131 Chaotic Battle (11)

Hundreds, even thousands of large ships shuttled back and forth along the waterways of the Western Pacific, transporting vast quantities of personnel and supplies. The Americans were dumbfounded by the frantic actions of the Chinese over these past few months. To conduct such high-intensity, high-efficiency operations over distances of thousands or tens of thousands of kilometers was unimaginable before the Chinese actually carried it out. Efficient maritime transport could be seen as a manifestation of China's war capabilities; after finishing the report, the unease in Roosevelt's heart grew stronger and stronger.

During the US election, both the Democratic and Republican parties played the "peace card," yet those who advocated for war voted for Roosevelt, putting this two-term US President firmly in control of victory. The primary target of the war was naturally Europe in the North Atlantic. In strategic deductions, the US ruling class all recognized one possibility: by the time the United States resolved the European issue and looked back at Asia, China might have already become the unshakable true hegemon of the Western Pacific.

Roosevelt knew very well that using "we must eliminate China for the future of the United States" as a reason for war was completely impossible at this stage. The American people were opposed to getting involved in war, and even more opposed to selling their lives for Britain like in the First World War. To find an excuse for war, Roosevelt ordered the Pacific Fleet to provoke China in every possible way, but China adopted an approach of turning a blind eye.

The Commander of the US Pacific Fleet was no fool; the orders coming from home one after another revealed an increasingly obvious intent to "screw them over." The warmongers represented by Roosevelt stopped just short of explicitly saying they wanted the Pacific Fleet to get sunk by China by any means necessary. The Pacific Fleet Commander ultimately chose a policy of feigned compliance. Even if the Commander didn't care how his subordinates died, the subordinates were absolutely not foolish enough to go send themselves to their deaths.

The Republican bunch was watching this very closely. The Chinese fleet simply did not approach the Philippines, and if the US fleet were to engage in combat with China within waters controlled by China, it would be very difficult to claim it was a Chinese sneak attack. Once such an event occurred, Roosevelt's intention to play the peace card to secure re-election would suffer a major setback.

Moreover, the Republicans were already doing their utmost to collect the telegrams Roosevelt sent to the Pacific Fleet, in order to prove Roosevelt's true colors of "real war, fake peace."

Facing the invisible resistance of the Pacific Fleet Commander, Roosevelt had no other options. Although the war actions of Germany and China both looked crazy enough, these two countries acted with extreme restraint. Chen Ke and the Little Mustache firmly grasped the key points; they did not attempt to make the Americans like their actions, but they also gave the United States absolutely no "justification" to intervene directly in the war.

After Fatty Qiu's special envoy arrived in the United States, he made all sorts of promises to the US, hoping that the US would send troops. The envoy made two requests, hoping the United States could explicitly declare that it would not join the German camp and would not invade Canada. These two declarations were precisely the guarantees the US side had no way of making. For the US to make a declaration not to join Germany would mean the US was effectively joining the British camp. This would give the Republicans a massive handle to grab onto.

As for not invading Canada, China was thrashing Britain, Germany was challenging Britain; if the US made a move to take out Canada now, what could the British do to the US? Did the British have the courage to open four fronts at once? Since Roosevelt had decided to seek re-election, he naturally could not make such promises.

The American war machine had not yet started up at this time; whether it was military mobilization or expanding armaments, none of it could be done overnight. No matter how smart and capable Roosevelt was, without having been attacked by China or Germany, he could not issue direct orders in these areas.

The British representative, jumping over a wall in desperation, brought up the matter of *The Legend of Maoshan Exorcism*, hoping to use this film to rouse hostility against China in the US. Roosevelt glanced at the British envoy, then replied coldly: "The *Chinese Exclusion Act* hasn't been repealed yet, has it?"

There is no wall in the world that does not leak wind. The US could screen a cut version of *The Legend of Maoshan Exorcism*, but the description regarding the *Chinese Exclusion Act* in this film would certainly spread widely in the US along with the film. This was an exclusionary act in US history explicitly targeted at a specific ethnicity and specific nation. It ran completely counter to the immigrant spirit the US claimed for itself.

During the twenty-some years of good relations with China, US Presidents all wanted to use this law to exchange for greater political benefits. The Chinese side chose to ignore it, simply not discussing the matter. Now, the *Chinese Exclusion Act* had become an obstacle for the US itself.

To unilaterally and unconditionally repeal a domestic US law would be considered "pandering to China," and no US President could possibly do such a thing. But without repealing the *Chinese Exclusion Act*, the US discrimination and even hostility towards China through legal forms would make it very difficult for the US to stand on the moral high ground.

Politicians are all shameless. Roosevelt himself was no exception. In 1938, a presenter at the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in the US had produced a radio drama of *The War of the Worlds*. To steal listeners from competitors and to imitate realistic effects, they made the radio drama into a "live news" mode.

On the evening of October 30, 1938, at 8:00 PM, this radio drama began broadcasting. Usually, a radio drama would play a piece of music after a few minutes, but that day's music was interrupted by "breaking news"—a special bulletin: a professor at the Mount Jennings Observatory in Chicago reported observing explosions on Mars. The music played again, then stopped a moment later; now the news updated to reporter Phillips interviewing an astronomer.

Immediately following that, another news bulletin announced that a huge, incandescent object had fallen on a farm near Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Subsequently, Phillips followed up "on the scene," describing the sight of "Martians" crawling out of a spacecraft: "This is the most terrifying thing I have ever seen... it's some kind of creature... the way they move is like gray snakes... their bodies are as big as bears, eyes like giant pythons, and mouths are V-shaped." "What is that? Jets of flame are pouncing on the marching crowd... the whole farm is burning... they are only 20 yards to my right!"

As soon as the voice fell, the broadcast went dead silent. A few minutes later, the announcer solemnly declared, "40 people including state troopers died on the farm; their bodies were severely deformed." Immediately after, the announcer said in panic: The 7,000 men of the State National Guard sent out had all been wiped out by the Martians. A voice (intentionally imitating President Roosevelt) delivered a speech to the nation over the broadcast, calling on everyone to bravely resist the brutal enemy. During this time, the sounds of explosions, police calls, and the strange screams of Martians rose and fell. The announcer continued to report, choking with sobs: "Cylinders flown from Mars have fallen all over the country, one in the suburbs of Buffalo, one in Chicago, one in St. Louis..."

This program only ran for a little over 30 minutes, but the "effect" was already obvious. Most radio stations in New York were already busy "fighting the fire," comforting listeners by saying this was fictional. The CBS building was surrounded by police. Across the US, hundreds of thousands of people ran into the streets shouting; thousands called radio stations and police stations. Many Americans living in the New England area even loaded their valuable belongings onto cars to flee the region because, according to the broadcast, the "Martians" were currently massing in the New England area. Elsewhere, people ran to churches to pray to God, and factories urgently produced gas masks.

Quite a few people became hysterical; some places even reported suicides. Some adventurers loaded their guns and headed for Grovers Mill; they mistook the water towers of local farmers for "Martian tripods" and fired wildly. Several geologists from Princeton University went to investigate the so-called "meteorite"... Even more exaggeratedly, the first emergency call received by a police headquarters that night was: "The Martians are bombing New Jersey." This situation even rippled to Canada, where some Canadians called on the government to take emergency measures to resist the "Martian" invasion.

A set of historical research data indicated that about 6 million Americans listened to the "Martian Invasion" broadcast, of whom 1.7 million believed it was real, and among them, 1.2 million were "terrified." A Princeton University investigation report said: "Those few hours were truly hard to pass. Across the country, from Maine in the east to California in the west, people thought those terrifying Martian monsters with heat rays had already killed all the American troops resisting them, that disaster was imminent, and the end of the world was approaching."

President Roosevelt said to Welles when receiving him after the event: "You know, Orson, the best actors in America are just you and me." This could be said to be a revelation of Roosevelt's true feelings.

Although Roosevelt's own level of being shameless had reached a high realm, Roosevelt had intelligence. If the US side announced the repeal of the *Chinese Exclusion Act* one day, and the next day stood on the so-called moral high ground to gesture and dictate to China, he did not believe doing so could make the American people firmly believe they were more moral than the Chinese, nor could it incite deep hatred among the American people against China. As for the British, the Americans might think the British were powerful, but they would absolutely not consider the British to have any morality to speak of.

The British envoy gained nothing and finally left Washington resentfully. Roosevelt was also very unhappy in his heart; at this moment, his spirit was willing but his flesh was weak.

America's sluggishness gave China an excellent opportunity. After clearing out the local whites in New Zealand, Chinese immigrants took over the entirety of New Zealand at extreme speed. From its birth, the People's Party had attached extreme importance to infrastructure projects. By 1939, China's infrastructure construction not only showed no signs of stopping but was proceeding in full swing. Many of the young Chinese who arrived in New Zealand had participated in infrastructure projects.

Holding onto the imitation of their predecessors, holding onto the conviction of shouldering a great mission, these more than one million young people, with an extremely rational personnel composition, set to work with enthusiasm. Daytime naturally went without saying; the Chinese penetrated every piece of land in New Zealand. Even at night, when the Big Dipper could not be seen in the sky, under the shine of the Southern Cross constellation, all parts of New Zealand were still brightly lit.

Translating and investigating captured local documents, reactivating various factories and mines in New Zealand, conducting geological surveys, building war defense systems. Of course, there were also operations including hunting.

Rabbits were a plague in Australia, and the situation in New Zealand was not much better. Chinese people had a tradition of eating rabbits, and rabbit skins could be processed into decent fur material. These foolish rabbits, facing China's specialized rabbit-hunting teams, suffered inhumane slaughter.

These rabbit-hunting teams did not use traditional shotguns but adopted small-caliber rifles with scopes. That was truly one bullet eliminating one rabbit. Besides bullets, various traps, snares, and other methods were also used. Within a week, in rabbit-infested New Zealand, a professional rabbit-hunting team of ten thousand people provided over 3 million rabbits to the logistics department.

Equally professional processing departments skinned these rabbits; the rabbit skins were used to manufacture fur materials. The skinned and washed rabbits were rubbed with coarse salt and spices and air-dried in cool places. This not only extended the preservation time of the rabbit meat but also allowed the strong grassy smell in the rabbit meat to dissipate, making the taste better. Within two weeks, rabbit meat gradually became one of the main meat supplies for the Chinese in New Zealand.

After the first month passed, a large number of processed rabbit skins began to be exported domestically. These wild hares were huge in size; although the fur color was not good, the advantage was that the quantity was large and cheap. These furs were perfect for making warm linings for jackets. Not only was China's garment industry very satisfied, but because it was cheap, the Soviet comrades were also very satisfied.

Within two months, the economic trade of "bulk commodities" was completed, and the comrades in New Zealand received commendations.