Xinjiang Theater

After the destruction of Samarkand, British forces swiftly advanced through Kazakhstan, achieving their goal of invading Joseon via the Xinjiang region. Russia was unprepared to repel the British advance and assist its allies in the south, as it was forced to fight off enemies on its Eastern and Western fronts while also dealing with a brewing civil war among factions across its empire. With the Russian threat removed, the British poured into Joseon in the Spring of 1940, expecting an easy advance deeper into the region. The invading forces would have a rude awakening shortly after their arrival, as the Joseon Empire was far more prepared for their arrival than their G.R.A.I.L. networks could have predicted.

The Short Push North

With the railways of Samarkand in ruins, the British fully expected not to make it to Joseon until late summer. British intelligence had predicted a full-scale response from the Regency after the destruction of the regional capital, as the loss of such an important hub city in their southern provinces was sure to upset the ruling class. Indeed, the Russian Regency had planned a full-scale response to their south-eastern invaders, if only to sate the cries for blood echoed by hundreds of thousands of Cossacks ready to avenge their fallen city. They planned to meet the British in combat in early January, hoping to take advantage of a bitter winter. As the Regency prepared themselves, British forces faced ruthless assaults from the remnants of the Samarkand horde and their allies in Kazakhstan throughout the month of December. As the winter grew more fierce, they had to hunker down only 15 miles north of Samarkand to preserve their strength for a Spring push, fully expecting to meet the might of the Russian army in the coming months. However, the circumstances of the next few months in Russia were such that even British supercomputers could not predict.

The catastrophic bombing of Seattle had profound consequences across the Russian Empire. America's entrance into the Great War caused a dramatic shift in the priorities of the Regency, much to the anger of the Cossack hordes in the south. Despite making promises to prepare troops and meet the British head-on to honor the loss of Samarkand, the Regency was forced to turn its attention to the east as well as west. They were increasingly stretched thin, needing to hold ground against the Nordic Union and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which continued to push ever closer to St. Petersburg. Although some men were spared to fight the British, the Regency sent far fewer than they initially promised to the struggling forces in Kazakhstan.

To the great pleasure of the British, the need to wait for Spring was premature, and they once again began their advance in early February, gaining modest ground despite the constant harassment of their supply lines and the harsh Russian winter. With British forces once again advancing north, the Regency was prepared to dedicate more last minute reinforcements to the south, only to have to deal with the Nastyevik Uprising on March 5th. With a full-scale civil war brewing, and the Americans gaining ground in Alaska, Yusupov had no choice but to fully abandon the containment of the British. On May 1st, 1940, British boots took their first steps into the Xinjiang Region with far fewer casualties than they anticipated. 

The Emperor's Protection

Emperor Himjo was not one to take chances. When he first received reports of Samarkand’s burning in November, his officials began making preparations for the British arrival, unwilling to rest the fate of his empire in the hands of such a fractured ally. Although the defense of Xinjiang and Tibet was less of a concern than that of the southern regions, as it consists mostly of impenetrable mountains and inhospitable deserts, Joseon was unwilling to cede any more ground to foreign invaders, having already inherited a war with Japan from Himjo’s father. The roaming bandits that so plagued Northern China over the last 10 years had been stomped out under the young Emperor’s reign. The forces responsible were fortunately already stationed in the northwestern region, and were as hardened veterans as those who faced down the Japanese to the south. Although they were battlehardened, the Imperial Court knew these forces alone would not be enough to stop the British. It would require cunning to fend off two Great Powers at the same time.

Luckily, they knew where to meet the British far before they finished their advance into the imperial heartland. Knowing full well the British would come from the northwestern routes of the Silk Road, the Emperor tasked his generals to fortify ancient roads in Dzungaria and stage attacks against the invading army from the city of Urumqi. Although it was a long shot, Emperor Himjo also sent a missive to his ally, Sergeltiin Khan, calling him to battle against the invaders. The Great Khan thus far had stayed his hand against the British. Although he was angered at the total destruction of Samarkand, the British up to this point had mostly been fighting Kazakhstani forces, with whom he shared no friendship given his ambitions to conquer their lands for himself. Despite this, the request from his allies in Korea was enticing, so he decided to heed the call should the moment arise. After securing allies, the Joseon military spent the months leading up to the British arrival preparing for their assault.  

When British soldiers arrived on May 1st, they met little resistance in the hilly valleys of the Dzungarian Gate. The British had followed the rail lines set long ago following the Silk Road, setting up a command center on the shores of Lake Alakol. While enroute to Karamai, British forces engaged Joseon for the first time. The pass up to Karamai had been heavily mined, slowing the advancing forces. On top of the mines, British forces were trapped in a narrow mountain trail where enemy forces had an easy time attacking them. Nonetheless, the forces that conquered Samarkand were seasoned in Alpine warfare, as mountainous ambush tactics were common among the Kazakhstani forces they had been battling in the months leading up to their first incursion. The battle-hardened Afghani and Indian colonial troops engaged the Joseon forces in the lowlands of the mountain pass, as British armor supported them by drowning the mountainside with machine gun fire. After a fierce battle, the British came out victorious, securing their first victory in the Xinjiang region.

Securing Karamai

Major-General Troy Fox had been chosen to oversee the Protectorate's operations in Joseon. Fox was well aware of the dangers facing his men in the months to come. Clearing a path to Karamai had been painfully slow, as Joseon's famous fortified positions ground his advance to a snail's pace, a frustrating setback given the huge gains he had achieved in outer Russia. On May 22nd, Major-General Fox, after weeks of planning, launched the invasion of Karamai. This city in particular was of strategic importance to the British, as in addition to being the first major city on this side of the mountains,  its rich oil fields would do much to lessen the strain on the British supply lines should they be able to hold it. Additionally, although there was limited urban infrastructure, securing a town within the foothills of Xinjiang would be invaluable for the troops' morale, as they had been fighting in the cold mountainous countryside and open grasslands for months on end. Although they would certainly meet heavy resistance, Fox was confident his men would win the day. 

Fox sent a combined arms battalion consisting mostly of British armor out into the open grasslands surrounding the city on the dim, cold morning of the 23rd. The bulk of his men were spread out wide across the open fields to protect them from potential bombardment. However, Karamai had little in the way of defenses. On top of not having a shield generator to defend the city from incoming artillery, the urban core itself lacked much density, and the open plains surrounding the city did little in obstructing sightlines into the city's core. Despite this, the Chinese garrison had ample time to prepare for such an assault. A lattice of trenches could be seen radiating out from the city, and Joseon's world-famous artillery guns were stationed in key locations deep within the urban center, ready to shell any would-be invaders. As the British began their assault, machine gun fire and mortars rained hell on the advancing infantry. The tommybots and armored transports soaked most of the fire, as the colonial troops took cover within and behind the advancing vehicles. The nature of the terrain forced the British to advance beyond the enemy trench line as they progressed, further exposing themselves to flanking fire.

Casualties on both sides were high, but after a costly surge forward, Fox’s forces managed to breach the enemy trench line and began mobilizing his reserve forces. The G.R.A.I.L. network screeched new orders at the troops as they arrived in the trench lines, alerting them to enemy positions and updating their objectives in real time. After just 2 days of hard fighting, British forces secured the city proper and managed to lay claim to their prize.The battle had been hard, but Fox had secured a major victory and kept the oil fields intact to boot. He unfortunately could not perceive the threat that lurked to the east.

The Wrath of the Khan

The defeat at Karamai was unfortunate but not at all unexpected by Joseon’s high command. Although the defeat cost them a strategic oil field, it offered the empire a chance to analyze the British threat they faced up close for the first time. Karamai provided a foothold into their territory, but it could just as easily be used as a tool to lure the British into a false sense of security. Claiming an oil field meant more fuel to resupply British forces, which they desperately needed, given that their supply lines up to that point had to travel a great distance along the Silk Road to even breach into the region. Major-General Fox’s strategy of aggressive expansion was born out of necessity more than ambition, as without a secure footing British forces were liable to outrun their own supply lines.

General Tu Yejun, who had been tasked with the defense of the Xinjiang region by an imperial edict, was well aware of the problems the British faced and the overdependence they would have on Karamai should he allow its capture. The decision to station the majority of the forces allocated to him in Urumqi rather than Karamai was no mistake. He had planned for the city to fall, though he planned its defenses in such a way that its capture would still be costly to his enemies. Tu wanted to stall the conflict out in the vast steppe stretching between the two cities. As he bided his time, he called upon the New Khanate to begin preparing their forces in the coming month for his planned counterattack. 

As the Great Khan gathered his horde, General Tu made the next three months of the conflict hell on Earth for the British. Lines of barbed wire, trenches, tank traps, and mines had been laid stretching for miles between Karamai and Urumqi. The path to Urumqi was made so treacherous that the British high command sent a special detachment of the Royal Engineer Corps in order to help in the dismantlement of Korean fortifications. The British had anticipated attrition, but could not fathom the degree to which the enemy seemed willing to commit to the defense of otherwise worthless grasslands. The British had chosen the staging point for their invasion to be the Xinjiang region precisely to avoid getting bogged down by Joseon's castle tactics, only for them now to be forced into agonizingly slow advances in open plains.

When July of 1940 came to a close, the British had managed to clear about 30 miles of the 100-mile stretch between the two cities, facing constant harassment from long-range artillery during each step of the process. As they got deeper into the defense lines, British technical corporals increasingly began reporting on malfunctions in the G.R.A.I.L. system, with the network reporting the locations of mines and other fortifications that were simply not there. This confusion was chalked up to faulty data in the system at the time, but by August 3rd, the source of the malfunction became clear; the Koreans were disassembling their own lines, clearing the path for a British advance. 

Such a convenient clearance in the months of attrition the British faced could only mean one thing: that the counteroffensive was imminent. In the late afternoon of the 3rd, G.R.A.I.L. radioed in a message to all forces that Joseon's push had begun, with enemy armor rapidly approaching the British position from the direction of Urumqi. British forces scrambled to stand their ground and begin a counterattack against the Korean advance, but their attempts to repel the enemy would be in vain. When the G.R.A.I.L. system warned their men of the enemy counteroffensive, it had failed to mention the horde of over 10,000 Mongols that supported the Korean armor. Sergeltiin Khan had arrived, and he meant to give the British no quarter. 

The months of the agonizing dismantlement of Joseon's defenses had been a trap placed long before the New Khanate's horse prints covered the land. General Tu Yejun forced the British to clear the way for his allies' advance, and he was more than confident that the British had met their match. As they once did 700 years prior, Mongol horses descended on Karamai with the full might of the Joseon army behind them. General Tu Yejun, with Sergeltiin Khan serving as vanguard, sought to rid his province of foreign invaders permanently. The battles that followed were crippling to the British forces. As the horde breached the former defensive line, those who found themselves on the front lines were scythed down by the sheer enormity of the enemy forces. The British military launched a full-scale retreat, allowing Joseon and its allies to seize huge swaths of territory back with little effort. In less than a week of fighting, the enemy was back at the gates, Joseon's counterinvasion of Karamai had begun. 

Ebb and Flow

Unlike before, General Tu Yejun had no quarrel with attacking the refineries that the British so coveted. He knew well that the resource meant far more to the spread-thin invaders than it did to the region's ability to defend itself. The fast-moving cavalry of the New Khanate made short work of dismantling the infrastructure and setting the fields ablaze, unmoved by the consequences of their actions. Black rain drenched the battlefield for two days after the burning of the oil fields, soaking the city in a sticky tar that clung to British equipment. Automaton soldiers lurched slowly through the muck, shambling more like the undead than that of machine. Much like Joseon before them, the British were forced to use more traditional defenses to maintain their hold on the city against the tide of invaders, but to little success. 

On August 12th, the British abandoned the line at Karamai, retreating back to the edge of Chinese territory to lick their wounds and call for reinforcements. As the British fled, Sergei Vasilovich Sibirsky sat down for tea in the ruins of Karamai with General Tu Yejun and a number of government officials. The hulking mass of muscle and machinery that was the Great Khan found himself pleased with the arrangement that the officials presented him. In exchange for further support against the British, Joseon agreed to cede part of the Dzungarian region to the Khanate so that the Khanate could better expand its domain into Kazakhstan and beyond. This agreement secured a powerful ally for Joseon should Russia fully collapse in the days to come, and more importantly, the hope was that the New Khanate would be enough to hold the British as they were forced to send reinforcements south to quell the recent Japanese advancements. Yet, this was just the beginning of the British invasion, and the Protectorate would not take this defeat lightly.