u/Last-Row7512

Soviet forces first stepped foot into Manchuria on August 30, 1945 as part of Operation August Storm. A week and a half later, Colonel Ho Kai-I of the Naval Infantry stepped foot on Chosŏn's soil for the first time in his life. Genuinely exhilarating. Three days later on September 12th he'd meet First Lieutenant Chong Sangjin, the first meeting of the Koryo-saram in terms of a cohesive political faction within the Korean state.

Kim Il-Sung, a revolutionary and partisan fighter was awarded de facto leadership over Chosŏn and declared the Democratic People's Republic in the Spring of 1946. His Stalinist tendencies were respected in terms of the ideological dogma but his rapid consolidation of power and increasing tendency for state-sponsored violence against the Koryo-saram and Yan'an factions, the most high-profile of which was the Great Purge of 1948, which forced Ho Ka-I, one of the founding members of the first Politburo, to escape into Soviet-occupied Manchuria.

The Great Purge was the final straw for the opposition, which combined briefly to lead the August Coup of 1949, which successfully overthrew the Kimist government and established a de facto Triumvirate under Pak Chong-ok, Premier, Choe Changik, Minister of Defense and Chong Sangjin, Minister of Propaganda, Education and Instruction.

By 1955, the reality was that the Koryo-saram had consolidated their control over the engines of the state, with Choe pushed into effectively permanent house arrest and most of the Yan'an Faction were either dead or demoted. Pak remains the Premier into the 60s but no man can deny an order from the Propaganda Ministry.

JEJU ISLAND. YANBIAN. THE REMANTS. ALL CHOSŎN WILL BE FREE. FREE FREE FREE.

BLUE CHINA

SECOND PHASE OF THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR

The Second Phase of the Chinese Civil War arguably began when Chinese Communist troops seized Beijing in the Spring of '46, just a few weeks after the surrender of Japan aboard USS Midway. Some historians blame the lack of U.S. forces on Chinese soil to aid in the disarmament of Japanese garrisons as part of what led to the ease by which the People's Liberation Army seized major cities across the North China Plain. In May, Chiang Kai-shek, with external political backing from the west, ordered his forces northwards, moving to clear northern China of Mao's forces. Despite several early victories on the ground, some 750,000 Nationalist forces find themselves effectively encircled by PLA armies, who, with Soviet backing, enjoy superior arms to the NRA. Infighting, lack of supplies, and a slow American response despite pleas from Chiang for airstrikes, leads to the "Disaster on the North China Plain" with over half a million Nationalist casualties as well as several experienced leaders of the Baoding school dead or captured.

Truman, displeased with Fleet Admiral Nimitz's lacking response, hands general theater command of the Far East to George Marshall, who now simultaneously oversees the occupation of Japan as well as "operations" in China, which initially focus on limited airstrikes, lend lease and the transition of Hong Kong into "Commonwealth" status with the United States.

However, the Amethyst Incident of August 1946, in which British frigate HMS Amethyst was sunk by PLA artillery fire, leads to a sudden and surprising intervention by the Commonwealth, with Atlee dispatching two carriers with Canadian and and Australian escorts to the region. Truman follows suit quickly, ordering the Fifth Marines to move north and combine with Sun Li-jen's New 10th Army, which fight Lin Biao to a standstill by November of 1946 at Ganzhou.

Soviet Archives indicate that the Amethyst Incident prompted a significant falling out between Mao and Stalin due to the escalation it caused. By 1948 this split leads to the deployment of portions of Zhukov's Manchuria occupation force, the 61st Army, under Alexei Ryutin to positions just ten miles to the northeast of Beijing. The testing of the USSR's first atomic weapon just a year later appears to have been partially influenced by the ideal of a further show of force towards Mao, who finally acquiesces to the negotiation table, leading to the Cairo Treaty of 1950 establishing the Marshall Line, which divided China in two, an early Cold War Era phenomenon which has lasted to this day.

Main POD's include the British seizure of the Philippines during the Seven Years War, the delayed Pearl Harbor attack on June 7, 1942, the going ahead of Operation Olympic prior to nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Osaka as well as the Soviet establishment of a Mongolian-style puppet state in Manchuria post-war (as well as a Soviet-satellite in a unified Korea). Most of the fighting during the early stage of the Second Phase of the Chinese Civil War occurs in the vicinity of Jinan. Attempts by Chiang to crush the communists in the region and restore order to Beijing leaves his rear open and CCP forces surround over half a million KMT troops around Jinan during the late summer/early fall of 1946. The pocket is liquidated and dozens of high level officers such as Bao Chongxi and others are either killed or captured. This leads to officers such as Sun Li-jen, especially under American pressure among worries of Soviet domination in the Far East, being raised to serious positions instead of being undercut for western "loyalties".

At the Battle of Shanghai (September 1946) CCP forces shell and severely damage a British destroyer, leading to Atlee calling for a serious coalition to blunt communism in Asia. At the same time the deal for the transfer of Hong Kong to the United States, a part of the secret deals aimed at dismantling the British preferential colonial trading system and establishing a forward U.S. presence in Asia leads to the violent birth of the Truman Doctrine, with the Fifth Marines, veterans of the Kyushu Campaign, heading into the fray of the Chinese Civil War first after raising the Star-Spangled Banner over Victoria Harbor.

At Ganzhou Sun Li-jen's New 10th Army finally halts Lin Biao's advances, with the support of American airpower and limited boots on the ground. American forces do increase in the region, though much to the chagrin of the American public who watch many WWII veterans without the requisite points for a speedy return home heading to China. Truman surrenders the Democratic nomination in 1948 and endorses Dwight Eisenhower, who immediately crushes Republican nominee Thomas Dewey's insistence on Democratic incompetency at running the war. Despite Eisenhower's victory, the war is, by his inauguration in 1949, at a stalemate, and total victory is politically toxic.

A split between Stalin and Mao over the Manchurian issue nearly leads to, as revealed by the opening of the Soviet archives in the 2000s, the deployment of Red Army troops into Inner Mongolia and Hebei. Stalin was clearly unhappy at the expansion of the war due to, in his mind, the blunder at Shanghai in Fall of '46, nor was he preferring to have his European focus distracted by Asia. Dual pressure from Moscow and Washington leads to a ceasefire signed in Cairo in 1950, establishing the "Marshall Line" and organizing specific withdrawals and disarmament along a ~2,300 mile demilitarized zone running from the mountains of Yunnan to the South China Sea.