Fluttering leaflets drifted down over Mumbai like snowflakes. Mumbai had seen hail, but the last snowy season closest to 1940 was probably during the Younger Dryas ice age. Although Indian mythology often speaks in terms of tens or hundreds of thousands of years, it is obvious that the detailed climatic conditions of the Younger Dryas period were not recorded back then.

Therefore, the Northern Chinese pilots responsible for scattering the leaflets in the air associated the scene with snowfall, but this association clearly did not resonate with the Mumbai residents on the ground. This was the first time Mumbai had been subjected to an aerial leaflet raid. In an India without a large-scale chemical industry, paper was not a cheap commodity. A rain of paper fell from the sky, and the people on the streets of India were at a loss. After a brief moment of fear passed, the Indians immediately began to scramble for them frantically.

The efficiency of dropping leaflets was actually quite low; every state in India had its own local language. Sanskrit was a language only understood by those with great learning in India, "Standard Hindi" was something that did not yet exist for the time being, and English—well, that was a symbol of status for the Indian upper class. Theoretically, if there were satellites, radios could be dropped regardless of the cost. Unfortunately, current technological capabilities were insufficient; China's artificial satellite program was still at the stage of various observations and paper calculations. Aerospace technology development was still at the level of liquid-fuel rockets similar to the German V2, and sending a satellite into Earth's orbit was a plan for the future. For now, they could only use what was available.

English, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Hindi—four languages filled the leaflet to the brim. As for the content, it was very simple.

"People of India, do you wish to achieve India's self-liberation? Do you wish to be liberated from British colonial rule? The opportunity is right before your eyes!"

"Trust that it will not be long before the British promise to allow India's independence after the war, on the precondition of India's full participation in the war. But everyone must think: why is it only now that the British might make such a promise?"

"In the past, the British side desperately suppressed Indian progressive forces attempting to strive for India's independence. When facing war with China, why would the British suddenly think of allowing India to be independent? They just want Indians to sell their lives for the British!"

"China has no intention of invading India or contending with Britain for India. China hopes to be able to help India achieve freedom and liberation, allowing the Indian people to obtain freedom and peace. When the British hand out weapons to the Indian people, please use the weapons in your hands to strike at the British aggressors! Those people are the true enemies of the Indian people!"

The common people of India might not understand what was written on the leaflets, but the British colonial authorities in India were very clear about it. China was openly inciting Indians to rise up in rebellion, and furthermore, China had "prophesied" that Britain would use the "allow Indian independence model" to get India to throw itself into the war.

What gave the British colonial authorities the biggest headache was that they actually *did* have this intention. If the British had done this themselves first, they could still claim it was a display of their own goodwill. But after someone else had exposed it beforehand, it would certainly be viewed by many as a scheme with ulterior motives.

As colonizers, the British lacked experience in waging public opinion warfare in the colonies; they did something stupid and began confiscating these leaflets. The result of this order was that many local Indians who had been half-believing and half-doubting began to feel that what was said on these leaflets was very likely true. The British were very likely to allow Indian independence.

After their hand was revealed in advance, the British were in a very passive position. Many who hoped for Indian independence began to have more ideas; since the British would accept Indian independence, then accepting independence was no longer the Indians' bottom line. Instead, it became just one of the Indians' many conditions.

After this news reached the British government, the British government was also dumbfounded. Because the news that Britain would allow Indian independence had also begun to circulate in the United States. Not only this news, but the "Churchill Traitor Theory," which was clamoring in the British homeland, was also being spread by quite a few tabloids in the United States as gossip news.

What tabloids wanted was to attract eyeballs; they often relied on stories that were completely unreliable in terms of logic and theory as gimmicks. The "Churchill Traitor Theory," something purely in the realm of conspiracy, although appearing to have a grand scope and involving big shots with names and surnames, was logically impeccable. Facts speak louder than eloquence; deriving a seemingly bizarre yet reasonable chain of logic based on facts made the tabloid editors rack their brains and do their utmost to dig deeply into this story.

With numerous tabloids publishing page after page of news on this, America's major newspapers watched the sales of the tabloids soar. In the end, they had no choice but to participate in this discussion as well. Americans had a psychological inferiority complex towards Britain; while ostensibly presenting "legendary stories," in reality, this could greatly satisfy the American psychological desire to overpower Britain.

The pen-pushers of the major newspapers were streets ahead of the tabloids. First, the *Washington Post* participated in this discussion in a half-concealed manner, and immediately the sales of the *Washington Post* rose in a straight line. When other major newspapers saw this, they knew they couldn't let it pass. Thus, other major newspapers followed suit one after another, which caught Churchill, who was currently visiting the United States, off guard.

Roosevelt, being such a smart person, discovered that things were not right and immediately began ordering the suppression of such reports. The Republican diehards had long harbored discontent towards Roosevelt; Roosevelt running for and being elected President of the United States for a third time had broken the unwritten rule of a maximum of two terms for the US President. During the time of Roosevelt's New Deal, the Supreme Court had attempted to rule the New Deal unconstitutional, but in the crisis situation of that time, the Supreme Court had been forced to submit.

Now that Roosevelt was attempting to interfere with "freedom of speech," this allowed the diehard Republicans to grab a handle against him. In order to defend America's freedom of speech, Republican newspapers opened fire fiercely, on one hand massively and publicly propagating the "Churchill Traitor Theory," and on the other questioning whether Roosevelt wanted to be a dictator, to be the Emperor of America. If he didn't intend to do so, why would Roosevelt interfere with freedom of speech?

There were also newspapers questioning whether Roosevelt wanted to drag the United States into war, and then use news censorship during the war to destroy American freedom of speech, thereby destroying American democracy, so as to achieve Roosevelt's true intention of becoming an American dictator.

Under this overwhelming torrent of abuse, Roosevelt had no choice but to temporarily retreat. Even if those who supported America joining the war had voted for Roosevelt, American public opinion was opposed to the war. What was worse was the "Churchill Traitor Theory"; while allowing Americans to release their emotions, it also whetted their appetites. Many American congressmen who were originally unaware of this now began to concern themselves with the matter. In the US Congress, the role that such "people with intentions" could play was very significant.

If the huge concessions originally made by Churchill could allow Roosevelt to attribute the credit to himself, right now the number of people eyeing it covetously, hoping to scoop up political capital for themselves from this credit, was doubling one after another. This made Roosevelt feel very uneasy. The true success of conducting diplomacy required a win-win, but the people's view of diplomacy was a hope for a "zero-sum." Especially with the American traditions of belief in God and hatred of the British. One of the reasons Roosevelt could obtain such huge influence was that he had brought benefits to the American people, allowing the American people to accept Roosevelt's viewpoints. But the American populace was the populace after all; their attitude towards diplomacy was completely different from the attitude of social elites towards diplomacy. If they were conditions that the people could accept, that would make the British pay a huge price.

As a politician, Fatty Qiu could naturally understand this. What he hoped for most right now was to find the person who planned this operation, then have this person torn apart by five horses, and then chop the corpse pieces into meat sauce. This rumor was not only striking at Fatty Qiu's policies, but also striking at Fatty Qiu's future as a politician. Fatty Qiu was very clear about what result a politician defined as a "traitor" would ultimately face.

But right now, Fatty Qiu truly had no way to sign any agreement. Fatty Qiu could not help but recall the laments of the senior diplomats of the past regarding "backroom diplomacy" and "newspaper diplomacy." During the Franco-Prussian War, German Chancellor Bismarck utilized newspaper propaganda to very powerfully influence France's foreign policy, causing the French to fall into a completely irrational emotional state, and Germany thereby defeated France. Right now, if it were just Fatty Qiu and Roosevelt, they would absolutely be able to reach a very good diplomatic agreement, but the irrational emotions of Britain and the United States were also beginning to influence or even dominate the relationship between the two countries.

Roosevelt had no way to deal with this either; he could only do his utmost in his "Fireside Chats" to encourage Americans to look war in the face, and participate in the war step by step. But Roosevelt also had no way to speak the words in his heart directly to the American people: "We want to participate in the World War, have millions die, and by saving Britain first, take over Britain's family assets, and then contend for hegemony over the world."

And the Republicans seemed to have no intention of letting Roosevelt off the hook; they began to attack Roosevelt's indifference towards India. After all, Wilson had proposed the Fourteen Points which were somewhat similar to anti-colonialism; the Republicans fiercely attacked Roosevelt for being a colonialist. Or at least an American who supported British colonialism.

Chen Ke understood the propaganda battle in the United States very well; in fact, many of these controversies were instigated by Chen Ke from behind the scenes. The Communist Party USA had suffered cruel suppression within the United States in the 1930s. Many people who supported communism and the socialist system chose to hide their viewpoints. And while the majority of this group had relatively secret contacts with the Soviet Union, a small portion chose to cooperate with China.

Unlike the Soviet Union's traditional intelligence warfare, Chen Ke's attitude towards these foreign collaborators was very friendly. The Chinese intelligence community never engaged in the theft of secrets, but rather cooperated with these people in the areas of public opinion and intelligence warfare. Intelligence warfare was very important, for example, in the aspect of provoking struggles between internal interest groups in the United States. Intelligence personnel could achieve things that dozens of divisions could not accomplish.

And China's friendliness likewise made the American collaborators very satisfied; even if someone discovered that these people had a very unusual relationship with China, there was no way to find any possibility that these people were Chinese spies. The things these people did were completely different from traditional spies; their actions were all normal things that Americans in the same industry did. The things they did also did not sell out America's national interests. At least they absolutely did not go against what these people themselves determined to be America's national interests.

Manufacturing sensational gossip to please the crowds, interpreting American and British national policies—if these people were arrested for doing these things, then it would only prove that these people were not wrong in choosing to cooperate with China.

To the Chinese intelligence agencies, perhaps the contribution of these American collaborators might seem small in terms of performance achievements. But Chen Ke's view was "very satisfied." He did not need these people to play any role in a war that was very likely to occur between the United States and China; what he hoped was that these people could delay the war that might break out between China and the United States. Time was obviously standing on China's side. For every day the war was pushed back, China would become a bit stronger; Chen Ke hoped that this precious time could be extended until the United States dared not make a move against China in the Western Pacific.