American Strategic Deception Bureau

　The militia had no choice but to use small boats to transport the bodies off Phu Quoc Island for mass burial at sea. However, the bodies were often washed back onto the beach by the tide, leaving you with nothing but rotting corpses and skeletons every few steps along the shore.

　While the refugee camps are currently not short of food thanks to the generous distribution of biscuits and canned goods by the US military, the housing shortage is difficult to resolve and is becoming increasingly severe. In recent days, while refugees from Phu Quoc Island have been transported away by transport ships to Thailand and Singapore for resettlement, more Vietnamese boat people have been fleeing from the Mekong Delta to Phu Quoc Island, paddling whatever floats.

　How should I put it? It was like the Rohingya refugee crisis of the 21st century.

　Fortunately, the current lowest temperature in Phu Quoc Island is around 30 degrees Celsius, so you won’t be freezing even if you get caught in the rain. You can just think of it as taking a shower every day.

　However, the drinking water problem for hundreds of thousands of refugees still needs to be solved. Relying solely on rainwater is unreliable and prone to breeding diseases.

　Firi followed several UN staff members in the refugee camp to a stream where they had previously drawn water. They found that with continuous heavy rains and mountain torrents, the stream that was said to be very clear had become turbid. The water that was drawn from the stream looked as yellow as pea soup.

　Frowning, he added the water purifier, which made the water seem clearer. However, it tasted like iodine and still tormented his stomach.

　——There’s no way. Military water purification chemicals these days are still very primitive and have serious side effects, just like early canned foods that were generally extremely unpalatable.

　"Why is there no water filtration equipment? I remember that in order to prevent nuclear war, every American household has this thing in its doomsday survival kit. The Pentagon should have stockpiled quite a lot of it as well - so why didn't it send it to Vietnam?" Firi asked a logistics officer.

　"Military water purifiers? Da Nang did allocate a batch, but the quantity is insufficient. There are 300,000 refugees on this island who need drinking water every day! And these water filtration equipment is obviously not suitable for Vietnam's climate and breaks down very quickly..."

　At this moment, someone came to inform Phiri that a radio message had just been received and Dr. Kissinger would be returning by plane from Phnom Penh soon.

　The troubled Firi suddenly felt as if he had been pardoned. He quickly left the stinking and chaotic refugee camp and got on a jeep to rush to the airport to greet them.

　A moment later, Dr. Kissinger, exhausted from the journey, jumped off the plane and said to Phiri, "I have brought good news and bad news. The good news is that Prince Sihanouk has donated 1000 tons of rice to us free of charge, and said he is not in a hurry to change the status quo of Phu Quoc Island, nor does he have any intention of expelling the refugees and Hoa Hao militia on the island for the time being. He agrees that Phu Quoc Island will implement a high degree of autonomy within three years.

　The bad news is that Prince Sihanouk only wants land, not people - the Kingdom of Cambodia refuses to accept any Vietnamese refugees..."

　-

　In general, when he was young, Prince Sihanouk was a guy with high expectations but poor skills, who was smart in small matters but confused in big ones.

　He had the great ideal of freeing the Khmer nation from the nightmare of 800 years of decline, but he lacked the corresponding sharp vision and skillful means.

　Besides this, Prince Sihanouk, still a playboy, had a poor reputation among Cambodians because he had not been compared to two other prominent figures, Lon Nol, the "master of de-ruralization," and Pol Pot, the "de-urbanization maniac."

　They said the prince was tyrannical and cruel, a spendthrift, extravagant, jealous of talented people... In short, they were criticizing and accusing him of all kinds.

　At this time, Sihanouk's image was more similar to Zhang Xueliang before the September 18th Incident, or Emperor Bao Dai, the last monarch of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam.

　——Who made the Cambodian people live so well now that they haven’t experienced the “revolutionary baptism” of the Khmer Rouge?

　Prince Sihanouk certainly knew that his reputation among the people was mixed, which prompted him to expand his territory and achieve immortal achievements in addition to large-scale construction projects, in order to silence the people and ensure that he could truly sit firmly on the throne.

　However, the Kingdom of Cambodia did not gain its independence through an armed uprising, and Prince Sihanouk did not have an army of his own.

　Just like the situation faced by Ngo Dinh Diem and Nehru, the army of the Kingdom of Cambodia was not established by itself, but was a colonial auxiliary force left over by the French colonists. The main commanders of the Cambodian army, including Defense Minister Lon Nol, were basically French in spirit.

　Prince Sihanouk, who came to power under the banner of anti-French and independence, was actually unable to control the army that nominally belonged to him.

　Moreover, with only 30,000 troops at present, Cambodia is simply unable to forcibly resolve the more than 300,000 refugees and defeated soldiers entrenched on Phu Quoc Island.

　Not to mention that, under the US Navy blockade, the Cambodian army couldn't even reach the island. Even if the US Navy withdrew from Phu Quoc Island, it was still unclear whether the Cambodian army, which had not seen war for many years, could defeat the Hoa Hao militia, which had survived the catastrophe.

　Prince Sihanouk still vividly remembers the incident more than a decade ago when the remnants of the Kuomintang fled China southwards after their defeat and wreaked havoc in Southeast Asia.

　This made him realize very clearly how full of martial virtue an army that has been tested by war is - even if it is on the losing side, and how weak those armies that have rarely fought major battles since their establishment will be in actual combat.

　By analogy, Li Mi's party-state remnants were at their end.

　If the remaining South Vietnamese troops were forced into a desperate situation, couldn't they invade the Cambodian Kingdom, which lacked martial virtue, and wreak havoc?

　If things really turn out like this, then the joyous event of expanding territory will turn into a disaster of losing troops and humiliating the country!

　Therefore, Prince Sihanouk, who was very shrewd in small matters, wisely narrowed his goal to "expanding territory on the map."

　——Since you know that Phu Quoc Island is a powder keg right now, don’t rush to embrace it!

　So, in front of Kissinger, Prince Sihanouk said frankly that he did not have the delusion of immediately gaining actual control over Phu Quoc Island, nor did he have the idea of ​​forcing hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees on the island to commit suicide by jumping into the sea. He just hoped that the United States could publicly recognize that Phu Quoc Island belonged to Cambodia.

　As long as the righteous cause was established, Phu Quoc Island and the Tou Chow Archipelago were included in Cambodia's map and were widely recognized by the international community.

　Then, the young Prince Sihanouk had the patience to use his meticulous work to slowly turn "expanding territory on the map" into reality.

　Before that, he could promise a three-year transition period during which the Kingdom of Cambodia would not interfere in anything on Phu Quoc Island...

　Well, how should I put it? It's a bit like mainland China's approach to the Taiwan issue. It's not about "trusting the wisdom of future generations," but rather that Prince Sihanouk felt he was still young and had plenty of time to operate, gradually "boiling the frog in warm water" rather than rushing things.

　Seeing the Americans nod, the Hoa Hao monks reluctantly agreed. After all, there were many Vietnamese immigrants in Cambodia, and they were truly cornered. So, temporarily being Cambodian subjects in name only for a few days wasn't a bad idea.

　Furthermore, Prince Sihanouk promised that he would not send officials or troops to the island for three years, and that the Hoa Hao refugees on the island could come and go as they pleased and leave at any time without interference from the Cambodian government. He was only interested in Phu Quoc Island, not the people on it.

　On the other hand, since Prince Sihanouk was content with "demarcating the borders" and promised not to interfere in the affairs of people and events on Phu Quoc Island, there's no need to expect the Kingdom of Cambodia to take on the responsibility of assuming the burden of the 300,000 Vietnamese Kinh refugees on the island.

　After all, there are few intellectuals or technical talents among the Hoa Hao sect. Apart from monks, most of them are farmers or fishermen.

　We can't ask the Khmer people of the Kingdom of Cambodia to give up their land to accommodate these Vietnamese people who have deep hatred for us, right?

　You have to know that in modern times, the hatred between the Khmer and Vietnamese is as deep as the sky and as strong as the earth. This resentment is even stronger than the hatred between China and Japan.

　To perpetrate genocide against the Khmer people in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam adopted a variety of brutal policies. These included, but were not limited to, conscripting Khmer men to dig a canal, then releasing the water after the canal was dug, drowning any Khmer laborers who hadn't yet died of exhaustion; utterly annihilating entire Khmer villages that couldn't pay taxes under arbitrary pretexts; and seizing Khmer farmland without compensation, distributing it to Vietnamese immigrants, and then selling the original landowners as slaves.

　The Vietnamese also invented a form of torture known as the "tea torture" against the Khmer people. Three Khmer men were buried in the ground, leaving only their heads above the surface to serve as a tripod. A pot was then placed on top of the three heads, and tea was boiled underneath. When the tea boiled, the Khmer heads were also roasted.

　Uh, I wonder if the famous scene in "Shogun" where Japanese samurai throw Western sailors on a wrecked merchant ship into boiling water and boil them to death, while listening to the screams of the dying people in the pot and drinking tea to reflect on the true meaning of life, was also inspired by the Vietnamese "tea torture"?

　The 20th century was also an era of rising nationalism. If Prince Sihanouk really wanted to allow 300,000 Vietnamese to immigrate to Cambodia, he would probably be immediately criticized to death by the nationalists represented by Shan Yu, and even his throne would be unstable.

　- In Cambodia in the 1960s, in addition to the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, there was also the Free Khmer Rouge led by Son Ngoc Thanh. The latter received support from the United States and was trained by CIA officers. Its nature was actually not much different from that of Wang Bao's Miao army.

　Moreover, before the rise of the Khmer Rouge, San Ngoc Thanh, as a veteran anti-French revolutionary, had a higher reputation than Sihanouk.

　A few years ago, when Cambodians on the streets of Phnom Penh cheered for San Ngoc Thanh, who had just been released by the French, Sihanouk could only hide in the palace and sulk, because even the royal family did not support Prince Sihanouk very much.

　Therefore, as a dictator with a precarious position and a mediocre reputation, Prince Sihanouk could not do anything major except play the game of compromise and sit on the fence. He lacked the courage to attack Phu Quoc Island by force, nor the resolve to take in 300,000 Vietnamese refugees.

　As a result, the United States will ultimately have to find a way to deal with the 300,000 war refugees piled up on Phu Quoc Island.

　"It's clear that Phu Quoc Island, with an area of ​​over 500 square kilometers, can't accommodate more than 300,000 people. Not to mention the growing number of refugees fleeing by boat from mainland Vietnam. Out of obligation to its allies, the United States cannot easily abandon them."

　Retired General Philip Ferry, commander of US forces in Vietnam, told Henry Kissinger, the newly appointed US consul to Phu Quoc Island, "So, now is the time to launch a second Freedom Trail operation, Doctor, if you don't want to see a humanitarian disaster on Phu Quoc Island."

　If 1.5 million Vietnamese refugees were to move to the United States ten years earlier, would that have a significant impact on American society? It seems to favor Democratic votes.

　Chapter 260: Second "Freedom Road" Operation

　In 1954, when the dust settled on the Franco-Vietnamese War and the Geneva Armistice Agreement was signed, and Vietnam was divided into two, the United States organized a large-scale "Freedom Road" operation under the banner of humanitarianism in order to rescue Catholics in North Vietnam.

　——At that time, the Vietnamese Communist Party's social transformation plan in the northern liberated areas was generally implemented along the Soviet line. It was extremely bloody and brutal. Basically, the "bad guys" were eliminated according to the population ratio, which was probably similar to China's practice of assigning a certain number of enemy spies to each place in the future.

　These unlucky guys were lucky enough to be executed by shooting, at least they didn't suffer much. Most of them were hanged, burned to death, or even buried alive.

　Moreover, the entire purge process was extremely chaotic and filled with a large number of unjust cases, so that Ho Chi Minh's hometown and the first revolutionary base were forced to rebel. Ho Chi Minh sent a division to suppress it, and afterwards he had to exile all his neighbors, relatives and fellow villagers to the border.

　The Catholics in North Vietnam were regarded by the Viet Cong as the die-hard running dogs of the French colonists and were to be killed as soon as possible.

　Therefore, when the contents of the Geneva Armistice were announced, Hanoi's Catholics were immediately terrified and stormed French arsenals, seeking weapons and ammunition to defend themselves and their families. When the French Expeditionary Force retreated, many abandoned Catholic militiamen angrily threw grenades at them as a "farewell."

　It just so happened that Ngo Dinh Diem had just returned to Vietnam from France with the support of the United States. He was eager to build his reputation in the political and public opinion circles. He took the risk of going to the chaotic Hanoi in person and calling on North Vietnamese Catholics to seek refuge in the south, preparing to rely on them to build his own iron vote bank and base.

　According to Wu Tingyan's initial estimate, if he could attract 10,000 people from North Vietnam to the south, it would be a very good result.

　Unexpectedly, Ho Chi Minh's "fishing in the deep" strategy caused the entire North Vietnamese Catholic Church to flee en masse. Seeing the lifeline offered by Diem, they immediately grabbed it and scrambled to climb out. Many North Vietnamese Catholic priests and nuns, eager to mobilize as many believers as possible to migrate south, even chanted unsettling slogans like "Jesus has gone south" and "The Virgin Mary has left the North."

　As a result, the number of North Vietnamese Catholics attempting to flee south quickly exceeded 500,000, far exceeding Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​prior preparations.

　In this case, in order to prevent Wu Dinh Diem's ​​first attempt to boost his reputation from failing, the United States had no choice but to step in to cover the losses.

　President Eisenhower dispatched Task Force 90 of the Seventh Fleet to Vietnam to oversee the maritime transport of war refugees. In addition to providing ships to transport the refugees, they also provided tents, food, clothing, daily necessities, and medical care until they were resettled in the South.

　——The entire operation was code-named "Freedom Road" and was hailed by the news media as the "Exodus" of the 1950s. With its sensational and tragic religious atmosphere, it deceived many tears and large donations from Western society, especially American Catholics.

　Hundreds of thousands of God's lambs are fleeing to the raging sea to escape the persecution of pagans!

　As fellow believers in God, how can we not lend a hand?

　In this way, thanks to the generous donations from the US government and the public, 90 North Vietnamese refugees (including about 70 Catholics) migrated to South Vietnam that year and were relatively properly resettled. Later, these people became the most determined "die-hard reactionaries" in South Vietnam's resistance to the Viet Cong.

　At the same time, they are also the group of people in South Vietnamese society who have the most favorable impression of and are the most grateful to the United States.

　When the South Vietnamese regime collapsed twenty years later, many of them once again fled to the United States. The Vietnamese-American composer Pham Duy Diem, who was exiled to the United States, even wrote a lyrical song titled "Fathers left their hometown in 1954, sons left their country in 1975" to commemorate this painful past.

　In this time and space, the Vietcong raised their red flag in Saigon in 1963, bringing the South Vietnamese regime to a halt more than a decade early. Imagine the precarious existence of those North Vietnamese Catholics who fled to South Vietnam via the "Freedom Road," now living under Vietcong rule.

　Cao Dai, Hoa Hao and other traditional Buddhists were also subjected to bloody massacres and cruel persecution.

　Although the revered Quang Nam Kingdom rose from the ruins of South Vietnam and continued to fight the Vietcong with the help of the US military, Quang Nam was too small and had a limited population capacity to accommodate all those in South Vietnam who attempted to escape Vietcong rule.

　Under such circumstances, the United States naturally had no choice but to extend a helping hand again and launch the second "Freedom Road" operation.

　To demonstrate to the international community the courage and prestige of the US imperial army that it "will never abandon its allies" and to enhance the cohesion of its own camp.

　——During the Cold War, as the leader, you had to be able to hold your ground and take real action when something happened, otherwise no younger brothers would be willing to follow you.

　If you hide when encountering problems and are stingy when it comes to spending money, you will never become a world leader!

　"Colonel Jin, I admit that the current Vietnam theater is in dire need of a second Operation Freedom Road. Not only is this island right here, nearly overwhelmed by refugees, but General Zun Shiding's country of Guangnan is also facing immense population pressure due to the influx of refugees."

　Dr. Kissinger

　"But the question is, where should we send the refugees? The countries surrounding Vietnam are unwilling to accept them!"

　"Of course it's the United States, Doctor! Now is the time for us to fulfill our obligations as allies!" Firi replied.

　"Let all these Vietnamese refugees...immigrate to the United States?" Dr. Kissinger asked in disbelief.

　"Yes, California can accommodate some Vietnamese refugees. Chinatowns in San Francisco and Los Angeles have become much more depressed and dilapidated in recent years. Many Chinese Americans who have some savings have moved out. Now is a good time for the Chinese from Vietnam to move in and take over."

　Phiri said enthusiastically, "The remaining Vietnamese fishermen and farmers can be arranged in the coastal areas of Texas and Louisiana, where the climate and environment are similar to Vietnam. They can replace black people to pick cotton on plantations, drain the swamps in the Mississippi Delta to grow rice, or catch shrimp in the Caribbean Sea. I have asked, and many of them are shrimp farmers who can catch shrimp.

　Plus, they can also raise crayfish in the rice paddies! This is a perfect match for the Vietnamese!"

　——The ideas that Firi mentioned, such as letting Vietnamese people become shrimp catchers, are not nonsense, but have sufficient basis in reality.

　In the timeline before his time travel, unlike the 21st century's ruthless killing and burying, Cold War America was more respectable. Therefore, during the Saigon Escape of 1975, despite the famous Cold War photo of the "Iron Fist of Saigon," the US actually did its utmost to evacuate the Vietnamese who had once served it, deploying aircraft and warships and allowing them to immigrate to the United States.

　According to rough statistics, about 1.5 million Vietnamese fled their homeland through various channels during the Cold War and immigrated to the United States.

　By the 21st century, 200,000 of these Vietnamese immigrants to the United States were living in Westminster in Southern California, known as "Little Saigon". It is regarded by overseas Vietnamese as a symbolic "capital" and has Vietnamese radio stations and newspapers.

　Every Spring Festival, Vietnamese immigrants hold the yellow three-line flag of South Vietnam and parade here to celebrate in memory of their lost homeland.

　Many famous South Vietnamese survivor singers on the Internet, such as "Sister Lin Ji" and "South Vietnamese F4 Group", also debuted here.

　However, California's hot, dry desert environment was vastly different from the South Vietnamese homeland. Many Vietnamese could not adapt to California's desert climate and migrated to other states, with a significant number settling in coastal Louisiana and Texas.

　Like the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam, the Mississippi Delta is a crisscross of rivers and marshes, making the Vietnamese who had left their homeland feel as if they had returned home. Consequently, they settled along the Caribbean coast, which "resembled the scenery of their homeland."

　Initially, because they had no money to buy land, early Vietnamese immigrants generally engaged in aquaculture on the Caribbean coast, making a living by catching shrimp, and became shrimp catchers in the Caribbean. Later, when they saved some money, they began to buy land to grow rice and raise crayfish at the same time. Over the decades, the crayfish have multiplied spectacularly.

　Various Vietnamese-style temples and Buddhist temples have also been erected one after another on the shores of the Caribbean Sea.

　So much so that in the 21st century, tourists can even vaguely see the customs and culture of the Mekong Delta in the Mississippi Delta...

　Considering that the Vietnamese refugees on Phu Quoc Island are basically well-educated farmers and a small number of fishermen, the population quality is relatively low, and there are quite a few who are illiterate and have dropped out of prenatal education, I am afraid they do not have the ability to open nail salons in the prosperous cities of California (Vietnamese Americans generally open nail salons).

　So, wouldn't it be perfect to just move them to Louisiana and Texas to grow rice and fish and shrimp?

　"Well... Louisiana's climate might indeed be somewhat similar to Vietnam's. At least I heard they produce rice there. However, the Southern states are currently governed by white conservatives, and they might not necessarily welcome immigrants of color."

　Dr. Kissinger thought about it and felt that the idea was a good one, which could demonstrate the United States' responsibility and magnanimity as the "leader of the free camp," but he was afraid that it would be difficult to implement. "In recent years, black people in the country have been making a lot of noise, demanding equal rights, saying that they are discriminated against, and wanting compensation, etc. White people in the South are fed up with this, and conservative politicians also have a headache when they see immigrants of color.

　Even with the excuse of saving our Vietnamese ally, there would certainly be great resistance in Congress to pass such a large-scale immigration bill."

　"Doctor, you should think about it this way. Because the civil rights movement is so intense in the Southern states, shouldn't we bring in Vietnamese to fill the social niche of blacks? Wouldn't that allow Vietnamese to compete with blacks, so that blacks don't feel they're indispensable?"

　Fili's mind, however, was filled with a completely reverse thinking routine: "If the southern states had hundreds of thousands of hardworking Vietnamese immigrants, the white men would be more confident when bargaining with black people: If you don't do it, there are plenty of people who will do it. If there are no black people, there are still Vietnamese monkeys!

　What's more, there are already tens of millions of blacks in the southern states. What difference would it make if there were a few hundred thousand more Vietnamese?

　Even the most radical KKK never said that they wanted to kill all black people. They just wanted to scare them.

　They were slaves.

　Now we are introducing docile, obedient and hardworking Vietnamese refugees to replace black people in doing the hard work. The southern states should applaud and welcome this!

　As for those leftists who are against racial discrimination, they should not oppose the United States rescuing persecuted refugees from its allies..."

　"Well, that's true. But the problem is that the redneck conservatives in the Southern states are basically a bunch of granite heads."

　Kissinger thought for a moment, nodded, then shook his head. "They may not be willing to reason with you. They just instinctively reject all change!"

　"Reject all change? That's just talk. The United States is a nation of immigrants, with new immigrants pouring in every day. This has been going on for two hundred years, and everyone has long been accustomed to seeing all sorts of unfamiliar faces around them. The Chinese Exclusion Act and the Japanese Exclusion Act have both been repealed. If conservatives can tolerate the tens of millions of black people around them, there's no reason for them to be specifically hostile to the hundreds of thousands of Asian faces."

　Besides, even a head of granite has to have a sense of responsibility! We all know that President Kennedy did not like the war in Vietnam at all. The people who really fanatically advocated for this war were mainly traditional conservatives in various states and the military-industrial complex that made huge profits from the war.

　Fili spread his hands and said, "Since they were the ones who pushed the United States to participate in the war in Vietnam, they should bear all the consequences of this war, whether good or bad - refugees are also one of the inevitable consequences of war!

　Whoever initiates it is responsible; whoever benefits from it is responsible for the consequences! If anyone doesn't even acknowledge this rule, then politics won't work."