First Battle of Shanxi
From FABT
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 Alliance and turian fighters engage in the naval phase of the battle.
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10 November - 12 November 2157 CE | ||||||||||||||||
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In orbit around and on Shanxi / 23 Ursae Majoris / Local Cluster | ||||||||||||||||
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Operational Hierarchy victory
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Turian Hierarchy occupies Shanxi | ||||||||||||||||
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The First Battle of Shanxi, commonly known as the Fall of Shanxi, was a major surface and naval engagement that occurred as part of the first phase of the Shanxi campaign during the First Contact War. Shanxi, being one of the Alliance's furthest frontier colonies, and the furthest colony that was heavily developed and had a large permanent population, was also extremely close to Relay 314, so close that Shanxi had been the last port-of-call for the 16th ACF before it set out to activate the relay. As a result, Shanxi was the first of the colonies to receive word of the Relay 314 massacre, with the surviving two colony ships landing at Shanxi and delivering the shocking news to the local Xi'an government. Shortly after, word was passed down through the comms network until Earth and Arcturus Station were notified, and eventually the rest of the colonies were put on high alert. In just five days, the Second Fleet had been partially mobilized and dispatched to Shanxi under emergency orders, with the rest on the way as soon as it could return from the colonies. The next day, Drescher left most of her fleet over Shanxi while she moved to perform intel on the Relay 314 Patrol. After her costly victory, the remainders of Drescher's forces returned to Shanxi for repairs and to await new orders. The turian Twelfth Fleet, which had already been mobilized and was on the way to Relay 314 to reinforce its patrol there when it received news of the Alliance's retaliatory attack. Upon arriving in the Remembrance system, Septimus Oraka performed detailed scans of the surrounding area, and just as the Alliance feared, the turians discovered Shanxi.
By 6 November, both sides were fully aware of each other's presence, and both sides braced for battle. By 7 November, the rest of Drescher's forces had arrived, but Garrong was unable to mobilize the First and Third fleets in time to join with her before the turians attacked Shanxi. As such, Drescher used what little time she had to coordinate with General Williams' ground forces to prepare a defense against the imminent attack, although the limited intel on their enemy and their capabilities made their preparations largely estimates at best: worse still was humanity's rather amateur knowledge of space warfare in general, with the Alliance military having never fought a proper military engagement until now. Drescher's previous experience as an admiral in the Österreichisch-Deutsche Marine already made her one of the more seasoned commanders in the Alliance Navy, but her exemplary performance in the Österreichisch-Deutsche Raumstreitkräfte's space warfare simulations (albeit, at the time, intended for use against other Earth nations at the time) gave her somewhat more in-depth knowledge than her fellow admirals Nitesh Singh and Adina Netanyahu, making her an ideal choice to led the forward defense against the turians. Drescher performed this duty admirably, bringing her forces up to near-complete battle readiness despite the lack of resources at her disposal. Without the Davo-Hamish Shipyards, Drescher was forced to perform "duct tape" repairs on her surviving damaged vessels in the limited time available to her. By the morning of 9 November, Drescher accurately predicted that enemy forces would have had made detailed scans of her forces by now, and would choose the next day to make their attack. Arranging her forces and performing discreet battle drills throughout the day, Drescher was sure her fleet was as ready as it was going to be. Simultaneously, Williams' troops on the ground had evacuated civilians to fallout bunkers originally intended for protection against asteroid strikes, while his troops shored up the nearby garrisons and prepared their defenses as best they could.
On the 10 November, just as Drescher surmized, the turians launched their assault. Utilizing their trademark and favoured shock-and-awe strategy, Septimus Oraka had the Twelfth Fleet jump in from multiple angles, striking from above, below, west, north and east. Dreadnoughts from the northern pincer used their superior range and firepower to immediately fire upon Drescher's ships, taking advantage of the massive disparity in weapons to deal enormous damage to the enemy before Drescher's ships could get in range to retaliate. Turian fighters rushed to engage the Alliance fighter squadrons in turn, while Septimus sent forth his cruisers and destroyers to nuisance Drescher's left and right flanks, keeping her from appropriately reinforcing her single dreadnought. Drescher's two carriers were paid little attention, with Septimus making the assessment that the vessel's lack of firepower made it of little tactical significance, positively mystified by the purpose of what turian military philosophy at the time perceived to be a glorified target ship. Drescher observed this move and correctly guessed the reason, and had her carriers deploy their fighters and bombers to harass the dreadnoughts. While this did temporarily concern Septimus, he merely had his dreadnoughts withdraw to a range exceeding that of the Alliance fighters, forcing them to return to their parent ships, and for Drescher to withdraw them out of fear of leaving them too exposed to turian ships. In the end, Drescher was defeated, the admiral being forced to retreat or risk losing her entire fleet.
Once the turians established naval supremacy, mopping up what remained of Drescher's remaining ships, and dominated Shanxi's orbit, they began deploying ground forces to pacify Williams' forces. Williams' troops by this time had been informed by Drescher of her reluctant withdrawal, and his troops, coupled with the Shanxi Colonial Guard, were fully prepared for an assault. Utilizing anti-aircraft defenses to deter the turians from making a direct landing, Aegubus Terculus' forces made their landing some 45 kilometers west of New Xi'an. Williams' forces waited for the turians to attack, but instead of immediately besieging the city, the turians used target locators to call down orbital strikes from cruisers in orbit upon the Alliance perimeter defenses. One by one, the Alliance positions were hammered by orbital MAC strikes, forcing Williams to pull his men back into the city. The turians secured the perimeter, and then called in more bombardments: they would pinpoint buildings the Alliance troops were hiding in, and have more orbital strikes wipe them out, avoiding a costly house-to-house clear out. Williams refused to surrender, despite the turians' unassailable position: he had no air/anti-aerospace assets to eliminate the turian ships in orbit, and without a navy to engage them, the turians could launch these strikes with impunity, able to hit them anywhere, at any time. Finally, 2 days after the battle began, Williams assembled his command staff and informed them of their unwinnable position, and his intentions to surrender. Williams himself marched out to the nearest turian patrol, with a group of bodyguards to protect him, holding his hands up in what he assumed was the universal sign of surrender, hoping the turians would understand this. Fortunately for him, they did, and shortly after Williams was released and allowed to return to his men, in return for guaranteeing their full surrender by sundown.
Williams lived up to his promise, and all of his men surrendered with him. The surrender of the Shanxi forces brought an end to the battle, with the turians establishing POW camps across the outskirts of the city to ensure the prisoners could not rally together and stage a breakout. Drescher retreated back to Sol with her remaining forces, where Garrong prepared to make a final stand once news was received the Twelfth Fleet was on its way to Earth. However, despite being soundly defeated, Drescher's knowledge of the turian weakness to carrier tactics that was obtained during the engagement proved to turn the tide against the Hierarchy, with Garrong utilizing these same tactics to defeat them at the Battle of Charon and, eventually, pave the way for the eventual liberation of Shanxi.