The Korean-Pact War

Korea and Japan have reignited their conflict which started over a decade ago. While the Japanese war machine has proven effective in invading China, their involvement in three theatres of war has left them strained for manpower, allowing their foe to counterattack. Even when stretched thin, the Empire of the Rising Sun has the support of their greatest ally, The British Protectorate, who have so far eluded entrance into the conflict directly. The Emperor of Korea must now decide how to best handle conflict with Britain, as even if left alone, they will find a way to interfere in their war. Whether in the Himalayan peaks, or the crashing tides of Jeju, war would come for Britain.

Japan’s war with Joseon had been fierce since the Sichuan Blitz of 1936. Joseon took most of the land west of Shanghai back in the initial push, but supplies from Taiwan and Canton were allowing Japanese holdouts ample opportunity to recover. In the two years since, IJA troops have recovered much of the lost territory, albeit with a far shakier footing than before. This back and forth has led to much loss of life and destruction as key cities like Hengyang, Changsha, Wuhan, and Nanjing turned into concrete warzones, with battlelines often falling street by street. The local populace, regardless of allegiance, were forced to flee into the countryside, leaving behind the barren cities for any possible safety. No settlement exemplifies this experience quite like Yancheng.

The Imperial Japanese Army’s manpower was stretched thin in early 1939, due to increased deployments to Indochina. Moreover, Naval operations in Russian territory, while successful in cutting Joseon supply lines in the north, greatly limited the number of rikusentai available to deploy in any active theaters. As a result the 8th General Army, while full of staunch veteran troops, was left vulnerable to a hard southward push if Joseon could muster the numbers. Fortunately for the Koreans, their recent pacification of numerous revolts had presented them with a sudden reimbursement of their manpower.

The chosen force for the Yancheng Campaign was the freshly trained Manchurian Provincial Army, whose officer corps was restructured with Korean veterans of the revolts. Many Manchu troops had witnessed the Japanese raids along the Russian border, and were particularly eager to get revenge, even if it was the wrong theater. General Guo Du was assigned to oversee the operation, replacing the former local commander. His battle plan was simple; blitz into Huaian, a town northwest of Yancheng, and take the road from there to hit the city from the opposite side as the sea. He hoped he could potentially press them against the coastline, or at least cause them to do a flanked retreat back to Japanese territory.

The primary operation was launched on May 5th, surging into Huaian quickly using a mix of cavalry and a column of Zhuque light tanks for the initial push. The Joseon reputation for “iron wall” trench warfare had made such an attack an unlikely scenario, and thanks to the local geography (particularly using the nearby lake to break up Japanese lines) they were able to saturate the lower Japanese numbers with rapid strikes on the city’s northwestern flank. Huaian was theirs by the end of the day, precisely on schedule for the next stage of the attack.

Joseon’s artillery had caught up to the vanguard in the time it took to take the city, and were now moving to position themselves along the Chaohe River to the southeast, which they hoped to use as a makeshift trench line. Thanks to their top of the line heavy artillery, they were able to effectively bombard the northern half of Yancheng, softening the 8th General Army before the main forces arrived. The auxiliary infantry the Provincial Army fielded set out immediately after the battle at Huaian, as the trek could take a couple of days. The vanguard’s mobility gave them time to recuperate before hitting the road, as they would need to once more make the initial push into the city, this time under Guo Du’s personal supervision. Whether or not they were under his command, his own personal biases against the Manchu led him to believe that they were not up to the task of carrying out the plan properly.

The vanguard reached Yancheng early in the morning of the 7th, immediately laying siege to the already battered city. The Japanese troops lying in wait had dealt with over a day of bombardment, and their shield was only effective at covering the heart of the city, resulting in heavy casualties. The 8th’s command left the protection of the city proper to the Choukou12th Area Army “Rikusame”, under the command of Lieutenant General Honma Hikibi. Honma was given explicit orders to hold the city at least for the first day, while the vanguard attempted to rout his men. The city had been mostly populated up to this point in the conflict, Joseon’s sudden advance had not allowed civilians and personnel alike time to retreat south. Not every local would be upset to see the Joseon attack, but the Japanese Army understood that a relative amount of goodwill was needed to maintain control over the mainland annex to the empire.

The battle was fierce, with the Korean cavalry charging Japanese defensive positions at staggering speed. The Rikusame-Gun fell back slightly to the Xinyang Canal, hoping to cause the charging horses to fall in. The plan effectively dulled their charge, but did not deter the advancing tanks. Hundreds of Japanese troops were felled in the defense as they awaited aid from further in the city, delayed by the many bridges throughout. Their pleas were answered by eighteen O-Ni class tanks, whose armor easily outclassed the Zhuque’s firepower. The fight was now on even footing, with the 30,000 strong vanguard now facing down against a full Area Army’s might. Exhausted as the Japanese were, they were equally enraged, and fully prepared to hold the city at Honma’s word. General Guo Du could sense this was going to be a harder battle than planned, and ordered his forces to pull back to the outskirts and await the infantry. His presence on the field, which had been done to make his men fight harder, ultimately led him to hesitate. Thousands were dead in a matter of four hours, but Honma had done what was expected of him.

After a brief period of rest, the evacuation of the city was fully underway, with only a fifth of the Army left on the northern outskirts to avert Korean suspicions. The consideration for the locals would certainly earn some points with Choukou’s provisional government, which had been given increased home-rule in recent years. Honma also had one last order he had to carry out as his men slipped out of the city; sabotaging their defenses on the way out. The 8th Command had informed him that a small detachment of maritime vessels equipped with long-range weaponry had been summoned by the Navy at their request. Losing the region was bad, but Yancheng itself was valuable as a logistics hub and stronghold, having one of the only three shield generators in all of Jiangsu. Efforts to retake the city in the future would be nightmarish, especially given the Joseon defensive doctrine. For this reason, Honma made the decision to leave all of their heavy ordnance behind in the command bunker, along with an extra present.

The bulk of the Provincial Army’s infantry arrived on May 8th, only to find that the Japanese had only left a skeleton crew of defenders to hold them back for a few hours. As the Joseon troops entered the city proper, Honma’s gift revealed itself as his men remote-detonated an explosive charge within the bunker obliterating the munitions stockpile, much of the fortress, and the shield city’s shield generator. Cavorine gas polluted the heart of Yancheng, which would also be under naval fire soon enough. General Guo had successfully pushed his enemy out of the city, costing them manpower and resources, but Honma had made sure that the city permanently stayed out of Korean hands. Even as the two armies would continue fighting in the region for the next several years, the city sat between their lines, a bombed out, toxic husk serving as a permanent reminder of what the war cost.

While the British were avoiding open war with the now revitalized Koreans, they certainly made their indirect participation obvious to the wider world. Since the outbreak of the numerous rebellions in the mid 1920s, Britain had occupied the Canton, which had been a semi-autonomous economic zone since their last war with Joseon. They of course claimed the action was to “maintain free trade” in the region, but it was no secret that they had been asserting themselves in Guangzhou’s politics for decades, and held great interest in returning to prominence in the region. The added presence of Japanese troops on the mainland had ensured that Joseon could not do much in response.

This arrangement was not entirely one-sided however, since Japan was Britain’s most valuable ally, especially among royalist circles. As they waged their conflict to hold onto Choukou, the British maintained Japan’s supply-lines, providing them with surplus munitions and Indonesian oil. They also went on to call for an embargo on Korean goods in 1935, convincing half of the planet’s nations that the economic starvation of the ‘Sick Man of Asia’ was simply good business. The added strain on the struggling economy only pushed Joseon harder in their efforts to reunify the country, and according to many military analysts around the world the embargo likely led to the Sichuan Blitz the following year.

As the war reignited between Japan and Joseon, Britain’s East Asian Command Center in Hong Kong grew concerned about potential similar attacks on their own holdings neighboring China. Now that the Royal Navy was supporting the Japanese blockade of the mainland, it was only a matter of time before Joseon would strike back. They ordered all garrisons to increase their readied troop counts, and requested that the British Raj’s own colonial military increase border patrols in the Himalayas. This moment of paranoia actually proved correct in the long run, as the Sunbyonsa of Tibet, Ngapi Dorji, went beyond his station and attacked Raj forces at Aksai Chin in Late May of 1939. He had hoped to capitalize on the recent events in Yancheng, proving the might of his own Provincial Army. While initially small in scale, the conflict was arguably the first theater of a war that had yet to break out. Tibetans and the Raj were fortunately ordered down from the brink of war with relative ease, but the lull would not last forever.

The Lord Protector and Korean Emperor both attempted to advise restraint publicly, but in private both men held darker intentions behind the deescalation. Britain’s Baldwin knew he already had the just cause for war with Joseon over the incident, but a formal declaration now would prevent the Raj from regaining their footing in the mountains. Emperor Himjo was however not too interested in the Raj, and saw that his best way to survive the age of conflict was to restrict Japan’s support as much as possible. Attacking the Raj would be incredibly expensive at large scale, and would likely require much more time to prepare for. He hoped to instead focus resources on weakening Pact supply lines, isolating Japan in a manner not too dissimilar to what was done to them by the IJN’s invasion into Eastern Russia. He was confident that if he could quickly remove the British from China, his Empire could easily repel the Japanese one-on-one. This plan was easier said than done…

On July 15th, the peace and quiet of the Shandong peninsula was shattered by the sound of tank treads and humming aircraft. For the past week, Joseon had been amassing troops in Qingdao, the peninsula’s largest city, and home of the Holy Roman Empire’s primary trade hub in China. Their trade partner, while not as active as the Russians in supporting their defense, had just completed an undercover delivery of arms to the Central Army Group 9 “Prince Haseong”, who were preparing to march eastward down the peninsula. The arms were also accompanied by a small voluntary expeditionary force, led by General Alexander Ernst Alfred Hermann Freiherr von Falkenhausen, who had been sent to advise the inexperienced Haseong. Their target was Weihaiwei, the British trading port that had been leased to them for almost a century. The Emperor over the past month had demanded the return of the port in ceasefire talks, but to no avail. His patience had of course worn out.

The vanguard of CAG 9 first arrived at Yantai on the 19th, after four days of allied bombardment. The local Weihaiwei Division was vastly outnumbered, with total manpower numbering in the upper four figures. Commonwealth troops from the 1st and 2nd Weihaiwei Regiments had already been sent out to stall the advance, taking heavy casualties in the process. Positioned in the battered ruins of Yantai was the Weihaiwei Armored Regiment, personally commanded by the Division Commander, Major-General Sir Michael O'Moore Creagh. The Major-General served with high distinction in his youth, but was often subjected to rejection and bigotry by his superiors. He was one of the 300,000 or so Irishmen still permitted to live in his homeland, as his father’s own service had exempted his family from expulsion on the grounds of converting to the Anglican Church. In part he hated his position in China, but recognized it allowed him some reprieve from suspicious superiors. Even still, he had much to prove.

O’Moore Creagh deployed his tanks at the first sight of the vanguard, hoping to engage their assault before the bulk of the army could arrive. They clashed head on between the Waijia and Xin’an rivers, blocking the Koreans in on both sides. He also had troops on the eastern bank of the Xin’an provide supporting fire with anti-tank rifles, having ordered them to aim for enemy treads to disable their mobility. As a majority of the invading force were domestic light tanks and armored cars imported from the Holy Roman Empire, the loss of mobility left them critically vulnerable, resulting in a one-sided conflict. The only thing preventing the Weihaiwei forces from utterly crushing the invading vanguard was the arrival of an unexpected sight; Falkenhausen and the HRE Expeditionary Force, who had unbeknownst to anyone departed Qingdao. He had been ordered to remain in the treaty port to protect Imperial assets, only advising the Korean Prince on the attack. However, Falkenhausen was aware that the overextended Korean army was like a serpent lunging without first coiling its body, and foresaw heavy casualties against O’Moore Creagh. He had also been emboldened in his decision by news of the Red Baron’s raid on Mannheim, seeing that decisively committing to the assault could pay off if he could buy CAG 9 time to arrive.

With Falkenhausen’s arrival, the British forces withdrew back into Yantai. O’Moore Creagh immediately contacted British Command by wire, alerting them to the hostile activity of the Imperial troops in China. The implications of a wider war with the HRE was not lost on him. He also was forced to make a tough call, accelerating his existing plan to adjust for the increased enemy presence that he hadn't expected for another couple of days. He had been initially ordered to hold Weihai as long as possible, and prepared to destroy Protectorate assets if failure was imminent. The port stronghold, some 50 kilometers to the east, was home to one of the only automaton factories on the continent, and the potential capture of this closely guarded technology was the worst possible scenario. His only way out was to wait for relief by the Joint East China Sea Pact Fleet, holding out while preparations for demolition were completed. He maneuvered the bulk of his army to retreat to Weihai, ordering 400 men to shore up defenses in Yantai to cover the retreat. The men would harass the arriving expeditionary force from the abandoned buildings throughout, sowing as much discord as feasible until supplies ran out. Three days was the estimated time he would have to hold out in the harbor according to G.R.A.I.L., unfortunately they had not calculated for any potential delays…

Almost simultaneously with the assault on Yantai, the bulk of the Joseon Maritime Navy was deployed from its mooring at Lushunkou and Binhai, setting out for open water in the southeast. The aether fleet remained close to the Korean Peninsula, but extended their reach slightly southward to support the advance on the Empire’s secondary target: Jeju Island. The Island had been leased as a special treaty port since 1860, one of the consequences of the Second Opium War. It had since become a heavily fortified Naval installation, serving both Japanese and British interests. On the 19th, the Joseon fleet engaged Pact vessels just off the coast of the Gueom Salt Flats. British shore batteries opened fire on the incoming ships, but were quickly crippled by the overhead bombardment of Joseon’s aetherships. The battle continued on and off for a couple of days, with the island’s defenses proving too effective at repelling the Korean Maritime fleet, but ultimately struggling with the handful of aetherships. Reinforcements were requested by Jeju City Headquarters, but the closest Commonwealth ships were in low orbit over Canton, and could not arrive anytime soon. Moreover, win or lose, the battle for Jeju would stall evacuation efforts in Weihai for days, leaving O’Moore Creagh completely alone.

The Battle of Jeju may have been raging on, but the Weihaiwei Division had their own conflict on the horizon. By the 21st, the retreat to the shielded port of Weihai was complete, having only lost the men that had been intentionally left behind to stall Falkenhausen and the Joseon Prince, who had only just arrived with the bulk of the forces. Between his 6 regiments, O’Moore Creagh only had about 4500 fighting men at his disposal, with another 2000 or so logistical and engineering personnel preparing the industrial zone for an intense standoff. The local constabulary was also assisting in evacuation efforts, as well as personally guarding important British assets near the harbor. If the defense of the city failed, it would befall them to ensure their destruction.

There was one last trick up the Major-General’s sleeve that could reduce his casualties in the early stages of the defense: the automaton production lines. On a normal day, the Tommybot factory at Weihai could produce 106 units, with even more possible if work regulations were lifted. The factory also still had hundreds of automatons waiting on the docks when the Shandong invasion started on the 15th, and for the past six days the plant had been running around the clock to aid in the defense effort. The result was the assembly of the Weihaiwei 3rd Autonomous Infantry Regiment, with the remaining “manpower” being reprogrammed for use in tank piloting. The 1st Armored had been previously manned only by humans, who could now be pulled to the back line as support personnel. All in all, the total fighting strength of the British forces swelled by thousands, and O’Moore Creagh could worry less about intact models being captured, as Tommybots’ circuits were fried upon shutdown in combat.

As Prince Haseong’s armies approached, the British holdout opened fire, wasting no time to abuse the slow marching speed of the Korean infantry. While they took the brunt of the shelling, Falkenhausen had taken command of the Korean vanguard and his own forces, quickly cutting around to enter the shield from the south side. British infantry was thinner on this flank, but this was made up for by the presence of a column of tanks, which used the narrow streets to hide their positions. Shells and fire flew everywhere through the Zhudao district, yet the tide quickly soured on the offensive side, as stray machinegun fire grazed General Falkenhausen’s car after a shield malfunction. While ultimately nothing more than a scratch on the hull, the General’s position in the middle of his forces was too exposed, even with his foe cornered. He ordered his forces to lighten the advance, instead opting for encirclement while he had his car inspected. He had lost no less than two dozen vehicles in the chaos, and while O’Moore Creagh also lost a few vehicles, the loss of life was near zero due to his automation. Their first encounter was truly an embarrassment, one he would soon need to explain to Prince Haseong.

The young second-in-line to the throne was modestly equipped with knowledge on warfare, though unfortunately also instilled with a stubbornness to consultation. When Falkenhausen reported his findings in Zhudao, he chalked it up to an overreliance on speed, largely ignoring the senior officer’s advice. He committed thousands of men to a brazen advance forward, hoping to breach the shield before nightfall. After all, the Ironwall strategy had not failed them so far. Instead, his men failed to barely reach the perimeter at all, and were mowed down by Bots hiding among the outlying buildings. His forces outnumbered O’Moore Creagh 60 to 1, but every advance he made was simply costing him unjustifiable casualties. By the end of hostilities on the 21st, he had lost as many men attacking Weihai as the British had in their whole division.

As night fell, the Koreans withdrew to a partially shielded camp beyond a nearby bluff. The area was still relatively well-lit, as the British launched flares all through the night in anticipation of a night raid. Falkenhausen and Haseong discussed the failure of the day’s fighting, with the two men ultimately growing concerned about the course of the battle. They both reached the conclusion that attacking the fortified city was next to impossible without heavy casualties. If they rushed the city with everything they had they could easily take it, but lose untold amounts of soldiers and equipment, as well as putting themselves at risk. If they made a gradual encroachment they would be less likely to fall to ambush, but would be subjected to constant gunfire and shelling. Even worse, if they went too slow, British naval reinforcements would arrive to evacuate them, and they would fail to seize any automaton assets. With their options dwindling fast, they decided to attempt one more day of heavy assaults.

On the 22nd, the Korean Army once more approached Weihai, this time with a more evenly distributed army composition. Falkenhausen’s Expeditionary Force was placed just behind the front line, able to quickly pivot to different sectors when reinforcements were requested. The bulk of Haseong’s heavy armor units were also moved to the vanguard, hoping to shatter the British in a tactic that in many cases proved effective against Japanese assaults. The Xuanwu heavy battle tank was in fact perfect for the kind of battle often undertaken against the Japanese, but was also glaringly weak to the omnidirectional warfare of marching into an enemy city, a mistake that was the first fault in the attack. British troops opportunistically swarmed the advance on multiple sides, disabling the tanks with ease.

The second mistake was once more at the hands of Prince Haseong, albeit this time in the midst of the clash. The surge eastward was progressing slowly, but a mountain on the city’s edge threatened to divide their forces in two. His answer to this was to advance up on the ridge and lay down supporting fire from on high. As they crested the hilltop however, they realized that O’Moore Creagh’s engineers had anticipated this, rigging the cliff with explosives, and protecting it with a hundred Tommybots. The Koreans engaged with what they deemed a trifling force, quickly closing in on the outmatched defense. As the fighting started to die down however, the engineers detonated their charges, bringing down the mountain face with at least 3000 Korean troops on top of it. Official numbers of how many died on Xianguding Bluff are still not known to this day…

The final straw of the encounter occurred much later in the day, as men on the southern flank once more started to breach the shield. British defenses were softened after the first day of fighting, but that did not mean they were anywhere near done. Automaton units in the district were worn bare, forcing the 1st and 2nd Infantry Regiments out into the line of fire. The fighting in Yezhikuang was truly horrendous, with the remnants of the 1st Infantry battling to the last man to hold their positions. Kerry Zhong, the only survivor of the encounter, described it as best as he could, “a sea of lead and flesh, churning with the tides of battle, enough for any man to drown in the bloodlust.” And yet miraculously, even as the neighborhood fell silent, the enemy did not advance further north, an opportunity that could have led to them flanking the very brittle lines of the rearguard, which was mostly lightly armed logistics men. The sheer quantity of death had rattled the will of even the attackers, who could not be certain their newfound calm wasn’t yet another trap laid by O’Moore Creagh. That hesitation allowed the British just enough time to close the gap, sealing the fate of the battle.

The two armies fought brutally for about 9 hours before they were interrupted by the deafening sound of cannonfire. A handful of Japanese vessels had arrived in the harbor, called in to assist while the British fleet battled at Jeju. The Korean’s aim was to eliminate the British presence in East Asia to isolate the Japanese, but little did they know the move only brought the cooperation of the Pact to a new point of prosperity. Falkenhausen and Haseong made the prudent measure to fall back to camp, hoping to continue shelling the enemy as they prepared an escape. They ultimately would gain their peninsula, but still failed to secure the secrets of the Tommybot’s construction. Tens of thousands of men died in the Shandong Campaign, and neither side could really be happy with their outcome. Worse still, the actions of Falkenhausen soon reached the ear of central command in London, who quickly declared this attack an officially sanctioned action of the Holy Roman Government in cooperation with Joseon. By August 1st, formal war declarations of war were issued for both belligerents, dragging Britain fully into the war that high command had hoped to avoid a little longer.