Third Person POV
Ongjin, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)

The flight in was tough enough. They'd come in aboard three limited edition Harbin Z-30 high-speed transport helicopters. Equipped with a tilt-rotor system akin to American V-22 Osprey and newer V-280 Valor, it boasted a capability for a 300 km/hour speed similar to the Valor. racing in at low level from Northern China under heavy fighter and drone escort to a military airfield south of the city, no more than four staff members in each chopper. All had arrived safely, but General Zhu's head were still full of question about how much of it was skill and a great man-machine interaction by the pilots and how much luck.

He knew that this particular airfield had seen it's visit by IPSDC/NATO aircraft as well as their own drone swarm in recent times, and the General already had his doubts about how Northern Theater Command Air Force had told him about their ability to control the sky; not even inside Mainland China with two separate American missile strikes that somehow managed to break through and hit several military factories, and with how often Imperialist cyber armies were able to read his forces' communication as much as the PLA did with it's opponent.

From Ongjin several armored vehicles took his party to a forward command post belonged to the 79th Group Army - equivalent to Corps in NATO - outside the city. 

Speaking of Seoul, as the convoy rolled out, Zhu's mind went back to the moment of such realization.

The message is clear to Zhu and Xiaohua on their post; that all PLA high commanders would be briefed by video on developments on the front. Both men knew why: if anyone were to be relieved from his command, the new man would have to know the situation. 

In real time, they listened to the electronically delivered intelligence report with fascination.  Neither of them had expected many of the PLASOF and KPASOF attacks to fare well, but it seemed that some had been successful, especially those in the Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, as well as in S.E. Asia and even the United States. Then the operational intelligence brief got to the state of PLA-KPA forces approaching Seoul Capital Area and the surrounding area, and the mood of both men turned sour.

"Why weren't we warned about this?" Zhu demanded. 

"Comrade General," the Air Force officer responded. "Our information was that this new generation stealth agile drone was still a prototype, not yet in regular service, intended to be fighting alongside their new manned system but capable for stand alone ops. Somehow the Americans have managed to construct a number of them, at least part of a squadron. They used it along with their existing assets including stealth fighters - as much as we managed to shoot down a good number of their Lightnings and even Raptors for example - to blind part of our radar coverage - especially airborne ones, and opened a path for massive penetration raid coupled with artillery strikes against our airfields and lines of supply, plus a well-planned air battle against our drones and fighter aircraft. Their mission was successful, but not decisively so." 

"Oh, and the CMC got the commander of Northern Theater Air Force sacked and court-martialed for successfully repelling it, eh?" Zhu snarled. He asked again. 

"How many aircraft did we lose?" 

"At least two squadrons of fighters were gone." 

"Okay... can you tell us of the bridges!" 

"Most of the bridges on the Han River as well as in the Imjin have been sabotaged or blown up... and our forces were too far away to prevent it. North Koreans had reported capturing up to five suspected saboteurs and the numbers are expected to be rise. In addition, our barges and landing crafts were also getting hammered, trapping part of our comrades in Ganghwa Island, and shelling is common."

"Bastards!" Zhu cursed, while looking up at the sky as though expecting Coalition drones to come for him and his staffs. 

After some more losses, Zhu was finally allowed to leave the meeting.

"Not a good start, Comrade." Already a general had been arrested. His replacement had not yet been named. 

Zhu then checked his watch. "A change of plan is surely needed, we still a few surprises in store for them. Only half of their reinforcements are in place. They still have not achieved the psychological degree of preparedness that our men have. We can still force Seoul into submission... if only that pervert General Huai's Eastern Theater Command had made his redeployments from the recently liberated Taiwan in a proper manner...."

Back to present, Zhu was the first senior officer to arrive at the hastily erected underground bunker complex, and he did not like what he found within his own subordinates. The staff officers present were too concerned with what the IPSDC forces were doing and not enough on how the People's Army and it's allies - especially the KPA - were supposed to be doing.

The initiative had not been lost yet even with the reversal near Seoul at the beginning of the war and the ensuring stalemate as well as problems in Japan, but his first impression was that right now, his forces present are in some serious trouble.

He proceeded to assemble the staff inside and proceeded to gather information on how the campaign was going from the Group Army's operation's officer. The actual 79th GA commander, Lieutenant General Yu Haiguo, arrived half an hour later, and immediately took his superior to his office.

"Comrade General"

Zhu curtly replied "I need a closer look on the front. Any drones will be helpful, but I wish for a helo for a plain old in-person guidance. We have three attacks under way. I need to see how they are going; just to further validate data from the Tiangong. South Korean attack on Changdo, Kangwon Province, has been repulsed again thanks to our (artillery) fire pocket, but this time we simply lack forces to exploit it even the North Koreans, while the Western sector was a stalemate with one of our recon group got destroyed near Gimpo, outside Seoul. Just like those data told you, our timetable had since been gone all to hell, and right now, we are locked in artillery duels with SDC forces - we outranged them some, but their precision make up for it even without their vaunted GPS, and most of the time, the skies are contested even with the combat drones, and we also had just finished moving this command node just before a "Hyunmoo" missile hits; thanks for the timely early warning. We need everything we got to find that weakpoint so we can launch a coordinated attack with our North Korean comrades, with Seoul remain the main objective."

"The Imperialist situation?"

Haiguo continued, "More and more reinforcements are coming from Asia, the Indonesians, in fact... as well as North America and Europe including some Taiwanese separatist forces trained in the USA, but with what our prisoners and those under People's Korea custody had told us - thanks to our medical officer's usage of brain implants - those people are not so well as we expected from the so called Free World with it's contradictions. My impression according to the latest Tiangong view suggested that the Imperialists are stretched very thin in some areas, owning to many of the South Korean forces who first confronted us are either now being sent away for refit, far away in the United States or in northern part of Japan, a time consuming process. On the other hand, even the Water Dragon (battle management system) were so far unable to find a single major weakness that we can exploit for a large-scale breakthrough - the Imperialists and their allies are surprisingly quick to get used for being constantly under watch from space, honestly. We're still grateful of it, thanks to the fact that we averted disaster many times because of it's insights, not without losses, through, especially among officer ranks.

Zhu stood there in silence, before Haiguo brought him back to reality.

"Anyway, how soon you will visit the front?"

"Half an hour, I'll take Major Yunchang with me. Comrade General"

"The son of the Party Secretary of Chongqing who's also one of the Politburo members? If he's hurt..."

"Comrade General, you forgot that I know his father well, Comrade Wu Yunchang is proud of his son's service as an officer of the People's Liberation Army, even with the risks. Don't worry about him." Zhu replied at Haiguo.

"Very well, such a rare breed of leader, Comrade Yunchang is, and I am sorry about that... back to topic... with enemy signal interceptors are everywhere, we are making sure that the chopper's satellite transmitter's frequency hopping functions and anti-jammers are in tip-top shape. I suggest you also check your own tablet and alternative frequencies as well as backup, Comrade General."

"Alright, comrades, send the operations people in. We have to get things in order."

And so Zhu commandeered a Harbin Z-19 recon-attack helicopter for his visit. Something that he's qualified to fly, but now, he's on the backseat while Yunchang was on the second helicopter as his wingman. Overhead, a flight of agile Dark Sword combat UAV as well as J-31s and a lower level propeller-driven CH series drone swarm guarded the General and his companion as the two choppers skimmed through the treetop. A lifetime of military service had not prepared him for the destruction that lay on the landscape below him. It seemed that every road held a burned-out tank or truck. The major crossroads had gotten particularly severe attention from IPSDC/NATO combined artillery and air power, with multiple road and rail bridges were knocked out. But to his relief, he saw one such bridge being reconnected by his engineers, under a heavy AA, drones, and electronic warfare cover.

Charred remains of troops and armor, vehicles, and aircraft and helicopters - manned and unmanned alike - , from both sides. The whole Korean Peninsula, just like the Pacific Ocean, the Himalayas, and South East Asia was fast becoming a giant junkyard of latest piece of technology, The proud vehicles manufactured at the greatest expense and skill were scattered on the landscape like trash thrown from a car window. China has more to expend as well as resources to regenerate it's capabilities; men and machine alike, all high ranking leaders of the PLA and the Party like him knew, but how many more? He hoped that Water Dragon would do it's magic in guiding he and his comrades for the answer they desperately need.

And to make things more interesting; he watched with awe as one of his drone swarm escort below formed multiple divisions ready for yet another low-level algorithm-fueled dogfight; a telltale sign that the Imperialists had send their own swarm, clearly with him in sight. The Z-19s used in this case were already underwent big upgrades - while maintained a backup traditional control lever, the pilots could also use voice commands, for example to plot for safest alternate routes - especially important in this scenario - while keeping the fuel consumption in mind better.

After an almost forever zig-zagging to shake off the IPSDC/NATO drone swarm, the two helicopters landed at the edge of a forest. But before that, as antiaircraft guns of many times were tracking his flight, protocols were calling for a through identification, which were solved by him sending off his biometric credentials using the helo's downlink capability to the ground station. The general know that his companion did the same, and after receiving a clear confirmation, the two helicopters finally landed. He and Yunchang jumped out, with the pilots stayed behind. They were quickly greeted by a cluster of command vehicles and communication arrays.

"Welcome, Comrade General, Comrade Colonel Li Guangkou, under operational control of the KPAGF's I Army Corps reporting in!" said a dirty-faced PLA Ground Force colonel, followed by another officer saluting him; this time Zhu recognized him as North Korean, ranked Colonel.

"Who's currently in charge here?"

The first officer answered. "The highest authority here is KPAGF I Corps deputy commander, Comrade Lieutenant General Choi-yong Bae. We've just lost Comrade Major General Ping by a drone strike yesterday, while three days ago we also lost Comrade Colonel General (1) Sang-un by a shelling. We have to move the command node twice a day just like what the Imperialists are doing, thanks to their skill in locating us! Anyway, if you want the highest rank here, I'll connect you with Comrade General Bae - he's currently needed on his HQ but can still help you with things."

"That's okay, and anyway, what's your situation?" Zhu asked curtly.

"The troops are tired, but they can still fight - us and our Korean brothers alike -. But we are not getting sufficient air support, and SDC aviation and artillery give us no rest at night, and we still cannot predict when those bastards are going to jam, spoof, or hack our stuff!"

This time, Colonel Ri Chung-sung, the North Korean officer, with permission of Colonel Guangkou, added. "Our overall combat strength in this sector are about three and a half to half in some battalions, except in our field artillery which are a third that it should be. South Korean and allied counter battery are still effective after all this time we're here, as well as their air ops. When we're not lucky enough to see the American drones accompanying their fighters got turned against their master, they hit us hard, first after our guns."

Colonel Guangkou added. "Comrade Colonel Sung was correct, sir, We were badly hurt last night. Just as we were ready to launch two brigades for an attack, one of our mobile gun battalions was gone and three batteries of rocket artillery and another battery of SAM belonged to our Korean comrades were also hit. They usually started by sending a swarm of exploding drones, followed by larger missile carrying ones including those accompanying their manned assets. But in this case, they somehow sent their manned asset first. F-15s and F-35s... Overall, they lost at least a flight worth of fighters by our air defenses and fighters as well as a couple of drones, but the damage costed us our offensive."

"What about concealment, jamming, anything?" Zhu demanded.

"Heaven knows... If we can see them, they can as well - we've done the standard procedures with jamming, decoys, and even hacking like. Everything was a gamble nowadays; Sometimes it works, but sometimes not. Corps CP has been attacked four times, same as the division and brigade command nodes. Four battalions are commanded by majors and even captains, and two brigades - one ours and one Korean - by lieutenant colonels; to be fair, a good number of enemy battalions are just like us in state... We're also have to contend with missile exchanges, especially when we were in the attack and were about to enter a village, and artillery and rocket barrages were not always effective, thanks to multiple strikes on our supply routes - Imperialist special forces are very good at it."

"What do you need?"

Guangkou answered. "Well, wait... a message from Comrade General Bae; we need air and precision strike support and lots of it. I'll give you the breakout that you are insisting me to get, Comrade General."

"Glad that he understands what we actually want." Zhu smiled at his subordinate.

"My communication soldiers and the Korean ones deserved a citation for this work under fire, especially with our command posts are very dispersed and how their SOF did try to cut through it." beamed the Colonel.

"Very well, noted. But don't forget to send the official papers, Comrade Colonel."

"It will be done, and right now" Guakuo started again, "let's back to the matters at hand, here two North Korean and two of our tank brigades are waiting for us to punch through their lines."

"Your supply situation?"

"Already mentioned before, and to be honest, it's getting worse. But as I'm speaking, we have mobilized some of our prisoners to augment our logistics - this include the robots - to disperse what supply we are currently have."

"Well, tell me how much it is, Comrade Colonel!"

"Enough to supply what we have left - not enough to support an intact Group Army or KPA Corps."

"Alright" Zhu continued. "What are you doing now?"

"We're launching a brigade attack over an hour from now to recapture Ayang-ni village, here" he pointed at the interactive map. Enemy strength; two understrength South Korean infantry battalions supported by tanks and artillery. And as you can see, the enemy is not just threatening this very place, but also Sariwon and Haeju."

Zhu nodded, as the implications became clear for all.

"The assault should work as more and more enemy intel being updated in real time. Do you wish to observe?"

"No. Instead I will immediately coordinate with Comrade General Bae for you people to be issued the set of mission orders you need."

"Gladly, Comrade General. Then we better get to work our part as well."

"Fine, let's get this started, comrades."

............................................

A/N: There are lot to explore in this story, in particular on the side of the antagonist faction, stay tuned for more!

(1). Colonel General is an equivalent for Lieutenant General rank in militaries organized in Soviet/Russian model. Current usage of this rank include Russia as well as North Korea (Sangjang in Korean), and it's holders primarily commanded corps-level units.