Screenshot Storytelling - "Pacification Campaign of Manchukuo" blog - Reborn:X

M A N D A T O R Y I N T R O D U C T O R Y

Hello everyone, this will be my transition from a 3D setting to an isometric 2D setting and a change from my usual modern or Cold War setting as this part of my blog will focus on WWII, its side conflicts and the early non-Europe part of the war itself. I am trying to show the rarely known or the unkown to the general public face of the war and the conflicts the preceded it like the Spanish Civil War or the Second Sino-Japanese War. The first series will focus on Asia, more precisely on the early Empire of Japan' territorial expansions into the Chinese lands. For the better understanding this part will have some description about the history of those times.
NOTE: Images present here are significantly larger in size than in my previous blog entries (about 4 mb each), so let it load. Also, it contains obvious spoilers for the chapter that was played.

The Pacification Campaign of Manchukuo, Manchukuo former part of the Chinese Empire, 1931-1941.
The Japanese war in Manchuria and subsequent conquest and the making of an political puppet begin on the of 19th of September 1931. An military incident called "The Mukden Incident" was orchestrated by staff elements of the IJA's Kwantung Army mostly by Lieutenants Ishiwara, Colonel Doihara and Major Tanaka who came up with a plan of a sabotage against the Eastern China Railways by setting up a small dynamite explosive near one of the train stations at Mukden. Ensuring chaos and disbelief allowed them and other officially "rogue" members of the Officer Corps and the regular soldiers of the Kwantung Army to begin open shelling by artillery guns against the small and yeak Chinese garrisons belonging to an local warlord. This act resulted in the eventual invasion of Manchuria, forming of a new but unrecognized by much of the World government in Manchuria named Manchukuo and a foundation for the further large scale Second Sino-Japanese War to occur. Officially the Japanese government and the Emperor opposed those opportunistic officers in their attempts, but since the control and the power was pretty much within the various semi-unified military control cliques like the Toseiha and the earlier Kodoha, the voice of the civilian government and the Monarch had no real recognition or deciding power. Initial ground operations within Manchuria were meet with resistance from various warlords and their cronies, armed so called "peasent brotherhoods" and various criminals that were virtually ignored by the Chinese authorities while it was still a Chinese land. Since this was still the Chinese Warlords Era the fractured solidarity and the rulers were without much difficulty swatted away by the Imperial Japanese Army. Kai-Shek's National Revolutionary Army failed in their struggle to contain the Japanese spillover. Most of Manchuria was within the hands of various mostly seperated peasants who struggled to unify and control their own lands, Communist insurgents directed from Yan'an by Mao Zedong, some noticable warlords who wanted to retain their own gains and local gangs of lowly bandits and criminals attempting to find a spot in this new reality of Manchuria. All in all, Manchukuo the new country arised pretty quickly and wiped out the Kuomintang presence even reaching into Shanghai but failing to break the defences. Mukden Incident was somewhat repeated nearly 6 years later in the form of Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the infamous Second Sino-Japanese War that lasted untill the Surrender of Japan. This blog entry will cover the early anti-insurrection and anti-partisan operations conducted by the Imperal Japanese Army, the Imperial Japanese Army Military Police Corps and the newly formed Manchukuo garrison troops during the month of March of the year 1932. It should be noted, that even though the Chinese forces vastly overwhelmed the Japanese actual losses of manpower in the Japanese units were almost 2x lower than the Chinese. For example, in one battle the Japanese lost approx. 200 men while the Chinese losses numbered about 600 men.

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Province of Song-Jilang, Metropolitan Border Area, Manchukuo the month of March of the year 1932.

Word have reached the main IJA HQ via the radio that an Communist insurrection is occuring near one of the train station belonging to our Eastern China Railways. The small town itself is not of major importance or concern but the rapid peasant revolt can threaten the train station itself which serves as a key point of supply and men transport to our units stationed far in the Eastern part of the country. Small garrison of Manchukuo troops reinforced by Military Police which bodyguards the local HQ had reported several shots being fired in the farming areas to the East. immediately, the higher ups had ordered battle readiness status and pacification operations to begin within the town.

Because the enemy rebels and not to be laughed at, similar revolts before had claimed at lot of Manchukuoan and Japanese lives before in other parts of the country. Unfortunely, all that the HQ can spare in the defence is a small stronghold in production to the North who further houses another small Manchukuo mobile garrison force but this time reinforced by trained regular soldiers, heavy weapons and leadership coming from the Army rather than the Military Police units or unreliable Manchukuoan royalists that received their positions of our heritage reasons. In the case of an emergency, permission will be given to transform the stronghold into a temporary prision for the captured Communist rebels should some surrender to us.

The garrison arrived in marching order near the vicinity of the town and into the grounds of the stronghold. Acting commandant of the stronghold had issued his orders: "Our Manchukuo friends will move on foot to help our other friends in the train station. Moving north into the town NOT to reunite with the field HQ but to attack the enemy from the Northern part of the town, separately. The motorised infantry stays until given the direct order should the footmen fail or should they fall under heavy supressive fire. The heavy weapons stay, they will be delegated to ensure the security and survival of the stronghold in this upcoming battle! Do not fail His Grace the Emperor!"

The real heavy-hitters, elements of the motorised infantry company of the Kwantung Army had suprised the garrison. Becaused sudddenly a Manchukuo unit had managed to overcome a small bandit assault of a police station; the company had the pleasure to relocate itself in support of the defence of the Song-Jilang train station. Possesing medium cannons hauled by tractors and one AT cannon the company had the power just right to break any Communist siege of a small town in this region. This will also become a testing ground for the new experimental So-Da APC vehicle and the newly purchased British "Austin" armoured cars. However, the lieutenant assinged in command of the unit was relatively young and inexperienced, some wonder whenever is he really capable of issuing sound orders and if he does know how to organise the battle. In the case of an unfortunate tragedy, reserves stationed in the barracks may be called up to hold the offensive wave.

In disorganised haste, first offensive move orders arrived to the mechanised infantry company. The plan was simple: infantry is to move through the farm killing the opposition while the weapons support unit will be deployed on the field before it and help to press on the assault. Armed and armoured vehicles will be the improvised recon element tasked with mowing down the rebels, attacking the morale, their will to fight and report on the AP and AT weapons spotted to the squad commanders.
Every infantrymen will do his duty, trucks will return back to the field base once the squads had disembarked. AT gun and the field cannon will be deployed accordingly to the situation and spotted enemy units. The only unit that is to be not directly used in the combat is the modified Type 97 Isuzu truck fitted with an one-barrel AA autocannon gun as it is judged to be useless in this battle by the commanding officer, the young lieutenant. Contray to his opinion, the soldiers believe the weapon to be of major use as it is generally suspected for the Chinese to quickly start swarming up on us and every weapon that fires fast and accurate is desired to have in this battle.

First deaths, first casualties burn as the Isuzu truck is hit by an enfilade with Soviet rounds from Chinese Communist insurgents hidden alongside the wooden fences. Luck had fortuned the brave Manchukuoan soldiers as they managed just in time to leave the vehicle as it sprunged in flames. This alone had somewhat proven to the small garrison that it will not be an easy and quick battle engagement. First minutes are always unsure as both sides initially believe to hold the advantages both in numbers and surpise element.

Sounds of gunfire echo along this small town, the battle is in it's first stage. The Chinese score a few direct hits against the Manchukuoan troops who in haste attempt to pour through the cramped streets and get shot down by camoflauged insurgents in the sheds, laying prone on the streets. Weapon diversity is favouring the Chinese as they have some good Soviet firearms as the other side is doomed with fight with simple and plain bolt-action rifles mostly in an enviroment they hadn't pretty much covered during the training. The luck is however soon believed to change as the Kwantung Army troops are coming up to rescue and attempting to trap the insurgents in an improvised encirclement tactic.

Never before a horse farm was proven itself to become such an choke point for the opposing forces as the Kwantung Army mechanised infantry company suffers a similar obstacle trying breach through the dugged Chinese forces in haste, before having the chance to deploy heavy weapons and support the advance with additional regrouped soldiers from the Japanese Type 97 trucks. The inital errors are quickly overcomed when the troop finally reorganised itself fully for the combat situation at hand. and the mortar shells scar the grounds along with the HE-FRAG shells flying knocking out their supply sources, the HMG's firing almost non-stop while the enemy attempts to dislodge the soldiers who are going too far straight ahead.

Around the train station area the situation is better than it looks to be. Rebels are suprisingly quickly eliminated with quick, accurate shots despite them holding an advantage in cover. On the side of the bridge, an breakthrough attempt is halted by an burst of fire from an Japanese HMG aided by those weird constructions. The Manchukuo unit stationed here had constructed some of their own models of armoured cars using spare parts found along, train parts and unused trucks. They are preforming quite well in spite of their initial visual appeal. Battle might be now turning decisively into our favour.

The extent of the seriousness of the battle is shown here. Doubt is flowing around whenever the rebels are being pushed back or have we stepped ourselves into a kettle-like bad encounter. I am guessing it is for the viewer to ascertain. Surely the technologic superior is showing a little as they posses Soviet anti-tank rifles, LMG's, standard rifles and even vehicles smuggled probably through the Ussuri river area. Making it to believe the revolt was planned for a long time and was undetected suprisingly by the local Military Police unit operating in the region.

Reserve forces have been called in as it is becoming ever more apparent the aggresive Chinese Communist peasant insurgents are outnumbering our current forces, have managed to destroy our armoured vehicle section and are being dangerously close to repulsing the mechanised infantry company assault. For all that is happening it cannot be simply allowed to lose our train station. If it is going to be a fight to the death for a small part of an abandoned land then so be it.

In this fierce fighting eventually the enemy resistance and their will to fight has faltered. Remaining rebels fled to the distant provinces leaving behind their communications equipment and their supply transportation capabilities. Their officers had fled alongside their men leaving the train stations into our hands at a great cost of lives and hardware. Manchukuo and IJA Military Police HQ bodyguards garrison had lost nearly 20% of their men not to mention their newly constructed improvised armoured cars. Stronghold Manchukuo mobile garrison troop was almost routed but managed to retain it's transportation abilities and the leadership. Kwantung Army mechanised infantry company that was delegated to the defence suffered the most damage losing nearly 80% of foot soldiers, entire armoured vehicle component and leaving some field guns lacking skilled crews as they joined the other soldiers in the Heaven. Lessons must be learned from this battle, captured Chinese equipment will serve further in the defence duties should another inssurection incident occur and in order to replenish the losses, a number of civilians living in the region will be conscripted into the duty to serve the Empire of Japan. The Wind of Change is coming and the real war is soon to arrive and it will show the World the quintessence of an armed conlict like no other ever before experienced by the humanity.

CONTENT USED:
Blitzkrieg I Real Time Tactics strategy game with the GZM 7.77.3 (I believe that was the version number) total conversion mod. Custom Asian chapter made by Ariete. That is all IIRC.

SOME WORDS:
I am actually proud of myself a little today and of this fine blog entry.