American Strategic Deception Bureau

　From then on, Nguyen Phuc Anh jumped from being the ruler of Quang Nam, which ruled southern Vietnam, to Emperor Gia Long, the "King of Great South" who founded the Nguyen Dynasty.

　Therefore, just as the Qin Dynasty was a continuation of the Qin State, the Nguyen Dynasty was a continuation of the Guangnan State.

　At present, Da Nang, which is occupied by Zun Shiding, is located in Quang Nam Province. As the name suggests, it is the former Quang Nam.

　The core hinterland of the country.

　Zun Shiding himself is a descendant of the Nguyen Dynasty's royal branch, which is equivalent to a descendant of the Guangnan royal family.

　Then, letting Major General Zun Shiding serve as the ruler of the rebuilt Guangnan Kingdom is obviously in line with the Spring and Autumn principle of "survival and continuation".

　Of course, it is now the second half of the 20th century, and monarchy is no longer popular in the international community.

　Whether it was the United States that advocated "freedom" or the Soviet Union that shouted "democracy", domestic public opinion did not support the government to create a bunch of monarchies.

　In order to adapt to the times, let Major General Zun Shiding serve as the President of Guangnan and the actual dictator, which is equivalent to "Prince Sihanouk of Guangnan"!

　What? Election process? We're in wartime, so where's the time for elections?

　Besides, the Vietnamese don’t really approve of the American-style democratic voting system!

　Just by looking at Zun Shiding's handsome face, you can tell that this general, who is born into a noble family, will definitely become president!

　If the White House says you can do it, then you can do it! It's decided. You'll be president and invite the U.S. military to help fight North Vietnam!

　So, why not just restore the Nguyen Dynasty? The Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam was only destroyed less than ten years ago, and its remains are barely cold! Bao Dai, the last Nguyen Dynasty emperor, is currently living in France. If the Nguyen Dynasty were to be restored, wouldn't Bao Dai have to be brought back?

　By then, how could there be any need for the noble family to appoint a general?

　What’s more troublesome is that the scope of the Nguyen Dynasty’s claims is too large - it covers the "two Vietnams" in the north and the south.

　If the United States wants to restore the Nguyen Dynasty, it will have the political implication of wanting to flatten Hanoi and destroy North Vietnam.

　The Pentagon only wanted to maintain the existence of "White South Vietnam" and had no intention of pushing the border north of the 17th parallel.

　After all, the lessons learned from the Korean War a few years ago are still fresh in the minds of Americans...

　Not to mention, it was the United States that strongly supported Ngo Dinh Diem and overthrew the Nguyen Dynasty. Now it wants to restore the Nguyen Dynasty, isn't it tantamount to slapping itself in the face?

　Therefore, the Nguyen Dynasty cannot be restored, but its predecessor, the "Guangnan Kingdom", can be picked up from the garbage dump of history and used again.

　Author's words: PS: The protagonist's goal is to roll Vietnam back to the late Ming Dynasty, saying "I like Vietnam very much, so I hope there are many Vietnams in this world."

　Guangnan, Hexian, Nanpan, and even Champa may all reappear on the map.

　It would be even more interesting if there was a red South Vietnam in the middle.

　If the Vietnam War had ended in this state, would China and the Soviet Union have continued to spend heavily to aid North Vietnam in annexing the southern states? Or would they have simply acquiesced?

　After all, creating such a bunch of weird little countries is equivalent to giving up the right to claim the entire territory of Vietnam.

　Chapter 236, Hexian, Nanpan and Guangnan, the Three Kingdoms!

　For the US government, there was another hidden benefit in letting Major General Sonthulhu hang up the sign of "Quang Nam" instead of "Republic of Vietnam" in Da Nang - that is, after the Pentagon officially sent troops to participate in the war, it could freely control the scope and scale of the Vietnam War.

　If the recipient of US aid is the successor of the "Republic of Vietnam", then as the American dad who takes on so much responsibility, the US imperial army would at least have to conquer the entire territory of South Vietnam south of the 17th parallel, right? Not to mention destroying Hanoi, destroying North Vietnam, and hanging Ho Chi Minh.

　Just like the Korean War, although the US military fought hard to help South Korea recapture Seoul, the capital, and conquered a larger area of ​​South Korea than before the war, they were still complained about by Syngman Rhee for a long time because they failed to recapture Kaesong south of the 38th parallel.

　Similarly, if the United States wanted to aid the "Republic of Vietnam", it would have to eliminate all the Viet Cong in South Vietnam.

　But the problem is, if the goal of the Vietnam War was set so high, then if the war did not go well, wouldn't the US military be dragged to death in Vietnam?

　On the other hand, if the name "Guangnan" were adopted, the size of the new country, or the territory the US military would need to attack, could be adjusted to suit the current situation. Furthermore, any adjustment would have historical and political justification.

　According to the smallest historical map, the territory of Quang Nam could be limited to "Quang Nam Province", which is more than 10,000 square kilometers of land from Da Nang in the north to Chu Lai in the south, equivalent to the actual control area of ​​General Zun Shi Ding today, while retaining the claim to the Hue Plain which has been controlled by North Vietnam.

　——In the 16th century AD, when the ancestors of the Nguyen family first founded Guangnan, its territory was roughly the two areas of present-day Hue and Guangnan.

　Thus, even in the most challenging circumstances of the interventionist war, the existence of "Quang Nam" would have driven a firm wedge into the narrow waist of Vietnam's territory, slicing Red Vietnam into two disconnected sections, north and south, much like the two Pakistans of today's South Asian subcontinent. (In 1963, Bangladesh had not yet gained independence and was shown on maps as "East Pakistan.")

　According to the largest historical map, the territory of Quang Nam during its heyday in the mid-eighteenth century was almost equivalent to almost the entire South Vietnam except for the inland mountainous areas. In this case, if the US military were to take action and win with great momentum, sweeping through the entire South Vietnam like a whirlwind, then it would be a natural thing to simply let the "Quang Nam" become the white South Vietnam after the name change. From a legal point of view, it seems to be a natural thing.

　of course,

　Another possibility is that although the US military conquered a lot of territory, it ultimately failed to sweep across the entire territory of South Vietnam.

　But this doesn't matter, because the Kingdom of Guangnan historically began in Guangnan Province and gradually expanded southward, bit by bit. No matter where the border is drawn south of Guangnan Province, there's historical evidence to prove it once served as a national boundary. It truly is "flexible and adaptable."

　In short, when Firi and Dr. Kissinger, as "experts on Eastern affairs", sent the "Guangnan Plan" to the State Department, Secretary of State Rusk, who was in charge of the demarcation of the 38th parallel in Korea, was very pleased and strongly supported it.

　President Kennedy, who had always disliked South Vietnam, also thought that this "slimmed-down South Vietnam" plan was good. At least the area where US troops needed to be deployed would be much smaller, and the scale of the war could be greatly reduced, so as not to consume too much manpower and material resources.

　In this way, with the support of the United States, Zun Shiding announced the establishment of the "Guangnan Kingdom" in Da Nang and proclaimed himself the President of Guangnan Kingdom.

　However, although Guangnan Kingdom has been resurrected, Firi's map coloring game is not yet complete.

　The next target of resurrection is the Nanpan Kingdom in the Xiyuan region.

　-

　Where exactly is the Central Highlands region of Vietnam?

　Also known as the Western Plateau or Central Highlands, this region encompasses Dak Lak, Dak Nong, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, and Lam Dong provinces, forming the inland portion of War Zone 2. The region's most distinctive feature is its high mountains and dense forests, home to numerous ethnic minorities, including the Hmong and Cham peoples.

　In fact, the Kinh people of Vietnam are outsiders here, and it has been less than ten years since the Kinh people entered the Central Highlands on a large scale.

　Let me briefly talk about the history of the Central Highlands. In the distant past, this vast mountainous area was once the remote territory of Champa.

　In 1471, Le Thanh Tong, the Ming Dynasty emperor of Vietnam, led his troops to capture the Champa capital, Japan, and captured the Champa king. The unified Champa Kingdom was thus destroyed.

　Afterwards, the remaining Champa survivors split into three and established three small kingdoms on the ruins: Huaying, Nanpan and Later Champa, just like the three kingdoms of Nicaea, Trebzon and Epirus established by the Byzantine survivors on the ruins of the empire after the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople in 1204.

　Over the next four hundred years, the Vietnamese continued their southward invasions, annexing the coastal states of Huaying and later Champa, but spared the inland state of Nanpan. Firstly, because of the inconvenient transportation and barren land, it was unprofitable to cultivate. Secondly, the Miao mountain people of Nanpan replaced the fleeing Cham nobles and became rulers. However, they also implicitly relinquished their claim to the former lands of Champa, no longer posing a threat to the coastal Vietnamese.

　Because this place is deep inland, the mountain people live on slash-and-burn agriculture. Even in Champa, it is a despised wilderness. The Kinh people of Vietnam disdain such a poor place. The Nguyen Dynasty royal family never sent officials to govern this plateau, but allowed the mountain people to govern themselves and exist in the form of a vassal state.

　Later, France invaded Vietnam, and European adventurers and missionaries began to enter the Central Highlands sporadically, participating in local tribal disputes, spreading advanced civilization and technology, and converting local mountain people who were still practicing slash-and-burn agriculture to Catholicism.

　A French adventurer named Mari Melena, by chance, gained the support of the Jarai mountain people and was crowned king in 1888, known as Mari I. At the time, Western media compared his feat to that of James Brooke, the British adventurer who established the Kingdom of Sarawak in Borneo in 1843. As two white dynasties in Southeast Asia, their rivalry was a subject of much discussion.

　However, the mountainous region deep inland, the Central Highlands, was even poorer and more isolated than the coastal kingdom of Sarawak. Mali I soon became bored with his reign, believing that being a chief in a remote mountain village was a dead end and that he would be better off trying to make a deal with the French government. So, he traveled to Saigon to negotiate a price with the French colonial authorities, hinting that if the French weren't interested in his small kingdom, the Prussians certainly would be.

　As a result, the French colonial authorities decided not to give money for free and directly detained Mali I, and then sent troops to destroy his small kingdom.

　However, despite this, in order to avoid ethnic conflicts, the French colonial government still implemented a divide and rule policy in Vietnam, ruling the highland ethnic groups in the Central Highlands separately from the Vietnamese, prohibiting the Vietnamese from migrating into this mountainous area, and allowing the mountain people, mainly the Miao people, to continue to govern themselves.

　In other words, the French colonists designated the entire vast Central Highlands region as a "reservation area" for the Miao mountain people.

　At the end of World War II and the outbreak of the Vietnam War of Independence, in order to prevent this deep mountain forest from being infected by the "revolutionary virus", the French colonists simply separated the entire Central Highlands from Vietnam and established an independent administrative region, further deepening the strategy of "divide and rule".

　At that time, the population of mountain ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands was as high as 95%, while the population of the Kinh people in Vietnam accounted for only 5%, and was concentrated in a few cities such as Da Dao.

　Vietnamese nationalists were very dissatisfied with this. As soon as the French colonists left, Ngo Dinh Diem abolished the autonomy of the Central Highlands region and launched a Vietnamese version of the "Westward Movement". A large number of Vietnamese Kinh people entered the Central Highlands region to enclose land and reclaim wasteland, and fierce conflicts broke out with the mountain people.

　The cruel policies of the white Americans, similar to those against the Indians, made the Hmong people, who had been peaceful and aloof, intolerable. They soon formed the "United Front for the Struggle of Oppressed Nationalities" (FULRO) to fight for independence and freedom and to confront the South Vietnamese military and police.

　Wage guerrilla warfare against armed immigrants.

　Its goal is to establish a "Dega Autonomous State" in the Central Highlands, expel Kinh immigrants, and reclaim ancestral lands.

　The underground Communist Party of Vietnam took the opportunity to contact these mountain people, promising to respect their autonomy and make them allies in the fight against the Ngo Dinh Diem regime.

　——Of course, after winning the Vietnam War, North Vietnam quickly turned against China, turning its back on the mountain people and continuing to "drive out the Miao people and expand the land."

　However, relying on the spirit of simple nationalism, the "United Front of the Struggle of the Oppressed Nationalities" in the Central Highlands region persisted in fighting until 1992, despite being outnumbered and with no external aid, before being finally defeated by the Vietnamese army.

　However, during the years when the Saigon regime still existed, the primary enemy of the Central Highlands people was naturally the army and police of the South Vietnamese government.

　The existence of a common enemy, the Ngo Dinh Diem regime, temporarily made these mountain people, who were fighting for independence, natural allies of the Viet Cong.

　As a result, the CIA established a Hmong militia in Bang Nganao, Dak Lak Province, to curb the Vietcong's actions. Although the results were excellent, Ngo Dinh Diem, who was determined to "drive out the Hmong and expand their territory," could not tolerate it. He would rather hand over the country to the Vietcong than expand the living space for the Kinh people!

　To this end, the South Vietnamese army first attempted to disarm the Hmong militia, even engaging in combat with CIA agents. Then, after the US military re-armed the Hmong in Dak Lak Province, Diem again attacked the Hmong, confident that the US military would not dare to fire on the South Vietnamese army.

　Fortunately, in this time and space, the hot-tempered "barbecue master" General Le May ordered the US military stationed in Vietnam to dispatch aircraft to severely bomb the South Vietnamese army that had once again attacked the Miao ethnic group settlements in Dak Lak Province, defeating it, and dropped bombs on Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​presidential palace and the South Vietnamese army general staff, issuing a death threat - almost pointing a pistol at President Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​forehead, forcing him to abandon this suicidal "collaboration with the Communists" national policy.

　After that, the Hmong militia in Dak Lak Province, relying on the support of the Americans, completely drove out the local government officials sent by South Vietnam, took over the provincial capital of Buon Ma Thuot, and then infiltrated Gia Lai Province and Kon Tum Province in the north and Dak Nong Province in the south, constantly using force to drive out the local Kinh immigrants.

　The westward movement that the Kinh clan had just launched in Vietnam was reversed and collapsed, which made the South Vietnamese nationalists extremely angry and their anti-American sentiment became increasingly determined.

　Now, with the collapse of the South Vietnamese government, the main force fighting the Viet Cong guerrillas in the Central Highlands has become these indigenous Hmong mountain people. But although these Hmong fought well and successfully defeated the Viet Cong in Buon Ma Thuot, there is still a problem that needs to be solved urgently.

　That is, who are these mountain warriors fighting for now?

　We can't let them fight for the South Vietnamese government that has already collapsed and cruelly persecuted them, right?

　This is as ridiculous as asking 19th century Indians to fight and die for the US government.

　Firi's strategy was to let them fight for themselves and allow the mountain people to restore their ancestral Nanpan Kingdom, or the "Dega Autonomous State" of the tribal alliance system, and promised that after defeating the Viet Cong, all the Vietnamese Kinh immigrants in the Central Highlands would be relocated and the land would be returned to the mountain tribesmen. In addition, an outlet to the sea would be left for them on the coast so that this new country could connect with the outside world through the ocean.

　——By relying on this strategy of cutting off the source of the problem, the Miao mountain people in the entire Central Highlands region can be completely pushed to the opposite side of the Viet Cong!

　The United States could use South Vietnam's territory as a favor and divide it into states at will, but could North Vietnam do the same? Obviously not!

　The thousand-year-long wars and conflicts between the Kinh and Miao peoples, and the hatred of annihilation between Vietnam and Champa, cannot be concealed by any ideology.

　Faced with the conflict between North and South Vietnam, these mountain people might have stood by and watched with indifference, much like the Chinese in Northeast China during the Russo-Japanese War. But once the land beneath their feet truly became their own, the Viet Cong guerrillas found it difficult to move freely in the Central Highlands.

　After the formal establishment of the Kingdom of Nanpan, the United States could even allow local mountain people to send representatives to the United Nations General Assembly to accuse the Vietnamese of "colonial aggression" - by then, the question of "who is the colonizer" would be enough to make the North Vietnamese side busy for a while.

　Once the positions of the invaders and counter-invaders are reversed, the Viet Cong's advantage in local combat will instantly disappear, leaving only a pure disadvantage.

　Of course, the productivity of the Central Highlands was backward, the mountain people were poor, and in addition to the geographical difficulties, they lacked the economic strength to support a long-term war.

　But... in today's world, when it comes to transfer payments, who can compare with the wealthy United States in terms of the ability to spend money?

　Isn't it just some arms and ammunition? In order to win the Cold War and compete with the Soviet Union, why would the United States be reluctant to spend such a small amount?

　Since the Afghan mountain people in the future, with the weapons provided by the United States, will be able to consume the huge Soviet polar bear.

　Then, after receiving aid from the United States, the Miao villages in the Central Highlands region would surely be able to wear down the North Vietnamese troops that were moving south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail - not to mention, they also had air superiority and could call in American planes at any time to bomb the infiltrating North Vietnamese troops.

　The US military can't afford to suffer too many casualties in a foreign land, but the Miao people, in their ancestral homeland, can truly fight to the last man.

　As long as we can start a war in Afghanistan belonging to North Vietnam in South Pan Country, then even if North Vietnam can rely on mountains of corpses and seas of blood,

　, and they completely wiped out the indigenous people of the Western Highlands. However, the price they had to pay for this was not only the literal death of a generation, but also international infamy...

　-

　Besides the Hmong mountain peoples of the Central Highlands, the remaining armed forces in South Vietnam still fighting the Vietcong include the Hoa Hao sect in the southwestern Mekong Delta. For these "militant Buddhists," or "Vietnamese White Lotus Sect," Firi also devised a nation-building strategy.

　According to the sphere of influence of the Hoa Hao Sect, especially since they had moved their headquarters to Ha Tien Port, Firi suggested that they rebuild the Ha Tien Kingdom.

　In Vietnam, this is also the name of an ancient country with a long history.

　In the late 17th century, Mo Jiu, a Ming Dynasty survivor from Guangdong, China, fled with his fellow villagers to the southwestern Mekong Delta after a failed rebellion against the Qing Dynasty. He founded Ha Tien Township. At the time, this region was a political vacuum, plagued by the competing claims of Cambodia (Chenla), Vietnam (Quang Nam), and Thailand (Siam). Mo Jiu successfully capitalized on this opportunity and established his own empire.

　Subsequently, the small kingdom of Ha Tien managed to maintain its independence for over a century, relying on its constant balancing act between the three regional powers of Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, and its flexible maneuvering to pay tribute to multiple powers. It was not until 1832 that the Nguyen Dynasty completely abolished its feudal system, and Ha Tien disappeared into the long river of history.

　Of course, to this day, the Ming Dynasty survivors who established the Ha Tien Kingdom have long since disappeared, and most of their descendants have integrated into the Kinh clan in Vietnam. The minority of Chinese and overseas Chinese have also generally become mixed-race and no longer have the right to claim the Ha Tien Kingdom.

　But this does not affect the Hehao religious militia's use of the shell of the "Hexian Kingdom" to put new wine in old bottles and establish a "Hexian Buddhist Kingdom"!

　——With a large popular base of believers, maritime aid from the United States, and Phu Quoc Island as an offshore base, the Hoa Hao Church's Ha Tien Kingdom can become a thorn in the side of the Viet Cong, just like the Crusader states in medieval Palestine, and continuously bleed the Viet Cong!

　In short, watching the disappeared countries reappear under his own pen, Firi fully felt the joy of Paradox players.

　When Secretary Rusk drew the 38th parallel and Lord Mountbatten presided over the partition of India and Pakistan, were they also deeply fascinated by the feeling of dominating the future and destiny of millions of people, turning the earth into a chessboard and using nations as chess pieces?

　At the same time, Dr. Kissinger was also very interested in this kind of "creating a country" on the map, and he devoted himself to it with great enthusiasm - the Soviets often said that their country was the largest social science experiment in human history.

　So, now, the United States is going to replicate a tribal alliance state, a Buddhist theocracy and a Catholic republic on the ruins of South Vietnam... Although the scale is far less than the Soviet Union's creation, it is establishing three countries and conducting three social science experiments!

　As a senior expert in social sciences, Dr. Kissinger felt so excited when he thought that he could be on par with Lenin!

　He seemed to see the golden and famous titles such as "National Builder" and "Nation Builder" waving at him!

　If we don't fight now, when will we? Act now with full energy!

　In Washington, President Kennedy had a good opinion of the "division proposals" sent by Dr. Fieri and Dr. Kissinger. He thought it was a bit like the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, replacing the old empire that was so stale and rigid that it could not bear the burden with a group of small and dynamic new countries.

　Such nation-states and religious states generally have relatively less internal friction and should be able to resist the invasion of the Viet Cong more effectively.

　Vice President Johnson expressed some dissatisfaction with this, saying that creating a bunch of new small countries would affect the future reconstruction and reunification of South Vietnam.

　Firi called back and said that if South Vietnam could be reunified in the future, it could learn from the American experience and refer to the model of the former Republic of Texas joining the United States. On the basis of fully respecting local autonomy, it could establish a South Vietnam Federation. This would be more in line with the American spirit!

　——Speaking of which, the United States has been promoting American values ​​and liberalism for many years, and regards local autonomy as the foundation of the country.

　But the question is, during the Cold War, how many of the regimes supported by the United States were federal?

　Neither Korea nor South Vietnam were federations, and Japan was not truly federal!

　Even the Philippines, which was supported by the United States earlier, and Liberia, which claimed to have copied the U.S. Constitution, are not federal countries!

　Although the South Vietnamese regime was always shaky and the Philippines was also characterized by regional separatism and the dominance of powerful aristocratic families, both countries remained nominally centralized republics. However, this de facto regional autonomy was still unstable. It can be said that they had the drawbacks of a federation without the benefits.