On Friday afternoon a little-noticed engagement was fought at the intersection of Tollways 1 and 3 less than ten kilometers south of the Touchien Hsi River about 50 kilometers southwest of Taipei. With this key crossroads in hand, the ROC leadership was free to pursue a breakthrough to the north along Tollway 1 or further to the east along Tollway 3 where the terrain was more restricted but the concealment was better.
The ROC plan was simple and aggressive: as soon as darkness fell, seize the intact bridges over the Touchien Hsi River along both Tollways, then, employ overwhelming firepower and armor against the 85th Infantry Division to the east, breaking through to the division’s rear command post at Kuanhsi. Leaving behind the infantry to mop up the rear and clear the supply route, the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Division, 3rd and 5th Armor Brigades and the 6th Armor Brigade (Light) would drive north, brushing past the ROC 1st Infantry Division’s battle positions surrounding Lake Benevolence and the Tomb of Chiang Kai-Shek. Just before dawn the commanders expected to fight the battle to break through to Taipei, drawing in the Chinese mobile reserve and destroying them piecemeal with superior fighting skills and night vision capability.
Fu Zemin needed a replacement for General Wei. The intelligence officer had quickly made himself indispensable and the political officer missed him as he would his own right hand. Wei would have known what to do when the leader of the American team became violently ill and lapsed into a coma. As it was, Fu allowed the Americans another two hours to recover. Then, two hours slipped into three, and three into four as the military situation south of Taipei became increasingly critical. Clearly, the Taiwanese were not simply going to give up and die as everyone thought they were going to do just yesterday. By dinnertime Fu had completely forgotten about the Americans — and dinner.
While Fu respected General First Class Deng Yen-hsi, the commander of the operations on Taiwan, he found the general impenetrable and gruff, at least around him. Fu desperately needed a military officer at his side to communicate a clear picture of the evolving situation. General Wei had been that officer, now he was dead. On the positive side, at least he thought of a replacement for General Wei: Colonel Chu. The commando colonel who had impressed him a few days before had been lightly wounded in a terrible fight that claimed three-quarters of his battalion on the edge of Taipei itself. This hero of the People was known to be resourceful and tough. Without a battalion to lead and too wounded to be highly mobile for the next couple of weeks anyway, Fu decided to request the services of Colonel Chu as his personal aide (the PLA’s political secretariat had neither the time nor the opportunity to inform the field forces on Taiwan of Colonel Chu’s unique status due to his mother’s treasonous actions).
Colonel Chu was due to arrive any moment now — and not a second too soon. Fu wanted both the counsel and comfort that the brave commando leader would provide. Stronger Taiwanese forces than anyone had thought could be mustered had just broken through PLA lines east of Hsinshu and were reported to be only 25 kilometers from Deng Xiaoping International Airport. Worse yet, only an under strength airborne division stood between the ROCs and Fu Zemin’s small but very Communist body.
30
Rout
All Friday night the Taiwanese spearhead thrust north. By three in the morning the lead elements of the attacking vanguard could see the artillery duels lighting up the low-hanging clouds around Taipei. According to ROC intelligence, the army had only the PLA’s 1st Mechanized Infantry Division between them and their beleaguered capital. Taiwan’s best tanks, 47 venerable ex-U.S. M60A3s, were brought forward to make the assault, just to the east of Tollway 3 in the secondary road network running between the tollway and the ridge that paralleled it (the tollway itself was known to be mined). The tanks lined up, their engines rumbled behind a low-lying rise that separated them from the enemy some one kilometer away. Behind each tank there were two M113A2 armored personnel carriers, each with two crewmen and 11 infantrymen aboard. In front of the tanks sat 35 LAV-150 Commando armored fighting vehicles (armored cars equipped with a 20mm gun and two machine guns each). Only one kilometer south of this brigade-sized force was another of comparable size (only with older M48A5 tanks, also equipped with thermal sights). In reserve, the Taiwanese held the 6th Armor Brigade (Light), equipped with completely remanufactured M41 light tanks, reinforced with a battalion of mechanized infantry. The 4th Armor Brigade was still on the march some 40 kilometers to the south. Almost two-thirds of Taiwan’s remaining armored force was ready to tear loose into the Chinese lines, force a decisive engagement, and wrest victory from the PLA.
On the other side of the lines, 20 kilometers to the northwest in the basement of a hotel near the renamed Deng Xiaoping International Airport, Fu Zemin was watching the Taiwanese advance unfold like an unstoppable tide. His head hurt and he was fearful almost to the point of irrationality. Beside him, standing stiffly due to his leg bandages, his pain, and his discomfort at having to be so close to one holding political power, was Colonel Chu Dugen. The usual activity of any command post swirled about the two — clerks carrying messages, intelligence and operations staff updating information about enemy and friendly units with grease pencils on the thin acetate map overlay, and the crackling din of radio communications parsed from key sectors of the battlefield.
As much as the political officer Fu was worried and unsure of himself in the situation, Colonel Chu was calm. He resented having been pulled out of the field. He hated the Party and this pathetic man who represented all its evils. But, at least he understood the military environment. He strained to turn his easy understanding into calming and straightforward explanations for his latest charge. If Comrade Fu was appreciative he didn’t show it.
Colonel Chu saw the battlefield as a living thing existing in all four dimensions. He knew what the Taiwanese were after. He knew victory was within their grasp — he also knew that they would be very vulnerable for an instant. If the PLA could strike at that rich concentration of armor and shatter it, all militarily significant resistance to the Mainlanders would end. Unfortunately, to strike such a target one needed exceptional timing (best achieved by slowing down the breakthrough at the point of entry) and the means to deliver the blow. The method of achieving both the timing and blow were unknown the Colonel Chu — he simply knew the necessity of doing so.
Colonel Chu turned to address the political officer, wondering once again if he was any relation to the man his late father was accused of assassinating, “Comrade Fu, may I confer with you about the current operations?”
Fu was almost glassy-eyed. He fiddled with a small, circular scar in the middle of his right palm. It was 0427 hours. The basement room was stuffy, heavy-laden with cigarette smoke and sweat. Mud covered the floor from the comings and goings of field commanders and liaisons. General Deng hadn’t been seen in hours and Fu half expected the general suffered a break down or worse. The chief Party representative on Taiwan turned to his new aide and said hoarsely, “Yes, tell me what you think.”
“Comrade Fu, I think we are seeing the pivotal battle in this campaign. All will be won or lost based on the actions of a few thousand brave men and a handful of commanders. We should know the outcome within two hours, three at the most.”