429: Chapter 429 When the Tank Rolled Over the Customs

4:17 AM on the Johor-Singapore Causeway.

Zhao Yuxun stood outside the turret hatch of the first M1A3 "Titan" main battle tank, the sea breeze blowing against the half of his face visible beneath his tactical helmet.

The Woodlands checkpoint on the other side of the causeway had gone dark—not due to a power outage, but because an electromagnetic pulse warhead had fried all unshielded circuitry from Woodlands to Tuas.

The steel roadblocks at the checkpoint still lay across the bridge, but it wasn't combat engineers who pushed them aside; it was the 6th Squad of "Shadow Blade," who had landed on the beach west of the causeway three minutes earlier. They had melted the anchor bolts of the roadblocks into molten iron with thermal cutters and then pushed the three-ton obstacles aside by hand.

"Titan Division, advance," Zhao Yuxun ordered over the communication channel.

The gas turbine engines of twenty-four M1A3 tanks roared to life simultaneously.

They formed into two columns, their tracks grinding over the concrete surface of the causeway, crushing the glass guard booths of Singapore Customs beneath them.

There was no gunfire, no interception, no alarms—the garrison at Woodlands had already surrendered forty minutes ago.

Colonel Lin stood at the checkpoint entrance, holding an unsheathed command sword, the tip of the scabbard resting on the ground.

As the first tank drove past him, he raised the command sword horizontally to his brow, the hilt facing the tank's turret—this was a gesture not found in the Singapore Army regulations, but any veteran who had survived the Japanese occupation would recognize it: this was the handover of defense.

Zhao Yuxun glanced at him from the bumpy turret, nodded, and then ordered over the division-wide channel: "Attention all battalions, advance along the predetermined routes. 1st Battalion—Woodlands Camp, Sembawang Wharf. 2nd Battalion—Bukit Panjang, Choa Chu Kang, secure the Bukit Timah highlands. 3rd Battalion—head straight for the Presidential Palace. If you encounter armed resistance, eliminate it on the spot. If you encounter those who have laid down their arms and lined up—let them pass, integrate them."

As the tank column drove through the checkpoint, residents of the Woodlands HDB blocks poked their heads out of their windows.

Someone raised their phone to take a picture—only to find that their phone had lost signal thirty minutes ago.

Someone pulled their head back and closed the curtains.

Someone stood on a balcony, watching that dark green Baobab flag on the turret roll over the streets of Singapore, muttering chapters from the Quran about destruction.

He did not finish.

Because he saw a line of white Burmese text sprayed on the side of the tank turret. He couldn't read it, but his grandson, who was taking Chinese classes at Woodlands Primary School, peeked through a gap in the curtains and read it out: "Leave a way out for the soldiers of Woodlands Camp who surrender."

The child didn't know that this slogan was bought with the memory of his grandfather, who in 1942 had watched with his own eyes as the Japanese army machine-gunned British POWs on Woodlands beach—when Zhang Cheng was drafting the surrender broadcast for Operation "Southern Town," he had ordered Night Owl's intelligence department to collect the coordinates of every massacre and execution site from the Syonan-to period for every barracks and defensive zone, and then printed these coordinates on the corresponding surrender leaflets.

It wasn't a threat; it was a reminder—a reminder that your ancestors were also slaughtered by invaders.

Those standing here today are not invaders.

They are the ones here to conduct Liquidation for the names your grandfather signed at the Japanese Kempeitai.

Above the ruins of the Bukit Timah Air Defense Command Center, smoke and dust were still churning in the night.

The crater left by the bunker-buster warhead was twelve meters in diameter, and dark red firelight was still seeping from the bottom of the pit—that was the cables and plastic lining inside the bunker still burning.

Forty-two corpses were sealed beneath the rubble by the high heat and shockwave.

The commander of the Singapore Air Defense Force had ceased to exist in the fourth minute of the war.

But the real collapse wasn't at Bukit Timah—it was on Pulau Tekong.

Two battalions of the 9th Division of the Singapore Army were conducting a night exercise there.

When the full-spectrum electronic suppression of "Vega-3" covered the entire island, all communication links between the exercise headquarters and the Ministry of Defense were severed simultaneously.

Commander Brigadier General Wu Zhiqiang tried to contact Changi Base using a backup radio—all he heard was that looping broadcast.

He ordered his troops to return to the barracks and enter a state of combat readiness, but the transport convoy was blocked on the causeway connecting Pulau Tekong to the main island—not by obstacles, but by panicked civilian vehicles.

Residents pouring out of Changi Village drove onto the causeway, their headlights forming a twisted band of light in the darkness.

People were shouting "Changi Wharf has been bombed," "The Paya Lebar ammunition depot has been blown up," and "Seletar has been occupied."

Brigadier General Wu Zhiqiang stood on the shoulder in the middle of the causeway, looking at the tangled mess of military and civilian vehicles in front of him, and suddenly realized something that sent a chill down his spine—his troops were trapped on an island with no radar, no communications, no orders from superiors, and not even knowing where the enemy was.

And his soldiers were holding rifles, standing on the causeway like a group of human targets waiting to be called out.

"Scatter!" he roared, "Retreat back to the island—"

His words were interrupted by a sound from overhead.

It wasn't an explosion, nor was it gunfire.

It was a low, deep buzzing sound he had never heard before, pressing down from the sky.

It was six "Locust" suicide drones, with a wingspan of less than a meter, flying at an altitude of two hundred meters, carrying not high-explosive warheads—but loudspeakers.

They flew over the Pulau Tekong causeway and began playing a recording.

The recording was played in Hokkien.

"Soldiers of the 9th Division—your commander has been unable to contact the Ministry of Defense for forty minutes.

Changi is controlled, Paya Lebar is destroyed, Seletar has changed hands.

Your wives and children are currently looking down the barrels of your guns from the HDB blocks in Woodlands, Sengkang, and Toa Payoh.

Do not throw your lives away for that family wearing the uniform of the Japanese Kempeitai.

Lay down your weapons and march in formation to the north end of the causeway, where our troops will receive you.

You will not be prisoners of war—you will be demobilized and sent home within a week."

Brigadier General Wu Zhiqiang stood where he was, silent for a full four minutes.

He recognized the voice.

It was the voice of a seventy-year-old board member of the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan—he would visit the garrison on Pulau Tekong every Mid-Autumn Festival.

He didn't know who had recorded this voice, but he knew that half of his soldiers had grown up listening to this old man tell stories in Hokkien.

The sound of the first rifle being placed on the ground was like a pebble dropping into a well.

Then the second.

The tenth.

The three-hundredth.

Wu Zhiqiang did not order a surrender.

Nor did he order them to open fire.

He simply unholstered his sidearm, placed it on the asphalt of the causeway, and then turned to face the 9th Division's military flag, standing the final watch of his forty-year military career.

5:02 AM.

Basement of the Presidential Palace.

Lawrence Wong was handcuffed to an explosion-proof chair.

The white marks left by the carbon fiber handcuffs on his wrists had turned purple-red; his breathing was short and rapid, and his forehead was covered in cold sweat.

After the portable projector in front of him had been smashed, the pale light of the emergency LED lamp illuminated every wrinkle on his face, turning them into ravines.

Night Owl was not staring at him.

Night Owl was checking a list.

The list contained forty-seven names—starting with Lawrence Wong, and including the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense Ng Eng Hen, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law K. Shanmugam, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Education, and all Members of Parliament who had served in cabinet positions.

Next to each name were notes on their home address, security level, number of security personnel, floor plans of their residences, and photos captured by drones and ground informants when they appeared in public over the last week.