Lieutenant Colonel Long had just finished walking the perimeter of his newly established base, and he was satisfied with what he’d seen. The city of Qingyuan, a suburb northwest of Guangzhou, was a pivotal city to hold; Long planned on leveraging the forward operating base’s location near the Beijing River as a natural means of preventing any PLA units from thinking they could easily retake the city.
Long was content with what the engineers had been able to build in such a short period of time. They’d brought in miles worth of material to build twelve-foot Hesco barriers, and the engineers had wasted no time in building this perimeter with them. As the wall segments were constructed, many of the enterprising Marines had built improvised bunkers and fighting positions on top of the barriers along with guard towers, spaced out every couple hundred meters. Inside the FOB, his units were busy building up their company areas. There were tents for sleeping in, tents to act as orderly rooms and operations centers, kitchen tents, ammunition lockers, medical tents, vehicle yards, maintenance sections and every other function that would be needed to support the forward operating base.
Captain Stone, Long’s weapons company commander, caught up with him. “This is a good location to establish the FOB, Sir,” he praised.
“I agree, it’s a solid location,” said Captain McKnight, the Never Company CO. “I know some of the locals didn’t like us setting it up here and all, but it really gives us a solid commanding view of both the city and the bridge across the river. We’ve got great defensive positions as well.”
“It’s big enough for what we need without us having to commandeer large swaths of condos or parts of the city,” Long responded. His tone was confident without being cocky. “There are a ton of fishery farms in this area…I can’t believe how much of the land around the city has been dedicated to industrial fish farms.” He shook his head. “I had wanted a location with a bit more standoff room from the city, but that didn’t seem possible,” he added.
Captain McKnight pointed to a cluster of condo high-rises that would butt up against one perimeter of their wall. “What about those buildings? Are they occupied? If they aren’t, maybe we could have the engineers expand the perimeter and include them in the base. I’ll bet they could provide us with enough housing for the entire regiment, Sir.”
Long looked at the condos. He hadn’t given them a lot of thought other than realizing how good of a sniper nest they’d make. Then an idea formed in his head. “Tell you what, Captain — take your men over there and find out how many residents are there. I think I have an idea that might kill a few birds with one stone,” he directed. A grin formed on his face.
Two days later, his engineers had expanded their perimeter to include the additional buildings. Gobbling up the condos gave his FOB the sudden ability to house ten thousand additional Marines. When Captain McKnight’s men had gone through the buildings, they’d discovered that more than ninety percent of the residents had fled the city and not returned. The few hundred residents that remained were biometrically enrolled in the base security system, given an ID card and allowed to stay on the newly built FOB, but only in the area where they currently lived. They were even offered jobs on the base. Many of them jumped eagerly at the opportunity for employment, especially since they would be paid in US dollars and be allowed to eat at the same dining facilities where the Marines did.
With the sudden increase in housing, most of the 6th Marines quickly moved onto the FOB, turning what had been intended to be a small forward base into a major base of operations. Lieutenant Colonel Long suddenly found himself not only the 4th Battalion Commander, but also the FOB commander and mayor of a base that now housed more than 11,000 service members and 6,000 contractors. Whether it was fortunate for him or not, the regiment commander focused his resources and attention on maintaining the peace in the surrounding area and continuing to hunt down the remaining enemy army units still operating in the region, leaving Long to handle the day-to-day affairs of managing the base and his own battalion.
With the brunt of the heavy fighting over, the Marines moved to expand the American perimeter and control of Guangdong Province. The Allies now had nearly 90 million Chinese civilians for whom they were responsible for providing security, food and every other necessity of life. Fortunately, the brass had a well-developed plan for how to manage the occupation of these major cities and specially trained units to come in and help advise and work with the local government officials.
One of the keys to getting the occupation off to a good start was making sure the Allies got the cities’ general functions back up and running quickly, including running water, waste management, electricity, hospitals, fire departments, and police services. In addition, they had to make sure a steady food supply was being made available that consisted of both foods produced in their region and imported food.
While the Allied military forces worked to make sure the basic necessities were being provided for, President Hung Hui-ju’s Republic of China worked diligently to make sure everyone in the province knew it was her government that was working to provide the people with the food, security, and economic opportunity they needed to try and return their lives back to normal. Her constant pleas for the locals to disavow the Xi regime were still being met with mixed results. Some favored a more open, democratically elected form of government. Many others, however, preferred the autocratic form of government they had always known.
The night air was cool as it buffeted the B-21 Raider. The slight turbulence was normal as the sleek Batwing-lookalike bomber sliced through a storm cloud. Lightning strikes were visible not very far away, and rain pounded on the windshield of the bomber. Looking at the weather radar, Major Daniels made the decision to take them up a few thousand feet and see if she could get out of this soup.
She pulled back on the flight controls slightly. The bomber rose slowly at first, then with a bit more speed as they steadily moved out of the clouds. A few minutes passed by, and then they completely broke free of the storm. The turbulence dissipated until it eventually left all together leaving them nothing but calm smooth air as they continued on their mission.
Her flight commander, Colonel Rob “Pappi” Fortney, was doing something on the targeting computer and also periodically checking some of their electronic warfare systems to make sure everything was still working correctly. So far, they had not been detected. For all the success they’d had with the B-21 these past four weeks, Major Daniels had to remind herself that this was still very much an experimental plane. After each mission, their flight data was downloaded and sent off to the manufacturer to be examined, and before each new mission, their software was updated or changed based on recommendations by either an engineering group or an electronic warfare group. She would have hated to admit it out loud, but each time the engineers made an update, the bomber flew better, conserved more fuel, and generally handled better.
She glanced to the side and saw that Pappi had a mischievous look on his face.
“What’s so funny, old man?” she asked.
“I was just thinking to myself how awesome this new bomber is. When we flew our first mission, we mostly avoided flying inside clouds, and when we did, the flight computer had a hard time keeping the bomber from bouncing around from the turbulence. When we left that system a few minutes ago, it hardly bounced or had trouble at all,” he explained. “Plus, I’m not even showing the slightest bit of detection by the ground radars.”