China got hit with a few weapons, but not nearly as many as Russia.
China is damaged, if you think of it as China has been knocked back 50-100 years, while Russia has been knocked back nearer to 1500.
Three Men, One Island - A Cuban Missile Crisis timeline
- Thread starter BurkeanLibCon
- Start date
China is damaged, if you think of it as China has been knocked back 50-100 years, while Russia has been knocked back nearer to 1500.
Indeed.
Arguably, his decision to attempt quarantine of Berlin was worse, seeing as it led to West German mobilization - and the fears of a Second Barbarossa.
And fallout.
I had a look at the SIOP 1959 targets for China and other places.
Moscow has 3 full pages of targets. Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou each have 10-25 targets. But what surprised me was that even rather unremarkable small cities like Sipingjie (in Manchuria, which would be completely destroyed as far as I can tell) or Ya'an (in western China) had several bombs earmarked for them. Though interestingly, Yan'an, the revolutionary base of the CCP, is not on the list.
If the US hit even half the listed targets I'm not sure China would be much better off than Russia.
Still, China doesn't have AS many bombs headed to it as the USSR/Eastern Europe. Lisichansk, one of the towns in Ukraine that the Russians captured in 2022, would get 4 nukes if SIOP was followed. Bakhmut (then called Artemovsk) has 15.
Gorky, which has survived ITTL, has almost a full page of targets.
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Chapter 13 – Shuō cáocāo, cáocāo jiù dào
Important Timezones:
- 19:00 D.C. time & Havana time (previous day)
- 00:00 London time
- 01:00 Berlin time & Bonn time
- 03:00 Moscow time
- 05:30 Delhi time
- 08:00 Beijing time
PARISH NOTICE: The phrase in the title is one I believe is equivalent to "Speak of the devil", but if it's wrong please do tell. Additionally, I am not familiar with Chinese names, so - to save myself from embarrassment - I haven't used them as often as I have used names in other chapters for fictional characters. The final overview chapter will be in Europe.
The old man closes his eyes. War has come back to his country, he feels a great disappointment that he will be unable to aid it against an enemy far greater in strength than the Japanese twenty years prior. Less than half a second later, he is at peace, permanently.
The soldier stays close to his radio. The ground above him shakes, he's thankful than these American nuclear bombs are not nuclear. He thinks of his mother in Changde. The thought that he may never see her again causes him to weep.
The woman in Changde holds the picture of her son, he's a soldier. She doesn't know what's happening on the Indian front, but she's determined to find out. She'll find her son if it kills her.
The officer stares across the table, the mystique of the man at its head has worn off now. He thinks he can recreate the Long March. No one else shares his enthusiasm, he's a mere regional functionary. A zealous functionary, but a functionary nonetheless. He has a point though, the world has ended for China innumerable times, and they'll survive this. Not even the Mongols had destroyed China, the American foe will simply pass them over in time.
The elderly couple sit on the floor in their house. The end of fifty long years has come for them. War, famine, plague, nothing could break them from one another. They embrace tenderly, awaiting their fate.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) hadn't meant to be dragged into World War III. Whilst the world was distracted was the Cuban crisis, Mao Zedong had thought now was the perfect time to seize disputed territory from his neighbour, India. In this endeavour, he was ironically supported by his communist rivals in Moscow, who ceased supplying military aid to India as a result.
However, fate has a strange way of screwing people over, and the undeclared Sino-Indian War in the Himalayas became part of the greater war when India bombed Gonggar. China had retaliated, striking the village of Thembang. That brought the Americans in. The promise of eventual American carriers showing up to aid the Indians kept Nehru in the fight, despite Mao decided that he'd achieved his goals and trying to implement a unilateral ceasefire. The Indian government had escaped A-Day lightly, the Soviet bombing of Amritsar had been more of an afterthought, a last-minute punishment for having sided with the Americans, as was the destruction of Peshawar in Pakistan.
China had also fared better overall than the Soviet Union did. Most of the Chinese population lived in the countryside, compared to the mostly urban USSR. Many cities such as Beijing, Wuhan, Nanchang, Shanghai, Chengdu, Ankang, Zhengzhou, Harbin, Changchun, Dalian and many others had been destroyed by SAC Bombers and ICBMs, many others besides had survived. Chinese fatalities from A-Day numbered over 190,000,000, greater than the Soviet death toll in raw numbers, but a lower percentage of the population overall. The real killer though was the destruction of the Yellow and Yangtze River dams as a result of the bombings. Over the next two weeks, around 50,000,000 more Chinese would perish from radiation poisoning. The next year would see the spectre of famine return for China.
Politically, the PRC had to contend with fractured national infrastructure and the breakdown of its civil authorities in many areas of the country, particularly in the north and east of the country. Local authorities often used bands of PLA soldiers to retain order and guard what food supplies remained. The central government in Beijing had been all but obliterated. The People's Liberation Army, much like the Beiyang Army before, was forced to take regional areas following the decapitation of central command.
The Republic of China on Taiwan had not been nuked, but some PLA Air Force jets had bombed Taipei with conventional munitions before being downed by Taiwanese jets. They were looking at the situation on the mainland closely.
The Hundred States and Myriad Sorrows Period had begun.
Further east, Japan and the Korean Peninsula had also seen the ravages of A-Day. The former had seen seven targets destroyed, the majority of them located in Okinawa while Sapporo and Niigata and the Toshima district of Tokyo on the mainland had been struck by surviving Soviet nuclear-armed fighters on de-facto suicide missions. For the Japanese people, the atomic bomb was nothing new.
In Korea, most damage had been done by the U.S. Air Force, striking over a dozen North Korean targets including Pyongyang (given multiple blasts for good measure), Wonsan, Chǒngjin and tactical targets along the DMZ. The DPRK government had been effectively wiped out in the process. In South Korea, Seoul and Sokcho were taken out.
No other state in Eastern Asia had been struck with nuclear weapons at the present time.
The American forces stationed in Japan, Korea and other states in the region were effectively stranded.
Footnotes
- [1] The Soviets also did this in OTL, only resuming aid to India after the Cuban Missile Crisis had ended.
- 19:00 D.C. time & Havana time (previous day)
- 00:00 London time
- 01:00 Berlin time & Bonn time
- 03:00 Moscow time
- 05:30 Delhi time
- 08:00 Beijing time
PARISH NOTICE: The phrase in the title is one I believe is equivalent to "Speak of the devil", but if it's wrong please do tell. Additionally, I am not familiar with Chinese names, so - to save myself from embarrassment - I haven't used them as often as I have used names in other chapters for fictional characters. The final overview chapter will be in Europe.
Chapter 13 – Shuō cáocāo, cáocāo jiù dào
4 – 18 November 1962
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
– Sun Tzu
– Sun Tzu
The old man closes his eyes. War has come back to his country, he feels a great disappointment that he will be unable to aid it against an enemy far greater in strength than the Japanese twenty years prior. Less than half a second later, he is at peace, permanently.
The soldier stays close to his radio. The ground above him shakes, he's thankful than these American nuclear bombs are not nuclear. He thinks of his mother in Changde. The thought that he may never see her again causes him to weep.
The woman in Changde holds the picture of her son, he's a soldier. She doesn't know what's happening on the Indian front, but she's determined to find out. She'll find her son if it kills her.
The officer stares across the table, the mystique of the man at its head has worn off now. He thinks he can recreate the Long March. No one else shares his enthusiasm, he's a mere regional functionary. A zealous functionary, but a functionary nonetheless. He has a point though, the world has ended for China innumerable times, and they'll survive this. Not even the Mongols had destroyed China, the American foe will simply pass them over in time.
The elderly couple sit on the floor in their house. The end of fifty long years has come for them. War, famine, plague, nothing could break them from one another. They embrace tenderly, awaiting their fate.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) hadn't meant to be dragged into World War III. Whilst the world was distracted was the Cuban crisis, Mao Zedong had thought now was the perfect time to seize disputed territory from his neighbour, India. In this endeavour, he was ironically supported by his communist rivals in Moscow, who ceased supplying military aid to India as a result.
However, fate has a strange way of screwing people over, and the undeclared Sino-Indian War in the Himalayas became part of the greater war when India bombed Gonggar. China had retaliated, striking the village of Thembang. That brought the Americans in. The promise of eventual American carriers showing up to aid the Indians kept Nehru in the fight, despite Mao decided that he'd achieved his goals and trying to implement a unilateral ceasefire. The Indian government had escaped A-Day lightly, the Soviet bombing of Amritsar had been more of an afterthought, a last-minute punishment for having sided with the Americans, as was the destruction of Peshawar in Pakistan.
China had also fared better overall than the Soviet Union did. Most of the Chinese population lived in the countryside, compared to the mostly urban USSR. Many cities such as Beijing, Wuhan, Nanchang, Shanghai, Chengdu, Ankang, Zhengzhou, Harbin, Changchun, Dalian and many others had been destroyed by SAC Bombers and ICBMs, many others besides had survived. Chinese fatalities from A-Day numbered over 190,000,000, greater than the Soviet death toll in raw numbers, but a lower percentage of the population overall. The real killer though was the destruction of the Yellow and Yangtze River dams as a result of the bombings. Over the next two weeks, around 50,000,000 more Chinese would perish from radiation poisoning. The next year would see the spectre of famine return for China.
Politically, the PRC had to contend with fractured national infrastructure and the breakdown of its civil authorities in many areas of the country, particularly in the north and east of the country. Local authorities often used bands of PLA soldiers to retain order and guard what food supplies remained. The central government in Beijing had been all but obliterated. The People's Liberation Army, much like the Beiyang Army before, was forced to take regional areas following the decapitation of central command.
The Republic of China on Taiwan had not been nuked, but some PLA Air Force jets had bombed Taipei with conventional munitions before being downed by Taiwanese jets. They were looking at the situation on the mainland closely.
The Hundred States and Myriad Sorrows Period had begun.
Further east, Japan and the Korean Peninsula had also seen the ravages of A-Day. The former had seen seven targets destroyed, the majority of them located in Okinawa while Sapporo and Niigata and the Toshima district of Tokyo on the mainland had been struck by surviving Soviet nuclear-armed fighters on de-facto suicide missions. For the Japanese people, the atomic bomb was nothing new.
In Korea, most damage had been done by the U.S. Air Force, striking over a dozen North Korean targets including Pyongyang (given multiple blasts for good measure), Wonsan, Chǒngjin and tactical targets along the DMZ. The DPRK government had been effectively wiped out in the process. In South Korea, Seoul and Sokcho were taken out.
No other state in Eastern Asia had been struck with nuclear weapons at the present time.
The American forces stationed in Japan, Korea and other states in the region were effectively stranded.
Footnotes
- [1] The Soviets also did this in OTL, only resuming aid to India after the Cuban Missile Crisis had ended.
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This section reminded me of the following passage by @Chipperback in his P&S “Land of Flatwater” timeline:
Grandma Margaret and Aunt May-May’s house in North Omaha.
”The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Grandma Margaret and Auntie May-May read together. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.”
Margaret and May were born exactly 4 minutes part. They’ve been inseparable throughout their lives.
They came into this earth together. They lived on it together. They met the Lord together.
I just wanted to ask: was yours inspired by it?
I have read that timeline multiple times, but it wasn’t conscious inspiration on my part.
Quick poll, Michael McCormick posits that 536 was the worst year to be alive because of the volcanic winter, do you think TTL's 1962 is a worse time to be alive than 536 AD?
Oh boi time for Warlord Period II Atomic Boogaloo. A China-sized Somalia-style anarchy would be horrific.
@Beatriz Fusion Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and Central Treaty Organization ?
Changchun, not Changchung aside, the fact that these are the named cities mean that it's very likely that the nuclear destruction was a primarily northern affair, with the southernmost of those nukes still being further north of the Nanling Mountains.
With that in mind, it's entirely possible that Southern China, consisting of Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, and parts of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Zhejiang (maybe even the southeasternmost parts of Anhui and Jiangxi), would be in a good-enough shape to stay as one country, potentially stretching as far as from Dali in the west to Hangzhou and Ningbo in the east.
I'd suggest using "Hundred States and Myriad Sorrows period" (百國萬哀時期) for this era of China (primarily Northern China of course, see above for Southern China). Chinese has a character for ten thousand (萬) and one hundred million (億), but not for one million.
Anyway, watched.
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Semi-jokingly, I can see future historians ITTL dividing the PRC into the 北共 (Northern ChiCom) and 南共 (Southern ChiCom) periods.
Some people would probably call it that way, or even 南共百國 (Southern ChiCom and Hundred States period) to emphasize that the north is ruined but not the sorrow bit to establish the possibility of hope.
Fun fact, apparently IRL there were a branch of Ming Dynasty royals who were sent to Anhui and fled to a rural village in Pujiang County, Zhejiang when the Qing took over [link in Chinese]. Take it with a pinch of salt if you will, since the only likely evidence is a Ming-era throne. If OP wants to create a neo-Ming Royalist state out of the far less ruined south, the Jinhua area is a good place to start one.
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It seems to me that the North Koreans, having experienced severe bombing just a few years before, would have contingencies in place to continue governance (if only via martial law) in the event of nuclear strike.
Assuming the DPRK is still a thing, I would expect the Korean war to restart instantly.
How many nukes/megatonnage hit China in total?