The People’s United Territories of China
Book One: The Invasion
From the details we've been able to gather the plan for the attack began years ago. The Chinese slowly began bringing small groups of civilians to their military bases around their country. Every time they did this they would load a couple squads of troops into a shipping container and move it to a seaport to be loaded on a ship.
The containers had been retrofitted to accommodate the men living inside. They had adequate ventilation and discharge ports for waste. The containers were equipped with water tanks and inlets for refilling. They were stocked with rations, a radio, and a firearm or two for every occupant. When the containers were stacked, the plumbing for each unit was connected to another for replenishment and waste removal, and they were stored, and left waiting. Though they were crude and rudimentary, the modifications were sufficient enough for their troops to bear a long-term stay.
It appears they took careful steps to avoid any suspicious behavior being detected by satellite surveillance. Moving small amounts of civilians to every base for training, instead of training them in mass at their known training bases; moving out the same number of troops as recruits brought in, to keep the troop movement at each base roughly static; storing the containers at various locations, while the force built up; and dividing the loading and shipping of the containers amongst all their seaports were just a few of the precautions they took. It also appears, once they did start shipping their Trojan Horses, they shipped them to ports all around the globe to be transferred to different Chinese controlled ships. The logistics calculations and management scheme, alone, must have taken at least a year to put together.
When the time was right, they began delivering their Trojan containers to the Port of New York. Through just the right mélange of bureaucracy, cronyism, hubris, and bribery the Chinese were able to get these particular containers through customs without physical inspection. From there, they were transported all across the country. Unfortunately, by the time the day leading up to the actual attack had arrived, there were Trojan containers waiting in storage at many locations. There were containers at every major city and the capitals of the contiguous forty-eight states—almost all of which were stored at companies or yards owned by private Chinese companies, or sub-companies. There were, however, no soldiers sent to the District of Columbia.
Playing us like a well-tuned fiddle, almost exactly in line with our military's analysis and response times, the Chinese used their naval and air forces to distract our leaders. Under the guise of training exercises, they had moved a decent amount of heavy hardware into the South Atlantic near Brazil, into the South Pacific, and into the Norwegian Sea. However, that was not what started our military reaction. The Chinese began massing a fleet—far larger than we were ever aware they had—and moving towards the North Pole. There was the standard diplomatic back-and-forth, and the U.S., of course, mustered its fleets and mobilized to attack the Chinese.
By this point, knowing the rates of inspection and calculating the times for military actions, the Chinese had moved thousands of additional Trojan containers into every major shipping port on both the eastern and western seaboards. They also had several hundred heavy freighters scheduled to roll in to both coasts simultaneously.
On the day of the attack, the basics are these. The Navy and Air Force, the joint chiefs, and the president were distracted. Therefore, no one cared to take the calls of the Coastguard captains—what few there were that even noticed—who were inquiring as to the number of freighters congesting the shipping lanes. There was a massive attack on the Internet—effectively shutting it down for days—massively disrupting communications. Apparently, the radiological sensors in the District had been unknowingly disabled. The Chinese soldiers began storming out of their containers around the country, and the major ports exploded with Chinese troops. The inbound freighters began fanning out and barreling for their respective shores—most of which were makeshift battleships, unsheathing their battlements, engaging what Coastguard resistance there was, and launching combat helicopters towards land. And finally, about an hour after the troops began leaving their containers, a nuclear bomb went off in Washington D.C.—leveling the District.
Everything was amazingly well timed. The results being—a fairly low casualty—complete and total seizure of the United States. Apparently the President had survived. It seems the nuke was not deployed until the chaos was sufficient enough for the President to be moved. The Chinese did not want him dead.
From what we know, with the exception of a few skirmishes for which the Coastguard was mostly responsible, there was no large engagement on the part of the military. The day of, we think there was roughly four million Chinese soldiers with boots on the ground and another million on inbound freighters. Most of the military, which was fairly clustered and heading in the wrong direction, was not only easy for the Chinese air and naval forces to meet and standoff with, but they were ordered to stand down by the President while the situation could be analyzed. While the situation was being analyzed, the vessels and equipment that the Chinese had on maneuvers in the South Pacific and Atlantic were brought in to shore up their control of the coasts.
It was obvious; they had won. Our government had been oblivious. The only possible response would have been for us to launch a full scale nuclear attack against China—which would have destroyed our enemy's power-base, but would've done nothing to reverse the incursion that had already taken place. Plus, they may have chosen to retaliate in kind. Either way it would have still been a total loss for us—so it is good the president did not allow that to happen.
The only good thing for us, as Americans, is that they didn't want us dead. For them, this was merely a forcible acquisition of what they figured was already rightfully theirs. They owned so much of our debt it was absurd; they owned and operated trillions of dollars’ worth of interests within our borders, and they needed more space and more food. It was the only logical next step for them. They figured the world would not look too poorly on them for their decision due, impart to what was just mentioned, but more so because we had done well more than our fair share of damage to the world's sovereignty, environment, economy, and cultures. So, it was not entirely surprising when this act of aggression was not contested—with more than official letters of protest—by any other countries around the world.
Over the next several days, the President ordered a complete surrender, and an exchange of personnel started taking place on all our military bases and vessels. With the exception of Cheyenne Mountain and a small naval group, Chinese forces soon controlled our bases and fleets, as well as our nuclear arsenal. It was agreed that the President would be allowed to stay in the mountain without retribution on the population. And, in regards to the naval group, a renegade captain—who refused to lay down his arms—gathered the support of a few other captains and convinced them to join him in running in order to regroup. Given there was only a handful of ships that they could easily track (and three missing nuclear submarines they couldn’t), the Chinese were comfortable with the grip they had achieved on our country.
The resistance among the general population was more than lackluster. Aside from a few engagements between local police forces and the invaders, there was no resistance of which to speak. Though a staggering disappointment on the show of our anti-gun control citizens, to be fair, the numbers were simply not on their side. Had they simply grabbed their guns—without any organization—and tried to defend the country, they would have just died. I’m sure, in some, it begged the question as to whether the enormous amount of gun violence the country had born for the last few decades was worth it, but the hope was that eventually their weapon stores would allow for us to mount a rebellion.
Book Two: The Resistance
It had now been a little over four-and-a-half years since the invasion. It was almost as if the Chinese had hired America’s most popular advertising agencies to prepare their propaganda campaigns in advance. Right off the bat they sure knew exactly what to say and do to subdue the populace. They knew what programs to leave on TV and what to take off to endear themselves to the people. They knew exactly how to encourage our studios to produce films that gave people the impression nothing had changed, while subtly—in a very roundabout way—promoted the new regime.
On top of that, they knew which companies to shutdown, which cities to fortify more heavily, which state politicians to keep in advisory positions, and which of the wealthy to leave alone—conditionally, of course. They made some hefty changes to the governance of the country, but for the average Joe the day-to-day seemed very much the same. In fact, in many ways, their day-to-day lives improved greatly. Health care was free, education was free, all student loans and mortgages were forgiven, and taxes were only applied to businesses. Many sectors of the economy were nationalized, but much of their management remained in the same hands. The changes occurred more along the lines of readjusting wage management. For instance, a doctor had told me that when the Chinese administrators had come to his hospital, they simply said, “You now have no more educational debt, you now own your homes outright, and you will no longer be asked to pay any taxes. Legal issues of malpractice will be investigated and covered monetarily by the government, and, for most of you, your schedules will be the same or lighter than before because we are funding the training and hiring of many more medical personnel. That being the case, everybody’s salary is being reset to a different scale. Support staff will be paid $25,000 a year, nurses will be paid $50,000 a year, doctors will be paid $100,000 a year, and administrators will be paid $100,000 a year. There will be opportunities for increase and promotion. Anyone who does not think this amount will be sufficient is free to leave and work in a different field.” This process was repeated in many sectors. Basically their idea was to put an end to unreasonable salaries and profiteering. Much of the world was affected by this, but those who thought it was for the worse were in no position to do anything about it except adjust.
The country had been divided into three, unimaginatively named, territories: the Western, Central, and Eastern Territories. The state borders within said territories remained the same but their governments had been removed. There had been a Chinese governor—and some advisers, both Chinese and American—appointed to replace the state governments. And, the territories were being governed by their respective territorial congresses—each having 1,000 seats. The 1,000 seats did not include the Territorial Magistrate, who acted as the executive; the Vice Magistrate; the Congressional Prime Minister, who was the in-house leader of the congress; or the CCP representatives, for which there was one for every party that got seats in the congress. Each of those positions were held by natural born Chinese members of the Chinese Communist Party that had been brought over from mainland China. The 1,000 seats in each of the congresses were filled by natural born Americans—which, thankfully, they had continued to call us. Aside from a simple election district modification, not much about the voting process had changed. Again, most people were quite pleased, because now there was a multitude of political parties, and there was a much greater level of representation. The downside, of course, being that there was a heavy influence from the CCP. However, most people hadn’t come to see that as too negative...Yet.
The resistance started to form more fervently when the Chinese began their plan to equalize the population. About three years after the invasion, they started transporting their citizens here at a rate of about 4,000 people per day, and, with each shipment, a little more military personnel came too. It was clear this was going to devastate our way of life, and if we let it go on too long, we would never have any hope of retaking our country.
News from around the country, and the world, flowed freely across the country. Yes, there were some restrictions on the Internet, but very few. Though the Resistance never used it to communicate, because we were sure they were monitoring everything, people could even express their dissidence on the Internet. It seemed the Chinese government had no intention of trying to subjugate the territories to the same degree they had their motherland. They hadn’t planned to apply the same operating principles to their new territories. They had planned to use this conquest to take what they believed to be “the next step towards actual communism.” They figured the new resources, area, and power-base would help them achieve that end, and they could eventually affect an equilibrium between their two lands.
About four years after the invasion, the Chinese started massing troops in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Several contingents of the resistance were discovered. No one was arrested, but their munitions were confiscated. They said no charges were going to be brought, because they understood the reasoning behind the Patriots’ anger. However, they were placed on a watch-list. We suspected the real reason our members were ignored was because of the larger operation the Chinese were preparing.
Several Divisions of Chinese troops met with a few hundred squads of Federales at the Mexican border. At least we were taken by surprise, but the Mexicans didn’t even put up the slightest resistance. The Federales capitulated and even guided the Chinese like a swarm of locusts down through their own country. The news had said that the Chinese declared to Mexico that the unrestrained drug trade continued to wreak too much havoc on both the Territories and the United Mexican States, so the Mexican government could either accept their help willingly or receive it by force.
After the Cartels had been brought to their knees—the entire campaign taking less than a year—most of the troops returned across the border. However, many troops had been left behind. The news could tell us it was at the request of the Mexican government all they wanted, but we knew. Mexico had now been occupied as well.
None of us were surprised when Cuba joined the People’s United Territories of China, but when Canada was forced to yield its sovereignty we knew the time for action could wait no longer. The story was that Canada voluntarily joined the Chinese as an autonomous region after the Chinese helped them with some economic issues and helped defend Canada in a territorial dispute in the north. We could read between the lines though; they were clearly forced to submit by the threat of overwhelming force.
By this time, the resistance had built up quite a sizable number of cells around the country, and we started spreading the word to organize a meeting to plan a coordinated attack. It was, of course, a terribly risky move, but we were pressed for time. The Chinese were busy endearing themselves to countries all around the world with aid packages of food, medical supplies, equipment, and personnel. They had even been so bold as to remove the word China from the name of their lands. It was still used as an ethnic title, but the government was now simply calling itself the United Territories. The name change took place right after they had reorganized the Chinese mainland to look more like the new system they implemented here in the west.
The world was falling fast and hard for the seductions of these wolves in sheep's clothing. Only the major powers of the world remained suspicious of the Chinese—respectful and polite, but suspicious.
The meeting was slow to put together, due to having to get resistance leaders from all over to one area. Travel was not difficult, if you were not on any watch-lists, but we communicated via word of mouth—person to person—to avoid electronic surveillance. Once a safe location was decided, and a date chosen, the meeting was set.
At the meeting, nothing was getting planned. No one could agree upon an appropriate plan of attack; everyone had different ideas as to how to be the most effective. The reality was that nobody had any ideas that seemed as if they would win us our country back. That is, until we were made aware by our sentries that a few strangers were requesting an audience with us.
A year or so before the meeting, several members of Capt. Douglas’ crew—the rogue Navy Captain—had been put to shore in Grenada and told to make their way up island to the mainland and contact any resistance. It took them several months to get to Florida, and a few more months after that to earn the trust of any resistance members. Luckily, the timing worked out for them to be here for the meeting. Really all they needed to do was relay to us the code the rogue fleet was using to communicate, so that they could inform us of their plan.
Book Three: The Rebellion
It turns out, though the Chinese had been tracking Capt. Douglas’ fleet, he had been very busy. The Chinese had destroyed Washington D.C. to disrupt the command and control capabilities, and break the spirit, of our country. His plan was similar, but far more destructive.
After regrouping for a short period, he had kept his fleet separated and moving—putting in to neutral and sympathetic ports only when necessary. This kept the Chinese complacent about the rogue fleet. It took a while to meet covertly, and do the necessary disassembly, but, eventually, Capt. Douglas had removed the nuclear ordnance and personnel from one of the missing submarines.
He had limited information about how things really were in the former U.S., but—in his mind—his plan was simple no matter what the details. He had planned to smuggle nuclear bombs into the Chinese occupation command center, and the most garrisoned cities; evacuate the resistance from those cities; have the other two subs stationed off each coast for back-up, in case they needed further nuclear support; leave skeleton crews on the ships, so they could continue to draw the attention of the Chinese; and sneak his personnel into the country to lead the rebellion after the bombs were detonated. Unfortunately, he was wildly over-optimistic as to the actual situation in his homeland.
By this point, the Former President had surrendered Cheyenne Mountain to the Chinese and was living a very comfortable life as a Protected Citizen. As frustrating as that was, it was not as frustrating as the Chinese now having control of NORAD. This information, coupled with the fact that there was only a couple thousand resistance members, infuriated Capt. Douglas. When it was made clear to him that most Americans were quite happy to maintain the new order, he hatched a new plan.
I was sent with a group of guards to travel south, down through South America, to safety. Since I had already been journaling our efforts, Capt. Douglas said, “Someone would need to chronicle our efforts for future generations, when they are eventually able to reclaim their land.” This was because the new plan, if it worked, would destroy much of the country—sort of an If we can’t have it, no one can type of plan.
The attack ended up triggering a chain of events that was unforeseen. We planned to deploy the forty suitcase nukes throughout our former country; sneak a sub off the coast of China, and have it launch its warheads against Russia; sneak the other sub into the Laptev Sea, to the north of Russia and have it launch its warheads at mainland China; and hope that the arsenals of the three lands would be deployed to annihilate each other. We knew some missiles would be destroyed, and some of the suitcase nukes would be detected. We just needed the distrust to be high enough.
*****
All I have time to record now is this. Reports are saying roughly thirty-two nuclear bombs were detonated in the United North American Territories, and several missile strikes impacted Russia and the United Territories of Asia. ICBMs, in massive numbers have been launched from all three regions. It is suspected there will be multiple targets outside of those three regions, and neighboring countries are also being warned to expect accidental strikes as well.
I do not know why, but France and the United Kingdom have also launched missiles; their targets are unknown. I can only imagine it is because they feel they are on the suspected target list. North Korea has, of course, launched a few missiles—with the U.S. government being gone, however, those targets are unknown. Pakistan and India have launched and already destroyed much of each other. Israel has launched against Iran, and, confirming years of suspicion, Iran has launched against Israel—and apparently other states as well. Unfortunately, resource centers around the world were also set as nuclear targets, because several strikes have already impacted parts of Africa, Australia, and, yes, South America. As it seems much of the world is going to be destroyed, and a total depopulation may occur due to fallout, I will simply finish by saying th...
Epilogue: The Discovery
Hmmm, so it appears they really did think they were doing the right thing.
“What’s that Dr. Maberti?” said the young research assistant.
“Hum, oh. I was just thinking out loud,” the bushy-eye-browed History professor answered, without looking up from the fragile pages of his object of interest.
“I gathered that, professor, but what was it you were thinking out loud?” the visibly disinterested grad student pried further.
“Ah, yes, well it seems the Resistance actually were very devout in their belief that their actions were justified,” Dr. Maberti replied.
“Ugh. I don’t know why you care so much or why it even matters. It’s been more than 72,000 years since the Patriots,” the student emphasized the word with disdain, “destroyed the world, and very little from those barbaric times even exists anymore.”
“Honestly, Jonathan, I don’t know why you are pursuing a career in history at all. You never seem to be sadder than when you are here in the archives. You are never this melancholy in class; you seem to love history,” Dr. Maberti expressed.
“I love the study of our history, not this...this xenology,” the student retorted.
“Xenology!” the professor exclaimed vehemently. “These are not extraterrestrials we are researching, my boy. They may be alien to us, but humans, from right here on Earth, just like us, is what they were. This journal affords us the ability to study our ancient past and learn from their mistakes. We study their history, so that we do not repeat their failures. Do you not understand what an amazing opportunity a glimpse like this, into our past, presents us?”
“No professor. I’m sorry; I don’t,” Jonathan answered. “It is impossible to even think that any civilized human being could make such horrible decisions and cause so much destruction. We are above that.”
...
“Those that fail to learn from history,
are doomed to repeat it.”
Sir Winston Churchill
.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'd love to hear what you thought of this story; comments (positive or negative) are always helpful for editing purposes, and will be greatly appreciated.