The inside of the dry bulk container ship in Kaohsiung Harbor held more than 4,000 Chinese infantry — an entire regiment and some divisional support elements of the 97th Infantry Division, 14th Group Army. Every weapon they had was man-portable. Vehicles and larger crew-served weapons such as medium and heavy artillery would have to wait for the follow-on forces.
The noise in the ship was an echoing madness. The private was ready to throw up the water he had consumed so quickly a few minutes before. Three days in this hell hole had left him fatigued. Now, adding insult, the platoon sergeant ordered the platoon to don their protective masks.
The air inside the mask was thankfully free of the odor of the overflowing toilets, but the mask offered little else in the way of consolation.
The private and his fellow soldiers were crammed into a ship that normally carried ore. To increase its human cargo capacity, the PLAN secretly and hurriedly added an inexpensive network of metal shelving within the ship’s hold. As an afterthought (and for general hygienic reasons) portable toilets had been brought into the hold as well. To complete the deception, a layer of shelving was added to the top of the ship upon which a thin layer of ore was placed. From the air, the ship looked loaded. To facilitate easy ingress and egress, several hatches were carefully cut into the side of the ship, allowing the troops the leave rapidly from the hull, rather then climbing up through the top and back down the sides again.
Due to the pursuit of normalized relations and lucrative trade and investment opportunities, there had been direct cargo connections between the Mainland and Taiwan for a few years now. It was this routine activity the Chinese sought to exploit for military gain. A cargo vessel is not the most ideal platform for launching a seaborne invasion. However, with total surprise, somewhat akin to the Trojan Horse, a ship could get into a harbor and might successfully get its troops into battle as was done by the Germans in 1940 in Norway.
The Chinese plan called for the use of three such outfitted cargo ships, docking, from north to south, at: Taichung Harbor, Tainan and Kaohsiung. Each ship carried about 4,000 men. In addition, the Chinese pressed one of COSCO’s luxury cruise ships into service to take the port of Keelung in the far north, only 20 miles northeast of Taipei. This ship carried an entire infantry division, less its heavy equipment. Thus, without a shot being fired, the Chinese landed 22,000 troops — the better part of two divisions — on Taiwan. (China possessed a traditional amphibious assault force capability of only 20,000.)
In the meantime, the soldiers in Kaohsiung had the element of surprise and the force multiplying effects of the E-bomb and the incapacitating agent. The former had just detonated when the cargo ship began to spew the latter out of its smoke stacks.
The wind was stiffening to the west, carrying much of the agent harmlessly out to sea. Some of it did affect the dockworkers and Customs agents down the length of Penglai Road astride the main dockyards, the rest intoxicated the upscale residents of Chichin Island. The city center was untouched until six M-9 missiles rained down their canisters of aerosol phenothiazine agent.
A feeling of claustrophobia was about to overtake the private when a brilliant shaft of light shown through into the dusty chamber. The platoon sergeant roared a muffled command through his mask. All he could say that his troops could understand was, “Go! Go! Go!” The sergeant kicked, shoved and pushed his men towards the open hatch.
The private stumbled out into the sunlight with wobbly legs. The gangplank to the dock was only a meter wide and about eight meters long. He almost lost his balance and fell ten meters into the oily harbor waters below. He was surprised to see that he was the first soldier on the narrow, bouncing ramp. Obviously allies had positioned the walkway there, but they were nowhere to be seen.
A mass of soldiers began piling up behind the private and pushed him forward. He stumbled down the ramp and came face-to-face with a uniformed Customs officer of the Republic of China. He held out his hand to stop the Mainlander private, “Stop. Who are you? Where are your papers?” He yelled. Accustomed to obeying authority in uniform, the private skidded to a halt, forcing two soldiers to jump off the ramp and onto the quay, while a third lost his balance and fell into the water below, his mask stifling the cry on the way down.
The Customs officer began to laugh. The private was confused. His tremendous fatigue and dehydration were compounded by the protective mask’s confinement. He heard yelling behind him. It sounded like the platoon sergeant. He was yelling, “Shoot him! Shoot! Shoot him!”
The private brought his assault rifle to his hip and pulled back the charging handle to chamber a round. The Customs officer, stood there, giggling uncontrollably, “Ha! You’re going to shoot me?” In a brief moment, mirth turned to fear, but the officer didn’t move.
The private fired once into the officer’s stomach. The officer doubled over as if punched in the midsection. He staggered back, tripped and landed on his back, pain slowly clouding his eyes. He reached for his pistol. At that instant, the other two conscripts on the dock saw the danger and fired on full automatic at the Customs officer. The officer was killed by the second round — a shot to the head — but the excited and marginally trained young soldiers wasted another 25 rounds on the corpse.
The private was pushed aside by a rush of soldiers trying to get to the dock, then make their way down Penglai Road to the port’s main Customs office. The platoon sergeant stomped by and grabbed him roughly by the wrist, “Come on, ‘Hero of all China,’ let’s move it!”
The ROC submarine captain was making his way to one of his pre-arranged attack positions in deeper water. The Dutch submarine was designed to function quite well in the shallow waters off a river’s delta — but, when given a choice, it was always better to have more room to maneuver and hide. Of course, the Taiwanese surface fleet knew where he might be lurking and would avoid attacking that area (no sense in being sunk by your friends).
The tactical display showed the six ROC Navy vessels due north about two nautical miles. They formed an air defense cluster just inside the territorial waters surrounding Quemoy Island. To the east-northeast, about five enemy vessels had broken away from the main group of 25 remaining ships and were pressing in towards the defenders.
With careful maneuvering, he knew he could get into position to attack the southernmost part of what was probably the main amphibious invasion force. He thought of the satisfaction of sinking a landing ship filled with troops and tanks from the Communist Mainland. “Tactical officer!” the statement was an exclamation, the volume, however, was tightly measured — like controlled thunder. “Give me a read on the ship types in the enemy flotilla as soon as possible.”
“Yes sir, already working the problem,” the tactical officer was supervising the chief sonar technician who was running a comparative analysis of the propeller and engine sounds from the Mainlander fleet.
“Sir, so far we see none of the ‘A’ list ships. There are two Jiangwei-type frigates here and here,” the tactical officer said, pointing at the sonar scope. He knew his captain loved to see the data live right off the screen, rather than looking pretty on the tactical display. “We see only one amphibious ship, a Shan-Class LST (Landing Ship Tank). Other than one Haiqing ASW patrol craft, the other 25 ships are small patrol and fast attack craft.”
The skipper was visibly disappointed. The Shan-class displaced 4,080 tons and could only carry 150 troops and 16 tanks — and it was the largest ship in the enemy flotilla out there this morning. Clearly, this was not the vanguard of an invasion fleet. Still… If the enemy crossed the line today, he had orders to make them pay a price.