Chapter 129: Shocking changes in South America (Part 1)
In the far southwest of South America, there is a magical country - Chile. This may be the most remote country in the world (excluding Antarctica), and there are insurmountable geographical barriers between it and the centers of various civilizations. On a map, Chile looks like a slender bamboo pole, sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains. This is the narrowest country in the world, with a length of 4,270 kilometers from north to south, and an average width of only 180 kilometers from east to west. It is located in South America, where tropical rainforests are widespread. It has a long coastline and the Atacama Desert, known as the "dryest extreme in the world."
The original meaning of the word Chile is "the end of the world". This is because during the colonial period, Chile was limited to the south of the desert and north of the Bio-Bio River. It was a remote and relatively isolated place for the mother country, and at that time Chile did not discover as rich precious metal deposits as Mexico and Peru, so it did not receive the attention of the mother country. In addition, Chile is located in the Pacific Rim Seismic Belt, where earthquakes and other natural disasters occur frequently.
However, despite its remote location and strange shape, Chile is by no means a poor and weak country. It is this special geographical structure and historical reasons that have created the Chilean people's tenacious character, tradition of seeking knowledge and learning, and their strong ability to govern themselves. And it provides them with a natural barrier against foreign invaders. Of course, nature also has unique gifts to Chile. Its rich mineral resources have given Chile a solid economic backbone. Its copper ore materials account for a quarter of the world’s reserves. It is also the country that produces the most natural saltpeter in the world; Chile It also has rich forest resources.
These rich natural resources provide a material foundation for the development of the Chilean economy, and also give Chile, which was once remote and poor, the basic conditions to compete for hegemony in wars. As one of the few bellicose countries in South America, Chile has been a war-torn country since its founding. They resorted to aggressive warfare and continued the Northern Expedition, successively attacking Bolivia and Peru, and achieved a series of brilliant naval and land battle victories. Their territory expanded hundreds of kilometers northward, and they were known as the "British in South America."
However, in the face of a giant like the United States, the strength of Chile, a small South American power, is a bit insufficient. Although at the end of the 19th century, Chile once had the most powerful naval fleet in the entire Americas, with tonnage and combat effectiveness exceeding that of the U.S. Navy at the time. However, as the global warship-building competition between the late 19th and early 20th centuries began with great vigor, and when the Americans organized the "Great White Fleet" to sail around the world to demonstrate, the Chilean Navy, which was once glorious in the past, lacked the ability to build warships on its own. industrial strength, but quickly fell behind and became an inconspicuous little player.
Next, with the implementation of the Monroe Doctrine and the rapid expansion of U.S. power, Chile, like other South American friends, gradually became the backyard and economic colony of the Americans. During World War II, under strong pressure from the United States, Chile also declared war on the fascist regimes of Germany, Italy, and Japan and joined the Allied camp. Originally, it just wanted to join in the fun and earn the title of victorious country to show off. However, the development of the war turned out to be far more cruel and bloody than the Chileans imagined. After defeating Germany and Italy, which were strong foreign powers and weak in power, they had to fight the Soviet Union next.
In an unprecedentedly cruel war, the Chilean navy's ships and sailors were basically forcibly requisitioned by the U.S. Pacific Fleet and were exhausted in a series of wars in the South Pacific. The more than 200,000 Chilean Army soldiers who followed the United States to participate in the World War were almost completely wiped out in a series of overseas wars in the Pacific, Japan, North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. On average, only one person in a thousand people came back alive.
In order to support the expenses of this war, Chile has repeatedly raised taxes, squeezing the people into misery. Although the United States gave the Chilean government a lot of loans and subsidies, under wartime material control, these dollar loans could not buy anything except for investment.
Seeing that following the United States to participate in the world war, instead of enjoying any war dividends, Chile had to lose its only capital. The whole country of Chile had already accumulated great dissatisfaction, and the crazy increase in the number of casualties also made this country with a limited population Small countries are becoming more and more unbearable - in the eyes of South Americans, both World War II and World War III are "other people's wars", and they work as mercenaries for the Americans for money. But today's U.S. dollar is becoming less and less valuable, and it may one day turn into waste paper. If we continue to fight, we will no longer exchange lives for money, but lose money and lose lives. Who is willing to do such a stupid thing?
Therefore, after the pro-American President Alessandri announced the dissolution of Congress, the suspension of elections, and nationwide martial law in order to maintain the shaky regime and suppress the anti-war movement, the pro-communist left-wing coalition party "Popular Front" immediately declared "safeguarding the constitution" "Initiating a military coup under the banner of —After six hours of melee, President Alessandri and his 1,500 close associates died in the streets of Santiago, the capital. While the newly established Chilean government continued to suppress opposition elements across the country, it announced that it was tearing up the relationship with the United States. Military alliance agreement to withdraw from this war.
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At the same time, the Argentine government, which had always been "anti-American" and had always been half-hearted and extremely reluctant to participate in the war, also officially announced its rebellion. After the Peron government that came to power last year stabilized its internal affairs, it began to cool down and dilute alliance relations. It first gradually stopped military cooperation with the US government, and then tried to recall the Argentine troops that had been sent overseas to assist in the war. This The work was forced to end as soon as it started, because all the Argentine troops participating in the war were quickly destroyed, either going to see God or entering prisoner of war camps.
However, the United States cannot tolerate Argentina jumping off the chariot so easily. Although the intensity of the war between the two camps has dropped rapidly since the spring of 1947, in order to cope with the brutal war of attrition that will inevitably follow, the Pentagon needs to recruit more soldiers from South America to serve as cannon fodder and plunder more resources to maintain the operation of the huge war machine, so it must tighten rather than relax its control over South American countries.
In order to suppress the anti-American forces in Argentina, while dealing with domestic disasters, the United States also did not forget to send more troops to Brazil. At the same time, it sent a fleet to patrol the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to deter Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, which is located on the south bank of the estuary of the Rio de la Plata. North Aires... However, in the face of the U.S. government's brutal demands such as large-scale forced conscription of Argentines, purchase of large quantities of grain and meat at low prices, and forcible apportionment of huge war national debts, all these military intimidation measures have failed. Couldn't suppress the Argentinian's raging anger. The anxious Argentinians expressed that they would rather fight the Yankees and die at home than have their last copper coin plundered and then be buried in an unknown wilderness on the other side of the ocean.
The Peron government, which was originally extremely anti-American in its political stance and extremely Nazi-like, continued to add fuel to the flames. Soon, with the help of public opinion and general trends, it successfully purged the weak pro-American forces in the country and officially Falling out with the United States - Although as remnants of the Nazis, they also hate the Soviets, but after all, the Soviets are far away across the ocean, and the Americans have already extended their dirty hands into Argentina, so it is natural to oppose the United States first.
Next, under the pressure of the US military's previous defeats, Peru's political situation also underwent drastic changes... The left-wing party, which advocated withdrawing from the war, relied on a coup to come to power, but the pro-American old regime gathered its own troops and began to counterattack. Just as the two sides were fighting inextricably, foreign aid came again...
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Northern border of Chile, Atacama Desert, Port of Antofagasta
The new flagship of the Soviet Red Flag Pacific Fleet, the nuclear-powered battleship "Lenin", is anchored outside this desert port.
Wang Qiu stood by the railing of the ship's side, curiously looking at the tawny coastline and bare mountains on the opposite side - although this land was very close to the sea, the Peruvian cold current brought icy seawater near the Antarctic, causing Ataka horse desert The nearby air is colder at the bottom and warmer at the top. In meteorology, this situation is called an "inversion layer", which is very unfavorable for the condensation of raindrops. At the same time, the Andes Mountains are like a tall and insurmountable barrier, blocking the cold wind blowing from the Amazon Basin. Moist air mass. After much calculation, there is no meteorological condition that can cause rain near the Atacama Desert. Therefore, even though this place is foggy all year round and the relative humidity of the air can sometimes reach 70%, it has become the world's most rainy place. The driest place.
How dry is this Atacama Desert? The average annual precipitation in the entire desert is below 50 mm, and in the northern region it is below 10 mm. It rains only two to three times per century on average. In some places in the desert, the Spaniards began to engage in rainstorms here in the late 16th century. There has been drought for almost 400 years since meteorological records were first recorded. In other words, it is hard to say whether there are any living people there who have witnessed the last rain.
The Atacama Desert is so dry that it is extremely unsuitable for human habitation. In addition, the only soil it has is highly acidic and extremely barren. Therefore, except for a few settlements, it has become the world's largest desert. The only place without any sign of life. So much so that NASA’s Mars exploration rover conducts experiments here - scientists believe that this is the most Mars-like place on Earth, and maybe the conditions are not as good as Mars!
However, despite such harsh natural conditions, there are fully one million people living in this desert! The port of Antofagasta in front of them is the second largest port and fifth largest city in Chile. Without surface water sources, they took advantage of the foggy weather and put up hundreds of thousands of screens to cover the sky. A sun-blocking "fog catching net" is used to collect moisture in the fog, allowing the dense fog to condense into water droplets on the surface of the net. It is said that on a good day each net can collect one hundred and seventy liters of water per day. In addition, long water pipes were laid to divert snow water from the Andes Mountains to eke out a living.
——The reason why so many Chileans live together in this desert where they can’t even drink water is of course not because they like to ask for trouble, but because this desert produces a large amount of struvite, natural saltpeter and copper. Mines are all good things that can be sold at a good price. And Chile, which is far away from the prosperous areas of the civilized world, relies on the trade income of these minerals to afford a large and money-burning navy... Although the current Chilean navy has been torn apart by the Americans because of its participation in the world war. , not much left. But there are still many military port facilities left in the Port of Antofagasta, close to the northern border, which are now directly occupied by the Soviet Red Navy, which crossed the Pacific for the first time, as an advance base for supplies and rest.
At this moment, the entire harbor of Antofagasta was filled to the brim with Soviet navy ocean-going ships flying red flags. The Japanese naval combined fleet, which arrived on the coast of South America earlier, has already set off for Peru in advance to cooperate with the new regime in crushing the counterattack of the domestic pro-American reactionaries.
"...How is the situation in Peru? Has the latest intelligence been sent? Have the Japanese Marines entered the capital Lima?"
Turning around the chart room of the battleship "Lenin", Wang Qiu asked casually while looking at the messy map on the table.
"...The progress is going quite smoothly. The Callao military port on the outskirts of Lima has been destroyed by shelling, and there are no signs of shore-based aviation taking off for bombing. Some intelligence and political workers have already gone ashore to launch an armed uprising of local Japanese expatriates to cooperate with the new government's encirclement and suppression campaign. The remnants of the pro-American army..."
While political commissar Guo kept in touch with the radio room using the ship's phone, he wrote something on the map and notebook with a pencil, "...the pro-American rebels' offensive on the capital Lima has been preceded by high-density bombing by Japanese naval aviation. was defeated, and is currently launching a full-scale counterattack..."
"...It sounds like progress is going well...What about the Americans? How do they react to the changes in South America?"
Wang Qiu nodded with satisfaction, and then continued to ask, "... This time they took away such a large piece of the wall, and it was in such a fatal and vital part. It may trigger a reshuffle in the entire Latin America." Chain reaction... The White House must be going crazy right now, right?"
"...It's no use even if they are madly anxious? The main force of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet was deceived by the Japanese Navy's combined fleet's previous feint to march westward into the Indian Ocean. It is still staying in the Hawaiian Islands to prepare for war, and it is impossible to reach it at the moment. Come from South America.”
Professor Guo poked the Hawaiian Islands on the map with a pencil and replied, "...and even if they attack from the Hawaiian Islands quickly and slowly, not to mention how long it will take, it will take a long time." With the cooperation of half of the Japanese Navy Combined Fleet and the entire Soviet Red Navy Pacific Fleet - there are twelve Yamato-class battleships alone in this South American battle! The aircraft carrier mobile fleet is even more outstanding..."
Regarding Professor Guo's above-mentioned views, Wang Qiu also nodded in agreement.
Although since the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has regarded the entire Latin America as its own backyard and its dominant sphere of influence, its main method is economic and political penetration. As for the troops directly stationed in various countries in South America, there are really not many of them. Before World War II, the small establishment of the U.S. Army did not even make a difference when spread overseas. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the U.S. Navy and Army experienced rapid expansion one after another, which caused a shortage of human resources at home. They had to recruit more men from allies. How could they get enough manpower to station in South America? Therefore, faced with the sudden and rapid defections of South American allies, Americans in the northern hemisphere seemed unable to react at all.