American Strategic Deception Bureau

　In order to nip the problem in the bud, it would be better to let the young girls of the Wu family, or the wives of the Wu family whose husbands are still alive, do the job!

　That is why Chen Lichun could not wait to fly to Saigon as soon as it was captured.

　Go back and hold on to your position as the First Lady, lest the other women of the Wu family steal the spotlight. Or even squeeze her out of the First Lady's position!

　Haha, I don’t believe that all of Wu Tingyan’s relatives are so good-tempered and don’t have a trace of envy or jealousy towards Chen Lichun’s ostentatious display…”

　"Well, I understand. What you said makes sense. Chen Lichun is not Wu Dinh Diem's ​​wife. Therefore, her position as the first lady is very unstable. There must be many potential competitors. But the problem is..."

　Kissinger scratched his head in confusion. “Is the title of ‘First Lady’ really worth risking her life for?”

　"At least she thinks it's worth it," Firi replied. "Besides, she doesn't have anything left except this title."

　At this point, Fili sighed, his mind racing with the famous line from "Let the Bullets Fly," a film that has become incredibly popular online in the 21st century. It even spawned the "Redology" movement, much like "Dream of the Red Chamber," which spawned the "Redology" movement. Carina Lau, who plays the wife of a county magistrate, said, "I just want to be the wife of the county magistrate. I don't care who the county magistrate is!"

　If Chen Lichun were to say it today, it could probably be replaced with "I just want to be the first lady, I don't care who is the president", right?

　Honestly, the current situation of Chen Lichun, the "Evil Dragon Lady," is quite pitiful when you think about it carefully. Her husband is dead, her children are gone, her family is completely ruined, and her parents-in-law are dead. Even her biological parents and her younger brother have turned against Chen Lichun and severed ties with her.

　Apart from the seemingly glorious title of "First Lady", what else does Chen Lichun have at this moment?

　It's no wonder Chen Lichun considered this title her ultimate purpose in life. Even braving the ravages of battle, she would rush to President Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​side to secure a seat, lest some slutty woman take advantage of her situation and snatch away the honor of being First Lady.

　As for whether Chen Lichun can maintain her status in the family in a possible family feud?

　Phiri said that his, Dr. Kissinger's, and Chen Lichun's fate had ended, and that they should let go of their compulsion to help others and respect their fate...

　In fact, compared with such a small matter as whether Chen Lichun's "position as queen" will be shaken, the Viet Cong forces that are emerging all over South Vietnam are the biggest crisis that makes the United States most worried!

　Chapter 221: The Vietcong Emerges, the Third Battle of Saigon (Additional Updates, Seeking Votes)

　In fact, long before the outbreak of this round of civil war in the South Vietnamese army, the Viet Cong guerrilla forces in South Vietnam had already developed very prosperously.

　Just south of Saigon, the delta of Rung Sa, a network of waterways and swamps, has become a den of Vietcong guerrillas, a thorn in Saigon's side, blocking the sea. The Diem regime, feeling like a thorn in its throat, has repeatedly launched military campaigns against Rung Sa, but has never been able to take it.

　——It is said that the US military’s “Delta” special forces gained experience here.

　Then, in Cu Chi, 35 kilometers north of Saigon, was the headquarters of the Vietcong—more precisely, the headquarters of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, or NLF. From there, Vietcong fighters could drive into Saigon in just an hour.

　How close was the Vietcong headquarters in Cu Chi to the South Vietnamese presidential palace in Saigon? To put it in perspective, it's roughly equivalent to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek establishing his capital in Nanjing while Chairman Mao Zedong planted his flag in Zhenjiang. Then, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, armed with American aid and a million-strong army, aided by 500,000 American troops, laid siege to Zhenjiang for fifteen years, burning through $200 billion to $300 billion in military spending, yet still failed to capture the "Red Capital."

　To give another similar analogy, if during the Taiping Rebellion, Emperor Xianfeng personally led the army to fight and moved the entire court to the Jiangnan camp, and he and Hong Xiuquan in Tianjing City glared at each other across the city wall, then the situation would be probably similar to that of the two sides in the Vietnam War.

　Although the 25th Division of the South Vietnamese Third Military Region was stationed in Cu Chi, it was completely helpless against the Viet Cong headquarters next door and was beaten up all day long.

　——This is also why in another time and space, during the Tet Offensive in 1968, the armed forces of the Viet Cong were able to suddenly break into the capital Saigon and bring destruction to the heart of the South Vietnamese regime: because they had always stayed in the suburbs of Saigon and had never moved!

　In later years, the Vietcong even developed a clock-in system, working in Cu Chi on weekdays and going to Saigon on weekends... Hmm? Why didn't the South Vietnamese police arrest them? Who would dare to do so? Aren't they afraid that they'd arrest a Vietcong cadre in the morning, only to return home that evening to find their entire family wiped out by Vietcong agents?

　The higher-ups only give us such a small salary which is deducted at every level. It's hard to make a living without doing some private work. We just have to deal with it. What's the point of risking our lives?

　(For readers familiar with Japanese history, the situation of the Vietnam War is more like the Onin War, with the two armies fighting in the capital and across the country at the same time.)

　Next, the Mekong Delta at the southernmost tip of South Vietnam was a hard-hit area for Viet Cong guerrilla activities, with bases scattered everywhere.

　Except for a few "model areas", the orders of the South Vietnamese local government were often difficult to get beyond the provincial capital. The countryside was a big stage for landlord militias, bandits, religious armed forces and Viet Cong guerrillas to fight each other, and the South Vietnamese government forces were just trapped in the city.

　In fact, since the 1960s, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, has been surrounded by the Viet Cong, but there are still a few external transportation routes that have not been cut off.

　In another time and space, the South Vietnamese government's greatest wish was to build an "absolutely safe" capital area with a radius of 30 kilometers, allowing them to self-sustain within the city. Unfortunately, even this humble wish was never achieved...

　In contrast, Viet Cong activities were less frequent in the western highlands and Hue areas, which were closer to North Vietnam.

　Especially in the sparsely populated western plateau, where the mountains are high and forests are dense, and where the "barbarians" (Hmong) are entrenched, the Vietcong lack a mass base and rely heavily on transportation from the north for logistics. Although the guerrillas can come and go freely, they cannot establish a base: how can they build a base without a population?

　In fact, if the US military wanted to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War, it did not need to carry out endless bombing, spray defoliants, or come up with time bombs, disguised bombs and other messy tricks. All it needed to do was give more money and guns to the Miao people in the mountains, promise them independence and autonomy, and treat the Kinh people as special agents. This would ensure that the North Vietnamese transport teams would be walking in enemy territory, and only one out of a hundred trucks of supplies could be transported to South Vietnam.

　Of course, whether this would provoke the South Vietnamese regime in Saigon, which was holding high the banner of nationalism, to go crazy and directly embroider the red flag and surrender to the Communist Party is another question. But even if so, for the US imperial army, a head-on attack on Saigon would be easier than endless underground rural raids, right?

　Well, back to the topic, as early as last autumn, with the complete failure of the "Strategic Village Plan", the Viet Cong forces in the Mekong Delta had already taken root and sprouted everywhere, blossoming and bearing fruit everywhere, presenting a prosperous situation with vitality and all things competing for development.

　The situation of the various units under the Fourth Military Region of South Vietnam was roughly the same as that of the Japanese invaders trapped in various artillery towers in North China at the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

　In fact, the Fourth Military Region was able to control all the provincial capitals before the civil war, not by relying on its tiny garrisons, but because the illegal religious armed forces of Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, as well as the Catholic militias in the countryside, were fighting with the Viet Cong guerrillas for territory, slowing down the expansion of the Viet Cong and giving the South Vietnamese government forces, which were hiding in the cities, some breathing space.

　However, this year, with the outbreak of the "March 30th Coup", President Ngo Dinh Diem did not hesitate to evacuate the entire Mekong Delta garrison and put all his efforts into counterattacking Saigon. After that, the local authorities of South Vietnam, without the support of the army, finally could not even hold the provincial capital: within a short week, seven or eight provinces including Ca Mau, Tay Ninh, An Giang, Tra Vinh, and Phuoc Long fell one after another, either controlled by the Viet Cong or falling into the hands of local religious armed groups.

　The South Vietnamese army in the Mekong Delta was compressed by the Viet Cong into Can Tho City, where the headquarters of the Fourth Military Region was located (the largest city in the Mekong Delta, its status is similar to Suzhou in the Yangtze River Delta of my country, Saigon corresponds to Shanghai, and Phnom Penh corresponds to Nanjing). The surrounding strongholds were still falling one after another, and emergency telegrams flew to Saigon like snowflakes. Everywhere was a scene of ghosts howling and misery.

　However, facing the Second Military Region Commander Nguyen Khanh who was about to march towards Saigon from the east, President Ngo Dinh Diem and the Fourth Military Region Commander Huang Van Gao could no longer care about the fire in their backyard. They could only ignore the tearful pleas for help from the southern provinces and concentrate on preparing for the next third Battle of Saigon.

　The US troops stationed in Vietnam, who were truly worried about this, dispatched Air Force transport planes and helicopters to airdrop some food and ammunition supplies to the defenders of South Vietnamese towns and strongholds scattered in the Mekong Delta, and bombed Viet Cong troops and camps detected by aerial reconnaissance.

　As for the actual effect, it can be said to be better than nothing - after all, after being bombed for so many years, the Viet Cong had long since developed the talent trees of concealment and air defense, and their ability to deal with air raids is unparalleled in the world.

　On the contrary, due to poor communication and lack of air-ground coordination, many South Vietnamese troops were mistakenly bombed by the US Air Force.

　After adding and subtracting these factors, the situation of the South Vietnamese army in the Mekong Delta did not improve at all due to the deployment of the US Air Force.

　What's even more terrible is that the main force of the South Vietnamese Air Force is still in the hands of the rebels. In order to show his ability to his new master, General Nguyen Khanh, the new leader of the coup army, the Deputy Commander of the Air Force, Nguyen Cao Ky, has been working hard to send planes to bomb Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​rear.

　As a result, no sooner had the US Air Force airdropped ammunition and supplies to the South Vietnamese towns in the Mekong Delta, strafing and bombing the Viet Cong guerrillas attacking the cities, than planes from the South Vietnamese Air Force flew in and bombed the South Vietnamese Fourth Military Region troops defending the towns to pieces, opening a breakthrough for the Viet Cong guerrillas attacking the cities. In other words, the South Vietnamese Air Force was providing cover for the Viet Cong, helping them capture their own cities...

　This absurd situation made General Hawkins, the commander of the US forces in Vietnam, very angry, but he didn't know what to do.

　Although Ambassador Lodge was also very anxious, he still believed that he should watch South Vietnam fight the current civil war instead of forcibly intervening to stop it.

　Because, in the past few years, Saigon has been in military and political chaos, and endless factional fighting. If these birds of a feather cannot be put to an end, no one will be able to establish a strong and stable government in South Vietnam, and sooner or later the entire country will be handed over to the Vietcong.

　Rather than letting South Vietnam continue to be in chaos, it is better to suffer a short pain than a long one. We should rely on civil war to create a real strong man to lead the country!

　-

　In short, no matter how worried the Americans were about the situation of "Viet Cong emerging" everywhere, another round of civil war broke out in the South Vietnamese army.

　4 month 16 day,

　Nguyen Khanh led two divisions of the Second Military Region, totaling 22,000 troops, along Highway 1 into Xuan Loc, a transportation hub east of Saigon, and found that the 18th Division originally stationed in Xuan Loc had been deserted. Although they did not encounter any resistance, they were unable to recruit any "friendly troops."

　It seems that after Yang Wenming was defeated, the 18th Division was disbanded in internal strife and ceased to exist.

　Next, Nguyen Khanh sent another armored cavalry squadron to continue advancing along Kilometer 1 to conduct fire reconnaissance on Bien Hoa, where an air force base was located. They quickly defeated a Catholic militia that had just entered Bien Hoa and was busy looting, easily occupied Bien Hoa City, and took over Bien Hoa Airport.

　Upon learning that Bien Hoa had fallen, President Ngo Dinh Diem immediately ordered a counterattack. Under the command of Airborne Force Commander Gao Wenyuan, an advance team composed of Marines and airborne troops quickly attacked Bien Hoa Airport and successfully destroyed 6 tanks on the way.

　But General Nguyen Khanh subsequently sent reinforcements to continue fighting for Bien Hoa Airport in an attempt to open the eastern gate leading to the capital Saigon.

　After a fierce battle, Colonel Gao Wenyuan, who had only more than a thousand men under his command, found himself unable to hold on alone and had to abandon the airport and retreat.

　On April 17, Huang Wengao led two divisions to meet up with Gao Wenyuan's advance team and deployed their troops between Saigon and Bien Hoa.

　Throughout the day of April 18, Wu's army and the rebels exchanged fire in many places in the eastern suburbs of Saigon, with each side winning and losing, and the battle situation was deadlocked for a while.

　However, just when the war correspondents in Saigon thought that the fighting would continue for a long time, the battle came to an abrupt end without any warning.

　——Because, on the morning of April 19, President Ngo Dinh Diem ascended to heaven!

　Well, I was blown into the sky by a bomb...

　Author's Note: PS: Regarding the American business war, you can write more about assassinations in the future. Because of quality issues at Boeing, a witness has already committed suicide.

　Even if it causes an uproar in public opinion, it will be useless. I guess Edison must have encountered many such things when he started his business more than a hundred years ago, right?

　Chapter 222: Ten-Day Dynasty, President Ascension

　President Ngo Dinh Diem ascended to heaven?!

　When Phiri heard the news at Da Nang Airport, he was surprised and muttered to Dr. Kissinger, "Although I had a premonition that President Ngo Dinh Diem might not survive this, I didn't expect him to die in such a... uh, spectacular way?"

　——To be precise, it was a physical explosion...

　On the morning of April 19, in order to cheer up the various Catholic militia security groups gathered in Saigon and inspire the fighting spirit of these miscellaneous troops, President Ngo Dinh Diem organized a collective morning prayer activity at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Saigon, the famous "Red Church", and invited the captains of various militias to participate.

　According to Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​idea, after the morning prayer, he would confer official titles and make promises to these Catholic militia leaders to encourage them to fight hard.

　As a result, before the morning prayer was over, the entire Cathedral of Our Lady was blown down by a powerful explosive that had been hidden under the floor at some point, accompanied by a deafening bang and billowing smoke.

　At least hundreds of people were killed in the explosion. President Ngo Dinh Diem and his secretary Nguyen Van Thuan died on the spot and were buried in the rubble. Even their bodies could not be dug out.

　Colonel Li Yuankang, commander of the Marine Corps, and Li Guangshao, commander of the Rangers, who were outside the church, were also killed by falling rocks.

　First Lady Chen Lichun escaped death because she was in a field hospital visiting wounded soldiers and distributing relief supplies.

　But despite this, once Ngo Dinh Diem died, she could no longer be the first lady...

　Next, what interests everyone is who is responsible for this spectacular "Heavenly Punishment"?

　"Anyone could have done it. Many people could have been the real culprit—Viet Cong spies, officers from the General Staff, Saigon intelligence who betrayed Diem, devout Buddhist monks in the Sangha... There are simply too many people who want to kill Diem."

　Dr. Kissinger speculated calmly, "Of course, it could be us Americans—the CIA where you, Major, work!"

　"Why did the CIA want to kill Ngo Dinh Diem? Was it an order from President Kennedy?" Firi frowned.

　"Although President Kennedy deeply disliked Diem, he probably wouldn't issue such an order directly to the CIA. Otherwise, Vice President Johnson would be very upset. However, Ambassador Lodge, who is now in Saigon and has exposed his identity as a coup participant, is more difficult to say."

　Kissinger explained, “According to convention, the CIA station in Saigon is currently under the direct command of Ambassador Lodge. Under normal circumstances, senior CIA executives may pretend to obey but secretly disobey. But if Ambassador Lodge exerts pressure recklessly, then the CIA will not dare to disobey…”

　——After going through so many things, Ambassador Lodge and Ngo Dinh Diem have long been in an irreconcilable confrontation.

　According to the current situation, if Ngo Dinh Diem defeated Nguyen Khanh and regained the presidency, then Ambassador Lodge, as the mastermind behind the coup, would have to resign and return home, and because he messed up Vietnam's mission, his future would be bleak for a long time to come.

　On the contrary, if Ngo Dinh Diem was eventually killed by the coup army, then Lodge's career would return to what he believed to be the "right track."

　Therefore, Ambassador Lodge and the CIA's Saigon intelligence station are indeed highly suspicious!

　Think about it carefully, Wu Ting

　Yan was not killed by a sniper, but was blown up into the sky along with the church by explosives!

　How much explosives would be needed to blow up the Notre Dame Cathedral in Saigon? Who else, except the Americans who had privileges in Saigon, could have raised so much explosives in a short period of time and, under the wartime martial law, installed the bombs under the floor of the Notre Dame Cathedral?

　Of course, given that Diem's ​​intelligence services had already defected during the March 30th coup, and the South Vietnamese government was thoroughly infiltrated by the Vietcong, it's difficult to say whether this was Diem's ​​former lackeys turning against their master, or whether it was the work of the Vietcong.

　It is even possible that the secret police betrayed Ngo Dinh Diem and joined forces with the Viet Cong underground party to do this big thing!

　After all, the two seemingly irreconcilable parties just happened to be very eager to kill Wu Dinh Diem!

　-

　In short, no matter who assassinated President Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon, the subsequent development of this situation is predictable.

　——The two armies fought, and the president died suddenly! What good news this is for the rebels!

　As soon as the news of President Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​death spread, the battle line outside Saigon collapsed instantly and then spread across a vast area.

　Upon hearing the tragic news of the president's sudden death, Major General Huang Wengao, commander of the Fourth Military Region, was devastated. Knowing his side was doomed, he immediately ordered his entire army to withdraw from the battlefield. He then led a charge south along Highway 4, crossing the Mekong River from My Tho and fleeing back to Can Tho City, where his headquarters was located.

　Because the military district commander Huang Wengao took the lead in abandoning command and fleeing, the tens of thousands of troops of the Fourth Military District that he had brought from the Mekong Delta to Saigon to fight suddenly became headless flies. Some surrendered, some fled, and only less than 10,000 people followed Huang Wengao to retreat south.

　As a result, they had nothing to eat or drink along the way, were pursued by the coup troops, and were harassed by the Viet Cong guerrillas. In addition, their morale was low and their organization plummeted... In the end, there were only two or three thousand remnants of the defeated army who successfully escaped to Can Tho City with Major General Huang Wengao, and the entire Fourth Military Region had lost its manpower.

　At the same time, as soon as the Navy Commander Hu Jinquan learned the bad news, he quickly took the frightened First Lady Chen Lichun, as well as the remaining Wu family relatives and civil and military followers in Saigon, and hastily led the fleet to sail out of the Saigon River and flee downstream.

　According to Hu Jinquan's idea, he originally planned to go to Vung Tau Port near the capital to wait and see the situation.

　However, warships could not move as fast as radio waves. Before the fleet commanded by Colonel Hu Jinquan arrived at Vung Tau Port, the marines left behind in Vung Tau once again changed sides and publicly sent a telegram to submit to the "Military Revolutionary Committee" led by Nguyen Khanh.

　After receiving the telegram, Hu Jinquan saw that there was no place for the remnants of the Wu family to stand near the capital Saigon. He could only command the fleet to continue sailing out to sea, just like the "Prince of Restoration" Nguyen Phuc Anh of the Nguyen Dynasty, and fled all the way to Phu Quoc Island in southwestern Vietnam to rest temporarily.

　When all the bigwigs fled, Saigon, which was already in the white terror, immediately fell into a state of chaos throughout the city.

　Fortunately, after discovering the enemy's sudden collapse, Nguyen Khanh immediately accelerated his advance and entered Saigon in the evening of the 19th. He suppressed the market and successfully restored order.

　At this point, it took only ten days from the time President Ngo Dinh Diem fought back to Saigon to his assassination and the collapse of the regime.

　Journalists, drawing inspiration from the "Hundred Days" following the restoration of Emperor Napoleon, dubbed this period Saigon's "Ten Days"...

　To Ruan Qing, this was simply absurd, like "singing in a leaky boat and drinking heavily under a burning house."

　What is the current situation in the country? Don’t you know?

　Is this the time for everyone to celebrate, sit together and share the fruits of their labor, award each other official titles and medals, and give a good beating to the one who has fallen on hard times?

　Not to mention the Saigon city area, which is still in a paralyzed state with no water, electricity or telephone calls. Citizens have to rely on collecting rainwater and fetching water from the muddy Saigon River to quench their thirst. Thousands of rotting corpses are piled up in the streets, and no one cares to burn or bury them.

　Some angry citizens were still hunting down lone Catholic militiamen, stripping these "modern crusaders", tying them up, and roasting them on the fire until they were sizzling. Other hungry citizens were busy stealing and looting food, and would not hesitate to fight for a piece of moldy bread.

　In the vast countryside outside Saigon, red flags were already flying, and the Vietcong were everywhere, turning it into a sea of ​​red...

　Nguyen Khanh sighed and turned to look at the latest military map his staff had just delivered to his desk. The entire territory of South Vietnam, from Hue to the Mekong Delta, was covered in large, shocking expanses of red, representing the rapidly expanding Vietcong sphere of influence.

　In addition, there are large white areas representing "anarchy", as well as blue-green areas representing areas controlled by local religious armed groups such as the Hoa Hao Sect and the Cao Dai Sect, and red areas representing the Viet Cong's sphere of influence. They are intertwined with each other like a group of vicious dogs fighting for food.

　The light yellow area left under the actual control of the South Vietnamese government was less than a quarter of the country's territory.

　What’s even worse is that even the one-quarter of the territory that the South Vietnamese government could theoretically control was still divided into two hostile camps!

　——That’s right, although Nguyen Khanh attacked the capital Saigon, the South Vietnamese civil war that started with the "March 30th Coup" has not really ended.