Re: Blood and Iron

With Pyongyang fallen and the southern Korean Peninsula within reach, the Empire of Japan began mass mobilization without hesitation.

What had started with a small number of active divisions, and fleets believing victory would be swift and decisive rapidly turned into a national project. Meanwhile, the United States began to fear that Japan might make a move on their Pacific territories.

In particular, the matter of the Philippines was a serious one. Since the Great War reached its height in 1915, and the flames of the anti-colonial sentiment were fanned by the German Reich, particularly in the region.

Armed groups had been gathering, training, and performing low scale urban attacks against U.S. Military presence across the Philippines.

An issue that was largely absent from the public eye, as these attacks occurred infrequently, and were not severe enough for Americans back home to become educated about, let alone press a resolution for.

But To the Hoover administration—already fumbling the economy, with the stock market in freefall and Bruno consolidating control over the last untouched sectors of American industry; the Philippines represented a looming catastrophe

The Philippines was a flashpoint of potentially catastrophic outcomes. And currently, those fears were about to be fully realized.

Largely armed with smuggled surplus from the Great War—Mosin-Nagants from Siberia, Arisakas off sunken freighters, and Mausers funneled through Indochina—the insurgents were ready.

And the world was about to remember the name they had once whispered in fear and reverence:

Anak ng Silangan.

—

It was March of 1930, in the Luzon, Philippine Archipelago near Camp John Hay, an American Military Facility.

The checkpoint wasn’t even a mile past the tree line; but it may as well have been another continent. Ringed by barbed wire and sandbags, the outer defense post had been manned by the same underpaid Marine reservists for nearly six months.

No attacks. No threats. Just the occasional fruit vendor being hassled by officers drunk on their own authority. They called it the “boredom station.” No one expected it to be the opening shot of the uprising.

But the men waiting in the hills did.

Camouflaged under burlap and banyan bark, they crept into position with meticulous calm.

A pair of crewmen disassembled a stolen Colt-Browning water-cooled machine gun, setting it up beneath a fallen log overlooking the road.

The others clutched German Mauser C96 “broomhandles” fitted with full-length wooden stocks—converted to carbines during the Balkan proxy wars and now repurposed for jungle revolution.

Whether Germany had actually supplied them, or they were bult third hand from a long line of other revolutionary forces before them.

Nobody really knew. The serial numbers and waffenamps were ground off long ago. Making them sanitized and untraceable.

In total, they were twelve men. Twelve ghosts. No flags. No uniforms. Just iron, oil, and hate.

The leader, a wiry Tagalog speaker named Lucban, raised a single clenched fist.

Three seconds later, hell broke loose.

The machine gun opened first, stitching a line of .30-06 into the watchtower. The sentry on duty barely had time to scream before the round split his ribcage like dry bamboo.

Muzzle flashes erupted from the hills, lighting the fog with brutal precision.

Lucban himself fired two bursts from his Mauser, walking down the first Marine who broke for cover.

Another revolutionary lobbed a homemade grenade, built in a Davao tool shed from scrap, soap, and dynamite, over the sandbags and into the motor pool.

The blast flipped a parked truck and lit the gasoline barrels like bonfires.

Alarms howled. Return fire sputtered from the central barracks, but the compound was lightly staffed. This was a rear-area station, not a front-line post. The Americans weren’t prepared. Not for this.

Within seven minutes, the battle was over.

Eleven Americans lay dead. Two more would bleed out by the time reinforcements arrived. The Filipino fighters vanished into the jungle before air support could be scrambled from Clark.

But they didn’t disappear quietly.

On the front gate, burned into the wooden beam with a soldering iron, was a single symbol:

A white sun inside a red triangle.

And below it, painted in white ash:

“THIS LAND BELONGS TO FILIPINOS. YOUR EMPIRE IS A HOUSE BUILT ON SAND.”

—

In the heartland of the United States, a gathering was held following the aftermath in the Philippines.

The room smelled of stale cigar smoke and rising panic. Secretary of War Hurley slammed the latest intelligence report onto the mahogany table, scattering coffee cups and half-read dispatches.

“eleven dead. Five wounded. And another two of our supply convoys bombed in Luzon; this month.”

President Herbert Hoover didn’t look up from his chair. His fingers tapped the edge of his desk in tight, arrhythmic bursts.

“And who the hell are these ‘Anak ng Silangan’?”

Brigadier General MacArthur, barely back from his advisory tour, spoke first. “They’re not new, sir. Just reborn. Descendants of Aguinaldo’s men. Jungle-trained, fanatically nationalistic, and well-armed. I warned the War Department in ’28 that Manila wasn’t as quiet as it looked.”

Hoover rubbed his temples. “Why now?”

“Because we’re weak now,” said Secretary Mellon, leaning forward. “The market’s collapsed, we’re hemorrhaging gold, and Congress won’t even approve funds for the Pacific fleet’s modernization. They smell blood.”

“And that’s not all,” MacArthur added grimly. “Some of the weapons recovered were German surplus. Balkan issue Mausers. Old MG01/05s. We’ve seen this pattern before. They’re not just scavenging… someone’s feeding them.”

Silence fell.

Everyone knew the implication. Germany.

Hoover stood, slow and heavy. “I want naval readiness drills around Subic Bay. I want all cables from Manila reviewed, all of them, I don’t care who owns the damn wires. And I want a blacklist of every sympathizer in the colony.”

MacArthur nodded. “Already preparing lists, sir. But we need to be careful. If we crack down too hard, we push the moderate factions into the arms of the radicals.”

Hoover’s eyes narrowed. “Let them be radicals. Then we have reason to put them down without apology.”

—

It did not take long for Tokyo to gather intelligence of what was happening in America’s South Pacific territories.

The polished floor of the Imperial General Staff building was a mirror of lacquered discipline. Ministers in military dress stood at attention as General Ugaki placed a map of the Philippines on the table, marked in red ink.

“Gentlemen, a unique opportunity has emerged.”

He tapped the Luzon region, where clusters of small explosions were inked with kanji annotations: Ambush. Convoy destroyed. Police outpost razed.

“The Americans are vulnerable. Their colony is unstable. Their troops are overstretched. And their public is distracted.”

Prime Minister Inukai was cautious. “Are we sure this Anak ng Silangan is not simply another nationalist dream doomed to die in the jungle?”

General Ugaki smiled thinly. “Even dreams are useful, if timed correctly.”

An admiral chimed in. “And if the Americans are provoked into overreaction, we gain diplomatic cover to intervene; humanitarian, peacekeeping… or protective occupation of certain strategic islands.”

Murmurs of agreement rippled across the table.

Ugaki leaned in. “We already have ships ready to depart to the region. The Germans may have sunk our initial expeditionary fleet, but that does not mean we are finished just yet.”

Another voice chimed in, old and wise.

“Still, I would suggest an advisory capacity, and perhaps a shipment of older arms that are currently rusting in storage. We are at war, and Pyongyang has fallen. What we need is deniability, and the timing.”

A young intelligence officer entered, bowing deeply, and presented a folder.

“From our embassy in Manila,” he said. “We have confirmed reports that several cells of the Anak ng Silangan have sent envoys to Hong Kong and Taipei. They’re seeking external backers.”

That got the room’s attention.

“Then we shall answer,” Ugaki said.

—

In the center of Manila, Colonel James Whitford stood on the balcony of the Malacañang Palace, staring out at the bay, dark and vast.

Behind him, his aide read the latest intercepted message aloud.

“Transmission from Cebu: ‘The storm has begun. Lightning in the sugar fields. Tell Talim to cut the wire and bleed the copper snake.'”

Whitford turned. “Poetic little bastards, aren’t they?”

“Sir, we found wire-cutting equipment, demolition charges, and German rifles at the Davao warehouse. They’re more than poetic.”

He nodded slowly. “This isn’t going to be like Samar. These people aren’t hiding anymore. They’re coming out in the open.”

He tapped the ash off his cigarette and watched the embers fall.

—

While the Americans plotted in the open, in the shadows of Manila, three men sat in a candlelit warehouse. One wore a priest’s collar. The other two bore old military coats; Spanish-era relics.

On the table: a worn copy of Kartilya ng Katipunan, beside a map of the city marked with targets: power stations, guard posts, police headquarters.

One man, known only as Talim, spoke quietly.

“The Americans think this is about freedom. But it is not.”

He placed his finger on the telegraph center.

“This is about control. Control of information. Control of fear. Control of what happens next.”

The others nodded. The priest handed him a letter, stamped with the seal of the Hong Kong liaison.

“Our friends in Taipei have agreed to meet. This war has only just begun….”

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