Jim Neville rose to his feet. “Yes, sir, Mr. President. I’m on my way back to the Pentagon. I’ll let you know as soon as it is hashed out.”
Chapter 27
With the recognition of Chinese forces massing on their side of the border, Vietnam ordered a massive mobilization. Vietnamese political leaders recognized the tremendous hordes of personnel lined against them and realized that this was to be a major confrontation over disputed boundary areas. Over a thousand years ago, Vietnam was considered part of China, at least by the Chinese. China controlled Vietnam as a province from 111 B.C. until 939 A.D. The Chinese expanded their influence by bringing education, administration, building roads and harbors, improved agriculture with the introduction of the metal plow, pottery, draft animals, and better methods of irrigation, especially in the Red River Valley of the north. The Vietnamese resisted all efforts of Sinicization in spite of frequent intermarriage. Marked by occasional rebellions throughout the period, followed by almost uninterrupted guerilla warfare against the Chinese in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Vietnamese finally broke free of Chinese domination. The fall of the Chinese T’ang dynasty permitted the final rebellion, marked by the overwhelming Vietnamese defeat of a Chinese army. Throughout the last two thousand years, Vietnam has resisted dominance by China and other, outside influences. Honed in their history, the Vietnamese became the masters of guerilla warfare. Fighting their own kind of war against the Japanese, the French and then the Americans, they demonstrated an almost pathological desire to maintain their independence at any cost.
China held its forces on its side of the Yalu River, the border between China and North Korea, until after the nuclear exchange. Compared to what Pakistan and India did to each other with nuclear weapons, the Korean peninsula fared relatively well. Now, with South Korean forces surging northward, quickly regaining ground over retreating North Korean forces, the Chinese withdrew from their border area with North Korea. They informed the retreating North Korean Leadership they would no longer honor their mutual aggression pact, with the excuse that they did not wish to expose their troops to the nuclear fallout. Those forces moved southwest by rail to reinforce those already along the Vietnamese border.
To the surprise of the Vietnamese, the Chinese forces paused at the border. Instead, massed Chinese poured into Laos. Initially, the Vietnamese did not realize the magnitude of the invasion of Laos and its significance. The rainy season is nearing its end in September. While October is still part of the rainy season in Southeast Asia, the highlands of Laos are not as severely affected by monsoons as are the lowlands of Vietnam. Only after the first two weeks of standing ready did the Vietnamese realize the depth and size of the invasion of Laos.
General Lui, Lien-chang, Commander of Army Front I, did his homework well. With no mutual assistance agreement, each country was determined to defend its own borders and would not come to the aid of its neighbors. In any event, the forces of Cambodia and Laos against such odds were negligible. Each hoped to escape the onslaught. The consequences of such policies were that they were more or less defeated piecemeal. Three thousand inflatable rafts of the Zodiac type that held eight men and their gear were unloaded at the headwaters of the Ou River near the Chinese border. The Ou River is a northern tributary of the Mekong River that empties into it above the major city of Louangphrabang, Laos. Thus, a whole division and one brigade initially moved with surprising swiftness down the Mekong River Valley through Laos and into Cambodia. High waters pouring from the highlands as a result of the monsoons allowed swift movement of the Zodiacs boats down the river. Every motorboat that would hold four or more men and their gear along the river that could be captured was sent upstream to pick up more Chinese soldiers. Platoons and company-sized units, even squads, became independent follow-on riverine forces moving downriver. Whenever fuel or food or rest was needed, the next village or town was attacked.
Thai armed forces did not dare fire on the Chinese flotillas in those areas where the Mekong River formed the international boundary for fear of invoking Chinese invasion of their own country. The Chinese flotillas bypassed cities that held several thousand or more people, leaving them for the light infantry units moving on foot, but smaller villages and towns were not spared. As many inhabitants that could be easily caught were slaughtered in each village. Young women and girls were usually gang raped before being killed.
Ultimately, the Chinese bypassed Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. It suddenly dawned upon the Vietnamese that part of the Chinese strategy was to cut off any escape route to the west. The Mekong varies in width from half a mile to almost a mile and is filled with numerous islands and rapids that were considered essentially impassable. The numerous islands of the lower Mekong provided rather secure rest stops for the Chinese. The rapids were either bypassed by carrying the Zodiacs around them or paddled through by the more adventurous among the Chinese militia. Thousands of Chinese militia were then ordered off the river to form a phalanx all along Vietnams’ western border from the lower reaches of the Mekong River across the border of the Mekong River which is a border into Vietnam below Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. Thus, the northern three fourths of Vietnam were caught in a gigantic vise with the majority of their forces deployed along the northern border. The southern Chinese pincer was reinforced daily with the arrival of more Chinese by boats. Then, as initially anticipated, the Chinese poured across the border into the upper part of the Red River Valley in October, the first month of the relatively dry season.
In the United Nations, Vietnam appealed for help and condemnation of China. China’s response was that repeated border raids by Vietnamese prompted the invasion of Vietnam. The question of the boundary between their two nations would also be settled by force of arms at this time.
Appeals by Cambodia and Laos regarding the Chinese invasion of their territory were virtually ignored as the Vietnamese representative raved on. The United Nations finally condemned the invasion after five days of debate over the accuracy of the information. The Chinese delegation shrugged and walked out.
On the day the Chinese riverine forces crossed the border into Vietnam, a dozen of the new Chinese Ma-anshan class of frigates, displacing over 4,000 tons, arrived on station and patrolled the coastline of Vietnam. Equipped with anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, anti-aircraft missiles, radar controlled guns and firing systems, including the Chinese takeoff of the French Crotale point defense missile system, and 100mm guns fore and aft, very few ships of the line of southeast Asian nations could challenge them, let alone unarmed merchant vessels. A number of incoming ships were turned away, but many attempted to run the blockade. Those ships that attempted to continue into Da Nang, Haiphong or Hue harbors were boarded by Chinese marines. They were forced to sail to Chinese shipyards where the crews were held in Chinese jails and their cargoes confiscated as “war prizes.” Their cargoes were immediately off loaded, and the shipyards worked twenty-fours a day converting the ships into troop carrying ships. Most were completed within seven days by crews working around the clock utilizing function specific compartmentalized sections that could be lowered into the cargo holds of the ships and rolled into place. There were galley sections, weapons and vehicle storage compartments, troop bunk areas, and fuel bunkers. The officers shared the same accommodations as their men. Those which could not accept the compartments without major alterations were utilized as transports for carrying vehicular mounted weapons systems, such as the Chinese version of the ZSU-24, and trucks. Not appreciated at the time was an outer picket line of Chinese diesel submarines lurking below the surface in case there was a challenge mounted by the U.S. Navy. These capitol ships would soon form the defense perimeter and escort vessels for the troop carriers mounting the invasion of the African continent.
Smaller Vietnamese vessels loaded with passengers attempting to escape via sea, mostly to Australia, Malaysia, or the Philippines, provided target practice for the 100-millimeter guns on the Chinese frigates. Thousands of Vietnamese drowned.
The Chinese HIV battalions poured into the northern end of the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam. Rice planting had started several weeks earlier. In many fields, planting was already completed. The Red River Valley and the Mekong Delta of Vietnam are two of the great rice growing areas of the world. Rice requires long periods of sunshine and yields from 600 to 3,500 pounds of grain per acre. Under traditional, ancient methods, rice can require as much as 400 hours of labor per acre per year.
Chinese battalions poured down the valleys of the Lo and Gam rivers as well. Chinese troops in the mountainous areas and highlands in between were making much slower time. This created a checkerboard pattern of Chinese troop disposition. Many Vietnamese were able to flee the valleys into the hills, only to be massacred by the slower moving Chinese units passing through. With Cambodia and Laos secured by the Chinese and Vietnam about to fall, Thailand initiated pleas for help from the United Nations and the United States. The United States, with six active divisions in the Army and two in the United States Marine Corps, and no bases in the region, could offer no assistance except by nuclear fires. Thailand refused. By December, the Chinese were knocking on the door of Singapore.
Fred Gateway sat quietly in the front corner of the room while the regional FBI Bureau Chief for espionage in southern California, Ed Wrangell, conducted the briefing of a room full of fifty FBI agents that formed Task Force 2.
“We finally made identification on that Chinese guy who was killed in the raid on the Mexican bandit camp. He was illegally in the country. We picked him out of the files of about 5,000 photographs we have been taking of people coming and going in the COSCO shipping company complex down in Long Beach, among others. His hands were calloused on the knuckles and edges. Obviously, he was a well-trained martial artist. The pathologist who did the autopsy said the guy was an absolutely superb physical specimen. Large for a Chinese, he was nearly six feet tall. A body scan showed he ran less than ten percent body fat although he weighed two hundred pounds. We figure he originally came from northern or central China. They tended to be taller than those from the south.
“His immunological profiles indicated he had been vaccinated against, or at some time or another, infected with, a variety of diseases. We figure he was most likely vaccinated. Interestingly, the doc tells me that one of them was an unusual strain of smallpox, at least his serum cross reacted very strongly with the smallpox virus, which is Variola, and Vaccinia, used to vaccinate against smallpox. It wasn’t one of the usual strains of Vaccinia virus used to immunize against the smallpox Variola virus but something different. They are trying to work backwards from the construct of the antibodies to get a better handle on the strain of virus used. The consulting immunologist from the Army’s lab at Fort Detrick thinks it might reveal immunization against a weaponized strain of smallpox. The Russians are assisting by providing, they claim, a sample of every smallpox strain in their library to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. The CDC will coordinate with the military at Fort Detrick. They want to know as much as we do what this guy was vaccinated for and against. Their concern is the same as ours. The Chinese might have weaponized a nasty strain of smallpox. No telling how long that will take.
“There is little doubt that this guy was a bodyguard. Most of the time, he was seen in the company of one man who is supposed to be a mid level shipping clerk. One of the snipers remembers taking him out. He was running with an AK-47 when the sniper dropped him with a hit in the chest. He didn’t live long enough to talk. His fingerprints had been removed but were in the process of growing back. Medical forensics tells me that their removal occurred about a year ago.
“Nobody at the COSCO office claimed to recognize him from his photograph. Ten days later, we went into COSCO’s personnel shop under the cover of searching for illegal Mexicans and came up with the name of Ling Ch’ing for him. Undoubtedly, that is not his real name. He was carried on their books as a warehouse man. The Chinese legation in L.A. claimed they didn’t know him when we offered them the body as an unknown John Doe. They accepted the body, though, they claimed, simply because he appeared to be an ethnic Chinese. Our best guess is that he was a watchdog for COSCO or something like that, in Jesus Gonzalez’s camp. We’re not sure at this time just who he reported to. His photograph was identified by a number of the Mexican prisoners in the camp. According to those prisoners, he visited the camp in the company of several other men, usually two others, on a number of occasions before he became a permanent fixture there. A couple of the Mexicans timed his arrival with the arrival of those Russian sniper rifles. They thought he was the bodyguard of some Japanese big businessman.
“We put a bug in the outer wall of the coffin that looked like the head of a screw. We got some interesting conversation before they swept the coffin and found it. That was pretty sharp of them to check it out so thoroughly. We figured they would check the body and then cremate it, but they shipped it back to China after they swept it for transmitters.
“We believe the AK-47s originated in China as copies of the classic Russian design. They were all of new manufacture and typical of Chinese handiwork. Ditto for the ammunition. The ammo was as good as any commercial grade, of better quality than the rifles.
“Our tasks now are to identify Ling’s contacts, his boss, methods of shipment, and confirmation of how this was all put together. Our theory is that Gonzalez and his crew was motivated primarily by money, both supplied by the Chinese and by what they gained from raiding into the United States. We don’t have any proof of that, and that is what we are after. Gonzalez had received a large shipment of farm implements and tractors. We got their serial numbers and paperwork from them. They are of Japanese manufacture, and the Japanese indicated they were shipped to China first, then the Chinese shipped them to Mexico through Long Beach by COSCO. The records we seized from COSCO on the tractors indicate they went to dealers in Mexico from whom Gonzalez purchased them with funds drawn on a Mexican bank. There were very large sums in the account. Gonzalez also had a personal account that we accessed through bribing a bank clerk. The tractors were paid for by another Chinese front company, according to the Japanese. Very convenient. We think the arms were hidden in this shipment, and possibly others.
“Composite sketches of the two men that Ling usually accompanied were made with the assistance of several Mexican prisoners. One of our agents noticed the likeness in COSCO’s files of one of them. Surveillance of these two resulted in their photographs. These are the photographs being passed out now of the two men Ling was generally seen in the company of. One, the larger of the two, is also listed as a warehouse man. It is likely that he is a second bodyguard to Chan. The smaller is carried as a shipping clerk named Chan. I want twenty-four-hour surveillance on each of these two men.
“We have traced a number of the vehicles we brought back from the terrorists’ camp. They were all legally purchased in southern California over a short and abrupt period of time by a variety of individuals all of whom had Hispanic names. That suggests some kind of a network, possibly a gang connection. Put a team on checking out those who purchased the vehicles. See what you can shake out of the bushes. If they all go to the same source, then we just might be on to something. The fact that all of them were purchased in a relatively narrow timeframe strongly supports the network idea and that they were deliberately purchased for Gonzalez to use in the conduct of his raids. We want to know about that network.
“You are being divided into teams. Those of you with Hispanic roots will be undercover. We are going to send you on the streets to see what you can sniff out. Be careful! Go armed all of the time, but without your box tops. That’s my law. I don’t want any of you identified by the opposition. Carry whatever you are most comfortable with, but not less than a 9-millimeter or .38 Special. If you get in trouble with the local boys in blue, go along. Don’t explain anything to them. We will get you out when you make your phone call. We don’t know how deep or where this investigation will lead. Those of you in suits will continue to carry your issue weapon or your standard sidearm, as approved by your supervisors. Your teams are posted on the bulletin board. Supervisory Special Agents are listed as team leaders. This is the first time some of you have worked together. I realize that might cause some of you to hesitate. It shouldn’t; you are all here by special selection. I expect you to all be team players and cohesive teams from this moment on. Any questions? No? Then let’s hit the streets.”
In mid summer of 2021, the Chinese ambassador to Japan called upon the Prime Minister of Japan to hand him a formal note. Foregoing the usual amenities of courtesy, the Chinese ambassador simply handed the note to him. It read:
Dear Prime Minister:
It is our desire to settle certain territorial claims with your government. It is our express desire that this be amicably and most peacefully accomplished. The territories in dispute to which the People’s Republic of China are referring are the Senkaku Islands and the Loochoo Islands, which you call the Ryukyu Islands and seized from China in 1878.
Let me assure you that our intentions are entirely peaceful in reclaiming these territories the People’s Republic of China lost to you by conquest in the nineteenth century. It would be in the best interest of Japanese citizens to evacuate these islands as quickly as possible. We will assume control of all of the former U.S. military bases there in thirty days’ time. Thereafter, we will occupy all the major centers of transportation, utilities, communications and government offices on these islands.
It is our intense desire to offer Japan our protection from further domination by western military and economic interests. Japan has already made tremendous investments in China which are of the greatest importance to both our nations and for which we are profoundly grateful. By uniting our two countries in economic integration, we can form a union that will be the world’s largest market, manufacturing axis, and technological center. Together, we will dominate the world economy. There is no need for you to expend your economic power in further development of military capabilities. Our nuclear umbrella and the People’s Liberation Army Navy will provide Japan with complete military superiority and protection. With time, other Asian nations might wish to join our consortium to form an even greater economic sphere of cooperation.
Sung, Chiang, Prime Minister
The Supreme Council of the People’s Republic of China
Inwardly, the Japanese Prime Minister was seething. In spite of the fact that Japanese high schools do not teach an accurate history of World War II, or only just mention that they were defeated by the Allies, the Prime Minister recognized that it was a replay of Japan’s old game plan of Economic Co-Prosperity Sphere in reverse whereby Japan occupied or controlled much of Asia. It led directly to World War II. Indeed, the atrocities the Japanese inflicted upon tens of millions of Chinese in their invasions of Manchuria and China in the 1930s flashed through the Prime Minister’s mind. The fear that those atrocities that Japanese soldiers inflicted upon civilians of other nations just might come home to roost, to be repeated on his people, caused him to shudder. He thought of Unit 731, their biological weapons unit that experimented on Allied prisoners and Chinese citizens and in some cases, entire towns and regions. A moment of despair passed over him as he remembered the accounts of Japanese physicians conducting live vivisection on patients without the benefit of anesthesia to follow the course of the diseases they induced in allied prisoners and peoples of various countries to determine if there were any racial differences.
“Mr. Ambassador, surely you cannot believe that we will surrender Japanese territory without a war. We will fight for every square meter of Japanese soil. Neither will we accept Chinese suzerainty. This demand is so preposterous that I must consider it a very morbid and sick joke. Surely Sung Chiang is more responsible than to write this. Surely China would not risk war with Japan, particularly while you are invading the Asian mainland.”
“I assure you, Mr. Prime Minister, it is no joke. The People’s Republic of China will reclaim those islands. They are Chinese territory and will once again be part of China. I suggest you present this letter to your Diet to see what their response is, Mr. Prime Minister.”
“Rest assured, I will call an emergency session for tomorrow morning and do just that. Recidivism has no place in the modern world. China will find that the world will unite against its aggression. Good day, Mr. Ambassador.”
The Prime Minister reflected for a moment over expelling the U.S. Marines out of Okinawa, of the Philippines throwing the Americans out after Mount Pinatubo erupted, of Australia’s not allowing any American nuclear powered warships into its harbors, of Thailand’s expulsion of the Americans from their airbases and wondered if they should have done things differently.
Chapter 28
Rest areas were actually depots fully supplied with containerized supplies, configured to specific requirements. Most of these containers were three meters wide by four meters long by three meters high. Those for the light infantry units had small arms ammunition, food, modest amounts of diesel fuel for trucks and water. Those for mechanized infantry contained much more diesel fuel, ammunition for their weapons systems, food and water; those for anti-aircraft platoons had missiles, food and water. The containers are easily set on the back of a flatbed truck where they are quickly secured by numerous nylon straps. Rest stops where both drivers and passengers could rest were located every one hundred kilometers. Large roadside kitchens where the truck mounted troops could dismount and be fed a quick meal were integral to the rest stops. Fuel trucks to supply diesel fuel acted as mobile fuel stations all along the route. Each was a veritable oasis.
Shen, De-ming, Army Front III Commander, gave the order to his HIV battalions to mobilize, along with General Chang’s general order. In each village and town in his assigned provinces, the platoons and companies assembled. The assigned transportation assets, troop carrying trucks, gathered the companies to transport them to the battalion assembly points. Traveling mostly at night to reduce observation from satellites, large convoys wound their way westward into Sinkiang. Supplies would be continually ferried forward in convoys that never stopped making a great circle, expanding ever westward. Shen De-ming had studied the Red Ball Express of the Americans in support of Patton’s Third Army in Europe during World War II. It has long been remarked in the strategy of attrition warfare in military circles that amateurs think of tactics while professionals think of logistics.
Shen, De-ming was not about to repeat the critically disastrous mistakes committed by the Germans in Operation Barbarossa in World War II. Years of cumulative study of the regions and their peoples, of their resources, transportation nets, beliefs, strengths and weaknesses went into the planning by his staff. The depots were stocked with cold weather clothing, special fuel additives and lubricants for sub zero temperatures, snow goggles, small portable stoves that burned diesel fuel for instillation in fire resistant polyester lined tents, and everything he could think that might be useful in a winter campaign. He had no illusions that it would be a tremendous undertaking, one of the greatest in military history. Starting out as a late summer campaign that would quickly become a winter campaign, crossing over some of the highest and most rugged mountain ranges in the world, to descend into high desert plateaus where strong winds never ceased, winds that sometimes reached hurricane speeds, conditions that would test and destroy all but the most prepared of armies. Myriads of rivers fed by glaciers occurred in steep mountain valleys, rivers would present considerable difficulties in crossing. Lakes were present in some valleys, fed by these rivers on one end, and draining them at the other. These rivers would become raging torrents from melting snows and glaciers in the coming spring. His troops would see temperatures higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer months. In winter, the same location could have temperatures as cold as thirty degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Rains could turn the plains into seas of mud. In the central part of Kazakhstan, pastoral peoples mostly lived in small settlements that were widely disbursed. Shen’s troops would seize the fall’s harvest of fruits and vegetables, of grain and livestock in the mountain valleys. Even mobile slaughter plants on tractor trailers were part of the plan to take advantage of local livestock resources. Meat was becoming increasingly important to the Chinese diet. It was irrelevant if the meat was from cattle, sheep, goats, yaks, camels, or horses. Heavily spiced, no one could tell the difference.
