It's daybreak on March 17, 2012 - election day in Taiwan.
In the northern coastal town of Tamsui, 35 minutes outside Taipei, old men head out into the cool, clear morning to do their exercises, while delivery vans make their rounds through the empty streets.
Outside the town's polling centres, election workers lay out tables and plug in the electronic voting machines, and prepare to open up for people looking to cast their votes before they go to work.
Suddenly, a series of massive explosions shatter the calm. Windows smash, huge fireballs shoot upwards, smoke fills the sky. 'The Patriot II anti-missile battery was hit,' panicked residents cry.
A few minutes later, the shrieks and screams are drowned out by hundreds of fighter jets ripping through the sky in perfect formation, dropping bomb after bomb. Then a wave of carrier aircraft roar over the town, unleashing tens of thousands of airborne troops who quickly move to seize a string of important military installations and communications points around Taipei. Stunned Tamsui residents look out to sea, and through the smoke and morning haze, what they see is unmistakable - a flotilla of landing craft hurtling at full speed towards the town and the surrounding beaches.
Within days, all major military sites in the north of the island are either controlled by paratroopers or destroyed. The election is postponed, and the leadership bunkered down at the Heng Shan Military Command Centre in Taipei have no choice but to announce that they have agreed to hand over the island to the mainland.
On March 30, an ebullient President Hu Jintao announces the completion of the historic mission of returning Taiwan to the motherland as he passes the baton to his successor, Xi Jinping , during his farewell speech.