Chapter 34: The rise of war in East Asia (Part 2)
Currently, with the support of the United States and the Soviet Union, Kim Il Sung's Provisional Soviet Government of North Korea and Kim Jius' Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea are fiercely competing for territory on the Korean Peninsula. On the surface, the Korean Provisional Soviet Government, which received support from the Soviet Union and China, and also received cooperation from the Japanese colonial authorities, should have the absolute upper hand in this competition. But the problem is that the Korean Soviet regime, that is, the officers and soldiers under Commander Kim Il Sung, are currently basically all Korean soldiers belonging to the Soviet army and the Northeast Anti-Japanese Allied Forces of China. Many people hold Soviet nationality or were born and raised in China, and a considerable number of them can no longer even speak Korean.
Of course, this is not the most critical issue. The most troublesome part is that when the Japanese Empire suddenly collapsed, all these soldiers and cadres were outside North Korea, and there were only some insignificant underground revolutionary organizations in the country. Just how to transport troops and manpower back to the country in the freezing winter is enough to make people scratch their heads. And no one is sure how to establish local political power and suppress all kinds of treason next.
On the contrary, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea of Kim Koo and Rhee Syngman, although they were also immigrants who had been exiled overseas for many years, they probably didn’t even know how to get around Seoul. But in the final analysis, this group of people is just a sign used to whitewash their appearance and deceive Americans to win foreign aid. At present, those who truly hold the actual power in Seoul are the officer corps headed by Park Chung-hee, all of whom came from the Japanese Army Military Academy and the Manchu Military Academy.
This means that the South Korean White Army is a remnant of the army that has been entrenched in the mainland during the Japanese occupation, while the Korean Red Army is a "returning regiment" that left North Korea during the same period and has now returned home. Relatively speaking, it is not as good as the White Army. So grounded.
Although before the Japanese troops stationed in Korea retreated south, the Governor-General ordered the Korean puppet troops to be collectively disarmed and demobilized. But in that chaotic situation, many puppet troops still refused to surrender their weapons, and the Japanese army, which was in a hurry to return home, obviously had no time to suppress the disobedience of these North Korean puppet troops. After the U.S. military organized the Incheon landing, even the disarmed puppet troops received a large number of American firearms and ammunition, causing the White Army's power to expand rapidly.
Just the fact that the capital Seoul was occupied by communists had already given the Korean Provisional Soviet Government a blow. You know, Seoul currently has a population of 1.8 million, while the entire population of North Korea is only 30 million. Not to mention Seoul’s huge political significance as the old capital of the Joseon Kingdom. However, before Comrade Kim Il Sung could figure out a proper way to retake Seoul, Park Chung Hee, Rhee Syngman, and the gang of damned communist class enemies of Kim Koo, even the other two of the "Three Capitals of North Korea" , that is, Pyongyang and Kaesong, do not want the Red Army to continue to occupy it.
——Just three days after the U.S. military landed in Inchon, the reassuring former North Korean puppet military and police launched a riot, overthrowing the Kaesong Soviet government that had just been established less than a month ago. Two hundred Korean Red Army and work force cadres were stationed in Kaesong. All sacrificed.
At the same time, further north in Pyongyang, a communist rebellion launched by former puppet soldiers and gentry landlords also broke out. However, the Red Army that had already entered Pyongyang was relatively strong and successfully suppressed the rebellion after a fierce battle. The remaining few remaining enemies were also driven out of the city.
However, Park Chung-hee's officer corps, who refused to give up, launched another counterattack from Seoul and organized more than 3,000 troops to arrive on the outskirts of Pyongyang by train. Since last week, they have continued to engage in fierce battles with the Red Army defending the city. Since both sides had very few frontline troops and supplies were very difficult. Coupled with heavy snowfall and harsh weather, the battle had been fought intermittently. However, Kim Il-sung still did not dare to take it lightly: North Korea has now lost two of its three capitals. , if Pyongyang is lost again, it will be an extremely heavy blow to the new North Korean red regime and him, the country's leader.
However, it is not easy to send additional troops from Wonsan to Pyongyang. From the map, the coast of the Sea of Japan on the east side of the Korean Peninsula has majestic and steep mountains that almost plunge directly into the sea. There are not many plains for cultivation. The entire country’s wealth, population, and big cities are concentrated on the relatively flat west coast and the smallest areas. Southern region. If you want to cross these mountains, apart from the Beijing-Yuan Railway, which has been cut off by the White Army, there are only a few narrow roads paved with a mixture of soil and gravel. These roads meander through mountainous areas, with many sections allowing only one car to pass. Moreover, there are abrupt rocks on one side and steep abyss on the other. The terrain is very dangerous. The Red Army's troops and ammunition supplies must pass through this. mountain roads for transportation.
What's even more terrible is that although in order to avoid a head-on conflict with the Soviet army, the U.S. naval aviation of the Halsey Fleet did not dare to directly bomb Wonsan Port and Hungnam Port where the Soviet Red Flag Pacific Fleet was stationed. However, the roads and railways extending from these two ports to western North Korea were constantly bombarded in an attempt to block the red camp's reinforcements from the east coast, allowing the reactionary regime to gradually occupy North Korea. The essence of the area.
Thanks to the accurate intelligence provided by former colonial government officials from Seoul, the US military's air strikes on the Korean Peninsula appear to be quite methodical and can always hit the most deadly traffic nodes. For example, the Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake Reservoir is located on the only way from Xingnan Port to cross the Gaima Plateau. The water in the diversion culvert under the Changjin Lake Reservoir flows here into four huge pipelines, extending at a very steep slope to a hydroelectric power station at the foot of the mountain. Where the pipeline intersects the road, there is a suspended one-lane bridge that rides over the pipeline. From a distance, the bridge seems to be hanging on a cliff. There is an abyss under the bridge, and there is no way around it. Once there is no Watergate Bridge, passing vehicles will have no way around it but will be blocked here.
In order to destroy this important bridge, US military aircraft organized six major bombings, and finally broke through the ground anti-aircraft firepower of the Korean Red Army and completely destroyed the bridge. As a result, Xingnan Port was half destroyed when it came to reinforcing the western battlefield. As the Beijing-Yuan Railway was severely damaged by the communists, the reinforcements gathered at Wonsan Port were unable to set off for the time being. Although there are many roads from the east coast across the mountains to the west, there are only a few roads that can drive cars in the snowy winter. The temperature in the mountains is currently as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius. For soldiers to carry heavy ammunition and luggage and trek through knee-deep valleys and hills with snow, it is simply a catastrophic task that can collapse morale.
Therefore, in the foreseeable future, the situation in the western part of the Korean Peninsula will further deteriorate...
However, despite this, Comrade Kim Il Sung is not very depressed about the future prospects, let alone despair.
Yes, those North Korean communists who were eager to jump over the wall and refused to accept the people's and just sanctions did attract a strong force of foreign aid and temporarily reversed the revolutionary situation. However, the Soviet Red Army can always stay in Wonsan, and the Chinese friendly forces will definitely stay on the other side of the Yalu River, but the American Halsey Fleet cannot stay on the coast of the Korean Peninsula for a long time. Even with the terrifying national power of the United States, it cannot maintain such a long and dangerous supply line for a long time. What's more, there is also a huge Japanese combined fleet that is always threatening Halsey's retreat.
Don't look at the gang of communists in Seoul, who seem to be having a lot of fun at the moment. As soon as the Halsey fleet leaves, all air and sea control in the Korean battlefield will change hands. At most, if the weather gets warmer and the roads blocked by snow become clear, the death of these white bandits will come.
Before that, even if Pyongyang is temporarily lost, it will only be temporarily stored in the hands of the enemy for a while. As long as the American fleet leaves, the lost city can be recaptured immediately. At best, it will only be a blow to the prestige of the Soviet regime.
But what does it matter? As a veteran guerrilla, he did not have a glass heart that could never win a battle.
——Comrade Kim Il-sung expressed that he was very open-minded about the short-term loss of a city or a place.
However, due to the constraints of old concepts, he obviously seriously underestimated the destructive capability and killing efficiency of modern warfare.
The only thing that can prevent such bloody massacres from unfolding on a large scale is the ideological, moral and humanitarian concepts that continue to advance with the times.
But unfortunately, in order to win this world war, the US military today has been competing with the Japanese army to reach the lower limit. Not long ago, it just abandoned the last trace of moral integrity and tore off the last link between morality and reason. Xian has completely turned into a group of beasts that only know how to kill.
What's even more unfortunate is that these human-skinned beasts control a variety of the world's most advanced killing weapons.
So, not long after, Comrade Kim Il Sung was caught off guard and received a piece of shocking bad news.
"...Pyongyang is finished! The U.S. Air Force dropped nerve gas bombs on Pyongyang! The comrades over there had no time to organize an evacuation!"
——Speaking of it, this is actually a modern version of the ancient policy of "reducing the enemy".
Even if the overall strategic situation is unfavorable, even if the large fleet does not stay in the Korean battlefield for a long time, as long as you try to kill all the population on your side, especially the educated population, before withdrawing, it will fundamentally weaken your potential strength and all problems will be solved. It won’t be a problem...
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The west coast of the Korean Peninsula, off the coast of Incheon Port
Under the gloomy and gloomy clouds, there is a undulating lead-gray sea surface, and countless steel ships covering the sea surface.
These ships flying the Stars and Stripes were basically anchored at this time, slowly rising and falling in the cold waves of the winter ocean mixed with ice particles.
Accompanied by a huge roar, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft of the U.S. Naval Aviation returned one after another after completing ground bombing and reconnaissance missions, and landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier one after another. Whether it was the pilot who jumped out of the plane or the ground crew who swarmed up, their expressions were all relaxed.
——Except for a reconnaissance plane that crashed due to mechanical failure, there was not even a single battle damage in this mission, which was comparable to an aerial excursion.
"...What a boring battle...No, this is not even a battle at all, just pure killing."
Standing on the bridge of the USS Enterprise, looking at the naval aviation pilots who had returned unharmed on the deck, Admiral Halsey curled his lips.
If the previous battles in the Japanese Empire were not fierce enough or challenging enough, at least the opponents would resist and make Admiral Halsey excited. So today's expedition in the waters of China and North Korea only feels boring to Admiral Halsey.
——As a responsible big country, the Soviets currently dare not directly break up with the United States of America in the Far East. The Pentagon also had clear instructions not to allow Halsey to provoke the Soviet army. As for the North Korean Bolsheviks who were bombed, they did not have a decent navy or air force at all. Apart from using a pitiful number of anti-aircraft guns and symbolically shooting down planes, they basically had no means to truly threaten Halsey's fleet.
The only thing that could pose any threat to Halsey's fleet was the Japanese submarines that occasionally appeared nearby. However, Admiral Halsey now has enough destroyers and seaplanes to form an anti-submarine patrol network, and a few submarines will not constitute a real fatal trouble.
Therefore, in this cold and windy winter, Admiral Halsey can leisurely park the fleet in the waters near Seoul, the capital of North Korea, and calmly command the naval aviation force with more than a thousand aircraft to take turns to attack, blossoming in all directions. Blast the northern part of North Korea controlled by the red elements into ruins.
Especially in order to eliminate the industrial and commercial potential and high-quality human resources of the North Korean red regime, when Halsey planned the bombing of Pyongyang, he not only used a large number of incendiary bombs, but also dropped more than 600 tons of sarin and tabeng poison gas. The bomb destroyed this most important industry in North Korea at the time. The heart has turned into a city of death just like Tokyo after the nuclear explosion, and it has also provided DuPont with more arms orders. Since the elimination of humans is obviously far more important than the elimination of pests, DuPont has now completely stopped producing pesticides. , and switched to the production of various potent poisonous gases.
Although it is easier to kill Koreans with airplanes than to kill Japanese, it is precisely because the enemy is so weak that Admiral Halsey does not feel any sense of accomplishment at all. All kinds of annoying things that had nothing to do with the war made the grumpy Admiral Halsey even more impatient.
——Now, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, an ally of the United States, has been established in Seoul for more than half a month. However, none of the leading figures in this grassroots team, including Kim Koo, Rhee Syngman, and Park Chung-hee, was a fuel-efficient lamp. Fierce internal fighting within the party began before they could gain a firm foothold.
In view of the fact that Park Chung-hee's "insurrectionary puppet army" now has to be relied on to take charge of the ground battlefield to deal with the Bolsheviks in North Korea, Halsey had to follow his wishes to a certain extent, but this obviously aroused the dissatisfaction of several other South Korean bosses. Especially the killer leader Jin Jiu, who seems to really regard himself as a figure due to his seniority, actually denounced the "atrocity" of the US military's poison gas attack on Pyongyang at public meetings, newspapers and radio stations...
Damn it, you ignorant people, why don't you have the consciousness to be a good dog? Killing a few more Korean red heads would be a good thing for you too! Didn’t you see that I’m already much more polite to you Koreans than I am to the Japanese, and I didn’t even drop an atomic bomb?
Admiral Halsey muttered, looking back at Incheon Port, which was gradually shrouded in dusk. It is now the twelfth lunar month of winter, and it gets dark relatively early, but the port and the city are still dark. Due to the turbulent situation, chaotic fighting, indiscriminate bombing by the US military, and the fact that North Korea's hydroelectric power stations are basically concentrated in the northern region where the Bolsheviks are strong, the power grid in Seoul has completely collapsed. Even the Port of Incheon, which has not been directly ravaged by the war, has already suffered power and water and gas cuts. It must be very difficult for North Korean citizens this winter.
But Admiral Halsey was not a philanthropist, and he had no intention of sympathizing with the Koreans who were about to freeze or starve to death. He just felt that his whole body was exhausted.
Why isn't there a truly exciting opponent? I really want to have a vigorous and real sea battle!
Thinking of this, Admiral Halsey even couldn't help complaining in his heart: The United States has already destroyed the Japanese archipelago in this way. Why hasn't the Japanese combined fleet, which once made the U.S. Pacific Fleet almost drained of blood, not Why don't you come north to fight to the death with yourself?
After conquering half of Japan, repeating the achievements of General Perry in the last century, and once again trampling the capital of the Japanese Empire under his feet, Halsey is now increasingly hopeful that he can pass a magnificent sea battle to conquer the general. These hateful and tenacious old enemies were all sent to the bottom of the sea to wash away the shame since the attack on Pearl Harbor and satisfy their desire to avenge their colleagues and comrades.
However, when the information about the Japanese Navy's combined fleet heading north was actually sent to him, Admiral Halsey was immediately dumbfounded.
"... A large number of Japanese naval ships and transport ships have appeared in the waters of Okinawa and Hainan Island one after another, and there seem to be signs of heading north... Among them, four Yamato-class battleships have been confirmed to have appeared in the waters of Sanya Port in the southern part of Hainan Island... Damn it! This This information comes at a bad time!”
——Although looking forward to a powerful enemy and looking forward to another confrontation with the Japanese combined fleet, Halsey is also very clear that his fleet is currently in very poor condition: since he weighed anchor and left the temporary base in the Aleutian Islands, he sailed Since heading to the East Asian waters, the all-out American expedition fleet has gone through a long voyage of almost half a year, as well as successive fierce battles with various enemies, and has long been dragged down into a tired force.
Although war is a thing, it will be addictive when you win. Encouraged by repeated victories in battles, the morale of the entire fleet's officers and soldiers is still relatively high, but after all, spiritual power cannot compete with material consumption. At present, the fleet's fuel stock is only one-third of its full load, and the aerial bombs of each aircraft carrier are almost exhausted. Moreover, the hull has not been maintained for more than half a year. It is estimated that the hull has already been covered with algae, shells and other marine organisms. Soft-bodied organisms.
In such an unsatisfactory state, exhausted from long battles and short of fuel and bombs, the joint fleet of the Japanese navy, which is all out and determined to take revenge, will fight a vigorous decisive battle in the home waters of the Japanese Empire, and the enemy fleet is likely to They will also receive support from a large number of shore-based aviation forces... With so many unfavorable conditions stacked up, even with "The Bull" Halsey's violent temper, he can't help but feel a little guilty.
Although he is eager to fight and look forward to revenge, he does not want to repeat the mistakes of the Russian Second Pacific Fleet in the Battle of Tsushima forty years ago.
Therefore, after weighing the situation, Admiral Halsey finally chose to temporarily avoid the war: "...There is no other way. Let the staffs work out a sailing plan to safely withdraw to Tokyo Bay as soon as possible! Wait until we Supplies are ready, let’s go look for bad luck on those Japanese devils!
What? What to do with the North Koreans on the shore? That's their own business! We have provided all the support that the United States can currently provide them. If they still fail to live up to their expectations, they can only blame them for their own incompetence..." - As everyone knows, after learning that Halsey's fleet chose to divert to avoid the war , the Japanese combined fleet on the opposite side also quietly breathed a sigh of relief...