Gao Yao

Gao Yao (Chinese: 趙高; died 2107) was an eunuch and Prime Minister of Japan of Chinese descendance. Considered as one of the most corrupt, villainous, violent and powerful eunuchs in world history, Gao Yao played an instrumental role in the downfall of the Japanese Empire. 
A cruel and ambitious man, he engineered military takeovers of East Asia under the guise of humanitarian relief that led to the Vietnam War and Pacific War. Despite maintaining high domestic approval, Gao Yao's leadership turned the country into an international pariah, and he was charged with war crimes under United Nations Resolution 14.
==Rise to Power==
===Early Life===
Gao Yao as born in 2050. His parents were Chinese. At school, Gao Yao showed great intellectual potential and was extremely popular with fellow pupils as well as being admired for his leadership qualities. However, Gao Yao's parents committed crimes and were punished. Gao Yao was castrated and became a Palace Eunuch.
After enduring humiliation and bullying, he won the favor of the Emperor through his excellent culinary skills and became a high-ranking official. Emperor Iwao valued Gao Yao since he was an expert in law. Gao enjoyed a steady rise in position.
===Coup===
At the end of the reign of Emperor Iwao in 2095, Gao was involved in a Palace Coup. Following the sudden death of the Emperor, Gao Yao and Prime Minister Takeshi Ruchang persuaded the emperor's youngest son Hirohito to falsify the emperor's will. The fake decree forced his elder brother Oyama to commit suicide and stripped officers loyal to him of their command. 
Emperor Hirohito depended on Gao so much so that he acted as a puppet emperor. After one tour, Gao Yao suggested he examine the governors and military commandants and punish those who are guilty of some crime. By doing so he could do away with those who disapproved of the emperor's actions. The emperor remained in the inner palaces, and consulted only with Gao Yao, who was appointed Prime Minister. Because of this, the ministers rarely had the opportunity to see the emperor in court.
===Calling a deer a horse===
Gao Yao, in an attempt to control the government, devised a loyalty test for court officials using a deer and horse. He brought a deer and presented it to the Emperor but called it a horse. The Emperor laughed and said, "Is the Prime Minister perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?" Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Gao Yao, said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Gao Yao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law and had them executed instantly. Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Gao Yao. Gao Yao gained military power as a result of that.
===Execution of Ruchang===
Two years later, in 2097, Gao Yao killed Takeshi Ruchang, his former ally, executing him via "The Five Pains" method. The method consisted of having the victim's nose cut off, cutting off a hand and a foot, then the victim was castrated and finally cut in half in line with the waist. He also executed Ruchang's family down to the third generation.
===Prime Minister===
As Prime Minister, Gao Yao began in 2098 an aggressive campaign to expand and modernize the Japanese army. The massive armament policy almost led to full employment during the late 2090s and early 2100s. Unemployment fell from six million in 2099 to one million in 2102. Gao Yao also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in Japanese history, leading to the construction of dams, railroads, and other civil works, but wages were slightly lower than before. 
==Invasion of China==
===Initial Invasion===
In summer 2104, Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China in what it claimed was a peacekeeping mission to end anarchy and warlordism and restore "free trade". The operation immediately came under international scrutiny as its methodology resembled military conquest rather than humanitarian aid, and the United Arab Republic denounced what it claimed was an opportunistic land grab.
Japanese soldiers landed in the ports of Zhejiang and in Taiwan and faced little resistance from the peasant armies of the Warlords. The Japanese Air Force bombarded several military bases and economic and communication centers in Taiwan, where more than 900 tons of bombs were thrown.
In a location known just as the Crane village in Taiwan, more than 300 Chinese soldiers and irregulars fortified and faced in house to house urban combat 5,000 Japanese soldiers. The casualties were huge, as more than 32 Japanese soldiers died and 120 were injured. The commander of the forces was reluctant to use artillery or call the air force, in fear of civilian casualties, as many villagers had not left their homes. However, after many days of brutal combat, victory for Japan was secured.
===Offensive in Jiangsu===
In autumn 2104, Toyotomi Hideyioshi was appointed Marshall and took command of Japanese forces in China, which were made up by the Army Groups VI, VIII and IX of the Imperial Japanese Army. The Japanese army in China was reorganized as the Imperial Mainland Japanese Army and it's Army Groups were renamed Army Groups I, II and III.
Toyotomi Hideyioshi begun a military operation in Jiangsu, with the goal of gradually securing all of the East China coastline and defeating the Chinese Warlord Sun Ce, who commanded an army of 200,000 men, mostly untrained and badly equipped conscripted peasants, and who was in control of Jiangsu, Shandong and Hainan.
The offensive was made up of an armored thrust spearheaded by 6 armored brigades. The offensive was supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Air Force, who bombarded military HQs and economic and communication centers in all of Jiangsu.
===Hainan Island Operation===
Hainan Island lies midway between Indochina and Hong Kong, occupying a position south of the Leizhou Peninsula across the Strait of Hainan. The 33,920 km2 (13,100 sq mi) Hainan Island had a population of 2,200,000 at the time. The island was guarded by the 152nd Division of Su Ce's army, approximately 25,000 strong, under the command of Yu Hanmou, who was in charge of peace preservation in Kwangtung Province.
Escorting a convoy, the Japanese South China Naval Force (Fifth Fleet) commanded by Vice Admiral Kondo Nobutake entered and anchored in Tsinghai Bay on the northern shore of Hainan Island at midnight on 9 September 2104 and carried out a successful landing. In addition, Navy land combat units effected a landing at Haikou at 12:00 on 10 September. Thereafter, the Army and Navy forces acted in concert to mop up the northern zone. On 11 September the land combat units landed at Samah (Sanya) at the southern extremity of Hainan Island and occupied the key positions of Yulin and Yai-Hsien. Thereafter, the units engaged in the occupation and subjugation of the entire island.
Chinese Communists under Feng Baiju and the native Li people of Hainan fought a vigorous guerrilla campaign against the Japanese occupation, but in retaliation over one third of the male population were killed by the Japanese.
===Offensive in Shandong===
In winter 2104, a new great offensive begun in Coastal China. This time Five Army Groups (Army Groups I, II, III, VII and IX) of the Imperial Japanese Mainland Army (IJMA), supported by one Army Group of the Imperial Japanese Army (Army Group V), twelve Marine Corps, twenty Armored Brigades, six Battleships and three Carriers carrying over thirty Fighters and twenty Bombers begun the largest yet Japanese offensive in China, with the goal of defeating Sun Ce once and for all.
The operation begun with a two weeks long bombardment of Sun Ce's forces and economic and military centers. Then, in only three weeks, the Japanese army managed to takeover Shandong. Sun Ce himself was trapped by Japanese marines and committed suicide.
With the fall of Shandong, the Imperial Japanese Mainland Army begun preparations for a new offensive. The Japanese Navy bombarded Hebei with cruise missiles as a preparation for a campaign against warlord Cao Qing, who had declared himself Emperor in Beijing. However, Tianjin was captured only in spring 2105, because Japan was more focused on it's intervention in Vietnam and operations in China subsided.
===War Crimes===
Approximately 3.9 million Chinese were killed, mostly civilians, as a direct result of the Japanese operations. Special Japanese military units conducted experiments on civilians and POWs in China. One of the most infamous was Unit 731 under Shirō Ishii. Unit 731 was established by order of Gao Yao himself. Victims were subjected to experiments including but not limited to vivisection and amputations without anesthesia and testing of biological weapons. Anesthesia was not used because it was believed that anesthetics would adversely affect the results of the experiments. The number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000.
==Vietnamese Campaign==
===Intervention in Vietnam===
Following reports of mass atrocities in Vietnam, Japan launched an identical mission to the region. The action was initially supported by the Roman Empire and Texarkanan Mayorate, but Monaco denounced what it saw as overly aggressive behavior by Japanese forces that included systematic and largely indiscriminate bombing of civil infrastructure, as well as use of the 'freed' citizens for cheap labor.
===Withdrawal from the UN===
In order to ensure further international intervention adhered to humanitarian auspices, the United Nations established a peacekeeping mission shortly afterwards, but Japan refused to recognize the mission's legitimacy. Japan's international reputation rapidly deteriorated in the wake of the Rosemary incident that winter, when Texark intelligence revealed that the Imperial Japanese Navy was under standing orders to prevent UN ships from entering the Gulf of Tonkin. This led to Japan's suspension from the General Assembly in spring of 2105. Gao Yao decried what he called an "international conspiracy" masterminded by the United Arab Republic, and Japan withdrew from the United Nations shortly afterward.
===Early hostilities in Vietnam===
In an attempt to deflect the charges of colonialism, Japan reconstituted its Vietnamese territories as the nominally independent Empire of Vietnam, although the government had virtually no real power and received no official recognition beyond Japan. Following the announcement that Japanese forces would not discriminate between UN forces and northern warlords, the United Arab Republic severed diplomatic relations with Tokyo over what it decried as deliberate belligerence intended to undermine peacekeeping efforts, shortly followed by New Rhodesia. The Platonic Republic responded by adopting a militant hardline that led to its expulsion from UNVIFOR over concerns Greek brinkmanship was compromising the mission's mandate.
Undaunted, Athens dispatched a convoy to relieve the Hanoi Council that summer that was attacked and routed while passing through Japanese-controlled waters, resulting in heavy damage to the fleet and the capture of numerous Greek soldiers, leading to a hasty peace settlement in which Athens pledged to refrain from further activity in Vietnam. In a separate incident, Japanese forces killed Irish aid workers operating in a UN-held border town in the Central Highlands Region. Although Tokyo issued an official apology and provided monetary compensation to the Irish government, the action was widely held as deliberate aggression, leading to official sanctions and spurring UNVIFOR sponsor states to increase their troop commitment.
==Start of Pacific War==
===Assault on Ho Chi Minh City===
On 18 July 2105, Japan launched a full-scale amphibious assault on Ho Chi Minh City, beginning the Vietnam War. The Japanese air force made indiscriminate use of napalm on the Northeast Region, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties, but the attack spurred the Hanoi Council to surrender to the peacekeepers and a joint front thwarted the ground assault. An amphibious assault on UN headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City forced the peacekeepers from the region and resulted in partial encirclement of Irish and UAR forces in the highlands to the north. The attack provided a pretext for war by each of the mission's sponsor states, including Japan's ally Indo-Persia, which promptly withdrew from the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, followed soon after by Gangnam. The People's Republic of Sichuan, meanwhile, delivered an ultimatum demanding Japanese withdrawal from China, and declared war after receiving no reply.
===Fall offensives and expansion of UN mandate===
Allied intelligence uncovered the existence of pre-Cataclysm nuclear arsenals in the north and south of Vietnam, and UNVIFOR scrambled to fend off a second Japanese assault while the warheads were removed to Laos. Despite high casualties and eventual UN retreat from the Northeast Region, the arsenal was secured. Meanwhile in the south, a combined Malaccan-Texark fleet confronted the Imperial Japanese Navy, sustaining heavy losses but allowing a two-pronged counteroffensive that reclaimed the Mekong River Delta. In response to Japan's total war doctrine, the United Nations adopted Resolution 12 authorizing aggressive force against Japanese-held territories, and that officially renounced the legitimacy of the Empire of Vietnam. The United Arab Republic deployed two fresh corps to Vietnam to relieve it's expedition; while they operated under al-Karimi's command, they were not officially part of the UNVIFOR unit.
===Chinese Offensive===
On the Chinese Eastern Front, there was significantly less success for the UN, with the might of Japan’s army being able to display itself fully. In many of the pitched battles, the Japanese overran the Chinese army. 
Meanwhile, Gangnam troops were more successful against the Japanese and secured the city of Tianjin and the surrounding area. This area was incorporated into the Transitionary State of Beijing. During lulls in the battle for control of Tianjin, Japanese troops took out their anger and frustration on the innocent civilians in the city; various credible Western and Eastern sources agree that the death toll of the Massacre of Tianjin was at least 100,000 to 120,000, including children and babies brutally killed by the Japanese, tallying to around 10% of the population of the city.
===Operation Devil-Fish===
Greece rejoined the war in the winter shortly after Rome recalled its UN contingent over its criticisms of the Allies' "slow" progress. In an attempt to relieve pressure on the main front and sever Japanese supply lines, both countries organized an amphibious assault on Taiwan. The campaign was intended to be commanded by Greek general Xylon Toto, but he was attacked during passage through the Suez Canal by Libyan separatists and hospitalized in Cairo, turning command over to Emperor Andreas, who had decided to lead the troops from the front. The invasion fleet came under early attack by the IJN, and the landing was an unmitigated disaster as Andreas was cut down in the first wave. The force quickly retreated but was intercepted again, resulting in the near-total destruction of both countries' armed forces and humiliating peace settlements the following year.
===Winter stalemate in Vietnam===
Following the death of Mayor Hannegan that winter, Texarkana adopted a regionalist foreign policy leading to an about-face on its international commitments. It abruptly withdrew from UNVIFOR, making white peace with Japan over what it claimed was a "mutual threat" posed by Greek involvement. The action was widely condemned by its former allies, and its subsequent defiance of Resolution 14 and withdrawal from the UN led to rapid deterioration of international face.
Allied forces, meanwhile, continued to push northward in Vietnam during the winter of 2105, but began to encounter heavy fortifications built with Vietnamese slave labour. More than 100,000 civilians died in the construction of the fortifications. Japanese offensives in the northern regions managed to force a UN withdrawal into Laos, but they were in turn expelled from the Northeast by a fully-mobilized Chinese army.
==Path to defeat==
===Spring campaign and Japanese withdrawal===
Japan continued fortifying its shrinking holdings in Vietnam, and rumors began circulating that the military was deliberately infecting prisoners of war with biological agents. Fearing a widespread contamination trap, the Allies initially withheld further advance, but intelligence revealed the Japanese were withdrawing en masse to reinforce the Chinese front. UN forces launched a mass push to Hanoi in spring of 2106, in a bid to catch the retreat as the Allied navy moved to intercept the convoy; while replenished Allied fleets were still unevenly-matched with the IJN, the Japanese had completely withdrawn their air support and the convoy was devastated by bombing runs. Without Japanese protection, the Vietnamese puppet government imploded.
===Rape of Hanoi===
UN troops entered Hanoi to find the city literally destroyed and nearly the entire population murdered; search and rescue effort uncovered only 124 survivors. It is estimated over 200,000 Vietnamese were killed in the incident. 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly. A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo, or other objects into the vagina. Young children were not exempt from these atrocities, and were cut open to allow Japanese soldiers to rape them. The atrocities further hardened the resolve of combatants in the ongoing Pacific War.
===Nuclear strike on Cairo===
As the UN liberated Vietnam, a Japanese nuclear missile hit Cairo. Within the first two to four months of the bombing, the acute effects killed 166,000 people; roughly half of the deaths in occurred on the first day. The nuclear attack also had disastrous ecological effects on the water of the Nile. The nuclear attack led the UN to officially declare Japan a rogue state, and Gao Yao and his government were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
===Defeats in China===
On the Chinese front, the tactical ingenuity of China’s forces allowed them to gain the upper hand against overwhelming Japanese forces arrayed against them. With the help of Gangnam from the north, the advances of Japan were stopped and in Southern China, the Chinese even managed to make gains against the enemy. Another attempt to attack Taiwan was made and once again it was repulsed, gaining Taiwan the fame of an impregnable fortress.
==Defeat and death==
===Prince of Tokyo===
With Gao Yao refusing to surrender and with more than 2 million Japanese troops in China ready to continue fighting until the very last man, the Allies knew that they had to take extreme measures to force a Japanese surrender. Industrial sabotage took place on a massive scale and chemical and biological warfare was employed upon the Japanese civilian population by the Allies. Over 4 million people died. The attack crippled the Japanese economy and army.
Nevertheless, Gao Yao continued to amass power after the chemical attack led to the deaths of many government ministers whose offices he promptly seized. The chemical attack also led to a brief surge in popular support; Gao Yao was declared Prince of Tokyo by an Imperial Decree.
===Final offensive===
The same season, Japan launched a new desperate offensive in China, but it was cut short by China’s defensive strategies. The Japanese large vehicles and their huge army attempted to move forwards, only to find cities that had been evacuated and turned into fortresses. The countryside was similarly transformed and Japanese advances were negligible. With Japan’s forces focused in Mainland China, Hainan was easily liberated by Chinese troops.
===Collapse===
Meanwhile, the Allies continued with increased savagery the chemical attacks and mass poisoning took place in the Japanese food industry, killing two more million people. With the threat of imminent death hundreds of thousands of Japanese flocked to the docks intending to commandeer ships to the safety of Korea. The Japanese military and police stepped in, trying to stop the rush. However the crowds were too large and soon overwhelmed the government forces. Tens of thousands died on the docks in the struggle to get on board a ship. It was a free for all. Boats were leaving port overflowing with people; many went on to sink before even leaving the mouth of the port. It was then that the Japanese military stepped in in full force, stopping boats and keeping people away from the docks using tanks and large numbers of troops. Of the few boats that made it out of the ports the majority sunk on their way to Korea, 4 that did make it across were then accidentally destroyed by a Gangnam coastguard vessel who thought it was a Japanese attack.
===Death===
With Japan's fighting capability on the verge of collapse by year's end and Gao Yao stubbornly refusing to surrender, rebellions rose one after another across Japan, provoking a brief but bloody civil war. A large group of Japanese military personnel declared the Government incompetent and the cause of the tragic losses of the population. Gao Yao’s forces slowly decreased after the outbreak of civil war and begun losing ground.
Gao Yao was afraid that the Emperor might make him responsible for the defeats in the Pacific War and the uprisings. To preempt this, Gao Yao forced the emperor to commit suicide and installed his nephew, Oyama's son Shiro, as the new emperor. Shiro, however, knew that Gao Yao intended to kill him afterwards to appease the rebels, so he feigned illness on the day of the coronation, 12 January 2107, which forced Gao Yao to arrive at his residence to persuade him to attend. The moment Gao Yao arrived, Shiro, along with his two sons, immediately killed Gao Yao. The Japanese Empire unravelled soon after.