HOI4 communist china guide

I've been playing communist China a lot recently, and I wanted to share my experience. So, here goes:

Research electronic engineering and production methods. After that, research better guns, artillery and support, and industry. Tanks aren't of much use but planes are.

immediately justify war on Shanxi and then Xibei San Ma and Sinkiang, in that order. Don't go for the war goal focus since that takes too long. Once you can declare war, they will have plenty of defense gaps, so just take as much of their territory as you please before they capitulate. On civilian difficulty, you should be able to to defeat all three around the time Japan declares war. When Jiang is captured, ally with him against the Japanese. If the Japanese attack before you can get your divisions to the front, wait until your divisions are in position and entrenched before joining the war.

You should always get Zhu De as your military advisor, because of the extra army experience. Then, research trench warfare for the bonus entrenchment, but save xp for other doctrines later. Oh and also build a supply hub in your province closest to Japan, and use the decision to get it done faster. And build civ factories first. For division templates, you'll want to make them progressively more complex as you gain industry, starting with just 9 infantry battalions and a single company of support artillery, then adding engineer and recon companies, then switching to multiple battalions of line artillery as well as adding more infantry.

The first year or so of war against Japan will be the hardest. if you're lucky, nationalist China will hold well and not lose any ground to the Japanese, in which case you should be able to hold off the Japanese attacks on your land fairly well, although you might need to reposition troops to help with hard battles. After Japan loses enough steam and you've built up your forces, attack their plains provinces and try to go for a mass encirclement . You should be able to easily destroy a large chunk of the Japanese army this way, and then pushing to Korea with the 100 regiments offensive decision should be a piece of cake.

If Nationalist China falls back, however, you'll have a hard time defending. In this scenario, fall back to a river and build your army up slowly until the Japanese advance halts. Then, attack and encircle. After Japan capitulates, immediately go down people's war doctrine if you haven't already. Guerilla warfare is very OP for defense and will be useful when fighting nationalist China.

Get infiltration and infiltrate Beijing or any other province to level 3, then launch communist uprisings so you'll be able to go to war without China placing troops at your border. As long as you have enough (90-ish) divisions, you should be able to easily defeat nationalist China and the warlords. Also get collaboration government in Tibet before invading, it will make compliance much easier.