Chapter 38: Descent of the Whirlwind
In June Heaven's armies chastise the corrupt and evil,
Seeking to bind roc and whale with a league-long cord.
Red glows the far side of the River Gan,
Thanks to our wing under Huang Gonglyue.
A million workers and peasants rise up,
Sweeping Jiangxi straight towards Hunan and Hubei.
To the Internationale's stirring strains
A wild whirlwind swoops from the sky.
"March from Tingzhou to Changsha," Mao Zedong (A.D. 1893-1976)
The western front was quiet now, even though China and Japan were still technically at war. The PLAN fleet remained on patrol around the southern seas, while Tokugawa continued to hide in his "temporary" capital at Ise. The only activity in the arena was some sporadic bombardment of the islands, just to remind the Shogun that they were not yet safe.
But Japan showed no signs of surrendering, and Agent Tong reported that Tokugawa still made his daily speech to his citizens urging them ton continue the struggle from the islands, with hopes to retake the mainland sometime in the future.
Useless, thought Mao, looking at the stolen military intelligence that his spy had sent him.
The Japanese do not even have any boats.
It was now at the end of 2042 AD, and seven years had passed since the overhaul of the People's Liberation Army made possible by rocketry and aluminum. Each year leaflets were dropped on the Japanese islands urging them to surrender, but no response was ever heard. Only the population of the island cities dwindled as the Japanese people grew weary of the war and Tokugawa's unpopular government.
In the meantime, economic advisor Liu Shaoqi complained that excessive spending on the military was draining the national treasury at an alarming rate, but science advisor Deng Xiaoping continued to come to Mao each year requesting additional funds for "a project of utmost importance." Mao grudgingly approved his requests, but at the year-end budget session in 2042 AD, Liu informed him that if something wasn't done quickly, the remaining bits of the treasury would be gone.
Minister Deng did not show up at that meeting. With no other choice, Mao proposed to cut all funding for scientific research that year. There were no objections.
But there was one suggestion, made by foreign minister Zhou Enlai: he could always ask the Indians for some financial assistance. "The Indians are not only a religious people," commented Zhou, "but also are very talented in commercial activities. I'm sure that the Mahatma will have plenty of gold to spare for us, and he ought to be agreeable since we have enjoyed friendly relations for such a long time."
Hearing this, Mao immediately dialed up Gandhi. "We request a loan of gold from India," he said. "If you agree, we will make sure to pay you back with interest in the future."
"I am sorry," came the reply from Delhi, "but we are facing economic difficulties of our own as well. We are unable to help you."
Mao turned to Zhou, who was shaking his head in disgust. "That liar," he grumbled. "The Ministry of State Security knows that Gandhi is making plenty of money each year. He's probably just saving up the money so he can upgrade his military."
Interesting, thought Mao. He decided to try one more time. "We are willing to negotiate," he told Gandhi. "What are your terms?"
"It will not be possible." Gandhi had raised his voice, something the Indian leader had never done before. "Besides, we really don't trust you enough to pay us back."
We really don't trust you enough. These words stung Mao. He thought the Indians valued their long friendship, but when he heard this he felt that everything between himself and Gandhi had been lost. Then he recalled, from a time long long ago, when Indian horsemen suddenly and deliberately trespassed into Chinese territory near Hangzhou, and remembered that once, Gandhi had been his enemy too.
He looked at Zhou again, and the foreign minister, as if sensing what was on his mind, nodded. "Yes, Chairman," said Zhou. "It's payback time."
The PLA commanders in Japan, Zhu De and Lin Biao, were recalled from their duties there. The resistance in the captured Japanese cities had been put down by now, and there was no longer any need for their leadership in that region. Zhu was transferred to Hangzhou, where most of the new modern armor units had been upgraded, while Lin was sent to Nanjing, to prepare the southern enclave for action against the Indians around them.
From atop the Hawa Mahal building in Jaipur, Indian foreign minister Jawaharlal Nehru was observing the vast expanse of desert before him. Many years ago oil had been discovered in the Jaipur desert, but now the supplies had been exhausted and the oil derricks were rusting and crumbling from neglect. Indian farmers still gathered a meager harvest each year from the irrigated parts of the desert, and sometimes there would not be enough food in the city, especially when the dust storms struck during the harsh winters.
It was January 16, 2043, and temperatures were at record-breaking lows. Nehru felt the strong wind chill, forcing him to pull his coat tighter around himself. From the corner of his eye, he spotted the rising dust and sand from the desert, and knew that the city had been targeted by Mother Nature once again.
He sent out an order to one of his assistants, asking the citizens to clear out of the streets and seek shelter before the storm hit. But as he continued to stare at the approaching whirlwind, a sudden chill went down his spine. This was no ordinary storm. Beneath the fierce howling sounds of the wind, he could faintly but unmistakably hear another noise. It was the rumble of gasoline engines.
Nehru's jaw dropped open. He scrambled down the building and over to the local government headquarters, where he relayed an urgent message to Delhi: "The Chinese are coming after us!" Then he dashed to the Jaipur train station, where he pushed and shoved his way through the crowd of terrified citizens that had already gathered there to evacuate.
"Do not despair," he told them. "Our mechanized infantry will hold them back, no matter how strong a force they bring. There is no military in the world that defends their cities better than ours." As he said this, a shell exploded in midair, showering parts of the city with shrapnel. Nehru could not tell if it came from the direction of the whirlwind, or if it had been launched from the Chinese battleship that had now entered Jaipur harbor. Fearing for the worst, he too squeezed his way onto the overcrowded train.
Through his binoculars, Zhu watched as the train left the city. Then he ordered the attack. It was true that the Indian mechanized infantry were formidable defenders, as many of his own armored units were cut down by enemy fire before even reaching the city. Still, he knew that he had much more strength in numbers, and it would only be a matter of hours before the PLA troops broke through.
Within a week, Nehru escaped to Lahore, where a larger defense force had assembled but was equally unprepared for the upcoming Chinese attack. He had just arrived when a shadow darkened the skies above him. Looking up, he saw a huge, gleaming aircraft, the latest jet fighter model from Guangzhou, slice through the air, dropping a deadly payload in the distance. It was immediately followed by heavy bombardment from a Chinese artillery battery assembled in the hills to the west. Nehru did not stay for long. He caught the next train out to Delhi, bypassing the other Indian cities on the way.
Lahore was the center of India's coal industry, making it of great strategic importance to Gandhi. Indian cavalry routinely partrolled the border with China, but they did little to deter Zhu. "What kind of idiot rides into the battlefield on horseback?" he said to his troops. "Run them over!"
Only ten days after taking Jaipur, on January 26, 2043, PLA forces entered Lahore. The fleeing defenders had left some useful equipment behind, some of which the soldiers identified as being Indian varieties of artillery. There were a few others, in long aluminum tubes, and Zhu had never seen anything similar to them before.
Mao sent Minister Deng to Lahore, and the science advisor immediately knew what the devices were. "They are cruise missiles," he calmly told the army commander. "We've never found them useful before, but apparently Gandhi likes to have them around because you can use them to fight the enemy without ever bringing your own men into harm's way. You just aim at your target, and then press this button here. KABOOM!"
After the fall of Lahore, Zhu's next target was the port city of Madras. With over 3.3 million citizens, Madras was the single most populous city in the world, but it was deep inside Indian territory and thus lightly defended. Many of the troops serving in the city garrison had never even seen combat before, and went into shock upon seeing the deadly Chinese battleships that had arrived in the harbor. Mahatma Gandhi had never expected an enemy could reach so far in so quickly, and he did not even have any time to bring in reinforcements.
As Deng had instructed, Zhu pressed the button to launch the cruise missile. It wiped out half of the first mechanized infantry division in Madras, and after following it up with more bombardment from PLAN vessels off the coast, he sent in his armored units. The inexperienced Indian defenders tried to resist, but by February 24, 2043, the last of their efforts had failed.
Commander Zhu had conquered three Indian cities in just over a month. Morale was at an all-time high, despite the fact that the heavy combat losses were far greater than those he had experienced in Japan. But at this point, he felt it would be a good time to take a break. Delhi, the Indian capital, seemed just out of his reach.
He turned over the task to Lin, who had long been preparing to make his move from Nanjing. For several months now he had been eying the city of Karachi, the only Indian port on the west coast. During the wars with Japan, Karachi had come under attack from the Shogun's troops many times, but Gandhi was able to save the city by drafting citiznes to defend it. Over the years, he had kept these draftees, giving them new equipment and financial support with each round of upgrades.
"Pfft, conscripts," scoffed Lin. But they held up surprisingly well to the mechanized infantry that he first sent to fight them, frustrating several of their attacks. It was not until March 17, when Lin ordered a few of his fast modern armor divisions to cross the Indus River and attack the city from behind enemy lines, that the city of Karachi finally succumbed to the PLA.
With Karachi brought under Chinese control, Bombay was now a long salient in the Indian front, and it was the only city that separated Lin's forces in the south from Zhu's in the north. The PLAAF dropped huge loads of ordnance onto the city, and although it had a rather small effect on reducing the Indian defense, it at least gave the city's namesake some meaning at last.
Compared to Karachi, the conquest of Bombay was significantly easier. The defending mechanized infantry divisions were better trained but fewer in number, and in only two weeks time they were completely wiped out. By March 31, trains could move freely from Beijing to Nanjing without having to pass through Indian territory, bringing fresh supplies to the southern front.
Reinforcements from the north stopped by Nanjing to refuel before heading through the forest and tundra in the south to seize Hyderabad. Like Karachi, Hyderabad had suffered attacks from the Japanese before, and much of its garrison was comprised of conscripts, but the city they held was so much smaller and less important that they put up a much weaker resistance.
An early thaw in the winter ice turned most of the roads into mud, slowing down the Chinese advance, but it was only a matter of time before Lin's modern armor divisions made their way into the city. On April 14, 2043, the garrison of Hyderabad surrendered.
"Eh, what? Only 4 gold from a city? Maybe Gandhi was broke after all," Mao joked. But the Indians seemed determined to resist further, and there seemed to be no choice but to continue the attacks.
Due to unforseen logistical setbacks in their preparation, the PLA attack on Delhi was postponed until the summer of 2043 AD, but there was one more prize within reach in the south. Bangalore, the infamous city that had tried and failed to build three wonders, was now a center of uranium production. Mao found this quite odd, as the Indians neither knew how to build nuclear power plants nor nuclear weapons, but perhaps the resource was used to power a few of their submarines.
On April 18, only 4 days after taking Hyderabad, the PLA armored divisions laid siege to Bangalore. The Indian defense crumbled before them, and with that, the last source of uranium was now under Chinese control.
There were now only three Indian cities left on the continent, plus two more on the island of Bangladesh. In May, the preparations for the assault on Delhi were completed, and the march on the Indian capital began.
Even though it was located in the heart of India, far from any of its borders, Mahatma Gandhi had wisely chosen to keep a heavy military presence in the capital. "We will never surrender!" he declared, while ordering his artillery to take aim at any approaching Chinese troops. "India shall fight on!"
The PLA suffered some of its heaviest casualties during the Battle of Delhi, losing some of their best modern armor units, but ultimately they were able to overwhelm the Indian defense forces with their superior numbers and substantial support from the PLAAF. Bombers, now veterans from the war with Japan, had Delhi in their range after their carriers had been escorted to the eastern coast of India, where a very large PLAN fleet had already assembled to protect them.
Gandhi, sensing defeat, withdrew to the southern port of Calcutta, where he had already ordered Nehru and his subordinates to transfer most of the Indian government offices, outside of immediate danger. When Zhu and Lin entered Delhi together with their combined forces on June 22, 2043, the Mahatma had already made his successful retreat.
Kolhapur, at the eastern end of the continent, was only a short distance from Delhi. It was here that Gandhi had hidden the weakest of his units, infantry from the Industrial Age. These units had been overlooked during the military upgrade procedure, as enemy troops were never expected to make it this far into Indian territory. But here was the PLA, less than a year after war had broken out.
Chinese armored divisions had little to fear from the assault rifles used by the Kolhapur garrison, which was already in bad shape after offshore bombardment by the PLAN fleet. After a quick resting period following the capture of Delhi, Zhu was on the move again, and on July 7 Kolhapur fell to his forces.
Calcutta was the last bastion of India on the continent now, and it was not in good shape at all. The previous year there had been an accident at the Calcutta oil refinery, leaving much of the surrounding land poisoned by toxic waste. Somehow Gandhi still had the nerve to keep his worker crews on duty cleaning up the mess even while the war raged around him.
Quite dedicated, thought Mao when he heard of this.
But the job they are doing is nothing close to the performance of our workers, and he should have been able to prevent industrial accidents like this in the first place, by building facilities that are friendly to the environment.
The city had previously been out of the reach of even the PLA's fastest units, as the troops at Delhi and Bangalore controlled little of the railroads leading to the new Indian capital. But the fall of Kolhapur opened up a new path toward Calcutta, and an onslaught of modern armor divisions descended upon the city like a whirlwind.
Calcutta put up some very stiff resistance, defeating most of the Chinese forces that attacked, and barely managed to hold out until Gandhi's birthday on October 2, 2043. The harbor had already been blockaded by the PLAN fleet, but Mahatma Gandhi managed to board his personal jet and fly over to Bangladesh Island with a few of his highest-ranking government officials, where he set up a new headquarters at Bengal.
And so, when the Autumn Moon Festival of 2043 AD came around a few days later, the Chinese people celebrated the completion of their conquest of the continent, and invited the Indian citizens to join them, although most of them were still resisting. Agent Tong in Ise and Agent Gong in Bengal reported that there was still no talk of surrender in the foreign capitals, but for Mao, the struggle seemed like it would be over at last.
... to be continued