I realize writing a full-fledged TL is not my thing, so instead I'm going to write a series of stories that would take place in the same TL (in the manner of Linkwerk's master piece, The Fountainhead Filibuster). With that, I present to you, dear readers, the Waverlyverse Anthology. Be warned: the amount of RL friends and other just-for-the-hell-of-it cameos will be very high.
Here's the first entry, So Long As The Green Hills Remain.
Oh, did I mention it's open for reader participation? I'll have to clear everything, of course...
So Long As The Green Hills Remain
August 15, 1938
Chungking, Szechwan
Of all infectious diseases known to man, fear was the most potent of them all. It possessed no physical form, yet had always found a dwelling inside every man’s heart, waiting for the right moment to strike and spread itself. Chungking was in the midst of a fear epidemic, and the two men in National Revolutionary Army uniforms standing by Chaotienmen Pier, where scores of wounded soldiers and civilian refugees were loaded onto the waiting ships, felt it in their bones.
“Reminds you of New York, doesn’t it, Joseph?” the junior officer said to his superior and friend.
“Do I have to pull ranks on you, Sergeant Major Mujung? I’m a major, after all,” despite the apparently severity in his tone, Major Lin Yueh-yun (West Point, Class of 1934/31), courtesy name Po-wen, christened Joseph by his West Point instructors, and known to the men of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, [1] United States Army, as “That Linsane Chink Bastard”, was pleased to hear that. He hadn’t been called by his Christian – oh, sorry, Bethlehemite, “Christian” being kind of a bad word these days – name for so long. At home, he was er di to his older sister (senior to him by three minutes) and parents, er ge to his younger brother and sister, or er shao ye to the servants; in the 51st Division, he was Po-wen to his superiors, and pai zhang, later lian zhang, and now ying zhang [2] to his men.
Being called Joseph made him feel... among friends. Free of responsibility. Goddamn, fighting a war is tough. Being in command is even tougher.
For his part, Mujung Po, courtesy name Jing-mei, aka. Bob Monroe, formerly Second Lieutenant Robert Isaac Monroe (West Point, Class of 1934/31), F/2/187th, had been slowly getting used to his extended permanent stay in the Orient, going so far as adopting a Chinese name and learning the language. [3] As one of the many homeless, unemployed and disillusioned Americans who went into exile after The Fall, he was hired as security chief for the Lin Family’s numerous factories in the Yangtze Delta, and when the War of Resistance started, he became Lin’s unofficial aide-de-camp, going so far as taking a “demotion” to buck sergeant, only to be promoted rapidly as the war dragged on. The rest of Fox Company stayed in Canada and formed the nucleus of Princess Margaret’s Toronto Rifles (The Americans), Canadian Army. Other American expats in China with military experience became advisors in the National Revolutionary Army, most of them concentrated in the Tax Police Brigade, re-designated New 38th Division after the Shanghai Campaign. [4][5]
“As the major wish, sir,” Monroe switched to his serious face instantly.
“Relax, brother, I’m messing with you.”
“I know, Joe. But man, you gotta work on your humour. It’s getting old.”
“If only we got time. And yes, it does remind me of New York, except there are almost no white people here and it didn’t turn into a total fuck-up. Not yet, anyway,” Lin’s gaze wavered a little bit as the tragedy by the Hudson played itself out in his head. “Is my sister with the wounded?”
“Never a step away from Colonel Chang,” Monroe smirked.
Lin had no idea know what to do with his headstrong baby sister – okay, she was 19, but older brothers were by definition very protective. Lin Fang-ting, or Leah, had been a freshman in Fu Tan University when Shanghai turned into a battlefield, and joined – without telling the family, a feat which had her father flipping tables and her mother, Old Man Lin’s concubine, worried sick for days – one of the many Frontline Support Teams, and later officially became a part of 51st Division’s field hospital with a temporary rank of second lieutenant. During the disastrous Wuhan Campaign, she had braved enemy fire and pulled numerous heavily-wounded men off the line, one of those being Colonel Chang Ling-fu (Whampoa, Fourth Class), commander of 153rd Brigade, [6] made famous by his near-maniacal defence of Wanchialing.
Now, the combination of handsome and mature officer (who happened to single) and young and beautiful nurse (who also happened to be single) could only lead to one logical outcome. Which made Lin raise an eyebrow, since Chang was also (in)famous for shooting his wife in 1936 because she either a) had been cheating on him, or b) was a Communist spy who stole some files from him, depending on which version of the story you hear. The man been condemned to death but got commuted to ten years of jail time due to intervention from his then-superior Hu Tsung-nan (Whampoa, First Class), and had been tight-lipped about the incident after his senior classmate Wang Yao-wu (Whampoa, Third Class), then commander of the 51st Division, bailed him out to fight.
Since they were in different regiments, Lin hadn’t had many dealings with Chang, but his acquaintances in the 305th all described the colonel as a brave soldier, competent officer, and gentleman. If that relationship turned into something else… well, there really wasn’t much he can do, now was there?
“C’est la vie. Let’s hope my old man don’t find out,” Lin sighed.
“Major Lin!” a young NRA officer ran up to them.
“What is it, Lieutenant Park?” Lin recognized the kid. Newly-minted Lieutenant Park Chung-hee (Central Military Academy, Thirteenth Class) was one of the last replacements they received before Wuhan. [7] Due to the horrendous attrition rate of enlisted men and officers, Park rose from platoon to company command in less than a week of almost non-stop combat.
“Orders from Division, sir,” he handed Lin two telegrams.
The Chinese major took his time to read them, and while he did so, his handsome face turned into a scowl.
“What is it?” Monroe asked.
Lin ignored him and turned to Park.
“Lieutenant, tell Captain Yu I want him to take however many men we have left, go around town and pick up as many stragglers as he possibly can, and then proceed to the nearest headquarters above regimental-level he can find and follow only orders issued by General Chang Chih-chung,” he dictated. As Park saluted and turned to leave, Lin added: “Tell Corporal Mei I’m relieving him of his duties. He is to stay with my sister at all times until she reached Hong Kong. Now go!”
“You’re sending Maynard away? What happened?” Monroe asked again as Park jogged away to relay Lin’s orders. Corporal Mei You-lun, or Alan Maynard, was one of the former Fox Company men who came to China with Lin when he returned in 1936.
“We got two contradicting orders. The first one was sent by some fuckhead in our government who signed a peace treaty with the fucking Japs and ordered us to cease and desist, stay right where we were, and await further orders. The second one was from the General Staff, which ‘suggested’ us to take whatever we can and make for British- or French-controlled areas.” [8]
That, of course, was the too-long-did-not-read version fit for gweilo consumption. What really happened was Wang Chao-ming, famed Nationalist revolutionary, currently Deputy Chairman of the Kuomintang, and long-time political rival of the late Chiang Kai-shek, [9] had, in the ultimate manifestation of the prevalent pessimistically defeatist sentiment that had permeated among the upper echelons of the ROC government in the wake of the subsequent series of Chinese defeats since the Japanese invaded, secretly came to an agreement with the Japanese via trusted intermediaries and, with support from several former warlords who still have control over troops loyal to them and them alone, announced a unilateral ceasefire on the Chinese side. As much as the pro-war faction wanted to fight on, the brutal reality was that their forces were understrength, underequipped, underpaid, and even underfed; whatever espirit de corps they had had long since gone with the wind. In order to preserve what was left of China’s military and rob the inevitable pro-Japan puppet government of relatively well-trained and experienced fighting men, the pro-war generals concocted a plan (with surreptitious assistance from a group headed by a certain British Conservative politician who loves cigar) to, in the words of renowned strategist Chiang Fang-chen, “rob the fucking Nips of a tool for further mischief and forge us the nails on their coffins”.
“They want to start a government-in-exile, then. What do you plan to do?” Monroe pondered for a moment and asked.
Lin tore the first telegram apart, the one from the government.
“I am a soldier of China. I follow my orders.”
[1] Yes, I am well aware the 187th did not exist until 1943 IOTL, but a) I need a recognizable famous regiment for Lin to have served in and b) authorial fiat – I rather liked the 187th
[2] Pai Zhang (排長): platoon commander; Lian Zhang (連長): company commander; Ying Zhang (營長): battalion commander
[3] His Chinese is about as well as Lee Byun-hyun’s English. Make of that what you will
[4] Considering its scope and intensity, what we call IOTL the Battle of Shanghai should really be upgraded to a campaign in its own right
[5] The New 38th Division, later 1st Chinese Marine Division, would come to be known as the Chimerica Division, due to the significant presence of American instructors (mostly remnants of the China Marines) and “volunteers”
[6] ITTL the former CO of 153rd Brigade, Colonel Lee Tien-hsia (Whampoa, Third Class), was killed in Nanking
[7] Yes, THAT Park Chung-hee. He'll be remembered with much more fondness ITTL
[8] Chang Chih-chung’s order would later go down in history as the Last Order
[9] One of the PODs ITTL – Chiang’s plane was shot down as he left Nanking before the battle started in December 1937
Author's note on Chinese stuff: I'll be using Wade-Giles for names and Pinyin for other things. I'll also include the Pinyin, Wade-Giles and Chinese spellings for all Chinese persons (if any) appearing in each update. Look to the Chinese Table for reference
The Chinese Table
- Chungking (W-G); Chongqing (P); 重慶 (C)
- Lin Yueh-yun, courtesy name Po-wen (W-G); Lin Yueyun, courtesy name Bowen; 林岳雲, 字伯溫 (C); aka. Joseph Lin
- Mujung Po, courtesy name Jing-mei (W-G); Murong Bo, courtesy name Jingmei (P); 慕容博, 字敬美 (C); aka. Robert Monroe
- Lin Fang-ting (W-G); Lin Fangting (P); 林芳婷 (C)
- Chang Ling-fu, courtesy name Chung-lin (W-G); Zhang Lingfu, courtesy name Zhonglin (P); 張靈甫, 字鐘麟 (C)
- Wanchialing (W-G); Wanjialing (P); 萬家嶺 (C)
- Hu Tsung-nan, courtesy name Shou-shan (W-G); Hu Zongnan, courtesy name Shoushan (P); 胡宗南, 字壽山 (C)
- Wang Yao-wu, courtesy name Tso-min (W-G); Wang Yaowu, courtesy name Zuomin; 王耀武, 字佐民 (C)
- Chang Chih-chung, courtesy name Wen-pai (W-G); Zhang Zhizhong, courtesy name Wenbai (P); 張治中, 字文白 (C)
- Mei You-lun (W-G); Mei Youlun (P); 梅有倫 (C); aka. Alan Maynard
- Chiang Fang-chen, courtesy name Pai-li (W-G); Jiang Fangzhen, courtesy name Baili (P); 蔣方震, 字百里 (C)
- Lee Tien-hsia, courtesy name Yao-tsung (W-G); Li Tianxia, courtesy name Yaozong (P); 李天霞, 字耀宗 (C)
Special note on Lin and Monroe’s bio: As the Second American Civil War grew worse for the Loyalists, all West Point cadets still in school by 1934 received commissions even before they completed their four-year curriculum. They will collectively be known as Class of 1934/[insert year of enrollment], or simply the Last Class, before the Academy relocated to Cuba as HPA forces overran upstate New York.
Here's the first entry, So Long As The Green Hills Remain.
Oh, did I mention it's open for reader participation? I'll have to clear everything, of course...
So Long As The Green Hills Remain
August 15, 1938
Chungking, Szechwan
Of all infectious diseases known to man, fear was the most potent of them all. It possessed no physical form, yet had always found a dwelling inside every man’s heart, waiting for the right moment to strike and spread itself. Chungking was in the midst of a fear epidemic, and the two men in National Revolutionary Army uniforms standing by Chaotienmen Pier, where scores of wounded soldiers and civilian refugees were loaded onto the waiting ships, felt it in their bones.
“Reminds you of New York, doesn’t it, Joseph?” the junior officer said to his superior and friend.
“Do I have to pull ranks on you, Sergeant Major Mujung? I’m a major, after all,” despite the apparently severity in his tone, Major Lin Yueh-yun (West Point, Class of 1934/31), courtesy name Po-wen, christened Joseph by his West Point instructors, and known to the men of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, [1] United States Army, as “That Linsane Chink Bastard”, was pleased to hear that. He hadn’t been called by his Christian – oh, sorry, Bethlehemite, “Christian” being kind of a bad word these days – name for so long. At home, he was er di to his older sister (senior to him by three minutes) and parents, er ge to his younger brother and sister, or er shao ye to the servants; in the 51st Division, he was Po-wen to his superiors, and pai zhang, later lian zhang, and now ying zhang [2] to his men.
Being called Joseph made him feel... among friends. Free of responsibility. Goddamn, fighting a war is tough. Being in command is even tougher.
For his part, Mujung Po, courtesy name Jing-mei, aka. Bob Monroe, formerly Second Lieutenant Robert Isaac Monroe (West Point, Class of 1934/31), F/2/187th, had been slowly getting used to his extended permanent stay in the Orient, going so far as adopting a Chinese name and learning the language. [3] As one of the many homeless, unemployed and disillusioned Americans who went into exile after The Fall, he was hired as security chief for the Lin Family’s numerous factories in the Yangtze Delta, and when the War of Resistance started, he became Lin’s unofficial aide-de-camp, going so far as taking a “demotion” to buck sergeant, only to be promoted rapidly as the war dragged on. The rest of Fox Company stayed in Canada and formed the nucleus of Princess Margaret’s Toronto Rifles (The Americans), Canadian Army. Other American expats in China with military experience became advisors in the National Revolutionary Army, most of them concentrated in the Tax Police Brigade, re-designated New 38th Division after the Shanghai Campaign. [4][5]
“As the major wish, sir,” Monroe switched to his serious face instantly.
“Relax, brother, I’m messing with you.”
“I know, Joe. But man, you gotta work on your humour. It’s getting old.”
“If only we got time. And yes, it does remind me of New York, except there are almost no white people here and it didn’t turn into a total fuck-up. Not yet, anyway,” Lin’s gaze wavered a little bit as the tragedy by the Hudson played itself out in his head. “Is my sister with the wounded?”
“Never a step away from Colonel Chang,” Monroe smirked.
Lin had no idea know what to do with his headstrong baby sister – okay, she was 19, but older brothers were by definition very protective. Lin Fang-ting, or Leah, had been a freshman in Fu Tan University when Shanghai turned into a battlefield, and joined – without telling the family, a feat which had her father flipping tables and her mother, Old Man Lin’s concubine, worried sick for days – one of the many Frontline Support Teams, and later officially became a part of 51st Division’s field hospital with a temporary rank of second lieutenant. During the disastrous Wuhan Campaign, she had braved enemy fire and pulled numerous heavily-wounded men off the line, one of those being Colonel Chang Ling-fu (Whampoa, Fourth Class), commander of 153rd Brigade, [6] made famous by his near-maniacal defence of Wanchialing.
Now, the combination of handsome and mature officer (who happened to single) and young and beautiful nurse (who also happened to be single) could only lead to one logical outcome. Which made Lin raise an eyebrow, since Chang was also (in)famous for shooting his wife in 1936 because she either a) had been cheating on him, or b) was a Communist spy who stole some files from him, depending on which version of the story you hear. The man been condemned to death but got commuted to ten years of jail time due to intervention from his then-superior Hu Tsung-nan (Whampoa, First Class), and had been tight-lipped about the incident after his senior classmate Wang Yao-wu (Whampoa, Third Class), then commander of the 51st Division, bailed him out to fight.
Since they were in different regiments, Lin hadn’t had many dealings with Chang, but his acquaintances in the 305th all described the colonel as a brave soldier, competent officer, and gentleman. If that relationship turned into something else… well, there really wasn’t much he can do, now was there?
“C’est la vie. Let’s hope my old man don’t find out,” Lin sighed.
“Major Lin!” a young NRA officer ran up to them.
“What is it, Lieutenant Park?” Lin recognized the kid. Newly-minted Lieutenant Park Chung-hee (Central Military Academy, Thirteenth Class) was one of the last replacements they received before Wuhan. [7] Due to the horrendous attrition rate of enlisted men and officers, Park rose from platoon to company command in less than a week of almost non-stop combat.
“Orders from Division, sir,” he handed Lin two telegrams.
The Chinese major took his time to read them, and while he did so, his handsome face turned into a scowl.
“What is it?” Monroe asked.
Lin ignored him and turned to Park.
“Lieutenant, tell Captain Yu I want him to take however many men we have left, go around town and pick up as many stragglers as he possibly can, and then proceed to the nearest headquarters above regimental-level he can find and follow only orders issued by General Chang Chih-chung,” he dictated. As Park saluted and turned to leave, Lin added: “Tell Corporal Mei I’m relieving him of his duties. He is to stay with my sister at all times until she reached Hong Kong. Now go!”
“You’re sending Maynard away? What happened?” Monroe asked again as Park jogged away to relay Lin’s orders. Corporal Mei You-lun, or Alan Maynard, was one of the former Fox Company men who came to China with Lin when he returned in 1936.
“We got two contradicting orders. The first one was sent by some fuckhead in our government who signed a peace treaty with the fucking Japs and ordered us to cease and desist, stay right where we were, and await further orders. The second one was from the General Staff, which ‘suggested’ us to take whatever we can and make for British- or French-controlled areas.” [8]
That, of course, was the too-long-did-not-read version fit for gweilo consumption. What really happened was Wang Chao-ming, famed Nationalist revolutionary, currently Deputy Chairman of the Kuomintang, and long-time political rival of the late Chiang Kai-shek, [9] had, in the ultimate manifestation of the prevalent pessimistically defeatist sentiment that had permeated among the upper echelons of the ROC government in the wake of the subsequent series of Chinese defeats since the Japanese invaded, secretly came to an agreement with the Japanese via trusted intermediaries and, with support from several former warlords who still have control over troops loyal to them and them alone, announced a unilateral ceasefire on the Chinese side. As much as the pro-war faction wanted to fight on, the brutal reality was that their forces were understrength, underequipped, underpaid, and even underfed; whatever espirit de corps they had had long since gone with the wind. In order to preserve what was left of China’s military and rob the inevitable pro-Japan puppet government of relatively well-trained and experienced fighting men, the pro-war generals concocted a plan (with surreptitious assistance from a group headed by a certain British Conservative politician who loves cigar) to, in the words of renowned strategist Chiang Fang-chen, “rob the fucking Nips of a tool for further mischief and forge us the nails on their coffins”.
“They want to start a government-in-exile, then. What do you plan to do?” Monroe pondered for a moment and asked.
Lin tore the first telegram apart, the one from the government.
“I am a soldier of China. I follow my orders.”
[1] Yes, I am well aware the 187th did not exist until 1943 IOTL, but a) I need a recognizable famous regiment for Lin to have served in and b) authorial fiat – I rather liked the 187th
[2] Pai Zhang (排長): platoon commander; Lian Zhang (連長): company commander; Ying Zhang (營長): battalion commander
[3] His Chinese is about as well as Lee Byun-hyun’s English. Make of that what you will
[4] Considering its scope and intensity, what we call IOTL the Battle of Shanghai should really be upgraded to a campaign in its own right
[5] The New 38th Division, later 1st Chinese Marine Division, would come to be known as the Chimerica Division, due to the significant presence of American instructors (mostly remnants of the China Marines) and “volunteers”
[6] ITTL the former CO of 153rd Brigade, Colonel Lee Tien-hsia (Whampoa, Third Class), was killed in Nanking
[7] Yes, THAT Park Chung-hee. He'll be remembered with much more fondness ITTL
[8] Chang Chih-chung’s order would later go down in history as the Last Order
[9] One of the PODs ITTL – Chiang’s plane was shot down as he left Nanking before the battle started in December 1937
Author's note on Chinese stuff: I'll be using Wade-Giles for names and Pinyin for other things. I'll also include the Pinyin, Wade-Giles and Chinese spellings for all Chinese persons (if any) appearing in each update. Look to the Chinese Table for reference
The Chinese Table
- Chungking (W-G); Chongqing (P); 重慶 (C)
- Lin Yueh-yun, courtesy name Po-wen (W-G); Lin Yueyun, courtesy name Bowen; 林岳雲, 字伯溫 (C); aka. Joseph Lin
- Mujung Po, courtesy name Jing-mei (W-G); Murong Bo, courtesy name Jingmei (P); 慕容博, 字敬美 (C); aka. Robert Monroe
- Lin Fang-ting (W-G); Lin Fangting (P); 林芳婷 (C)
- Chang Ling-fu, courtesy name Chung-lin (W-G); Zhang Lingfu, courtesy name Zhonglin (P); 張靈甫, 字鐘麟 (C)
- Wanchialing (W-G); Wanjialing (P); 萬家嶺 (C)
- Hu Tsung-nan, courtesy name Shou-shan (W-G); Hu Zongnan, courtesy name Shoushan (P); 胡宗南, 字壽山 (C)
- Wang Yao-wu, courtesy name Tso-min (W-G); Wang Yaowu, courtesy name Zuomin; 王耀武, 字佐民 (C)
- Chang Chih-chung, courtesy name Wen-pai (W-G); Zhang Zhizhong, courtesy name Wenbai (P); 張治中, 字文白 (C)
- Mei You-lun (W-G); Mei Youlun (P); 梅有倫 (C); aka. Alan Maynard
- Chiang Fang-chen, courtesy name Pai-li (W-G); Jiang Fangzhen, courtesy name Baili (P); 蔣方震, 字百里 (C)
- Lee Tien-hsia, courtesy name Yao-tsung (W-G); Li Tianxia, courtesy name Yaozong (P); 李天霞, 字耀宗 (C)
Special note on Lin and Monroe’s bio: As the Second American Civil War grew worse for the Loyalists, all West Point cadets still in school by 1934 received commissions even before they completed their four-year curriculum. They will collectively be known as Class of 1934/[insert year of enrollment], or simply the Last Class, before the Academy relocated to Cuba as HPA forces overran upstate New York.
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