[h1]China[/h1]
[h2]Northern Heilongjiang[/h2]

	The early morning sun had barely risen over the horizon and the air was already all sound. The intercoms all about the base shouted and repeated out their message, “ALL OPERATING UNITS TO REPORT TO STAGING GROUNDS.” they roared, broken and cracking from static, “STAGING OPERATIONS FOR SOUTHERN WINDS IN FULL EFFECT....” and then it would go on to give the count down until expected time of deployment. A list of units would be rattled off, calling out specific operating groups, regiments, and so on. Every light in the base was thrown on and the barracks, the garages, and the command center was glowing in a harsh glowing yellow light. The roads were bathed in the incandescent headlights of trucks, tanks, and what have yous.

	The chaos was no less condensed in the command center. Standing with a clear view over the staging grounds the officers inside could look out and watch the quickly assembling body of soldiers in the cool morning air. But none of them had the time. The officers in charge of communications were deep into organizing the coming efforts with their fellow associated combat forces. Where radios were not being used, they had jumped to phones and were scratching out notes to hand to cadets and lieutenants who rushed them to relevant departments. Someone somewhere was contacting the closest airbase checking in on and organizing for support from light bombers and aerial reconnaissance. Someone elsewhere was checking ahead on intelligence operators who were supposedly clearing the ground work ahead, and had in face been there since before the deceleration had hit the floor in Congress. In many ways, the war had already begun before it was called official and now it was only an effort of the public army to advance it.

	“What's the time table on the engineers to Wu'erka Island?” General Aiwen Wu asked over a phone as he paced his desk. While his uniform looked press fitted and professional, the speed of the morning had left the rest of him disheveled. He looking into the window without looking passed it, desperately trying to comb back hair which was still disheveled. He had on his desk an open shaving kit and a bowl of water he not touched.

	“Our last report says they're there and ready and making preparations.” a woman's voice on the other end said.

	“That is good to hear. Do we have a way into the country, to the banks of the Amur?”

	“There is a dirt track.” the engineer correspondent said, “It'll get you there most of the way. You'll find it at...”

	The engineer went on getting map coordinates. And like his sub-ordinates elsewhere he took down notes on this last minute information and jotted down what extra was needed.

	“Thank you comrade, we will be moving on shortly. We will keep the local team posted when we can. I expect us to be there in two hours.”

	“Copy that. I will try to patch a notice along to them before hand. They are pretty cut off up there.”

	“As I understand the situation. Thank you.”

	“Farewell, commander.” the correspondent said, hanging up the phone. Liberated from those duties he finished setting his hair and recapped his head. As he went to shave a subordinate walked in, he began to speak but Aiwen Wu directed him quickly to the note on the desk. He took it and broke out into a run through the door. For a second, he had the peace to shave.

	“Comrade.” a new officer said, “The second armored support group is reporting problems starting one of their vehicles and won't be able to make it to the staging grounds.”

	“My orders to them then are to stand down and fix their problem. They have eight hours to catch up.” Aiwen Wu slid his razor up his neck as he carefully watched himself in the reflection of his window. He was half paying attention to the gathering assembly outside.

	Bit by bit, entire squadrons or units would file in with their trucks, and stand attentively alongside waiting for orders. For those without the fortune, they were stuck to loiter with the armored cavalry, standing with the tank crews with the expectation they would perch themselves on top for the duration of the journey. There were later units to follow, but these consigned to the primitive realm of horse drawn carriage. By mid afternoon they were expected to be on their way once this vanguard had entered first into Russia.

	“Commander Wu, it is nearly time.” an officer said, passing by the command center. He turned and nodded to him. And adjusting the collar of his coat and his hat in the window, he turned to head out the door.

	There seemed to be a relieved sigh as the time came. At Aiwen Wu's appearance in the halls many of the officers looked up and rose from their seats. Those that followed were individuals of a specialist nature. Communications operators, supply detail, commanders of operational security, and intelligence organizers of the internal and for-the-locals variety. The followed their superior officer in a hung silence that carried itself between the men like a shared silent burden. They were threaded by their professional attitude. And straight backed and firm shouldered they moved onward into the coming battle, the ideal figure to the men for bearing the weight to come.

	Those on watch duty saluted the passing officer corp as they passed. Aiwen relieved them as they passed by returning the salutes. These were the men who would stay behind and as the bulk of the garrison headed north. Stepping out into the cool morning air Aiwen took a deep breath. If there was a point at which he felt he could turn back, in felt it would have been the threshold he had crossed. Though in reality that had long been crossed for him and he hadn't had the power to say no. All that he could hope was that all moving ahead would run smoothly.

	From here to Eastern Mongolia, units under his command would be beginning their own first moves in a vast operation to flood into Eastern Russia. It was expected that for the first few weeks they may take the cossacks by surprise. By the information handed over by Radek's men it was believed the communications ability of the cossacks were entirely limited. It was not felt they had many radios or means of radio communication or informants on the Chinese side to alert them. For all intents and all hope they would be coming in from the dark, behind the fog of war and the first movements of refugees would carry the news to the warlord hetman of the east that they were on their way. At the crossing of the Amur, time would begin ticking to their first engagements, whatever form it will take.

	But for now it was a cool northern Chinese morning. The sky was clear, the first rays of sun was blooming. A dew was on the trees, and the northern mountains from their forested valleys to snow-cap crowns were glowing a summer's orange.

[hr]

	“So where are you from?” the young private asked, leaning over his rifle as he leaned in towards the center of the truck. He was addressing another young grunt like himself. Both had to be no older than nineteen. Perhaps eighteen. For the past few months it had not been unknown that something was going to happen, and up until a week ago they had not been told if they were participating, but everyone had prepared as if they were. While the men on the truck had only gotten five hours of sleep the previous night with all the last-minute work they had to do to check and prepare, the two privates were far too excited and anxious to let the jostling of the truck put them to sleep.

	“Liaoning, just across the river from Korea.” the other private said. He was small framed, his green field uniform hung loose from his frame and his pudgy baby-ish face made his entire head look far larger than would fit the black wool cap he wore. The military uniform was a green field jacket, and off-brown also slightly greenish pants tucked into black boots. In some form or another all the men on the truck wore some sort of soft hat, a black fur cap with side that could be pulled down, a linen hat that was as flat as a deflated balloon. A few had been afforded helmets, decades old tin crowns with wide brims or formed tight to the head like the German helmets; without the spike.

	“Oh no shit? I'm from western Jiangsu.” said the first. He made an attempt to smile politely but it was a strained effort. He was far too nervous and his leg jumped as they drove along. His usually flat cheeks folding out. Suddenly he became self conscious and he frowned, and it returned to being long. He had the first hints of a potential beard on his chin, but thinned out as it followed his jaw line. “What's it like living so close to the Imperialists?” he asked, referring to the Japanese.

	“There are a lot of emergency drills. Sometimes you can see them across the river.” the other said, “I never caught your name. What is it?”

	“Su Song.” the first answered, doing his best to bow from his seated position.

	“Wu Hong.” the other said, “I think I've seen you a few times on the parade grounds, and in the cafeteria. I didn't think you were in this unit.”

	Song laughed nervously, “I had just been assigned here.” he said stiffly.

	“I've been here for only less than a year.” Hong laughed.

	“Yeah?”

	“Yeah.” Song sniggered, “So what do you think? Did you ever think you would end up in this?”

	Hong shook his head, “To tell the truth I was never looking for adventure.” he said, “I just wanted to get out, is all. But it looks like I'm going all the way.” It was no lie. He had never hoped to see himself on campaign anywhere, that he would wile his time in some base somewhere for a year or two, and come out calling himself a veteran. Then he would go home, and get married. Now the looming future threatened that fantasy, and he wasn't sure if he would survive his year, or if he would even be given a year, and end up staying longer.

	“I was sort of hoping we would be going to war against the [i]dajiao penzu[/i].” Song responded, “But I guess it's the Russians now.”

	“Are you really that excited?” Hong asked.

	“A-a little. I figured at some point it would happen, whether or not I was in. Given where I come from, I would be in the middle of it. I might as well be fighting.”

	Hong nodded grimly, “So, do you know anyone who ever fought before?” Song asked.

	“Between my dad and my uncles, my family had been in every battle in the northern theater!” Hong declared boastfully, “It was only natural that I should follow, I think.”

	“My uncle fought, but he was killed by the Japanese. My father would have, but he was so injured before the war from illness he couldn't have marched.” Song admitted, he felt shame in admitting it.

	“Well, then you will be the first.” Hong told him, “There is no shame in that.”

	Song twisted his mouth back up into an insincere smile. He doubted that was the case. But hoped that his new friend across the way would believe him. Truth be told, his heart weighed heavily at the prospect and he began to consider how long this might last. He began to consider what they had been told.

	They would be going to fight a Cossack named Yuri Mykhalov. Once, he commanded the Amur Host, the right hand of the Czar in former times who clamped down on all of his opponents and were the defacto presence of reactionary power in the Russian far-east. Since the occupation of the Amur Host's territory by the Japanese, an embittered Mykhalov managed to bring the rest of the Siberian hosts under one banner, reaching from the Bering Straights to the Ural Mountains. Ostensibly at first as an Anti-Japanese force to preserve what little remained of Russia in Siberia, but also as a ruthless army of cut throats who terrorized the entire Siberian countryside and lynched political enemies.

	They had declared themselves to the Czar in Saint Petersburg, but had no means of coordinating with anyone in Western Russia. Ill equipped, ill armed, they were a pocket of Russia lost in the 18th century. Optimistically the generals proclaimed they would be at the foothills of the Urals by the following summer, at which point those who would could take their leave of the army, being a veteran of a campaign of bringing peace and proper, popular rule of law in the Russian Far East under a real state of the people, for the people.

	Song did not know how much of that was truth. But he had heard nothing about any of that and he had to go along with it. Truth be told he had never seen a Russian, though he was told they looked very much like any European. And remembering the Japanese, whose outer extent they would be temptingly close he said to Hong in false modesty, relaxing his smile, “Perhaps you might be able to fight your wokou.”

	He took pleasure in that thought and he shifted about in his seat, laughing. Outside the country scenery passed by. The headlights of the troop carrier behind them casting its long golden glow against the road and into the canvas wrapped shelter of the back of their own.

[h2]Foshan[/h2]

	“Captain Arban, Huang Du.” the senior officer said, as he welcomed the two agents into his office. It was a small room, with two pairs of windows looking out onto one of the many canals of Foshan city. Mid afternoon, and the city outside was full of life. Through the closed windows the municipal speakers were prattling of the latest in local news which was ultimately meaningless to the two agents now entering, if any word could be plucked out. “I've read your after action reports. I would like to collect a formal report for the commander to send along to the Dragon. Please take a seat. And can I interest you in anything to eat?” the commander finished, asking them politely.

	He was by no means a remarkable man, with a pencil thin mustache and round spectacles. But unlike the Japanese like officers he almost emulated his face was larger and complexion darker and marked by slight imperfection.

	“That's not necessary.” Arban said.

	“Please I insist. It is not like I will hold it against either of you.” the officer said, standing up behind his desk.

	The office wasn't very large, and the three of them easily dominated the room, barely larger than a broom closet. Then again, the outward supporting office for the Southern Qíngbao Ju in Foshan wasn't a very large or conspicuous structure anyways. It was a far cry from the sub-command office in Hong Kong, but they had not docked there or performed their reporting duties in Hong Kong.

	“My wife prepared some brilliant dumplings. They are vegetarian though, I hope you do not mind. But they have to be better than navy rations.” he explained, walking over to an ice box in the corner of the room. The thought of the navy, let alone its rations made Arban's stomach turn and he lost a little of what appetite he had.

	“It's really not necessary comrade, really.” Arban said.

	“Please, you must.” the officer said, “I can't eat all of them, and I think by refrigerator might be going. I don't want these to go bad.” he had already come back and placed a small basket of dumplings down on the desk between them. “There will be no refusing.” he said.

	Huang Du was quick to appreciate the offering, and took a dumpling in hand. “So what was the ship you encountered?” the officer asked.

	“A Filipino ship. Or at least that's the flag I saw.” Huang Du said, “It was passing out of the Gulf of Tonkin into the general South China Sea.”

	“How'd you come to locate it?”

	Huang Du was biting into the dumpling. So Arban answered, “We had a call come in over the radio from the navy's aerial recon indicating there was a ship heading in the direction of Vietnam. We set out to intercept it on what we thought would be its return course. We found it later that morning.”

	“When'd you set out?” the officer asked, himself taking a dumpling.

	“The evening before.” Arban said.

	“How was the sea?” the officer asked, almost off handidly.

	Arban didn't want to answer. And Huang Du did for him, “He didn't like it. But the conditions were rather calm. It had been a long time since I've been out on the water, comrade.”

	“So the Filipino ship, did it not make any retaliatory measures against you? Did it see you as a threat?”

	“I don't think it ever knew we were there.” Huang Du answered, “Or at the least made no effort to let us know it acknowledged us.”

	“It passed us by.” Arban added on, “If it suspected something, I believe it might have figured well enough to not cause an incident so close to China's maritime claims, if not within them.”

	“As a commanding officer, while not yours, I am in a position to offer any conjecture or thoughts on what we uncovered. Do you have any thoughts that pertain to this matter that you would like to put forward?”

	“I do.” Huang Du said, as he collected himself another dumpling, “That primarily I do not believe the Philippines could actually be a significant player in this conflict. That they could not be the force that's seen the north fall under the same, new banner. If I had to suggest anything it's that the Philippines may be acting as a front for someone else. The Japanese perhaps, of America. It's hard to say because I can't say we have any evidence for that. If it were the Japanese I would suspect they would make a more brazen attempt, especially if Indochina is not loyal to France.”

	“On that line of thought,” Arban interjected, “I would suggest it's perhaps the French. But any further measures taken to get a fuller sense on what is happening in Vietnam would require knowing what the northern Vietnamese are being armed with. If investigation is going to be continued, I would recommend operations to acquire the supplies being shipped into the country as evidence on the case. Or even working on infiltrating the Philippines to determine if they are operating as a third party.

	“Beyond that, I do not feel I am in a position to recommend anything further. I do not know what Politburo or Congress's aims are towards Vietnam. And anything I could say on that is beyond my rank and my duty.”

	“Very well, thank you comrades.” the officer said, “I think we can prepare this for a full report. You can speak with the secretary on your way out, she will organize the tickets you need to get back to your base. I imagine you'll be asked to debrief again. I don't know what else is being done, but I wish for you the best.”


[h1]Kazakhstan[/h1]

	Guo and Chao crawled up the hill. In the setting evening light the town below them was starting to twinkle in the fading sun. Not entirely with electricity, for out from the city center they familiar wavering and wiggling of fire light and the off-color glow of closer lanterns throwing out their dim glow against the dawning night. Several miles back they had pulled from the main road, a dirt highway they had stumbled upon from out of the blue and then began following it at a random direction, hoping it would lead them somewhere. When the first of the scant motorized traffic they had encountered since China began to appear on the road, they had chose to avoid suspicion and to abandon the road entirely. And as they had when they crossed the Chinese border began to navigate the rugged hills of eastern Kazakhstan.

	It was slow going, and although now in the height of summer the nights felt numbingly cold. But the clarity of the nights the glow of a distant city was a clear marker over the not-so-distant horizon and they oriented themselves to that as they ambled blindly through a foreign landscape. Sometimes getting lost, sometimes stopping to fixing a problem that had come up from driving off road. At a point, a stone had punctured – or nearly done so – a tire and they had labored for the better part of several days trying to patch it from the odd supplies they did have. It turned out they had no means to properly patch a tire, but super glue had some how made it into their supplies, and with that, hope in the machine, and an air pump they had set the motorbike right. At times even they would surrender and collecting their belongings they would both take the vehicle onto their shoulders and hump it through the wilderness. It felt both too hot, and cold in Kazakhstan's naked openness.

	They had believed for a time they would need  to replace the Chinese license plate that they had. That being on the road with it would be suspicious and attract too much attention. And meeting their first other vehicle on the road had become the impetus for them to do their best to hide, whatever the labor so as to avoid arrest and possibly being sent back home. Neither knew exactly what sort of power China had, if nomads like them would even be returned to China. But still too, if nothing else they would not be treated friendly beyond for being Chinese nationals.

	“How many of them do you think have a motorcycle, a car even?” Asked Guo. Since being on the road, Guo had begun growing a thick heavy beard that hid his round boyish face. Between the growing beard and the acne scars he looked to be taking on the tiger-like face of Guan  Yu. Chao meanwhile had the sort of disposition that did not take kindly to facial hair, and it came in uneven and weird. In the reflection of their motorcycle's mirrors he had tried to shave with a knife, doing more to often tear the hairs out then properly cut them clean. For that what occurred was patchy and uneven, mixing baldness with thin pastures of short uneven black hairs.

	“It's worth the shot.” Chao said. He sounded tired. He felt worn to the bone. Exposure to the sun for as long as they had both been out had only made he and Guo's complexion darker and redder. Their hair was filled with sand, and all changes of clothes had become dirty and smelled like gas; most of which was becoming numb to them. “Listen, I'll go in and see if I can find something. Anything. I'll come back when I do, stay here and watch the camp.”

	“If you insist.” Guo answered him, looking back at the camp. It was not much. Empty food packaging littered the dry grass and rocky earth, and the remains of a small fire sat smoldering, flanked by what was probably a bed, little more than a mat of grass they had pulled up, small pillows, and a coarse military-style blanket. The bike stood somewhere off to the side, and all of it in a low dip between two rocky hills.

	“But what happens if you get caught?” asked Guo.

	“I'll try not to.” Chao replied.

	“That doesn't fucking answer my question.” Guo spat, “What if you get caught?”

	“Then if I'm not back in a few hours... Do whatever you want. Go home or keep moving.”

	“I'll fucking go home then.” Guo joked, “Shit ain't worth it without someone to complain.”

	“Alright, I'm off.” Chao began, standing up. Half way down the hill Guo shouted out.

	“This plan, I think this means your head is full of water.” he shouted

	“And you're not too bright either!” Chao called back, “But perhaps if you have any better ideas, you might start by re-routing the Yellow River to here.” The two of them laughed, and Chao went back to the purpling evening.

	It was deep into night as Chao came close to the city. By this point he had stepped into green pasture and groves of trees. The city itself obscured by forest. But even out here, there stood a few shacks illuminated through the brush by the faint gas lights at the windows, or the bleating of goats. Chao went to those first, and began creeping about the periphery searching for something to use. Or something to steal. But between each shack he found little in the way of anything. Keeping out of the light cast from inside, he could hear the evening chatter of the occupants and families inside; sometimes fights, sometimes joking. But that was all inside. Outside he found only goat pens, piles of junk, abandoned carts. There would be sometimes small vegetable gardens, or someone would have tried farming as he came closer to the city and there would be wide open fields.

	But, there was nothing of use. What there was was junk, left to a pile and forming sort of informal fences along the road side; themselves little more than dirt goat paths snaking through the green wilderness. There it would be lit from the light of some outskirt shack, or a tent reminiscent of the Mongols or the Uighur, either made of real animal hide or something rehashed and modern, looking tattered and gauche. But over there it would be a blanket of blackness as the last smoldering rays of the sun disappeared and the stars popped out in force.

	Chao began to think back to home as he wandered in the direction he thought the city was. Comparatively, here was no different than some of the western rural settlements, or places like Urumqi weakly lit by electrical lighting. But unlike those towns, those villages, those cities they passed through on their cross country trip there was a sense of order and ancient practice in the methodology that appeared there. But in this country, either it was so new or so little done there was no real thought to the practice. More often than not as he walked he did not so much fear being robbed by someone hiding in the brush, but tripping over some collected garbage somewhere. There seemed to be no way to collect and centralize it here in these parts, and as he walked about he concluded these people must be far behind what could be called the civilized world.

	Then he came to a creek, and realized he had wandered from any sort of path and he starred across its inky black waters to the now closer glow of the city behind it. He looked about himself, hoping to see some kind of bridge only to quickly realize that of course, it was the middle of the night, and that at the edge of some creek there was nothing but thick brush to obscure his vision and he had wandered through an opening and now stood on the muddy bank.

	He knew better to doubt water, and he would not try to wade it. It was also getting cold, and being wet would make him miserable. Wisely he turned back and trudged up the hill and began following the dark suggestion of the creek until he found his bridge, a ramshackle crossing of thrown together boards of wood that creaked and threatened to snap under his feet as he crossed. It frightened him, and he did not wish to stop or spend any more time on it than was necessary.

	Hens cackled nervously as he cross over into the neighborhoods across the creek. More than a few goats bleated at him and he shirked back from those houses. Dogs too barked, but as the settlement became denser, the road becoming less a mule track and more a dirty street none of this seemed to be much worry. It was as dark here as it was lit, and the competing dim lighting of candles and lanterns threw odd shadows against one another until everything felt as dark as if it were unlit. He strained his eyes in this odd twilight where he could not see right.

	But for what he could see, nothing looked much different than the trash collecting on the other side. Seeing many of the homes they looked like little more than bare cinder-block shacks with cheap sheet metal or re-purposed wood. There was an eerie barbaric, primitive nature in the architecture Chao felt, far divorced from even the poorest models of shacks and single-room homes of China. Farm animals seemed to roam free, and at one intersection a small tribe of goats munching on scattered refuse in the streets. In the faint light they looked up at him and bleated, and feigning disinterest trotted away.

	He did not know how far in he managed to go, but Chao managed to find something. Chained to the side of a gate was an old motorcycle with bent and rusting wheel fenders. He knelt low to check it out, warily looking around him suspecting he was being watched. He looked down to below the seat and found...

	Nothing.

	Puzzled he looked closer, and lower, but found no plates. He snooped to the front, and found no such plates, above or below the head light or anywhere. And he found no identification on the side of the vehicle.

	He began to wonder if it was possible to go without plates in Kazakhstan, and his curiosity got the better of him. He rose to his feet and ran off deeper into the town, finding what motorbikes or other transport he could find. But all of them, as he could tell, had no plates. But his combing was cut short as he heard voices on the street. Looking up he spotted a large staggering group of people. In coarse loud voices they sang drunkenly as they shuffled down the street. One of them saw Chao, and shouted out. Or at least he thought he was being pointed out.

	He decided he had been there long enough, and bolted.

[h1]Dragon Diaries[/h1]

[i]Li Chao[/i]

[i]July 4th, 1960. The year of the metal rat.[/i]

	Kazakhstan it would seem is a harder country than we would have thought. Much of the country as we've been in is largely without roads. We have ridden alongside the foothills of mountains through brush and forest. Looked up at rocks and bathed in springs. But our clothes are feeling dirtier and Guo and I are afraid for our provisions. The previous evening we found that the fruit we had brought was beginning to mold, and we had to toss out half our apples. What we have left in terms of fruit is canned and it seems we lost our can opener. We still have a few tools, and there's no shortage of rocks to help us open them, but it's no surprise we sometimes lose it. So for the first time, we made the mutual decision to start rationing. I would like to say it was an easy decision, but I could tell Guo wanted to argue it. But he restrained his protests and conceded to what had to be done.

	All the same, we are both growing thick beards. It is strange to see either of us not clean shaven and Guo looks like a soldier out of some Warring States battlefield. I made the comment to him, and he told me to fuck off. His beard it seems is very itchy.

	I can not say I blame him. With out any way to sharpen or keep our razors clean now I've been forced to let my beard grow in. But it bothers me too and I've been trying to cut it with a knife, or scissors, or whatever we have on hand. The effects have been far from appealing, and although it looks terrible I'm at least without comfort. For his complaining though, Guo seems intent on keeping his.

	We end the day though finding a real road, or what looks like one. To tell the truth it is completely unpaved, but it's wide enough to be one. But as we rode down down it, to call it a road would be asking too much from it and even driving down it is catching fish in a tree. But too our surprise and our horror, it is used. A rather sorely beaten truck that looks to be as old as either of our dads bumped past us going the other way with an entire bed full of chicken cages. It would have been funny, seeing a site we often saw in town on such poor roads until we realized we were on a road used by actual cars! The decision was made quick to leave, and knowing what we had not seen in so many days did exist in this country we knew we would need to find something to hide ours.

	There is one thing I do not want, and that is to be caught. I do not know if I and Guo will go to prison or forced to return to China. We have come so far, even if we are not half way. It would be a shame to have to go back.

	But damn whatever happens. We will follow the road, but at a distance. We crossed the steppe as we left China, and we will continue to do so without roads, conditions stay the same. We at least do not need to worry about the rain, the weather here is dry.