Yan'an Offensive

The Yan'an Offensive was a series of battles fought by the United States Armed Forces to destroy stealth technology in the city of Yan'an in Shanxi province, the historic birthplace of the People's Republic of China, during the later years of the Sino-American War.
==Background==
===Prelude===
Nearly 150 years before the Sino-American War, after the Kuomintang launched a purge against the fledgling Chinese Communist Party the survivors fled from southern China for Shaanxi, a poverty stricken province in north western China. The Long March, as it came to be known, became a foundational myth for Mao Zedong and the People's Republic of China, with the provincial capital Yan'an being a place of pilgrimage for the Party and its members. It was venerated as the birthplace of the People's Republic, and many government policies attempted to replicate the successes of early Party cadres in Yan'an.
By the 2060s, Yan'an had long since passed from a foundational myth into a legend. The city was both a historic and industrialized heartland, with goods produced there ranging from consumer goods to heavy industry being made there. The propaganda value given to factories within the city was immense, with citizens there experiencing a standard of living comparable to the capital Beijing, and a transfer to Yan'an was highly prestigious. When the People's Liberation Army invaded Alaska and began the Sino-American War, Yan'an's factories went into peak production, an event initially accompanied by large amounts of propaganda fanfare. However as the war dragged on Yan'an became a closed city, and transfers there were ended in 2071 without an official reason given.
===US Invasion===
When the United States invaded mainland China in 2074, their initial efforts were focused along the coast of eastern China. It quickly became bogged down in urban warfare in Shanghai, and the offensive tightened its focus on capturing the city and territory along the Yangtze River. The war turned into a stalemate, as the US was unable to achieve their goals, and even the use of early power armor failed to deliver the full break out American generals desperately craved.
As the front line stagnated in eastern China and Alaska, the United States decided to attempt to break the growing stalemate by opening a third front. The Gobi Campaign saw American special forces units deployed to Inner Mongolia, where they were ordered to harass and sabotage the Chinese in any way they could. This guerilla warfare spilled over from Inner Mongolia into neighbouring provinces, but was largely ineffectual at drawing Chinese troops away from the main front lines along the Yangtze and in Alaska. 
The lack of results, combined with the difficulty in maintaining contact with and resupplying the forces in the Gobi Campaign, led the Joint Chiefs to declare the campaign a failure. However, before plans to withdraw from the area could be made, US intelligence made a discovery that would need the forces in the Gobi to respond to.
===Invisible War===
The Defence Intelligence Agency had tracked large shipments of polymers connected to stealth technology to Shaanxi province, but while they had determined that research and development was taking place there, the wide scale manufacture of equipment using stealth technology was not. A breakthrough occurred in October 2076, when routine comparison of surveillance satellite photographs showed that parts of Yan'an were seemingly missing.
The distortion present were the city should have been matched the stealth field effect of Hei Gui armor, and the possibility that the Chinese were developing a way to conceal a city from view horrified analysts. The technology had developed further by the time of this discovery, and attempts to conduct bombing raids against Yan'an were aborted as the pilots were unable to find the target.
The intelligence community requested for the military to divert troops from the Gobi Campaign into Shanxi province, initially to provide guidance for the bombers, but it quickly became apparent that the stealth field was powerful enough that it interfered with signalling. The decision was made that infantry would have to be sent to assault the city, capture and disrupt any further development of the technology. Nominally, command was given to Army general Mitchell Snow, as the variety of special forces from various branches and their disconnected nature from the wider military meant most had operated independently from one another and central command.
===Operation Black Chamber===
The Yan'an Offensive began on November 29th, with Army Rangers and Marine First Recon launching an vertibird assault into Yan'an from the north. The initial assault was a failure, as the stealth field meant that aerial reconnaissance of the city was impossible, and the US forces were decimated by Chinese anti-air defences. With the city now on high alert, General Snow ordered ground forces to pull back, abandoning the survivors from the vertibirds.
In February, ground reconnaissance of Yan'an revealed the locations of pylons around the city, that were speculated to be part of the stealth field protecting the city. A team of Marines were sent to destroy a pylon in the outskirts of the city on March 16th, and although they were overwhelmed and wiped out by the Chinese, successfully destroyed the pylon. This caused a temporary disruption to the field, confirming the nature of the pylons, and despite power fluctuations throughout the pylon network did not cause significant damage to the stealth field around the city.
In April, Chinese reinforcements arrived in Shanxi and began sweeping the hills surrounding Yan'an to attempt to destroy the US forces around the city. Forced to stay moving to avoid being destroyed, US attacks on the city were put on hold. By June, advances elsewhere in China meant that the forces trying to dislodge the Americans from Shanxi were reduced, and General Snow ordered the remaining troops to prepare for another attack on Yan'an.
The stealth technology protecting Yan'an had been deployed elsewhere in China, but American intelligence had found no evidence that production was taking place outside of Yan'an. Early production M42 Fat Man launchers were sent to the US forces outside Yan'an, and in July plans for a coordinated attack on multiple pylons with the M42's was created, intending to destroy the field then take out air defences to allow US bombers to attack the city.
Codenamed Operation Black Chamber, the assault began on July 15th. US forces destroyed seven pylons on the outer perimeter of the city, which had the unforseen consequence of overloading the wider field due to the power fluctuations, destroying the pylons and infrastructure throughout the city. The ground forces then pushed into Yan'an to destroy the Chinese air defences, but due to poor communication were unaware that bad weather had prevented the bombers from taking off. The ground forces managed to destroy several anti-aircraft guns, but were nearly wiped out to a man by the Chinese defenders, with only a handful of soldiers escaping with their lives. Despite protests from General Snow, it was decided to abandon the survivors, with it being deemed to costly to attempt to extract them.
===Aftermath===
The destruction of the Yan'an stealth field and damage to the surrounding city caused the deployment of the technology in other Chinese cities to be halted. While development failed to resume before the Great War, the existence of the technology caused the US to increase the number of strategic bombers assigned to drop nuclear weapons in the event that the war escalated. Doctrine around bombers also changed, with increased pilot training on instrument flying, and pilots authorised to drop their bombs without visually confirming their targets. The damage caused to Yan'an was covered in Chinese propaganda, preemptively responding to any US attempts to capitalise on their victory. Ultimately though, the Great War four months later made the Yan'an Offensive a footnote in a war that would destroy the world, forgotten by most survivors in the aftermath.
==Behind the scenes==
This article was written for the eighth Fallout fan fiction writing competition.
Category:Competitions