Chapter 34: The Rise of War in East Asia (Part II)

At present, with the support of the United States and the Soviet Union, Kim Il ♂ Sung's Korean Provisional Soviet Government and Kim Koo's Korean Provisional Government are fiercely vying for territory on the Korean Peninsula. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 InfoOn the face of it, the Provisional Soviet Government of Korea, which was supported by both the Soviet Union and China, and the Japanese colonial authorities, should have an absolute upper hand in this competition. But the problem is that the officers and soldiers under the command of the Korean Soviet regime, that is, under the command of Commander Kim Il ♂ Sung, are now almost all Korean soldiers belonging to the Soviet army and the Northeast Chinese Anti-Japanese Allied Army. Many of them have Soviet citizenship or were born and raised in China, and a significant number of them do not even speak Korean.

Of course, this is not the most important problem, and the most troublesome part is that when the Japanese Empire suddenly collapsed, all these soldiers and cadres were outside Korea, and there were only a few underground revolutionary organizations in the country. Just how to transport troops and manpower back to the country in the cold winter season is enough to make people scratch their heads. And how to establish local political power and suppress all kinds of counter-revolutionaries is not sure how to do it well.

On the contrary, the provisional government of the Republic of Korea of Kim Koo and Syngman Rhee, although they are also immigrants who have been in exile all the year round, probably do not even know how to go to Seoul. But in the end, these people are just a sign used to whitewash the façade and fool the Americans into seeking foreign aid. At present, the actual power in Seoul is held by the officer corps headed by Park Chung-hee, all of whom came from the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer School and the Manchurian Military Academy.

This means that the Korean White Army is a remnant of the Japanese occupation and has been entrenched in the homeland, while the Korean Red Army is a "homecoming regiment" that left Korea at the same time and now returns home, relatively speaking, it is not as down-to-earth as the White Army.

Although before the Japanese troops stationed in Korea retreated to the south, the Governor's Office had ordered the Korean puppet army to be disarmed and disbanded en masse. However, in that chaotic situation, there were still many puppet army units that refused to surrender, and the Japanese army, who was in a hurry to return to China at that time, obviously did not have the time to suppress the disobedience of these Korean puppet troops. After the U.S. military organized the Inchon landing, even those disarmed puppet troops were given a large number of U.S. guns and ammunition, which led to the rapid expansion of the power of the White Army.

The mere fact that the national capital of Seoul was entrenched by counter-revolutionaries was already a blow to the Provisional Soviet Government of Korea. You know, Seoul has a population of 1.8 million at the moment, and the population of North Korea as a whole is only 30 million. Not to mention the great political significance of Seoul as the old capital of the Joseon Kingdom. However, before Comrade Kim Il ♂ Sung could come up with a proper way to retake Seoul, the damned counter-revolutionary class enemies of Park Chung-hee, Syngman Rhee, and Kim Koo, even the other two of the "three capitals of Korea," Pyongyang and Kaesong, did not want the Red Army to continue to occupy them.

-- Just three days after the landing of the US troops at Incheon, the reassuring former Korean puppet military and police launched a riot and overthrew the Kaesong Soviet Government, which had just been established for less than a month, and all 200 Korean Red Army and work team cadres stationed in Kaesong were killed.

At the same time, farther north, in Pyongyang, a counter-revolutionary rebellion by former puppet soldiers and gentry landlords also broke out. However, the Red Army, which had already entered Pyongyang, was stronger and managed to suppress the rebellion after a fierce battle, and the few remaining remnants of the enemy were finally driven out of the city.

However, the Park Chung-hee officer corps, which refused to give up, launched a counterattack from Seoul again, organized more than 3,000 troops to reach the outskirts of Pyongyang by train, and continued to engage in fierce battles with the Red Army defending the city from last week. Due to the small number of front-line troops on both sides, the difficulty of supply, heavy snowfall, and harsh weather, the battle has been fought on and off, but Kim Il ♂ Sung still does not dare to take it lightly: North Korea has already lost two of its three capitals, and if Pyongyang loses again, it will be an extremely heavy blow to the new North Korean red regime and his national leader.

However, it was not easy to increase troops from Wonsan to Pyongyang. On the map, on the eastern side of the Korean Peninsula, along the coast of the Sea of Japan, there are almost no plains to cultivate, and the wealth, population, and large cities of the entire country are concentrated on the relatively flat west coast and the southernmost region. To cross this lofty mountain, apart from the Gyeong-Yuan Railway, which had been cut off by the White Army, there were only a few narrow roads paved with mud and gravel. These roads winded through the mountains, many of which were only allowed for one car, and were steep and steep on one side and so steep on the other that the Red Army's troops and ammunition supplies had to be transported through such mountain roads.

What is even worse is that in order to avoid a head-on conflict with the Soviet army, the US naval aviation of the Halsey fleet did not dare to directly bomb the ports of Wonsan and Hungnam, where the Soviet Red Banner Pacific Fleet was stationed. However, the highways and railways that run from these two ports to the western part of Korea are constantly bombarded indiscriminately in an attempt to block the east coast with reinforcements from the red camp and allow the reactionary regime to gradually occupy the essence of Korea.

Thanks to accurate information from former colonial government officials in Seoul, U.S. air strikes on the Korean Peninsula appear to be quite methodical, always hitting the deadliest points of communication. For example, the Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake Reservoir is located on the only way to cross the Gaima Plateau from Xingnan Port. Water from a diversion culvert at the bottom of the Changjin Lake reservoir flows into four huge pipes that slope steeply to a hydroelectric power station below. Where the pipeline and the highway intersect are suspended single-lane bridges erected over the pipelines. From a distance, the bridge looks like it hangs on a cliff, and below the bridge is an abyss, and there is no road around it that can be detoured. Once there is no Watergate Bridge, there is no way for passing vehicles to detour, only to be blocked here.

In order to destroy this important bridge, US planes organized six major bombings before and after, and finally broke through the ground anti-aircraft fire of the Korean Red Army and completely destroyed the bridge. In this way, in the matter of reinforcing the western battlefield, Xingnan Port is equivalent to being abolished in half. With the Gyeong-Yuan Railway seriously damaged by the counter-revolutionaries, it was difficult for the reinforcements gathered at Wonsan Port to set off for a while. While there are still many roads from the east coast across the mountains to the west, there are few roads that can run a car in the snowy winter. With temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius in the mountains right now, making soldiers carry heavy loads of ammunition and carry them on foot through knee-high snow-covered valleys and hills is a disastrous task that can crumble morale.

Therefore, the situation in the western part of the Korean peninsula will further deteriorate in the foreseeable short term......

Despite this, however, Comrade Kim Il ♂ Sung was not so depressed about the prospects for the future, let alone despairing.

It is true that those Korean counter-revolutionaries who jumped over the wall in a hurry and refused to accept the sanctions of the people and justice have indeed attracted a strong foreign aid and temporarily reversed the revolutionary situation at the moment. However, the Soviet Red Army could stay on Wonsan all the time, and the Chinese friendly forces would certainly stay on the other side of the Yalu River, while the Halsey fleet of the United States could not stay on the coast of the Korean Peninsula for a long time. Even with the terrible national strength of the United States, it could not maintain such a long and dangerous supply line for a long time, not to mention the huge Japanese Combined Fleet, which was always threatening Halsey's back road.

Don't look at the counter-revolutionaries in Seoul, they seem to be stumbling happily at the moment, as long as they wait for the Halsey fleet to leave, the air and sea supremacy in the Korean battlefield will all change hands. At most, when the weather warms up and the roads clogged with snow are cleared again, the time for the death of these white bandits will come.

Before that, even if Pyongyang was temporarily lost, it would only be temporarily stored in the hands of the enemy for a while. As soon as the American fleet was gone, the lost cities would be recaptured, and at best it would be a blow to the prestige of the Soviet power.

But what does it matter? As a veteran guerrilla, he did not have a glass heart that could never be defeated.

-- Regarding the short-term loss of one city and one place, Comrade Kim Il ♂ Sung said that he was very open-minded.

However, because of the shackles of old notions, he clearly grossly underestimated the destructive power and killing efficiency of modern warfare.

The only thing that can stop this bloody massacre from unfolding on a large scale is the ideology, morality, and humanitarianism that continue to advance with the times.

But unfortunately, in order to achieve victory in this world war, the current US military has been competing with the Japanese army to brush the lower limit, and not long ago discarded the last trace of discipline, torn off the last moral and rational string, and completely turned into a group of beasts who only know how to slaughter.

What's even more unfortunate is that in the hands of this group of human-skin beasts, they are controlling all kinds of the most advanced killing weapons in this world.

So, not long after, Comrade Kim Il ♂ Sung was caught off guard and received shocking bad news.

“…… Pyongyang is finished! The US Air Force dropped nerve gas bombs on Pyongyang! The comrades over there simply didn't have time to organize the evacuation! ”

Speaking of which, this is actually a modern version of the ancient policy of "reducing the number of soldiers" against the enemy.

Even if the overall strategic situation is unfavorable, even if the Grand Fleet does not stay in the Korean battlefield for a long time, as long as you try to kill all the people on your side, especially the educated population, before evacuating, and fundamentally weaken your potential strength, all problems will not be a problem......

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On the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, off the coast of Incheon Port

Beneath the gloomy clouds was an undulating surface of the lead-gray sea, and countless steel ships covered the sea.

The ships flying the Star-Spangled Banner were basically down at anchor 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 planes of the US Naval Air Force returned one after another after completing their bombing and reconnaissance missions on the ground and landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier one after another. Whether it's the pilot who jumped off the plane or the ground crew who flocked up, the expression was relaxed.

- Except for a reconnaissance plane that crashed due to a mechanical failure, this mission did not even have a single battle damage, which is comparable to a hike in the air.

“…… What a boring battle...... No, it's not even a battle at all, it's just killing. ”

Standing on the bridge of the USS Enterprise, looking at the naval aviation pilots on the deck who had returned unscathed, Admiral Halsey pouted.

If the previous battles on Imperial Japanese soil were not fierce and challenging enough, at least the opponents would resist and excite Admiral Halsey. Then now the expeditions in the waters of China and North Korea give Admiral Halsey the feeling that it is only boring.

- As a responsible power, the Soviets did not dare to directly tear their faces with the United States of America in the Far East for the time being. And the Pentagon also had a clear directive not to allow Halsey to provoke the Soviet army. As for the bombed Korean Bolsheviks, they did not have a decent navy and air force at all, and could hardly come up with any means to really threaten the Halsey fleet except for a pitiful number of anti-aircraft guns and a symbolic hit of the planes.

The only thing that could pose a slight threat to the Halsey fleet was the occasional Japanese submarine. However, Admiral Halsey now has enough destroyers and seaplanes to form an anti-submarine patrol network, and a few submarines do not constitute a real deadly problem.

Therefore, in this cold and windy winter, Admiral Halsi was able to station his fleet in the waters near Seoul, the capital of North Korea, and calmly command the naval air force with more than 1,000 planes to take turns to attack and blow up the northern part of Korea controlled by the Red Elements into ruins.

In particular, in order to eliminate the industrial and commercial potential and high-quality human resources of the Red Regime in North Korea, when planning the bombing of Pyongyang, Halsey not only used a large number of incendiary bombs, but also dropped more than 600 tons of sarin and Tabung ♂ gas bombs, turning this most important industrial center of North Korea at that time into a city of death like Tokyo after the nuclear explosion, and also provided DuPont with more arms orders - because the elimination of human beings is obviously far more important than the elimination of pests, DuPont has now completely stopped production of pesticides, Instead, we are going all out to produce all kinds of strong poison gases.

Although it was easier to kill the Koreans with planes than the Japanese, it was precisely because the enemy was so weak that Admiral Halsey did not feel any sense of accomplishment at all. And all kinds of troubles that have nothing to do with the war make the grumpy Admiral Halsey more and more impatient.

-- Now, the provisional government of the Republic of Korea, which is an ally of the United States, has been established in Seoul for more than half a month. However, several leading figures of this grass platform team, Kim Koo, Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee, no matter which one is not a fuel-efficient lamp, began a fierce party struggle and infighting before gaining a firm foothold.

Given that he now had to rely on Park Chung-hee's "rebel puppet army" to deal with the Bolsheviks in North Korea on the ground battlefield, Halsey had to follow his mind to a certain extent, but this obviously aroused the displeasure of several other South Korean bigwigs. In particular, the killer leader Jin Jiu, relying on his seniority, seems to really regard himself as a character, and actually denounces the "atrocity" of the US military in poison gas against Pyongyang at public meetings and on newspapers and radio......

Hell, why don't you know the height of the sky, why don't you have the consciousness to be a good dog? Killing a few more North Korean red brains is also good for you! Don't you see that I am much more polite to you Koreans than to the Japanese, and I haven't even dropped the atomic bomb?

Admiral Halsey muttered, looking back at the port of Incheon, which had been shrouded in twilight. It is now a cold winter and the moon is darking relatively early, but the port and the city are still dark. Due to the volatile situation, chaotic fighting, and indiscriminate bombing by the US military, as well as the concentration of North Korea's hydroelectric power stations in the north, where the Bolsheviks were strong, the power grid in the Seoul area has completely collapsed. Even the port of Incheon, which was not directly ravaged by the war, has long been without electricity, water and gas, and it is expected that the citizens of North Korea will have a very hard time this winter.

But Admiral Halsey was not a philanthropist, and he had no heart to sympathize with the North Koreans who were about to freeze or starve to death.

Why isn't there an opponent who can really get people excited? I really want to fight a vigorous and real sea battle!

Thinking of this, Admiral Halsey couldn't help but complain in his heart: The United States has already destroyed the Japanese archipelago into such a state, why didn't the combined fleet of the Japanese Navy, which had made the US Pacific Fleet almost bleed, not come north to fight him to the death?

After conquering half Japan, repeating the exploits of General Perry in the last century, and once again trampling the capital of the Japanese Empire, Halsey now hopes that he can send these hateful and tenacious old enemies to the bottom of the sea through a magnificent naval battle, so as to wash away the shame that began with the attack on Pearl Harbor and satisfy his desire to avenge his colleagues and comrades.

However, when the intelligence of the Japanese Navy's combined fleet going north was really sent to him, Admiral Halsey was immediately dumbfounded.

“…… A large number of Japanese naval vessels and transport vessels have appeared in the waters of Okinawa and Hainan Island one after another, and there seem to be signs of going 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 information couldn't have come at a better time! ”

- Although he was looking forward to a formidable enemy and another encounter with the Japanese Combined Fleet, Halsey was also well aware that his fleet was in poor condition at present: since it had left its temporary base in the Aleutian Islands and sailed for the waters of East Asia, the American expeditionary fleet had been dragged alive into a tired division after nearly half a year of long voyages and fierce battles with various enemies.

Although war is a thing, it will be addictive when it is won. Inspired by repeated victories, the morale of the officers and men of the whole fleet is still quite high, but after all, the strength of the spirit can hardly outweigh the material consumption. At present, the fleet's fuel stock is only one-third full, the aerial bombs of each aircraft carrier are almost exhausted, and the hull has not been maintained for more than half a year, and it is estimated that the hull of the ship has long been overgrown with algae, shells and other marine molluscs.

In such a poor state of exhaustion and lack of fuel and ammunition, the combined fleet of the Japanese Navy, which was determined to take revenge, fought a vigorous Armageddon in the home waters of the Japanese Empire, and the enemy fleet was likely to be supported by a large number of shore-based air forces...... With so many unfavorable conditions superimposed, even with the irritable nature of "Brute Bull" Halsey, he can't help but feel a little weak.

Although he longed for battle and revenge, he did not want to repeat the mistakes of Russia's Second Pacific Fleet in the Battle of Tsushima forty years earlier.

Therefore, after weighing it up, Admiral Halsey finally chose to temporarily switch to avoid the battle: "...... There's no way, let those staff officers come up with a sailing plan for a safe withdrawal to Tokyo Bay as soon as possible! Wait until we're recuperated and recuperate, and then we'll look for the bad luck of those Japanese devils!

What the? What to do with those North Koreans on the shore? That's their own business! We have provided all the support that the United States can provide them at present, and if we do not fight, we will have to blame them for their own incompetence......"

- As everyone knows, after learning that the Halsey fleet chose to switch to avoid the war, the Japanese combined fleet on the opposite side also quietly breathed a sigh of relief......