Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

All in all, the first U.S. Navy attack on the mainland of East Asia since Vietnam went off well, eliminating twelve PRC warships and laying waste to one of its principal naval bases.

Other bases were attacked with Tomahawk cruise missiles launched mainly from surface ships. Every PLAN base over a swath of five hundred miles of coast took one form of fire or another, and the ship count was jacked up to sixteen, all in a period of a little over an hour. The American tactical aircraft returned to their carriers, having spilled the blood of their enemies, though also having lost some of their own.

It was a difficult night for Marshal Luo Cong, the Defense Minister for the People’s Republic of China. He’d gone to bed about eleven the previous night, concerned with the ongoing operations of his military forces, but pleased that they seemed to be going well. And then, just after he’d closed his eyes, the phone rang.

His official car came at once to convey him to his office, but he didn’t enter it. Instead he went to the Defense Ministry’s communications center, where he found a number of senior-and mid-level officers going over fragmentary information and trying to make sense of it. Minister Luo’s presence didn’t help them, but just added stress to the existing chaos.

Nothing seemed clear, except that they could identify holes in their information. The 65th Army had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. Its commanding general had been visiting one of his divisions, along with his staff, and hadn’t been heard from since 0200 or so. Nor had the division’s commanding general. In fact, nothing at all was known about what was happening up there. To fix that, Marshal Luo ordered a helicopter to fly up from the depot at Sunwu. Then came reports from Harbin and Bei’an of air raids that had damaged the railroads. A colonel of engineers was dispatched to look into that.

But just when he thought he’d gotten a handle on the difficulties in Siberia, then came reports of an air attack on the fleet base at Guangszhou, and then the lesser naval bases at Haikuo, Shantou, and Xiachuandao. In each case, the headquarters facilities seemed hard-hit, since there was no response from the local commanders. Most disturbing of all was the report of huge losses to the fighter regiments in the area-reports of American naval aircraft making the attacks. Then finally, worst of all, a pair of automatic signals, the distress buoys from his country’s only nuclear-powered missile submarine and the hunter submarine detailed to protect her, the Hai Long, were both radiating their automated messages. It struck the marshal as unlikely to the point of impossibility that so many things could have happened at once. And yet there was more. Border radar emplacements were off the air and could not be raised on radio or telephone. Then came another phone call from Siberia. One of the divisions on the left shoulder of the breakthrough-the one the commanding general of 65th Type B Group Army had been visiting a few hours before-reported … that is, a junior communications officer said, a subunit of the division reported, that unknown armored forces had lanced through its western defenses, going east, and … disappeared?

“How the hell does an enemy attack successfully and disappear?” the marshal had demanded, in a voice to make the young captain wilt. “Who reported this?”

“He identified himself as a major in the Third Battalion, 745th Guards Infantry Regiment, Comrade Marshal,” was the trembling reply. “The radio connection was scratchy, or so it was reported to us.”

“And who made the report?”

“A Colonel Zhao, senior communications officer in the intelligence staff of 71st Type C Group Army north of Bei’an. They are detailed to border security in the breakthrough sector,” the captain explained.

“I know that!” Luo bellowed, taking out his rage on the nearest target of opportunity.

“Comrade Marshal,” said a new voice. It was Major General Wei Dao-Ming, one of Luo’s senior aides, just called in from his home after one more of a long string of long days, and showing the strain, but trying to smooth the troubled waters even so. “You should let me and my staff assemble this information in such a way that we can present it to you in an orderly manner.”

“Yes, Wei, I suppose so.” Luo knew that this was good advice, and Wei was a career intelligence officer, accustomed to organizing information for his superiors. “Quick as you can.”

“Of course, Comrade Minister,” Wei said, to remind Luo that he was a political figure now rather than the military officer he’d grown up as.

Luo went to the VIP sitting room, where green tea was waiting. He reached into the pocket of his uniform tunic and pulled out some cigarettes, strong unfiltered ones to help him wake up. They made him cough, but that was all right. By the third cup of tea, Wei returned with a pad of paper scribbled with notes.

“So, what is happening?”

“The picture is confused, but I will tell you what I know, and what I think,” Wei began.

“We know that General Qi of Sixty-fifth Army is missing, along with his staff. They were visiting 191st Infantry Division, just north and west of our initial breakthrough. The 191st is completely off the air as well. So is the 615th Independent Tank Brigade, part of Sixty-fifth Army. Confused reports talk of an air attack on the tank brigade, but nothing precise is known. The 735th Guards Infantry Regiment of the 191st division is also off the air, cause unknown. You ordered a helicopter out of Sunwu to take a look and report back. The helicopter will get off at dawn. Well and good.

“Next, there are additional reports from that sector, none of which make sense or help form any picture of what is happening. So, I have ordered the intelligence staff of the Seventy-first Army to send a reconnaissance team across the river and ascertain what’s happening there and report back. That will take about three hours.

“The good news is that General Peng Xi-Wang remains in command of 34th Shock Army, and will be at the gold mine before midday. Our armored spearhead is deep within enemy territory. I expect the men are waking up right now and will be moving within the hour to continue their attack.

“Now, this news from the navy people is confusing, but it’s not really a matter of consequence. I’ve directed the commander of South Sea Fleet to take personal charge of the situation and report back. So say about three hours for that.

“So, Comrade Minister, we will have decent information shortly, and then we can start addressing the situation. Until then, General Peng will soon resume his offensive, and by evening, our country will be much richer,” Wei concluded. He knew how to keep his minister happy. His reward for this was a grunt and a nod. “Now,” General Wei went on, “why don’t you get a few hours of sleep while we maintain the watch?”

“Good idea, Wei.” Luo took two steps to the couch and lay down across it. Wei opened the door, turned off the lights, then he closed the door behind himself. The communications center was only a few more steps.

“Now,” he said, stealing a smoke from a major, “what the hell is happening out there?”

“If you want an opinion,” a colonel of intelligence said, “I think the Americans just flexed their muscles, and the Russians will do so in a few hours.”

“What? Why do you say that? And why the Russians?”

“Where has their air force been? Where have their attack helicopters been? We don’t know, do we? Why don’t we know? Because the Americans have swatted our airplanes out of the sky like flies, that’s why.”

“We’ve deluded ourselves that the Russians don’t want to fight, haven’t we? A man named Hitler once thought the same thing. He died a few years later, the history books say. We similarly deluded ourselves into thinking the Americans would not strike us hard for political reasons. Wei, some of our political leaders have been off chasing the dragon!” The aphorism referred to opium-smoking, a popular if illegal pastime in the southern part of China a few centuries before. “There were no political considerations. They were merely building up their forces, which takes time. And the Russians didn’t fight us because they wanted us to get to the end of the logistical string, and then the fucking Americans cut that string off at Harbin and Bei’an! General Peng’s tanks are nearly three hundred kilometers inside Russia now, with only two hundred kilometers of fuel in their tanks, and there’ll be no more fuel coming up to them. We’ve taken over two thousand tanks and turned their crews into badly trained light infantry! That is what’s happening, Comrade Wei,” the colonel concluded.