AN: Credit to perfect_shade, Readhead and TheBattleSage for the revisions
1952, December 21st, Berun International Airport, Berun:
I entered a cordoned-off section of the airport terminal that had been repurposed of late into a receiving office by the Chairman's staff, who even as I watched were scrambling through the endless piles of reports they had been receiving.
"We prepared a passenger jet plane for your exclusive use; It will only need two fueling stops before being within range of Tak Kai Airport in Hongkong." I motioned at the plane in question being moved out of a hanger and onto the tarmac.
"It's over." Shu pushed away one of the reports, his voice trembling with barely controlled emotion and fatigue. "Our intel services and military have either backed Li Lisan, or were naive enough to try to use him as a puppet. Li Lisan is running around whipping up mobs and radicalized military units to build his personal militia. Already, they have killed or arrested everyone who we would have considered trustworthy."
"Who's Li Lisan?" I looked at him in confusion. Shu took a deep sigh as if he didn't want to talk about that particular person.
"He's something like Lev Bronstein, in the level of his commitment and dedication to the international communism revolution campaign. Except that some of Li Lisan's additional beliefs have given us great cause for concern. And now, not only did the damn fools let him out of prison, they also gave him free reign over the military bases that were initially opposed to the coup. Even now, he's certainly doing his utmost to whip them into an ideological frenzy."
The mention of Lev Bronstein's name was like a surprise bucket of cold water to the face. He had been the man most likely to have forced my hand into dropping nukes in the Russy Federation. Thankfully, Elya's "kill him when he's no longer useful" plan had worked, and the Russy Federation had splintered without any mushroom clouds rising on our eastern frontier.
"Ah, I see you were not a fan of Lev Bronstein?" Shu took notice of my shocked face.
I shook my head. "He is not around anymore for us to worry about. What makes Li Lisan so concerning to us, other than trying to aggressively spread communism around the world?"
"He wants to eradicate the entirety of the Chinese Soviet Republic's great and vast history and culture. He got much of his inspiration from the Frankish Revolution's 'Reign of Terror'." Shu narrowed his eyes. "Same goes for other communist countries. He believes that his 'greater' form of communism can't flourish without the destruction of everything that went before it. His prescription for non-communist and communist countries that refuse to switch over to his form of communism is death, one not confined solely to counter revolutionary individuals, but also to counter revolutionary ideals and facts of history. If he was an average person, he could have been easily ignored or kept locked in prison."
If what Shu was saying is true in regards to Li, there's no negotiating with Li. The only option is to prepare for war. Maybe I would have to go to depths I had never thought to stoop to, sweet talking the communists, including the Rus, to isolate the radicalized CSR and snuff out their extremism in their cradle before they can try to export such poisonous ideology.
"But he's not an average person I'm guessing?" I swallowed.
"No. He is exceptionally charismatic, capable of rallying the populace like few others. Perhaps comparable to your speech skills." Shu sadly chuckled. "It was this talent, of course, that made him useful during the rebellion against the Shun Dynasty. The Chairman personally noted that he was inspired by one of Li Lisan's speeches before a desperate battle where they were surrounded and heavily outnumbered by government aligned forces when they needed to cross a river to find a safe refuge to recover from earlier defeats. Both sides ran out of ammunition halfway in the battle and it turned into a brutal melee. Less than a tenth of our rebels survived the battle, but had managed to cross the river afterwards and continue marching west."
"After the war," Shu continued, "the newly formed government began to see him as a liability when the content of his speeches began to shift. When he finally revealed his true intentions, few people in the Politburo objected to his arrest. The biggest concern was finding reasons to have him arrested without making ourselves look bad."
And the coup plotters sprung the madman out of prison. I can't imagine how it would be straightforward to stuff the genie back into the bottle when he is likely to use his oratory skills to get as many bodies as possible between him and the purge squads, after all, cowering behind behind meat shields when the bullets start flying is what the Commies do best.
"What do you think his next moves would be? Surely he's not going to be interested in voluntarily going back to prison."
"There will be a fight between him and Kang," Shu answered immediately, the words clearly already on the tip of his tongue. "I suspect Kang merely wanted to use him to whip up the mobs and help convince some of the military units stationed next to Nanjing to defect. Past the immediate needs of the coup, however… Well, as much as Kang might wish to undo much of the Chairman's 'flow like water' domestic and diplomacy plans, he was also the one who baited Li into a trap with the false promise of helping him avoid an impending arrest, and thus they were already not on good terms before Li's imprisonment."
The Chairman walked over to get Shu's attention, and the two of them quickly started a heated argument as Anna drew me away into our own side conversation with a tap on my shoulder.
"More bad news?" I asked with trepidation, seeing my answer clearly on her face.
"The Akinese reported that the new government in charge of the CSR has declared the entire group of people that went to Germania as enemies of the state. Any of their promises or deals that were made outside of the CSR are regarded as illegitimate. If we send them back to the CSR, they might not survive."
"I had such high hopes only hours ago…" I clenched my hands in frustration.
The arguments between the Chairman and Shu stopped and I looked over.
"The Chairman and most of his staff wish to return home. He said he loves his country too much to be exiled from it. As for me and a few of my associates, we're requesting asylum. We are not sure how the Russy Confederation and North Bharat would feel about hosting ousted government members when the coup plotters are likely to pressure them, so trying to seek asylum there could be risky. And that's assuming they had no involvement with the coup."
I shook my head. Idiot soup-for-brains nationalists and their inability to seek self-preservation when the very country they hold such idiotic feelings for wants them dead. I had repeatedly attempted to quietly retire in the face of expected scandals that never saw the light of day. I almost considered fleeing from Germania at the outbreak of the Second European War before Visha managed to convince me to stay. And the only reasonable communist leader I knew instead wanted me to do his living corpse the honors!
"What about your family?" Anna asked while I could hear the plane's jet engines off in the distance continue spinning.
Shu took a deep breath. "I have accepted that all of my family members and associates back home are either dead already or soon will be under the new government. Li Lisan would likely oversee their disposal personally, thanks to past personal conflicts between us."
I turned to the Chairman and pointed a question at him, out of desperation. "Do you think you would survive if you were to return back to your home?"
I couldn't let him throw away his life in futility. There was no way the coup plotters would share his level of rational thinking, and were extremely likely to embark on spiteful adventures against me. They will eventually lose, just like in my previous world. The USSR would eventually implode along with many of their allies chained by the Warsaw Pact sprinting over to the other side, Yugoslavia imploded even harder, and China turned away from their most extreme communist ideas in my previous life. But that doesn't mean they won't cause many sleepless nights for me, especially when they get nuclear weapons and carelessly hover their finger over the damned switch while stirring up chaos all around the world.
He seemed to have understood the intention of my question and sighed deeply before firing off a response to Shu, who then translated it for me.
"To be exiled and watch my homeland be ripped apart is a fate much worse than death."
Meanwhile in the CSR, in Nanjing, at the People's Assembly:
"What are you doing here?! Li Lisan is out on the streets whipping up mobs to attack the police!" Zhao Yaobang screamed while pointing at Han Xianchu, Marshal of the Army. Some of the members of the assembly continued to cower as the soldiers stood by, while the rest comfortably continued to sit in their seats as if they had been priorly informed about the upcoming special event and thus had nothing to fear.
"And I was the one who let him out, General Secretary Zhao. Or, should I say, formerGeneral Secretary." Han smiled as he prepared to leave the chamber. "And gave him access to the Nanjing Military District Mage Academy when they showed signs of refusing my orders, so I let him rally the students against the academy commander."
"You gave him a mage division? Of all the people, you gave him a mage division?!" A mortified Zhao stared at him as some of the assembly members murmured to each other. A few of the assembly members that were previously comfortable with the situation looked at each other nervously.
"Anyone that supports the Chairman has to go. The People's Assembly can no longer be trusted to run the Chinese Soviet Republic."
"Li will ruin this entire country! All you did was delay your own demise when you're no longer useful to him!" Zhao retorted, with assembly members voicing their support of Zhao.
"I have an entire infantry battalion dedicated to locking down this building." Han then opened the chamber door to leave while the assembly members' concerned voices grew. "No one gets in or out. I'll come back to deal with you all once I attend to more pressing matters."
An assembly member got up from his chair and shouted, "I demand to speak to Luo! We never agreed to having Li freed from prison!" When a soldier walked over to instruct the assembly member to sit back down, the assembly member pushed the soldiers' rifle away and retorted, "Put that gun away. I have been a resistance fighter against the Shun Dynasty longer than you have been alive, you brat!"
Some of the assembly members started to also move, but stopped when the soldiers pointed their rifles at them.
"We'll be all dead the very minute he takes charge!" Zhao shouted in impotent fury as Han shut the door behind him on his way out, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
A few hours later in in Nanjing:
"Where's Li Kenong?" Luo Ronghuan, Minister of National Defense, asked, nonchalant as he marked down the movements of military forces on the map in front of him. The paths of those loyal to him tracked green across the streets and districts of Nanjing; those that were still confined to their barracks were represented with blocky blue blobs. Those that were under Li Lisan's control would be 'dealt with' sometime in the future were marked orange, and the ones that needed to be 'dealt with' immediately bled red across his map.
There were very few red lines left.
Another explosion rumbled off in the distance. Neither he nor Kang bothered to look at the rising clouds of dust and smoke.
"I wonder what that was? It can't be Nanjing's police headquarters… We wiped that off the face of the map this morning…" Luo muttered to himself.
"Li Kenong had a tragic car accident," Kang scoffed as he looked up from his reports, an aide dumping another stack of dispatches onto the table next to him. "He won't be attending this emergency Executive Council meeting. We'll have to plan a state funeral for him."
"Oh no anyways," Luo sardonically muttered as he glanced at one of the fresh reports and updated the map yet again. "I'm assuming your plans to deal with his State Propaganda Department are underway?"
"Yes indeed. I did have to borrow a few of your battalions for additional manpower, but we should be close to shutting down all of their offices to stop the flow of reports from reaching the Chairman's staff. At least my agents embedded in his staff were thankfully successful in convincing the Chairman and others to return to the CSR so that he doesn't form a government in exile. Shu is going to be a problem for us."
"You could have told me about taking some of my men! I was starting to suspect that they were against me when they didn't confirm receipt of my orders!" Luo snapped.
"I apologize," Kang said, his tone remarkably free of anything resembling contrition. "It was a time-sensitive matter. I had received word that the State Propaganda Department planned to send out a tremendous quantity of messages to various countries, all of them being postmarked for Berun. You'll get your units back. I also need to secure enough radio stations to broadcast Li Lisan's speeches throughout the country to ensure that the populace does not turn against us in the next few critical weeks."
Luo sighed. "If Shu turns to Germania for help with overthrowing us, then it'll be an easy propaganda victory for us. We'll just need to purge anyone that could allow them backdoor access into this country. We wouldn't want a repeat of Jugashvili being murdered by Bronstein."
"I have a list to deal with some of their members after all of this is done with." Kang looked up from his reports. "You don't happen to have any associates that participated in the 1000 Flowers campaign, do you? I would recommend having justifications to get them out of prison as I'm assuming anyone who used that campaign to show any anti-communist sentiments can't be trusted."
"Anyone who participated in that campaign is a fool." Luo frowned before taking a sip of tea. "I already have my list of subordinates that do not deserve to retain their ranks."
"Thank you." Kang coldly smiled. "That simplifies the processing I'll have to do after all of this is over with. I trust that you will handle your disloyal subordinates as you see fit."
"When do you think we should break that deal with the Albish?" As Luo traced his eyes over to the world map.
"The NKVD suspects that if a war starts in Aegyptus, it will be hard going for the Albish and Frankish." Kang pointed at the Middle Eastern regions on the map. "If it turns into a stalemate, I will need your mages and Sibyrian Army advisors to reignite the insurgencies in Southeast Asia to maximize the pain on the capitalists. Either they can sacrifice Southeast Asia to us, let the Middle East pursue independence, or lose both regions."
"Reconstruction and the prisoner mage hunt should be mostly dealt with in a few months." Luo smiled. "Although I almost forgot, how long are we keeping Li Lisan around?"
"I'll decide when his usefulness ends." Kang sternly said. "I certainly won't allow him to hold onto any levers of power for extended periods of time. I will need your help to pry any army units that he may have radicalized during this coup free from his grasp, though."
"They were already marked for prosecution when they refused the Marshal of the Army's orders in the first place, which was what prompted me to have him go take those disloyal forces over for now." Luo rolled his eyes.
Another aide barged in, "The Marshal of the Army asked what he should do with the remainder of the People's Assembly after an escape attempt was thwarted."
"What's going on?" Kang turned his head.
"Some of the assembly members escaped through the sewer system after they charged the soldiers that were stationed in the building and managed to overwhelm them. Han gave the order for his men to drop lit cigarettes and flares into the sewer."
"And consequently ignited the rotten gas. That explains the explosions earlier." Luo sighed. "Too late to tell him to try something that wouldn't blow up a chunk of the capital's infrastructure. Just make sure the remaining members don't escape with another massed human wave charge. Some of them are still useful to our case or are willing participants in the change of government."
"Speaking of escapes, another reason why we shouldn't tear up the deal with the Albish until later, is that we need their help to stop the escapes." Kang walked over to the map to mark Hongkong, Macau and Formosa.
"Escape to?"
"Hong Kong and Macau are the closest land borders to the largest concentration of people. I'm not concerned with those that flee to the Russy Confederation, Burma and North Bharat, as we will get them back. There will be some of the Chairman's supporters or participants of the 1000 Flowers Campaign who will know what we have in store for them. Along with those that hated or feared Li far more than the Chairman. We need to seal off the exits. And also start confiscating all of the civilian ships and boats along the coastline to stop escapes over the water."
"Don't you think the Albish would want something in return?" Luo raised an eyebrow. "This would be an excellent opportunity for them to let all of the refugees in, to utilize them for information gathering, turning some of them into agents to be sent back into our land, and host opposition political groups that will remain a thorn in our sides even long after the Chairman is dead."
"I'm willing to sacrifice another ragtag communist rebel group to ensure that all of the Chairman's influences are stamped out forever." Kang glared. "Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price. We just need the Albish to believe that we can continue to work together, until the time comes to drop the facade."
"I think some of our supporters backed us specifically because they were upset about throwing communist rebel groups to the wolves and further hampering international socialism. Do you have a plan for their inevitable backlash?"
Kang looked down at his watch. "For the international socialism fanatics, I already had their arrest orders issued when their usefulness ended. Especially to keep them away from Li."
1952, December 22nd, Berun:
"Can you provide an explanation for what this is about?" I slid a transcript of a radio recording to Shu across my desk, while Elya was sitting next to him.
He quickly skimmed it, a deep frown creasing his brow as he progressed down the transcript.
"I'm assuming you wanted to know what the 'Red Guard' and the 'Anti-Rightist' campaign means?" He asked, looking back up at me from the paper.
"Yes."
"The Red Guard was initially proposed by Kang and Luo as a consolidated youth group before that was shut down. It appears now that the two have established it, this time as a 'youth revolutionary guard', which is really just a paramilitary group to be set loose on political enemies. With the 'anti-rightist' campaign, the Chairman and his staff will be dead as soon as they arrive back in the Chinese Soviet Republic. It targets everyone that partook in the '1000 Flowers campaign'."
He then set down the transcript and despairingly looked up at the ceiling. "They will be forced to confess to all sorts of crimes and plots, along with friends and family members of those people, as is tradition. Then they will be paraded in public with signs describing their crimes. The maximum humiliation will be inflicted before they are permitted to die, through execution or starvation and disease in prison."
"1000 Flowers Campaign?" Elya looked up while scribbling in her notebook. "Was that something about the government seeking inputs from people?"
"Yes. The Chairman wanted honest feedback on how to improve things. There were elements within the government that strongly disliked such initiative and would rather maintain permanent strict censorship. Kang likely has a list of everyone who said or wrote something that could have been considered as anti-government or anti-communist."
"How many people do you think will die?" I asked.
Shu paused for a moment. "Where are the Albish and Akinese ambassadors to Germania?"
"What for?"
"I need them to open Hongkong's and Formosa Island's borders to let as many refugees in as possible. Sure there will be spies they have to worry about, but both places are already overflowing with our spies to begin with."
Elya raised an eyebrow at the last part as Shu continued. "Regardless of ideology or beliefs, a lot of people will die in the upcoming purge in the CSR. I know over a hundred thousand people provided input, so all of them and their families and friends will be targeted. We have very little time to act."
"I can have Foreign Minister Dertinge or one of his subordinates accompany you. I'll arrange a ride to the two embassies." I reached for my phone.
"No, this has to come from a representative of the legitimate Chinese Soviet Republic's government." Shu glared intensely at me. "People may get suspicious if Germania is perceived to be the one who called for the rescue of the persecuted people."
Hours later:
It had been a non-stop briefing with Elya, Visha, Adenaue, Dertinge, Lergen and others on trying to understand what was going on in the CSR, and what to do next. Especially when the coup members had publicly announced they had established a new government and disavowed any deals or promises that the previous 'illegitimate' and 'counter-revolutionary' government may have made with Germania.
And of course, we had lost all contact with the Chairman and his staff as soon as they crossed over from Hongkong to CSR's territory.
"Can we trust Shu?" Elya sighed as she drank her sixth cup of coffee. "After all, I do find it suspicious how he wanted to go to the two embassies alone. He might be seeking to leverage us to reintroduce a new communist government in the CSR."
"We could have had peace with the CSR if the coup hadn't kicked off." I gritted my teeth. "And now we're dealing with an illogical government that is bent on burning the world in their communist crusade. Dammit, why did the Chairman immediately run back home when he could have focused on discrediting and undermining the idiots first?"
And I was so close to at least enjoying some quiet years of my office so I could focus on domestic political reforms to ensure there would never be a repeat of President Paul, allowing me to safely retire for good. The last thing I needed was heightened international tensions.
"...If the Chairman had stayed with us or if we're going to work with Shu, would you support having the BND undermine the new communist government to help the moderates regain power?" Elya looked at me with a blank face, but I knew that based on how nonchalantly she had dismantled the Russy Federation's government, she was asking for permission.
"I'm not going to allow Germania to instigate coups all over the place," I sighed. "I can't take the risk of something blowing back at us. If we had the chance to back the Chairman before he died, or if we are going to back Shu, it needs to draw minimal public attention to us."
"My concern is that Shu stated that Li Lisan is not generally trusted even by the coup members, so there could be another round of coups or even a full-blown civil war." Visha muttered as Elya scribbled in her notebook. "Maybe that would weaken the CSR in the long run, but it would definitely make them even less predictable. Especially if this Li person ends up taking control in the end."
"Unfortunately there isn't much information that corroborates what Shu and the Chairman's staff claimed about Li." Elya looked up after finishing writing in her notebook. "My NKVD boyfriend said that his case handler asked him to determine how much Germania knows about the coup."
"The NKVD thinks we know more about the CSR than they do?" I raised an eyebrow.
"We did have the Chairman's staff as our guests." Elya shrugged. "I'm surprised the CSR kept the NKVD in the dark about their inner politics. When I fed him information about us trying to learn more about Li Lisan, he later mentioned his case handler requested more information on how much we know about that man. They were curious as to how Li ended up being freed during the coup and was now running around with a growing militia, when he was previously imprisoned after the Chairman's government publicly buried Li with drummed up charges."
"How long are you keeping your boyfriend around?" Visha shot a skeptical look.
"He's a useful double agent. Very fun in bed." Elya smiled while Lergen coughed.
Dertinge opened the conference room's door and stepped in.
"Why are you so pale? Did something frighten you when you were using the bathroom?" Adenaue teased, then his smile disappeared when he saw Dertinge's face.
"The Albish embassy arrested Shu to extradite him back to the CSR," Dertinge replied, immediately silencing the conversation, "and Hongkong's borders have been sealed off. Already, there are hundreds of people in the CSR all mobbed up at the border checkpoints."
I could hear the faint humming of the privacy spells as everyone paused to comprehend what he just said. I took calm, deep breaths and mentally counted. I couldn't let violent thoughts cloud my judgment. Of how my dreams of an eventual retirement were being shattered before my very eyes.
"What's the border situation for Ispagna's Macau?" Adenaue stuttered.
"They haven't sealed it off, but they are not making any exemptions so there's also a growing number of people queuing," Dertinge said.
"And the Akinese?" Visha asked cautiously.
"They said they are looking into ways of legally rescuing refugees that might try to cross the water. They don't want to risk violating CSR's territory and potentially start a war."
"What's the weather like outside?" I coldly asked upon finishing my brief self-meditation.
"Uhhh, it was starting to snow, why?" Visha looked with worry.
"I'm going to fly over to the Albish embassy. I was worried about ruining my clothing in bad weather when I arrive there."
"...What?"
"Tell the ambassador there that he has five minutes to get his shit together before I show up at the front entrance, and to not bother with any refreshments." I prepared to walk out of the room. "Or they can release Shu by the time I arrive. And tell the press that they should send someone to the embassy to ask why they chose to kidnap our Chinese guest. I would certainly like to talk to the press after the embassy meeting if the Albish continue to play their games."
At the Albish embassy:
Ambassador Roger Franks had heard many stories about the now-President Degurechaff's diplomatic dealings with his predecessor, Mister Lloyd, as well as her personal interactions.
He had a rough idea of how she would react. After all, he had carefully reviewed Lloyd's notes of his interaction with Degurechaff when she confronted him over the Francois invasion of the Ildoan Kingdom, before carrying out Londinium's distasteful order of having the now former Chinese government official arrested.
While Londinium's decision to close Hongkong's borders was strange, the Powers That Be clearly had no intention of sharing any explanation for their actions with him, instead instructing him only to justify their actions to the woman who had once been known as Rusted Silver without any explanations. So, he was going to have to somehow persuade a furious, murderous blonde to eat a steaming shit sandwich, to use a term she herself had coined, back when she had verbally tore into Lloyd after the news about the Ildoan Intervention had arrived.
'I am not getting paid enough for this.'
There was a knock on his door. "President Degurechaff is here, Ambassador."
He looked at the clock. Almost exactly 5 minutes after he was told by Dertinge that she was coming.
"Send her in," he instructed with a deep sigh, already bracing himself for his turn of getting verbally torn into as Degurechaff walked in, with snow coating her clothing and in her hair.
"Good afternoon, Ambassador Roger Franks." The woman smiled, but he knew there was rage boiling behind her face. "Now that the pleasantries are out of our way, I would like you to help me understand the recent turn of events from your government."
"We had to shut down Hongkong's borders to maintain its security." Franks tried his best to keep a straight face while saying what he knew was likely a lie. "We couldn't afford the CSR the opportunity to slip in spies."
"You and I both know that Hongkong is already swarming with spies from multiple countries." Degurechaff retorted, glaring at him. "Even the CSR's government admitted to that, the legitimate one I might add, not the plotters currently in Nanjing. Tens of thousands of innocents will die or rot in prison because you wanted to stop a potential few spies. Try another excuse. At least something that won't get you mocked in the press."
"I can't tell the Hongkong garrison to open up the borders."
"Then find someone who will."
"I'm sorry, but if Londinium prioritizes Hongkong's security over the plight of the refugees, there's nothing I can do." Frank sighed.
The Germanian woman nodded her head gently. "I see." she said. "Then how about we discuss something that you can control?"
"And that would be...?"
"Shu is still in this building, correct?" she smiled again.
"Yes, but I can't have him released."
"Why? Do you not have control over your own guards?" she cocked her head to the side in annoyance.
"Londinium instructed me that the new government in the CSR is the legitimate one, and to have Shu arrested on behalf of the new government's request." Frank took a sip of his tea, but quickly stopped when he saw her facial expression of dismay and disgust.
"Oh, so we're going to take radicalized communists at their word of who is deemed a criminal and not a criminal?" Degurechaff had a briefly amused face before that turned into a frown. "Can you even say that to the press with a straight face? I originally expected nothing from your government when the coup in the CSR kicked off, and I am sorely disappointed."
"There is no evidence suggesting that they are extremists."
"The Chairman, his staff and Shu were all terrified of who's going to be in charge. They had previously arrested Li Lisan because he was too fanatically communist for them, and now he's building a militia in the CSR to take power!"
"Of course the Chairman would want to paint the new CSR's government in a negative light. I would be bitter if I was suddenly thrown out of office because a subordinate schemed against me."
"This is going nowhere," she rolled her eyes. "What will it take for you to release Shu?"
"Again, I simply can not do that. I have explicit orders from Londinium."
"Perhaps Londinium has gotten complacent with Germania." The President's voice was abruptly quiet, almost placid if it weren't how every line of her body radiated a dangerous tension. "Perhaps you no longer take us seriously."
"I beg your pardon?" Franks sputtered.
"Our navy is made up of aging vessels with its modernization still many years off. Our army was battered from the Caucasia disaster and its modernization is slow going. Our airforce is the least affected, but is also slow with replacing old inventory. Our foreign diplomacy had been relatively quiet, with us taking a hands-off approach with the Middle East, turning a blindside to the atrocities in your 'Malayan Emergency' and also ignoring the Frankish atrocities in their respective colonies." Degurechaff said, speaking slowly but with the inexorable energy of a gathering avalanche. "And our nuclear weapons program was put on halt, with many of the weapons and our stockpiles of weapons grade material in deep storage."
What is she getting at? Is she intentionally understating Germanian military powers? The Allied Kingdom still doesn't have their own nuclear weapons. Germania's military gets to rest and recoup while the Albish military is being run ragged of putting out fires in His Majesty's rebellious colonies, while also preparing for potential military actions against Aegyptus. Quiet foreign diplomacy? She rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese communists after decades of her crusade against communism, and even put a leash on the press when she had the opportunity to embarrass the communists.
"I suppose I'll have to restart Germania's nuclear weapons development when I'm finished with my economic and energy reforms." Degurechaff shrugged her shoulders. "Or you can release Shu."
"Are you threatening His Majesty with nuclear bombs?" Franks asked, incredulous.
"There is a big difference between threatening to shoot someone, and merely buying a firearm." The President's tone was mild, a pointed contrast with both his own rapidly increasing volume and the fury burning in her eyes.
"Regardless of your bluster," Franks retorted, "the Albish nuclear weapons development is advancing quite rapidly. We are not concerned about you restarting your nuclear weapons program."
He had no idea how much progress his country's nuclear weapons development was actually making, but he hoped that the bluff would deny her the opportunity to leverage Germania's nuclear superiority to have a single man freed. A communist freed.
"Oh, I see…" the demon woman mused, tapping on her chin. "Perhaps I should try a carrot. If you release Shu back to me, unharmed, you will have my assurances that Germania will not intervene in the Albish activities in the Middle East, and will also discourage their allies from doing the same, as long as the oil supplies continue to flow from the Middle East. Along with also continuing to take a hands off approach with your colonies and the Frankish colonies."
"I'll have to talk to my superiors about that first to see if they would find that acceptable."
"Then I'll check back within twelve hours," Degurechaff grinned before walking out of the office.
Frank took a deep sigh of relief as he leaned back in his chair, with the image of Degurechaff's signature smile burned in his head.
'Of all the job postings, and they gave me this one?! Do I even have the chance to flee from Germania if they refuse her offer?'
1952, December 24th, early morning in Berun:
I hadn't slept well the last two nights. Nor had anyone else. The Albish had finally agreed to release Shu only a few hours before. The first thing he said to me after his return from the Albish embassy was that, 'It appears the Albish government only knows how to eat biscuits and drink tea, and not much else. Also, please tell their ambassador that his tea is terrible.'
Shortly after Shu was released, CSR announced their People's Assembly had elected a new Chairman named Gao Gang. Shu was quick to point out that he recognized very few of the people in the video of the People's Assembly voting, and also that the chamber itself had been refurnished since the last time he had stood in the heart of the CSR's government. It was with great sadness but little surprise that Shu deduced that many had been executed or arrested in that very chamber, and because he had never heard of Gao before, the new Chairman was likely just a puppet. Which means the CSR's future foreign activities heavily depended on who would win the ensuing power struggle between Kang and Li.
I attempted to take a drink of coffee but found my cup was unaccountably empty. When I reached for the carafe for a refill, it was also empty.
"Tanya, no more coffee," Visha said, pushing the carafe away from me. "You need to take a nap at some point." Her tone brooked no defiance, but I could hear her own exhaustion.
"And so do you." I smirked.
"Together after this meeting." Visha patted my hand as Elya hurriedly walked into the meeting room.
"Thank you all for making it," Elya said briskly by way of greeting. "I apologize for calling you together so early in the morning, but this information couldn't wait. The Chairman had been arrested, exactly as Shu predicted." Elya sighed, clearly saddened. "The only thing he failed to predict was how fast the Chairman would die."
"Did they execute him already?" Visha looked unsettled.
"The official statement from the new CSR government was that the Chairman died from an unspecified illness," Elya said, her tight-lipped expression indicating exactly what she thought about that line. "Akinese Intelligence in Formosa picked up on what appeared to be a long distance radio broadcast, characteristic of someone who had cranked up the power in hopes of the signals getting through. The radio broadcaster identified themselves as a defector of the new government and that the Chairman had refused to confess to any crimes while being subjected to continuous slow slicing torture with no food, rest or sleep. The defector claimed they killed the Chairman out of mercy to spare him of a slow, painful death."
"If that defector is being honest, they must have seen some horrifying plans for the Chairman…" Adenaue muttered.
"Any ways to get in contact with the defector?" Visha asked.
"There was no further radio transmission."
…Well, deescalation was now permanently off the table for as long as those extremists remained in power. Now I needed to prepare for a war, in case the extremist communists decided to try their luck and ended up speeding their way to their demise instead of slowly stagnating into irreverence. They would probably be stupid enough to ignite a full blown conventional war instead of sticking with proxy insurgency wars and would no doubt ensure that everyone would suffer by the time our armies managed to root their leadership out of hiding in whatever emergency bunkers they had hidden in the Tibetan mountains or Sibyria's arctic hellhole. And that was assuming Li didn't unleash the CSR's stockpile of biological weapons in one last assault on the world.
I took timed, deep breaths to keep my anger from boiling over as Elya flipped her notebook. "On a more positive note, someone else and their family from the CSR managed to flee to Akitsushima Dominion in a plane. They claimed to have details on deals between the Allied Kingdom and the Chinese Soviet Republic, including a recent deal between the two after the coup, and what information the Chinese had stolen from the Albish and Frankish."
"You did say that the BND assessed Shu was likely a key negotiator for that deal on the behalf of the CSR." I mused. "I'll be curious if we can get him to discuss what he knows to correlate his information with that other defector, and all of the indirect details that we had learned about that deal. I would like to confirm if the Chinese did indeed get their hands on jet engine and radar technology."
"I have plans for that when he's awake from his nap." Elya smirked. "He had a long day at the Albish embassy."
Suddenly the door opened and Dertinge stepped inside the room.
"I apologize for the tardiness." He said out of breath. "I was on the phone with the Akinese ambassador."
I mentally braced myself this time. No, no more of my retirement dream being trampled on. Please.
"Regarding the defector?" Elya asked.
"No, the Akinese are arguing that territorial waters extend out only 3 nautical miles from the shorelines, allowing their navy and civilian ships to freely pick the masses of Chinese refugees fleeing in small boats from the purges out of the sea, even as Hongkong's borders still remain closed. The Akinese are taking pains to stay just out of range of the coastal artillery guns in the area, though."
Oh, right, there were no international territorial waters treaty like in my previous world, so the 3 nautical miles of territorial water is still commonly used.
"And how has the Chinese government responded to the refugee rescues right on their doorstep?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in concern.
"The Chinese Navy has announced over radio that their territorial waters extended out as far as they say they do, and for the Formosa Strait, the territorial water boundary would stop at the middle line between the island and the mainland." Dertinge pointed at the Formosa Strait on the map. "So there's a massive contested territorial water zone between the two countries all along the CSR's coastline, with refugees right in the crossfire."
"As long as the Akinese avoid shooting or otherwise escalating things, then everything should be alright." I sighed with a dismissive hand wave.
Dertinge hesitated with sweat dripping from his forehead. "My President…"
I thought Legadonia Entente having their soldiers march into the Empire's northern territory with the assumption that the Empire wouldn't perceive that as an act of war was stupid. Even Being X wouldn't be this creative to ignite a war through this way to spite me. And this was after the CSR's coup nonsense and the Albish seemingly happily going along with it.
All in the span of a week! Why couldn't I at least have some time to rebuild Germania's military and convince the rest of OZEV to do the same? I hate the communists who started all of this mess to begin with!
"There have been exchanges of fire between the CSR's and Akitsushima Dominion's navy, coast guard and civilian vessels. The Akinese are trying to pull the refugees from the water, while the Chinese are either trying to stop them or outright gunning down the refugees. And the CSR issued an ultimatum for Formosa to turn over the refugees that had fled to Kinmen Islands, or they will bombard the island with artillery."
"Any sinkings?" Visha cautiously asked while I could feel my mental restraints were cracking.
"There was the Yamato battleship that chased down a slow moving Chinese frigate to run it over from behind after the frigate supposedly fired a torpedo volley at the battleship." Dertinge continued sweating. "The Akinese said they recorded videos of that particular frigate previously running over refugees that had jumped overboard from a burning Akinese civilian vessel. They said they'll send us photos of the Chinese frigate's pieces, and later some samples of it that they collected."
"Their frigate can't outrun an oversized battleship…" Lergen mused as Dertinge nodded.
Before the coup, I would have found it hilarious for a ship to have a very different service history compared to the one in my previous life. But it's not so funny when the communists were bound to react violently to one of their ships being unceremoniously roadkilled, regardless of what that ship did to deserve to be flattened.
I balled up my hands into fists. "The following will stay here: Serebryakov, Lergen, Müller and Dertinge."
Once it was just Visha, Lergen, Elya and Dertinge, I snapped. "Just last week we were so close to having peace with the CSR, and now there's going to be war between them and the Akitsushima Dominion. Over refugee rescues! While the Albish continue playing their own stupid games, or they could have been backing the coup in CSR all along since they seemed so happy to turn over members of the disposed government to the new illegitimate one for execution!"
"Technically not a war yet, they haven't decla-"
I cut Dertinge off while standing up from my chair and throwing my pen at the table. "They already started sinking each other! In disputed territorial water claims! And the CSR is about to shell Formosa's territory again! How is that not an act of war?! I flew over Norden when Legadonia Entente marched their army into that disputed territory, and witnessed the start of the war that engulfed Europe in flames!"
I then sat back down in defeat. "What are our options if they continue to escalate?"
"As of last week, about half of our destroyers are in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas. The rest are spread out among Malagasy, the various Bharatian Ocean islands, South Bharat and Akitsushima Dominion." Lergen pointed at the map. "Only a small fraction of our air force and even a smaller fraction of our army is based in Akitsushima Dominion."
"So our military is completely out of position at least for another few weeks. And our 1930's destroyers still hadn't been significantly modernized or replaced yet." I groaned. "I was tunnel visioned on reforming our economy to avoid a future oil supply shock."
"President Paul didn't really see the need for a navy when he had nukes, until the final months of his administration. The delayed destroyer modernization was entirely thanks to him." Lergen shrugged. "It's not ideal, but we'll have to make do with what we have until our new destroyer designs are ready in a few years."
Lergen then turned to Dertinge. "Did you hear anything about the CSR's amphibious mages?"
"The Akinese didn't mention anything about Chinese mages."
"Why would they be holding them back when their navy is hopelessly outclassed?" Lergen had a puzzled look on his face. "That's the backbone of their entire military strategy."
I then got up from my chair again and tapped on the table to get everyone's attention. "Due to the chairman's suicide by coup, we need to deal with a belligerent nation and our previous plans gone without anything but a vague notion that the contrary will happen now. Another thing we will have to keep an eye on is the Albish since they seem so willing to help extremist communists. We need new information and figure out how to prepare. Let's get started."
Later that evening:
Visha gently opened the bedroom door, hoping to avoid waking her partner; the lady of her life had hopefully found some rest while Visha herself had lingered behind to finish up a handful of things. Unfortunately and contrary to her expectations, she found Tanya sitting quietly in the darkness, an unopened bottle of wine beside an equally unused glass on the bedside table. Even as the door creaked on a squeaky hinge, her eyes remained far, far away.
"Dear?" Visha asked as she stepped into the bedroom, closing the door behind her and flipping the light switch on, the click disturbing the quiet just as the light dispersed the gloom. Tanya's head snapped around to look at her, startled by the sound, and for a moment her partner seemed so lost, so disoriented in a familiar space. Until their eyes met and Tanya's blue eyes sharpened, giving her visage a harshness Visha was so familiar with since the very beginning in the trenches and always so at odds with the woman she got to know since.
"I'm so angry that I can't even bring myself to drink." Tanya bitterly remarked as she stared out at the window over the city of Berun. "We almost had everything last week! Everything! Peace with the communists and maybe even an eventual partnership with them, once they came around to admitting seeing things our way more or less! No more proxy wars between us!"
Tanya then turned to face Visha and rose out of her chair. "We could have retired for good and spend the rest of our years just relaxing for once, not having to worry about some stupid international crap that could escalate into another world war!"
Then Tanya slumped back, letting herself fall into her preferred seat with a huff. Almost deflating and not even mustering the anger barely contained in that small frame Visha remembered from so long ago when the first world war became the great war. "And then the Chairman signed his own death sentence when he flew back home after the coup. He lost his life all for nothing!"
She was right to think of when they lost the Francois army at Brest, dooming the Empire's fate that only Tanya had seen and despaired at. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory coming to the head due to a politician's foolhardy decision… However, this was not what Tanya needed to hear now, nor the entirety of their situation.
"I'm not sure what worth he could have possibly seen there, throwing all the acumen he had away in spite of what he must have realized of his end. We never gave up in the face of adversity." Visha agreed with a frown. There was no dancing around that fact, or how aggravating it was after she had met and found the man to be quite intelligent and reasonable.
She took a few quick strides and seated herself in their usual corner at the window, it added perspective Tanya liked to say… But deliberately didn't squeeze in besides her love as had become her conscious habit, a hard won intimacy after so long of keeping each other at an arm's length once she had worn down her former superior's resistance.
Which was why she took a seat opposite from Tanya, the table and untouched bottle between them. An equal, not mere adjutant waiting on her orders but partner able to support and advise her significant other but not only lover. That was what she needed right now when talking about the fate of the world.
"But that is what is different, we are different." Visha continued with the surety of conviction. "And our situation could not be any more different either. We are in control, not at the mercy of uncaring and incompetent leaders.
"You built OZEV to ensure nobody can just drag us into a losing war." She argued at her recalcitrant partner. "We can adapt and overcome the changed circumstances to avert war, or are you saying we are incapable of that?"
Visha let that statement hang in the room until she saw Tanya frown, deeply in thought and answer with a muttered no that she wasn't sure was even meant for her but took as her cue. She had her partner, redirected her worries into something productive as she has ironically learned from Tanya herself. Adapt and adjust to overcome indeed. But everyone needs a reminder every now and then… All she needed to do now was seal the deal in truth.
"And it's not all grim and dark." Visha said with a smile that almost felt out of place considering the topic. "Even with our current talks falling through, there is still a ray of light giving us insight into the CSR more than we had ever before.
"All these defectors and refugees may only carry the clothes on their backs." Visha grimaced at the reminder of those bad old days, the faint memories of her family fleeing from the communists. "But they bring something far more valuable. Ideas, knowledge and thoughts that saw them rejected by that reprehensible ideology in the first place but will be right at home in our world."
"Yes." Tanya agreed, her grin stretching in turn as she mulled over what Viktoriya had just said. An almost manic energy taking over her partner once more, springing up as her small body that nonetheless once again appeared larger than life to Visha, tiny shoulders that carried the world and what she had always looked up to. "Yes, you are right, Visha! We can turn their loss into our gain! All we need to do is allow the hard working people escaping the communist yoke to actually apply themselves and their skills and all for free!"
"We just-" She was cut off by her lover as said woman was about to rush past her, no doubt headed for her office to get started right away. Grabbing Tanya's hand and spinning the girl around into her embrace as the diminutive mage allowed her to without even needing to resort to any reinforcement.
"It can wait until tomorrow." Visha stared down her love's defiant eyes, unwilling to budge on that. "We need to wait on new information and you have to be rested and at your best, not work yourself into the ground, Tanya. We may be unable to retire and have to shoulder the world, but I will not let you destroy yourself over it."
"Fine." Visha knew she had won when Tanya broke eye contact to glance to the side, out the window and at the distant clock tower. "But we'll get to it in six hours at 0700 sharp!"
"Of course dear, but come to bed for now." Visha easily agreed while steering them towards their velvet covers…
AN:
wiki/Giles_Corey#Death_by_pressing
wiki/Lingchi
wiki/Anti-Rightist_Campaign
The Anti-Rightist Campaign significantly damaged democracy in China and turned the country into a de facto one-party state.[6][7][8][9][10]
The definition of rightists was not always consistent, often including critics to the left of the government, but officially referred to those intellectuals who appeared to favor capitalism, or were against one-party rule as well as forcible, state-run collectivization.[4][8][10][11] According to China's official statistics published during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period, the anti-rightist campaign resulted in the political persecution of at least 550,000 people.[6][11][12] Some researchers believe that the actual number of persecuted is between 1 and 2 million or even higher.[2][11][13] Deng Xiaoping admitted that there were mistakes during the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and most victims have received rehabilitation since 1959.[11][14][15]
The Anti-Rightist Campaign was a reaction against the Hundred Flowers Campaign which had promoted pluralism of expression and criticism of the government, even though initiation of both campaigns was controlled by Mao Zedong and were integrally connected.[16]
Administering several provinces in the southwest, Deng proved so zealous in liquidating alleged counter-revolutionaries that even the Chairman felt obliged to write to him. Mao urged Deng Xiaoping to slow down the campaign's body count, saying: "If we kill too many, we will forfeit public sympathy and a shortage of labor power will arise."
wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign
The Hundred Flowers Campaign, also termed the Hundred Flowers Movement (Chinese: 百花齐放), was a period from 1956 to 1957 in the People's Republic of China during which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) encouraged citizens to openly express their opinions of the Communist Party.[1][2] Following the failure of the campaign, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong conducted an ideological crackdown on those who criticized the party, which continued through 1959.[citation needed]
During the campaign, differing views and solutions to national policy were encouraged based on the famous expression by Mao: "The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science."[3] The movement was in part a response to the demoralization of intellectuals, who felt estranged from the Communist Party.[4] After this brief period of liberalization, the crackdown continued through 1957 and 1959 as an Anti-Rightist campaign against those who were critical of the regime and its ideology. Citizens were rounded up in waves by the hundreds of thousands, publicly criticized, and condemned to prison camps for re-education through labor, or even execution.[5] The ideological crackdown re-imposed Maoist orthodoxy in public expression, and catalyzed the Anti-Rightist Movement.
By the spring of 1957, Mao had announced that criticism was "preferred" and had begun to mount pressure on those who did not turn in healthy criticism on policy to the Central Government. The reception was immediate with intellectuals, who began voicing concerns without any taboo. In the period from 1 May to 7 June that year, millions of letters were pouring into the Premier's Office and other authorities.
wiki/First_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis
The crisis began when the PRC shelled the ROC-held island of Kinmen (Quemoy).
Historical reference to using Shu to confirm intel information: wiki/Martel_affair
In one particularly telling series of questions, the French officers attempted to trap Martel. Since he claimed that he had personally seen a number of NATO reports in Moscow, the team provided Martel with a range of documents, some real and some fake. Martel was able to identify a few of them as having been personally seen by him, but he identified all of those that were real he stated every one of the fake documents as not having seen them. That development was extremely worrying. He then went on to provide a complete description of the organization and the operation of the SDECE, including details of a secret reorganization in 1958.[10]
Sino-Soviet split, which I used that as an inspiration for the relationship between Germania and Allied Kingdom:
watch?v=wChZD2642S4
watch?v=tCvujEstW2Y
Reference to the "3 nautical miles" territorial water limit and the disputes that flared up in the 1950's-1960's when off-shore oil drilling became a reality: wiki/Three-mile_limit
For anyone that was confused about Elya's "boyfriend", Chapter 30 and 31 mentioned it.