Shanxi. Mid 1974.

A sound pounded across the hills, the sound of hoofbeats, dozens, hundreds of them even. As the remnants of a scrambling, disorganized mass of peasants stumbled over rocks, soldiers rode them down, tearing through what looked to be the rout of an entire peasant-army. The screams, shouts, yelling, occasional gunfire... and in all of that, a man speaking into a radio distinctly out of place with the surroundings. "Chengqu Township has been cleared of rebel activity."

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Men were lined up in the village square, the leaders of local resistance. A sound of gunfire. Another village 'secured'. Screaming, crying, shouting, shooting--the sounds of a terrible orchestra composed by General Wang Zhen himself, delegated down to a Hui cavalry squadron from Gansu. The peasants were disorganized, energized by frustrations at local bureaucrats [many of whom were now dead] and worship of Mao Zedong as a sort of minor god. No longer. The leaders were dead, new party apparatchiks--usually the sons of former landlords and the petit-bourgeiouse now--were in place. The soldiers made a big pile of every depiction of Mao Zedong they could find, piled it in the centre of town, and set it alight.

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Shanghai, November 1974

"Look, comrade! Ships! Ships approach!"

Comrade Yan-hong raised his binoculars.

"I can't make them out, comrade."

Comrade Zuo pointed. "Right there! Don't you see them! And they have red flags!"

Comrade Yan-hong, at the risk of seeming a little counterrevolutionary, sighed. "Everyone around here has red flags, comrade. It is a question as to which particular red we are looking."

"Now see, here, we see red! But a closer examination yields a flash of blue. Perhaps it is an American? But it could just as easily be Filipino! No, we must look carefully, comrade, and see that the canton is square, and that in the centre is a white mass, that looks like..."

He trailed off.

"What is it, Comrade Yan-hong? What is it on the flag?"

"Sound the alarm! The counter-revolution is here! The Chiang clique is here to spread imperialism!"

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Admiral Nelson Ku, aboard the ROCS Kee Lung, was not especially impressed by the swarm of small patrol boats, torpedo craft, and river vessels that approached the mighty Chinese Navy; its American-built destroyers, its Dutch cruiser, and its communist-built auxiliary vessels and frigates.

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"Take evasive measures against torpedo attack! Fire at will!"

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A 6-inch shell obliterated a Type 062 gunboat motoring leisurely towards the fleet as the guns began flashing in the sun, firing off as if there was no tomorrow, and aircraft painted with the Blue Sky and White Sun streaked in from over the horizon, essentially unopposed. And for one side, there wouldn't be.

By the end of the day, the "Red Navy" was shattered, a mess of broken parts, bodies, and burning hulks scattered across the mouth of the Yangtze. The first combined CPC-KMT operation since 1945 was an unmitigated success, and the fleet dispersed to monitor and clean up the remaining elements of Mao loyal Navy units along the steadily shrinking patch of coastline where the rebels held sway.

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Beijing, New Years [Western]

The smoke cast a cloud for miles, visible from the ruins of the Great Wall miles away in the mountains. The onetime capital of the Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Communists, the city had not taken its flirtation with revolution well. Especially when the hardened, armored, Soviet-aimed formations from the Shenyang Military District started showing up and just running over Red Guards, whose anti-tank armament was... subpar. While defecting PLA units put up a decent fight, it was disorganized, poorly coordinated, and mostly lacking in anything other than fanaticism, with the employment of suicide bombers and child soldiers by the Red Guards noted for official propaganda.

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Most of the damage inflicted onto the city, however, was by the rebels themselves, aiming to "destroy imperialism" and "resurrect the memory of the Paris Commune", evidently including the part where, according to some accounts, the Parisians attacked their own city, destroying important monuments and imperial symbols.

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While fortunately the Imperial Palace museum mostly escaped unscathed, Zhonghanai and the Summer Palace both suffered heavily from arson, along with many other old structures in the city, and former government organs. An attempt to destroy the Tienanmen Gate with explosives failed to do much more than blow out a few windows, though further examination has revealed serious damage to the recently renovated structure that will require some time to repair and compensate for.

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The Situation Presently

As 1975 dawns, the Politburo seems to once again reign supreme over most of China. Despite the brave and heroic efforts of Mao Zedong's followers, they have been methodically, systematically pushed back, while their attempts to break out have been largely stymied by an increasingly unsympathetic populace. Hundreds, if not thousands, of officials have been killed, while tens of thousands of students and other 'political unreliables' are being deported to China's far interior--it is estimated that over half of Tsinghua's class of 1978 are presently in Shaanxi, for instance.

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Still, offensive efforts in the Southeast have stalled, and the final push to retake the Yangtze Basin remains very much in question. The peculiar alliance with the Kuomintang has raised many eyebrows in the mainland; but little questioning--in public, anyway--from those in Politburo-controlled territory, a good portion of whom enjoy good relations with the KMT on a personal basis, whether from relatives, working as agricultural laborers in Taiwan, or engaging in businesses that export to them.

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Perhaps one bit of good news is that the physical infrastructure of China has remained relatively undamaged, with the exception of the damage to Beijing's historic structures. Both sides envision occupying and controlling territory afterwards, artillery is in short supply, and it's not as if Red Guards would destroy the worker's property, after all. What destruction has taken place is well, cultural. Of course the economy is hardly good, but that's to be expected when you're in a civil war.