My plan called for 1 Homen-Gun to focus on Nationalist China, by concentrating on Beiping and Tianjin, then crossing the Hai River, and fanning out across the country and conquer systematically. 2 Homen-Gun was to focus on Shanxi, supplemented by various chindai divisions. V Gun of 1 Homen-Gun was to secure the border between the Homen-Gun, with cavalry units kept in a central reserve to help where needed. Almost immediately the plan went off the rails as V Gun took much longer to occupy the mountains of Zhoulu and Yangyuan than expected. I decided to throw caution to the wind and ordered 2 Homen-Gun to blitz through Shanxi towards the victory points at Hohhot and Taiyuan, leaving their flanks in the air. While the chindai held down the forces along the border (somewhat unintentionally, they were less successful in combat than expected), VIII Gun broke through the front and turned north to capture Hohhot. VIII Gun advanced through Datong to Huairen, then split into two groups to capture Shuoxian and Xinzhou, and hit Taiyuan from two directions. Hohhot was captured by the 18th of July, Taiyuan fell on the night of the 20th. Shanxi officially surrendered on the 21st, exactly three weeks after the beginning of the invasion.
Shanxi, like all of the Chinese states, was not well-developed. I usually plan on capturing large stockpiles of resources, supplies and cash when conquering a nation, but Shanxi had little to offer. I received about 3000 units of much-needed supplies, but little else. Oh well. One country down, 76 to go.
In the east, 1 Homen-Gun moved steadily through the Beiping area and across the Hai, but quickly ran into supply problems. I Gun has halted short of Jinan, and is awaiting supplies and flank protection. The remainder of the Homen-Gun is even farther back, having had their movements interrupted repeatedly.
Upon the declaration of war, I sent my combat fleet out to patrol the coast lines. Nationalist China has a modest navy, made up mostly of light cruisers, but it requires dealing-with. My gunship fleets engaged them in three separate battles, but these yielded no results and the Chinese retreated to their ports. You can't hide from aircraft carriers, however, and 10 Kaigun (the Akagi and the Kaga) have so far sunk two destroyers and three light cruisers, and are currently working on another four light cruisers.
Tojo's tactical bomber group is launching bombing raids in the Qingdao peninsula. They are inflicting around 170 casualties per sortie, which is not bad considering the low level of technological development. I prefer to bomb only during the daytime, to allow the bombers a chance to recover organization at night.
Finally, there's been a few predictable developments on the diplomatic side. First, I now have the ability to create Mengkukuo. I don't know why I would bother doing that. The only advantage is having fewer provinces to guard from rebellion, and it drops the amount of leadership, manpower and resources I get from the area dramatically. Granted, there isn't much to begin with, but every little bit counts. Second, I'm now getting faction invitations from Germany. This is a fairly tough choice. On the plus side, I'm pretty sure I need to be in a faction in order to receive the Chihli Gulf bonus (+20% research efficiency, +20% supply throughput). It should also remove the dubious neutrality bonus (-5% research efficiency, +10% espionage bonus, +10% counterespionage) and allow me to get the naval supremacy bonuses. These are some really big bonuses. On the minus side, if Germany ends up actually conquering the USSR, the entire third phase of my grand plan becomes unachievable. Even if the Soviets win, that may cause the Germans, Italians, etc to be liberated or puppetized when I beat the Soviets, which ruins the purity of my victory, and prevents the possibility of hitting the Soviets first and leaving the western hemisphere for last. I'll put the decision off for awhile and mull it over.
One last note. The Japanese start with 98 ships, which is two less than the 100 required for the grand fleet bonus (+0.15 leadership, +15% organization regain rate). Prior to "Their Finest Hour" I would build two additional transports just to get the bonus, but with the new landing craft, which are more strategically useful, take longer to build, and are not immediately useful, I decided instead to commission two light cruisers, the Suzuya and the Kumano. These, plus a rocket test site, will tie up over a third of my IC for the next year. My new brigade recruitment, then, is limited to occasional engineer brigades dribbling out to fill out the existing divisions.
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