On Sunday morning the garrison commander put out the word for all of his generals to assemble on the main island of Quemoy by Monday morning to consider their courses of action. The commander wanted to reach a consensus on when and how to surrender with dignity.
Brigadier General Mao, the commander of the garrison on the smaller of the two islands Quemoy, took a small fishing boat over to the main island on Sunday night for Monday’s war council. On his way over Mao’s grimness was multiplied by a heaving case of seasickness. Curiously, he slept soundly in one of Quemoy’s barracks bunkers and awoke refreshed and committed to whatever purpose he was assigned in these, the last days of his Republic.
The meeting started at 0700 hours Monday morning. The 22 generals, along with an admiral and an air force general, snapped to attention as the Lieutenant General briskly walked into the large underground meeting room.
The general wasted no time in explaining the hopelessness of the situation and the honorable defense the garrison had thus far offered. Mao looked around the room. He saw one general, a classmate of his at the academy, crying silently. Mao shook his head and returned his attention to the garrison commander just as the leader was preparing to seek a consensus. Mao cleared his throat and began to stand, saying, “Pardon me, sir, but I feel compelled to speak to this issue.”
Normally, such a statement would have been frowned upon. These were not normal times, and, since there were only flag officers in the room, an air of congeniality was possible which would not be the case were lower ranking personnel present. “Yes, General Mao, please continue,” the three star said.
“Sir, we have enough food and water for three months — a little less than two if we share it with the civilians. What’s the harm in waiting? Even if we are defeated, won’t our stand here improve the treatment our countrymen get at the hands of the Communists?”
A murmur coursed through the two-dozen senior leaders. The garrison commander, not expecting a double defiance (to himself and the Chinese), backed off a notch. “Fine, gentlemen. General Mao has a valid point. Still, I see little to be gained by sacrificing ourselves for a lost cause. I suggest we eat, meet amongst ourselves, and reconvene this afternoon at 1500 hours to make our final decision.”
Mao grunted to himself—So the general was going to politick. Taiwan dies and we talk.
Chu Ling prayed harder than she ever had before in her life. She didn’t pray that her life would be spared, but rather the life of her son, Dugen, and the lives of her 59 friends, relatives and the 41 children from the village. She also prayed for the soul of Lee Bensui, the late Fu Mingjie’s Party deputy. This evil shadow of a man came by the jail every day to gloat over his captives, until, on the fifth day, he came by no more. Ling decided that the man could no longer handle the prisoners’ quiet prayers and singing—too bad, she thought, still, perhaps he now had a seed within his heart that God could work with.
The jail in Lipu City held 60 of the mountain villagers since the late night raid almost two weeks ago. Ling’s facial wounds were slowly healing. Her heart was healing more slowly. She still held the image of her doomed and injured husband Kwok being led off to face his destiny — a destiny without God. This terribly saddened her, although she clung to the slimmest hope that her loving example may have led him to God before he was executed for “crimes” against the state.
Chao Yongmin, Amoy’s Falun Gong “Master”, Brother Wang Ouyang, three other house church leaders and more than 300 followers and believers piled into six large old charter buses and headed out of Amoy for Lipu City. They got only five kilometers before they hit the first roadblock. One bus at a time, two soldiers boarded, then randomly inspected the papers of the occupants. Satisfied that there was nothing out of order with the travelers, the soldiers waved them on. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the lieutenant in charge of the checkpoint was a Falun Gong practitioner.
The leaders had only a rough idea of what they were going to do when they got to Lipu where they knew some 60 Christians were being held in the local jail, collectively charged with subversion. From Brother Wang’s understanding of the situation, the jailed villagers were quite popular in the region, being known for producing the county’s best oranges and for their kindness and generosity. Wang shared his thoughts with Chao that this particular situation might be one that they could win — a small group of popular people jailed by a weak and minor Party official just far enough from the beaten path that the official would not have immediate recourse to excessive amounts of force. “Master” Chao agreed and the two of them arranged the trip. In the meantime the Christians viewed the adventure as a nice Sunday outing with the added advantage of having the opportunity to witness to their Falun Gong bus-mates. Likewise, the believers in Falun Gong listened politely and intently to the Christians (as would be expected since most Chinese like to hedge their religious bets, paying homage to a multitude of faiths — just in case).
Lee Bensui was growing increasingly worried. True, he had the 60 troublemakers behind bars. True, he had executed their ringleader and made a nice profit off his organs — although the thieving doctor charged far more for his services than Lee expected. No, his problems were more complex — he didn’t know what to do next. On top of that, his beloved PAP company was torn from him only yesterday. They were needed for the war effort on Taiwan. He was too dense to wonder why no reinforcements would be forthcoming. (Had he the ability to find out, he would have discovered that the Chinese logistical system was already pressed to the breaking point in its effort to move troops and equipment to Taiwan and keep them supplied — moving other PAP troops into his county to backfill those sent to Taiwan was luxury neither planned for nor executable at the moment.)
Lee furrowed his brow and resolved to handle his problem decisively—After all, there was a war going on. He drew up a letter for the Party headquarters in Amoy. In it, he stated his intent to execute every one of the 60 prisoners in custody as dangerous enemies of the state in a time of war. He sent off the letter via fax under his official seal just minutes before the three buses of religionists arrived from Amoy.
Lee’s complex situation was about to assume another unexpected dimension.
Unit 23 of the ROC’s Special Cross Straits Action Team was a closely guarded secret. Most of Unit 23’s personnel were technically civilians; a few were intelligence officers. All were complete geeks. Unit 23 was really nothing more than an organized bunch of 145 hackers bound by two loves: Taiwan and computers.
Springing from Taiwan’s national military intelligence directorate, Unit 23 was organized in 1991 out of a growing realization that computers were an indispensable part of modern conflict. Half of Unit 23 was dedicated to computer defense, the remainder were specialists in computer attack.
Min Bo-long belonged to an even more secret squad within the computer attack platoon. He was embarrassed by what he had to do for his job. Thankfully, both of his parents were dead and he had no nosy siblings to worry about. When you really got down to it, Min was a pornographer — at least he felt like one. While he didn’t actually make pornographic movies or materials, he did run a couple of truly disgusting web sites: one in Macao and the other in Hong Kong. Both sites had as their target audience Communist Party officials in China. Min estimated his loyal Party viewership to be about 1,500 people and expanding (with another 5,000 or so businessmen and others on the Mainland hitting the site at least three times a week).