The Deadly Line

The Soviet Union declared war on the Japanese Empire on 10 August. Depleted by the dispatch of its units to the Pacific theater, the Japanese Kwantung Army was seemingly helpless to resist the Soviet steamroller. Nevertheless, the Japanese commenced an effort to build strong positions around Mudanjiang. …

1945-08-11

J181

The Soviet Union declared war on the Japanese Empire on 10 August. Depleted by the dispatch of its units to the Pacific theater, the Japanese Kwantung Army was seemingly helpless to resist the Soviet steamroller. Nevertheless, the Japanese commenced an effort to build strong positions around Mudanjiang. To buy time needed for this defense to take shape, a hasty perimeter was established near the village of Mo Dao Shi. The vanguard of this force was immediately wiped out by Soviet tanks and heavy artillery. Led by Captain Inomata and supported by an ad-hoc company of obsolete light tanks, the remaining soldiers stood poised to hold back the Soviet onslaught.

Mo Dao Shi, China

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Theater of the Second World War. The beginning of the war is conventionally dated to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking escalated into a full-scale invasion. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. In 2017 the Ministry of Education in the People's Republic of China decreed that the term "eight-year war" in all textbooks should be replaced by "fourteen-year war", with a revised starting date of 18 September 1931 provided by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. According to historian Rana Mitter, historians in China are unhappy with the blanket revision, and (despite sustained tensions) the Republic of China did not consider itself to be continuously at war with Japan over these six years. The Tanggu Truce of 1933 officially ended the earlier hostilities in Manchuria while the He-Umezu Agreement of 1935 acknowledged the Japanese demands to put an end to all anti-Japanese organizations in China.

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Scenario Type = Standard