Beijing

Beijing is the most polluted city in the world, this is the story of how it became such.

Beginning of the war.

At the beginning of the war, the new Chinese stealth drop ships were the ones used in dropping North Korean and Chinese special forces into key parts of South Korea. When the first nuclear missiles were being launched, Beijing was a key target for many nations, but the city survived the blasts due to the high tech defence systems of the city, for years China had been developing the ultimate missile defence system in secret, a device which would detect an incoming missile long before it hit the ground, and would target that missile with a laser, this laser would superheat the core components of the missile, and depending on the type, the missile would either explode long before it impacted, or would be disabled and drop far below to the ground never to explode, on a side note some of these unexploded missiles still exist today in parts of China despite efforts to recover and disarm them all. Due to these defences, the only explosive damage that the city would see were from RPGs, grenades, and occasional mortars. The city was well defended by its country's allies and so it would take a long time for the actual city itself to be involved in combat.

Rebels Rising.

By May of 2021, an invasion of China was known to be coming, what we didn't know, was when exactly it would arrive, but we knew that the invasion would take place somewhere along the north-eastern coast, somewhere near Beijing. Much of the population was tired of the seemingly endless war, and slowly, some citizens took up arms against the police and named themselves “The Free Chinese State”, they quickly seized control of the north-western portion of the city, with their numbers growing every day. They would arrest all police officers and eventually put out a formal broadcast saying that they wanted no part in this world conflict and that they wanted the people of Beijing to be recognized as an independent government from China, the Chinese government did not like this idea of course, and sent out tactical police units to try and crush the uprising, the police barricaded streets along the border with the rebels and ordered them to surrender, when 24 hours had passed the police decided that a peaceful ending would no longer be possible, and the women in charge of the police force turned away from the loudspeakers and prepared to step away, only to be shot in the lower left shoulder by a rebel sniper. After the first shot the streets erupted into gunfire, with the police using tactical shields and armoured carriers as cover as the lobbed gas over the barricades, gunfire between the opposing sides kept on growing until there was a full on war happening in what used to be a city, neither side was gaining any ground but the police officers were taking far more casualties than the rebels, and eventually they pulled back to a secondary set of barricades. The rebels pushed up to this new border but did not attempt to go further or continue the fighting, a grave error of their part, for just across the barricaded streets the tactical police were contacting headquarters asking for reinforcements, the Chinese government had had enough of this uprising and decided it was time to put a stop to it, they sent for the Black Wolves, an elite commando death squad branch of the PLA Special Forces. The rebels are slowly drawn into a trap, the tactical police officers would lure them into a relatively open area in Niulanshanzhen and they were suddenly surrounded by the Black Wolves, what follows can't be described as a battle, or warfare of any kind, it was nothing but death, the Black Wolves silently moved forward, executing anyone they met whether they were armed or not, surrendering or not, what happened on that fateful day would come to be known as the Niulanshanzhen Massacre, and at the end of the war, China would be renamed “The Free Chinese State” in memory of the people who died that day for no reason other than wanting to be free.

The battle for Beijing.

The battle for Beijing was one of the most brutal battles of the 3rd world war, second only to the Battle of Seoul. It claimed the lives of close to 3 million people, even bloodier than Stalingrad in WW2. The battle began on the 3rd of September, 2022, and would finally end on the 16th of August, 2023. The battle began with a naval invasion in Bohai Bay, the initial landing would be the primary cause of death in this battle, with an estimated 1.8 million dying within the first half hour of the landing. After the initial landing and the bay was secured, the invading NATO forces led by Australia would push forward to take the city of Tianjin, this would cost them even more casualties but this was lessened now that NATO had a stable base of operations nearby. Once the city had been secured, and over 2 million soldiers had died, the real battle would begin. The battle for the capital would begin with heavy mortar bombardments around the edges of the city, this would be quickly followed up by a series of laser guided missiles launched from portable rocket launchers at the cities main defences. The invaders would wait for night to begin their assault, the SASR would be sent in in the cover of darkness to try and sneak past defences and sabotage as much as possible. Throughout the next months, a brutal battle would take place with no one really gaining anything. The main city went largely untouched in the battle with the fighting taking place on the outskirts, by the 16th of August, 2023, with the defenders reduced to armed civilians and advancing Indian soldiers from the west, the Chinese government was forced to acknowledge that they had been defeated, and the war for China was over.

Aftermath.

At the end of the battle, most of the city was untouched, meaning that the pollution problem, was still a pollution problem when the world declared peace a massive dome was built overtop of the city, and it was mostly abandoned. The police force still existed of course but it was a mostly lawless city and as time progressed it grew more and more inconvenient to deal with so it was left to its own devices, with the new capital being Shanghai Beijing was no longer needed and other than to control the pollution with the massive dome airlocks the government was nowhere to be found, the place where so many had lost their lives had become a ghost of its former self, fitting in a morbid sort of way.