Zhang’s ballistic missiles slammed into the road system, blasting huge chunks out of the coastal highway. They hit the town of Chungli, where the main south-running freeway crosses Route 1. They obliterated that junction and took out 400 yards of the railroad track.
They blew apart a freeway road bridge west of Hainchu. They hit the Mingte Dam, west of Miaoli, and three times more they knocked serious hunks out of the south-running roads, freeways and railroads before they reached the majestic bridges that span the estuary of the Choshui River.
And there, with a withering salvo of missiles, the Chinese took out all four of them, blasting steel and masonry into the water, stopping Route 17 in its tracks, ending the long winding path of Route 19, splitting asunder the great north-south freeway, and closing down the south-running railroad.
The entire transportation system that crosses the pancake-flat, rice-growing plains of west-central Taiwan was in ruins. And that was before the Chinese missiles reached the southwestern city of Tainan, Taiwan’s provincial capital for more than 200 years until 1885.
Zhang’s missiles completely destroyed every runway on the airport. They hammered Routes 17 and 19 north of the river and blasted yet again the main highway south. There were three massive separate hits on the most important road-freight artery in the country as it swept west of the city toward the port of Kaohsiung, 30 miles farther south.
At that point it was just about impossible to move troops or anything else back to the north. Admiral Zhang’s brilliant feint to the Penghu Islands had drawn half the Taiwanese army 235 miles away from his main objective, Taipei.
And the Chinese warlord had not even begun. Again he launched his remaining 120 B-6/BADGER aircraft, and they headed out over the coast in three great waves of 40, again loaded with the new land-attack cruise missiles. This time their targets were strictly military, Taiwan’s air-defense installations, Air Force runways and Naval bases, places the PLAN had been watching and checking for years.
The BADGERs were accompanied by Air Force fighters, the Q-5B Fantan and more bombers, the newer JH-7s and the SU-30MKKs. Air-superiority aircraft, J-10 and J-11 Flankers, flew sortie after sortie, trying to protect the bomber force and downing several Taiwanese fighter aircraft in a sustained attempt to gain air superiority over the strait.
The opening attacks hit the brand-new, but untried, Modified Air Defense System (MADS), with its super-PATRIOT antiballistic missiles, which had been installed all around the capital. They slammed the airfields of the new Indigenous Defense Fighter aircraft in Taoyuan County and farther south in Yunlin. All along the flat west coastal plain they took out the Tien Kung air-defense systems. They hit the high slopes of the central mountains where the Taiwanese military had major west-facing air-command and-control centers, built especially to deal with a massive incoming attack from the mainland, as this most certainly was.
For years Chinese agents had reported to Beijing every detail of the key Taiwanese logistic centers and the military Intelligence headquarters (C-41). And now the land-attack missiles, launched from the air, were aimed at every one of them, backed up by the huge short-range ballistic missiles that were still thundering into the sky every few minutes from their launchers 100 miles across the strait in Fujian and Jangxi Provinces.
Brave little Taiwan shuddered under the withering onslaught of the Dragon from across the water. But they conceded nothing. Hour after hour, their pilots had fought those F-16s into the sky, attacking the incoming missile bombers. And by midday it was apparent that China had made an error of judgment in not locating Taiwan’s mobile short-range air-defense systems, CHAPARRAL, STINGER/AVENGER and ANTELOPE.
CHAPARRAL consists of four modified AIM-9C Sidewinders mounted on tracked vehicles; the STINGER/AVENGER SAMS is a pedestal-mounted system with two pods, each one containing four STINGER missiles, mounted on the back of a High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). ANTELOPE, developed and perfected at Taiwan’s Chung Sang Institute of Science and Technology, fires from an HMMWV four Tien Chien-1 missiles with a 14-mile range. A deadly low-flying intercepter, it has an outstanding target acquisition system.
The Taiwanese moved these three systems along their west coastline to lethal effect, launching their missiles doggedly and accurately, from anywhere they found cover. They fired from the rice fields, from behind barns, woods and coral walls. They fired from any of the foothills of the coastal mountains they could reach. And by midafternoon they had devastated the Chinese fleet of BADGER bombers. Of the 120 that came in from the mainland, fewer than 70 made it back.
But they had only stopped the aircraft, not the missiles, and by nightfall Taiwan’s entire transportation system in the west was wrecked. The communications systems, both civilian and military, were nonoperational. And their permanent air-defense systems were essentially destroyed. There was nothing left of the much-vaunted SKYGUARD installations. The AIM-7M/SPARROW antiaircraft missiles had scarcely left the ground.
In the entire history of aerial combat, the monstrous struggle for supremacy above the Taiwan Strait was right up there with the battle of Britain, except that both Admiral Zhang and Taiwan’s Air Force C-in-C, General KeChiang Wong, had it all over H. Goering and Adolf.
By nightfall on May 23, China had achieved the destruction of many of its objectives, but somehow Taiwan had fought them off. In addition to the battering of the BADGER fleet, China had lost 10 Fantans, plus 12 more bombers and nine Flankers.
The Taiwanese had lost a total of 43 combat aircraft, which meant, in a sense, they were somehow winning the air battle. But China had 2,200 fully operational fighter and bomber aircraft, while Taiwan had a total of only 400 combat aircraft. As in every war in its long history, China was perfectly prepared to suffer massive attrition in pursuit of her goals, safe in the knowledge that ultimately she had more of everything, especially people, and these days, aircraft and ships.
The fact was, at this rate of killing, China could go on losing this air battle twice as long as Taiwan could go on winning it. The absence of the always-expected heavy U.S. air support was a death blow to the island, which suddenly found itself fighting for its life.
And the situation at sea was, if anything, worse. The Chinese Navy comprised 275,000 personnel, with more than 50 destroyers and frigates, 60 diesel-electric and six nuclear submarines, nearly 50 landing ships, plus several hundred auxiliaries and smaller patrol vessels.
Taiwan had an excellent Navy of 22 destroyers, 22 frigates, 50 fast-attack craft, but only 10 submarines. Their 40 landing ships were plainly not required in a conflict with China.
Unsurprisingly first blood on the water went to China. In the middle of the afternoon a PLA Naval Aviation long-range maritime patrol aircraft, a Y-8X Cub, flying down the center of the strait, picked up the small flotilla carrying the first wave of Taiwanese Marines going in to reinforce the Penghus.
The Cub signaled back to Southern Fleet HQ, and two hours later, two Chinese Kilos moved in and made a fierce underwater attack upon Taiwan’s warships. They slammed a torpedo into each of the Newport-Class LSTs and hit the Cheng Hai with two more, leaving the big LSD on fire and listing with more than 400 casualties on board.
And with every hour, more and more Chinese warships arrived on station around the Taiwan coast, securing their sea-lanes, plainly preparing to protect the Chinese landing force, which everyone now knew was inevitable.
0730 (local). Wednesday, May 23.
The White House. Washington, D.C.
The atmosphere in the Oval Office was subdued. Indeed an air of melancholy hung over the entire capital, as America’s friends, colleagues and partners on the other side of the world fought for survival.
The President was worried, mainly that he might somehow be blamed, and he was beginning to see himself as some kind of Nero figure, fiddling around in Washington while Taiwan burned.
“There must be something we can do,” he kept saying. And Bob MacPherson, the Defense Secretary, kept telling him t
hat as far as he could see there was nothing. The Secretary of State, Harcourt Travis, thought the less said to anyone, the better, although he knew the USA was bound to defend Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act, Public Law 96-8.
Arnold Morgan paced the room, wracking his brains for a solution, concentrated now on trying to spell out the situation for the President. And he knew it would be difficult, because this President these days saw the world only in terms of himself, and his reputation at the end of his second term.
Finally, he was prepared, and he said, “Sir, as I have already explained, the Chinese have pulled off a stupendous act of deception, forcing us to put eighty percent of our available sea power into a false, but dangerous, situation in the Strait of Hormuz. In the process they have sunk three VLCCs and caused the death of several seamen, most of them American, inside the Gulf of Iran. They have further hit and sunk a Japanese tanker north of the Malacca Strait and plainly torpedoed a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific. They are now moving ahead and conquering Taiwan, the only objective they have ever been interested in.”
He paused to allow this catalog of Chinese transgressions to be fully appreciated. And then he continued, “In return, we have smashed their oil production in the gulf area. And I have warned their ambassador that we see no purpose in Chinese warships entering the area of the northern Arabian Sea in the future. Should they ignore this warning, they understand we will not hesitate to hit and sink any and all Chinese ships anywhere near the oil sea-lanes of the Middle East. They have done quite sufficient damage to the world oil market already, and the international community simply will not put up with their presence in the area any longer. The Chinese understand that. I think.”
“Arnold, I kinda know all that,” said the President. “I want you to deal with Taiwan.”
“Very well, sir. But you’ll forgive my reminding you that all these matters are very closely connected.”
“I’ll forgive you. Taiwan.”
“Okay,” said Admiral Morgan, declining to mention what he actually thought about the conversation—Some cheek, this fucking ignoramus trying to keep ME on track.
But he rose above it, more or less effortlessly, and continued on: “Sir, this attack on Taiwan has been very carefully planned. And we thus find ourselves watching a rather ungainly giant swatting and whacking his way to victory. But he is well prepared, he’s in his own waters, he doesn’t give a damn about the attrition of ships, aircraft or people and he wants the prize of Taiwan more than any Chinaman has ever wanted anything.
“We cannot intervene, mainly because we don’t have anything to intervene with. And even if we did, I’d be inclined to advise against. Because we would find ourselves in a very serious sea battle, and the upshot might be that we could lose three or four major ships, and a couple of thousand American crewmen. They on the other hand might lose twenty ships and ten thousand crewmen. The difference being that they wouldn’t care a fuck, and would just go on fighting. We, on the other hand, could not put up with that.
“We’d have riot conditions at home, you’d be swept from office along with the rest of us and we’d all be accused of deliberately starting a new Vietnam on account of some goddamned no-account Chinese island, which is about a mile and a half from Shanghai anyway. That’s how the public and the press would react.
“It’s all very well our patrolling the waters, as we’ve been doing for years, and frightening everyone to death whenever we had to. But it’s quite another to be prepared to go to war, to send our young men to fight and die, thousands of miles from home. Sir, if we took this country into armed conflict with China over a bunch of fucking pottery makers in this goddamned island right off their coast, you could wind up with another civil war in this country, and I’m not joking.”
“But we always were able to drive the Chinese off before….”
“Yeah, but they were only goofing around then. This is entirely different. This is a nation on a war footing, perfectly happy to fight and die for their belief that Taiwan is a part of China, an offshore province that needs to be brought back into the motherland. On the other hand, we are really prepared only to posture over Taiwan. No president of the USA is going into a real shooting war with China over their goddamned island.
“We’d fight ’em over Middle Eastern oil, if we had to, because that’s in our national interest and the public would understand that. But they would not understand American sailors being blown to pieces over the territorial claim of one Chinaman over another.”
“I guess you can understand the Chinese wanting this offshore island back,” said the President. “Same as they wanted Hong Kong, which was even farther inside their own backyard. I just never understand this obsession. Never understand what they really want.”
“What they really want, sir,” replied Admiral Morgan, “is the National Palace Museum of Taipei.”
“The museum?”
“Correct. Because it contains the most priceless collection of Chinese art and history. It is without question the greatest museum in the world, the greatest museum there has ever been.”
“Is that right?”
“That, sir, is right.”
“Well I thought the Chinese regime hated culture. Didn’t Chairman Mao and his wife try to destroy every vestige of their country’s culture, burning books, destroying university libraries and all that?”
“They sure did. And that was a big part of it. The entire heart of China, every ancient book, manuscript, tapestry, sculpture, painting, porcelain, silver, jade, gold, whatever, dating right back to the ancient Shang Kingdom, thousands of years ago, was contained in one collection. About ten thousand cases of it. Held for five hundred years in the Forbidden City in Beijing.”
“Well, how did it get to Taiwan?”
“Basically Chiang Kai-shek took it.”
“Christ! All of it?”
“Nearly. It was just about the last major act he undertook before he and the Kuomintang were exiled to Formosa. He just felt that Mr. and Mrs. Mao might destroy the entire thing, so he packed it all up and somehow shipped fourteen trainloads of Chinese tradition across the water to his new home.”
“Did anyone care? I mean back on the mainland?”
“Not for a while. But then Formosa had its name changed to Taiwan, and its capital, Taipei, became a world financial power. So Chiang Kai-shek decided to build this fabulous museum in a park to the north of the city…kinda showcase to display this colossal record of the cultural history of China.”
“Don’t tell me, Arnie. Right then the Chinks wanted it all back?”
“That’s right. The museum opened sometime in the mid-sixties, and the Chinese Communists almost immediately started to lay claim to the entire collection, ranting on about the cultural tapestry of China being displayed in this offshore island that somehow claimed to have nothing to do with the mainland.”
“And what did Chiang Kai-shek say to that?”
“Plenty, sir. He said plenty. He told them that in his view they were nothing more than a murderous communist rabble who would probably have burned the history of China and never given it another thought. He told them he, Chiang, was the rightful ruler of China, that Taiwan was the rightful cradle of the Chinese nation, and that one day he and his armies would return and reclaim the mainland, and he’d see ’em all in hell before he’d submit to their barbarism.”
“And the collection of Chinese history?”
“That was even easier to deal with. Old Chiang Kai-shek told ’em to go fuck themselves.”
“And the stuff’s been there in the museum ever since?”
“Right. They even called it the National Palace Museum, after the original in the Forbidden City.”
“And did the stuff survive all this turmoil?”
“By some miracle, not one piece was ever broken. Which, in the opinion of the Taiwanese people, proves that the collection is precisely where it’s supposed to be. And they do have the unanswerable argument that Mao and
his wife would most certainly have destroyed it.”
“And what does the modern Chinese regime have to say about that?”
“Nothing. Except to stamp their feet and shout, WANT TREASURES BACK! WANT TREASURES BACK!”
Everyone in the room chuckled. They would have laughed out loud if the situation had not been quite so serious.
“Jeez. There must be literally thousands of pieces,” said Bob MacPherson.
“I think there’re more than seven hundred thousand,” said Admiral Morgan. “I went to see it once a few years back. But they can only display fifteen thousand pieces at a time. They rotate every three months. So if you lived in Taiwan and went there four times in a year, you’d still only see sixty thousand pieces, which is less than ten percent of the collection. It’d take twelve years to see everything.”
“But where do they keep all the stuff that’s not on display?”
“No one really knows,” Arnold continued. “But it’s supposed to be hidden in some vast network of vaults in the mountains behind the museum. They say it’s all connected by tunnels.”
“You’d think with all that stuff they could do some kind of a deal, wouldn’t you? Display half of it in Beijing or something.” The President slipped automatically into the politician’s instinct for compromise.
“The Chinese mind-set does not work like that,” said Arnold. “Mainland China wants this irritating little rebel island to hand over the culture of China, which, they say, Chiang Kai-shek stole from the people.”
“And the Taiwanese are still telling ’em to go fuck themselves?”
“Exactly,” said Admiral Morgan. “And before we’re a lot older, I’d say there’s going to be a ferocious battle over that museum. And you can bet the Taiwanese have put in some very thorough security systems. Even if Taiwan falls, as it plainly must, there’s no guarantee that collection will not be wiped out. The Taiwanese may even use it as a bargaining card.”
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