Qin turned to Dong. Was he hearing this correctly? No security forces to arrest him. No punishment for failing the People? Tea?
“The Chairman and their President spoke yesterday. While it is true we are at a disadvantage, it is only for a moment. As in a game of ‘Go,’ we withdraw. The Americans think they’ve won, and their press blows the news on loud trumpets and, for an hour, the Americans will beat their chests in smug triumph. Their President demands their sailors from Hong Kong be released at once. Please see to it… and maintain our forces in home waters keeping a low profile. Trade will resume, and the Americans will exhaust themselves patrolling the Southern Sea for the next decade, keeping the sea lanes open for our trade.”
Qin did not know how to react. He was not under arrest, not humiliated. The People’s Forces were soundly defeated by the Americans, the People humiliated as in the last century, and it appeared he would pay no price. Maybe no one would. How could the Party not exact payment for the catastrophe that had occurred in the Southern Sea? Dong continued.
“As in ‘Go,’ if we continue to push against an irresistible force, we will drain our resources in a futile attempt to regain control of sandy islands that are little more than smoking cinders. However, they still belong to the People; you defended them, and the Americans or their puppets have not planted a flag on them. While we incurred losses, we will honor the spirits of the fallen for as long as we have memory, and the Party enjoys broad support for standing up to a barbarian invasion for the first time in centuries. We did it, Comrade Qin. You did it.”
Qin was incredulous. Was the Party whitewashing the bloodbaths at Stingray and Blood Moon, the terrible and violent end of his missile ships, the fiery plunges of so many aircraft in his naval air arm? The almost total loss of Heaven’s Shield? He realized that the answer was yes. The People did not know — and never would.
Come to the window, Comrade Admiral. It is almost time.
They took a few steps toward the window that overlooked a courtyard on a rooftop across the avenue from headquarters. Children of the People’s Liberation Army staff who worked in the ministry building were educated there. Qin could see there were playground swings and seesaws, along with markings for Tiao Fei Ji, what the barbarians called hop-scotch. The carefree playthings of youth, to be enjoyed long before any of them would ever learn of launch-on-bearing or track latency. Or know the burden of signing operational orders with the knowledge that those carrying them out would not return.
“Ah, here they come,” Dong said as he smiled on the scene.
Qin watched as two female teachers opened large doors that allowed the children, marching in single file, to enter the rooftop play yard. Under the guidance of another teacher, an older man, they turned to take positions along a white line painted on the green concrete. The children were dressed in uniforms: dark blue trousers for boys and dark blue skirts for the smaller percentage of girls, each wearing a white shirt with red kerchiefs around their necks. Perfectly spaced, they formed precise ranks as they stopped in position, marching in place until the last row of children was formed. The man lifted his hand and all the children stopped at once, standing at attention and in the ordered alignment of a square. It dawned on Qin that the children could not have been more than seven or eight years old, and that they were in shirtsleeves despite the brisk outside temperature of only seven degrees Celsius. The children seemed oblivious to the cold as the man moved among them, and suddenly they extended their arms out from their sides, and began a vigorous motion, the first in a series of callisthenic exercises.
“Look at them Qin. From Tibet to Shanghai, from Dalian to Hainan, this scene is repeated in the People’s schoolyards each day. In only twenty years they will be sailing your ships and flying your airplanes to ensure the harmony of our seas. In that time the Americans will have moved on, having lost interest in our near seas and facing some other foe in Arabia or the Arctic. Quietly, we will rebuild our outposts, and our factories will build more ships and planes. You and I will be doddering old men with creaking bones, feeding the birds in the square, but they, Qin Chung, they shall write their names on the tablets of history as taking control of our waters and our territory at last, with no barbarian power daring to confront them. And when we are long dead, and they feeble pensioners at the end of this Chinese century, they will have lived long enough to see the promise of our Party ancestors: to live in a China that controls the world economy allowing them and their progeny to live in secure comfort as the barbarians toil for them. They will live to see the renegade republic return to our control, and live to see no foreign warships in our waters unless we invite them. They will live to see it, Qin. How I envy them.”
Qin looked at the rows of children, exercising as if one organism, as they learned the lessons of group regimentation that would last a lifetime. It was difficult to imagine them, with their thick mops of black hair, as stooped and aged octogenarians, wrinkled and weathered after giving long and distinguished service to the Party and the People. But Dong Li was right. China was on the cusp of world domination, far ahead of the Indians who lagged hopelessly behind, and of the Russians who were committing societal suicide through clear bottles of alcohol half a world away. As it had through the millennia, China could wait them out, to withdraw in the face of pressure when it made long-term strategic sense, and if Qin and Dong would not live to see it, the schoolchildren below would, and both men took comfort in that. Chinese society took comfort in that.
“The Americans will still be there on their own side of the Pacific: our number-one customer!” Dong Li quipped with a smile. “Same with Europe. Two powers who had their gunboats in our ports and our rivers only a human lifetime ago, who dictated to us off Taiwan only 20 years ago. They will never again do that to us. Ever.”
Having completed their exercise regimen, the children were allowed to break ranks, and they scurried about to swing and slide, to play games of tag and whisper secrets to each other. The two warriors watched the carefree children play, and Qin, his load lifted, felt as if he could hop-scotch and run with the children on the rooftop. Marshal Dong chuckled at the scene.
“That, Comrade Admiral Qin, that is our people. Running willy-nilly, some swinging, some jumping, others chasing, seeing what they can get away with as the proctors look elsewhere. Their energy — good! But the unpredictable directions each one takes — bad. It will one day be theirs to control one-point-five billion — good luck. Maybe they’ll have better results than we did.”
Qin nodded in agreement and for a moment both men watched the children. Qin broke the silence.
“We should not have fallen into this war, Comrade Marshal.” There, Qin had said it, and perhaps too soon after his reprieve from the gallows. He glanced at Dong to sense his reaction.
“I agree. Nobody wanted to fight it, and it was through unpredictable action such as from these children that it was thrust upon us. But in loss we have gain; the world saw us fight and bloody the Americans, and though it may take twenty, thirty, forty years or more, we will become so strong no one will dare confront us inside the second island chain much less the first. May we be alive on that day. For now, we can gaze and smile on those who will.”