Atmosphere

March 1964

The weather had finally cleared up on strait–while a crossing in winter wasn’t impossible by any means, it would be a bad start for any potential campaign. And so Chiang’s army slowly moved across the strait–some of them on American-made landing ships; others on everything from fishing boats to Generalissimo Chiang’s personal yacht [which had a Russian made Maxim gun from god knows where attached to the front].

It wasn’t like the People’s Liberation Army hadn’t had fair warning–Chiang had literally been talking about how he was going to do this for going on 15 years now. If you had tuned into Radio Beiping, you certainly would have gotten the impression this was, if anything, quite tardy. However, the PLA had been… one might say “preoccupied” for some time now–as internal conflict within China heated up with Mao’s crusade to smash the bourgeois counterrevolutionaries, the various military districts were principally concerned with maintaining good order and discipline in their own units–not helped by the appointment of Lin Biao as Minister of Defense and his aggressive unwinding of Peng Duhai’s initiatives like “proper military ranks” and “training in the operation of equipment”, which in Mao’s opinion were bourgeois innovations.

As a result of this chaos; not only were the PLA ill prepared to meet this threat; but they also were disorganized on the strategic level–combined with the Sino-Soviet split worsening tensions on the border, most Chinese forces were concentrated north of the Yangtze and many commanders in the more remote areas of China–especially the Northwest, where He Long’s allies dominated–refused to send units to fight.

Battle For The Skies

The PLAAF was… not in the best of shape. The typical pilot was a graduate of elementary school at most. Their aircraft were mostly MiG-15s and MiG-17s of Soviet manufacture; while some facilities had been built in China for production of aircraft through the MiG-19, these facilities had produced very few aircraft due to the political instability and the difficulty since the Soviet withdrawal in 1962; and these aircraft were of unsophisticated manufacture. Furthermore, the PLAAF was dispersed between the Northern forces aimed at defending against the Soviets, and the Southeastern forces aimed at fending off against the nationalists. A reliance on a Soviet model of piloting and the fact that Mao didn’t really care much about jets, unlike Chiang, also contributed to what ended up being a truly lackluster performance by the communists in the air.

As a result, when Nationalist jets began crossing over the median line, the most that many PLA units could do was utilize their brand new manuals that taught them how to fire their rifles at imperialist aircraft in “The People’s Anti-Aircraft Battery”. Armed with Sidewinder missiles [very few Chinese aircraft carried missiles and those that did were very poor], they tore communist MiG-15s and MiG-17s to shreds; along with the handful of bombers that had the ill fate of meeting them. Chinese S-75 batteries proved largely ineffective against these maneuverable fighters, though they did score a few due to sheer luck–and a few expensive reconnaissance aircraft were brought down by the S-75s, which was something. Most Nationalist aircraft losses were attack aircraft, mainly older F-84 Thunderjets, brought down by the humble anti-aircraft gun–the Chinese obsession with stockpiling everything from KPVs to huge 130mm heavy flak guns finally paid off.

Treacherous Waters

The PLAN turned in a similarly dismal performance as the ROC’s fleet of American surplus ships quickly reduced whatever surface combatants that were unlucky enough to be caught in their path to broken hulks. The submarines proved little better; though this was perhaps less damning of the Whiskey-class’s design as much as the fact that at the urging of Mao himself, and indeed the rest of the Central Military Commission, the admiral in charge of the PLAN ordered them directly into the Strait to interdict Nationalist traffic. While a few ships were sunk, this was quickly revealed to be a very bad plan to anyone who knew submarining–the waters in the Strait are very shallow–so shallow the Whiskeys often bottomed out–and thus it was almost trivial to hunt them down with sonar.

The one area in which the PLAN saw some modicum of success were the innumerable gunboat duels between the PLA’s gunboats–many of which were little more than armed trawlers–and the ROC’s landing craft, most of which were armed trawlers. There were so many of these that the ROC couldn’t easily deal with them and thus many were able to inflict some damage on landing forces before being sunk, captured, or simply fleeing often under cover of darkness.

Bombing The Bridges

There are only a few major crossings of the massive Yangtze river, and, unsurprisingly to both sides, they came under attack from Nationalist aircraft. Both the Soviet-built bridges at Wuhan and Chongqing were attacked. (Un)fortunately, however, both bridges proved very difficult targets–not only were they heavily defended by anti-aircraft guns, they were also built in the Soviet tradition of “if it can’t survive a nearby nuclear detonation, it’s not worth building”. In addition, bridges are difficult to hit in the first place. As a result, the Nationalist strikes accomplished little more than losing them some of their F-100s and causing bouts of irrational paranoia around Chongqing, since Taiwan was too far away to bomb that bridge from. However, these attacks have worried the communists; and the fact that these are still the only two railroad bridges is significantly impairing any movement of communist forces to the south. In addition, the delivery of more modern bombers and/or munitions might well bring both bridges under threat.

The Ground Campaign

Landings at Xiamen and Quangzhou were categorically successful–not only were PLA units in the area routed, not the least due to the heavy application of airpower and artillery; but a large portion of the communist’s artillery park–mostly towed guns of the 122mm, 152mm and 203mm caliber–was captured, having been concentrated in the southeast for artillery duels with the equally heavy guns of Matsu. However, there was no success in capturing large numbers of men–most units simply broke up or successfully disengaged; a potentially worrying trend, probably due to a lack of mobility and initiative on the part of the Nationalist Chinese. While the KMT’s troops have had little trouble shattering formations of untrained and unorganized light infantry–the median unit opposing the KMT has no defined officers aside from a political commissar more interested in contesting rebel factions than his own troops, little more than machine guns and old mortars, and communications that amount to men on motorcycles–the KMT’s forces haven’t exactly shown great tactical acumen themselves and aren’t that better armed than the Communists. So while the Nationalists have at least nominally overrun most of Fujian; whether or not they can continue to contest territory–especially if the better organized, equipped and led divisions currently in the north on the Soviet frontier come into the fray–is questionable at best. Indeed, were the units around them reorganized and reinvigorated, this could probably be achieved–but thus far Mao has shown no signs of budging on his work to create a model communist military.

Laotian Distraction

Concurrent to the landings and land campaign in Fujian; the Kuomintang “Lost Army”, under Li Mi, launched a series of raids and incursions along the Chinese border with Laos, with indecisive results–the Communist presence is already so significant in Laos that it is unclear if this was even particularly related, and the Lost Army seems more interested in brutalizing villagers and moving opium than launching another fruitless invasion of Yunnan. However, their activities have caused some worry in the CMC and some are concerned that an American backed invasion of Yunnan may be in the future, tying down some Communist forces–so that is something at least.

The Public Mood

The Nationalists have landed during a very tumultuous time in Chinese history. Angry rebel Red Guard units seize factories and attempt to defy the orders of political leadership; Chairman Mao actively incites resistance against his own party. The result of this chaos has been an… interesting reception, to say the least, on the mainland. The areas in which the Nationalists have landed have given them a lukewarm reception, on the whole–the KMT is remembered more positively here than in the rest of the country; a result of regionalism and traditional trade patterns–though the legacy of the Civil War still harms its reputation, and citizens have almost immediately begun hoarding and hiding valuables and have shown a distinct reluctance to accept Nationalist money. Many appreciate the ‘order’ brought by the Nationalists to a country experiencing a sort of low-grade civil war already–but others, namely the various Red Guard factions, very much do not. Thousands of Red Guards of various factions, many unarmed students, have been massacred in Fujian. Partisan resistance groups have almost immediately sprung up; but thus far they haven’t been very successful–as it turns out, most of the rural population has seen this as a chance to go completely rogue and live as they wish without government interference in what they must plant or cultivate; and as a result neither the communists nor nationalists have much of any sway in areas outside their immediate control. The situation has also significantly increased banditry as “militia” groups, deserters from the PLA or even deserters from the ROCA go rogue, pursuing personal profit or longstanding grudges. One area of some success has been that the Nationalists have been able to convince many low level party officials to switch sides, bringing their governmental apparatus with them–many of these people were the most hurt by the Cultural Revolution. However, these officials are generally pretty unpopular with the general public, so this is very much a double edged sword. All of this also hasn’t done Mao’s paranoia any favors and he has presently withdrawn, leaving much of the fighting to Lin Biao, and his allies–particularly Jiang Qing–are hunting down “traitor” and “revisionist” factions in the army that are surely responsible for their failures against the Nationalists, with many of the communists’ best generals presently arrested or dead.

Casualties (all causes including accidents and desertion):

Nationalists:

–1 U-2, 2 RB-57, 5 F-104s, 12 F-5s, 18 F-100s, 38 F-86s, 53 F-84s

–2 minesweepers, 3 tank landing ships, 23 other landing ships and small craft

–30,000 casualties

Communists:

–1 Tu-4, 58 Il-28,1 MiG-21, 5 MiG-19, 250 MiG-15, 400 MiG-17

–11 submarines, 2 destroyers, 63 other small craft [torpedo boats et cetra]

–60,000 casualties all cause, one Army no longer exists, Foochow MR in disarray