Republic of Korea in Yeokcheon - Chapter 324



Only Krnovel

#324. The Republic of China is allied with the Chinese Communist Party?

Sunday, March 7, 1965.

Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.

Since the founding of the Republic of Korea, Changwon has been designated as a military industrial complex, and the entire city has been no different from a factory producing huge weapons.

Even though it was Sunday, the factories in Changwon were running with a blast of heat.

“Why did line 3 stop!”

Factory manager Kim Il-soo noticed that one line had stopped and asked nervously.

“Motor assembly supply has been interrupted.”

“why!”

“That, that was a worker’s mistake… … .”

“You guys! If you keep doing this, you won’t be able to meet the delivery schedule! Who’s the foreman over there?”

“This is Jo Deok-pal!”

“First, turn the line around as quickly as possible, and then find out the cause and report back!”

“All right.”

It didn’t matter if it was Sunday or not.

In order to meet the delivery deadline ordered by the government, we had to work overtime, and overtime again.

This phenomenon was not limited to this factory that produced armored vehicles.

The entire Changwon area was sweating day and night, even on weekends.

In addition to Changwon, all cities in South Korea that had factories producing weapons and ammunition, such as the ammunition factory in Angang and the shipyard in Ulsan, were the same.

Government orders, which had begun to increase from the end of 1963, reached a peak in 1965, to the point where it seemed like a wartime situation, and production began at a frantic pace.

This is exactly the advantage of South Korea at present.

In the 20 years since its foundation, South Korea has industrialized at a frightening pace and boasted tremendous industrial production capacity.

This is why Hyundai Rodem, which boasts the largest tank production capacity in the modern era, could produce between 100 and 200 tanks per year, but now it can produce thousands of tanks per year.

This was possible because tanks were produced on a line similar to that of automobiles.

And Yang Hyeon-jun, the head of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, which oversees all of the defense industry, was also working hard, giving up his weekends.

“What good is just shooting weapons! Ammunition! Ammunition! What is this 155mm ammunition? Shoot more!”

“How many pictures do you want me to take?”

“Just take pictures! As many as you can!”

Chief Yang Hyeon-jun, who was also a member of the expedition team, knew well how many 155mm shells were consumed during the modern war between Ukraine and Russia.

But this time, the reason for this obsession was because an all-out war against China was approaching.

“War is decided by logistics! Got it? Don’t worry about the budget! Whether it’s 155mm or 105mm, just shoot! Keep shooting!”

“All right.”

While the Korean military industry was going crazy like this, September, the hot summer passed and fall began.

September 2, 1965.

The Blue House.

“Prime Minister Goh, are the preparations going well?”

“You don’t have to worry. We are increasing the intensity of training soldiers, and production of weapons and military supplies has already reached maximum capacity.”

“Okay, just take it easy for a while.”

“Hahaha! What, all of a sudden.”

“By the way, what are their movements, Director Cho?”

“Starting in July, the South and the North have been showing signs of closer cooperation.”

“But we also do joint training together?”

“Not to that extent yet. Right now, we have communications links and the two countries’ staffs are secretly meeting to conduct field training.”

“Well, it’s not yet time for them to openly touch us. Especially not the Republic of China.”

“you’re right.”

“Then I guess they still think the secret is being kept?”

“Yes, that’s right. They have no idea that we’re looking down on them.”

It’s been over 20 years since we came down with modern technology.

At first, they had to rely solely on imported equipment, but as the industrial base took hold and time passed, they began to produce equipment that was almost as good as modern equipment, and in some cases even superior.

This is because the technicians who came down with us did not play around but went on to develop it further.

No matter how hard China tried to keep it secret, the South Korean government was receiving information almost in real time.

“Then, on the other hand, do they know that we are preparing for war?”

“I feel like it’s a little suspicious, but I don’t know the details. Did the defense budget get made public, or did someone involved in production make a fuss about it on the internet? In addition, the entire military-industrial complex is off-limits to outsiders, and there are strict crackdowns on leaking confidential information. It might be possible in the 21st century, but in this day and age, there’s no way they’d know.”

“It’s a good world for war, isn’t it? Let’s say it was like modern times. How can we keep the weapons and military supplies we’re producing like crazy secret?”

“Hahaha! That’s right.”

“haha!”

It was truly a great world for war.

In modern times, at least in democratic countries, all government actions would have to be revealed and made public.

First of all, it would have been inevitable that the preparation for war would be made public during the National Assembly’s budget review process, and anyone involved in the production of weapons and military supplies would have gone online and made a fuss, either anonymously or with their real names, about the suspicious nature of the production.

Even modern China, no matter how much it tried to keep things secret, could not stop commercial satellites from taking pictures of aircraft carriers under construction at the Dalian Shipyard and publishing them on the Internet.

But not now.

The Republic of Korea is clearly a democratic republic, but times are what they are.

And Lee Kang-cheol and the government intentionally adopted a somewhat authoritarian style of governance from the beginning up to a certain point.

Because totalitarian rule was effective, at least until they had fought the large-scale war they had anticipated and planned.

So, although the government budget was reported to and controlled by the House of Representatives, at least with regard to the defense budget, it was treated as a sanctuary, and the House members did not find it strange to do so.

Moreover, government revenues were not entirely dependent on taxes.

The budget could be executed in strict secrecy because there were separate astronomical amounts of income from sovereign wealth funds, oil field development, and Century Holdings.

So, if you wanted to, there was virtually no way for the outside world to know.

“Should we start preparing our allies too?”

“We are doing so. We are concerned that the secret will leak out, so we have only informed the leaders of the top allies that there will be a war with China, but since we have been conducting joint training for a long time, there should not be any problems.”

“If we are talking about first-class allies, then it would be Vietnam, Burma, the Philippines, the East Turkistan Republic of Xinjiang and the Republic of Tibet, right?”

“Yes. Although the Baiyue Republic in Guangxi and the Dali Republic in Yunnan have leaders and citizens who are friendly to our country, they still have a considerable proportion of Han Chinese, and their national systems are not perfect, so they were excluded.”

The Baiyue Republic in Guangxi and the Dali Republic in Yunnan are countries that gained independence from the Republic of Korea at the end of the Chinese Civil War.

The names of both countries have changed several times over the past dozen years, including Guangxi, Zhang, and Yunnan. In the end, Guangxi and Yunnan were abandoned due to criticism that they were names created by China, and it was decided that it would be better to use the names of the countries that existed in the region in the past, so they became the Baiyue Republic and Dali Republic.

Whatever the name, these two countries had a somewhat ambiguous position in South Korea. This was because, although the leadership and the people strongly supported South Korea, the South Korean government still did not trust the Han Chinese who were still entrenched in all walks of life, so they were considered one level lower militarily.

“As for those two countries, if they just pretend to deploy a certain amount of troops along the border, I think they’ve done their job.”

“Hahaha! That’s right.”

These are countries that were made independent in order to tear China apart.

If we just maintain independence and keep China in check, that’s enough to fulfill our role.

“Anyway, we are rushing to provide weapons to our first-tier allies. We are refurbishing and handing over all second-tier ground weapons, aircraft, and naval vessels below the Gearing class.”

“Yes, even if they are first-class allies, don’t give them sensitive weapons. If we do that wrong, it could boomerang and hit us in the back of the head.”

“Yes, we do. Even among first-tier allies, there are internal rankings. For example, Vietnam is the highest-ranking, and below that are Burma and the Philippines.”

“East Turks and Tibet are a bit like that?”

“That’s right. East Turkism seems to be getting closer to Turkey and other Turkic peoples and Muslim countries. Of course, if it’s China, they’ll grind their teeth.”

“Tibet doesn’t have that, but the country itself doesn’t have much presence. The population is also very small.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. You just have to be on one side of the encirclement.”

“all right.”

I didn’t have high expectations for East Turkestan or Tibet in Xinjiang either, so I didn’t have much to be disappointed about.

All that was needed was to disperse the Chinese forces to the north and west.

“Thailand… … .”

“Okay, they just have to stay still.”

“Okay. Then, what should Japan do?”

“What are they going to do?”

“doesn’t exist.”

“Then don’t report anything.”

“All right.”

Although Japan has developed considerably since the normalization of diplomatic relations with South Korea, it has left nothing to be desired militarily.

This was because they still had limited armament, did not have a proper army, and had no reason to go to war with China due to their location.

“Okay! Then, shall we start poking Chiang Kai-shek? Hey, Minister Park Jae-seung.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Have you reached an agreement with the United States?”

“Yes, Secretary of State Dean Rusk cooperated, saying he was under the direction of President Kennedy.”

“When did we decide to do it?”

“We decided to do it on September 8th, Washington DC time.”

“okay!”

10:00 a.m. local time in Washington, D.C., September 8, 1965.

U.S. Secretary of State David Dean Rusk called an unscheduled press conference.

“We have learned that the Republic of China has violated COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) guidelines by selling sensitive industrial products, including machine tools, to the Chinese Communist Party. Accordingly, we are consulting with our allies to impose economic sanctions on the Republic of China.”

“What are you talking about? The Republic of China that we saved is now allied with the Chinese Communist Party?”

“No, how dare these guys!”

The United States was in uproar, and Congress asked the State Department to produce evidence about it.

Then, numerous pieces of evidence appear as if they had been prepared.

The Republic of China was left unable to even evade its responsibility.

Eventually, the Republic of China was subject to strong economic sanctions from the United States, South Korea at the request of the United States, and European countries including the United Kingdom.