Battlefield Pacific

Eastern Alliance Reckoning

President Xi wasn’t in a panic just yet, but he was having some serious doubts about the outcome of the war. Just one year ago, it had looked like Operation Red Storm was truly going to prevail. While defeat was not certain, victory was not nearly as guaranteed as it had been just a few months ago. The loss of their navy meant they could not keep control of the Philippines. It also meant holding on to Formosa was going to be incredibly difficult. His generals had told him the Americans would probably launch an invasion of Formosa before the beginning of the typhoon season, which meant they didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. As it was, they were using nearly every vessel they could to ferry munitions, food and other supplies to the island before the Americans completely cut it off.

Sensing his generals staring at him, President Xi stared back at Vice Admiral Ning Sheng, the head of the PLA Navy, and then General Xu Ding, the head of the PLA Air Force.

“I’ve got half a mind to have these men shot,” he thought, “but I need their expertise if we are to try and salvage this war.”

He took a deep breath and tried a more constructive approach. “Admiral, what more can the Navy do to prevent, or at least contest, the inevitable American invasion of Formosa?” he inquired, not taking his eyes off his top navy man.

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Admiral Shen obviously knew he’d have to account for his defeat in the Philippine Sea. Even though his forces had sunk a second American carrier and severely damaged two more, they had been unable to defeat the Americans, and as a consequence had lost nearly eighty percent of his entire surface navy — the navy they had spent the last twenty years building.

“I have ordered our forces to defend the coasts,” Admiral Ning responded. “The few remaining submarines I have will operate near our waters and will focus on attacking the American invasion force. We’ve also moved the remaining Dongfeng-21 anti-ship ballistic missiles to protect Formosa. I’ve commandeered nearly every ship I could to transport as much supplies as we can to our ground forces there as well. I can’t guarantee that the Americans won’t severe our supply lines once they begin their invasion, so we’re doing our best to make sure the army has as large a supply store built up as possible.”

Xi took the information in and briefly made eye contact with Chairman Zhang, who was taking notes, before he turned to look at his Air Force general. “The Americans are gearing up for a major offensive in the Russian Far East and look to make a second attempt to break out of the Korean Peninsula. What is the status of your forces, and what are you doing to slow or stop this from happening?”

General Xu puffed his chest out a bit. “Mr. President, while we haven’t secured air supremacy over the Korean Peninsula, we’ve achieved near parity with the Americans, South Koreans, and Japanese Air Force through working in concert with our surface-to-air missile systems. We’ve built a multilayered air-defense system that has made it nearly impossible for the Allied air forces to attack further than ten miles from the front lines.”

President Xi’s face soured. “General, if that were true, then why are American stealth bombers and their B-1 Lancers still hitting our factories and other critical aspects of our economy? The continued destruction of key rail tunnels, roads, and bridges is making it incredibly difficult to transport goods and materials around the country, let alone to support our military fronts. What are you doing to stop this?” he demanded.

“We’re working on that, Mr. President,” said Xu, a bit more conciliatory. “We know the location the Americans are launching their stealth bombers out of now, and plan on hitting those bases with our new H-20 bombers. We just took delivery of six more a month ago, and now have them ready for combat. We’ve been hesitant to use them up to this point because we didn’t have enough of them to really carry out an effective raid on their bases. My intent was to wait until we had enough H-20s to deliver a devastating blow to the American stealth bombers. Now that I am confident we can do that, I am establishing the plans for a raid that will take place within the month.”

“Fine,” said Xi in a passive-aggressive tone. “Whatever you have to do to eliminate this problem, do it. We have to stop these incursions by their stealth bombers. Their attacks were pinpricks the first few months of the war — now they’re turning into the death by a thousand cuts. It needs to stop.”

General Xu simply nodded.

Xi then turned his attention to the PLA ground force commander, General Wei Liu, fixing his steely gaze on him. Without saying a word, he had conveyed the message that he wanted to — if General Wei didn’t have any good news to report, it might be his last meeting. “General,” said Xi after an awkward pause, “has our northern army recovered from your failed attempt at retaking the Korean Peninsula?”

Like Admiral Shen, General Wei shifted uncomfortably in his chair at the reminder of his enormous failure. His “trap” he had laid for the Americans had nearly succeeded, and probably would have, if so many resources hadn’t been tied down with the invasion of Taiwan and the Philippines. As it was, his offensive had cost the PLA northern army group nearly 140,000 casualties — something that was impossible to hide from the public eye and had resulted in a lot of angry protests across the country.

“We have, Mr. President,” answered General Wei, trying to save face. “Thanks to the reinforcements from the PLA Militia, the northern army group has now swelled to over 600,000 soldiers. We’ve also pulled nearly 3,000 T-62 tanks out of our reserve force and performed the necessary modifications to get them combat ready. I know the Americans have been building up their forces for a multipronged attack, and so have I. If you will allow me, I’d like to discuss our strategy to deal with their coming offensive.” He was looking for permission to use a version of PowerPoint to visually walk everyone through the plan.

Xi softened his face a bit and nodded for General Wei to begin. “Perhaps the fool has learned his lesson and may still have a use,” he thought, although he made mental plans to speak with General Yang who was commanding the southern forces, in case he needed a replacement.

Turning the presentation on, General Wei brought up the first map. “The Americans have broken their forces down into three main army groups. Army Group Two is currently in Korea, and they’re planning to launch a massive 100-kilometer-wide attack within the next six weeks,” he explained.

Chairman Zhang interrupted to ask, “—How do you know it will begin within six weeks? My sources tell me the Americans will try to coincide their northern offensive with the invasion of Formosa.”

Everyone’s eyes shifted back and forth from Chairman Zhang, the deputy head of State Security, and the PLA ground force commander, not sure who might be telling the truth.

“Mr. Chairman, your source may be correct, and I’m not disputing what your intelligence has discovered. The PLA has several sources within the South Korean Army and the Japanese Defense Force that have given us a rough timeline of when their forces will be attacking China. They told us the timeline could shift, but it would happen plus or minus two weeks of the dates they gave us. That may very well coincide with the timeline for the invasion of Formosa,” he said, doing his best to play both sides of the fence.

When no one else said anything, General Wei continued. “Prior to the American breakout of Korea, the Americans’ First Army Group, which is currently in the Russian Far East, plans to launch an offensive to capture the Russian city of Irkutsk. If they’re able to do this, it’ll place a very large contingent of American soldiers dangerously deep behind our lines. When the Americans start their offensive in Russia, then we can anticipate them also launching their breakout of the Korean Peninsula within the following couple of weeks,” he said and then brought up another slide that talked in greater detail about how they planned on dealing with the Americans once they did invade again.

The discussion lasted for another thirty minutes before Xi asked another question. “Your plan appears to be sound, at least on paper, but right now, you’re relying on the Americans overstretching their supply lines. If there is one thing the Americans are masters at in war, it’s logistics. How do you believe your strategy will account for that?”

“We’ve pondered that question a lot, Mr. President,” said General Wei. “You’re correct — the Americans are masters at logistics. It’s perhaps their greatest strength. The only things that we have in great abundance are time and distance. Our supply lines from the factory to the front lines are short, so we can keep our men supplied faster and easier. That is not the case for the Americans.”

Wei took a swig of water before he went on. “We’re going to let them advance until they hit the Beizhen Line. As I’ve briefed before, we’ve built a defensive line from the outskirts of Panjin to Hure. This line is 220 kilometers in length and has been built and fortified for the past seven months with around-the-clock work crews and engineers. We have underground tunnels, bunkers, artillery positions, antiaircraft guns, missiles, and everything we need to prevent the Americans from getting through and threatening Beijing. We decided on this line after the Americans destroyed Shenyang with a nuclear bomb, destroying all but only a handful of routes the American ground forces could travel to threaten Beijing. In addition, a large swath of that area is still radioactive, which means they won’t be able to have their forces stay there. We’ve focused the bulk of our defenses on the most likely avenues of attack, and I am confident that our men have been extremely thorough.”

“Hmm…,” said President Xi, deep in thought.

“More importantly, this frees up our armored forces to cover the northern passes between Changchun and Harbin, which is far better tank country,” General Wei asserted. “Again, my biggest concern is not so much with the forces in front of us — it’s with that American army group in Siberia. If they’re able to break through the Russian lines and decide to push down into Mongolia, then that could be disastrous. Our armored and mechanized infantry divisions are going to be protecting Harbin and Changchun; they won’t be able to turn and meet an American army group in our rear area without collapsing my northern front.”

Chairman Zhang spoke up at this point to add, “I’ve been assured by the Russians and our Indian allies that they will be able to stop the Americans. The Indians have moved a substantial part of their army to Siberia over the last five months. They should be able to defeat the Americans,” he said convincingly. The others seemed pleased with this information, and the threat of this army group wasn’t discussed any further.

Satisfied with the brief, President Xi dismissed everyone except Zhang. He wanted to talk further with him about some personnel changes that may need to happen. The two men deliberated over potential successors to the current heads of the navy, air force and army, should these commanders fail them again. Xi was particularly interested in finding new, younger, more talented generals that had proven themselves in the war thus far, and more importantly, would be loyal to Xi and Zhang. These recent defeats had weakened both of their standings, and this wasn’t something either of them could allow to go on.