China - WW2

Following the Japanese invasion and consolidation of control over Manchurai in 1931-1932, the Kwangtang army began to set it's sight on more traditional Chinese holdings. For five years, the Kwangtang army used the civil war raging in China between Nationalist and Communist forces as a smokescreen to slowly increase their strength and influence in the area, signing pacts and muscling their way into treaties with many northern warlords.

In 1937, the second Sino-Japanese war began, as Japanese forces invaded Shanghai. After a bloody three month struggle, Imperial Japanese Forces emerged victorious, then launching an invasion of nearly 350,000 troops into northern part of the Shanxi prefecture and capturing the capital of the Jiangsu province, Nanjing.

By 1938, the Japanese Imperial Government had fully lost control of the Kwangtang army in mainland China, ushering in a new era of bloodshed and warfare, plunging much of Northern China into a state of utter and total confusion and all out warfare.


In 1911, following the Xinhai Revolution that overthrew Imperial rule in China, control of the province of Shanxi was extended towards a young and idealistic general, Yan Xishan. Negotiating his way through the rise of Yuan Shikai, the decimation of most warlords at the hands of the rising national powers, and the consolidation of nationalist power.

Remarkably idealistic for his position, through decades of work, Yan has been working on raising the relatively poor province of Shanxi, using his considerably knowledge and experiences to modernize all of the heavy industry in and around the capital of Shanxi, Taiyuan. By the time of the second Sino-Japanese war, Yan had almost completely severed contact with the nationalist government and Chiang Kai-shek, no longer paying the taxes his province was due and focusing more on provincial concerns.


As Japanese forces swarmed throughout Shanxi in the early days of the war, and the capital fell to the Kwangtang forces, Yan Xishan refused to flee the province, despite multiple urgings and warnings from his aids and provincial government officials. Aligning with the Communists, the only real Chinese force active in the North of China, Shanxi relocated his headquarters to Linfen in southwestern Shanxi. However, it wasn't meant to be, as Japanese forces successfully invaded Linfen, pushing Yan and his forces across the Yellow River and into the neighboring terriroty of Shaanxi (not to be confused with Yan's home territory of Shanxi).

With spring on the horizon, prospects look bleak for the Chinese, as Japanese forces continue to win battle after battle, control slipping from local Warlord, Communist, and Nationalist forces.