Chapter 126: The Difficult Year Without Summer
September 15, 1947, United States, Washington, White House
In this "year without summer" where the climate is changing, the weather in the United States is simply chillingly cold and terrifyingly weird. The calendar on the wall had just turned to September, and a thin layer of snow had already accumulated on the South Lawn of the White House, and a few crystal clear ice strands hung from the eaves of the Oval Office. Looking at the snow-covered scene outside the window, President Truman couldn't help but feel exhausted.
——The United States of America has just experienced the “coolest” summer, and is it about to usher in the coldest winter?
Although the United States was in the midst of World War III at this time, since the U.S. military successfully bombed the Soviet Union on Valentine's Day, no large-scale war broke out between the two sides for almost six months, whether on the Atlantic front or on the This is true on the Pacific Front.
Therefore, in President Truman's view, today's war affairs are very relaxed.
In Europe, the US military has given up its last few footholds, including Iceland and the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, and has completely withdrawn its troops to the North American mainland and Canada, separated from the red camp by the vast Atlantic Ocean. Confront each other. Although the U.S. military is currently unable to make another expedition to Europe, it is even less possible for the Soviets to cross the Atlantic and go straight into the heart of the United States. The two sides can only continue to stare across the ocean, and neither can do anything about the other.
In the African battlefield, the U.S. military also completely withdrew to the south of the Sahara Desert and broke away from ground contact with the Soviet Red Army and its allies. In fact, even half a year after the U.S. military abandoned North Africa and the Middle East, the Soviet army did not really have a presence here. To gain a foothold in this chaotic land of constant conflicts, it could only be content with controlling a few port strongholds along the Mediterranean coast, while allowing various Arab sects and tribal forces to fight each other inland.
Faced with such a chaotic situation with an unstable retreat, the Soviets simply did not have the strength to launch a cross-over war except occasionally organizing a few long-range bombers from the frontline air force bases on the Mediterranean to harass the American troops stationed south of the Sahara Desert. Expedition in the Great Desert - It's just that the Soviet Air Force's harassment method is more violent, often by throwing atomic bombs, which has killed more than 10,000 US troops and more than 2 million black people...
On the battlefield in the Middle East, the Soviet army, which was marching southward, was actually trapped in the quagmire of war and was tortured by the guerrillas everywhere. On the battlefield in Asia Minor, even with the Kurds as allies and the use of saturation nuclear explosion tactics to wipe out half of Turkey's population, the Soviet Red Army was unable to suppress the desperate resistance of the remaining half of the Turks in a short period of time. On the Iraqi battlefield, the Soviet army only occupied the front line of Mosul and could no longer move. So far, there is no sign of entering Baghdad. The fight in Iran and Afghanistan was also unsatisfactory. The Iranians fell on the Caspian Sea coast. After Tehran was nuclear bombed, they retreated to the Persian Gulf coast and continued to resist relying on plateaus and mountains. The Afghans also established a government-in-exile in the city of Peshawar in northwest India, and received assistance from the Muslim League led by Jinnah, and continued to resist in the form of guerrilla warfare. Although Stalin's Cheka fighters have always dealt with all kinds of dissatisfaction, they have arrested more than two million terrorists and suspected terrorists and sent them to labor camps. There is no law these days. You can be sent to concentration camps if you look like a terrorist. I worked myself to death, and there was no way to complain if I was wrongly arrested. However, various resistance movements still emerge in endlessly.
According to the Pentagon's predictions, for at least a few years, the Soviet Red Army's armored torrent will be firmly trapped in the Middle East and unable to be deployed on other battlefields.
On the Indian battlefield, the U.S. military has basically withdrawn, sitting back and watching the Indians fight on their own. Since Gandhi was assassinated and the conservative power of the Congress Party declined greatly, because the external common enemy disappeared, the Muslim League led by Jinnah also followed The radical wing of the Congress party led by Chandra fell out. The whole of India presents a three-nation pattern in which the three giants Nehru, Chandra and Jinnah confront each other. There are also dozens of Indian princes and more tribal armed forces separatist kings, fighting each other, and even ambitiously thinking To get a hold of the throne of Delhi, it was really a scene of chaos among hundreds of schools of thought vying for hegemony.
For such a mind-numbing quagmire involving 300-400 million people, neither the red camp nor the white camp seems to have any intention of interfering too much. They just wait patiently for the Indians to decide a final winner, or like The Roman Empire also disintegrated into countless small states.
In East Asia, as the Japanese naval combined fleet swept south across the Polynesian Islands and reached Easter Island, and the last Allied force that landed on the Japanese Islands was destroyed last Christmas, various large-scale military operations have temporarily come to an end. Especially after the Pentagon voluntarily abandoned the Philippines and recalled MacArthur, the military forces of the United States and Japan have completely broken away from frontal contact again, and have turned into a confrontation across the Pacific.
According to the latest news, the main force of the Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet, headed by the battleship Yamato, has now moved westward into the Indian Ocean. It first pursued and suppressed the remaining ships of the British Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet, and then wandered around the Indian Ocean, hunting and killing those active in this area. All commercial ships in the sea - due to the destruction of the Suez Canal, commercial ships from the European socialist bloc countries have so far been unable to enter the Red Sea, let alone the Indian Ocean. Occasionally, they also bombarded coastal ports, seeming to want to completely destroy the entire Indian Ocean shipping route, and indeed caused logistical supply difficulties for Eisenhower's US troops stranded in East Africa: Railway and road transportation in Africa are basically a tragedy , the army's logistics supply line can only be maintained by sea transportation.
However, the Pentagon, which has decided to abandon the Indian Ocean, basically does not care about this. It also ordered General Eisenhower, who is currently stationed in Mombasa, the largest port in East Africa, that if the Japanese army launches a large-scale attack from across the Indian Ocean or cuts off the maritime supply line of the US military in East Africa, Really can't If you continue to insist, you can retreat to Liberia or Congo in West Africa at any time, and then let South Africa be at the forefront and fight with the Japanese from afar... Under the current difficult situation, as long as you can keep a few people on the old continent, A foothold is already a great success.
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All in all, although the earth today is still in the midst of a world war, the smoke and gunfire are still continuous all over the world. However, the relationship between the two most critical heavyweight players, the United States and the Soviet Union, temporarily shifted from a hot war to a cold war and entered a period of relative relaxation.
For Truman, the wartime president, what really troubled him the most right now was the nationwide natural disaster that broke out in his own country.
——With the violent eruption of the Icelandic volcano in the North Atlantic, huge volcanic ash clouds blocked the sunlight and rapidly lowered the ground temperature. Currently, most of Europe has been plunged into a summer low temperature disaster. Across the Atlantic in North America, the situation is naturally not optimistic either.
For Americans, this winter and spring have been extremely cold. Blizzards have caused disasters in Maine and other places, and large areas of the Great Lakes have been frozen. Even the port of Detroit was paralyzed for a time. After finally waiting for spring to bloom, it was almost summer, but who knew that there would be several inexplicable super cold waves, which would lower the temperature again. Three unusual cold snaps caused June snow to fall on the streets of Manhattan, New York. During the cold wave in early June, the snow on Wall Street was as thick as three inches, which made passers-by marvel at it and frighten it at the same time.
——Anyone with a little knowledge can know what a terrifying nightmare this abnormal weather with hot and cold reverses will bring to agricultural production!
At the end of July and early August, the New England region in the northeastern United States (the coastal states north of New York, the oldest place in the United States) suffered another frost disaster, except for a few of the most cold-resistant grains and vegetable varieties, such as wheat and onions. In addition, most crops were frozen to death. According to estimates from the Department of Agriculture, at least 15 states in the United States will have no corn harvest this year, and hay production will also drop sharply. This will inevitably lead to a large number of livestock deaths, and the output of dairy products and meat will naturally plummet. , allowing the people of the country to survive a year of famine...
—Unlike the man-made economic collapse of the Great Depression, which left coffee and beans to burn boilers, fruits and vegetables to rot in the fields, cows to be thrown into the Mississippi River, and citizens to starve in the cities. Garbage... America is really in a food crisis this time.
In Canada, the consequences of the abnormal summer were even worse, and the cold wave was more severe. Even wheat could not escape the bad luck. In peacetime before the outbreak of World War II, Canada exported millions of tons of grain and feed to Europe every year. But now in this terrible "year without summer", Canadians find themselves with neither bread nor milk. They have to thank God if they can eat potatoes.
——In this year, the entire Canada first experienced the bloody civil war, which resulted in a large amount of farmland being abandoned in the war, and the government's strategic material reserve warehouse was also burned to the ground because of the civil war. Then, due to the onset of the summer cold wave, all crops in Canada were almost wiped out, and the prices of wheat and hay skyrocketed. In autumn, which is supposed to be the harvest season, the food shortage situation is even more serious. Especially in cities where street fighting has taken place in Quebec, Canada, the bread ration has been reduced from 200 grams to 150 grams per day, which is not even enough to feed a child. Everything that could be eaten was stuffed into the mouths of hungry citizens, such as berries, lichens, and cat meat. Some people wrote articles on wild survival science in newspapers to guide residents to identify non-toxic plants. The desperate Canadian authorities had no choice but to reach out to their southern neighbors for help. The trains transporting grain from the United States to Canada had to be escorted by military police because every station was crowded with hungry people coming to get food.
Relative to Canada, which is struggling with hunger and cold, agricultural output in the United States is slightly better. The total harvest failure is mainly concentrated in New England and the Great Lakes coastal areas in the northeast. Although the Mississippi River Basin further south also has a grain harvest, the total output value of agricultural products has decreased by 50% compared with last year, and the total output of wheat, barley, corn, fruits and vegetables has generally declined. ...But at least there is still some harvest. Without the need to export surplus grain overseas on a large scale, this year's harvest can barely feed every citizen of the United States of America.
After all, American farmers these days no longer have to feed their British relatives across the Atlantic. But on the other hand, they have to lend a helping hand to Canada and the disaster-stricken areas in the north of the country... As a result, the food supply for the American people still seems to be stretched thin.
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In response to the increasingly severe disaster, the U.S. federal government significantly lowered the food ration standards for ordinary citizens three times. The American people soon sadly discovered that eggs, butter, chocolate, and meat were gradually disappearing from store shelves. . The meat ration for each person was reduced to one hundred grams per day, which is equivalent to a few thin slices, and there was very little fresh meat, basically only canned Spam luncheon meat. Butter rations were changed to white lard and later downgraded to sugar. The bread ration for American citizens has also been reduced to 400 grams per person per day. The federal government also stipulates that bakers who produce ration bread must add at least 10% rye flour to white bread, and at least 5% to rye bread. Potato flour, called "wartime bread". And ordinary people generally can only buy black bread in ration stores to make full use of the bran and bran in the grains.
From the caloric value point of view, this dietary standard is still scientific, because a healthy adult consumes 1,800 calories a day without doing strenuous exercise. If a certain degree of physical labor is required, then the increase It's almost enough to reach 2,400 calories. Therefore, theoretically speaking, the daily caloric ration of American civilians is sufficient to maintain people's basic survival needs and will not be in a state of starvation.
However, eating well does not mean eating well. If you want to eat pure refined white bread and tender and juicy steak, or get some refined flour and egg powder to cook your own pastries, citizens can only spend a few dollars. The price can be doubled or more than ten times higher, and you risk being caught by purchasing food on the black market... In some places, people in cities often trek dozens of kilometers on foot to go to rural areas and secretly exchange their belongings for food from farmers.
Then, local governments and Congresses in various states also introduced a series of wartime restrictions aimed at reducing food consumption-California stipulated that meals in hotels and restaurants are limited to two courses, only one of which can be meat. . New York State regulations: Alcohol must not only be purchased with a ration ticket, but also sold only two days a week. Washington State prohibited bakeries from making cakes and puffs during wartime. Texas stipulates that ordinary people can only buy skim milk, and only pregnant women and children can buy the more nutritious whole milk. New Jersey made it illegal to feed ordinary food to pets during wartime, resulting in many citizens being fined for feeding birds bread. Maine, where the famine was at its worst, decreed that potatoes should be served with the skin on only, and potato peelers were not allowed in all restaurants and restaurants. Louisiana, a grain-producing state, stipulates that in order to ensure national health, calcium and vitamins should be added to the flour used to bake ration bread, although this is difficult to achieve in reality.
Although so many wartime measures were introduced to restrict food consumption, apart from adding all kinds of troubles to ordinary people's lives, the actual effect was quite questionable. As a federal country with a high degree of local autonomy, the power of the U.S. central government even during wartime was far inferior to that of the militaristic fascist regimes of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Therefore, the control and supervision of agriculture was very unsuccessful. No matter how the authorities try to stop it, the black market trade in food is still becoming more and more rampant, just like the bootlegging business during the Prohibition era - the huge profits in the black market have made farmers more willing to sell their agricultural products to black market dealers who are willing to pay high prices, with limited results. Food is even more unable to enter the legal circulation field. At least one-third of the country's butter, eggs and pork production has gone to the black market instead of government rationed food stores, making ordinary people's lives even more difficult. While the heavy manual workers who had worked hard all day in the arsenal were chewing on smelly black bread with a large amount of potato meal and fish meal, the gentlemen of the upper class were still feasting and drinking in luxurious restaurants.
In order to educate the people to cope with the food shortage crisis, President Truman, at the unanimous request of his staff, resumed the "fireside chats" of the Roosevelt era, promoting various frugal measures on radio programs, and persuading urban residents to spend time in gardens and Plant vegetables instead of flowers on the balcony to And persuade farmers to pull out corns that require higher temperatures to grow normally, and plant more high-yielding and cold-resistant potatoes... The president's wife suggested that housewives use substitutes, such as yogurt instead of cheese, mashed potatoes instead of flour, and vegetable powder. For fruit, use vanilla plus margarine instead of cream.
In addition, in order to solve the shortage of meat supply, some scientists and entrepreneurs have begun to study how to use cultured yeast to produce protein. In short, the basic method is to convert wood and papermaking wastewater into sugar. It is said that this yeast protein The pressed finished product tastes very much like pork and beef, so it is called "artificial meat". Unfortunately, consumers generally believe that its taste is even far inferior to Spam canned luncheon meat...
In fact, the current strategic reserve materials in the hands of the U.S. government are actually relatively abundant. As the world's leading developed agricultural country, even after so many years of war consumption, the federal government still has enough reserves to feed the people of the country for a year. A large amount of grain, sugar, 250,000 tons of lard, cured fat and butter, as well as a large amount of oats and corn for feed, in addition to hoarding a lot of leather, cloth and silk. As for coal and oil production that are not affected by climate change, they are more than enough to meet the country's maximum needs.
However, Iceland's volcanoes have been erupting from spring to autumn without any signs of stopping. The huge volcanic ash cloud not only covers the entire Iceland, but is also being pushed by the wind and gradually spreading in all directions... So no one knows what this will do to the world. How long the catastrophe will last for agriculture, let alone how many "years without summer" will follow - therefore, it is necessary to prepare for this in advance and take saving measures in advance.
However, even in such a bad situation and under tremendous pressure, President Truman never considered the possibility of an armistice and peace...
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※PS: Taiwan is really asking for donations from mainland fruit fans! The party and state bosses themselves have no money, but they call on mainland fruit fans to donate 200 yuan each to pay the salaries of their party comrades. However, only 20% of the official party members in Taiwan pay their party dues on time - looking at the face that says "I'm giving you face by asking you inferior mainlanders to give you money", I think there are only masochists and Only those who love the party and the country deeply will donate generously, right?