Now it was time to move on to the next part of the plan. The whole logic behind Showa Restoration was that the reformists over the last five years had abandoned the path of conquest and turned their backs on their destiny. If the Council was to have a legitimate claim to power it had to produce a conquest fast, a visible, undeniable demonstration that Japan and China were on the move again.
Colonel Hu Kai-Lee had command of the division now. Or what was left of it. He had to recruit - a more accurate word might be kidnap - replacements for his casualties and get them trained to some rudimentary level of capability. He didn't have forever; two or three weeks at most. Then, the assault on Tibet would start.
It had been carefully planned. A revolutionary government was already waiting to issue its claim to power, the divisions along the border were already waiting to go. As soon as they were over the frontier, they'd become the "loyalist" faction of the Tibetan Army, driving the forces of the "revolutionary" priests out. By the time the mess was straightened out, the new government would be in Lhasa and it would all be over.
There was a plan within the plan of course, there always was. A close look at this division would tell people that. Technically, it was a division of the Japanese Imperial Army but the number of Japanese in it got smaller every day. Whenever the Japanese wanted a job done, they used one of the divisions they felt they could rely on, that is, one where the majority of the troops were Japanese. But, of course, that meant the casualties fell on the Japanese, not the Chinese. Now, there were very few units left where the Japanese were a majority. In some "Japanese Divisions," there were only Chinese personnel left.
Colonel Hu laughed, the Japanese really thought they could rule China with their paltry millions when there were over a billion Chinese? Had they never read history? They could have their 'Emperor' and prattle on about their Bushido, but with every year that passed, the joint country was becoming more Chinese and less Japanese. One day soon, the Japanese would be gone, absorbed into the infinite number of Chinese.
"Sir, we have dug a pit for the enemy rebel dead. The men are putting their bodies in now. What shall we do with the wounded rebels?"
Hu thought for a moment. The deposed general was Japanese and his defenders had been mostly Japanese troops. Hu's family had come from a place called Nanking and he still had nightmares over what had happened to them there. His revered father had been beheaded by a Japanese Lieutenant, Mukai Toshiaki, simply to win a bet with another Lieutenant as to who could cut the heads from 100 Chinese the fastest. It turned out Mukai Toshiaki had miscounted, he'd actually killed 106 Chinese in the race. For all that, Father had been the luckiest of his family.
"Go through the wounded rebels, separate the Japanese from the Chinese. If the Chinese repent and wish to rejoin us, let them. We need as many trained soldiers as we can get. Bury the Japanese wounded along with their dead."
Oh yes, thought Hu, China is absorbing Japan, step by step, but that will just be the start. One day soon there will be no Japan left at all. And one day, one day he would find IVIukai Toshiaki and then Colonel Hu would avenge his family. The Japanese might believe otherwise but nobody in China had forgotten Nanking. The invasion of Tibet was a step along that road as well.
Bridge INS Mysore, At Sea, South of Taiwan
"My God, she's a mess."
She was - or had been - one of the new Chipanese Kawachi class missile cruisers. The design ancestry was vaguely apparent; the Tone class cruisers had been the starting point. The Kawachi class were much larger; 20,000 tons at least, probably more. Japan may now be Chipan in the eyes of the world, even if the Japanese themselves refused the name, but old habits of understating official displacement figures died hard.
The long sweeping foredeck was still there, but the guns had gone. In their place were ranks of inclined launch tubes for missiles: four ranks of four. A total of 16 long-range, nuclear tipped anti-ship missiles. The aviation facilities were aft; now they handled helicopters fitted out with surface search radars for target acquisition. Amidships were the anti-aircraft missile batteries. Point defense only of course; the Japanese still hadn't got around the problems of trying to handle crossing targets in an area defense mode. Nor, for that matter, had anybody else. Even the Americans were reported to be in trouble there.
According to the recognition diagrams and the photographs in Mysore's CBs, the midships section should have four funnels in two pairs, angled outwards and two heavy tower masts that carried an array of radar and electronic warfare antennas. All of that had gone: instead, the midships was a charred tangle of burned-out wreckage. The cruiser was down by the bows, to the point where her foredeck was awash, and she was listing. The visible damage wouldn't allow for that, she must have been hit underwater.
"Sparker, make 'Indian Warship C12 to Chipanese cruiser. Do you require assistance?'". There was a long pause then a signals lamp started to flash from the crippled ship.
"Mysore this is Admiral Soriva on Imperial Japanese Navy warship Kawachi. We have many badly injured. Medical assistance urgently needed." The emphasis on the 'Imperial Japanese Navy' had been very strong, repeated twice in the signal.
"Soriva" Admiral Kanali Dahm looked thoughtful. "He was one of those listed as being killed in the Showa Restoration Coup. So he made it out. Only just by the look of it. It must be bad over there if they're asking for assistance. Sparker, make back to Kawachi 'Am sending medical teams immediately. Stand by to receive helicopters.' Number One, alert the Ship's Poisoner and tell him he'd got clients to experiment on. Take whoever he needs to assist. Then make to Godavari and Gondwana, advise them of the situation and tell them to get medical teams over also. If the butcher's bill over there is as bad as that ship looks, they'll need all the help they can get. Once Comms is clear, get on the long-range radio troposcatter link to New Delhi and advise D-Ops of what's happening. Jim Ladone needs to know what's going on out here ASAP. Oh, and order Gondwana to lock her missiles onto that wreck. Just in case."
Mysore and her two destroyers swung parallel to Kawachi while the helicopters started to shuttle medical personnel over. Dahm was pacing the bridge, waiting for his people to radio a report. He needed to know what was happening. Eventually, it came.
"Captain, Sir. It’s a bloody mess over here. Ship's been torn up, casualties are worse than anything I've ever seen. Women and children too, a lot of the crew had their families on board. I'm going to set up a first aid station here then shuttle the worst wounded back to Mysore. They need our medical facilities, we can't do the job here. And Sir, Admiral Soriva wishes to speak to you in person. Requests permission to come over."
"Affirmative Doc. Women and children first. Put the Admiral on the first available helicopter seat." Dahm sat down, remembering the carnage on the quarter-deck of Hood five years ago. It was still something he saw on the nights when sleep wasn't a refuge. It was widely accepted that Masanobu Tsuji had been behind that atrocity. That it had been a failed attempt to pull Australia and India apart.
A few minutes later two Marines escorted Admiral Soriva onto the bridge. He was tired, desperately so, his face worn and haggard with the strain of the last few days. He still wore the tight-collared uniform of a Chipanese officer though. It was an article of faith in the Triple Alliance that if Chipan gave its officers more comfortable uniforms, they wouldn't be so truculent.