The United States Navy now dominated the Pacific Ocean. The United States Army and Marine Corps were laying a path of devastation from North Korea, through Manchuria, and heading towards Beijing. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens were pouring into Beijing, looking for relief that was increasingly becoming harder to give. Of course, the PRC would not let these people go to waste. Many were being relocated to rural districts to assist in food production, or sent to factories to build war materiel. So far, however, the American military had shown they could destroy much faster than the People’s Republic of China could produce. The loss of East China only added to that loss of production.
Zhang was worried. He was very worried. He knew he needed a new plan, he knew he needed to turn things around, but he did not know how to do it. All the past communist tricks and propaganda used against the Americans for decades no longer seemed to work. President Clark was not trying to win hearts and minds, he was not trying to build a “legacy.” He was genuinely interested in destroying the PRC and using all the power and the resources of the American people. Zhang was at a loss as to how to defeat such a man, such a people, as the Americans when they were unleashed.
The only positive that Zhang could see coming from these past events was the loss of dead weight from the PRC. All the desertions and betrayals that he had suffered left him with the strong and dedicated with which to fight now. Slowly but surely, he was winnowing out the disloyal and incompetent from among his leaders. The PRC was growing smaller, but he saw it growing stronger!
“Why, Chairman Mao finished the Long March with only six thousand soldiers and with that he conquered China!” he reminded his subordinates and the Chinese people. They would get stronger. Zhang believed in himself. He believed in his leadership. The PRC would not quit. The PRC would not surrender. Zhang might not be the man that conquered the Pacific, but he would be the man that would save the PRC from its greatest threat since the Sino-Japanese War.
“Good day, gentlemen.” Zhang started the meeting as soon as he walked into the room. “We will not be joined by General Wang Tao today. I regret to inform you all that he has betrayed and undermined our heroic efforts to save our people from the American barbarians. I put the responsibility of this on myself.” Zhang lied. He thought a show of humility would increase loyalty. “Had my intelligence officers discovered Wang’s betrayal to our People’s Republic earlier, perhaps we could have saved Shanghai.” This caught the attention of General Fu Gang of Intelligence. “Trust me, comrades, when I tell you that he and his family have died deaths worthy of those that betray the People.
“More pressing, however, is the American defeat and our ultimate victory. General Li Xia, brief us on our propaganda campaign.”
“President Zhang, news reports have been sent to all the major news outlets that we control. We emphasize the deaths of noncombatants, famine caused by American troops, as well as war crimes and atrocities of American and ROC troops.” The general hoped her answer would suffice, but she did not think it would.
“What do our informants tell us of the American reaction?”
“Not much is new, President Zhang. The usual factions and Clark’s political enemies are protesting and making a fuss, but as yet it is not lessening the American war effort.” She refrained from telling him that polls showed that the American people sensed victory, and the majority was more determined than ever to win the war effort.
“Our people have still found nothing we can use against Clark?”
“No, Comrade President, but we are still searching.” General Li hated that she did not have a better answer for Zhang.
“Keep digging, General Li. If we cannot weaken Clark’s resolve, then we must weaken the Americans’ faith in him.” Zhang didn’t state the frustration of owning American media outlets, funding charities, funding politicians, and still not being able to influence American politics. He knew of the polls Li didn’t mention. He did not want to frighten the others and thus weaken their resolve to fight for him. He did so yearn for the days before Clark, when American politicians and presidents had been so easy to control and manipulate.
“Meanwhile we must deal with the American invaders. The more of their soldiers we send back in body bags, the weaker the Americans’ resolve will be to win this war.”
Zhang loved to play general. He thought of himself as something of a Chinese Napoleon, although his racist opinion of Caucasians and his socialist sense of nationalism nearly prevented him from admitting this to himself, let alone others. Some of his earlier conquests in the South China Sea, Indonesia, and East China Sea had affirmed this belief. The defeats of the Sino-American War might have weakened his faith in the Chinese people, but had done nothing to weaken Zhang’s faith in Zhang. He thought himself cursed with incompetent subordinates.
“Comrades, our homeland is very big. The more the laowai try to hold, the weaker they become. We will destroy our own railroads and highways, cutting the southeast from us like a cancer and slowing the American advance.” No one brought up that the American force had done much of that for them already.
“We”—at that cue Zhang’s orderly turned on a projector filling a big screen with a map of China—“will use our homeland itself against the Americans here”—Zhang pointed to the mountains to the northeast of Beijing—“and here”—he pointed to the Yellow River about two hundred miles south of Beijing in the North China Plain. He would keep the plan for his own personal evacuation from Beijing to himself.
McCullough had had nothing but good news; however, his mind was not at ease. The Allied Shanghai Campaign had worked out, for all intents and purposes, as a best-case scenario. American casualties had been substantial, but were not for nothing. Southeast China had fallen ahead of schedule. The Northern Campaign was progressing as well and flooding Beijing with refugees. McCullough knew eventually the PRC had to reach a breaking point. The PRC didn’t take very good care of the majority of its people before the invasion, it would only be able to do less so now. With each day, with each American victory, tens of thousands of Chinese were abandoning their faith in communism.
Taiwan, the Philippines, and Australia had come through for the Allied cause in the south as an occupational force. Japan, Canada, and South Korea were essential to success in the north. As the PRC grew weaker with every American victory, the Allies grew stronger.
McCullough’s greatest source for concern was not from China, but from Washington, DC. Mythers was still running his mouth more than ever to the president about negotiating with the People’s Republic of China. Clark had showed tremendous resolve so far. To McCullough’s relief, Clark acted more like a former Marine than a current politician. Clark understood enough history to appreciate Hard War.
War required sacrifice. A nation, a people must practice discipline and self-denial. To those living under a centralized despotism, this was how one lived in peace as well as war. It was enforced on them. For a free people accustomed to pursuing their own interests and destinies, it required self-discipline and self-sacrifice. No ruler told them to do it, they told themselves to do it. Why? So they could remain free to pursue their own interests and self-chosen destinies and not be enslaved to the interests and desires of a totalitarian elite.
History provided many examples of free people who temporarily denied their happiness and freedoms to fight in order to secure those freedoms and opportunities of prosperity for their children, for the next generation. The Greeks against the Persians. The Romans against the Carthaginians. The United States against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Even when Americans fought Americans in the Civil War, President Lincoln sought a complete and utter defeat of his enemy, desiring to return to self-government and the people’s freedom to pursue their own self-interest as soon as possible. Indeed, time was of the essence. History had shown that these very same cultures had lost their desire to win when wars were long and indecisive. Over time victory began to seem unattainable and lost freedoms seemed like a past age
.
McCullough and Clark understood this lesson from history. General Mythers, for all his military training, did not. McCullough found Mythers to be more politician than soldier. The man was great at organizing garrison life, but McCullough thought Mythers would be a disaster if given too much say in the Allied war strategy.
He was also getting word from a contact in Central Intelligence that Vice President Harmon and Secretary of State Weeseman had, within inner circles, stated agreement with Mythers. McCullough hated the idea of getting this far to back off now.
McCullough remembered a time when he was about twelve years old at baseball practice. He’d gotten into a fight with a kid that was not on the team, but would show up to harass the players during batting practice. For whatever reason the coaches never did anything about it. One day Jack had had enough. As soon as he finished batting, he walked over to the kid and kicked him. The kid deflected the kick and jumped up. Young Jack followed up with a few punches, and the kid screamed that he’d had enough. No sooner had Jack stopped throwing punches than the kid threw a hard right and nailed Jack right in the nose. Ultimately the punch left him with two black eyes. Jack threw more punches before the coaches finally broke it up, but he never regained the momentum in the fight. When John Sr. found out about the fight and how it went down, little Jack got his butt chewed out.
“Never, ever, ever quit a fight until the other guy is beat. That means he is on the ground, bleeding and not capable of defending himself, or else he’s run away. You deserved to get your nose busted for being so stupid. Do that again, and I’ll punch you in the nose myself!” Jack would never again do that in a fistfight, and if he could help it, he would not do it in this war. The blood of lost Americans demanded complete and total victory over the People’s Republic of China.
If Zhang were to actually try now to make a stand on the Yangtze River, McCullough would love to nuke the main body of the PLA. It would save American lives, but the Republic of China’s desire to retake Nanjing, UN disapproval, the American lack of nuclear arms made it highly unlikely. The question was would Nanjing give up like Shanghai? It had been the old capital of the ROC, but that was nearly a century ago. A city of nine million would be a nightmare to take street by street. Screw that. McCullough would rather bomb it back into the Stone Age before he ordered that.
However, force the PLA to fall back, and the city would be far more likely to capitulate. Once in the North China Plain, there would be no great geographic obstacles until the Yellow River. At that point then…maybe?
“Four aces, dude!” Schmitt chuckled.
“Mother…shit!” Hastings threw down his cards in disgust. Harris enjoyed watching the other two play more than playing himself. He hated to lose money gambling, especially since they had only recently come into possession of cash. Initially, they were given what they needed from supply and received debit cards with a limited amount of money on them. However, some of the more enterprising locals really wanted to do business with the American GIs. So in the name of collaboration with the newly expanded Republic of China, the soldiers and Marines began being paid some amounts of cash when possible.
As if on cue, Harris and Reese pulled out cigarettes and lit them up. They were soon followed by Hastings and Schmitt. The four had become rather cliquish after Shanghai. They were also friends with Edwards and Cortes, but to a lesser extent. They’d both been promoted to corporal and made squad leaders when Second Section was rebuilt. Bohanan was their section leader now. Anderson had been taken out by a sniper. He’d been standing on top of an LSV, looking through his binoculars when he bought it. Head shot. He was dead before he hit the ground. It was a hit-and-run affair. The sniper only fired once.
The PLA had been on the run again. However, resistance was stiffening. More guerrilla, hit-and-run type of strikes, like the one that took Anderson out. Scuttlebutt was that Nanjing would be the next big target. Of course, the source for that rumor was probably because Nanjing was the biggest Prick city in the region. Word was if they took Nanjing, they’d get the Yangtze with it. That might be true, but the Pricks weren’t going to give it away. If the Marine Corps wanted it, they’d have to earn it in blood.
Harris was confident of victory. He didn’t know if he’d live to see it on this earth, but he knew the United States would win. Harris had become rather theological about death. Some elements about dying still frightened him, but he had no fear of being dead. He believed in Christ; he believed in an afterlife. No matter his outcome, he would either see his mother, brother, and sister again in this life; or he would see his father again in the next. God’s will be done. A story by Lieutenant Colonel McGregor had helped to give him this sense of peace.
“Marines, I’ll tell you what my granddaddy, who was a Southern Baptist preacher, told me the first time I went to war. He said, ‘Billy, when God wants to call you home, there ain’t nothing you can do to stop him. But remember, there ain’t nobody that can rush him either.’ Fight with heart, Marines! Your lives, your souls are in God’s hands, and I have it on good authority that He loves a bold Marine. Have faith in that love. Those communist sons of bitches ain’t got that going for them. If they win, all they get is more of the same ol’ bullshit tyranny they’ve always had. You? You’ve got the love of our Holy Father. You’ve got the freedom of our Republic. Let that give you strength in battle!” Harris had come away from meeting McGregor feeling more motivated than at any other time while he’d been in the Marine Corps, except perhaps when he’d heard General Ragnarsson speak to him in boot camp.
They all liked McGregor, even Edwards, who tended to be a little too cynical for Harris’s tastes. It was hard not to be a fan of the battalion commander after he had come to meet them. The lieutenant colonel had said he wanted to shake their hands and personally honor them for spotting the Pricks and standing their ground until the rest of the battalion and eventually the regiment had shown up. He personally pinned corporal stripes on Edwards and Cortes. He’d called Harris “Hard Charger.” Then he found out that Hastings had been given the nickname Bulldog from Sergeant Anderson because of the tenacity he’d shown in battle.
“What the hell, Marine, you stealing my nickname?” McGregor had jovially charged.
Hastings was taken aback for just a moment. “No, sir! I earned the motherfucker!” Hastings answered with a smart-ass grin in typical Hastings style. McGregor had loved it.
“Hoorah, Devil Dog!” McGregor vigorously slapped Hastings on the shoulder, who didn’t move an inch. “I wouldn’t give two shakes of piss for those limp-dick Pricks against you hard-chargin’ Leathernecks! Keep it up, Marines!” Cheers of hoorah erupted from the Marines.
Much to the chagrin of First and Third Sections, McGregor had called Second Section the Death Squad. He said he would use them to kick the ever-living hell out of the ChiCom bastards. The section loved it.
When they were issued new armor for their LSVs, they all painted a skull and crossbones as their section’s emblem. When the replacements for Second Section showed up, they were told they could not say the words Death Squad until they’d proved themselves. Bohanan did not want them to get bigheaded. Nor did he want them to get their asses kicked for bragging about something they’d not earned.
Now they sat playing poker and smoking cigarettes to kill time until they found out their next assignment.
“Here it comes, Death Squad.” Harris had spotted Bohanan and the Second Section squad leaders returning from a meeting. The only Marine who enjoyed the section’s nickname more than Harris was Hastings.
“Third Squad, get your drivers,” Edwards ordered, “and fall in.” The card players grabbed their weapons and moved out for formation.
“Listen up, Marines.” Bohanan had Second Section form a semicircle around him, resembling a football huddle. “We’re crossing the Yangtze here, about one hundred miles south of Nanjing. Give or take a bit, that kind of detail don’t mean too fucking much to y’all anyway. It is expected that Nanjing will
be one fortified motherfucker. So thank the good Lord above you ain’t been assigned to take that city. Our job is to cross the Yangtze just south of Tongling, here.” Bohanan was drawing a map in the dirt that added very little clarity to his description. “We get across here, we cut off the Prick troops holding Nanjing, and that means more dead Prick bastards. Now, in case some of you are prone to acting like self-pitying, whiny-ass types, Fifth and Sixth Marine Divisions are going to be landing here.” Bohanan indicated the coastline north of Shanghai. “Second Marine Division is to the north, and we got half of the United States fucking Army to our left. There is no excuse for failure. Marines—” Bohanan took the time to look every one of them in the eye “—we smash them here, they got nowhere to hide until they hit the Yellow River, and if we fight in traditional Marine Corps fashion, we will have this war won before that can happen. Any questions?”
“Sergeant Bohanan, how are we going to get across the Yangtze?” Private First Class Hawke, Harris’s new driver, asked.
“We will give cover and support Charlie Company as they take a bridge here. If the Pricks blow it, and they’re too goddamn smart not to, combat engineers will build us a pontoon bridge. Short of that, we will swim our asses across the Yangtze River, Marines. Failure to cross that river is unacceptable. One way or another we will move north, or we will die trying. Am I understood?”
“Aye, aye, Sergeant,” nearly every Marine answered.
Liu Zhiqiang had slowly filtered into Beijing. The highways were packed with refugees moving south. He had merely followed the crowd, but it had been more difficult than that sounds. He was from an agricultural village about six hundred miles northeast of Beijing. He had no idea why the Americans would have attacked a village that primarily produced potatoes and apples, but they had.
The Last Marine Page 15
