Skies Above Manturikha, Buryatia, Russian Empire, 9 October 1911
"Qilin, this is Crane 1. Approaching the marked position. Beginning attack, over."
"You're cleared to begin the attack," the once-Singaporean AWACS told them. "Make every shot count. These bombs don't grow on trees, you know."
"Copy, Qilin. Crane 1, bombs away."
Over on the screen, the Major saw it again. Another direct on another railway bridge, its explosion lighting up the screen.
"Good effect on target, Crane 1. Crane 2, begin attack run."
"On it, Qilin," the pilot told him, before another explosion lit up the screen. This one destroyed the other side of the bridge, knocking it into the water as well.
"Good work, Crane 2. Crane Squadron, link up with Peacock Squadron and move north. We're going after the ferries today."
"Aren't those civilian transports?" Crane 3 asked him. "Thought they were off-limits."
"Affirmative," Qilin told him. "But it's almost midnight up here, so they're both in port. We'll take them out with the rest of our ordinance. Got it?"
"Works for me," Peacock 1 said over the radio. "Let's move."
The flight north was, above all things, pretty uneventful that dark night. Of course, night-vision meant that they could see everything in a green-tinted hue, but the Russians in Irkutsk wouldn't.
Honestly, as far as they were concerned, the Russians probably thought that saboteurs attacked the bridges the last time.
Or the time before that.
Either way, they were back to using the ferries over Lake Baikal again, just as HISTINT said they had before the route around the lake had been finished.
To that end, Peacock Squadron had been outfitted with anti-ship missiles for the two ferries in port, plus Crane's remaining bombs.
"All planes, we are approaching the target," Qilin announced to both squadrons. "Peacock, you go in first. Fire your Harpoons at will."
"On it, Peacock 1 radioed in, and he could hear the launches over the radio. "Missiles away."
The Major in the AWACS looked over to the screen to see the missiles slam into the hulls of both ships. Their hulls pierced, smoke quickly rose out the side and the top.
Then came the fires, lighting up the screen between the ever-growing plumes of smoke.
And then a load explosion roared through the air, while the flash itself blinded the camera for a second.
"Looks like you hit the coal bunkers, Peacock," Qilin told the leader, before looking back at the screen. Now that the explosion was gone, he could see the ships sinking in port as the city awoke. "Both ships are sinking. Looks like they'll be out of action for a long time."
"Want us to finish them off?" Crane 1 offered. "3 and 4 still have their bombs."
"Hold off on them for now," Qilin said quickly. "Like I said, we need every one of these we can get. Let's link up with the tanker and RTB. Good job."
Bridge Over the Yalu River, Choson-Manchurian Border, 10 October 1911
General Ueda Arisawa had a simple mission: Move into Manchuria and secure it for the Empire. To do this, he had the Japanese Korean Army move across the Yalu River into the region to occupy, or as they had put it, "intervene" in the region on behalf of the Qing.
To that end, he had an army of two hundred thousand at his disposal, with at least fourteen thousand more from the Kwantung Garrison to assist. And as the commander of the unit with the most troops, he would be the one to lead this expedition.
It wasn't as simple as that, however, given what short notice he'd had, but he'd managed to pull it off.
On such short notice, he had mobilized his men, as well as the reinforcements, and moved them north to the Yalu River crossing. After which they would meet with the Qing under General Zhang Zuolin and occupy Jilin and Shengjing, building up defenses against the Russians and the Chinese while suppressing any would-be uprisings.
Or to put it another way, he would be laying the groundwork for a de-facto control of the region, possibly with an annexation happening in the next decade or so. Assuming they could settle enough people while also integrating themselves into both the civil and the military administration, the Japanese presence could be negotiated as part of a second Taft-Katsura agreement.
That said, this wouldn't be easy. Even though they only controlled half of the region, Manchuria was still the size of Korea, and they still had to control Korea itself.
Truth be told, this would be a long project for them, he decided, as the rest of his forces pulled themselves across the bridge, with the supply convoy not far behind.
It was at that moment that he heard a load roar in the distance, off to the west.
He looked around, trying to find just where it came from, but he could see nothing.
"Up there!" Colonel Arakawa shouted as they turned towards the early-dawn sky. "What is that?"
The general could only look in wonder as the triangular object- no, objects came in towards them at breakneck pace.
Russian? No, it couldn't be. Do they even have planes?
Then it has to be the Revolutionaries. But how? Did they have airplanes that could fly all the way here?
He soon got his answer as the planes closed in on the bridge, dropping multiple weapons from their wings.
And then it hit them.
Load explosions roared behind him as the bombs- he thought they were bombs, landed on the bridge, sending metal and splinters all around them.
Arisawa himself was knocked off his feet by the shockwave, falling forward onto the ground in front of him.
And then came the next explosion, then another, and on and on again until his ears rang so loudly he might as well be deaf.
The general groaned and pulled himself off the ground. He stood up and dusted himself off, trying to get the dirt off his uniform as he tried to see just what had happened.
He looked at the bridge behind him to see that it was gone.
No, not exactly. The ends attaching them to the shore were there, but the bridges themselves were well into the Yalu River, along with the men and supplies that were unlucky enough to be crossing at that time.
Behind them, the rest of the supply line was similarly wrecked, their cargo burnt and their men screaming in pain or pulling their comrades off to the side.
And then the roaring came back.
He could see it in the sky, how the triangular airplanes turned so smoothly, only to make a beeline towards him and his men.
"Open fire! Open fire!" he shouted to his soldiers on the far side of the river. Men from the IJA unshouldered their rifles and started aiming at the sky, firing round after round from their bolt-action rifles.
Yet the airplanes kept flying towards them, numbering two dozen strong.
And again, they dropped their bombs.
"Get down!" he shouted at the men around him, "Get down!"
The explosions were even louder this time, and he could feel the heat from the blasts as the ground around him seemed to catch on fire. After that, the ringing came back, louder than the explosions.
He could hear the planes fly over, but he refused to get up. Not out of cowardice, but out of sheer practicality.
It took seconds for the airplanes to fly away, but those seconds felt like minutes. But soon enough, the planes had gone off into the distance, far enough away that they became only small dots in the sky.
He looked around him once more to see nothing but death.
His men, the men he'd just been assigned to, were strewn all around him.
Some were alive and coughing their lungs out from the smoke. Others were alive and broken, of them many were in pieces.
And the rest? He would see the burned and shattered corpses in his dreams until the day he died.
Still, he got up, and checked himself for wounds.
Somehow, the worst he'd gotten was dirt and blood on a torn-up uniform, but at least it wasn't his blood.
He got up and looked around once more, and saw the planes turning again to make another pass.
"Get off of the open!" he shouted to his men, but he wasn't sure if they could hear. "Get out of the open, now!"
"Run!" shouted another soldier.
"Get out of the open!" shouted a second.
All around him, men were running for what little cover they could find, while the wounded struggled behind them.
And as the planes came closer, he knew it wasn't enough to save them all, even if he himself had gotten to cover.
This time, there were no bombs, but the constant rattling of machine gun fire, tearing through anything that was still in the open.
By the end of it, all twelve planes had made their passes, and all twelve had gone over his men, until there was little left of them but charred and bloodied corpses, with a broken bridge between him and Choson..
Only then did he see the foreign planes fly back to the west.
Outskirts of Panjin, Shengjing Province, Qing Empire
"Jesus Christ," was all that Chen could say as the sheer number of planes flew back over his tank. "Marty, how much ordinance are we dropping on them?"
"A lot." Which, from the way he said it, sounded an awful lot like "I don't know, man."
"How do we even have this much ordinance, anyways?!"
"You'd be surprised at the amount of ordinance we have in storage, Mike. Besides, this is all the cheap stuff. We save the expensive stuff for things like bridges, remember?"
"I'll take your word for it," Chen figured. After all, it wasn't like the military kept an accurate record of all their bombs on Wikipedia… Or at all until recently, if he was being completely honest. "Any updates on the air missions?"
"Yeah. Air Force and Apaches softened them up real nice for you as you make your way to Panjin."
"That's a lot of ordinance for Panjin."
"Panjin? Mike, they're dropping dumb bombs and doing strafing runs against everything that isn't us across the front!"
Is this what happens when you're fighting three armies? Okay, two-and-a-half armies, tops.
"Got it. Anyways, we're approaching Panjin. Tiger Actual out," he said, before switching channels. "Here we go, Tigers! The Air Force and the Apaches have softened them up! Form up on me and move in!"
"We're approaching the city," Fa called up to him from the driver's seat. "Floor it?"
"Bring us in," Chen told the driver as they approached the smoking city. Just what they'd be expecting, he didn't know. But from the looks of it, Dragon Squadron had done a number on them already. "Enemy barricade, 400 meters!"
"Firing," Zhou called out. The tank shook as the round flew from the barrel, slamming into a barricade not a second later. "Hit."
"Reloading!" Chiu shouted, before slamming the round home. "Ready!"
"Enemy forces, twelve o' clock!" Chen called out, "Switch to the MG!"
Before the Qing- at least he thought it was the Qing- soldiers could recover, Chen opened fire with his .50 cal, tearing through the survivors as they tried to get their bearings. Zhou, meanwhile, cleaned up the stragglers with the coaxial MG, wiping them out by the time they crashed through the barricade.
"Barricade is down!" he shouted over the radio, "Tiger 1-2 to Tiger 1-6, follow us in."
"On it, Colonel," 1-2 answered.
"Dragon 1, this is Tiger Actual. Got any eyes on enemy movement?"
"Looks like you're clear, Tiger. No, wait, there's an enemy troop concentration at the city center. Moving in to soften them up. How copy?"
"Tiger Actual copies, Dragon 1. Thanks for the assist."
Before them stood another barricade along the street, with a few stragglers struggling to shoot them with anything to stop them.
Bullets, grenades, barricades, none of it was enough to stop the tank barreling towards them.
"Firing!" Zhou shouted.
"Hit!" Chen called down to them. "Floor it, Fa, we're almost at the city center!"
"On it, Colonel," the driver said once more, as they worked their way through the streets, blasting their way through the walls as they pushed towards the city center.
And then they arrived, out in the open.
Just like Beijing, only this time, the Qing were there. And if the Rising Sun was anything to go by, so were the Japanese.
There had to be hundreds, if not a thousand of them, all trying to organize any kind of defense, now that the Dragons had softened them up.
"Tigers 1-2 to 1-6, we have eyes on enemy infantry. Move in and start shooting!"
"On it," Zhou said as the turret rotated to the left, towards the city center. "Firing."
This round landed right in the city center, sending men and equipment flying, and even more running to cover.
"They're running to cover!" Chen shouted, before turning his turret and opening fire. "Use the MGs!"
The familiar rattle of the machine gun soon filled his ears as the bullets tore through countless soldiers. Japanese, Qing, they all died the same way as the tanks flanked around the city square, gunning down everything in between them.
"Dragon 1 to Tiger Actual, I have eyes on the city square right now."
"Say again, Dragon 1?"
"Repeat, I have eyes on the city square. Looks like the area's clear, so you're good to move up."
"Thanks, Shannon. Anything else we should know about?"
"Affirmative. The rest of the 66th is moving in to mop up as we speak. ETA five minutes. ETA fifteen minutes for the American volunteers to show up."
"Thanks, Shannon. Tiger 1-1 out."
Outskirts of Panjin, Shengjing Province, Republic of China
Jiang was impressed, to say the least. In about an hour, those tanks, followed by the APCs and Humvees, had not only broken through the enemy barricades, but had also torn through the city center and come out the other side.
At this point, there wasn't much left for his men to do as they drove through the city, where they could smell the smoke and blood the Marines had left in their wake.
Eventually, they got to the city center, where the Marine tanks were parked alongside their Humvees and APCs.
"You Jiang?" one of the marines called out to him once they'd parked. "City's all yours. Or, what's left of it."
"Is the area secured?"
"More or less," the Colonel told him. "Not many prisoners, I'm afraid. Seems that the Japanese were fighting to the death."
"I see. I take it you will be leaving, now?"
"Yeah. Just need to gas up and get going. Now that we've punched through their defenses, Command wants the 66th to move to Fengtian and start harassing them, before they can fortify the place."
"I see. Best of luck, Colonel."
"Thanks."
Qing Command Headquarters, Changchun, Qing Empire, 11 October 1911
The last day had been utter hell for Zhang Zuolin. Not only had the Russians arrived and taken over Harbin, but the Japanese weren't here yet. They were supposed to have crossed over yesterday, yet there was no word from General Arisawa.
And that was before the air raids that had targeted his men and the few artillery pieces he had with him. By the time the all-clear was given, he needed General Arisawa. More importantly, the artillery and machine guns that General Arisawa had brought with him.
"General!" an aide shouted as he ran inside. "General!"
"Yes, Sergeant?"
"It's Fengtian! They're under attack!"
"Are the planes back already?" That was the last thing he needed right now, but at least he'd managed to spread his men out to minimize further losses. "Captain, sound the alarms and get the Emperor to the shelter."
"No, sir," the Sergeant told him, "The planes haven't come back yet!"
"Then tell me, Sergeant. Who is attacking Fengtian right now?"
Ten Miles Outside Fengtian, Jilin Province, Contested Territory.
Truth be told, he wasn't much of a morning person. Not by a longshot.
Now, that wasn't exactly the best thing when he was a commander, but he had his ways.
Coffee. It was lots of coffee.
"So," Chen yawned as he poured himself a cup from the kettle. It was still early in the morning, so there weren't many awake, outside of the men who'd volunteered for sentry duty. "Anyone want one?"
"I'll take one," Fa answered, and Chen poured him a cup. "Thanks, Colonel."
"See anything?"
"Nothing major, Colonel," the driver yawned, "Just a whole lot of nothing."
"Thought so. You'd catch 'em with your NVGs if you did."
"Yeah. So, when is the rest of the army showing up?"
"Let's see… The Lincolnites-"
"Who?"
"The American Volunteer Battalion," Chen explained. "They got here with us as part of the vanguard, while the 77th and some of the Army took Anshan last night once we broke through their lines. Think the 99th are headed down south towards Dalian with another chunk."
"Right. Think they can take it?"
"Once the Air Force wakes up and starts dumb bombing the place? Probably."
"So, who are we waiting on?"
"The rest of the Army's a bit slower than we are, and they're mopping up. Marty- er, Major Li said that Huang should be here in about fifteen."
"That slow, huh?"
"Hey, not everyone drives like you, kid."
"Fair enough." Fa would've said more, but the two of them could hear the rumble of trucks at the edge of the camp. "Think that's them?"
"Well, they aren't shooting, so probably," Chen told him as he ran off, "You coming with?"
"Sure!" Fa called after him, and the younger man ran after him.
A minute later, they were face-to-face with General Huang.
"Good work, Colonel," the revolutionary told him. "I trust that the area is secure?"
"Of course, sir. Should be some area for your troops to set up their camp. Figure your men could use a rest."
"Of course, Colonel," Huang said before motioning to his officers. "I'll send some men to take over once they wake up."
"Much appreciated," Chen said, and Huang gave a polite nod, before walking off.
"So," Li said to Chen. "You ever been to Changchun?"
"Nah. You?"
"Classified."
"Of course it is. Hey, Marty?"
"Yeah?" his old friend yawned. "What's up?"
"Not much. Just about time you guys got here."
