NationStates Jolt Archive

(OOC. Well, a lot of you have wanted me to write something, so you've only yourselves to blame!)

Never in history, nor in vaguely understood pre-history, was there a time during which the Korean peninsula had been any thing if not mysterious and -so far as the outside world was concerned- dark. Through antiquity the native population had clung fiercly to the rocks of the mountains and braced themselves against the trees to defy all attempts to steal the land or to break the unfathomable civilisations.

The twentieth century saw Japan with its newly empowered emperors achieving more than had any invaders in the past as the fog of avoidance was forced back beyond the range of naval guns and thrust into by aircraft and bombs, and, though the wider world continued in pre-occupation with seemingly bigger affairs, this shattering state of affairs split the ancient peninsula and enabled change for the first time in eons unknown. Nobody beyond Korea ever laid eyes on Sulo, even as his partisans murderously punished the last emperor for his historic failure to turn back the foreign tide and preserve the antediluvian status quo. By the day of Japan's final surrender in the wider World War the trickle of information leaking from a much-reduced independent Drapoel domain had been decesively halted, and for two generations no more attention was paid than by the event of rare vanishings when curiosity got the better of private adventurers who dared to attempt the piercing of Dra-pol's old mists. Nobody outside knew even that Sulo had lead the partisans to the establishment of a new system of governance and economy, let alone that he had been succeeded by Kurosian.

That was in spite of the facts that Sulo lead a war in which many nations opposed his soldiers' efforts to undo the crippling work of the since-vanquished Imperial Japanese Army, and that Kurosian spent much of his time in Europe under a false identity and managing even to take a mistress back to Paegam.

Hotan's recent efforts to bring about a new era of change proved too ambitious. For all anybody knew, there had been only one really epic shift in Drapoel political history, and it was now appreciated as having been largely the work of the still arcane Sulo. Radical as had been the removal of the emperor, it was not a challenge to Dra-pol's most instinctive and defining characteristic. Hotan's ambitions imagined an erosion of Drapoel isolationism and opaque mystique.

That persistent mist of the nation's lifeblood had rejected his efforts and expelled him as a foreign body for attempting such invasive surgery.

Now the dark was as thick as ever it had been, and the miasma even more forbidding as it hung over the Central Directorature, still imposing though its facade was unusually long over-due for cleaning. Da'Khiem, an ancient walled city once an imperial army garrison and more recently the capital of the Choson People's Republic inhabited by a working day-time population of thousands now lay almost empty. A few young men and women hung about, clutching rifles and wearing the traditional attire of Drapoel peasantry, fiercly enthusiastic recruits to the Neo-Suloist movement. All normal work was stopped, and the thousands normally entering the city at this time of day, as required by their government work for the Kurosite administration, were nowhere to be seen.

Clearing a city that emptied itself each night had proved no harder than the simple barring of a few gates.

It seemed that nobody saw the coming and going of individuals now within the Central Directorature, even though hundreds still milled, confused, around the outside of the city walls. But men came and went. Tunnels under the grand mountains of Korea's spine upon which Da'Khiem was built ran in all directions and at all depths, some having vast chambers in the hills far above sea level, others leading hundreds of metres below ground. Some even connected to the Pyongyang military bunkers, the Kanggye fortress within which Hotan fought for his life, and relatively newly even to the Seoul Metro.

Having moved through countless blast-doors and passed connecting tunnels leading to vaults full of sufficient war material and essential supplies to last Dra-pol almost two years of high-intensity warfare while more was gathered at the expense of all national currency reserves and of assets sold, such as the abortive aircraft carrier even now en route to India, the man attached to the still nationally and globally unspoken and unwritten name Cheung Bai-Sul stepped from the tiny train carriage that had borne him to the lower levels of the governmental monolith. In the new half-light of the Central Directorature's dedicated subterranean railway station, with other human shapes about, it became clear that the carriage in question was a scaled-down replica of something from the golden age of steam in the west, big enough to seat only a single little Drapoel figure, perhaps two at a push. The emerging man as well was betrayed amongst the shadows as little more than a boy, and a quite sickly looking one at that.

Cheung -in this one of several Drapoel naming customs the first of three parts was his personnal name, the second dynastic, and the last at least a reference to his father's given or chosen name or else to that of some more admirable ancestor of Cheung's choosing; though all of this was difficult to be sure of without asking, even if you were Drapoel yourself- grew-up as part of perhaps the world's least ordinary family. He lived in almost utter isolation in the clouds. He became caught in a family feud that used intercontinental war to score points, and he was arrested on the orders of a man he'd come to call uncle, and cast from the overhanging firmament into the depths of hell. It showed in his palour and his stoop: the pitiful little being nursed in constant chill and learned to walk on the confines of a single mountain top, and then saw out the rest of his childhood locked in a cave without natural light.

Now he emerged, at least into a building that also had floors above ground even if it lacked a great many windows, to word of his mother's abduction by no less than that so-called uncle and to an unceremonious presentation into his feeble claw of the metaphorical sword of power as the heroic and battlescarred General Hozaro saluted him in the fashion normally appropriate for recognition of a Director of the People's Republic. There was no fanfare, just the stern allegiance of a cadre of officers and renowned thugs party to an unspoken and unwritten pledge to silence and absolute secrecy.

Cheung Bai-Sul and General Hozaro eventually took seats at the focal point in a U-shaped arrangement of skinny or unremarkable tables within a large and undecorated room. The assembly conversed at length, the General and the goblin leading the way with a quiet menace that defied interruption or contradiction. None outside the room knew what was said. None outside knew the identities of those attending. Few knew that the room existed, and many of its builders were long since dead.

Eventually, words of grand significance squeaked and wheezed from the grey lips of the sickly half-breed Bai-Sul. Sounding like a cryptic opinion or idle lament, they were correctly received by the secret leadership of the post-Hotan society as a brutal decree:

"...one feels that rather than thirty-four million conflicted Republicans in Free Dra-pol it would be better to have twenty-million commited Nationalists."

Tag

[[Oh shit! I mean, tag.]]

Pak 17th Day Collective, outside Sariwon

In recent months Sun, like her young friends in the small community, hadn't noticed anything remarkable beyond that the radio -something that had been crackling and chattering away without a single break -save for the odd power-outage- during the entirety of her six years of life- was lately playing up a little, cutting out and singing with new voices or remaining silent for days on end. Her family and their comrades went on with their task as one of the communities honoured with selection by the Wisest Director, comrade Hotan, for participation in the great experiment of nature-remaking. Digging ditches for waterisation and sending grandpa to the city -to the gigantic potassium feldspar complex- so that he could return laden with the necessaries for chemicalisation. They already had mechanisation well in hand, the girl thought, as she watched her teenage cousin bouncing by on a tractor with strange markings along its side. Nobody at the Collective spoke English or Hindi or anything else that might be stamped or painted on Hindustani aid items. It was quite a curiosity, Sun had recently come to understand, that their community had one of these different machines... the collective a couple of miles to the east had one of Dra-pol's near quarter of a million domestic tractors.

There was some unusual activity, today. Grandpa had come peddling back from town with the hollow sound of petrol cans rattling empty as when he left. He'd been sent by Hea -Sun's cousin- because there was in the lock-up only enough fuel for perhaps one more field's worth of work to be done with the tractor, but had come back over-due and swearing that some soldiers had told him there was no fuel to be had. "Not a drop!" He said, though the old man insisted that he had not even been allowed in to the market or the local control office.

Sun didn't pay much attention to the raised voices and the issue of fuel, as she'd never known the tractor not to run each day. She was a little curious about the worried faces starting after grandpa mentioned the curious streams of people he'd had to pass on the road during his ride back. Mother was shaking her cap at him, asking why the silly old fool hadn't stopped to ask somebody where they were going or why they were all walking, but he only defended himself by saying that he was anxious to get back, having been delayed for so long by the soldiers. "Get back why?" mother said, scornfully. It wasn't as if he was bringing anything useful, fuel or news.

The Russian government continues its calls for an international oil embargo of Dra-Pol.

Hindustan's handful of land survey sattelites, with resolution hardly approaching a modern military standard, continue to sweep over Dra-pol and the Korean peninsula, transmitting back to the recieving stations rather alarming evidence of significant changes to the landscape in a number of areas. Parliament, while hardly the best-informed government in the world, increasingly feels that something is seriously amiss, but given the 'unpredictable' nature of Dra-pol and Hindustan's relationship with Dra-pol, exactly what is quite difficult to discern.

Therefore, Mumbai reacts predictably and offers two companies of marines to reinforce the HDF's contingent of administrative staff and advisors, and the HADF's SIGNIT squadron of unmarked Canberras.

If any Parliamentarians had heard Cheung Bai-Sul's remarks to General Hozaro, Mumbai would probably react very differently.

But if history can teach the rest of the world anything, it is that sticking one's nose into Drapoel internal affairs has a habit of making things no better than they would have been if left by themselves. The international community will have to hunker down and wait, and once Bai-Sul's Saresque plot unfolds hope for the best...

-Near Vancouver-

Hudecian troops, already on alert since the sighting of the huge Drapoel 'aircraft carrier', were getting antsy. Word in camp was that they might be deployed to the South to support the Quinntonians there.

The naval yards were busy trying to clean up and repair most of the Hudecian fleet (which had been languishing until a few months ago).

-Ottawa-

"No news is good news," chirped Foreign Minister Widjaja when he heard that there was nothing new to report on Drapol.

Others were not so confident however. Drapol had a habit of surprising even the most dedicated Drapol 'expert' and the true experts knew that there were no certainties when dealing with the isolationist regime.

Forbidden music wafts through the hills of the north and its sentiment even begins to spread south of the disused 38th Parallel defences. Drums sadly tap out a beat that once sounded almost comic and now echoed full of despair. Kurosian, oh, Kurosian, Hear our call for you to save us, Over time, over sea, Like a wave you come, Our guardian angel, Kurosian, oh, Kurosian, The people have forgotten kindness, Their spirit falls to ruin, We shall pray for the people as we sing This song of love.

Andong, the Divided City

The Rakdong -as it was to the Drapoel, and woe betide any locals translating it as Nakdong- was an important landmark to the ambitious Hotanite Kurosites, remembered as the site at which a great many civilians (Drapoel literature did not call them refugees) had perished when foreign forces blew-up the bridge to halt the People's Army more than fifty years ago and prevent the liberation of Daegu. Yet again, this time in recent memory, the People's Army had surged this far and no further, stopped by the Hindustanis of all people, after again managing no more than a few isolated crossings of the river before being forced to settle for the northern side of Andong.

Kurosite bravado over-saw the establishment in this window-seat of perhaps the most horrid institution to persist even under Hotan's Directorature. Called Facility 10 it was an unremarkable building from an archietectural standpoint: grey and brown, low-rise for the most part, few and small windows, no obvious decoration. It wasn't even well made, and the cheap bricks used barely seemed to keep out the wind. But they certainly kept people in, at least for short stays before their return to the soil.

For so long as they'd remained in southern Andong, the Hindustanis would have become quite accustomed to hearing gunfire from the north, and may well have pinpointed Facility 10 as its source. From its outward composition and the toing and froing of UPA trucks, however, the small complex may have been a barracks or some such military outpost, and the gunfire explained as practice or simply taken as a threatening reminder for their own benefit.

Actually it was each time the sound of an execution and the last report of a convicted traitor. These could be captured spies or informants and even their sympathisers, terrorists, or simply class traitors accused of hoarding, slacking, or stealing the work of another. The executed were often those caught trying or conspiring to cross the river and enter the ROK.

None of this was known or even remotely important to Pak Hea or her grandfather as they shivered, hunched with their backs unknowningly against opposite sides of the same thin brick wall in the algid guts of Facility 10. Hea's tough, stringy body almost seemed to sense the warmth escaping her dying grandpa as she pressed against the wall just an inch away from his burned and bloody skin, though each of them believed the other to be comparatively safe, with the family.

--------------------

Grandpa Pak's brief respite -such as it was- came to a close as two young men re-entered the bare room in which he slouched, coming through the doorless frame that he was too hurt to reach, while his teenage granddaughter in the next such room remained too browbeaten by life and scared by arrest to even look towards her similarly unbarred doorway. Throughout this wing of Facility 10 were many such rooms, most of them containing another individual with no barriers to his or escape save those wracking the body with recent torture-induced pain or stalking through the mind that was forged in a lifetime, on the black anvil of Da'Khiem's Central Directorature.

Old man Pak had endured in the past few days trials enough to kill a man half his age if plucked from almost any other society on earth, but he was not finished even by the 8x21.5mm Nambu round that struck bone behind his ear and glanced off, taking with it most of the auricle ahead. Before that, the luckless fellow had been force-marched with others all the way from Sariwon at such a pace and through such terrain as would have seriously tested a Roman legionary. Marked out by his unhealthy desire to acquire petrol, and his collective's use of a foreign vehicle and favoured position as a successful Kurosite nature-remaking concern, Grandpa Pak was not far down the worst list of which a human being could be a part. He had unquestioningly given his details to soldiers at Sariwon when attempting to acquire a petrol ration, and on his return for a second attempt at that (made at the behest of his domineering daughter, Sun's mother and Hea's aunt and de facto mistress of the Pak 17th Day Collective) he had been arrested by the Neo-Suloists and taken away without, he thought, word being sent to his comrades at the collective.

Then followed torture and interrogation of a sort at Facility 10, before his attempted execution. After botching the first shot, the involved Red Bamboo junior officer had found his Type 94 automatic pistol to be, "...made of pigshit, by Jap-loving Kurosites!" and in his frustration had accidentally discharged a second round into the dirt (something that often happened when handling what has oft been described as the world's worst pistol) and then promptly jammed the weapon beyond easy salvation. The old man was thrown back in his cell, bleeding and exhausted, clearly heading towards death in his own time anway, while the Red Bamboo on hand tried to salvage the executioner's weapon.

When he was hauled back out to the death-floor, Pak was confronted not with a functioning firearm but an old spike-bayonet from a Type-99 rifle dropped by a fallen UPA soldier during the Reunification War and left to the undergrowth beside the then unbuilt Facility 10. The irritated Sub-Lieutenant said that the pig-sticker was apropriate for the job, anyway, and set about the old man's slaughter.

Then it was back to address the issue of a young Drapoel girl's questionable decision to work a tractor provided as blood money by the nation that, in the war, sat troops on the opposite bank of the river that flowed past Facility 10 and fired on Drapoel soldiers who now ran the institution.

And as half a nation away her little cousin wandered dazed and alone into the mountains east of Sariwon, tiny ears resonating with the recent screams of mother's rape and with father's confusing warning, "Hong Juk!", Hea would not be the last member of the Pak collective to die this night.

OOC: keep the posts coming Drapol.. this is interesting (if in a sad and depressing way) I'd post something relevant but to be honest there isn't much I can say/do since this is all occuring inside Drapol.

OOC: Thanks. In the old days we'd just keep going until some hapless missionaries came to see what the fuss was about :) Well, anyway, don't expect anything too fast-moving, these days.

In the trenches and bunkers opposite Drapoel Andong, the only Hindustanis in the area are the six or so advisors assigned to the ROKA contingent and two sections of artillery spotters sent to survey and map UPA emplacements opposite them.

When shots ring out from the ominous-looking Facility 10, which already has a number of machine guns and mortars zeroed on it, ROK and HDF personnel cast almost casual glances across the cratered no man's land of the border, checking to make sure that no bullets were headed their way before going back to the almost incessant task of fortifying. And by most accounts, they had done a rather good job at it. An extensive network of deep trenches and fortified buildings covers the ROK side of the river, with command centers and bombardment shelters buried deep underground. And to facilitate easy resupply/a speedy withdrawl, several tunnels lead from the second- and third-line fortifications to the roads outside the city, all big enough to accomodate a large volume of troops moving at once.

Barracks were similarly buried underground, safe from all but the most severe bombardments and even then only if the Drapoel used any type of ground-penetration shell. Above ground, the UPA soldiers opposite can see the occasional bunker perched atop large concrete blockhouses which seal the space between buildings and cover streets, presumably making it terribly hard for UPA tanks to get through, and more bunkers on buildings themselves, functioning as watchtowers and mortar OPs. At thirty kilometers back, the Andong garrison's artillery support units are dug into strong fortifications themselves, although not nearly up to HARTS standard. Of course, the Andong garrison can call on significant tube and rocket fire should hostilities break out, allowing them to, if anything, conduct a proper retreat.

The Dingo scout cars of the HGDF's Korean Expeditionary Force Artillery Spotter Squadron join the MOWAG Piranhas of the ROK on the city's streets as they assist in patrols and go about to different vantage points in quest of cleverly concealed UPA artillery positions.

It was a strange thing in Andong as at many other hotspots along Dra-pol's borders that heavy guns and deep entrenchments appeared to be seeing almost no activity. True, such apparent absence of humanity in Dra-pol often indicated the opening-up of new tunnel access, and may well have been taken as a sign of impending danger. But this time it was different. More than the usual number of personnel could be seen in more accessible places: likely crossing points for would-be defectors, and, in fact, many tunnels had been closed-down, some even partly caved-in by the Neo-Suloists who viewed them as bellows forcing bad air into Dra-pol. Holes for Kurosite worms, some said, as they herded townspeople underground and the townspeople went willingly as they had in countless air-raid drills in the past. Hardly a rumble would resonate above ground to report the demise of hundreds each time.

Paegam, the Forbidden City

Eleven hundred metres into the sky, ancient half-ruins under creeping vegetation, giant stone faces following long-dead vanquishers of Japanese, Mongol, Manchu, Lyongian, and how many other enemies. These eyes remembered all of it and looked upon their nursery only as something that lacked a piece, for mother was gone. She'd have been proud to see her little half-breed son come good. Alas, she was stolen away just so she would miss this moment, just to spite him after breaking his infant body and thwarting his half-baked plans the first time the Kurosites had stolen her to sour his victory at the second time of asking.

In the end, it was well that the stone faces looked-on and loomed so imposingly, and it was not a bad thing that the Forbidden City was visited by the spirit-heavy mists and the bent young man remembered them no less keenly than as if they were his mother. These things stood in silent compensation for the very bare nature of the human turn-out for this supposedly historic happening. The stone corridors and courtyards hosted just a handful of leading Suloist rivivalists.

Music was played, but coming as it did from just one traditional stringed instrument, said by the Drapoel to be a forerunner to the kimungo, it didn't fill the space any more than did the participants in this, the creation of a new era. Hanboks were worn in the defiant Drapoel fashion, closing in the direction that elsewhere had become considered feminine while the hermit country ignored wider trends. Cheung Bai-Sul was presented, declared Comrade Suloko, Our Resurgent Brother, and created chief of state over General Hozaro's Neo-Suloist Junta in administration of Sul-Joson. The Choson People's Republic is dead: long live Sul's Korea!

Word spread slowly. In the meantime, suspected Kurosites could be arrested for referring to their Republic, that would be quite legitimate...

Comrade Suloko, Our Resurgent Brother. This was the name that Drapoel Korea heard, and it was all that Drapoel Korea knew of its new leader. Seung Bai-Sul was a name heard by favoured individuals in the Neo-Suloist movement. Diddly squat was the precise atomic measure of what anybody else heard.

Hotan had allowed the Lyongians to appreciate that Dra-pol was in the grip of a Suloist resurgence, and they were probably in a position to appreciate part of the difference between Sulo's Dra-pol and Hotan's. That Hotan bothered to refer to Suloist thought at all was probably sufficient to convey the severity of the ideological split happening today, because although Kurosian II's brief administration had called itself Suloist for a brief moment before the elder Kurosian's triumphant return from hiding it was apparent that the interruption hadn't achieved anything substantive towards derailing Hotanite industrialisation and opening-up. Kurosian II's rule would almost certainly be regarded by interested foreign scholars as defined by personal power and pathological cruelty rather than political ideology. This Neo-Suloism, those close to the Kurosite exiles in Lyong would appreciate, was a force with political motivation.

That it was by one possible definition Kurosite would probably have come as a surprise to anyone but General Hozaro and Koshiako Kurosian. If Cheung's face were ever seen in public it would come as a terrible kick in the pants to Hotan and a considerable test of his belief in mercy and loyalty after having spared the boy's life following his collusion with his half-brother KII. In truth, the Kurosian dynasty was restored after a brief interruption by Hotan, at the same time as the Suloist ideology was restored after a long interruption by... the Kurosites.

Anyone with access to all the information might be tempted to suggest that Dra-pol's historic isolation was not in fact self-imposed but a conscious effort on the rest of the headache-suffering world.

--------------------


In Lyong, where he was also helping to convince evacuated Kurosites to stay on and work here while awaiting a return to power in Dra-pol rather than continue on to India when the Igovians finally got their aircraft carrier back in working order, Hotan also continued to speak on the changes in Dra-pol, as far as he was aware of them. The latest bit of information forthcoming -based presumably on his observations before leaving, but actually benefiting as well from espionage carried out against both Sul-Joson and other nations- was possibly opinion more than fact.

The Neo-Suloists, said Hotan, intended to turn the whole Drapoel nation into desperate ground, by which he apparently meant to reference one of Sun Tzu's nine types, and was possibly speaking of strategy and society more than some new epic feat of terraforming. No doubt this idea would be subject to future discussion and scrutiny.

--------------------

In Dra-pol, the confirmation of Comrade Suloko in power, though it took days, weeks, perhaps months (most people didn't know) to get out, was met with increased violence as Kurosites of all colours -Hotanite and traditional- made good use of the fact that Dra-pol's thirty-four million citizens shared their country with enough weapons to arm military and reserve organisations more than eleven million strong. The Unified People's Army, the Red Bamboo, the People's Rear Defence Organization, the Working Womens' Home Brigade, and the United Workers' Militia all contained strong elements supporting the Suloist ideals, especially where members of the last mentioned formation were actually old enough to remember the aftermath of the original revolution and the Directorature of Sulo himself, which didn't look so bad in the light of all that had come since.

But the degree of Red Bamboo support for Suloism was at least reduced by Kurosian I's reshuffling of his elite troops and security agencies before his assassination. The Banat as a whole remained fanatically loyal to Kurosian, and their combat wing was torn between Kurosite and Suloist pulls. Unfortunately, since Kurosian was dead, some of his support failed to transfer to the more radical Hotan, though he was a popular general in his own right. This was sufficient to see some good intelligence filtered to Republican fighters in the mountains and villages and hiding in the deserted towns, and that some weapons lockers were accidentally left open or convoys mis-directed. As importantly -perhaps more importantly for the manpower it provided the resistance- the Kuro Student Defence League was comprised of more than fifty percent loyal Hotanite youngsters: some of the most enthusiastic and fearless of all Drapoel people. In truth the 1.7million strong league was probably above eighty percent behind the deposed leader, with only the really weird kids and the maladjusted thugs very likely to have keenly joined the angry new movement of the Neo-Suloists.

The League was composed almost fully of high school students between thirteen and sixteen years of age, but such weakness actually meant that they were well suited to survival in the current situation. The KSDL trained to operate in the CPRD rather than in the ROK like the regular army, to operate without mechanisation, and to survive rather than to smash. Specifically it was skilled in observation and sabotage, and it knew exactly how to cripple Dra-pol in ways that the Quinntonians and South Koreans could only fantasise about. After all, it was a last-ditch home defence weapon that only acted as a filler during most offensive deployments and came into its own when the enemy were in the CPRD and things had to be kept out of their hands... by any means necessary.

Besides, the act of forcing a teenager's family into a tunnel and then bulldozing it shut or dropping in grenades had, it seemed, a way of drawing them towards sharp or explosive items.

(Just a bump for a slow-paced thread in which it's likely that people miss my rare updates. This, I choose to believe, is in keeping with the character of the nation.)

Things were not going entirely to plan in Sul-Joson. The Kuro Student Defence League along with elements of the Banat had caused serious problems for the Neo-Suloists under General Hozaro and his master Suloko, Cheung Bai-Sul. The Kurosites and Hotanites had infiltrated the surface layers of the junta's works, been part of the urban evacuations and seen to the hiding away of supplies and equipment there at the time.

The support of villagers for the Kurosites lead to an extension of ruralisation and displacement as even the villages were attacked as counter-revolutionary and indicative of division and property.

Very few members of the navy, air force, and of the vast Hotanite industrial complex were very long infatuated with the Neo-Suloists, soon realising that there was no place for them in Comrade Suloko's vision. Even those who were keen on the revolution went unspared. However, the pilots, sailors, and engineers of the CPRD weren't, by and large, executed, and they weren't, as such opponents would have been under Hotan, re-educated, rather they were sent with everyone else into the fields.

Millions were engaged in tilling fields, digging ditches, and building terraces for farming. All that Sul-Joson needed to survive was food for its population, and to get it without creating more needs such as through industrialisation, chemicalisation, electrification, and other Kurosite and Hotanite ideas that only made the Drapoel dependent on trade and property. There would be no need even for war in Sul-Joson, and so pilots toiled alongside the villagers and died in large numbers with the city folk.

Still, the armed Hotanites did little directly, except where they operated in total isolation. While the Suloists tried to wipe them out by chance in the building mountains of those worked to death, they bore it and waited, knowing that the empty cities and villages still held great strength and that Hotan was just across the border in Lyong... where comrade Oamarii-Il and others were lending their skills and experience to Strainist military projects, trying to reinforce the importance and value of a Kurosite Dra-pol, and the danger of the weapons they had left behind in Sul-Joson.

(Specifically the reference is to ballistic missiles, the most numerous of which in Dra-pol were Hwasong-6 500km-range missiles, of which three hundred were deployed. Beyond that, 1,300km-range No-dong 1, 2,000km-range Yong-Set, and 3,000km-range two-stage Kurosian I exist in much smaller numbers but formerly regular production. It should be noted that a 1.2km CEP with the Yong-Set was the best achieved, where No-dong and Kurosian weren't half as accurate.)

It will of course be quite a while until Hindustan's precious few reconaissance sattelites are committed to a comprehensive photo-mapping of Dra-pol, but there are already signs that something is seriously amiss in new Neo-Suloist Dra-pol. The most obvious is the destruction of the bridges into China. With the Yalu bridges destroyed, Hindustanis cannot imagine how Dra-pol expects to keep functioning, since it hardly has enough gasoline in the best of times. Over-the-horizon radar sets in the ROK have also consistently failed to pick up any Drapoel air traffic. At first this caused great panic, ROKAF commanders thinking that Hozaro's engineers might have figured out how to jam them, but it soon becomes clear that nothing is flying. Sattelite images confirm that airbases haven't seen any flights for days and most if not all aircraft haven't been moved for just as long.

But by far the most disturbing observations are made by survey sattelites which seem to show signs of no small number of villages becoming mostly or wholly depopulated. But since Mumbai is hardly certain, its sattelites hardly the most modern, a Canberra photo sortie is planned, the first HADF reconaissance mission ever flown over that country.

Taking off from Pohang, the aircraft makes for the nearby border to see if any Drapoel SAM radars lock onto it.

Germany never had any relations to Dra-Pol.


OOC: How can Dra-Pol survive? No aid, no supplies, barren land? 4% conscripts? I was going to make a tag on enacting a trade embargo along with stopping the oil from flowing into Dra-Pol, but it looks like almost every AMW country here has already done so.

OOC: 1) Why the heck should we have aid? 2) Barren land? 3) What in the world does Germany have to do with Drapoel oil supplies [from Lyong]? 4) How hard is it for people to understand that the Drapoel are the ones cutting links in the first place? 5) The CPRD had a rate of militarisation slightly below that of the real-world DPRK, while Sul-Joson does not have 4% conscription, and if it did, nobody would know about it. 6) What part of genocide feels like survival to you, anyway?
The tag I have no problem with.

OOC: Please, somebody invade Dra-Pol already...Does the world have no conscience? Eh, I guess there's the whole thing about a massive, fanatical conscript army, nuclear weapons, no Geneva convention restrictions, and a lack of knowledge as to what exactly is occurring, but...Arg! Even if this is fiction, I hate feeling so impotent...

Presidential Palace, Taegu
1500 Hours

Across the border in Geronia, President Choi watched the developments in Dra-pol nervously. With other larger powers calling for economic sanctions and even war with Dra-pol, the young president was understandably concerned with the welfare of his own country. If caught in the middle, Geronia would have no choice but to ally itself with the coalition of forces that would be attacking his Northern neighbor. However both the president and the military commanders knew that Geronia's armed forces were not ready to face the battle-hardened soldiers of Dra-pol. And with much of the country's economic structure still recovering and much of its civillian infrastructure still in ruins, the economy was in no shape to carry a major conflict.

The main concern of President Choi was that if provoked, Dra-pol forces would simply break through the line of defenders deployed at the frontier and race towards the capital at Taegu. If Taegu was lost, ROGA forces would still be able to fight back from Cheju-do Island and from other cities in Jeollanam-do and Gyeongsangnam-do provinces, but the devastation would be so massive that hundreds of thousands, if not million of non-combatants would lose their lives. He could count on support from those aiming to keep Dra-pol contained, but in practice, there was only so much he could count on.

The politicians in the National Assembly fiercely debated the course of action Geronia should take. Hawkish politicians such as the equally youthful Young Oak Lee argued for an expansion of the military's budget and an immediate deployal of ninety-five percent of ROGA forces to the Demarcation Line. Pitted against him were the older and more experienced statesmen who had memories of the past wars that had been fought against Dra-pol, including Park Tae Min who was in favor of a continued expansion of the economic powerbase and then a peaceful solution to the divisions between Geronia and Dra-pol.

The time was drawing near when Geronia would have to make its own decision, a choice which would affect the fate of its citizens and leaders once again.

-Thirty-five miles south of the border-

Floodlights filled the air with a bright glow as the vehicles of Geronia's Fifth Armored Division moved into positions. Consisting mostly of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and supporting infantry, the division was being moved in to bolster the already-entrenched units moved in along the border. Their alert status had been upgraded to Yellow, in response to the international calls to remove the Suloists from power. Fearing an attack by northern troops, the Geronian General Staff had quickly begun to move more troops north towards the frontier and had begun tightening their internal security controls. Heavy censorship was imposed on the Geronian press and although the government stopped short of declaring martial law, the military began to occupy positions within Taegu and other major cities, fearing yet another invasion from the north.

EXACTLY. Dra-Pol has none of those, and Germany has nothing to do with Dra-Pol.

The thing is, Dra-Pol has the Lyong nations. If Russia and China worked diplomatically to cut the line between the Lyong nations and Dra-Pol...


It's a bit boring over in Europe when 80% of your neighbors do not like you.

OOC: You'll have to TG Estenlands about that then.

OOC: Just a note that probably not much else will happen with Dra-pol until after the Obed saga finally concludes, because there's significant revelations to come there that I'd rather not pick at prior to then.
Anyway, DK, 100% of Sul-Joson's neighbours dislike it, stop complaining! :)

OOC: Ah, then stop talking and start posting dammit! We're all waiting for the Hotan/Obed confrontation! *Imagines Obed pulling out a sword, yelling that the whole cancerand wheelchair thing was just a ruse to lure Hotan into a trap, and dueling the Dra-Pol leader-in-exile to the death*

OOC: What's up with you and duels..lol;)

As usual, the Quinntonian government and military sits in Southern ROK in their massive military complex and in Hamhung staring across the Westgaard Line wondering what is going on. The lack of actvity across the Westgaard Line is troubling, but the many, many spy sattelites that constantly patrol and study Dra-pol start reporting a very large movement of people into what seems like forced Ruralisation. If it is indeed happening at the scale that it looks like, Quinntonina estimates are placing the casualties in Dra-pol at over 5 million people. The Quinntonian ambassadors start to contact various interested governments.

WWJD
Amen.

OOC:Quintonnia, woohooo.

Lyong

Hotan returned to the east feeling that he had finally stepped through doors outside which he'd lingered for months, sure that he would pass but unsure when to turn the handle, whether to step through with sword drawn or eyes shielded. The struggle was brought to action when he stood in the narrow isle of his diplomatic transport aircraft, hesistating before walking out and down the stairs to earth.

He returned to find his deputies in an advanced state of organisation in respect of his plans. Banat Corps officers from the Red Bamboo greeted their champion in formal style and escorted him to quarters near the Drapoel frontier. There he found assembled the bulk of his fighting men, those few dozens escaped during the Neo-Suloist coup. All now wore shortswords, many apperently made and purchased in Lyong, crafted under the supervision of Drapoel armourers and paid for from the small pool of foreign currency earned by the Hotanites through selling missile technology to the Africans. Most clutched the 6.5mm Kalashnikov-clone bullpup rifles of the Unified People's Army while others awaited their Director's purchase of similarly chambered weapons from the Spyrians.

Hard to miss amongst them, or rather looming over the party averaging under five and a half feet tall, were several long-haired white giants. Back on the level of the Drapoel heads were more foreign faces, keeping, due to the volume of the chests below, the Asian heads further apart where they appeared. Others did not stand out so much when respectfully or attentively silent, but a close look would identify mountain men from quite another part of the continent. They were no less battle-scarred than the handful of black bodies amongst the ranks.

"The men who sent these" said a Banat officer, stopping beside a number of former Gurkhas-cum-veterans of the Nepalese revolution, who had received arms and training from Hotan's agents before the Neo-Suloist coup, "are by now in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and more are continuing to the Union."

He moved on.

"Veterans of the Pripet and Hia'Itakchi, come from Yugoslavia with these" nodding from leathery barrels of men to tidily uniformed south Slavs, "to repay a debt of honour to the Choson People's Republic and pay in advance for technical services yet to be rendered. They bring arms."

"Geletians, come to reopen Korea..." "And damn the Chinese!" Interrupted one, "Aye, and the rest." Said another, following his friend's lead, having not understood the Banat officer's foreign words. "We bring weapons, too." Added the first. "New ones the quartermaster liberated for the cause."

"Eritrean Kurosites without any other home left to fight for." The officer explained, moving on to the Africans, "Some want to gain experience and allies so that their revolution might be salvaged."

Even as the Banat man spoke to Hotan, a line of trucks approached and soon were unloading men and crates. "Ah, the Libyans are here, Director."

Hotan stood back and looked slowly over the assembly.

"I shall make my requests to the Strainists. If we can secure their support, we shall contact the Student Defence League and move on the 1st."

Doctor Oamarii-Il, whose work might be currency in buying Lyong's serious support in Hotan's endeavour, looked on with doubt as to the wisdom of leaving Lyongian sanctury. "They are many, we are so few." He ventured, possibly hoping to mark the matter with his doubt before it all went wrong. Hotan didn't seem to hear him, and stood gazing at the international brigades as they met the Libyans and unloaded guided missiles and ammunition from the trucks. He then spoke as the doctor turned to leave.

"Better to go alone than with the rogue."

Hotan would find the sum of $100 million USD transferred to his account, as well as a contingent of 2,000 highly trained and well armed Russian mercenaries, arriving at his doorstep in Lyong. Along with the generous donation would be a note...

"We've chosen the lesser of two evils. Use our gift well, and serve your people with utmost kindness, or our goodwill shall one day become wrath."

THE APOSTLES

No less than ten crated DC-3s arrive in the Lyong Peninsula soon after the Foreign Ministry had heard of Hotan's call for volunteers. The Foreign Ministry is certainly an odd thing to call what is essentially an air commando and foreign adivsory unit, but they were indeed foreign and had the trappings of a government ministry. The Lavragerian volunteers would perhaps recognize some of the pilots arriving with the aircraft as the same ones who flew Li-2s and An-14s against the Estenlandic invasion force. Even the celebrated Vasiliy Podgordin, on leave from his current job in the Lav's new air force, manages to get into Spyr for a little much-needed adventure with a rented L-410.

Depending on the level of Spyrian support, the Foreign Ministry's headlining Air Transport Squadron might become a bit redundant, but it is widely believed that Hotan will be able to find a use for superbly trained and highly experienced pilots and the rugged DC-3s.

Probably more important, though, for Hotan's mission once in Dra-pol are the several thousand Indian (referring to the non-Gelatian portion) volunteers. The bulk of them come from Bihar, itself heavily influenced by Kurosite thinking, and the second largest number originates from North Hindustan's numerous Maoist and Kurosite insurgencies. The third most numerous group is made up of Commonwealthers, historically enemies of Dra-pol's reunification attempts, but now feeling a bit guilty for helping to create the current Drapoel paranoia. Not to mention, if recent sattelite photographs are to be believed, the Suloists are up to nothing short of a Saresque forced ruralization. In light of that it is even somewhat surprising that more Commonwealthers didn't show up.

Two full squadrons of Para-Sappers, some 200 members of the Indian Commonwealth's premier special operations unit, many of them veterans of the Sino-Nepalese War, are on hand to give Hotan support (wearing, of course, nothing to identify themselves as such), and perhaps another 350-400 volunteers from the Indian National Irregular Defense Force are also present. They bring with them a significant amount of weaponry, including baby 25-pounder howitzers, SPG-9 recoilless rifles, 82mm mortars and even some of the 82mm automatic mortars, knock-offs of the 2B9 Vasilisk that came in so handy during the war in Nepal.

Even the current Foreign Minister, Abdul Shareef, decides to accompany Hotan's adventure and comes to Lyong with several members of his staff, all of them armed to the teeth with AKMs and PPD-43s.

Upon receiving news of Hotan's preparations for retaking Dra-poel, President Choi called a meeting of his Joint Chiefs. Deep inside the military complex located beneath the Ministry of Defense, this small ruling council began to decide which course of action would be most appropriate.

"..as you can see, our formations around the frontier are sufficient to contain the fighting, should it spill over into the South," stated Major General Choi Chul Ho, head of the Northern Frontier Command. "There will be no repeat of the last war."

Kim Ju Woo, the infamous head of the GCIA, raised his head from the dossier he had been reviewing. "There are reports of our allies providing aid to Hotan," he said, pushing his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. "The GCIA would not be....unwilling to provide armaments to Hotan, seeing as our allies would be sufficient to keep him in check should be gain any terratorial ambitions."

"Give support to Hotan?" thundered General Chung Seung Han, commander of the Capital Defense Force and a staunch anti-Drapoel figure. "You would give support to a Northerner in this moment, after all we've sacrificed to get here!? You god damned trai..."

"Stop it!" lectured President Choi sternly, giving General Han a long serious glance. "The situation is already tense as it is; this bickering gets us nowhere."

"As I was saying," continued Director Kim. "Hotan and his men are not the same as the Neo-Suloists. I believe that if our allies have enough trust place in Hotan, that we can do the same. It would greatly benefit us if Hotan retook Dra-poel, we would all prefer him in power."

There was a long silence in the meeting room.

"Director Kim," spoke President Choi quietly. "How easy would it be for us to discreetly wire financial support to Hotan and his men?"

"Not particularly hard," responded the GCIA director. "Our allies are sure to know a way of contacting him."

The youthful president nodded once. "All right, get on the phone with the embassies and see what you can do. Then contact the Bank of Korea and arrange for a government transfer to the specified account of 10 million USD."

He sighed once, holding his head in his hands.

"The lesser of two evils."

une petite bump

The Estenlands take little interest in what is going on, other than to carefully place a few Kargat and KGB agents among teh Russian mercenaries. The Russian do look to see what, if any, the Quinntonian response will be.

Tsar Wingert the Great.

Several days had passed since the arrival of Indian sappers and volunteers and Russian mercenaries, and relatively little had happened. The Banat in Lyong were concerned largely with taking names and arranging units out of the rabble come to help.

Geletian volunteers who saw Hotan as the practical way forward and Bengalis who thought that the Igovians weren't sufficiently hard in the pursuit of world revolution, or just thought them too lazy for working so few hours each day; Eritrean Kurosites committed to the revolution and no longer with any prospect of pursuing it in their homeland without Hotan's help; Nepalese Maoists allied since Hotanite help to the revolution there; Lavragerian Glakatahn sent from Yugoslavia to return the favours of Drapoel lives lost over Ulanger; Yugoslavs themselves sent by Belgrade to supply arms, learn intense combat lessons, and advise whatever other rag-tag volunteers may turn up; Libyans sent by Qadaffi out of association with both Lav and Hotan; Russian mercenaries; Indian special forces; and more volunteers from across the sub-continent. Organising these was some sort of heaven-sent labour for the Banat and the Central Directorature in exile! Mostly, Hotan was concerned that every last Russian be recorded and remembered. He did not trust Russians (that was a Drapoel thing), and he did not trust mercenaries (that came from being a socialist and a military commander with battlefield experience).

Still, as the multi-national force lined up, armed in quite un-uniform fashion with whatever arms the various elements had brought, listening to Banat officers reporting on when and where they would find arms caches inside Dra-pol and just how to maintain and use the Korean weapons there in, they were outnumbered a hundred to one by the regular forces of the old Choson People's Republic. It was impossible to say whether Neo-Suloist militarism was more or less extensive than had been Kuroiste and Hotanite, and likewise hard to estimate what portion of that militarisation would support the returning Wisest Director.

Contacts were made over days leading up to the invasion by Hong Juk Banat Officers using their favourite frequency-hopping radios. The Kuro Student Defence League was, apparently, doing good work in the northeast, and Hotan's deputies went about their work with an air of confidence. Outside observers wouldn't have noticed the lack of confidence in these men previously, but it was obvious in contrast to their increased, well, shouting and strutting.

Briefings began on the old Northeast Defence District as it stood under the Hotanites, stretching from Hyeson to the East Sea coast at Ch'ongjin. The 5th Rocket Support Brigade with forty FROG launchers and six hundred assorted multi-launch rocket artillery pieces and the 5th Strategic Missile Field Regiment with fifty short-range ballistic missiles able to deliver conventional, chemical, and nuclear payloads further than Harbin, these, hopefully, would be operating far below potential, most of their heavier assets, reportedly, not brought out of cover. The 6th Field Artillery Brigade, 6th Mechanised Infantry, and 6th Armoured Bridage were thought likewise to be below strength, though armour was still operating. This, reported the officers, was a good sign. It meant that the last Yamani fuel shipments hadn't been moved out of the northeast, and might be recaptured early in the invasion. More than that, given Neo-Suloism's deep technophobia and isolation, it possibly was a good indication of the junta's weak influence in the area, and even suggested that Kurosite soldiers were continuing daily operation of their units.

Probably that was even a wider indication of the level of frustration inflicted upon the regressionist authority in the rest of Dra-pol by widespread popular resistance.

This sort of attitude was widespread amongst the Drapoel exiles, and it probably sounded a lot like blind optimism and planning based on hopeful guessing. To the Drapoel it was based upon the lead of the Director and the beliefs they held about their society firmly as the Quinntonians held theirs about God or the Igovians about their abilities to run their own affairs.

The 6th, 11th, 14th, and 23rd Infantry Brigades had an on-paper strength of eighty thousand men, all told, with four hundred mortars and as many low-altitude surface-to-air missiles, both Chinese QW-2 and Igovian/Russian SA-16, if either sort were still in operational condition. These formations were of the most concern, as their behaviour was less obviously indicative of Suloist or Kurosite leaning. The 6th Fighter Group and 4th Air Strike Group, with 108 jets between them, including three dozen potentially ruinous K-1 and K-2 attackers -known to the west as Feda-Kwong and Fitter- that could deliver serious air-to-ground firepower, were more likely to be in a reduced condition of operation. Spyrian radar could probably confirm ever reducing aerial traffic over the border.

Well, at least it was better than trying to get in through the Hamhung Defence District, or the mighty Southern.

Rank and file Hotanite infantry spent most of their time standing on watch around the staging areas, watching against the coming or going of possible traitors or those here to take advantage in other ways. A few dramatic murders continued to happen in isolation across Lyong, the victims often suspected Drapoel, but equally often impossible to identify due to, well, removal of identifiying features.

(OCC: Upon reconsideration, I think it would be best to leave the Para-Sappers out of Hotan's mission. After all, it might be rather harmful to Hotan's image, what with active-duty regular troops strutting around in his service. It could look like a Parliamentary plot. So yeah, might as well leave them out.)

IC:

The Indian volunteers, probably numbering in the 1,500-2,000 range by now, are all rather distressed to find that nowhere in Dra-pol are they going to find any ammunition for their Kalashnikov-family assault rifles and other assorted Russian and Chinese-origin weapons. INA irregulars were at least aware of this possibility from the start and the Foreign Ministry's small stock of captured Drapoel weapons was emptied within hours. Ten lucky individuals find themselves with Type 100 SMGs, and perhaps 40 more INA irregulars are able to get ahold of Drapoel-origin assault rifles. Once those are gone, nobody opts to place their survival in the hands of an Arisaka clone, especially one stored in the dusty basement of the Foreign Ministry's Jabalpur office.

Indian volunteers begin to form themselves up into various fighting units at the border staging areas, under the direction of their Banat commanders, while the air commando pilots spend no shortage of time with Hotan's officers. It is clear to most, if not all, that during the opening stages of the operation their use will be limited at best given the nature of Drapoel air defenses, especially at low level, but some begin to wonder if a night sortie carried out by a DC-3 or An-2 might be able to hit a fighter base and destroy a number of aircraft on the ground.

But most of the Indians occupy themselves with the intelligence briefings and weapons practice. With such a heavy numerical disadvantage, Hotan's force will need to be not only skillfully-led but also well-drilled. The irregulars are more or less ready, almost all of them having been ex-INA regulars and many of them veterans of the brutal Andong fighting, but the Biharis in particular are almost entirely inexperienced.

[OOC: Gah, apologies for posting delay]

The muster of a foreign army cannot help but have significant impact on a host nation, and that is certainly the case in Spyr.

Initially the influx of foreigners proceeds as normal through the regular immigration procedures of the Spyran bureaucracy: visas are issued from embassies and international traffic arrives at designated sea & air ports (in this case, likely Gochu/Vladivostok in northern Spyr). The Strainist Revolutionary Army grants the Kurosites use of a large tract of land in Gochu province, including the remnants of a refugee camp last used to house Xiannese refugees during the latest Chinese civil war. However, while agreement with Kurosite goals may be widespread in the SRA, the same cannot be said within the conservative bureaucracy.

In Sithin, arguments bewteen conservatives and the SRA intensify, and see the introduction of opposing PR campaigns within the general populace. Many Spyrans are left unsure as to wether they ought to 'support the moral efforts of their revolutionary comrades' or 'expel dangerous anarchists before they provoke the horrors of nuclear retaliation'. Unsure of where events might lead, Strainist scientists redouble efforts to drain Kurosite intellectuals of their secrets, particularly in the realm of long-range missiles and tunnel systems. Reconnaisance flights are ordered to keep a close eye on both Kurosite activities in Spyr and possible responses from across the border in the CPRD, while several units are told to redouble sounding efforts in case of Suloist tunnel penetration along the border.

Several Strainist embassies begin to restrict the issue of visas, while many surrounding supply depots refuse to transfer or sell materials to Kurosite agents. In response, the SRA opens its own stockpiles to make up for such imposed shortages, and whole units of 'volunteers' with SRA equipment arrive to join the growing Drapoel host. SRA officers appear with reconnaisance photographs, ostensibly to get the help of the Drapoel exiles in identifying CPRD units sighted therein.

Events come to a head when the Strainist embassy in Kathmandu closes its doors and refuses to respond to a wave of incoming requests for entry visas. For three days, the building remains silent despite a growing crowd of would-be volunteers outside, until the gates are opend and a flurry of visas are sent out bearing authorization of the SRA's military attache. The ambassador's body is returned to Spyr, his death reported as 'fatal psychosis'... after that, the Spyran bureaucracy becomes far more cooperative. The SRA takes posession of arms confiscated by customs officials, as well as fuel once meant for shipment to Dra-pol, and delivers them to Hotan along with queries about cooperative PsyOP and 'projective air defence'.

While the Hotanite army made its awkward self into a ready invasion force, the exiled Director continued to work for the preservation of his faction's favour in Sithin. He did much to play-down fears about Suloist capabilities and potential, and his delivery was from a position of authority and in confident language, but it was, as ever, coloured with the optimism of Drapoel order. Missile commands associated with the Northeast Defence District had been neglected for years, many of their reserve missiles moved to face China in the far west or south to replace those launched during the war, and the proportion of nuclear and chemical devices kept in the Northwest was reduced relative even to the decline in total weapons. This much was true, though Hotan could offer no proof that the Neo-Suloists wouldn't have relocated weapons to face Lyong, saying only that he was sure they would not, because they did not think outside of Korea, and because Kurosite resistance would have made it difficult, not to mention that, apparently, there was no certainty that the Suloists had even penetrated all of the Republic's nuclear-blast-proof storage bunkers in which was kept most of the military's fuel- they had no interest in it, he would insist, and under-ground these things were as good as out of mind.

Likewise, Hotan was able to state with apparent confidence that major tunnel works would not be under-way. The northeast was the least dug part of the country, and opening new tunnels to Lyong would mean extensive works for many miles through Dra-pol, after the relocation of major equipment. Most of the experts -engineers and geologists alike- were either here in Spyr or dismissed from their posts rather than utilised.

Attempts to reassure aside, Hotan does have in his control hundreds of millions of dollars, boosted by donations since his plans became known (this was a worrying aside, since, isolated introspection and self-obsession aside, the Neo-Suloists couldn't remain oblivious for long if everybody else knew), and he was not adverse to using wads of cash to paper over cracks in his relations with the bureaucracy, or more openly in pursuit of Spyrian weapons for use in restoring his government (or putting-down a revolt, as he would term it), noting that many Drapoel arms were accepting of Spyrian 6.5mm ammunition (though the exact configuration and loadings of the designed Drapoel munitions weren't precisely the same).

Certainly the Spyrians will find Hotan's amenability to prospective co-operation in a great many theatres increasing by the day.

A major item, now: he wanted something like four dozen Cholima Class hovercraft and Choson Class fast landing-craft such as those that escaped to Spyr to be copied and built, and presented the currency to fund it.

Gochu Province, PR Spyr

The Banat had gathered together the ranks of Hotan's international brigades along with all of his exiled workers and a camera crew. The Wisest Director came out to address the assembly, more than eight thousand strong.

He spoke on the situation, the causes and bonds that brought together such disperate peoples, and the severity of the danger facing them if they engaged with his plan, and facing tens of millions of Koreans if they did not.

Next, Hotan declared the end of an era. The Soviet Union was gone, along with the First Igovian Commonwealth, Sulo and Kurosian were dead, Maoist China was no more, and the Choson People's Republic -which he refused to recognise as dissolved as the Neo-Suloists insisted- was alone in the world. Yugoslavia's Socialist Federal Republic practiced command in only a portion of its economy, the Indian Soviets self managed, the South American revolution had abandoned pursuit of state ownership, Strainist countries flirted with market forces, and perhaps only the likes of Depkazia continuing with central planning on a nationally significant scale.

Coup and exile forced Hotan to what he may earlier have called revisionism. "If our revolution is to survive..." he said, indicating no intent to abandon Drapoel rejection of western norms. The Director said that this army would be fighting to save the revolution from suicide by suffocation in an atmosphere that had become unbreathable.

The people, he said to the volunteers and Banat soldiers, will join us, in recognition of the revolution's dire need for aid, and because the time has come for them to shoulder the final aspects of the societal burdon. Having fought to work, and worked in labour, they must now take from the Party the abstract and theoretical responsibilities of economy.

Restoration of the Hotanite Directorature promised restructuring and openness, following not so much post-Soviet but Strainist, Igovian, and Yugoslavian experiences to popularisation of control and relaxation of target dependence from the centre.

Hotanites hence forth shall be defined as those that have come to believe reunification must come after reform making north and south more alike, though still distinctly Korean; while Classical Kurosites -many of those fighting independently inside Dra-pol against the Neo-Suloists- change little in believing that Korea must be reunited by force of northern arms, and that cohesion will return in time. The Neo-Suloists, by contrast, are those that now believe current problems are due to an infection that is strongest in the south though also felt in the north, and which must be totally purged from Korea by killing 'sick cells', though these things may become apparent and understandable to outisders only once and if Hotan is successful in his invasion.

In another nation this might have been a national monument of some official sort. In Sul-Joson it was the unseen and forgotten site at which, the better part of a generation ago, Quinntonian soldiers came ashore for the first time, and where several of them were killed by a frightened young girl and her family. The village was now abandoned, hurt at the time by war with the Quinntonians, but finished-off by the Neo-Suloists, who regarded it as a shrine to Kurosite resistance. A few booby-traps remained armed, but civilian defence forces had long-since ceased to maintain them, and lookouts no longer watched the paths.

Nobody was around to hear the distant gallop of Hotan's horses: Cholima Class assault hovercraft.

They came, gliding up the beaches, quite unnoticed, after communication by frequency-hopping radio with Hotanites in Sul-Joson, and began, hurridly and with all possible stealth, to dispense their passengers. Behind them came Choson Class fast landing craft, armed with 14.5mm heavy machineguns to protect against soldiers and the unlikely arrival of aircraft. These guns were soon dismounted and given to the disembarked troops: they were the majority of those two-thousand Russian mercenaries sent to help Hotan.

Lieutenant Shin-kyun was taking by far his greatest command here, being amongst the few available Banat officers, and he set to it with enthusiasm, flashing his traditional short-sword to get the attention of his forces without yelling too much. He lead the Russo-Choson force inshore with all haste, assembling seventeen hundred and fifty men on the abandoned grounds of the village collective in which the CPRD and USQ fought their first brief battle. The Russians were put to preparing defences, a handful of Banat assessing the ground quickly, somewhat familiar with the near-sacred site after hours spent staring at propaganda images of the collective's grounds, and advising on where and how to prepare typical Drapoel defences of earthworks and improvised traps. With two-dozen dual-mount 14.5mm machineguns, hundreds of assault rifles, and scores of grenades, the small force was potentially powerful.

Before the work was far advanced, and while landing craft withdrew to Lyong, their passengers and cargo unloaded, the invaders were approached by an armed party...

...the large Kuro Student Defence League contingent was greeted with a raising of Banat spirits that would be obvious to their Russian charges, and over coming hours the teenage weekend warriors arrived in a trickle that made them several hundred strong. During this time, the mercenaries received orders to break-open the crates they'd earlier hauled ashore. Supplies, missiles, perhaps more communication equipment? No, Unified People's Army uniforms, Russian uniforms, Lyongian, Yugoslavian, Indian Soviet apparel. Whether anyone could be convinced, even in an intense battle, that a malnourished thirteen year old Korean girl was a Geletian Soviet-Marine just because she had lime in her hair and tartan pants was certainly questionable, but dispersed amongst actual Russian soldiers, the other foreign uniforms had the potential to make the desired impression: this was the invasion, a vast multi-national affair. KSDL fighters continued to arrive, boosting Hotanite numbers and appearing to create a substantial invading army.

Though the Neo-Suloists took introspection to a new level and had their backs to the coast, enabling the landings to take place, that very self-involvement made it impossible for them to miss for long the fact that Kurosite and Hotanite rebels were converging on a small area of the far east. It was not long before a sixteen year old lookout at the village cried-out in warning, Hong Juk! Hong Juk! and one of the Banat swung his machineguns around to lay two bursts of fire into the trees from which Red Bamboo infantry were emerging, delivering the first casualty of the counter-coup.

Lyong

With his forces packed up and ready to move on receipt of an order, Hotan went personally to Sithin to -it wasn't perfectly clear- request or inform on the planned movement of his main forces to the border and impending invasion attempt. He released informaiton on the landing, and admitted that the second offensive was not supposed to start until the Neo-Suloists had seriously committed themselves and, as an aside, sealed the fate of the unfortunate Russian mercenaries. It wouldn't do to have Russians walking around with information about Dra-pol, or taking credit for any success in Hotan's return to the Directorature, after all.

Seeing an emerging market the Austrian government along with Stille Inc., and The Gizatte Company ask if they could begin to build and/or operate stores within Dra-pol.

To: Your Majestic Ruler, of which the sun sets with sigh of sadness when it leaves your country, deity of the pennisula, gracious lord of logic, the stronghold of might.
From: The Delegation of Austria

We see a perfect opportunity which we both could recive great praise, wealth, and prestiege from. We need to over-shadow the new emerging Japanese companies by first getting a secure stronghold and to "but in" on their areas of excellence -namely durability and quanity- by showing we to can achieve thier goals.

You need almost nothing for your well run country other than a few well-priced odds and ends which could pull together the last few stray threads of your society back into the lace wok of productivity and contentment.

They are an realativly decadent object but it's own niche of purpose. It is the automobile, it could make the populance faster and more efficient, longer work hours ehh? Well anyhow, also is the lack of your populance to recive your ideas and thoughts fast enough. So why not upgrade your communication and television systems?

So we ask you to let us have permission to enter the country and seel our wares.

In respect,
Maxen von Bismarck

Hotan's arrival in Sithin, and declarations of intent to move forward, are greeted with mixed enthusiasm by the upper echelons of the Strainist Party (or, at least, of the Revolutionary Army). He is promised artillery and air support from SRA forces stationed in Gochu, along with some more unusual items (including an armoured train left behind in Lyong by the Imperial Japanese Army, crewed by some overly-exited Yamani), though he is warned that direct Strainist assistance may decrease if SRA forces are needed in other theatres. There seems to be a hope, perhaps overly optimistic given the nature of the CPRD, that Hotan will be able to establish himself and rout the Neo-Suloists rather quickly... the dream of military officers now faced with the possibility of greater conflicts breaking out around them in the near future. A few voices rise in concern over any 'poking of the hornet's nest', until word arrives from the usually-silent offices of the Party's chairman..."To preserve our Revolution, theirs must first be restored".

With that, Hotan has the assent of his Strainist hosts.

tag...

OOC: Hah, you bastard! Hotan gets a hundred million dollar donation, and this is how he shows his gratitude? Clever, damn clever...

You've certainly made a powerful enemy, though. Just remember that.

(Note: if anybody wishes to take partial or full control of units or characters originating in their nation, that's fine. Of course I'll be describing what the Drapoel officers tell them to do, and what situations they encounter, but if, say, Russia wanted to describe its men staging a mutiny, that's fine. Of course in that example it wouldn't do much good, since the Neo-Suloists still won't exactly shake hands with them once they try to turn-over their Hotanite officers, but that's not really the point I wanted to make! BTW, at the moment, nobody really knows that Hotan's using the lives of the Russian mercs like that, and he may still cover-up the exact nature of the operation, if he wins, and even end up touting the fallen Russians as heroes or something. IC post... well, I don't know, hopefully soon.)

The matter of whether or not anyone else knew it remained one of doubt, but the Kurosite wheel turned in the slightly radioactive breeze at Pyongyang. The reinforced runways of the air force city were scattered with aircraft pieces, body parts, shellcases, the wreckage of guerre à outrance in Dra-pol, or Sul-Joson.

Word of the landings across the mountains, on the distant east coast, and the Kuro Student Defence League's campaign of sabotage had compelled the People's Army Air Force personnel at Pyongyang to rise against the Neo-Suloists, who had largely ignored those that did not leave the base after their coup. Comrade Suloko had no need for an airforce.

Alas, the Republican flag over the city cast a small shadow over a scene no Kurosite victory. The Neo-Suloists had reacted furiously to the mutiny, directing multi-regimental forces in an attack that spared neither airman nor aircraft, personnel or family.

Even in failure, when combined with KSDL support of a landing in the east and a cross-border assault enabled by the Spyrians, multi-national forces, and Republican loyalists, the air force mutiny infused Cheung Bai-Sul with panic that was manifest in the export to Seoul and other places of his repressive acts in Pyongyang.

Already, Hotan's forces in the northeast had begun to discover that Kurosite-era tunnels had been deliberately collapsed by the Neo-Suloists, and that some empty villages had not given their residents over to forced labour but to living burial. Now, after Pyongyang, the nationalists were forcing entire populations into air raid shelters, defence tunnels, metro platforms, and people were going, to escape the fighting, only to be sealed in, often by explosives. In some few cases, Banat agents managed to make use of military access points within metro tunnels to save some lives and spread resentment of the nationalist cause.

Da'Khiem was again the stage for conflict as both factions fought on the walls and even around the Central Directorature itself.

In the northeast, Hotan's force progressed reasonably well against scattered opposition there, but, on the coast, the diversion had more or less concluded with a 91% casualty rate for the joint Kurosite-Russian force, including those killed and captured (and probably since killed), while a few -mostly walking wounded- attempted to flee either back to already departing landing craft or into the ever dangerous hills.

The Indian forces are, before anything else, happy to be across the border, even if they aren't so excited about fighting the Neo-Suloists. However, evidence of Neo-Suloist atrocities confirms the importance of their mission, if nothing else, and makes the Indians that much more eager to get the job done. The Biharis, under the leadership of Unioner NCOs, prove much better soldiers than expected, and with the support of the baby 25-pounders, they manage to beat-off several Neo-Suloist counterattacks.

Once they find a suitably flat piece of ground, the Foreign Minister himself, never one to miss a military adventure, calls in Vasiliy Podgordin's DC-3s, which evacuate casualties back to Spyr and deliver additional supplies, mostly shells for the baby 25-pounders. Flying into Dra-pol is, of course, terribly dangerous and Podgordin's pilots are careful to avoid flying the same route twice. Some DC-3s are also fitted with bomb racks, and while they aren't about to mount any suicidal night raids yet, Podgordin is in the process of selecting targets.