American Strategic Deception Bureau

　After everything settled, President Ngo Dinh Diem, wearing camouflage uniform and a helmet, cosplayed the famous scene of General MacArthur's "return to the Philippines" during the Pacific War. Under the frequent capture of many war correspondents holding up their cameras, he waded onto the river bank.

　At this time, the smoke and flames on the My Tho battlefield had not yet dissipated. All kinds of charred vehicle wreckage, human flesh fragments, torn military uniforms, and bloody and groaning wounded soldiers could be seen everywhere along the way. Even on the muddy Mekong River, there were many corpses floating.

　However, Diem was oblivious to all this. He just stared blankly at a road sign on the side of the highway that led to Saigon. After a long silence, he made the sign of the cross on his chest and muttered to himself in a low voice: "The dice have been cast! May God bless me!"

　Then, when he looked up at Saigon at the end of the horizon again, the second battle for Saigon, less than a week later, officially began!

　-

　On the other hand, as a CIA officer under the leadership of White House advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger, Major Ferry King certainly couldn't join President Ngo Dinh Diem in the counterattack on Saigon. So, after President Ngo Dinh Diem made the final decision to send troops south, he and Dr. Kissinger disembarked.

　In addition, according to the ancient saying "War keeps women away", before leaving for the war, President Ngo Dinh Diem insisted that First Lady Tran Li Chun also disembark and stay at the mayor's residence in Da Nang. She also warmly invited Phiri and Dr. Kissinger to live with her.

　But Dr. Kissinger thought about it and, for safety reasons, he declined Chen Lichun's kindness and did not live with this "Dragon Lady" - who knew if an assassin would come to attack the First Lady and shoot these Americans into pieces?

　Of course, in these dangerous and fierce times, it doesn’t seem safe to continue staying in a hotel in Da Nang.

　They had not hidden their identities before, and even boasted about them for the sake of face. Now, all the well-informed people in Da Nang already know that a White House adviser representing US President Kennedy came to Da Nang with a group of followers.

　So at this point, there's no guarantee that someone might think Dr. Kissinger is a rare commodity and try to kidnap or kill him to boost their reputation.

　So Dr. Kissinger discussed it with Phiri and they eventually moved to the American barracks next to Da Nang Airport.

　——Although the current Vietnam War is still in the state of "special warfare", the total number of US troops stationed in Vietnam is no more than 10,000. It is far less than the boldness of the late 1960s in another time and space, when 500,000 US troops were stationed in Vietnam and burned at least 2 billion US dollars in military expenditure every month.

　But there is already a small American barracks at Da Nang Airport to house American pilots, ground crew, instructors and airport defense forces.

　Living here not only guarantees safety, but also allows you to catch a plane and escape immediately in case of an emergency.

　So, Dr. Kissinger shamelessly came to the door. With the title of White House adviser, a few boxes of high-quality cigars, and Fieri's rank of major, he successfully got a vacant barracks in the barracks, and then moved in with Fieri and his four companions.

　As a result, after checking in, Fili was pleasantly surprised to find that the room next to his was occupied by Major Bill Lyle, an adviser to Laotian General Wang Bao. The more than 150 Miao militiamen he led were also receiving training in this American barracks next to the airport.

　At first, Bill Lyle lived in a hotel in Da Nang for entertainment, so that he could hire prostitutes and have fun. But when the South Vietnamese Civil War broke out, he felt that the city might be unsafe for a while, so he moved back.

　Come back and stay with your troops.

　Firi was also very happy about this - now that he was in a foreign country, he needed to keep each other company for warmth, and the more guards around him, the better.

　Compared with the South Vietnamese army, which had long been infiltrated by the Viet Cong and was no longer in its true form, these Miao soldiers, who had a blood feud with the Kinh people of Vietnam for generations, were obviously much more reliable.

　After moving to the military barracks next to the airport, Ferry basically stayed indoors. Besides instructing the Texas fat man Wolf Lee to set up a radio station to keep in touch with the bureau, he secretly used his magic crystal ball to have private conversations with Marita in the San Fernando Valley.

　In fact, according to Fili's true intention, he had long wanted to leave this war-torn country, rather than continue to stay in South Vietnam as a blind migrant without any status.

　However, Dr. Kissinger seemed very interested in this exciting trip and wanted to watch the battle up close, so Ferry had no choice but to risk his life to accompany him.

　Since arriving in Da Nang, Dr. Kissinger has been looking for people to talk to, trying to piece together a real South Vietnam in his mind - just like Ruth Benedict visited Japanese immigrants and Japanese prisoners everywhere and eventually wrote the famous Japanese social research work "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword".

　After several days of investigation, Dr. Kissinger quickly came to a rough conclusion and said to Phiri, "I understand! Although the environment in South Vietnam is very similar to that of the Philippines, its social structure is very different from that of the Philippines—it is a modern Crusader state!"

　The author's words:

　In the early 1960s, during the early years of the Vietnam War, U.S. official propaganda about the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in South Vietnam was always filled with embarrassingly flattering words such as "democracy," "freedom," "human rights," "openness," and "progress."

　Although there was neither democracy, freedom, nor human rights in South Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​rule, this did not affect the United States' distortion of the truth.

　Among those private media, there were many brave journalists who took up their pens to expose the dark sides of the South Vietnamese regime, such as corruption, religious persecution, ubiquitous crime, and extremely poor public security.

　However, deep down, most Americans simply thought that South Vietnam was just a replica of the Philippines.

　With the intervention of the United States, although there will indeed be chaos for a while at the beginning, it should calm down over time like the Philippines.

　After all, judging from the landscape photos, the natural environment of South Vietnam is indeed very similar to that of the Philippines. The faces of the indigenous people in the two places seem to be similar, and they are all of the same thin stature. In the 1980s, many American Hollywood Vietnam War blockbusters were filmed in the Philippines.

　(Even in the eyes of Chinese people, is there any difference between Vietnamese monkeys and Luzon monkeys? It seems hard to tell.)

　Even from a cultural perspective, there are Catholic churches everywhere in South Vietnam, and there are also churches everywhere in the Philippines. It seems to be the same.

　However, in reality, the similarities between modern Vietnam and the Philippines are only superficial.

　Although both are tropical countries that eat rice, although both were once colonies of Western European whites, and although both were introduced to Catholicism.

　However, Spain ruled the Philippines for four hundred years, and Catholics accounted for 80% of the Filipino population, with the remaining 10% being Protestants.

　France ruled Vietnam for less than a hundred years, and Catholics in South Vietnam accounted for only 6% of the total population, while the number of Protestants was almost zero.

　Then, whether it is the independent Philippine government or the current South Vietnamese government, the basis of its rule is built on Christians.

　——The entire upper ruling class of society is basically Christians, and government and military positions are generally only open to Christians.

　However, the same operation would naturally be no problem if applied to the Philippines, which is already a Christian country, but it would be a big problem if applied to South Vietnam!

　This is equivalent to turning South Vietnam into a living modern crusader state!

　Both were Christian nobles who made up a very small minority of the country's population. In a foreign land far away from Europe, they relied on foreign military aid to rule over the local pagan subjects who had an absolute population advantage - the only difference was that in the Kingdom of Jerusalem they were Muslims and in South Vietnam they were Buddhists.

　Therefore, if the United States were to apply its experience of ruling the Philippines to South Vietnam, it would definitely not be able to adapt!

　"A Crusader state? Well, yes, although Christians only make up 6% of the country's total population. But the middle and upper-level officials in the Saigon government, as well as the vast majority of officers in the army, are Catholics—just like the noble knights of the Kingdom of Jerusalem are all Christians."

　After listening to Dr. Kissinger's argument, Phiri nodded in agreement and then pondered further: "By analogy, is Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam the same as Saladin? Is Ngo Dinh Diem the "Leper King" Baldwin IV?"

　"Baldwin IV? How can Diem compare to the Leper King? He's nothing more than a Guy! The bastard who led the entire elite force of the Kingdom of Jerusalem into the desert during the Battle of Hattin, only to die of thirst there and bring about the collapse of the Kingdom of Heaven."

　Dr. Kissinger curled his lips in disdain and said, "After the civil war of the Saigon regime is over, no matter who wins or loses, the power of the Viet Cong in the South will inevitably face a

　The wave will expand. President Kennedy will then feel even more headache!"

　Firi agreed with this view. Since the South Vietnamese army was largely controlled by Catholics, the current life-and-death struggle between Ngo Dinh Diem and Dang Minh was like the Crusader civil war within the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the Crusades.

　The more brutally the Crusaders killed each other, the happier the pagan subjects crawling at their feet would be.

　"If we continue to deduce this, President Kennedy is the British equivalent of Richard the Lionheart?" Ferry continued.

　"Richard the Lionheart? That's not likely! Richard the Lionheart was passionate about the Crusades, even selling everything in England to raise funds. But President Kennedy had no enthusiasm for Vietnam. He was only reluctantly willing to continue supporting Ngo Dinh Diem in the war because he was forced into it by the Republicans. You could almost say he was Philip II, the "Great King" of France, and joining the Crusade was purely out of necessity."

　Dr. Kissinger sneered and pointed at himself, "And I am Philip II's jester, well, not quite favored."

　"Next, will Khrushchev of the Soviet Union and Mao of China become the Caliph of the Abbasid Dynasty and the Sultan of the Seljuk Dynasty?"

　"The Abbasid Caliphs and the Turkic Sultans of the Seljuk Empire? It certainly has that flavor!"

　Dr. Kissinger nodded. "While arguing with each other, they gave Saladin a symbolic amount of pocket money..."

　——Before the summer of 1963, China’s second round of aid to Vietnam had not yet started, and the Soviet Union’s large-scale aid to Vietnam only began in 1965.

　At this time, the little aid projects that North Vietnam could get from the socialist camp were only at the level of "pocket money in a child's pocket" compared to the generous donations and crazy transfusions from the United States to South Vietnam, not to mention that South Vietnam's GDP itself was five times that of North Vietnam.

　Unfortunately, the Ngo Dinh Diem regime was really incompetent. Even if the US aid was distributed per capita as welfare, the situation in South Vietnam should have been stabilized long ago.

　-

　In addition to conducting research on Vietnamese society in Da Nang, Dr. Kissinger and Ferry also paid attention to the war currently taking place in South Vietnam.

　Although the streets of Da Nang seemed calm, raging war was actually raging in both the north and south of the city.

　In the south, President Ngo Dinh Diem, relying on naval artillery cover, successfully defeated the rebel 4th Division on April 3, opening the southern gate to attack Saigon. He had already established a counter-insurgency command in My Tho, 70 kilometers from Saigon.

　The "loyal and righteous men" such as the commander of the Third Military Region, Zun Shiding, the commander of the Airborne Forces, Gao Wenyuan, and the commander of the Rangers, Li Guangshao, who had been fighting around Saigon, also rushed from Vung Tau to join the president. At the same time, a large number of Catholic militia groups also arrived.

　As the leader of the rebels, Yang Ming-Ning also deployed troops, integrating the remnants of Chen Shanqian's 7th Division and Nguyen Van Thieu's 5th Division, as well as some marines and police who participated in the uprising. At the same time, he ordered Xuanlu's 18th Division and Cu Chi's 25th Division to abandon their defense zones and return to Saigon.

　At this point, war clouds once again gathered over Saigon, and a new war was about to begin.

　It is very short, but in the land of Hue, including the previous era of great division, the Nguyen royal family has ruled for more than four hundred years, which exceeds the national life of any dynasty in China after Qin Shihuang, and is equivalent to the historical length of the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty combined.

　The four-hundred-year-old dynasty collapsed less than a decade ago. How could there not be a group of Nguyen Dynasty remnants in Hue who "missed their old master"?

　Next, President Ngo Dinh Diem’s hometown is also in the countryside of Hue. After generations of reproduction, he naturally has many poor relatives.

　Although Wu Tingyan's family was actually just a poor commoner family, it was far from being an official family.

　But since he made the leap to become president, the Hue Wu family has also become prosperous in an instant, and all the neighbors who are slightly related to Wu Tingyan have become officials or rich, making the Hue Wu family quickly expand into a powerful upstart.

　While such rapidly rising nouveau riche generally have shaky foundations, even if they thrive for a while, they can easily fall apart when faced with adversity. But President Ngo Dinh Diem seems to be standing firm, and many are still willing to fight tooth and nail for the president, hoping for future rewards.

　——Since he did not have his own hereditary retainers and old heroes, President Ngo Dinh Diem was always generous in treating his meritorious officials and never hesitated to promote them out of turn.

　Next, Hue, with its strong Buddhist and Confucian atmosphere, originally had few Catholics.

　But with the beginning of French colonial rule, Catholicism eventually gradually penetrated into this conservative land.

　After Ngo Dinh Diem came to power, in order to cling to the president's thigh, there were countless sycophants who converted to Christianity in recent years - South Vietnam was an out-and-out Catholic regime. In President Diem's ​​court, if you were not a Catholic, you could not get an official position!

　Even if it were the Confucian scholars of ancient China, in this environment where "if you want to serve as an official, you must believe in God", they would definitely be collectively inspired by God!

　Due to the Diem regime's extreme favoritism towards Catholics, those Catholics who converted to Christianity overnight in Hue not only enjoyed preferential treatment, including tax exemptions and labor service, but also exploited the power of others in various civil conflicts, brazenly seizing land from Buddhists and temple monastic communities. They essentially rode on the Buddha's coattails, taking advantage of every opportunity. Recently, they've even gone so far as to deforest mountains, destroy temples, kill monks, and rape female donors, enjoying themselves to the fullest.

　It's just like the Chinese Christians during the Boxer Rebellion. Since Catholics have benefited from the church, they have to serve the church in times of crisis.

　Otherwise, once the persecution breaks out and the monks rise to power, how can they keep the land and houses they had previously seized from Buddhists and temples?

　Finally, as the opposition to all the old forces, the Viet Cong underground party and guerrillas were naturally overjoyed in the face of the chaos in Hue. They immediately took advantage of the situation and fanned the flames. According to the instructions from Hanoi, the Viet Cong in Hue, while inciting the local landlord militia, temple monks and Catholic militia to attack each other, took the opportunity to develop their strength and expand their base.

　In just a few days at the beginning of April, taking advantage of the general collapse of order in the Hue area, the Viet Cong guerrillas even occupied several counties in the western inland of Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces in one go, including Khe Sanh, which had become a famous battlefield in another time and space, and had already hoisted the red flag in this time and space.

　According to common sense, as a professional violence machine, the South Vietnamese army should have swept the entire scene in such a melee.

　However, the army in the Hue region itself fell apart. Almost all the senior officers in the entire military region were rounded up and subsequently summarily executed by Nguyen Chinh Thi, a special commissioner of the General Staff, who falsely passed on military orders. The officers and soldiers of the 1st and 2nd Divisions were left without a leader.

　Although they spontaneously entered Hue and burned down the First Military Region headquarters out of resentment, they soon lost their focus. A group of mid-level officers became estranged and, after failing to gain traction internally, they completely collapsed and began to plunder without a care in the world.

　Once the army loses its organization, it will degenerate into an ordinary thug, and will just be fighting against other forces, without the advantage of crushing them.

　Next, because the First Division guarding the northern border turned its guns inward and rushed towards the city of Hue in a disorderly manner, the "demilitarized zone" of the Bien Hai River near the 17th parallel north, which was the border between South Vietnam and North Vietnam, was immediately abandoned by the South Vietnamese side.

　On the entire Bianhai River, there was basically only air left to confront the North Vietnamese army on the opposite side, which made the United States anxious when it learned of this.

　Isn't this tantamount to seducing Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi and mobilizing the North Vietnamese army to move south to take advantage?

　However, at that moment, Diem and Dung Minh were thousands of miles away in the capital, Saigon, engaged in a life-or-death duel. No matter who the Americans pressured, no one would be willing to abandon the decisive battle in Saigon and withdraw their forces from Saigon to intervene in the chaos in Hue.

　——How can the old capital of Hue, which only has a bunch of historical sites left, be as important as the current capital Saigon?

　And the local authority in Hue? It no longer exists, it has completely disintegrated!

　As the rebellious "adopted son" of Ngo Dinh Diem, the "double crown king" who had just been appointed as the commander of the First Military Region and Governor-General of Hue by both Dang Minh and Ngo Dinh Diem, the undisputed lord of Hue in legal terms, and the "filial as Lu Bu", Colonel Nguyen Chinh Thi disappeared shortly after causing such a terrible disaster.

　Ever since the 1st and 2nd Divisions rushed into Hue, he has been playing hide-and-seek.

　Where is the goods?

　As for getting the various parties in Hue, who are now blood-thirsty, to stop fighting as soon as possible and sit down for negotiations...even God can't do that.

　Up to now, the Americans have no idea how many armed groups are fighting in Hue!

　The US government had no choice but to watch the situation in Hue deteriorate and wait for the locals to fight to the bitter end. The bustling and trance-like scene made Phiri, who heard the news across the mountain in Da Nang, feel as if he had witnessed the Rwandan genocide from another world.

　For Firi, the only benefit was that the north was completely safe, and no one could cross the Hai Van Ridge from Hue to attack Da Nang.

　In addition to Hue in the north, the Second Military Region south of Da Nang also raised the banner of rebellion during the "March 30th Coup".

　However, as the fighting around Saigon raged, Nguyen Khanh, commander of the Second Military Region, stationed in the mountain town of Da Dao (1500 meters above sea level), remained inactive. He neither sent troops south to reinforce the Saigon battlefield nor marched north to attack Da Nang, a stronghold that remained loyal to Ngo Dinh Diem.

　On the contrary, he transferred the main force of the 23rd Division under the Second Military Region from Pleiku, an important town in the northern part of the military region, which is relatively close to Da Nang, to Ba Gia in the southern part of the military region, closer to Saigon, and combined it with the 22nd Division to form a heavy force group, which focused its attention on Saigon.

　On the other hand, Da Nang, whose mobile forces had been basically drained by Ngo Dinh Diem, would also not have the idea of ​​actively provoking the Second Military Region and Nguyen Khanh.

　Therefore, neither the supporters of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in Da Nang nor General Nguyen Khanh of the Second Military Region had any intention of fighting in the north, but were quietly waiting for news from Saigon, waiting for the two leaders Ngo Dinh Diem and Yang Ming-Ning to decide the outcome.

　The outcome of this peak showdown did not take too long to wait.

　On April 9, President Ngo Dinh Diem defeated the rebels and entered Saigon, capturing the South Vietnamese Army General Staff, which he called the "nest of rebels." Following their defeat, coup commanders such as Generals Dung Van Minh and Tran Van Don, as well as high-ranking South Vietnamese civilian supporters of the coup, including Vice President Nguyen Ngoc Thu and Foreign Minister Vu Van Mu, hastily broke out of the city and fled. Some fled to Cambodia, while others fled to Da Dao and joined Nguyen Khanh in the Second Military Region.

　Just like that, just ten days after the demise of the regime, the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in South Vietnam reopened in Saigon!

　Author's words: PS: The relief supplies that the US military airdropped to Gaza did not have parachutes, and they directly killed people. When they opened them, they found that there was lard inside.

　I have to say that Americans nowadays are really professional when it comes to disgusting things.

　Chapter 219: President Wu Returns to His Loyal Saigon

　At dusk on April 9, 1963, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam

　When President Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​motorcade returned to Saigon once again, engulfed in a cloud of dust, the setting sun was falling from the horizon.

　The entire sky was dyed crimson by the twilight, and the bright sunset cast its last ray of light onto Xianyi Avenue before night fell.

　Under the blood-red glow, the dilapidated buildings on both sides of the street, the collapsed electric poles, the burnt billboards, the scattered corpses and vehicle wreckage all seemed to be bathed in a sea of ​​fire, showing a cruel and bloody beauty of destruction.

　How many times has Saigon turned into a battlefield?

　If we count from the time when the Japanese entered the French Indochina colony... Alas, there are so many times that I can't count them all at once!

　Stepping down from the armored vehicle, Ngo Dinh Diem could not help but feel a surge of emotion as he looked at the Gia Long Palace, the presidential palace, which had been reduced to charred ruins by the rebel air force.

　This is the second presidential palace that has been reduced to ruins by rebels!