I Became Stalin?! - Chapter 184:

Chapter 184

The ‘remnants’ of the Governor-General’s Office agreed to surrender unconditionally.

“We solemnly declare the founding of a democratic republic, the ‘Republic of Korea’, where Koreans are the masters of the Korean Peninsula!”

“Wow!!”

After occupying Gyeongseong, the Provisional Government Committee announced the declaration of the Republic of Korea and formed a new government.

Kim Won-bong, the commander of the Independent Korean Armored Division under the Soviet Army, became the commander-in-chief of the Republic of Korea Army and declared that he would subjugate the Japanese who still had a stronghold in the southern part of the peninsula.

The Japanese in the areas liberated by the national army were taken prisoner and placed in prisoner-of-war camps in various places.

The Japanese government was shocked by the annihilation of the Governor-General’s Office and the occupation of Gyeongseong in an instant.

“Our compatriots who were in the Japanese archipelago are returning home through Wonsan Port. A vanguard of 20,000 people is returning first…”

Realizing that it was meaningless to resist any longer, they decided to call in at least some troops to prepare for the final battle on the mainland.

Even excluding the 120th Division that was defeated in Gyeongseong, there were still three divisions and one brigade deployed, and if necessary, there were more than 700,000 people who could be conscripted.

None of them wanted to leave their homes and return to the mainland that had become a battlefield, but most of them were chased away by angry people.

When the Koreans who had been robbed of their land, their markets, and everything else came back, the Japanese had to flee.

Southward, southward, the procession of refugees continued.

The national army pointed tanks and machine guns at the ‘refugees’ and prevented them from doing anything rash.

Of course, they also had the role of stopping the people from throwing stones and garbage at the refugees.

“Come on, come on, let’s go!!”

“Wow! Long live the Republic of Korea! Long live the national army!”

“Hahaha, thank you! Now, please make way!”

Thousands of people returning home and thousands of people leaving.

The shadow of war was now deeply cast on the civilians as well.

Most of the returning Koreans talked about the situation on the Japanese mainland.

“Ugh. Those evil bastards, now that the end is near, they’re doing all kinds of things.”

“The cities are all on fire, the countryside is all dried up and dead with rice and barley…”

The United States had developed a taste for defoliants and mines, and after securing air supremacy over the Japanese archipelago, they sprayed all sorts of things on Japan.

Mines, herbicides, aerial bombs, and napalm. The bombing became even worse after the latest B-29 heavy bombers were deployed.

The Kwantung Plain was no longer in a state to expect a harvest. In a situation where the horizon was filled with yellowish dried crops, the farmers cried out, and in the meantime, they raised their sickles and iron bars against the government officials who were taking away the last food.

The workers also rebelled against the order to defend the factory until the end, even as the bombs fell. The factory manager who threatened to cut off all the wages if they didn’t meet the production quota by tomorrow, the workers who went on strike because they couldn’t afford to live, the army and the government who pointed guns at them. The soaring rice prices and the starving people…

“Anyway, it was hell there… sigh, I’m glad I made it back alive.”

“Long live the Republic of Korea, long live! Thank you for saving me!”

The returnees expressed their full support for the government that had negotiated them out of the hellish Japanese archipelago.

They had left their livelihoods behind, but most of them thought that Korea was better than Japan, where the rice prices were soaring and the food shortage was severe, whether they were there or here.

And Japan was getting closer and closer to hell.

***

“Fire! Fire!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The Soviet Navy’s destroyers and cruisers spewed fire from their cannons. In the sky, the Tu-4 heavy bombers, boasting a heavy body even in the air, dropped bombs and passed by.

“There is almost no Japanese army’s defensive force on this coast, according to our intelligence. But that doesn’t mean we can let our guard down. After entering the city, the residents may engage in minor hostile acts, but we will not use violence unless there is any casualty.”

“Yes! Understood!”

“If you cause any trouble with the people… it’s the maximum summary execution. All soldiers, keep this in mind.”

The Soviet Far East Navy was very weak, but they were able to land on Hokkaido because almost all the warships had been withdrawn to the south to stop the United States, which had been annihilated by the overwhelming air power of the United States.

In Sakhalin, as soon as the war against Japan broke out, two armored divisions ran south and neutralized all the Japanese military bases.

The Japanese destroyers that were stationed there fell into the hands of the Soviet army or scuttled themselves, and eventually the Soviet Far East Fleet appeared in front of Hokkaido and began shelling.

“Are there any local collaborators here?”

“Yes, there are. The local branch of the Japanese Communist Party will support the military administration afterwards. There are many poor peasants and exploited natives, and the local opinion is friendly to the Soviet Union.”

“That’s good. I heard they were going to make this island independent, but that was the background?”

The members of the Japanese Communist Party fled from the south, which would become a sea of fire, to the north, to the north.

The whole country was in such a state of chaos that there was hardly any inspection or search in the process of escaping to the north of the 36th parallel, where the nuclear bombing would take place.

“Anyway, good, good. Then we’ll go to the center of this island, this place…”

A thick finger pointed at a location on the map. Sapporo was about 250km away from the northwest coast where the Soviet army landed.

They were ordered to wait for the bombing of the mainland after occupying Sapporo and Hakodate, the southernmost point of Honshu.

“Hmm… it looks like a pretty good location, huh?”

“Is that so, Your Excellency?”

“Hmm, it’s a ice-free port, and it’s similar to Vladivostok in latitude… isn’t it the optimal location for advancing into the Pacific?”

Thinking of the history of Russian expansion, which had been looking for a ice-free port, Hokkaido had a tremendous value. Of course, there were also bases such as Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula, and Sakhalin, but Vladivostok was a place where the outer harbor froze in winter.

On the other hand, Hokkaido had several ports that did not freeze all year round due to the influence of the warm current.

And they could directly advance into the Pacific without being checked by other powers! The commander bragged about the content he had heard from above, as if he were talking to his staff.

“Comrade Secretary-General’s intention is… to avoid unnecessary tension with the United States for now, and to secure naval and air bases in various places, so that they can be used in case of a deterioration of relations with the United States in the future.”

“Really… is that so?”

“Yes. And this island is the one that will be the forward base for the projection of influence in the Far East, along with the newly born ‘Republic of Korea’ over there.”

During the Tsarist era, Russia waged the Russo-Japanese War to seize Manchuria, where the Trans-Siberian Railway branched off, and Dalian and Lushun Port at the end of it. Of course, they lost the war and had to give up Manchuria, Sakhalin, and more.

Many officers thought of the current war as the Second Russo-Japanese War. To secure their influence in the Far East, they had to overthrow Japan, the first power in the region, and also suppress China, the most populous nation in the world.

“Alright, that’s enough. Let’s go and see for ourselves.”

There was no resistance, so the shelling was already over. The Soviet ground forces, dressed in black uniforms, calmly crossed the coast where no bullets flew and raised the red flag at the port.

“Ura! Soviet ura!! Ura!!”

***

Meanwhile, in the south of Japan, a hellish clash was unfolding.

Without a breather after the Battle of Iwo Jima, the US forces led by MacArthur launched Operation Downfall.

“First, we will secure the southern part of this island, Kyushu, and build an air base that can bomb Honshu, the largest island, intensively.”

Operation Downfall consisted of two parts.

One was Operation Olympic, which involved landing on Kyushu, the southernmost of the four islands that make up Japan.

“The Japanese army deployed on the Chinese mainland was mostly crushed by the joint offensive of the Soviet and Chinese armies. The Soviet army occupied the Korean Peninsula and Hokkaido…”

“Enough with those bastards. Tell me the next thing.”

“Yes, Your Excellency. Ahem… Operation Olympic will end with securing these two places by landing. After setting up a temporary pier in Kagoshima Bay and building an airstrip on the Miyazaki Plain, we will start the next operation, Operation Coronet, within 20 days.”

Eisenhower briefed the operation with a strained expression.

This kind of super-large landing operation had never been carried out before, and all the generals seemed tense.

It was tense enough to deploy 400,000 troops, dozens of battleships, hundreds of cruisers and destroyers, and over 3,000 aircraft.

MacArthur, who wore sunglasses and chewed on a pipe, also seemed nervous as he fidgeted his hands.

“Then Operation Coronet… we will land at two points in front of Tokyo, on the mainland. Here, up to a million troops and over 5,000 various aircraft will be deployed. The pre-emptive shelling will also mobilize the warships that were involved in the operation as soon as the enemy forces on the coast are eliminated.”

They couldn’t believe the enormous scale of the force, which was different from the digits.

But MacArthur was different.

“What are you doing? Go and get ready!”

“Yes, yes! Understood, Commander-in-Chief!”

Did he think he had to deal with this scale of things every day if he became the president of the United States? He looked defiant even though he was tense, and he urged his subordinates.

“We have to occupy Japan before those damn Reds eat it all! Who’s going to fly the flag in Tokyo, our great United States of America!”

He had said something similar in Iwo Jima.

And on the coast of Iwo Jima, where volcanic ash flew and feet sank, nearly 10% of the tens of thousands of marines who landed were injured and several times that were wounded and evacuated.

Now, this operation involved more than 100,000 marines and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. How many marines would have to die for MacArthur’s ambition? How many soldiers died and would die on the coast of a strange island?

“Is there no support… from the Soviet Union?”

“Ah, yes. That issue is still being discussed by the higher-ups…”

“What the hell are you talking about! That’s our spoils! We have to get our hands on it!”

MacArthur threw his pipe and started to shout. In his head, Japan was already in the hands of the United States.

“Look at those Soviet bastards tearing Germany apart. How much can we get from Japan! Do you think we’re going to hand it all over to the Soviet Union?”

He had received some lobbying from the capitalists, or he was foaming at the mouth. Some nodded in agreement.

But a considerable number still looked sullen. How many soldiers would have to die was excluded from MacArthur’s calculation. Based on the previous cases, at least tens of thousands, if not… more.

“Sir… Commander-in-Chief?”

“What is it, Dwight?”

“A message from the homeland. It says here… [The Soviet bombing is scheduled, so postpone the landing operation by at least a week].”

“What?”