Great time travel

Chapter 86. The Earth under the Mushroom Cloud

Northern Vietnam, outside Hanoi, Red River Delta

With the sudden collapse of the Japanese Empire and the hasty withdrawal of the Japanese army, in the past year, the whole of Vietnam has been in extreme chaos-the Vietnam Independence League (referred to as the Viet Minh) led by Ho Chi Minh, and the more established resistance organizations The Vietnamese Kuomintang♂, the Vietnamese Revolutionary League, the Cao Dai Sect (a very funny Vietnamese cult organization that can be imagined as the Boxer Regiment in China) and the Catholic Church, all kinds of bandits and chieftains transformed into The warlords, as well as the former French colonial troops and officials who were released from the POW camps, were all grabbing guns and grabbing territory.Even the Nguyen Dynasty's "Bao Dai Emperor" Nguyen Phuc Yongrui, a purely vase puppet, took the opportunity to move around (after the French conquered Vietnam, they did not directly abolish the Nguyen Dynasty royal family, but retained it as a puppet, roughly similar to Pu Yi in Manchuria Emperor), delusional to play some "return to the king's government".

All of a sudden, all kinds of "Jihad Army", "Catholic Army", "Volunteer Army", "Freedom Alliance", and "Royalists" all made their debut in this long and narrow land of Vietnam... Among the forces and organizations, the Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh is obviously the most powerful one.

——Because of the support of China and the Soviet Red Army, the long-sleeved and skillful Comrade Ho Chi Minh had successfully occupied a solid base in the border area of ​​northern Vietnam long before the Japanese army withdrew, and pulled together more than 1 people. rebel army.When the Japanese army retreated, the Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh immediately succeeded in gaining the upper hand. Before other forces reacted, they rushed into Hanoi quickly and received a large amount of munitions and supplies left by the Japanese and French colonial troops. With further expansion, the entire northern part of Vietnam is already invincible.

Next, Ho Chi Minh announced the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi, and he appointed himself the supreme leader, publicly expressing his determination to unify the country.

When the calendar turned to the spring of [-], the Viet Minh army had successfully suppressed the rebellion of Catholics and Cao Dai believers in the north, and went south to conquer the old capital of Hue. His trusted aristocrats were driven out of the palace and fled to Singapore for refuge.And also sent elite troops further south to cooperate with the Viet Minh guerrillas in the south to launch the Battle of Da Nang, which almost sounded the victory horn of unifying the country.

However, at this time, the British came to disrupt the situation-so the situation of the Vietnam Civil War suddenly reversed...

——In order to implement Churchill's crazy plan of "recovering the East", the Royal Eastern Fleet turned to intervene in Vietnam after bombarding the Hainan Island base of the Chinese Red Army and rescuing the American and British prisoners left by the Japanese in the Sanya POW camp .

It has to be said that the so-called rotten ship still has three catties of nails, and a lean camel is bigger than a horse.As the world overlord who once conquered the world and ruled the Seven Seas, even though the British Empire is already dying at this time, just relying on the power accumulated in the past is enough to stir up a storm in those colonial countries——British Fleet As soon as they arrived in Vietnam with a group of de Gaulle's "Free France" organization members, all the defeated generals who were beaten by Ho Chi Minh and ran away came to vote one after another.De Gaulle, who had just been kicked out of France by the Soviet Red Army again and had nowhere to stay for a while, was overjoyed when he heard the news. He actually flew to Hong Kong with a large number of people, and then transferred to a British destroyer to Vietnam. The city of Saigon presides over the re-establishment of the "French Indochina Federation" government.And Churchill also ordered the Royal Eastern Fleet and a small number of US troops stationed in China to go north to bombard Haiphong Port and start a war with the Viet Minh, which was in the limelight.

After a brief beachhead defense battle, the Viet Minh army, which was severely lacking in navy and air force, had to abandon Haiphong Port and gradually retreat to the inland.The Allied Forces of Britain, France and the United States and various Vietnamese "puppet troops" immediately followed up, upstream along the Red River, and continued to march towards Hanoi, the capital of the Viet Minh.

Then, they were blocked for four months in the mud, beachheads and tropical forests of the Red River Delta.

At this time, in the tropical rain forest on the outskirts of Hanoi, the capital of the Viet Minh, a long and arduous tug-of-war is still going on fiercely.

The so-called tropical rainforest is not just a forest that often rains. For strangers who step into it rashly, it is simply a green hell that will make people have nightmares - the complicated root systems of mangroves and banyans, and A large number of aerial roots hanging from above are tangled.Here and there among the trees were knee-deep swamps where one could step on one's feet, and low-lying places where stinky streams spewed out.All kinds of colorful snakes and insects gather on the decaying tree trunks and vines. The webs of poisonous spiders are entwined between the dry branches and leaves, blocking the flowing air. The dense layers of leaves make it difficult for light to penetrate. There was fire, but the depths of the rainforest were still in darkness.

Most of the land in Vietnam is such a geographical environment of tropical rainforest mixed with rice fields.Even in the dry season, the air in the rainforest is always so sultry and humid that it makes people feel sweaty and breathless when they move.In addition, there is a rotten, sour smell that is enough to make people cover their noses and detour.Once the long and dreary rainy season comes, the endless rain is enough to dampen the fighting spirit of any warrior.

Unfortunately, when the British, French and American coalition forces landed in Haiphong Port and began to send troops to attack the Red River Delta, it happened to catch up with the rainy season in Vietnam... As a result, the humid tropical rainforest turned into a muddy swamp, leaving the coastline Afterwards, the British, French and American soldiers had to struggle in the mud under the heavy rain, and fight with the elusive Viet Minh guerrillas in the leech-strewn streams—the Vietnamese natives who have lived here for generations have long been Adapt and get used to such an environment.But white soldiers from Europe and the United States couldn't bear such hardships.What's more, even if people can barely hold on, what about those heavy equipment such as tanks, artillery trucks?

The land route from Haiphong Port to Hanoi turns into a giant quagmire during the rainy season, which is daunting, and the water route from Haiphong Port to Hanoi is also not easy.The Red River Delta area has been densely covered with water networks since ancient times. Some waterways are as wide as rivers, while others are just small streams that can be crossed in one step.There are also many man-made canals between the natural channels, most only for small sampans, but some are wide enough for larger motor boats.If a layman who doesn't know the details breaks in by boat, it will be as if he has crashed into a maze.In the rainy season of flooding, as the water level rises suddenly, all the waterways in the Red River Delta will undergo drastic changes again. Even a map is not very useful—as for the relatively safe and stable main channel of the Red River, it has been crossed again. The League laid mines and obstacles, and there were forts on both sides of the river to block fire.

During the Vietnam War in another world, it took the Americans several years to gradually find out a set of effective tactics in the Mekong Delta battlefield in a similar environment, and built a special shallow-water inland river gunboat for this purpose. The SEALs drove them to the horrors of the Viet Cong.

However, in this time and space, the British, French and American coalition forces that intervened in the Vietnam Civil War did not have so much time for thinking and research, nor did they have specially designed inland ships and professional equipment, and even the input of troops was pitifully small—only about [-] soldiers, three destroyers and a light cruiser were dispatched to the North Vietnam battlefield, plus an escort aircraft carrier (converted from a passenger ship) providing air cover, less than forty military aircraft...

There is no way, at the moment when the flames of the World War are in the ascendant, the combined fleet of the Japanese Navy is sweeping across the Pacific Ocean, and the armored torrent of the Soviet Red Army is sweeping across the European continent. In the expeditionary force, one-third of the soldiers were just released from the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, and the guys in their hands were also captured Japanese [-] caps!

Moreover, even on the Far East front, the importance of the Vietnam battlefield to the United States and Britain is far less than that of the Chinese battlefield and the Philippine battlefield.Whether it is the millions of Chinese Red Army or the Filipino "Hooker" guerrillas who have been fighting against the Japanese army for several years, their combat effectiveness is not comparable to the hastily formed half-red army of the Viet Minh.What kind of SEALs do you want to deal with this weakling?Go dreaming!
As for de Gaulle's "Free France" organization?This product has basically become a government-in-exile that is making money, and can only be used as a cover.

Um?There are also a series of anti-Communist allies such as the local Catholic Church in Vietnam?Please, if they, a bunch of scum with less than five combat effectiveness, can defeat Ho Chi Minh on their own, is it still necessary to trouble all noble white gentlemen to go out in person?
Although the Red Army of the Viet Cong is probably the weakest among the current "big socialist family", the officers generally lack professionalism, and they will lose the chain if they fight a slightly larger battle. Crowd is better.But Ho Chi Minh's opponents in the country... Well, that's not even the mob.Because they all started to pull up the team after the Japanese retreated, and they were even poorer than Ho Chi Minh. Many forces couldn't even get the most basic rifles and grenades, and they had to rely on spears and sickles to fight the Viet Minh fighters!

However, today's European and American allied forces are also very tight, and they have to use the captured Japanese weapons. Naturally, there are no extra weapons to distribute to their allies.

Due to the above reasons, the European and American intervention forces and their allies reached a stalemate on the Red River Delta battlefield and were unable to enter Hanoi for a long time.

But in late September, as Vietnam's rainy season draws to a close, the gunfire will start again and the blood will continue to flow.

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In the early morning mist, three small paddle steamers painted black were heading westward on the Red River. The huge paddle wheels rolled up muddy water splashes on both sides of the ship. The Union flag of Britain and the tricolor flag of France Flying majestically on the mast.Coal is burning fiercely in the hearth of the bilge, causing the antique steam engine that has been at least 40 years old to spew out striking black smoke and bursts of harsh noise.

On the decks of these three antique paddlewheel steamships, the sailors of the British and French Intervention Forces are manipulating the temporarily installed heavy machine guns and small-caliber machine guns, nervously aiming the muzzles of the black holes at the captured Both sides of the river covered with dense vegetation.

To be honest, such a fleet might feel like a bit of a bravado at the end of the 40th century, but in the [-]s, even in Vietnam, far away from the "civilized world" of Europe and the United States, it was already a joke Antique.But the intervening army was also helpless. The water depth of the tributaries of the Red River was not enough, and the ships of the ocean-going navy did not dare to venture deep, otherwise there would be a risk of being stranded.And they don't have shallow-water gunboats suitable for going deep into inland rivers - ten years ago, Britain had a large-scale inland river gunboats on China's Yangtze River and Pearl River. In the flames of war, ashes were wiped out.Before the war, the colonial authorities of French Indochina also had some armed small boats with shallow draft and fierce firepower in order to suppress the Vietnamese resistance, but now they were first confiscated by the Japanese, and then all of them were transferred to the hands of the Viet Minh...

As a result, this poor intervening army, which was picking up rubbish everywhere, had to temporarily refit a batch of captured inland river civilian ships, welding all kinds of messy machine guns and heavy machine guns to make do with it. The Viet Minh, on the contrary, seemed even more downcast on the side of the Intervention Army.

Obviously, such a shabby brand of water power must not be able to beat the Viet Minh.The several water confrontations in the Red River Basin during the rainy season ended in a one-sided defeat for the intervention army.The British sailors, who were driven into a hurry, even drove in a destroyer regardless, and then encountered hundreds of small Viet Minh sampans on the Red River head-on. In the end, it was bombed to the point of sinking on the river bed and scrapped...

As a result, Admiral Bruce Fraser, commander of the Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet, who did not have many ships left in his hands, was so distressed by this that he strictly ordered the fleet not to enter the inland river to fight again.And the intervention army on the front line of the Red River Delta had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue to use armed civilian ships to make do with it. For such an irresponsible and dangerous act of death, the friendly American soldiers said they would never participate, and could only suffer from the British and French. Take the lead.

After a while, the intervention army fleet consisting of three paddle steamers finally arrived at its destination, a small abandoned village, where it was preparing to join the Vietnamese Catholic militiamen who came over by land.However, the trestle bridge on the shore wharf has been washed away by the flood in the rainy season, leaving only a few incomplete piers.The helpless British and French sailors could only put down the small boats and let the infantry carried on the steamer go ashore in small boats-unfortunately, this turned out to be a bad idea.The flood in the rainy season that just ended has filled the river with sticky river mud.These silts are shallow enough to submerge the knees, and deep enough to reach the hips.As soon as the soldiers jumped out of the boat, they found themselves stuck in a mud bank tens of meters wide. The slurry-like mud was as viscous as glue and could trap people firmly in it.When you try to pull your foot out of the mud, there's a palpable pull that pulls you back.The entangled mangrove roots in the mud caused even more trouble for the soldiers who landed.

Then, something even more terrifying happened—just as the soldiers of the British and French armies were still thumping in the mud, struggling to cross this damned muddy land, a red flare suddenly rose from the river bank in front of them. Then hundreds of Viet Minh soldiers in grass-green camouflage jumped out of the bushes and rushed over from the shore: Although the ground on the shore is not much drier than the mud flat, it at least allows people to stand and walk .

Next, a torrential rain of bullets swept across the face, blooming bloody flowers on the soldiers of the British and French armies...

"...Damn it! There's an ambush! We've fallen into a trap!"

"... Counterattack! Counterattack! Shoot!"

"...Idiots on board! Fire! We need cover fire!"

The soldiers of the Intervention Army, who were stuck in the mud flat and unable to move quickly, were in a panic. Some screamed in despair, some called for help from the fleet behind them, and some tried to fight back on the spot, but found that all the weapons in their hands were covered with mud. Mud, turned into firesticks before being wiped clean...

Fortunately, the sailors on the armed steamship did not watch them die, but fired back as quickly as possible.Although there are only some 25mm small-caliber machine guns, for those who are in it, the scene of shelling can still be described as gorgeous and spectacular-wherever the raindrops of shells fall, they will turn into a sea of ​​flames, menacing The Viet Minh fighters who came up were hit head-on and were soon forced to retreat.

Seeing the enemy disappear from view, the British and French soldiers who were struggling in the muddy beach could not help but breathe a sigh of relief, and began to plan how to retreat.But at the next moment, whether it was them in the mudflat or the sailors on the armed steamship, they all wailed in despair again.

——Six small armored gunboats left by the Japanese army, with bright red flags of sickle and hammer hanging on their masts, quietly appeared from both ends of this section of the river, rotating their turrets in a big way, completely blocking all the way of the intervening army fleet... Obviously, under the interception of these armored gunboats belonging to the Viet Minh, the three armed steamships of the British and French Intervention Forces must neither be able to fight nor escape...

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After another half an hour, the ambush on the Red River waterway finally ended with a complete victory for the Viet Minh army.Among the three armed steamships of the British and French Intervention Forces, one became stranded and burning steel garbage on the water, and the other two hoisted white flags.

As for the infantry trapped in the mudflat, facing the muzzles and barrels in all directions, they had to raise their hands with the flow.

——Seeing groups of captives covered in mud and dejected holding their hands high, being searched and escorted away by arrogant Viet Minh soldiers, Chairman Vo Nguyen Giap of the Vietnam Military Commission, who happened to come to the front line to inspect and supervise the battle, couldn't help showing a little bit on his face A smug smile: It seems that the advisers and comrades sent by the Soviet Union and China are really right. The current colonists in Europe and the United States are obviously not as good as chickens!

With such a small force, such shabby weapons, and such weak fighting spirit, it is impossible to see the mighty style of the imperialist powers at all!

Moreover, Chairman Vo Nguyen Giap also keenly noticed that among the so-called "British-French Allied Forces" prisoners in front of him, there were not many decent white faces, but blacks and Indians accounted for the majority.Even those white people don't look like Europeans, but more like Arabs... Could it be that, as some gossip said, the blood of white Europeans has really been shed in this world war? Did you do it?
Well, that's really good news for Asians...

Giap thought so, and was about to interrogate the commander of the invading enemy army, but suddenly heard the guards' screams.

"...Chairman! Look! There are planes in the sky! It's an enemy air strike!"

Air raid?Vo Nguyen Giap looked up at the eastern sky and found a string of small black dots.Neither he nor the Viet Minh fighters present were particularly frightened by it, though, in the monsoons of the past few months.Whenever the weather improves slightly, the intervention army occupying Haiphong Port will send planes to bomb it.But first of all, there are not many sorties of enemy planes, and each air strike has never exceeded ten.Even if a few bombs were dropped, in the humid environment of the rainy season, the fire would not be able to ignite, and the actual damage to the Viet Minh would be minimal. On the contrary, it would fully exercise the air defense resilience of these rookies.

After the air raid warning spread, everyone started to evacuate and hide in an orderly manner.The formation of armored gunboats on the water also quickly left the center of the river and hid in the shade of the trees on the bank.Others set up anti-aircraft machine guns, ready to fight back when the enemy planes swooped down to straf and drop bombs.

However, this group of enemy planes did not lower their altitude or drop bombs, but kept at an altitude of tens of thousands of meters, flew directly over their heads, and continued to move west... Could it be that they were going to bomb the city of Hanoi?After the air raid siren was lifted, Vo Nguyen Giap, who got out of the air-raid shelter, listened to the watchman's report and was about to make a phone call to Hanoi to inquire about the situation, but the next moment he witnessed a terrifying spectacle with his own eyes.

——In the distant sky in the direction of Hanoi, a dazzling flash of light suddenly flashed without warning, and then, after an unknown period of time, a roar that could shake the earth swept across the face, as if 1000 million heavy bombs were falling at the same time It exploded in one place, making the air seem to be shaking!
At the same time, a huge dazzling fireball, like another sun, slowly rose from the distance beyond the horizon, forming a bright and dazzling huge mushroom cloud, while tumbling fire and thick smoke, it continued to spread and climb higher, Finally straight into the sky...

The captives and Viet Minh fighters present were all stunned at the spectacle in the sky in the distance, too surprised to say a word.

Only the well-informed Vo Nguyen Giap, after a short period of shock and stupor, came to his senses and understood what all this meant!
"...This, this... How could the Americans do such a thing? They dropped an atomic bomb on Hanoi?!!!"

At this moment, he finally once again felt his own weakness and powerlessness, as well as the ferocity of the colonists of the imperialist powers...