I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 175

“Those damn commie bastards!!!”

“Please calm down, General…”

MacArthur threw his pipe to the floor and stomped his feet.

His lieutenant, Eisenhower, tried to soothe him, but MacArthur was beyond reason.

“What will become of us if they take over Japan! Why did we spill so much blood in the Pacific!”

‘For your presidential campaign…’

There was a rumor that the Republican Party was secretly choosing between Thomas Dewey and MacArthur. 

FDR had already declared that he would run for a fourth term and end the war himself, so they needed a strong candidate to stop the Democratic Party’s rampage.

Dewey was a young, competent, and relatively progressive Republican candidate, and MacArthur was a war hero with national popularity, but also with many hidden shadows. 

Both of them were inferior to the incumbent president and the victor of the war, FDR.

Knowing that, MacArthur needed an overwhelming result to beat Dewey and win the nomination at the convention.

But now the Soviet Union was reaching out its hairy red claws to Japan, his prize. 

The US fleet was moving north as fast as possible, but…

“We need naval bombardment to break through the defenses of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Your Majesty, we need at least one landing point…”

“Then just break through!”

“Ye-yes, sir.”

“We have to plant our flag in Tokyo first. What the hell were those scientists doing while the Soviets were making that thing?”

Roosevelt was no different from a commie… MacArthur muttered as if he wanted the people nearby to hear him. 

He seemed to think that Roosevelt had brought the Soviet Union into the Pacific War to check him.

No one could stop MacArthur’s tyranny. His brilliant record, his long time as the youngest general, the youngest marshal, and the supreme commander, had closed his ears.

Of course, he was not completely deaf, as he still listened well to the issues of the mainland, such as McCarthy. 

MacArthur seemed to want to make him, the young and ‘brave patriot’, his vice presidential candidate.

But time was short.

The convention to decide the candidates for the US presidential election was from March 14 to May 19. He had to finish Japan by then. 

At least before the candidates were nominated and the real election race began in June.

But the US forces were still stuck in the solid defenses of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, wasting time day by day.

“What are you all doing! Break through Iwo Jima first. Have the Marines prepare for the landing operation as soon as possible.”

“Yes? But the defense of Iwo Jima is…”

“Just blast them all with the bombardment!”

MacArthur flared up again and headed to his office. 

The Iowa-class battleships, which had started to retire one by one, were already eight in number, enough to provide fire support for the Marines.

If they bombarded for a few weeks, any defense facility would collapse, but would they break through Iwo Jima and prepare for the mainland landing before the Soviets joined the war?

‘He’s willing to throw tens of thousands of Marines for his presidential campaign…’

‘He’s crazy. He’s really crazy! Why did he obsess over the South Pacific islands so much!’

Victory seemed close, but every step he had to take seemed to be soaked with fatigue.

Could MacArthur walk that path and become the president of the United States? Some generals and admirals, especially those who hated MacArthur, shook their heads.

‘I’d rather give Asia to the Soviets than give America to MacArthur…’

***

“This way! This way! Stop right there!”

“Here! Unload here!”

The border cities of the Soviet Union were filled with troops and supplies coming by the Trans-Siberian Railway, as the clouds of war loomed.

The Soviet Union had deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to control the occupied territories of the former Axis powers, including Germany, and mobilized millions more to prepare for an offensive in the Far East. 

And yet, they were able to demobilize millions more and send them back to society.

Nearly two million troops, tens of thousands of tanks and self-propelled guns, and thousands of military aircraft were gathering in the Far East.

The Soviet army’s goal was simple.

<Destroy the Japanese Kwantung Army and liberate East Asia!>

The Japanese Kwantung Army, which was said to be 800,000 strong, was large in numbers, but poor in quality.

According to Chuykov, the former commander of the Far Eastern Military District, who was now the commander of the Zabaykalsk Front, four armored divisions would be enough to smash them.

But a lion uses all its strength when hunting a rabbit. 

The Soviet army wanted to not only annihilate the Kwantung Army, but also show the world the great land army that had been trained in the largest war in human history.

The targets to show included Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, the power holders of China.

“Our army has four fronts. Three fronts will enter the Japanese-occupied Manchuria, and one front will go south to the North China region, defeat the Japanese main force on the front, and link up with the Chinese Communist army. There are also irregular forces that will infiltrate the East Turkestan (=Xinjiang Uyghur) and Tibet regions.”

“Good, good… very good.”

The Trans-Siberian Railway’s transport capacity was too low to supply the predicted amount of materials before the war. 

To strengthen the connection between the Far East and European Russia, and to build a great nation across Eurasia, they would have to expand it someday, but for now they put it off.

They asked for a month’s grace period to accumulate as much material as possible in the base cities. 

Now that they had almost met the demand…

“Start the offensive before a month, before the official abolition of the Non-Aggression Pact. You’re all ready, right?”

“Yes? Comrade Secretary, that is…”

“Do you think the US will criticize us for doing this? They’ll rather like it. Don’t worry too much.”

They could use any dirty tricks to screw Japan. 

The US might have some room to complain after the war, but they wouldn’t do that much when they were hit by a surprise attack without a declaration of war.

Basil Lepsky looked nervous, but nodded and continued the briefing.

“Yes, Comrade Secretary. Our four fronts will break through the Japanese defenses with our armored units at the forefront as soon as the war begins…”

The pointer moved down the map, pointing at the familiar names of the cities.

Manchuria could be simply thought of as a diamond-shaped region with its southwest side attached to the Chinese mainland. 

Our basic plan was to deploy one front on each side of the diamond exposed to the Soviet direction and subdue the Japanese forces.

The Ussuriysk Front, which would enter Manchukuo from the southeast of the diamond, from the direction of Vladivostok and Ussuriysk, would encircle and annihilate the Japanese First Field Army and then head south to the Korean Peninsula, liberating Gyeongseong and Busan as quickly as possible.

While the armored units were moving south, the Ussuriysk Front’s Cavalry-Mechanized Group would crush the Japanese 38th Field Army and prevent the Japanese forces stationed on the Changchun-Shenyang line from striking our right flank.

The Blagoveshchensk Front, which would move south from the northeast of the diamond, would capture Qiqihar and Harbin, and destroy the Japanese Fourth and Fifth Field Armies.

And the most powerful main force, the Zabaykalsk Front, was a fully mechanized force. 

Using this formidable mobility, they would cross the Daxinganling Mountains, which the Japanese had fortified, and capture Changchun and Shenyang, and take over Dalian and the Liaodong Peninsula.

Finally, the North China Field Army, which would start from the Inner Mongolia direction and advance, would split into two branches: one would link up with the Chinese Communist Army based in Yan’an, and the other would march straight to Beijing.

“The Japanese forces are not very strong. Most of the divisions with full regular formations have been sent to the Pacific theater or are fighting in the Chinese interior. They are trying to withdraw them, but…”

“That won’t be easy. Of course not.”

The Chinese continent was vast. Horribly vast.

The ‘European continent’ was about 10 million square kilometers in total. In actual history, the size of modern China’s territory (still with fluid borders) was 9.6 million square kilometers, comparable to the entire European continent.

Of course, this comparison was hard to be fair. Half of the European continent, 4 million occupied by European Russia and 600,000 by Ukraine, plus 400,000 by Belarus and the Baltic states, were all Soviet territory now, so the rest of the European countries combined were only half of China.

Manchukuo alone was larger than Germany-France-Italy combined! The 800,000 troops might seem huge, but considering the 80 million people living here and the vast territory as large as the Western European powers combined, it was hard to say they were many.

It was incomprehensible that the Japanese bastards had jumped in to devour this huge land by themselves. That’s why they eventually failed miserably.

Anyway, it was physically impossible to bring back the troops scattered over this vast land and stop the Soviet army. 

Not to mention, they dragged them to the Pacific and killed them all in a desperate battle. By their own hands.

With ‘only’ 800,000 men, without proper artillery or tanks, they were nothing but a pathetic pile of infantry that would be torn apart by the Soviet army that had grown stronger through the bloodshed.

“However… there are many border fortresses on the Ussuriysk Front. We may suffer heavy losses on this front.”

“That’s why we deployed a large amount of artillery and the ‘Strategic Air Force’. Do you think we need more troops?”

“N-no, sir. The local commander, General Rotmistrov, assured the success of the operation. It’s just that you ordered us to devise a plan to minimize the losses of the unit for the liberation of Korea… the Korean Peninsula…”

The cautious Basil Lepsky, Vasily Glorious, calculated every command I gave and drew the picture of the operation.

The main force of the eastern Manchuria that would enter the Korean Peninsula, the Ussuriysk Front, had the ‘Independent Korean Armored Division’ deployed. Those who had escaped to the Soviet Union from Manchuria, Japan, and China and enlisted had become a unit with the highest level of training after fierce training.

In addition to the triangular formation of three divisions of a typical armored division, they also had a self-propelled artillery brigade, a medium tank battalion, and a mechanized brigade, making their combat power one of the most powerful units in the Soviet Union. 

Plus, the ‘Strategic Air Force’.

The main force of the Soviet army was the Zabaykalsk Front, which would advance over the Daxinganling Mountains, which Japan had left unguarded, but the Ussuriysk Front was not inferior in terms of strength.

“We outnumber them by more than two times in troops, and more than six times in tanks and guns. And there’s nothing more to say about the air force. The key is how fast and how little we lose. But don’t worry too much. I trust your skills.”

I smiled involuntarily as I saw the faces of the generals who were nervous but expectant.

“Do you think the Japanese are any better than the German model or Manstein? You guys beat them too. Don’t worry!”