What happened in Manchuria in 1944

Showa Iron and Steel Works in Anshan is the largest iron and steel plant in Manchuria
This was an amazing find of its kind in the collection of digitized publications of the National Library of China. The publication is Chinese, but unusual. Old characters that are now read only in Taiwan. Special chronology. China, only different and unusual for us.
And the data in this book is very interesting.
Another China, a different calendar and an unusual name for Beijing
The book was published in February of the 37th year of Mingo.
Minguo is the calendar of the Republic of China. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, when Sun Yat-sen was elected provisional president of the Republic of China, he established a new calendar in the manner of previous dynasties. In part, this was a triumph of revolutionaries, and to a certain extent, a purely legal act, since in China before there was no other calendar other than the calendar based on the mottos of the emperors.
So the revolutionaries had to resort to the same approach, only instead of a pious motto there were simply two characters 民國 - that is, “people's state” or “republic”. After the victory of the Kuomintang party in the first phase of the civil war, from 1929 this calendar became mandatory in China until the Communists won and abolished it.
So, Mingo's 37th year is 1948. This was also a time of fierce battles between the White Chinese from the Kuomintang and the Red Chinese from the CCP for the possession of China.
The book was published in Beiping. Where where? In Russian - in Beijing. We have no difference in the name of the Chinese capital, but in the Chinese language there was one. In 1928–1949 the city was called Beiping 北平, and from 1949 it became known as Beijing 北京. The semantic difference is significant: the first option can be understood as “Northern calm”, and the second – “Northern capital”.
The Peiping variant appeared after the Northern Expedition of 1926–1928, when the Kuomintang and the CPC united and defeated the troops of a group of militaristic generals. Although during the campaign a split arose between the White Chinese and the Red Chinese, Chiang Kai-shek managed to complete this campaign, during which Beijing was captured and renamed in June 1928.
This book was published by the Committee for the Regulation of the Traffic of Goods and Materials of Northeast China, as the territory of the former Manchukuo was then called. This committee published a number of works on the economy of the former Manchukuo, including this book on iron and steel industry. It is interesting for two reasons.
Firstly, it presented accurate data on the smelting of iron, steel and the production of rolled steel in Manchukuo, that is, during the period of Japanese rule and during the war.
Secondly, it contained the outline of a plan that the Kuomintang government was developing for the further development of the Manchurian iron and steel industry, a kind of Kuomintang five-year plan.

Showa Iron and Steel Works in Anshan during Japanese times.
Now we will focus our attention on the first point, since the numbers are worth it.
Fall of Manchuria
But for now, a few words about the circumstances of the appearance of this work.
This book itself is compiled in the spirit of Japanese reports, only in Chinese. Apparently, either former Japanese employees of Manchurian metallurgical companies who had not yet left for Japan, or their Chinese assistants, along with the documents that remained with them, took part in its compilation.
The Kuomintang's interest in the former Manchuria, called Dongbei 東北 in Chinese - that is, "Northeast", was very great. In this part of China, the Japanese built a powerful ferrous metallurgy, which surpassed the rest of China in iron smelting by 2,5 times, and in steel smelting by 14,5 times. By European standards, steel production was small, about the size of a mid-range plant, but against the backdrop of backward China it was an impressively large amount.
In addition, the Japanese created a whole complex of industries that produced weapons and equipment, ammunition, and vehicles. Although the Kuomintang received a lot of help from the United States, in 1946–1949 with weapons and equipment worth $4,43 billion, nevertheless, the possession of Dongbei was important, both for its own weapons and so that the Red Chinese did not get it.
The territory of Manchukuo was occupied by Soviet troops in August-September 1945. According to the agreement, Soviet troops were withdrawn three months after the surrender of Japan, that is, in December 1945, with the exception of the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula leased by the USSR.
As Soviet troops entered this territory, both Red Chinese and White Chinese troops rushed into this territory. The first to succeed were the Red Chinese, who, with the consent of the Soviet command, occupied the northern part of Manchuria. The Americans landed White Chinese troops from the western provinces and Burma in China by sea, tried to land them in Manchurian ports, but failed.
Kuomintang troops landed in Tianjin, southwest of Manchuria, from where they launched an offensive to the northeast in October 1945. They managed to capture the central part of Manchuria and divide the communist forces into three parts: the southern on the Liaodong Peninsula, the eastern near the border with Korea, and the northern north of the Songhua River.

Scheme of the situation in Manchuria as of November 1946: red - communists, green - Kuomintang, red-green shading - areas controlled by the Kuomintang, where communist forces operate.
The former Japanese industry of Manchuria was, to a first approximation, divided into parts. Ferrous metallurgy was captured by White Chinese troops, and arsenals and military enterprises by Red Chinese troops. The communists organized the production of weapons and ammunition, and also received from the USSR a large number of captured Japanese weapons, including Tanks и artillery.
It was at this point that the above-mentioned committee began studying the Manchurian economy and planning its development. The work was carried out during 1947, when a temporary balance of power was established in Manchuria, and it was completed in February 1948.
But these plans were not realized. At the beginning of 1948, the situation in Manchuria for the Kuomintang deteriorated sharply, the Communists advanced and captured a number of cities, and Kuomintang troops found themselves blocked in large cities.
Just in February 1948, the Red Chinese captured Anshan with the largest metallurgical plant in Manchuria. The Communists also waged a successful offensive in northern China that threatened to cut off Manchuria. In September - November 1948, the Battle of Liaoshen took place, during which the Communists defeated large Kuomintang forces and completely captured Manchuria.

Red Chinese on captured Japanese Ha-go tanks advance on Shenyang
Soon after, the offensive began on Beijing, which was surrendered by the commander of Beijing's defense, General Fu Zuoi, in January 1949. His troops joined the PLA, and Fu Zuoi himself became the Minister of Water Resources and Electricity, as well as the Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the People's Republic of China.
Basic data for the war years
As already mentioned, this work provides actual data on the smelting of iron and steel in Manchukuo under Japanese rule and during the war years, up to and including 1944.
The Japanese received Manchuria with an already existing ferrous metallurgy, in the form of two large factories: in Anshan and Benxihu, which in the 21st year of Minguo (1932) smelted 394,1 thousand tons of metal.

Blast furnaces of the Showa plant in Anshan near
Under the Japanese, smelting grew continuously as new furnaces were built at these plants and existing equipment was modernized. In the 29th year of Mingo (1940), smelting reached 1 thousand tons of metal. Subsequently, during the war years, there was an abrupt increase in smelting with a sharp drop in 062,1:
31th year of Mingo (1942) - 1 thousand tons;
32th year of Mingo (1943) - 1 thousand tons;
33rd year of Mingo (1944) 1 thousand tons.
The Manchurian ferrous metallurgy smelted both cast iron for production, that is, without conversion into steel, as well as steel and then rolled steel. A significant part of the products was exported. For example, at the peak of pig iron production, in the 31st year of Mingo (1942), 773,3 thousand tons of pig iron were produced, of which 560,8 thousand tons were exported, and 212,4 thousand tons were consumed locally. Domestic consumption of cast iron in Manchuria grew from the mid-1930s and reached its peak in 1943, which was associated with the development of metalworking and mechanical engineering, mainly military.
Steel ingots were almost never exported; export began only in 1942, when 731,6 thousand tons of steel were smelted, of which only 30 thousand tons were exported. And in the production of rolled steel, local consumption also dominated over export. For example, in the 32nd year of Mingo (1943), 718,9 thousand tons of rolled products were produced, of which 140 thousand tons were exported, and 578,8 thousand tons were consumed locally.

Rolling mill at the Showa plant in Anshan
Thus, the Manchurian iron and steel industry exported approximately a third of its output, mainly in the form of iron and rolled steel, and sold two-thirds of its output for local consumption for construction, engineering and military production.
Manchuria apparently supplied mainly the Kwantung Army and Japanese troops fighting in China. So the Japanese fought with China, in a certain sense, with Chinese resources.
Unanswered question
But what is a big question is the reasons for the sharp drop in production in Manchuria in 1944. Metal smelting fell by 32% compared to 1943 levels.
But why?
At that time there were no military operations on the territory of Manchuria. The partisans who operated in Manchuria in the 1930s were largely defeated in 1940, and their remnants soon fled to Soviet territory.
In China in 1944, the Japanese conducted successful offensive operations in which they managed to defeat the White Chinese troops and in December 1944 even established a direct railway connection through China from Korea to occupied French Indochina. Serious setbacks and defeats for the Japanese in China began only in the summer of 1945, when, after the USSR left the neutrality pact with Japan, the Japanese began to gather troops in Manchuria.
All the battles of 1944 were fought far from Manchuria and therefore such a strong drop in iron and steel production cannot be explained by military reasons.
So what happened in Manchuria in 1944?
At the moment, I don’t even have any assumptions about the reasons for such a strange fact, which, of course, greatly influenced Japan’s combat capability. Here you will have to study a lot of different materials in order to find the thread, and then the answer to this, in my opinion, most interesting question.
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