in their rotten governments. They ruled over their own provinces with an iron fist.

    The Kuomintang, the main political party behind the 1911 Revolution, then proceeded to seize central power in China. They were little better than the military warlords they tried to control. They quickly abandoned the virtues of the Republic that Comrade Yat-Sen tried to established and instead sought only power. This was particularly the case with Chiang Kai-Shek.


    The White Sun: The Kuomintang (Nationalist) Banner


    Chiang Kai-Shek, the Generalissimo and current ruler of China.

    Chiang, like the other warlords, was a militarist. Perhaps he was only in charge of China because he was the strongest warlord. He would only cement his power with campaigns like the Northern Expedition, where Chiang crushed many of the warlords. Still, into the 1930s the problems persisted with some military cliques still standing. When Chiang went after the warlords, he went after us communists too, first striking us in Shanghai in 1927.

    From then on, it was war. Chiang sent multiple attacks at us, each time attempting to encirclement us. We beat them four times with counter-encirclements. The Communists were defeated the fifth time, and by that time we had lost the advantage. Much of it was in part to the Nationalist (Kuomintang) forces smarting up and acting more defensively, but also because the COMINTERN meddled in our affairs and sent Otto Braun, known as Li De, to take control of our forces of the Red Army. He and his military commission, backed now by the Russian Soviets, destroyed our chances of victory with their ineptitude.


    Chiang Kai-Shek durign the Northern Expedition.


    Otto Braun (Li De), the German COMINTERN agent.

    Mao’s return did not immediately save our situation. In October 1934 we were on the verge of losing absolutely every to Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces. The only way to save ourselves and our movement was to withdraw and regroup. Thus began the “Long March,” where we attempted to bring all of our forces from southern China westward then northward to escape the Kuomintang encirclement. We marched countless miles across our massive country, crossing rushing rivers and climbing freezing mountains, all the while with the Nationalists on our tails. We lost many men in the process, thousands upon thousands of men.


    Map of the Long March.


    The Long March.

    Yet it was here on the Long March that we proved our strength and resolve. Mao Zedong was reinstated as the leader of the movement once again. Otto Braun remained around, but he had lost his influence. The Long March gave our movement a chance to reconnect with the peasantry, who helped us along our march by sheltering us and providing food.

    Finally, on October 22, 1935 at the end of the march over a full year since we first set out, we found ourselves a new safe base at Yan’an. We had lost 95% of the Red Army. And that is where we stayed from that time onward as we rebuilt our strength to continue the Revolution.

    ------------
    Chapter 1
    Yan’an
    Base of the Chinese Soviet Republic
    October 10, 1936


    The situation in 1936 after the Long March.

    I sat at a large table inside one of the conference rooms of the Communist Party headquarters here in Yan’an. Mao Zedong, as leader of the Party and the guide to this elaborate Communist project, sat at the head of the table. His peasant origins showed with his frank demeanor, but the man seemed to be able to straddle the two worlds of peasantry and leadership well.

    Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist Party, in 1935.


    Mao's cabinet.

    The rest of the men were Mao’s small, tight group. To his side sat Zhou Enlai, Mao’s right-hand man. Zhou was well-liked and was a talented negotiator. It was also thanks to Zhou that Mao regained control of the Party from the likes of Braun, where Zhou sided with Mao’s military philosophy of guerrilla warfare. All of that happened during the Long March. Zhou’s loyalty paid off and now he was one of the most important men in the Soviet.

    Zhou Enlai standing left of Comrade Mao.

    Then there was Zhu De, the main Commander-in-Chief of the Communist forces which made his rank in command only second to Mao himself. A former warlord before joining the Communist Party, Zhu was a friend of Zhou Enlai. Comrade De was seen as a very talented military commander, almost supernaturally so, and his military experience as a warlord gave him a good sense of command and leadership. Zhu made a good example for his men and the people around him, overcoming his past as a warlord with a crippling opium addiction to lead the Communist forces today.

    Zhu De.

    Near Zhu also sat Deng Xiaoping and Yang Shangkun, two other military commanders that Mao Zedong highly valued and trusted. Otto Braun, or the German know as Li De, was absent. His presence was not missed at the table.

    Deng Xiaoping (Left) and Yang Shangkun (Right).

    One foreigner that was sitting at the table, however, was Nguyen Ai Qoc. He was a Vietnamese leftist and another promising military commander. He was a strong advocate for guerrilla warfare and was gaining military experience being with the Chinese Communist Party. He would often talk about going back to Vietnam and leading an independence movement there against the French imperialists.

    The Vietnamese Nguyen Ai Qoc, the future Ho Chi Minh.

    Among the other military men there were Ziao Jingguang and Fang Zeyi. Since the Soviet did not have neither a navy nor an air force, the two departments those men were meant to specialize in, they had to content themselves with providing advice regarding ground warfare. That did not stop either of them from advocating for the creation of a river navy or a small air force.

    Handling foreign relations and sitting at the table was Wang Jiaxiang. In particular, he was responsible for representing the Chinese Soviet’s interests at the Communist International (COMINTERN). He, like some of the other men at the table like Deng Xiaoping and Nguyen Ai Qoc that had received educational experience in Russia.

    Wang Jiaxing.

    The head of the Teke, the Chinese Soviet Republic’s intelligence department,Li Kenong was present at the meeting. He sat seriously behind his glasses. His past was just as serious, As the man in charge of the creation and distribution of propaganda, he was my boss, though most of the time I was able to listen to Mao directly. Li was a double agent planted inside the Nationalists’ Security Police when he worked for Zhou Enlai. He only narrowly escaped detection before being pulled out by Zhou.

    Li Kenong.

    Then there was Xie Juezai, a man popular with the people for his ability to dispense fair justice as judge within the Soviet. Because of this popularity, he was invited to Mao’s council in order to weigh in legislative proceedings.

    Finally, there was Lin Bojiu, a rather skinny man with glasses that sat silently in the corner. His role was to manage production and industry within the Soviet, particularly in terms of military equipment.

    Then here I was. I held no official political position, or at least no position that was worth significant attention. I should not have been here among these towering individuals, these generals and politicians. I am He Peng and I was a political commissar back then. I trained at Whampoa Military Academy. I had known Zhou Enlai at the academy and I had also worked with Deng Xiaoping as a commissar. My main task was as a propagandist first in Shanghai, then after the crushing of the Communist movement there, worked with the Jiangxing Soviet in the South of China. I was there on the Long March motivating the troops onwards over the mountains, inspiring the men to take one more step forwards through such impossible terrain. Comrade Zedong had noticed and invited me to be, as he said, “a witness to the new rising China.” So now here I was about to witness the start of another glorious revolution.

    Mao opened up the meeting, addressing the men at the table with these words:

    “Comrades, it may appear that our state is at an impasse. It appears that our revolution has slowed, perhaps even halted. It seems that our enemy, the Kuomintang, is stronger than ever before. Chiang Kai-Shek has suppressed most of the warlords, and the remaining ones…the tyrants that rule over Guangxi, Yunnan, Shanxi, and Xibei…have consolidated their control over their fiefdoms.


    East Asia in 1936. The Chinese Soviet Republic is the small red area between Shanxi and Xibei San Ma. Darker red to the far north is the Soviet Union, along with its associated Socialist Republics of Mongolia and Tanu Tuva. The holdings of the British Empire lay in the southern light red. Additionally, France controls the region of Indochina bordering Siam, Guangxi, and Yunnan. Japan possesses the Korean Peninsula, the island of Taiwan (Formosa, to those Western Imperialists), as well as the yellow stretch of land between Shanxi and Manchukuo. It is finally worth noting that Manchukuo is a puppet state of Japan with the former Qing Child-Emperor of China, Puyi, as its Emperor.

    Then there is the looming danger of Japan. It has gripped our entire nation with anxiety since 1931. They have taken Manchuria, and I think they will press for more of China. These bandits are hungry still and the Kuomintang’s ineptitude in handling everything before merely tempts Japan further into attacking China once again.

    And then you look at our forces and how greatly reduced they are…we set out on the Long March with 85,000 men and arrived here with 7,000. How could we possibly continue our battle with the Nationalists with only this many men? Yet I tell you again, as I had told our other men that survived the journey (and I know that some of you here are survivors too), that the men that remain are gold. We have become stronger, not weaker.

    This is the makings of an even greater army than what we have at the moment. This is the core of an even stronger force, a force even more committed to the cause than our previous one. Oh, indeed they were skilled and brave, but with new our experiences this force will be even better. This is why I want our army retrained and re-equipped, so that they can be prepared for battle in the future. War is coming, so right now we have an opportunity to build ourselves up now.

    We must strike and we must be aggressive. We cannot grow in this position, we must seize the resources – men, supplies, food, and minerals – from the warlords around us. They are weak and divided and too preoccupied with their own petty affairs. This is our perfect chance to strike.”

    “Who would we strike, Comrade?” asked Wang Jianxiang.

    “We would strike Xibei San Ma. They are the weakest of the warlords yet their territory in the mountains is rich with resources. It will give us good solid forward position for future strikes against the other states in the region. And we also know that the people are waiting for liberation from the arrogant nepotists that rule the region,” Mao explained.

    “How do you know that they are ‘safe’ to attack?” Wang continued to question.

    “I have spoken with Zhu and Zhou and the other military commanders and after preparation we should be able to strike a quick attack,” Mao replied.

    Zhu and Zhou nodded to confirm.

    “This attack may be years away, but we must prepare for war now. The current situation is not conducive to war and we will probably have a punitive attack from the Kuomintang forces if we do attack too soon – this is why we must wait and build up until Chiang Kai-Shek is too busy with another problem to respond to our attack westward. Are we all agreed?”

    At this point the session seemed to transfer to a more open interaction.

    Wang spoke again saying, “If the military leaders seem to agree that such an attack on the Ma Clique is possible, then I will not doubt them, but I do believe that we should find supporters to back the attack. I would like to have an extra advantage should the fighting become difficult.”

    “So what is it that you propose, Comrade Wang?” asked Zhou Enlai.

    “I say that we should make considerations to once again work with Moscow.”

    By Moscow, Wang meant the COMINTERN and the Soviet government. Mao’s brow furrowed. “Do you object, Comrade?” Wang asked.

    “I would rather not seek help from the Soviets. I do not trust Stalin and I do not trust the Communist International. I am not risking unwelcome guests coming here trying to tell me how to run this army or lead this republic,” Mao said gruffly. Everyone knew he was referring to Otto Braun the German.

    “Seeking aid from the Soviet Union would not necessarily have to come with military advisors. They could merely supply us with supplies…like rifles and uniforms,” said one of Wang’s staff members present at the meeting.

    “Appealing to Russia for help will endanger our cause. We know that the Soviets and Nationalists frequently work together and it would compromise our situation. Furthermore, Stalin’s views do not match up with ours…Josef Stalin has corrupted the concept of Socialist Revolution for his own power-hungry ends. Furthermore, our Communist movement must be different from Russia’s – ours must be self-sufficient and it must be reliant on a revolution led almost wholly by the peasantry. Chinese Socialism is its own political philosophy and has drifted too far from Marxist-Leninist doctrines and now we must continue on with our own form of socialism independent of Russian doctrine.”


    Josef Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union.

    “So your concern is that the Soviet Union will use COMINTERN to control us?” Zhou Enlai asked.

    “Yes, as they have tried before. I am not completely eliminating the concept of joining with the Communist International forever, but I only want to join when we are a strong power able to count on itself rather than being prone to Russian manipulation.”

    Wang then said, “Fair enough. But can we keep diplomatic lines intact and talk with them about joining?”

    Mao answered, “Yes. We will not commit to joining unless we are under grave threat or have had great success.”

    The group seemed satisfied with this, even despite its vagueness. It went without saying at this point that Mao’s stance about joining with the other Communist nations was dependent on how well any potential war might go with Japan or the Nationalists.

    I also knew from talking with Mao after the meeting that he was deeply suspicious of Soviet designs over East Asia. He explained to me that he was deeply concerned over the province Sinkiang in the far western reaches of the country and its warlord governor, Sheng Shicai, who was clearly pro-Soviet. Nationalist control over that region was minimal. Whereas Sinkiang was de jure part of China, it seemed that it was de facto an appendage to the Soviet Union.

    Sheng Shicai.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

    Sinkiang in red.

    Then there was the matter of Manchuria, a region heavily contested between us Chinese and the Russians and the Japanese even during the last days of the Qing Dynasty. Mao suspected that Russia had any reason at this point to claim Manchuria for themselves, thus swiping away more land that rightfully belonged to China. Russia also was very wary of Japan and Japan’s claims over disputed islands in the North Pacific, and also that Russia wanted revenge against the island nation for defeating Russia in 1907. To further complicate matters, Manchuria was also now filling up with White Russians, particularly diehard Tsarists and Far-Rightists that the Soviets probably wanted to get rid of before they became a threat to the Soviet Union. Would Stalin be bloodthirsty enough to actually attack Japan and Manchuria for harboring fugitive enemies of the state? In any case, Stalin had, even at this point, more than enough reason to take Manchuria for himself.

    Puyi, the last Emperor of China when he was a boy and now Emperor of Manchukuo.


    Members of the All-Russian Fascist Party, many of them White Emigres from after Russia's Civil War, now sheltering in Manchukuo. It is also worth noting that many other White Russians resided across China, many of them serving in the armies of the warlords.

    Finally, there was Mongolia. Mao knew well that Outer Mongolia was a historic possession of China and rightfully belonged to China still, yet was now a Soviet puppet state and a practical extension of the USSR. That was something Russia was not willing to give up to Mao’s China. The only part remaining under China now was Inner Mongolia, and Mao even wondered how long that would be for until Japan or Russia took it for themselves.


    Outer Mongolia (Orange), Inner Mongolia (Yellow)

    Taken in all, Mao was not keen on becoming too close with the Soviet Union over these matters. Working with the Soviets might force Mao to renounce Chinese claims and put China into a position of further subservience to European imperial overlords…even if those overlords were masquerading as fellow socialists.

    Back at the meeting, there were still other matters to discuss.

    “What sort of preparations should we make for these wars, Comrade Zedong?” Zhou Enlai asked.

    “Comrade Kenong, can you ready your spies?” Mao asked.

    “Yes, Comrade, how many do you need?” Li asked.

    “Twenty in total for the time being…ten to go into the territory of the Ma Clique and ten to go into the territory of the Nationalists. The agents working in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia will work at propagating rumors against the Ma clans. They must fabricate conspiracies that the warlords of that region are planning militarily aggressive maneuvers against the rest of China. Do you understand?”


    “I understand, Comrade,” Li Kenong answered. “To understand this fully and correctly, you would like the spies to go to the Ma Clique’s territories and exaggerate the threat the Ma warlords pose for the rest of China? We can certainly spread a rumor that the Ma clans want to build an even larger army and want to make war upon the rest of China.”

    “Exactly, that is correct, Comrade,” Mao said nodding.

    “What will this achieve?” asked one skeptical staff member sitting at the table.

    It was Zhou Enlai that answered. “If we can persuade the people of China that the Ma Clique is a danger to the order and stability of the country, it will allow us to more easily justify a war to take them down.”

    “And concerning other group of spies going into Kuomintang territory, once they are assembled, their orders will be to cause political sabotage to Chiang Kai-Shek’s government. Specifically, they must divide the people and persuade them towards the Communist cause. We need to get at our enemies’ population base in order to successfully overthrow the corrupt Kuomintang government,” Mao explained, “Essentially, the Nationalist forces will be easier to defeat if the people are set against them when open war breaks out once again between them and us.”


    Li Kenong spoke now, “I agree with these plans. The only issue is that it may take months for the spies to be trained and ready to go.”

    “Do whatever you need to do, Comrade Kenong, only once both groups are ready with all necessary agents to carry out their duties will they receive further orders.”

    “Yes, Comrade,” Li replied. "We should also allocate some agents to protect against spies from the other warlords and also to spread propaganda in order to boost the popularity of the Communist Party here in Yan'an in order to maintain cohesion and keep internal unity within the Republic."

    "Excellent point, Comrade, and we shall do that. We will keep some agents at home to carry out those tasks," Mao answered. I was not sure Mao had considered that until Li Kenong had mentioned it.


    Mao then asked, “Are there any more concerns regarding the current situation?”

    No one answered and everyone appeared to have a satisfied face as they sipped their tea.

    “If there are no questions or concerns about the future plans discussed here, then the meeting is adjourned,” Mao announced. The Communist Party leaders stood up and started murmuring conversations as they left the room. I sat in the back at a chair away from the table near the door, and one-by-one I saw each leader walk out of the room in their military uniforms and plain-but-formal tunics. The last to go was Mao, who strolled up to me and invited me to walk with him afterwards with Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Lin Borjiu. I accepted.

    We walked outside the building with Mao leading the way. Two riflemen walked with us on our flanks. We arrived near the river where we found the peasants toiling away in the fields. It was nearing the end of the autumn harvesting season and the last bushels of wheat were being scythed and gathered as vegetables were plucked from the earth. In the distance a herder gathered his goats as he walked across the distant hills.


    Peasants harvesting crops the same way they had been doing it for thousands of years.

    Mao turned to Zhu De and said, “We must make some adjustments to our army.”

    “What do you propose?” asked Zhu.

    “The army must be restructured and reassembled, and more units raised.”

    “Yes, Comrade,” Zhu nodded.

    “What also needs to done is to do away with our draft policy, at least for the time being, and make our army back into a volunteer force. It does little good conscripting the locals when they need to remain here and farm. Our army must be pure with people willing and capable to march and fight,” Mao explained.

    “That is understandable,” Zhu said. “These are very broad, sweeping changes however…” I could tell that Zhu was watching that hacking motion made by one farmer in a straw hat as he sliced through his wheat.

    “The change will be large, but Kenong assures me that the Nationalists do not seem to be interested in attacking us, so here we find ourselves at peace,” Mao spoke, “This is for the better, however, as a force of volunteers can be called up and called down again at any time. When the soldiers cease their training, as I envision it, they will once again merge back into the peasantry and help them with their work. This will help us build a closer relationship with the people and make our army purer at the same time,” Mao elaborated.

    “All this as a volunteer force?” Zhu questioned.

    “Yes, do away with drafting the peasantry. Forcing men out of their homes and separating them from their working families causes more hardship than benefit.”

    “And I suppose that now this allows men to leave after training to go back to their homes until they are needed,” Zhu observed.

    “Precisely, Comrade.” Mao took a deep sigh and then continued, “The army must be with the people like a fish is with water. This is how we go about doing this.”

    The reformation of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Red Army begins...

    Lin Borjiu spoke now, “You have talked about expansion of the army…what exactly did you mean by this?”

    “We must take our force of 7,000 men and make it larger. It must be large enough first to crush the Ma warlords and then be prepared to fight the National Revolutionary Army led by Chiang Kai-Shek.”

    “How will we get the equipment and weapons for this?” Lin asked.

    “With the army transitioning to a volunteer force only called up in a time of war, there should be less demand from our soldiers for consumer goods and other baubles that we used to have to supply them. You know that in peace time, the men get bored and antsy and need to busy themselves, so sending them to their homes and workshops means that it is on themselves to provide their own civilian goods – we will continue handling military equipment,” Mao responded.

    “So that means that we need to produce fewer civilian goods so in favor of military weaponry?” Lin asked.

    “Exactly,” Mao answered.

    “That makes sense then, but we will need to see in practice whether this works or not. So will the emphasis on our workshops be on rifles and uniforms then?”

    “Yes. Word must be sent that we need rifles, uniforms, and ammunition. And we also need artillery pieces and ammunition for those…our strategic capabilities were severely limited by a lack of artillery during our Counter-encirclement Campaigns of the previous years,” Mao said.

    “Where will we get artillery?” Zhu asked.

    “While I have already said that I do not trust the Soviets, perhaps they can be counted on enough to give us artillery guns…even if they are outdated they will be better than nothing at all,” Mao said.

    “Duly noted then,” Zhu said.

    “Comrade Mao, have you ever considered expanding our workshops in the province? It would help with our output needs,” Lin asked.

    “We cannot exactly afford to build entirely new factories at the moment. It would take too many resources and too much time and simply isn’t worth the investment.”

    “I see,” Lin said.

    “With that said however,” Mao continued, “I would like to focus investments into trying to figure out how we can make better use of our industrial resources we currently have. Currently we have workshops where items can only be slowly crafted, and the mining and farming techniques used in the province are ancient…we must bring Shaanxi Province and the rest of China into the modern world, so we should certainly look into improving our industrial abilities to get the most out of the scarce resources this region has available.”

    By this point, the stroll had taken us to the workshops of Yan’an. There men and women worked in their shops. The work was slow and manual, with wood being carefully carved and cloth being slowly woven using old looms and spinning machines. We walked past one gunsmith’s shop where slowly, one-by-one, new rifles were being made. Very slowly, each barrel was casted individually one-by-one, with the wooden stocks being carved diligently but at achingly slow pace. Doing all this work was only three men. Going by a blacksmith’s shop, the smith inside was hanging up an assortment of horseshoes, farming blades, and even Dadao swords for our army’s officers. The Asian nations, unlike those of Europe, still emphasized melee combat. Many of these workshops were manned only by its head craftsman and his family, and perhaps one apprentice or two. Production was slow, inefficient, and disorganized. China was only scarcely industrialized, and here in this region, these tiny individual workshops made up the only manufacturing facilities.


    A Chinese factory, the largest one in Shaanxi province during the 1930s.

    “How will we do that?” Lin asked.

    “We must oversee a process of modernization. Look at these workshops…they can be improved by taking the techniques of industrialization in order to produce more, faster with perhaps less people involved. We can practice the model here in Shaanxi Province and then implement to the rest of China. Of course, the entire focus of our industrial efforts should be to build equipment for the army. We must assign men to look into techniques used elsewhere to bring our industries, farms, and mines up to date because looking at this, we are terribly far behind.”


    Work begins on modernizing the Chinese Soviet Republic's industry, with an initial emphasis on making industrial production more efficient as well as acquiring better tools and machinery to build things faster. Agriculture will be improved by bringing in more modern farming tools, perhaps even getting tractors someday.

    “Of course,” Lin answered.

    “Finally, we must also focus on education. We already have the policy of investing our funding and resources massively into education and I believe that further developing our educational capabilities by improving our teaching techniques and expanding our schools and universities will help the Chinese people reach their fullest potential while supplying our army and government with talented officers, scientists, agents, and bureaucrats,” Mao said.


    A grade school in Yan'an. One tenant of Socialist ideology not just in China, but also globally, was to have a well-funded public education system free for all.

    “We will focus on that as well then,” Zhou said.

    Changing the topic, Mao then said, "It's a good day out today. Perhaps it will be the last of the year."

    Indeed, it appeared so, but off in the distance, storm clouds were gathering. I saw peasants walking back to their homes from the fields. They knew in their peasant wisdom that it was not worth staying out in the fields as the weather approached. The clouds appeared to be coming from the east. It made me think of the brewing storm that was gathering across the world. I knew that we were about to enter into a period of war and struggle. I left the meetings with Mao wondering about big things. What were we getting ourselves into preparing for war? How would Chairman Mao get us through such a struggle? And what would happen when Japan strikes?

    The Revolution was on the march, but I did not know where it was going.
    Last edited by EmperorBatman999; May 22, 2016 at 10:36 AM.

  2. #2
    Caillagh de Bodemloze's Avatar to rede I me delyte
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    That's a hefty prologue, EmperorBatman999!

    It's an interesting beginning to a story, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it (and He Peng) will go.

    Your pictures are great - but I think there are some of them I can't see. The ones I can't see are: "The situation in 1936 after the Long March", "Mao's cabinet", "East Asia in 1936", "The reformation of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Red Army begins...", "Work begins on modernizing the Chinese Soviet Republic's industry" and "A grade school in Yan'an". Obviously, the problem could be at my end - I just know I can't see pictures for those titles - so maybe someone else could comment on whether they can see those pictures?

    Anyway,
    I'll look forward to chapter one two!

    (I apparently have a brain made out of porridge. Chapter One is right there underneath the prologue... Oops. )

    Update: the pictures are visible now. Thank you, EmperorBatman999, for your detective work. It seems it was just Imgur being unavailable for some reason. Imgur is now back - and so are the pictures!
    Last edited by Caillagh de Bodemloze; May 22, 2016 at 03:32 AM.






  3. #3
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    An impressive start for your AAR, a great introduction both to the history and your story!

  4. #4
    EmperorBatman999's Avatar I say, what, what?
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Thank you everyone for the feedback and I greatly appreciate the support!

  5. #5
    EmperorBatman999's Avatar I say, what, what?
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Chapter 2
    Yan’an, Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR)
    November 25, 1937

    The end of 1936 and start of 1937 proved to be a chaotic whirlwind of events happening around the world. I recall Mao reading the news articles with great concern about what was occurring globally. One thing that had caught his attention was the Spanish Civil War, and he even talked to me sometimes about sending volunteers to help the Socialist brethren in Spain defeat the Fascists. And these Fascists seemed to be everywhere growing stronger day by day. They were in Germany, they were in Italy, they were in Spain, and closer to home they were in Japan and among our fellow Chinese.


    A Chinese volunteer fighting for the Republic of Spain in their civil war. Though most of these men grew up in the West and had perhaps never seen China in their lives, that did not stop us from greatly appreciating their sacrifice.

    The Chairman went even so far as writing an address to the Spanish people during their struggle against fascism saying, “We know that your victory will directly aid us in our fight against Japanese fascism. Your cause is our cause. We read with emotion of the International Volunteers organized by people from every land, and we are glad that there are Chinese and Japanese in their ranks. Many comrades of the Chinese Red Army also wish to go to Spain to join you… Were it not that we are face to face with the Japanese enemy, we would join you and take our place in your front ranks.”

    Alas, nothing would come of these hopes to aid our comrades in Europe. Before we could do anything, Wang Jiaxiang reported that the Fascists had overtaken the good Spanish Republic on March 14, 1937, nearly a full year since the war first began.



    We could not worry over this loss for too long, for tensions were rising between China and Japan until finally something snapped. The Luguo Bridge Incident happened. (Or, for you Western Imperialists out there, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident).

    Japanese occupational troops, stationed in the area between Beijing and the port of Tianjin since the days of the Boxer Rebellion, chose to provoke an attack against Kuomintang troops. They surrounded Chinese positions and launched an attack after a Japanese soldier went missing, blaming his disappearance on the Chinese troops stationed nearby. They launched an attack against Chinese positions. This was the same kind of shenanigans pulled in 1931 with the Mukden Incident where the Japanese staged a bombing of their own railway and blamed it on the Chinese in order to invade Manchuria


    The Marco Polo (Lunguo) Bridge, near the site of where the incident took place. Japanese troops would storm the bridge and march on into Beiping, the old historic capital of the Emperors.


    Chinese troops defend themselves from attack at the Marco Polo Bridge.

    From there war immediately broke out between China and Japan. The Japanese invaders and their lackeys from Manchukuo quickly overtook Chiang Kai-Shek’s troops. The Chinese were fighting a losing war against a ruthless, determined, and evil enemy.

    Beiping and Tianjin immediately fell. Then followed by Shanghai, one of China's most important ports, and then finally the Kuomintang capital of Nanjing.


    Japanese troops in Shanghai. They wear masks to protect themselves from their own gas weapons used during the battle.


    Japanese marines parade into Nanjing in celebration of their victory. From there they would proceed to commit countless war crimes against the local civilian populace and Chinese Prisoners of War.

    The Japanese marched quickly into the interior. The Shanxi warlord state bordering us fell, and now we found ourselves facing off directly with the Japanese. No incursions were made into our territory, however, and there seemed to be no aggressive stance made against us. The tension was agonizing as we could not tell whether or not Japan would set their sights on us. We had to work quickly to prepare a strike against the Ma Clique soon.



    We were also running out of resources. As much as we may have resented it, a large amount of our resources did come from trade with the Nationalists. The region around Yan’an could only provide so much, so we had to purchase essential resources like coal from the Nationalists in order to keep the factories running to build our forces in preparation for whatever war might come. The border was closing day-by-day and the Nationalist frontline was collapsing.

    It was on one chilly October day that an officer from the National Revolutionary Army arrived at Yan’an. The staff car came with small Republic of China flags attached and a Mercedes lambda on the hood to give the entire thing an official aspect. He arrived under closely-watched escort by one of our cavalry troops whose horses surrounded the car – beast and machine, seen side-by-side in this strange time. Many of the peasants stood up from their work to gawk at the automobile, and it was then that I realized that many of these peasants had probably never seen a car before.

    The car was taken to an area outside Yan’an down by the river where Mao met us with Zhou Enlain and Zhu De.

    Finally, to complete the officious air that the Nationalist envoy brought to this meeting, the officer stepped out of the car in a clean-pressed uniform. It had been clear that this man was a staff officer that had been away from the frontline, and thus should be disregarded when commenting on military matters. The guards that came with him, wearing German helmets, looked equally presentable. Mao already looked down upon them, for the entire embassy appeared as men that avoided hardship and struggle at all cost.

    One of our soldiers ordered the guards to disarm, and they obeyed, laying their bulky Mauser pistols on a table.

    With the initial preparations done, the Kuomintang officer stepped up to Mao and gave a polite bow. Mao returned the gesture. The two men looked starkly contrasted from one another – the Nationalist was prim and bourgeois in his uniform, whereas Mao wore a simple plain gray tunic hardly distinguishable from the rest of the men in Mao’s company.

    “I am Major Wang Ziyang, and I come as a representative from the National Revolutionary Army,” the officer greeted.

    “Welcome,” Mao said plainly.

    “Mao Zedong, I am here because Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek invites you to join the United Front and provide troops for the continued defense of China,” Wang stated.

    “We will decline the invitation,” Mao abruptly answered. Mao’s staff was silent. It was no surprise to any of us that he would say no. Attacking Japan was not part of the plan yet.

    “Sir, I’m sorry?” Wang was at a loss for words.

    “We decline the offer and will remain neutral in the conflict,” May reaffirmed.

    “Neutral? The Japanese have not attacked you?” Wang was now flabbergasted.

    “No, they have not crossed the river into our territory, and have therefore remained neutral towards us. This is a precarious situation we do not wish to change.”

    Though he was trying to hide the expression behind a diplomatic face, I could tell by Major Wang’s eyes that he suspected conspiracy. “Are you sure? Have you checked?”

    “Yes, we have received no notifications of incoming attack,” Mao confirmed.

    “Still, China is under attack and we need your support,” Major Wang said.

    “What do we get from helping out the National Revolutionary Army?” Mao asked.

    “Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek will look upon the Communist Party more favorably in the future,” Major Wang made up.

    “How vague! And we will never forget what Chiang Kai-Shek did to us in Shanghai in 1927. We will never forgive him for his crimes ten years ago,” Mao firmly said.
    “He is willing to repair relations and reconcile, but only if you provide help.”

    “Chiang burnt his bridges long ago and we will not repair them for him…” Mao said. Wang tried to cut in but Mao silenced him. “The way Chiang and his officers have handled this war is completely abhorrent and we will not betray our own people by putting them under the command of corrupt men that rather sell rice to the Japanese than feed their own men! Nor will we stand serving under people unfit for command, only given their ranks because they were friends with Chiang rather than for their skill at leading men!”

    “But look at China!” Wang pleaded, “Look at how she is suffering! It is your national obligation to drive back the invaders destroying our country!” It was clear that Wang was attempting to change tactics.

    “Do not lecture me about my national duties, Major Wang, when it is clear that the Kuomintang has forgotten about theirs,” Mao cut. “We will not be involved until your superiors change the situation and correct their errors. Then, and only then, will victory be possible against Japan.”

    “This is treason,” Wang muttered under his breath.

    “The way the officers of the National Revolutionary Army treat their soldiers is treason,” Mao corrected.

    “You are abandoning the people of China.”

    “We have not abandoned the people of China. Just because we are not sending troops directly into battle does not mean that we are doing nothing for the war effort or abandoning our own people. Have you seen how many refugees that have streamed in here over the past weeks? We provide them with a safe haven, an escape for the war, and we will not bring the war here once again upon these people. They have lost their homes, their livelihoods, their friends, and their families. Their safety here is the only thing that remains,” Mao spoke. Indeed, many refugees did turn to the Chinese Soviet, perhaps no other region in China saw so many come. They came because they knew there would be peace and that they would be welcomed and cared for.


    Refugee men that had come to the Soviet from across all of China.

    “It appears that we cannot convince you of the gravity of this situation,” Wang said.

    “We understand the gravity of the situation from both sides of the fighting. We have seen the war enough from the people that have come here to escape it.”

    “Then if we cannot convince you to provide us with support in the ongoing war, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek will send an army to punish you for your treachery against China,” Wang threatened. He had to go for the final option now.

    Mao saw straight through his bluff, “You have hardly enough troops to man your own front against Japan. Why would Kai-Shek be asking us for more men if this wasn’t the case?”

    Wang was silent. Mao had topped him. There were no troops to send and in any case, Major Wang. It would finish off Chiang’s war effort if he ever chose to take such an action.

    “I will relay the Generalissimo your response and he will deal with it accordingly,” Wang said in his official tone. He bowed and walked back to the car. His entourage collected their weapons and joined back together by the car where they all piled in and left.

    Mao turned. His face was grim, agitated by the encounter with Major Wang. He knew that while he may have explained clearly his reasons for staying out the war for the time being to Major Wang, the people of the Soviet would need a better explanation. He understood that he may have harmed his own reputation and the reputation of the Chinese Communist Party and that this would please his enemies both in the Kuomintang government and those hiding within the Soviet. He knew that rumors would soon be circling of collaboration with the Japanese, a secret treaty of sorts. Such a thing would be one of the worst crimes to be guilty for and now Mao worried that soon he would stand accused. Their opinions would change once Mao reunited China with the Kuomintang out of the way. Was it worse to be accused of collaboration with Japan, or to risk losing the entire Communist project by going to war with them? Mao had chosen the former, and now he would need to bear the consequences.

    Indeed, as early as that evening, Mao saw this on his stroll around Yan’an with Deng Xiaoping. Mao noticed how people looked at him with mean eyes and murmured. He swore that time and time again he heard something about how “Comrade Zedong has worked out a secret treaty with Japan. That’s why they won’t attack us.”
    When Mao returned to his residence, he rang up Li Kenong on the telephone and asked him to come over. Half an hour later, Li arrived. The two men bowed to each other and then sat down.

    It has here that I saw must confess that it was here that I saw a streak of Mao’s darker side for the first time. I had always seen Comrade Zedong as a good man, a hero, but the mood he was in was quite different this time. It was here tonight that he began to show himself to be an anxious, paranoid man.

    “Comrade Kenong, have you heard any murmurings about me recently?” asked Mao.

    “How recently?” Kenong asked.

    “Today, after our meeting with the Kuomintang man,” Mao explained.

    “No…not particularly,” Li answered.

    “Well, I fear that the impact of our meeting with Major Wang will be severe on my relations and may cause dissent against me within the Republic.”

    “What do you want me to do about it?” asked Li.

    Mao looked at Li with stern, serious eyes, “I want your agents to investigate this. If they hear anything about me committing treason, betraying China, or signing secret treaties with Japan, you must silence their false opinions.” Mao stood up and then boomed, “There can be no dissent against me! There can be no dissent against the country!”

    Li Kenong nodded and asked, “How would I go about doing this?”

    “However you see fit. Imprison any dissenters first, and if they continue, reeducate them into proper ways of thought. If those fail and they continue offending against me, you have the right to liquidate them,” Mao cut.

    Li Kenong bowed and said, “Yes, Comrade.” He then left.

    After Li left, Mao turned to Deng and said, “You can learn a few things here. Never tolerate dissent from those underneath your command. Dissent leads to turmoil, and turmoil leads to division, and division leads to chaos and a breakdown of the entire order we have been striving to establish.”

    “Yes, Comrade,” Deng then obediently said.

    I should have known then what the real kind of man Mao was back in those days. Yet this incident was small compared to what he would later in the future…the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Great Leap Forwards, the Cultural Revolution, and all the purges in between…

    Now was not a time to ponder about the future. Not when the Japanese pushed back the Nationalist forces, we found ourselves isolated and surrounded by a massive enemy. We knew that any moment Japan could smite us with such little effort. None of Mao’s planning could prevent such an attack or change its outcome. All what we could do now is assume that Japan would continue ignoring us while we focus on building up for war against the corrupt, decadent, bourgeois Chinese warlords that surrounded us to the west and south. We had to keep building, preparing our strength, for any war that came. There would be no time to worry about the means power was handled now.
    Last edited by EmperorBatman999; May 23, 2016 at 11:03 AM.

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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    If only I could get HoI3 to work without crashing... Great start! I feel like I'm actually reading what really happened in history. I look forward to seeing how you manage to survive and conquer with the Communists starting with so little.
    The White Horse: Hanover AAR (On going ETW AAR)
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Most excellent AAR you have here, although I can't help but feel an anti-Japanese slant...

    +Rep for you, and may Communist China reign supreme.

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    EmperorBatman999's Avatar I say, what, what?
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Hello everyone!

    Again I am very appreciative of all the feedback and I am very glad that you all enjoyed the work so far. Please keep the feedback coming.

    Tonight I am forwarding the next TWO chapters of the story. This is a little bonus for you all since I will be on a trip for the next five weeks and I may or may not get around to working on the project until I return home.

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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Chapter 3
    Xi’an, Republic of China
    April 15, 1938



    I boarded a train heading from Yan’an to Xi’an to the south, just across the river in Kuomintang territory.


    A railroad in China much like the one we took to Xian.

    Or, at least disputed Kuomintang territory. The war between China and Japan had worn to stand-still and now this region was dotted and zig-zagged with pockets and holdings possessed by both sides of the conflict.

    Much of the National Revolutionary Army, the Kuomintang military force, was in disarray. They had taken sore beatings in almost every major battle. There was nothing left but to sue for peace. So Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek swallowed his pride and did just that. It seemed that Japan was ready too, for the further west they marched into China, the more attrition they suffered from supply lines and guerrilla activities supported by both the Kuomintang government and our Communist government. Plus, the more Japan beat China, the more the rest of the world looked upon Japan with contempt. The Empire of the Rising Sun was no longer interested in ravaging China. They were now looking towards south and east across the Pacific.


    Things did not look good at the front...

    Japanese imperial ambitions.


    Taking the train to the forming peace conference was difficult. Instead of going directly south, we would find ourselves caught in a warzone where the Japanese cut the tracks and stationed troops to block any movement. Instead we had to move first west into the territory of the Ma warlords, and then back south and then east. There were multiple checkpoints where the train had to be stopped and searched by troops flying under the various flags of the Ma clans, the Kuomintang, or even in one place, the Japanese. At specific stops, some people were pulled off the train. Perhaps it was only our diplomatic status that protected me, Wang Jianxian, and some of the other members of our legation.


    A Ma guard station near a railroad bridge.

    Japanese soldiers using a handcart to guard their railway.

    We had only simple observer status. We were not to participate in the talks. Even our clearance to even be present in the room during the diplomatic talks and signings of any eventual treaty was uncertain. We had made ourselves unwelcome and resented, but as a notable faction within China, we had to be present in some way the peace conference.

    I was also given a special mission from Mao to scout the terrain of the Nationalist and Ma territories. The task for me and a few of the other diplomats was to get an idea of enemy positions and troop concentrations, where the enemy was weak and where hard points might be, and to get an idea of the terrain to plan for future military attack. Wang Jianxian, however, was not included in this, and was supposed to give the entire operation an official veneer in order to prevent suspicion and conceal our true intent. If diplomats were caught acting as military spies, grave consequences would follow. Of course, as our leading statesman at the conference, Wang was important if we were ever given a chance to voice our opinions.

    We were able to spot the forts established by the Ma’s in the mountains near Xianfeng and noted how fighting would be particularly challenging in this country due to how mountainous it was. The Kuomintang controlled the plains to the south, some parts quite marshy, and we recognized many of the landmarks from crossing this territory in the Long March. This region also had many rivers and we concluded that if open war were to break out between us and the Nationalists again, they would attempt to establish defense lines based along many rivers of the southern Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces like the Jin, Wei, and Luo. Xi’an, both as a city and positioned along the river, would be a military hard-point and likely the anchor to the Nationalists’ first defense line.


    Gansu, the homeland of the Ma warlords.

    Our final arrival at the treaty meeting was unwelcome from the moment we arrived. We were coldly welcomed by Kuomintang, with good reason. We were still enemies after all. The entire meeting was set at one of the old imperial palaces, which was large enough to host all the diplomats, politicians, and bureaucrats present. The palace grounds were bustling with activity. We walked past a pavilion where Japanese army officers were kneeling down for tea. Japanese officers and diplomats seemed to know exactly who we were and stared at us Communists with pure hatred and haughty arrogance in their eyes. Yet is wasn’t like we were welcomed by our fellow Chinese either. We moved across the palace gardens as enemies to everyone.

    There was also an entire section of the palatial compound dedicated solely for the foreign journalists reporting on the events going on here. There were Americans, French, British, Germans, Italians, Russians, and an entire host of other peoples that had come all the way here to follow up on the story of Japanese expansionism. They wrote for newspapers, radio, and even a few men with motion picture cameras came to film news reels for the cinemas around the world.

    The journalists moved about with frenzied haste, already agitated by concerns of war in Europe. They would not be completely incorrect to hold such fears, too, as only months later Germany would seize first Austria and then Czechoslovakia before threatening war on Poland. Italy would then seize the tiny nation of Albania in the midst of the chaos. And although the Japanese were about to end their own war against China, it was implicitly understood that the acquisitions here at this armistice would not satisfy Japan, but would just make her hungrier for yet more territory later. The hungry imperialist powers were only finishing the first course of their lavish meal.



    The only friendly recognition we received was from the Russians, both their observers at the conference and their journalists writing for the Pravda, yet even they held a guarded attitude towards us. Wang Jiaxiang, as the link to the Communist International among us, did most of the talking with them.

    We stayed far clear of the encampment of the Japanese and their puppet allies. Besides representatives from Japan, there were also army officers and politicians from Manchukuo. In addition to that, the two Japanese-established occupational puppet regimes claiming to be the “Provisional Government of the Republic of China” and the “Reformed Government of the Republic of China” were present. They stood beneath the old Five Races Flag from the early days of the “original” Republic of China after the 1911 Revolution. Perhaps they flew that flag in the hopes that it might give them some kind of façade of legitimacy to their false establishment. I doubt many Chinese were fooled by the ruse and it was understood that in every case, Japan held complete control.


    The "Five Races Under One Union" flag used during the early Republic.

    We woke up on the morning of April 15, 1938 to see the final end to the war against Japan. Western historians would go on to name this war in their own history books as the Second Sino-Japanese War, marking another shameful defeat for China by Japan.

    Astonishingly, we were allowed to enter the room for the final signing of the treaty to end the fighting. The ultimate meeting was set inside one of the palace’s great court halls, harkening back to the old days of the Emperors. The hall was obscenely grandiose and it was here that made for the perfect place for Japan to shame China into submission. Japan had striven for thousands of years to emulate the Chinese emperors, and now once again the Japanese had beaten the people they once tried to imitate. How things had changed.

    We took our place at one end of the hall almost near the Kuomintang officials, though we were not allowed to sit anywhere close to them and were sternly instructed to remain completely silent. Our opinions would not be heard nor considered. Chiang Kai-Shek was there, alongside the President of the Republic of China, Lin Sen.


    Lin Sen.

    Sen was also the man who handled foreign relations in the republic. He was considered one of the few good men in the Kuomintang Party, because unlike his compatriots serving throughout the government, he was incorruptible and was humble in the power and influence he had as Chairman of the government of the Republic of China. It was a shame that his power was very limited and so his virtues had little effect on the operation of the rest of his government. The proper Minister of Foreign Affairs was Wang Ch’ung-hui, and he was present also.


    Wang Ch'ung-hui.

    Across the large table on the opposite side sat the Japanese representatives. It was dominated mostly by military men, like General Ueda Kenkichi, the commander of the infamous Kwantung Army – the main Japanese fighting force on Continental Asia. Then there was the current Prime Minister of Japan handling the war and peace with China, Prince Fumimaro Konoe. Both the General and the Prime Minister were dressed in dazzling uniforms that boasted of their arrogance, all covered in sparkling medals for military deeds they had probably never done. Then sitting beside Ueda and Fumimaro was a swarm of bureaucrats and politicians from the Foreign Ministry in their drab tight black suits with black ties.


    Left: Ueda Kenkichi, Commander of the Kwantung Army. Right: Prince Kenoe Fumimaro, Prime Minister of Japan and acting Foreign Minister.


    Then there were the Chinese collaborators with Japan. Many of these men would be familiar to the Kuomintang – many of the collaborators served in the government during the early years of the Republic of China. Now they had cast their lot with the Japanese, and would be eternally damned for it.

    The Manchukuo government sent Zhang Yanqing, their minister of Foreign Affairs. From the illegitimate “Provisional” and “Reformed” governments of their so-called “Republic of China” came Wang Kemin and Liang Hongzhi respectively.


    Zhang Yanqing, Foreign Minister of the Empire of Manchukuo.

    Left: Wang Kemin. Right: Liang Hongzhi. The two collaborators.

    Now that all parties were seated, the final statements regarding the negotiations could be made.
    The Japanese, as the clear winners, announced:

    “We demand that the Republic of China accept our proposals for peace between our two states. In return for the cessation of hostilities between the Empire of Japan and her associates including the Empire of Manchukuo, and the Republic of China, China will cede the territories of Eastern China. We additionally demand that China cede the port cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen and the surrounding land thereof as well. China shall also cede to Japan the territory surrounding the French-controlled port of Zhanjiang, as well as the island of Hainan. The Republic of China will also be expected to pay war reparations to Japan in compensation for the costly loss of men and war materiel accrued during the war.”

    The demands were rather simple and clear. The room was now absolutely silent, the affair suffocating and still. Chiang Kai-Shek sat his end of the table sweating. This, for as painful as it was, was merciful for the Japanese to do. Yet attrition and international pressure made Japan end this war before it became too costly, so that the Empire of the Rising Sun could focus on other matters and other conflicts in the future. They must’ve had their eyes set on other places, like the European colonies in the Pacific and Indochina, as well as India, and perhaps even the United States. China compared to such things was small.

    That did not mean that this was an easy loss for China. The vast majority of China’s industry and all her best and most important cities were going to be given to the Japanese. That meant that all of the industry and political administration not moved westwards into the interior would be lost. During the course of the war, I concede that one of the most intelligent decisions ever made by Chiang Kai-Shek was the large-scale removal of China’s military industry westwards into China’s interior away from the Japanese grasp. Yet still, such a massive amount of people and factories with all their machinery lay east of the frontline now.


    Chinese soldiers on the retreat westwards by train, taking all the industrial machines with them.

    So with the exception of a handful of ports such as Fuzhou, the Chinese were going to lose almost their entire coastline to the occupation. The ancient city of Beiping, perhaps still the very heart of China, had fallen, alongside nearby Tianjin. Shanghai, China’s most modern city and a bustling hub of industry and culture, was gone. Nanjing, the Kuomintang’s precious capital, was also being given up.

    Chiang Kai-Shek, with his forces beaten down to the ground, had no choice but to say, “I accept these terms.”


    The Japanese passed the treaty paper over, and together Chiang and Lin Sen signed. Once again was made to sign a humiliating treaty of defeat that would further consign China to occupation by foreign imperialists. I imagine the entire scene was very reminiscent of what Britain and France did us at the end of the Opium Wars, or what happened after the Boxer Rebellion when the Treaty Powers (Japan included) forced China into further subservience under the West.

    Yet at least now the war was over, and we were meant to go home.


    The situation in China, as of April 15, 1938 after the signing of the peace treaty.
    Last edited by EmperorBatman999; May 29, 2016 at 01:03 AM.

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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Chapter 4
    Yan’an
    February 17, 1941

    Nearly three years had passed from the signing of the Treaty of Xi’an ending the Second Sino-Japanese War. In that time, Japan cemented control over their new holdings in China.

    Japan established a new state in Inner Mongolia, Mengjiang, led by the Mongolian leader Demchugdongrub. It was meant to be an ethnic Mongolian state loyal to Japan, and for all intents in purposes, it served that purpose faithfully. It was another despicable sight to see sitting on the face of China.


    The birth of another Japanese toady state.


    Demchugdongrub looks obviously very impressed by this Gatling gun here, now a horribly outdated weapon by 1941.

    Overall it seemed that there was no hope for the liberation of China at this point. The country was even more fractured and weak than ever. The Nationalists had not recovered and the warlords continued to abuse their power. Sheng Shicai up in his isolated province of Sinkiang continued drifting towards the Soviet Union It was clear that Chiang Kai-Shek failed to use the ceasefire to become stronger, and from here on out he operated from a position of weakness in China.


    Sheng's soldiers on military drill bearing the standard of the Kuomintang.

    Japan was now looking eastwards. We knew that Japan was hungrily spying the colonial territories of the United States, Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Our connections in the occupied zone seemed to indicate that the Japanese were moving some divisions out of China, or amassing them on the borders with Russia.

    Far out west in Europe, fascism continued to spread. Germany and Italy together had conquered most of Europe and were launching a dogged war against our comrades in Russia. For both the Soviet Union and the capitalist nations like Britain, defeat after defeat seemed to visit their armies. We were particularly concerned as news reports flooded in about the Germans besieging Leningrad or moving towards Moscow. Perhaps the only silver lining might be that in the momentary weakness of the European imperial powers, the oppressed workers and peasants of the world might have a chance to raise the red banner and take up the Revolution. Alas, we could only hope, as we still knew that the poor Indians and Africans continued being conscripted into the armies of their imperialist warlords. They had decided their loyalties right then and there.


    Many of our comrades across East Asia joined the Soviet Red Army to defeat the fascists in the west while we dealt with the fascists in the east.

    Now was the time for the rise of Communist China. By this point, Mao determined that we were prepared to make offensive maneuvers to finish off the civil war in China that had been brewing now for decades. And we had to start fast, as now we were undergoing major coal shortages that were hampering the construction of our military.

    The first target would be Xibei San Ma, the territory of the Ma clans.

    Xibei San Ma means “the Three Ma’s of the Northwest.” The region was ruled by three different clans under the name Ma, which means Mohammed. All three clans, as one could tell by the name, were Muslim. In China there are two different main ethnicities practicing the faith of Islam; the Uyghurs and the Hui. The Ma clans, as well as a large portion of the people living within their region, were Huis. The Hui people are very similar to the Han Chinese (the majority of Chinese people), but with several notable cultural differences stemming from the practices of their Islamic religion.

    Politically speaking, the warlords here pledged their service to the Republic, but now the KMT only held nominal control over the Ma Clique. It worth noting, however, that most of the Ma’s were Kuomintang Party members. The Ma’s provided troops and commanders only when it pleased them, though notably one of the first units to respond to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident was a unit of the Ma’s cavalry.

    Yet politically, the Ma clans had been very involved in Chinese politics since before the end of the Qing dynasty. They gained their favored position in the eyes of the Kuomintang from switching their allegiance from the Emperor to the Revolutionary forces during the 1911 Revolution. As a result, they got to keep their high-ranking military positions and political strongholds in western China. It may have been helped by the fact that the Ma were willing to lord over such far-flung provinces otherwise unwanted by anyone else.

    The main respective patriarchs of these three Ma Clans were Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui, and Ma Hongbin.

    The two brothers Ma Bufang and Ma Buqing.


    Ma Hongkui. He was said to have five or six wives.


    Li Hongbin.


    The Ma were also notoriously disliked and even hated throughout China, especially in the territory they controlled. Conscription and taxation were their favorite activities. They loved building armies and amassing wealth. They were insanely corrupt and their nepotism was as despicable as their arrogance. They were brutal and oppressive over their people. It was quite clear that they had to be stopped. And we had old scores to settle with them for savaging us so brutally on the Long March.

    In 1941, the Ma Clique was the weakest among the warlords, being from an isolated region with few resources. The region was still mostly wild landscape with high mountains and expansive deserts, still rife with anarchy and lawlessness in places where the Ma’s did not exert their brutal tyranny.

    It was finally worth noting that many White Russians had come to service of the Ma clans as mercenary soldiers and generals, like Szhestenko. These officers, now cutthroat mercenaries without a homeland living only for their contract payments, were still experienced in warfare from the Russian Civil War and so they were dangerous and cunning commanders willing to do anything to keep their employers in power.

    Yet we were not completely concerned about many of these matters facing us because we knew that the Chinese Peasants and Workers Red Army had skilled soldiers ready for combat. Our Red Army was surprisingly large for the small size of our state. We possessed, in total, two Mountain Divisions and eight Infantry Divisions as well as one cavalry division that had just come into the field. Added up, our army ranked with over 100,000 enlisted men and officers once completely mobilized.

    The standard Infantry division at this time consisted of three infantry regiments equipped with rifles, machine-guns, and mortars, as well as an artillery attachment with heavier howitzers mostly of Russian design. Russia was eager to get rid of her stock of artillery from their 1914-1917 war against Germany and their 1907 war against Japan, so most of what we got were old weapons with their barrels worn out. Nonetheless, we made the best use of out of them and made some artillery pieces for ourselves.

    Standardization was always an issue during the early years. Our factories were able to put together many of Mauser-style Type 24 rifles, but for the rest we had to rely on the antiquated Type 88 Mauser produced locally in China since the end of the Qing Dynasty, as well as Russian-supplied Mosin-Nagants and even a few of the old Winchester 1895 lever-action rifles used by the Russians in their Great War.


    The Type 24, the standard rifle of our forces. It is known by the Nationalists as the "Chiang Kai-Shek Rifle," whom use it for their own standard weapon.

    The entirety of our troops at this time were infantry except for one cavalry division. We would raise up a few cavalry divisions over the next few years, but we knew also that for this campaign against the Ma Clique, cavalry would be largely problematic in the mountainous terrain of the northwest China.

    The Ma armies were also large, but perhaps not as large as our own, despite their aggressive conscription of the local populace. Most of their divisions were of standard infantry, but they were also backed up by militia. They also had cavalry, many of them drawn from the Mongols and Turks living in the northern desert of their realm.


    Soldiers of the Ma Clique.


    Cavalry of the Ma Clique.


    The plan of attack against the Ma warlords was for the Mountain Troops to spearhead the invasion. We would avoid the fortifications at Xianyang and attack at Xifeng instead. We would encircle, besiege, and destroy the forces at Xianyang before bringing our troops around to strike at the Mas’ major bases at Lazhou, Tianshui, and finally their capital at Golmud.

    Mao spoke with Li Kenong and instructed him to send orders to his spies working in the Ma territory to begin spreading propaganda aimed at dividing the Ma’s populace against their leaders. This would have the overall effect of drawing people to the Communist cause, helping us complete the Revolution by uniting China with hearts and minds under Mao’s banner. The locals hated the Ma’s for the taxes and conscription and we hoped that we would march into Golmud welcomed and celebrated by the liberated people of the land.

    It was before dawn at one crisp morning that I was roused up and called out to the valley west of Yan’an. There I was shocked to see that our 100,000 troops were on the march in full kit moving west. Zhu De stood beside Mao Zedong, and together they oversaw the advance of our forces. They had already announced that there would be war between the three Ma clans and the Chinese Soviet Republic. The Ma’s had acknowledged our state of war.


    The plan of attack: simple, direct, and effective. We would flood troops into the Ma domain and take down their major power centers before moving on their capital at Golmud.


    Our troops departing Yan'an for the border with the Ma Clique.

    Now with the rising sun behind our backs, the troops marched west into the Ma Clique’s lands.

    The fighting over Xifeng was very successful for us, and we had then made a strong breakthrough into Ma territories, despite being counterattacked from Xianyang. Difficulties fighting arose when we flooded the valley with almost our entire force, 100,000 men, that bogged us down and slowed the advance. The army was now divided into three groups at Xifeng – one that remained across the valley from Xianyang in our territory at Wuqi.


    The first battles.


    Battle results. A stunning success for the Communist forces!

    Our forces then struck at the Ma fortress of Xianyang, where the surrounded enemy numbering five divisions under the command of White Russian General Szhestenko. Our siege managed to isolate and cut off General Szhestenko’s contingent from all supplies. Out of food and ammunition, they still battled harshly with swords and bayonets as our men stormed the walls of the fort. Chen Yi, commander of I Corps (I Fangmianjun), claimed the victory and had the Communist Banner hoisted above the fortress overlooking the ancient city of Xianyang.

    We then moved on westwards, our full army marching in two groups to their objectives. Despite the cold, many of the soldiers were urged onwards by the stories of the Great March. Morale remained high and most units managed to maintain good cohesion as they advanced through such tough terrain.

    Noticeably tough resistance was seen as one militia division held off our four infantry divisions as we attempted to cross the Yellow River at Lanzhou.

    Otherwise at nearly every other location, the Ma forces could only offer limited resistance, although the campaign slowed as Ma forces amassed near the Qinghai Lake and on the western bank of the upper Yellow River near Gadȇ. After costly fighting, however, the Ma forces were made to retreat eastwards to Golmud.

    Finally, on November 14, 1941, Golmud was taken and the three Ma clans surrendered with their forces. The battle of Golmud was no contest. Out of the thousands of men that fought the battle, only eight died while the Ma forces lost 354. This was a glorious day for our soldiers and clear proof of our military superiority over the enemies of the Revolution. The Ma Clique was destroyed. The tyranny of the three Ma clans was no more.







    Yet many of the Ma warlords had fled south to Kuomintang territory with their families and their military officers. We took the ones we did manage to capture and sent them to work the fields with the peasants, attempting to reeducate them and show them the error of their ways beating down the peasants and workers of China. We also held the White Russian officers we captured as prisoners, keeping them for future bargaining with Stalin, who would doubtless want the traitors back so he could punish them himself.

    We had little time to celebrate our victory, however, as the military leadership was in Golmud, Mao Zedong arrived. Seated inside Ma Bufang’s spacious manor, Mao had called us all together for an important meeting about what to do next. He arrived by train with some of the other members of the Party leadership and entered the large house, now adorned with the hammer-and-sickle flags of the Chinese Soviet Republic. His arrival was greeted with a large applause from everyone in congratulations for the success of our military attack. We were all truly shocked by the success of our invasion.

    Mao asked us all to sit down because he had some important things to say.

    “I would first like to congratulate all the military officers and Party members for planning this successful military operation against the enemies of the peasants and workers of China. The ouster of the Ma Clique is our first significant victory in years, and I believe that now we are on the path to further victories to come.”

    The celebratory mood in the room now prompted another applause. Mao humbly settled us down again.

    “Of course, how do we go about achieving further victories?” Mao asked us all.

    He did not wait for a response before saying, “The only way for us to continue winning is to press our advantage. All military officers, listen, because I am about to give you all new marching orders to issue to all of your soldiers.”

    The room was now soberly silent. We all wanted to hear what the next great plan was.

    “The fighting is not done yet, not at all soon. Now we must move troops to the border with the Kuomintang. We must start a direct attack against them, a full-scale and direct war between the Chinese Soviet Republic and the Kuomintang government. I propose a vote on the matter.”

    Everyone looked at each other silently until Zhou Enlai raised his hand and seconded the motion.

    “Who is in favor…of the Chinese Soviet Republic declaring direct and open war against the Kuomintang Government?” Mao asked.

    Most of the officers and Communist Party members shouted “Yes!” The numbers seemed so overwhelming in favor of war that it was not worth counting the opposition votes.

    So now we were going to move our men south along the border between our territory and the territory of the enemy. We had all agreed to go to war against an enemy whose army was larger than ours and still formidable even after its defeat against Japan.

    Yet the Revolution had to continue, so the orders were passed on to every division to march again, this time against the whole rest of China.


    The situation in China after our victory against the Ma Clique, Winter 1941.
    Last edited by EmperorBatman999; May 30, 2016 at 01:14 AM.

  11. #11
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Great story-telling, with brilliant use of historical images! I like the way that you include both in-game images and impressive maps to show the changes in political fortunes. The situation looked bleak after the signing of the Treaty of Xi'an. It looks as if your victory against the Ma warlords is a turning-point in the recovery of Communist China from the humiliating peace terms. I wonder if you would like to enter the MAARC. I hope that your trip goes well!

  12. #12

    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    This is really good! I like how you mix historical images with game images! I wonder who will be superior in China when the dust settles...

    Also, good luck in the MAARC!

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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    This still seems to be going well, I'm glad to see! Hope the trip and the MAARC both go well for you!






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    EmperorBatman999's Avatar I say, what, what?
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    After an extended hiatus, I am finally back at it again. There's a new chapter coming!

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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Chapter 5
    August 2nd, 1941

    The bugs hummed in the quiet, misty August morning. The air was already warm, the red sun hot in the morning. Then, erupting from the fog were large red banners, then the blare of the trumpets. Gray-coated men climbed from their trenches, bayonets fixed, rifles pressed against their bodies. The Revolution was at war again. This was the Red August.

    This had been the fruit of years of planning. The draft had been reinstated – this time “Service by Requirement” – men were made to serve until the war was finally over. And now, after all this time, we were going to end the civil war and complete the revolution again. And it all started on this summer day.


    The battle plan was drawn up by Mao. I was invited to many of those strategic meetings held in everything from palaces once owned by warlords and aristocrats to small village huts. It was in one of these huts that Mao completed the plan to attack the Kuomintang and the remaining warlords.

    We were all gathered, cramped in the small space with me and the commanders of the corps, divisions, and important Party members, around a shabby table and there Mao came up to speak, standing next to him was Zhu De. We all unrolled the map of China. It was still stiff and new, now accounting for the successful conquest of the northwest the months before.



    “The plan, Comrades, is this,” Mao said, “We will launch our attack across a broad front. The intention here is to take Changdu, the current acting capital for the Kuomintang government, and their two other vital cities of and Changde and Changsha. Once those cities are cut, the Nationalists should not be able to any longer organize a proper resistance. If they do, however, attempt to fight back, we will push them all the way into the ocean at Fuzhou. That should not happen, however, as the remaining territories should begin rising against the failing Kuomintang government as we march through and seize such key population centers. Comrade Li Kenong has his men already working on spreading the news of the Revolution to the People.”

    The generals nodded.

    “First Corps will base their attack from here in Yan’an. Elements of Second Corps will assist in seizing Xian before moving south. First Corps will continue pushing south, creating an attack corridor along to Changsha and Changde. The terrain here is forested with many rivers, as many of us learned on the Long March. Regardless, we must push through and make crossings where the enemy is weak and hold the river bridges and fords where the enemy attempts to make a push across. First Corps will also have the task of trying to drive withdrawing units east against the borders of the Japanese occupational zone, where they can be cut off and crushed.”

    “Second Corps will assist the First in pushing on to the central cities. The westernmost elements will assist the Mountain Corps in attacking Changdu, and those two elements will continue on eastwards after enemy resistance is dealt with.”

    “The Mountain Corps and Second Corps may have the hardest tasks, as the enemy resistance here will be heavy, the rivers plenty, and the mountains many. It may be a difficult task attempting to cross the rivers through the mountains to take Chongqing. After Chongqing falls, your forces will move to assist in seizing Hunan Province and the cities of Changde and Changsha. At the same time, it is vital that Chongdu does not fall back into the enemy’s hands.”

    Mao then frowned and continued, “We will be outnumbered. Comrade Zhu has informed me of the problems posed by attacking against superior numbers, and I am aware that it poses great risk. However, we overcome by striking fast, targeting weak-points, and seizing the objectives before the enemy can adequately respond. We attempt to surround and encirclement enemy divisions when the opportunity arises, and that will help reduce their numbers further. When the chance arises, we must be ready to turn Chiang Kai-shek’s encirclement tactics employed by him in the past fighting us, against him.

    “Remember, for all their problems, the National Revolutionary Army is still a tough opponent. We cannot underestimate our enemy. They are experienced from the fighting against Japan and many divisions still remember the training imparted to them by the Germans.”

    Our Enemy: The National Revolutionary Army.

    I saw some the officers shoot a glance at the pale-skinned German, Braun. Many could not help it, being the ever-present stranger among us.

    “Still, Comrades, we must commence this attack soon. Strike hard, strike fast, and we will bring this Revolution to a full completion.”

    So now on that summer morning, the war came to life. Operation Red Dragon roared to life. The army quickly and easily pushed across the first defense line.


    Our soldiers after seizing an enemy trench and capturing their flag.

    The Nationalists were without help from the outside. And Yunnan and the Guangxi Cliques, in an act confirming their betrayal against China, signed treaties bounding them to the Axis. Though these agreements, as we came to find out through our spies, were with Germany primarily. Still, this put them in bed with Japan as well as Germany. Such treachery could not go unpunished. They would be doomed soon enough...





    Within weeks, the National Revolutionary Army was pushed off the Yellow River and was now holding at the Yuan River. Xian and Changdu had fallen, but most of the KMT government had pulled out of the city and fled eastwards.



    Initial successes, however, began to slow down as the Nationalist forces began to dig in. Only after difficult fighting over the Yellow River did our forces manage to create a breakthrough. Our forces then underwent the process of creating encirclements in order to prevent those divisions from hitting our rear on the advance south to Hunan Province.


    An Example: The Songxian Encirclement.


    The Hanzhong Encirclement

    Second Corps and the Mountain Corps, however, had less successful advances after Chongqing. The enemy would not give up their positions along the Yangtze River, and Chongqing itself was stacked with divisions and made into an enemy hard-point. Only assistance by the Second Corps, which had to partially abandon First Corps, helped the attack along by striking from the east parallel to the river. What also largely helped was the fact the Nationalist commander moved troops out of the city to stack onto his flanks for a counter-attack towards Chengdu, thus drastically reducing the amount of troops defending the city, allowing it to promptly fall.



    After the city fell, there was a prompt attempt at counter-attack to retake it. Yet it failed after more of our troops streamed into the city to halt the attack.



    The situation was still tense, however, as now the enemy was putting particularly heavily emphasis on their left flank.

    On the eastern front, after some fighting, the Communist forces finally broke through across the Yangtze River. The enemy's point was weak, only being manned by militia that fell easily. However, our attacks were made difficult by incessant strikes from the enemy's tactical bombers - we had no air-force of our own.




    German Heinkel 111 bomber with the marking of the Republic of China Air Force, given as part of Germany's partnership program with China in the early 1930's, and the main kind of bomber used against us during these battles.

    The Nationalists, however, were not done. They fixed a new defense line at Changsha and Changde. Chiang Kai-Shek was determined to hold us back. I remember though how spirits were high as we marched between the tall pillared mountains of Hunan Province to our final objective. They were a beautiful sight in this

    After Changde fell, the enemy mounted defenses at the final hold-out of Changsha. Our troops made several pushes trying to dislodge the Nationalists from the capital. Large parts of the KMT government were fleeing towards the sea. Time was counting down - we were running out.



    Mao and his generals convened again, this time to discuss what to do about the final siege. We stood under a starry sky one night on the open plains in Hubei Province. Many of the officers looked ragged, having led their men from the front. They uniforms had a look of distress and their faces were unshaven, eyes heavy-set and weary. Yet despite all this, Comrade Mao and the officers decided decide on another plan - Operation Sickle.


    Mao and Zhou Enlai inspecting troops earlier that day.

    The plan was this: as our troops pushed towards the city in order to pin the enemy in place, two cavalry divisions followed by an infantry division pushed east around Lake Dongting. We would make the final major KMT city fall, hopefully trying to press the enemy to surrender.

    I personally accompanied the cavalrymen on their march around Dongting Lake on an invitation from the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division Liu Bocheng, where his soldiers stopped to let their horses drink from the water. They spoke to me about concerns pushing too far, too fast, and that they were running out of supplies to continue. Yet the Commissars pushed them on anyway.


    Liu Bocheng


    Our cavalry forces.

    And I was with the cavalry too when they began their attack on Changsha. I was there, Mauser pistol in hand, as my comrades stormed the enemy rear picket lines on horseback, slashing men with their sabers and firing guns into the backs of the retreating enemy. I joined them on foot as they dismounted and took their carbines and submachineguns towards the enemy stronghold. After days of fighting on both flanks, the city’s encirclement was complete and the place was stormed by our brave troops.



    By October 15, it was Red October, where we achieved final victory over the Kuomintang.



    The Nationalist government fell, and revolutionary uprisings on the coast overthrew the remaining KMT rulers. We were victorious, but we were not yet at peace, for in the south, the forces of the Yunnan and Guangxi warlords were approaching, marching north to meet our men. We would have to move to destroy them.


    The enemy is on the march...
    Last edited by EmperorBatman999; August 17, 2016 at 03:00 PM.

  16. #16

    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Yay, Emperor Batman's back! I wonder what the future of China will be...

  17. #17
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    I'm enjoying this, I like the way that you explain the challenges, such as fighting against a larger army who have been trained and equipped by Germany. An exciting chapter: your commanders push on with ambitious plans ... but are they pushing too far, too fast? I look forward to finding out what they will do now.

  18. #18
    EmperorBatman999's Avatar I say, what, what?
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Chapter 6
    Southern China
    December 1942

    I was with some of the Communist Party officials, including Mao and Zhou Enlai, high-ranking officers, and cavalry troopers in a public house in Chongqing getting drunk on rice wine when a dispatch rider suddenly burst through the door. His face was red and his expression exasperated, sweat rolling down his brow and his hair ragged and soaked beneath his blue-gray cap.

    “Comrades! The armies of Guangxi and Yunnan are on the march!” he shouted.

    Suddenly we had all sobered up and rushed outside. There the dispatch rider’s horse was sweating and panting, held by a vacantly-staring peasant. It was apparent that the rider had no time to tether it to the hitching post outside the pub. The white-sun flags of the Kuomintang still lay trampled on the ground from the day’s festivities.

    “Call a bugler, assemble the troops,” ordered Mao, and orderlies and officers spread out. The trumpets were soon echoing across the city calling for the assembly. Further orders were made to command the troops in field posts across China (many whom had just been in combat, or else dealing with surrendered nationalists).

    Li Kenong, leader of the Intelligence Service, walked over and whispered into Mao’s ear, “I have received word that Chiang Kai-shek managed to escape to Hong Kong. The British have accepted his asylum request, as well the requests from the other high-up members of the KMT leadership.”

    Mao flashed a look of fury. How could they have escaped? Still, it was not worth worrying about. There would be more pressing issues. Mao knew that neither the KMT nor Chiang would not be missed once this war was over, and especially not when the Japanese were driven out of China. For now, there would have to be orders sent out to get the troops to the front as soon as possible to stem the warlord counterattacks.


    A Guangxi column on the march northward.


    A battalion of the Yunnan Clique army.

    Who were our enemies? They were the personal forces of the Guangxi Clique and the Yunnan Clique. Though considered not as bad as the Ma warlords previously ousted, they were still self-centered militarists focused on maintaining their petty domains. Like the other warlords, both Cliques submitted to the Kuomintang and were thus Party members - they had, or else they would end up like the other warlords taken down in the Northern Expedition of 1927. Guangxi was perhaps the more noteworthy of the two warlord states, and perhaps it was Guangxi that was considered the best and strongest. Guangxi was considered a "model province" before the war broke out, known for its good governance and solid industrial base. Indeed, its prosperity gave it the ability to build a strong army, well-outfitted and uniformed - and well-trained, too.


    Long Yun, a man of many tasks: Governor of Yunnan Province, Leader of the Yunnan Clique, and Warlord.


    The leadership of the Guangxi Clique, all military men, all basked in bourgeois decadence.


    The Guangxi Clique's army on parade.

    The next day, on a windy plain south of the city that still had the scars of battle and the stained memories of our bold cavalry charge, the battle plans were drawn up. It was bitingly cold.

    General Zhu De was the one announcing the plans, “We will divide our forces into two groups for Operation Lotus: the destruction of the Yunnan and Guangxi warlords. The Western Army Group will be tasked with the destruction of Yunnan, and the Eastern Army Group will attack Guangxi.”

    “We must hurry,” said Deng Xiaoping, “For the Germans and the Japanese are still working on getting aid to the warlords.”

    Foreign Minister Wang Jiaxing nodded in agreement. “It is only a matter of time, too. If we take too much time, we risk Japan attacking us to support their pets, those traitors, and complete the conquest.”

    “It’s a grim situation,” remarked one adjutant.

    “We must get hurry to reacquire what the warlords have stolen have stolen from the people. Yunnan is rich in mineral and metal resources in the mountains, and Guangxi is highly industrialized. We will be significantly stronger once we have achieved victory over the enemy,” Armament Minister Lin Bojiu said.

    “The most important aspect of this attack is to keep the armies of both warlords separated and unable to join. I advise putting particular weight close to the edges of both oppositional armies – that would be our middle, and using that divide them in two,” reckoned General Chen Yi of First Corps, the man in charge of the Eastern Force sent towards Guangxi.


    Chen Yi later in life, after the war.

    “I believe, if I have read the intelligence reports correctly-“ Chen Guang, commanders of 2nd Corps began to say before being cut off by Li Kenong.

    “You better have read those reports correctly!” reprimanded the Intelligence Chief. Zhou Enlai flashed Li a glance and waved his hand to get him to settle down.

    “Yes, what was I saying?” Guang asked, a forgetting momentarily the direction his thought was about to go. “Ah, yes,” he recalled, “Yunnan’s army should be smaller than Guangxi, and we may be able to defeat them and seize their base at Kunming quickly, and then we can wheel towards the easts and support the attack on Guangxi.”

    “Excellent,” Mao said. “And yes, we should focus on their bases. Kunming, and Guangxi’s city of Nanning. Expect urban fighting. I am appointing Liu Zhidan to lead 3rd Corps, who will assist in the middle and contribute to both attacks. Mountain Division commanders Wulanfu, and you the Vietnamese Nguyen Ai Quoc, you will lead troops into the Yunnan mountains. You will not be far from home, Nguyen.”


    Nanning before the war.



    Finally by mid-January most troops were in place and ready to go. They fought well against both enemies, pushing through to their objectives of Kunming and Nanning.

    Yunnan fell first. The fall of Kunming and Dali marked the end of that regime, and the workers rejoiced in the liberation of Yunnan province from the clutches of the greedy, arrogant warlords there.



    Chinese Communist troops enter Kunming to the cheers of crowds.

    [Fighting continued in Guangxi, with a determined spearhead strategy used to thrust into Nanning.



    The fighting in Nanning itself was particularly tough as the palace guards of the Guangxi Clique Army fought to defend the city.

    Guangxi soon fell, and together Yunnan and Guangxi troops surrendered en-masse, their paymasters now surrendered and locked away in gulags in the far northwest for being traitors to the people. One of the few notable exceptions was Bai Chongxi, Chief of Staff for the Guangxi Clique, who was a childhood friend of our own General Li Zongren. Li managed to convince his old friend Bai to join our cause. Similarly, Li Jishen, leader of the Guangxi Clique, would also convert to our cause and was a major part of unifying the country spiritually and ideologically by mending wounds between Communists and those loyal to the Nationalists. As it would turn out, many of the Guangxi Clique would prove to be not so bad.



    Li Zongren (Left) and Li Jisehn (Right). Apparently they are not related, like the three unrelated Ma Clans. China is a land of many people with far fewer names, people must share.

    With the last warlords destroyed, the Chinese Civil War was over. Free China was now united. The era of the warlords was over. China was entering a new era. Now there was now only one enemy to face: the Japanese Empire.


    China Reunited (Almost)
    Last edited by EmperorBatman999; January 27, 2017 at 02:10 PM.

  19. #19
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    It's good to see the revival of this story, the mixture of historical images and screenshots accompanies your writing well. (I like your line about China as 'a land of many people with far fewer names').

    I hope that you will be able to continue. I wonder how China will get on against Japan.

    Meanwhile, the Writers' Study Yearly Awards 2016 are now open for nominations. Everyone is invited to submit nominations here.
    Last edited by Alwyn; January 28, 2017 at 09:47 AM.

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    Default Re: The East is Red! - A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR

    Hi, EmperorBatman! It's great to have you back writing for us again.

    So, China is unified... Well, as Alwyn says, it will be interesting to see what happens in the war against Japan...






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