Chapter 120
November 8, 2020 at 15:25 (14:25Chinese time), in the Bunker Situation Room, Joint Command Center of the Central Military Commission in Beijing, China
WAAHHH~
The sound of a siren blared throughout downtown Beijing. It was an alarm warning of a ballistic missile attack.
“Two missiles are flying toward Beijing at a tremendous speed. Forty-two seconds before they hit the city.”
The operator was obviously terrified as he made the urgent announcement.
“What? Forty-two seconds? And you detected it only now? What were you doing?!”
Vice-President Kan Kuichou kicked the operator’s desk which was in front of him apparently because he couldn’t believe the missiles were detected only 42 seconds before they were to be hit.
BAM!
“The Air Defense Brigade has launched eight S-400 40N6 missiles to intercept, sir.”
“Tell them to fire eight more.”
Vice-President Kan Kuichou screamed, and he was furious.
“Yes, sir. I’ll issue an order for additional fire.”
“Twelve seconds to hit! Failed to intercept the first one! Failed to intercept the second one! Damn. Failed to intercept the seventh one too! Failed to intercept the eighth! The first round of interception has completely failed.”
This the operator urgently reported in a trembling voice.
“The second attempt has failed to intercept all eight missiles!”
It was a real push for the Chinese to intercept even the S-400 40N6 missiles using the latest ultra high-altitude ballistic missile interceptor that they had imported from Russia—first, because they didn’t have enough time; and second, because the enemy’s missiles were falling at a speed of Mach 65. They had fired a total of 16 interceptor missiles, but all failed to intercept any incoming missile, and two Epirus missiles exploded with massive flashes of light over Beijing.
BANG! BANG!
Along with the explosion, the super electromagnetic pulse (SEMP) shock wave spread at the speed of light in two central locations in Beijing.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Crash! Bam!
All the operators’ screen monitors went blank, and the lights inside the bunker flickered a few times before they went out. The bunker that was being used as the Joint Command Center of the Central Military Commission was wrapped in complete jet-black darkness. Even the emergency generators stopped working.
“What are you doing? Do something!”
The Vice-President of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, Li Yuan, shouted. In response, the deputies scampered, took out their cell phones, and tried to turn on the lights, but the cell phones were dead because they were also damaged by the SEMP.
A few minutes later, the old-fashioned flashlight lit up and brightened the Situation Room, if only dimly.
“What the hell happened? I’m sure the bunker was built with a technology to shield it from the SEMP, wasn’t it?”
Vice-President Kan Kuichou was yelling at the one in charge of the bunker control room. After the bunker was built, the Chinese government had been continuously spending a lot of money to introduce SEMP-shielding technology and Siemens SITEMP in addition to various computers and electronic equipment. But now that it was attacked by the SEMP, everything turned out to be useless.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say, sir.”
Feeling helpless, the head of the bunker control room hung his head as he answered. He was asked by Vice-President Kan Kuichou to get out of the room. Kan approached President Xi Jinping and spoke.
“Mr. President, I think you should wait here for a while before moving to the secret bunker X-2 because we don’t know what the situation is outside now.”
“Wait until when?”
“We’ve sent the soldiers out. Later, we’ll decide when to move after we have a clear picture of the situation outside.”
Flames were raging in many parts of downtown Beijing. Electronic circuits that were vulnerable to SEMP caught fire due to sudden overloads and sputtered sparks everywhere. Flames kept spreading to surrounding buildings like wildfire. Even the fire trucks that were supposed to be there to contain fires could not even start because their ECU circuits were damaged by the SEMP. The city was burning in dozens of different locations all at once, and human casualties continued to grow.
<hr />
November 8, 2020; 15:35 (14:35 China time), some 15 kilometers southwest of Jinhzhou, China
The 21st Group Army was supposed to advance to Dalian via Yingkou along the coastline after successfully recapturing Sun-Yang, but now that the recapture operation has failed and the Group Army ended up being stranded in Jinhzhou. An order was then delivered from the Central Military Commission to move the troops. The Commander of the 21st Group Army followed the order by moving the troops to the Qinhuangdao area. Just as the 21st Group Army was joined by the 12th Armored Division on the way, a siren started blaring. It was heard throughout all the units.
“What is it now?”
Lieutenant General Doo Wei, Commander of the 21st Group Army, asked his aide. The aide received a report about the siren and his face turned pale. He spoke to his superior.
“This area is under the attack of ballistic missiles, sir.”
“What? Tell the air defense unit to intercept them. We are getting the hell out of here right now. Let everyone know it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seconds later, blinding lights flashed in the sky, about one kilometer above the ground, and everybody immediately felt a rush of shock wave. All the electronic devices started sparking before breaking down, and some of them even lost power. The Commander’s armored vehicle’s electronic devices broke down, and the engine stopped working.
“We’ve lost communication with other units, sir.”
“It looks like a SEMP attack.”
The Commander’s aide surmised, looking around at all directions.
A total of three Epirus missiles were fired from Zeus—two of them landed in Beijing and one in the main camp of the 21st Group Army in Jinhzhou.
“Let’s get the hell out of here for now!”
At the Commander’s order, the aide replied cautiously, with a troubled look on his face.
“Commander! The armored vehicle has also stopped.”
“What the hell?”
Frustrated at what his aide was telling him, Lieutenant General Doo Wei smacked the wall inside the armored vehicle and ordered again.
“Then you must bring a vehicle that is moving!”
At the command of the infuriated Commander, the aide signaled his subordinate soldier to go out and look for one.
“At your command, sir.”
The subordinate soldier acknowledged the command, opened the hatch, and came out of the armored vehicle. It was just a while ago that hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, and all other kinds of vehicles had their engines running and getting ready for maneuvers. Now, they all stopped running and were quiet as if time has stopped. Clueless crews of other vehicles also came out of their stalled armored vehicles and murmured among themselves, wondering what was going on. The subordinate soldier stepped up on top of the stalled armored vehicle and looked around in all directions, but he couldn’t spot a single vehicle or armored vehicle that was moving.
Just then he spotted something. Finding it unbelievable, he rubbed his eyes to check again—something was falling from the sky at a tremendous speed. It was none other than an Astra-PIP intercontinental ballistic missile.
WHIIIZ! WHIIIZ!
BANG! CRASH!
What the soldier saw were a blindingly bright flash of light and a rising cloud mushroom! This was soon followed by a stormy wind that accompanied a tremendous heat.
“Ahhggghhh!”
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November 8, 2020; 15:37 (14:37 China time), Namsan District, Shenzhen, China (Software Industrial Complex)
The Namsan District in Shenzhen is one of the largest software industrial complexes in China. It is home to some 800 global manufacturing plants. Literally, it was the driving force behind the 21st China as the complex received full support from the Chinese government. Numerous large corporations were lining up to set up their manufacturing facilities on this site.
It was in this complex that the Astra-PIP, an intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Korea’s Hades Silo, was cutting through the air and falling. The air defense unit under the 42nd Group Army that was nearby started the interception process, and eventually, the HQ-9C surface-to-air missiles were fired from a launcher of an HQ-9C, which was an upgraded version of Russian S-300 model.
<ul>
The HQ-9C surface-to-air missile features the first stage with a 700 mm diameter and the second stage 560 mm with a total mass of almost two tones and a length of 6.8 m. This missile weighs 180 kilograms and has a maximum speed of Mach 4.2.
</ul>
It switched to active race guide mode and tried to intercept Astra-PIP intercontinental ballistic missile that was flying closer to the target under the guided command of the FT-2000 surface-to-air antiradiation missile. Just at the same moment, the body pairing of the Astra-PIP ballistic missile opened, and six K-SH Gynoug plasma vapor bombs that were mounted inside the missile bounced off at 360 degrees, triggered their own propulsion, and started raining down.
TWANG! SCREECH! POP! POP! POP! WHIZ! WHIZ!
The first antiaircraft missile, the HQ-9C, exploded when it hit the fuselage of Astra-PIP, which was only an empty shell at this point. The active radar guide of the other three HQ-9C antiaircraft missiles detected the target that suddenly changed its direction, but they missed the target due to the difference in flying speed between the HQ-9C and the target.
BANG! CRASH!
The six K-SH Gynoug plasma vapor bombs hit the targeted ground around the Namsan District, Shenzhen, in a row and created mushroom clouds as they sucked up all the oxygen in the area along with a tremendous explosion sound.
BANG! BANG! CRASH! CRASH!
As the six mushroom clouds rose to the air, the ground that covered half of the Shenzhen area turned upside down, and the heat wave that was over 4,000 degrees spread out.
After being swept by the heat wave, the ground began to randomly crack and bounce beginning from the point of explosion. During this crustal fluctuation, the heat that seemed to come from magma shot out from the cracks. The entire scene was like a furnace in hell. Those who might see this area in the future would never believe that it was once a site that housed a high-tech software industrial complex, a pillar of the Chinese economy.
Beginning with the Shenzhen Software Industrial Complex, all other industrial complexes and facilities in large cities such as Shanghai Shipbuilding Industrial Complex, Jinhzhou Industrial Complex, Tsuxi Industrial Complex, Chengdu Energy Industrial Complex, and Huizhou Industrial Complex met the same fate as Shenzhen.
<hr />
November 8, 2020; 15:40 (14:40 China time), 33 kilometers south of Changji, China (Base of the 334 Strategic Missile Battalion)
The 3rd Missile Brigade’s 334th Strategic Missile Battalion, a subordinate unit of the rocket force known as the 2nd Artillery Command, was the unit that handled Dong Feng 26 (DF-26), which is an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a range of 4,000 km. Its main target was the U.S. territory of Guam, but it was also a nuclear missile that posed a great threat to Korea.
After the opening of the war, the 334 Strategic Missile Battalion left the main base and moved to another base once a day, sometimes maneuvering and sometimes concealing themselves, so that they could launch missiles immediately once an order was issued. But the intelligence headquarters of Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff has been continuously tracking and locating the Chinese military’s mobile-launching missile vehicle units even before the breakout of the war, and they included the 334th Strategic Missile Battalion as well.
An air raid warning went off throughout the battalion, and each vehicle quickly prepared to leave the base and move to a new base. Since all vehicles were wheel-type trucks, they were moving out of the base at an accelerated speed even in the ragged field when several flashes of light exploded in the sky and numerous bomblets rained down to the ground.
The 334 Strategic Missile Battalion saw the rain of bomblets coming down from the sky, causing a series of explosions over the ground that was about 10 times the size of a soccer field and destroying vehicles or the fuel tanks of nuclear missiles. It was a moment when the 334 Strategic Missile Battalion had the taste of the apocalypse.
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November 8, 2020; 15:42 (14:42 China time), 20 kilometers east of Kunming, China
VRRRR! VRRRR! VRRRR!
A raid alarm went off at the Kunming nuclear missile base where more than 10 silos were built, and red light alarms were also going off everywhere. In response, soldiers rushed to their respective positions, and the air defense unit also started the procedure for missile interception.
The Kunming nuclear missile base was a unit under the direct control of a strategic rocket force located in the south-westernmost area of mainland China and was handling the Dong Feng-31 (DF-31, CSS-9) missiles. Its upgraded version, Dong Feng -31A (CSS-9 Mod 2), was an intercontinental ballistic missile that can fly to the U.S. because of its huge range of 11,200 km.
Being a nuclear missile base, the air defense soldiers at the base were able to take immediate action to counter the raid. No sooner had they detected the ballistic missiles fired by the Korean military when they fired a dozen S-400 40N6 missiles to the air. And shortly afterward, the HQ-9C missile, a high-altitude ballistic missile interceptor, was also fired into the air, drawing a white trajectory into the sky, and disappeared from view.
All radar operators focused their attention on the radar screens that were showing tracks of falling missiles as well as the tracks of over 20 intercepting missiles that were flying toward them. The 40N6 missile that was launched first was about to hit a falling missile fired by the Korean military when the Korean ballistic missile suddenly split into seven pieces. The first 40N6 missile directly hit the fuselage of the ballistic missile and exploded, while the other remaining 40N6 missiles failed to intercept the missiles due to the difference in speed even before setting the target on their own active radars.
“The first round of interceptor missiles failed to intercept.”
With a tearful look on his face, the operator immediately reset the command guidance, pinning hopes on the HQ-9Cs, which were the interceptor missiles for the second round of interception. Shortly after, as the missiles neared the targets, they switched into the active radar mode and approached the K-SH Gynoug missiles. Three interceptor missiles were targeting each K-SH Gynoug missile.
“The first target has been successfully intercepted! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
The Chinese forces neatly intercepted the first target either because the performance of their interceptor missiles was better than expected for a Chinese weapon, or because they were simply lucky. The operator was thrilled as he reported the successful interception of the first target.
But all other missiles failed to intercept.
“The interception of the fifth target has failed. The fifth target failed. Ahhh . . .”
Now the operator took off his headset and began to cry, wrapping his head with his hands. Other operators, who were in effect controllers, closed their eyes as if they had given up on the hopeless situation, and waited for death that seemed fast approaching.
After being hit by five K-SH Gynoug missiles, which weren’t radioactive but still equivalent to nuclear bombs that weigh 50kt each, the Kunming nuclear missile base was gone. It disappeared from the face of the earth without a trace. It became a barren land where no creature can survive within a five-kilometer radius.
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