Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 80 Reactions of various countries
Today, British Ambassador to China, Hugh G. Schultz, got up very early and arrived at his office at seven o'clock.

At this moment, he was hunched over his oak desk reviewing documents, the gilded pen nib scratching on the parchment, while the artillery fire from the direction of Zijin Mountain outside the window cast flickering light and shadow on his profile.

He had barely sat down when the carved door was suddenly pushed open, and a thin, blond-haired, blue-eyed man rushed in. The man was Colonel Quill Paterson, the military attaché from the embassy.

Just as Xu Gesen raised his well-trimmed silver-white eyebrows, before he could even reprimand him, he heard Colonel Quill exclaim urgently, "Your Excellency Ambassador, something terrible has happened!"

Xu Gesen raised an eyebrow. “Dear Colonel Quill, the situation in China is so bad that I can’t think of anything worse.”

Quill's voice trembled with barely suppressed emotion: "Your Excellency, something truly significant has indeed occurred."

Just last night, a Chinese army unit released poison gas at Japanese troops inside the city, causing heavy losses to the Japanese army.

According to our intelligence reports, two regiments of the Japanese 6th Division were almost completely wiped out, and the Japanese losses in Nanjing alone amounted to tens of thousands. The Japanese field hospitals are now overflowing with wounded soldiers.

"Bah."

The pen slipped from Xu Gesen's fingers, leaving a streak of ink on the documents on the table.

He stood up abruptly, the sandalwood chair legs scraping against the marble floor with a screeching sound.

"God..." he whispered, almost squeezing the words out between his teeth. He turned to look towards the Yangtze River, his left hand gripping the chair tightly.

After a moment, he suddenly turned around, his sharp gaze fixed on his military attaché: "Colonel Quill, you are the British military attaché to China. Tell me, how did the Chinese acquire chemical weapons?"

"I...I don't know either." Colonel Quill also looked bitter and incredulous, spreading his hands in what he usually despised as an American gesture.

"As you know, given China's current industrial level, the possibility of it being able to manufacture chemical weapons is no less ridiculous than their ambition to dominate all of Asia."

"Yes!" Xu Gesen sighed and sat back down in his chair.

Chemical weapons may seem simple, but without a strong industrial base and in-depth research in chemical biology, it is simply impossible to develop them.

He pondered for a long time, then murmured, "Since the Chinese can't develop it themselves, there's only one possibility..."

He suddenly looked at Colonel Quill, and the two said in unison, "It received aid from other countries!"

“Yes, that’s the only possibility.” Colonel Quill slapped his right hand against his left palm, making a crisp snapping sound.

"Currently, the only countries in the world capable of developing and manufacturing chemical weapons, besides our Great British Empire and Japan, are Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Italy."

However, Germany was an ally of Japan, and although Italy had the capability to develop it, its industrial base was limited, making it too difficult for them to produce it.

Therefore, it seems that only the United States and the Soviet Union had the motive and capability to do so.

“It couldn’t be an American.” Xu Gesen had recovered from his shock by now. He leaned back in his chair, picked up the now-cold coffee on the table, took a sip, and said slowly.

"The Americans are just a bunch of greedy barbarians. They are currently sucking the blood of the Japanese with scrap steel, oil and machine tools. How could they possibly give chemical weapons to the Chinese?"

As for the Soviets…” He paused, then continued, “While it’s possible, I don’t understand why Stalin would do that. It doesn’t align with Soviet interests in the Far East.”

At this point, he took off his gold-rimmed glasses and wiped the mirror surface heavily with a silk handkerchief.

After wiping it clean, he suddenly smiled. "But no matter what, it's a good thing to see the suffering of the Japanese. I should probably visit the Japanese embassy sometime to comfort Ambassador Kawagishi Shigeru's wounded heart."

"Puch!"

Colonel Quill, who was standing to the side, couldn't help but chuckle softly.

He certainly understood why his ambassador harbored such hostility towards the Japanese, because just a few months earlier, on August 26, Ambassador Xu Gesen's car was strafed by two Japanese planes at low altitude while he was traveling from Nanjing to Shanghai.

This resulted in Xu Gesen being seriously wounded by a gunshot to the back, and his secretary and driver were also injured.

Xu Gesen was rushed to a church hospital in Shanghai for treatment. He was in critical condition at one point, but was later out of danger after surgery.

I spent several months recovering from my injury before finally being discharged from the hospital and returning to work this month.

During Xu Gesen's hospitalization, the Japanese government offered him a perfunctory apology, claiming that the attack on ground targets was due to the pilot being too nervous, and punished the pilot responsible.

However, a subsequent investigation by the British government revealed that the Japanese planes strafed Hugh G. S.'s car because he had invited Chiang Kai-shek to travel to Shanghai with him.

After Japanese spies learned of this, they reported it to the Japanese government. The Japanese army immediately dispatched two aircraft to ambush him en route and strafed his vehicle, nearly killing him.

What the Japanese didn't know was that when his car was about to depart, Chiang Kai-shek had something come up and didn't leave with him, making Xu Gesen a scapegoat.

Xu Gesen naturally had no good feelings towards the Japanese who had almost killed him.

But after the initial excitement, Xu Gesen seemed to remember something and suddenly said to Colonel Quill, "Prepare the car."

"I need to go to the American and Soviet embassies in China."

"Your Excellency Ambassador, what is this...?" Colonel Quill asked in surprise.

“This is no small matter. I must personally consult Nelson (the U.S. ambassador to China) and Dmitry (the Soviet ambassador to China), otherwise I will not be at ease.”

An hour later in the reception room of the Soviet Embassy in China
"Your Excellency Xu Gesen, I would like to repeat myself: our government has never sold or planned to sell any chemical weapons to the Chinese government. This would violate international conventions and be an immoral act. Our government would not engage in such an act that violates international conventions."

Soviet Ambassador to China Dmitry Bogomolov (in the original timeline, he had already been recalled to his country and secretly executed at the end of 1937; this is for the sake of the novel, so please don't take it too seriously) solemnly said to Xu Gesen.

Looking at Dmitry's serious and earnest expression, Xu Gesen couldn't quite tell whether the other party was acting or telling the truth. After all, who among those who could serve as ambassadors of a country wasn't a highly skilled actor?

“Alright, I will report this matter to our government.” Xu Gesen nodded.

"But I still hope that our two countries and the US government can issue a joint statement condemning the Chongqing government and hoping that they will stop using this inhumane chemical weapon."

(End of this chapter)