CFCoasters
Riding the Lightning
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2012
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Chapter 3 (Prologue) The Great Asian War (Part 1)
While it had many names, with some calling it World War III, the Soviet-Chinese War, the Second Great Patriotic War (mostly Russians) and some especially religious people even calling it the End Times, the name for the conflict that began on September 8, 1983 between China and the Soviet Union that would be most used was the Great Asian War. The reason for this is simple. While the war would bring in allies and puppet states from outside of Asia (mostly Eastern European Bucharest Pact states; Soviet allies), virtually all fighting would take place in Asia, and all non-Asian countries in the war had a marginal role at most.
Upon the invasion of the Soviet Union, all members of the Bucharest Pact (the Soviet Union, Finland, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria, and Greece) declared war on the Republic of China, but most of these countries would not seriously take part in the fighting. The members of the Bucharest Pact were primarily united to serve as a Soviet bulwark against another invasion from the west, and thus served little purpose against an invasion from China (this was part of the reason the Soviets annexed Mongolia and Tannu Tuva to have them serve as this bulwark). While theoretically, all members of the Bucharest Pact were fully committed to the war, most members sent token forces to assist the Soviet Union, and only sent these so they wouldnt be seen as traitorous to the communist cause. As China had few allies (Korea, Vietnam and Burma chief among them), the war would mostly be fought between the Soviets and the Chinese. The west, hoping to avoid having the war spread to them, stayed out completely and adopted a policy of complete neutrality.
As a far right wing military dictatorship with the largest population of any country on Earth (roughly 1.1 billion people lived in China at this point in time), China had developed the single largest military of any country on Earth, and indeed, the largest military force of any nation in human history, with an estimated 40 million soldiers serving on the front lines. The Soviets, with a much smaller population (estimated at about 270 million, or a quarter of Chinas), were forced to conscript a much larger percentage of its people to maintain an army large enough to be able to withstand Chinas roughly 30 million Soviet citizens would serve in the Soviet military, or a ninth of its population. Total forces from Bucharest Pact states would number only around 1.5 million, due to the Soviets belief that those forces were needed to guard against the west.
The early stages of the Great Asian War occurred over three fronts Southern Mongolia and the Gobi desert, Outer Manchuria, and the Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. While much of this area was not very useful to China, from a political and honor point of view, these regions were viewed as too important to let the Soviets keep. The earliest fighting occurred, quite appropriately, near the city of Blagoveshchensk, the town on the other side of the Amur River from Heihe. Quick-striking Chinese special forces seized control of all bridges on the Amur in the vicinity of Heihe and while the main invasion force crossed said bridges. The initial battles were complete within hours, with Blagoveshchensk in Chinese hands by nightfall. Similar successes were recorded elsewhere along the Amur, and within two days, the river was almost entirely in Chinese hands, and Chinese advance forces moving in to secure as much of Outer Manchuria as possible before Soviet resistance could stiffen.
In eastern Mongolia, the Chinese moved even more quickly. The somewhat flat and unpopulated nature of the desert meant that an invading force could travel a long distance quickly. Once Soviet resistance on the border came to an end, the Chinese conquered most of eastern Mongolia within two weeks. In western Mongolia, progress was slower due to the more orderly withdrawal of the Soviet forces near the border, along with the presence of the Altai Mountains, which gave the Soviets a relatively easy position to defend. The Chinese, after having their first assaults on the mountain range repulsed, resorted to using what amounted to a human wave attack on Soviet positions, a tactic which cost the Chinese tens of thousands of lives. Nevertheless, the Chinese would hold half of Mongolia by the end of September. In Central Asia, the Chineses limited goals here were related to their relative lack of soldiers and resources. Unlike in Mongolia and Outer Manchuria, the Chinese merely wanted control up to Lake Balkhash, so progress was limited.
But while the early war was going well for the Chinese, there was one thing that was wrong in their planning of the war, one fundamental flaw. Their opponent was a country that, forty years prior, had had almost the exact same thing happen to them. 42 years ago, in 1941, the Germans, under the control of the Nazi Party, had launched an invasion of an unprepared Soviet Union. The Soviets were unprepared and unready for such a war, and by the time the combination of sheer numbers, exhaustion, overextension, and the Russian Winter stopped the Germans, half a year had passed and the Germans could see Moscow. It would take 4 years from then to finally defeat Nazi Germany, a four years that saw the Russian people undergo what was essentially hell on earth. 25-30 million would fall victim to the Nazis onslaught over that time, and by the time Berlin was finally captured and the war in Europe ended, the Soviet Union had suffered more than any other country in the deadliest war in history.
Thus, when the Chinese declared war on and invaded the Soviet Union, a war in which they expected would be fought purely conventionally, with no nuclear weapons involved. They were facing an enemy that had undergone one of the most torturous experiences in human history. Since then, every action they had taken, from creating the largest nuclear stockpile on Earth to forming what were essentially puppet states out of all of Eastern and most of Central Europe was designed with one thought in mind: Never Again. Thus, when another country finally went over the edge and invaded them, those same words went through the mind of every man and woman in the Soviet Union. And they would have no regrets for the action they were about to take.
On October 28, 1983, a bright flash engulfed the Chinese city of Harbin, deep within Manchuria. Within seconds, this flash gave way to a shockwave that would emanate from the flash, and wherever it went, death and destruction followed. Some would claim that you could see the flash as far away as Beijing, and others would say that the leader of China personally saw it, and realized the mistake he had made. While exact numbers will never be known, it is thought that anywhere from one to two million people would die as a result of the explosion that destroyed Harbin. And rising from the now dead city, a mushroom cloud would rise up, able to be seen for hundreds of miles, like a messenger of doom. The Soviets had fired off a nuclear weapon, shattering the last hope of the world that this war would not turn nuclear, and set off the ultimate Pandoras Box in the process.
And it was just beginning.
), and I plan on it not being world-endingly destructive. You'll see what I have in mind soon enough.
.. maybe we should start a group.. slow writer's club 
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Mexico has been updating fairly regularly now 
