What if either half of Korea ISOT from June 1st, 1950, to June 1st, 1910?
Sept 7, 2024 21:02:20 GMT
stevep likes this
Post by raharris1973 on Sept 7, 2024 21:02:20 GMT
What if either half of Korea ISOT from June 1st, 1950, to June 1st, 1910, just under four weeks before the outbreak of full-scale Korean War and at a time of heightened tension and military readiness in both countries, including border clashes along the DMZ?
Very, very importantly, *all* non-Korean people disappear from the version of Korea that gets ISOT back in time, instantly, although all their property and personal effects are left behind. They are not there to either advise nor assist Koreans, nor interpret or explain events to their downtime countrymen.
As I want to make clear, this is not a single scenario where both the 1950 ROK and DPRK go back to 1910, and deal with the incipient Japanese formal annexation (signed, sealed, delivered, August of 1910) - that is more of a multi-variate mess than I want. Rather I am proposing two, separate, consecutive scenarios.
#1 Republic of Korea goes back June 1, 1910:
Whole Republic of Korea, the mainland peninsula up to the 38th parallel and offshore islands, including the island of Quelpart, are part of the transfer. The peninsula north of the 38th is the old Korean Empire, well puppetized by Japan and garrisoned by it.
The ISOT of the ROK, aka South Korea, overwrites the most populous and agriculturally productive portions of the peninsula, and key ports like Busan, and Inchon, and the administrative center and capital of Seoul or what the Japanese called Keijo, where likely the Korean Emperor and Japanese Governor-General was. The over-writing probably eliminates the majority of the Japanese garrison in the country and Japanese ships in Korean ports, but not their entirety, there are garrisons and ships up north too.
Syngman Rhee's government has an American-armed and trained Army both massed along the 38th parallel, with significant deployments along with a heavy police presence throughout the territory, especially in restive areas like the eastern mountains, Jeolla and Quelpart, to control internal rebellion and unrest. The ROK Army is not impressively or heavily armed for sustained conventional combat with other conventional militaries of a 1950 standard, without a big complement of tanks or aircraft. But something beats nothing. It has superior small arms, machineguns, artillery to what anyone in 1910 East Asia has, alongside armored personnel, tanks and aircraft and radio equipment no Army in the world of 1910 has, along with some light combatant ships.
The South Koreans will first encounter Japanese along the 38th parallel and Japanese ships approaching their ports. Clashes would be inevitable, with irreconcilable positions of the Japanese demanding submission, and the Koreans insisting on absolute sovereignty, Japanese hands off current ROK territory, and immediate Japanese evacuation of downtime Empire of Korea territory and non-interference with ROK forces occupation of the country up to the Yalu and unification.
How will this go? The ROKs should have every initial tactical advantage against Japanese forces on the DMZ and on the ground in the north, and against Japanese forces attempting to make landings. The ROKs few aircraft should go a long way to even reduce some of Japan's naval gunfire advantages. However, the ROKs have no international trade connections to support replacement on their American and Japanese made weapons and ammunition, or replenish POL, and Japan has a bigger productive base, more integrated into the global economy of its day.
If Japan can overcome the ROKs through smothering them through superior numbers, blockade and industrial support and logistics, the Japanese could win themselves some examples of uptime weapons and some surviving industrial plant to reverse engineer to augment their power......although it would be after a pretty costly fight.
And the Japanese might not be able to prevail against Koreans using combined advantages of higher technology weapons, urban and mountain terrain defense, with far greater nationalist anti-Japanese solidarity than was musterable in 1910, augmented by some improvised for trade links and smuggling routes for some of the most desperately needed supplies through China.
Despite widespread anti-Japanese public opinion in South Korea, its society had many internal divisions, certainly between the mostly underground but not entirely disarmed Communist movement and noncommunists, but also between noncommunist factions. A key factor in the endurance and sustainability of Korean military resistance and its success is if Koreans can rally together and suspend internecine violence, or if 1950 Korean groups continue violent civil strife at full intensity even while dealing with the Japanese. That will depend on the actions of local leaders and grassroots supporters, in terms of President Rhee and underground cell leaders, since there will be no external Communist "guidance" going to Communist Koreans.
If the Koreans are ground down by the Japanese, how long does this take, and how is Japan affected going forward?
If the Koreans fend off the Japanese, who is most likely to be helpful to them? I suggest possibly the Germans and Austrians.....Syngman Rhee's wife was Austrian, with the British least likely to be helpful, as Japanese allies. If pretty successful or definitive at fending off the Japanese by 1911-1912, would Syngman Rhee try to influence the incipient revolutionary situation unfolding in China in any way?
#2 Democratic People's Republic of Korea goes back June 1, 1910: Whole DPRK, the mainland peninsula down to the 38th parallel, is transferred. The peninsula south of the 38th and the far offshore Tok-do island and Quelpart island are the old Korean Empire, and well-puppetized by Japan.
The DPRK brings back with it a smaller population and less agricultural capacity than the ROK, but more productive and developed mining, forestry, and industrial and power-generation sectors. Not everyone is happy with the Communist regime, but the opposition is more thoroughly subdued, and the land reform process in North Korea actually proceeded in a a relatively orderly manner with much less violence than land redistribution experiences in China and the USSR. A larger portion of the Japanese garrison, ships in port, and oversight administration remains in place without being "overwritten" by the ISOT compared with the other scenario, but Japan instantly loses its northern mining and forestry operations. The SLOCs to Japan are also shorter and more secure.
However, the DPRK, aka North Korean forces, are quite lavishly equipped for mobile conventional warfare, and have been trained in Soviet style schools and exercises for such operations. They have a decent complement of late 1940s tanks, anti-tank weapons, APCs, tactical aircraft, stockpiled fuel reserves, submarines, and light surface combatants. Some of the units have combat experience from guerrilla and larger scale battles handling artillery in the Chinese Civil War. Their military capabilities on net are superior to the ROKs and should easily be superior to the 1910 Japanese at the point of contact.
With the ISOT'ing and sudden disappearance of all foreigners, including Soviet advisors, they will miss the last few weeks of refined staff planning for the invasion of the south, and the last few weeks of technical assistance on their Soviet weapons platforms, but this should not be too harmful.
If they are not the first out of the gate with massed attacks upon skirmishing with Japanese garrison troops flying the Japanese flag, or after shooting at Japanese ships approaching their coastline, they would certainly react very hard and decisively against any Japanese attacks and armed probes, and likely set off on fullscale offensive to claim the south a couple weeks earlier than their June 25th OTL Korean War kick-off date.
While I don't doubt the Japanese would fight bravely, I see Japanese resistance to heavily armed, more mobile North Koreans as basically doomed over a couple months, and even with its limited, but still existing aeronaval capabilities, the North Koreans would probably seize Quelpart island, even if the Japanese were to later take it back after an epic attrition battle.
Once victorious in driving Japan out, Communist Korea would be a highly isolated state, that revolutionary Communist of the day would not know exactly what to make of. They would likely patronize leftist revolutionaries in China, and try to support more revolutionaries further afield, but the appeal of their model would be uncertain outside the East Asian context. Their outside trade would be very limited, under the table, and based very much on barter and raw materials, particularly rare ones.
Very, very importantly, *all* non-Korean people disappear from the version of Korea that gets ISOT back in time, instantly, although all their property and personal effects are left behind. They are not there to either advise nor assist Koreans, nor interpret or explain events to their downtime countrymen.
As I want to make clear, this is not a single scenario where both the 1950 ROK and DPRK go back to 1910, and deal with the incipient Japanese formal annexation (signed, sealed, delivered, August of 1910) - that is more of a multi-variate mess than I want. Rather I am proposing two, separate, consecutive scenarios.
#1 Republic of Korea goes back June 1, 1910:
Whole Republic of Korea, the mainland peninsula up to the 38th parallel and offshore islands, including the island of Quelpart, are part of the transfer. The peninsula north of the 38th is the old Korean Empire, well puppetized by Japan and garrisoned by it.
The ISOT of the ROK, aka South Korea, overwrites the most populous and agriculturally productive portions of the peninsula, and key ports like Busan, and Inchon, and the administrative center and capital of Seoul or what the Japanese called Keijo, where likely the Korean Emperor and Japanese Governor-General was. The over-writing probably eliminates the majority of the Japanese garrison in the country and Japanese ships in Korean ports, but not their entirety, there are garrisons and ships up north too.
Syngman Rhee's government has an American-armed and trained Army both massed along the 38th parallel, with significant deployments along with a heavy police presence throughout the territory, especially in restive areas like the eastern mountains, Jeolla and Quelpart, to control internal rebellion and unrest. The ROK Army is not impressively or heavily armed for sustained conventional combat with other conventional militaries of a 1950 standard, without a big complement of tanks or aircraft. But something beats nothing. It has superior small arms, machineguns, artillery to what anyone in 1910 East Asia has, alongside armored personnel, tanks and aircraft and radio equipment no Army in the world of 1910 has, along with some light combatant ships.
The South Koreans will first encounter Japanese along the 38th parallel and Japanese ships approaching their ports. Clashes would be inevitable, with irreconcilable positions of the Japanese demanding submission, and the Koreans insisting on absolute sovereignty, Japanese hands off current ROK territory, and immediate Japanese evacuation of downtime Empire of Korea territory and non-interference with ROK forces occupation of the country up to the Yalu and unification.
How will this go? The ROKs should have every initial tactical advantage against Japanese forces on the DMZ and on the ground in the north, and against Japanese forces attempting to make landings. The ROKs few aircraft should go a long way to even reduce some of Japan's naval gunfire advantages. However, the ROKs have no international trade connections to support replacement on their American and Japanese made weapons and ammunition, or replenish POL, and Japan has a bigger productive base, more integrated into the global economy of its day.
If Japan can overcome the ROKs through smothering them through superior numbers, blockade and industrial support and logistics, the Japanese could win themselves some examples of uptime weapons and some surviving industrial plant to reverse engineer to augment their power......although it would be after a pretty costly fight.
And the Japanese might not be able to prevail against Koreans using combined advantages of higher technology weapons, urban and mountain terrain defense, with far greater nationalist anti-Japanese solidarity than was musterable in 1910, augmented by some improvised for trade links and smuggling routes for some of the most desperately needed supplies through China.
Despite widespread anti-Japanese public opinion in South Korea, its society had many internal divisions, certainly between the mostly underground but not entirely disarmed Communist movement and noncommunists, but also between noncommunist factions. A key factor in the endurance and sustainability of Korean military resistance and its success is if Koreans can rally together and suspend internecine violence, or if 1950 Korean groups continue violent civil strife at full intensity even while dealing with the Japanese. That will depend on the actions of local leaders and grassroots supporters, in terms of President Rhee and underground cell leaders, since there will be no external Communist "guidance" going to Communist Koreans.
If the Koreans are ground down by the Japanese, how long does this take, and how is Japan affected going forward?
If the Koreans fend off the Japanese, who is most likely to be helpful to them? I suggest possibly the Germans and Austrians.....Syngman Rhee's wife was Austrian, with the British least likely to be helpful, as Japanese allies. If pretty successful or definitive at fending off the Japanese by 1911-1912, would Syngman Rhee try to influence the incipient revolutionary situation unfolding in China in any way?
#2 Democratic People's Republic of Korea goes back June 1, 1910: Whole DPRK, the mainland peninsula down to the 38th parallel, is transferred. The peninsula south of the 38th and the far offshore Tok-do island and Quelpart island are the old Korean Empire, and well-puppetized by Japan.
The DPRK brings back with it a smaller population and less agricultural capacity than the ROK, but more productive and developed mining, forestry, and industrial and power-generation sectors. Not everyone is happy with the Communist regime, but the opposition is more thoroughly subdued, and the land reform process in North Korea actually proceeded in a a relatively orderly manner with much less violence than land redistribution experiences in China and the USSR. A larger portion of the Japanese garrison, ships in port, and oversight administration remains in place without being "overwritten" by the ISOT compared with the other scenario, but Japan instantly loses its northern mining and forestry operations. The SLOCs to Japan are also shorter and more secure.
However, the DPRK, aka North Korean forces, are quite lavishly equipped for mobile conventional warfare, and have been trained in Soviet style schools and exercises for such operations. They have a decent complement of late 1940s tanks, anti-tank weapons, APCs, tactical aircraft, stockpiled fuel reserves, submarines, and light surface combatants. Some of the units have combat experience from guerrilla and larger scale battles handling artillery in the Chinese Civil War. Their military capabilities on net are superior to the ROKs and should easily be superior to the 1910 Japanese at the point of contact.
With the ISOT'ing and sudden disappearance of all foreigners, including Soviet advisors, they will miss the last few weeks of refined staff planning for the invasion of the south, and the last few weeks of technical assistance on their Soviet weapons platforms, but this should not be too harmful.
If they are not the first out of the gate with massed attacks upon skirmishing with Japanese garrison troops flying the Japanese flag, or after shooting at Japanese ships approaching their coastline, they would certainly react very hard and decisively against any Japanese attacks and armed probes, and likely set off on fullscale offensive to claim the south a couple weeks earlier than their June 25th OTL Korean War kick-off date.
While I don't doubt the Japanese would fight bravely, I see Japanese resistance to heavily armed, more mobile North Koreans as basically doomed over a couple months, and even with its limited, but still existing aeronaval capabilities, the North Koreans would probably seize Quelpart island, even if the Japanese were to later take it back after an epic attrition battle.
Once victorious in driving Japan out, Communist Korea would be a highly isolated state, that revolutionary Communist of the day would not know exactly what to make of. They would likely patronize leftist revolutionaries in China, and try to support more revolutionaries further afield, but the appeal of their model would be uncertain outside the East Asian context. Their outside trade would be very limited, under the table, and based very much on barter and raw materials, particularly rare ones.