It proved to be Adm. Liu Huangtzu who personally notified the Lijiang to surface and directly challenge the trespassers. Shen did as ordered, and a tense, twenty-four hour standoff ensued.
The crisis further intensified when the Philippine patrol vessel threatened to launch an antisubmarine rocket at the Lijiang.
International negotiations on the highest levels eventually succeeded in defusing this serious situation that found the Lijiang only a scant sixty seconds away from launching a torpedo salvo intended to eliminate the Philippine threat. This was as close to actual combat as Shen had ever come before. And when the trespassers eventually weighed anchor and headed for home, the crew of the Lijiang celebrated as if a real war had been won.
China used this incident to show the world how serious they were about defending their territorial claim to the Spratlys. It also caught the attention of Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia, the other nations, who along with the Philippines, claimed the Spratly Islands for themselves.
The course they finally agreed upon took the Lijiang to the mouth of a two-and-a-half-kilometer-wide channel, separating two small, uninhabited islands. A shallow reef lined the western edge of this channel, and to insure that they were properly positioned, Shen ordered the sub to periscope depth.
At a depth of twenty meters, the Lijiang’s search periscope broke the water’s surface. From the hushed control room, Shen anxiously peered out the eyepiece. A ghostly, fog-shrouded sky veiled a perfectly calm sea. In all directions, the milky twilight prevailed, and Shen was content to order the quartermaster to raise the GPS mast in order to obtain the most accurate fix.
The satellite data placed the submarine exactly in the center of the channel, well away from the projecting reef. Satisfied with the accuracy of this data, Shen ordered maneuvering to proceed at a bare single knot of forward speed. Frequent fathometer readings guaranteed that there was plenty of water beneath their hull, and Shen returned to the periscope for yet another look.
This time, the fog seemed to be lifting slightly. He calculated that the rising sun would soon cause it to dissipate completely. Shen was in the midst of a slow visual sweep of the feared western horizon, when an excited, high pitched voice broke from the intercom.
“Control, sonar, I’ve got a contact! Bearing one-nine five, at a relative rough range of nine thousand meters.”
The voice belonged to Chief Tzu, the Lijiang’s senior sonar operator.
The chief was an expert at his arcane craft, and Shen wasted no time querying him via the intercom.
“Chief, this is the Captain. What have you got?”
“Captain,” returned the breathless senior sonar technician. “I’m picking up faint screw sounds in the vicinity of Point Luck.”
Shen briefly caught his XO’s worried glance before readdressing the intercom. “Could it be our old friends, the Filipinos?”
“It’s possible, sir,” replied the sonar technician. “But at this range, it’s impossible to say for certain.”
Shen lowered the handset and addressed Senior Chief Wang, who remained seated behind the helm. “Inform maneuvering to increase our forward speed to three knots.”
“Three knots it is, Captain,” replied Wang, who leaned forward and manipulated a centrally located console that would relay this request to engineering.
All eyes went to the forward bulkhead’s digital knot counter. Slowly it rose two numerals, and Senior Chief Wang called out, “Three knots, Captain.”
Once more, Shen’s complete attention returned to the scope’s eyepiece.
He scanned the veiled southwestern horizon, silently willing the fog to thin more quickly.
“Conn, sonar. I’ve got additional screw sounds, Captain!” Tzu cried over the intercom. “They appear to be coming from various small surface vessels situated in the waters almost directly above us!”
Shen initiated a rapid, 360-degree scan of the surrounding seas, before ordering the periscope to be retracted into its protective well. An unwanted collision could take them to the bottom just as surely as an enemy torpedo could.
“All stop!” Shen ordered.
“All stop,” repeated the senior chief.
The Lijiang shuddered slightly as the knot indicator dropped to zero. A tense three minutes passed, as sonar began a thorough sweep of the waters above them.
As the control-room crew anxiously awaited the results of this scan, the commissar joined them. Guan Yin positioned himself to the immediate right of the periscope pedestal, beside the firecontrol console. From his position on the pedestal next to the captain, the XO acknowledged the political officer’s arrival with the barest of nods.
No sooner was this gesture reciprocated, than the report they had been awaiting sounded from the overhead intercom speakers.
“Conn, sonar. The overhead contacts are fading. I’m picking up increased screw sounds though, on bearing one eight-eight, relative rough range down to seven thousand meters, and smack in the middle of Point Luck. From the racket it’s making, it could be a Philippine patrol boat!”
Shen digested this information, and instead of conferring with his XO, he turned to the vessel’s senior enlisted man. “Chief Wang, do you think we could sneak up on them?”
With more hours spent beneath the seas than any other sailor on board the Lijiang, Wang answered confidently. “I don’t see why not, Captain.
With our new silencing equipment, they’ll never tag us.”
Shen looked up to the overhead sonar repeater and briefly studied the series of solid white lines that indicated the presence of unknown contacts topside. Also known as a waterfall display, the top of the repeater showed the bearing of the detected frequency, while the vertical lines indicated the particular nature of this frequency over an extended period of time.
Anxious to solve this mystery and identify the largest of these contacts, Shen decided to take a risk and continue their approach. “All ahead slow. Make turns for three knots.” “Three knots it is, Captain,” said Wang, as he leaned forward to relay this order to maneuvering.
Shen felt a tightening in the pit of his stomach as his eyes focused on the speed indicator. He planned to wait until they were underway once again before readdressing HTTOCH OH THE QUGEH II the periscope. Surely by then the fog would have lifted enough to allow him a visual sighting.
Mentally urging the digital knot indicator forward, Shen was somewhat surprised when a full sixty seconds passed, and the indicator had failed to move off zero. The senior chief also recognized this puzzling fact. It was Wang who spotted the rapidly increasing temperature reading from the instruments monitoring the sub’s propeller bearings.
“We’ve got a main shaft temperature overload!” he warned.
“All stop!” Shen ordered.
“All stop,” repeated Wang.
As Shen’s directive was carried out, the temperature reading of the suspect gauge slowed its rise, then stopped perilously close to the warning zone.
“What the hell is going on back there?” the captain asked.
“It appears that the shaft was properly answering to three knots, yet the prop was failing to respond,” observed Wang.
The senior chief was relieved that the temperature reading was holding constant, but an urgent intercom page from engineering set him to rubbing his forehead. He hung up the handset and turned to face the captain.