The Grandmother in the Siheyuan

Chapter 555 Popping Balloons

The Americans suddenly turned against us, accusing us of spying on their military intelligence.

Our people were initially stunned, feeling unjustly wronged, but then they felt incredibly encouraged, because this was finally a sign of action.

Our spokesperson doesn't tolerate the Americans. If they want to frame us, they should provide evidence. Without evidence, we won't stand for it.

The Americans were also tough, releasing a series of photos featuring large weather balloons slowly drifting in the air, their exact locations unknown.

"These balloons, according to our observation, belong to your country. They landed in Alaska via the Bering Strait and then headed south, traversing the entire interior of our great United States, to spy on our military intelligence."

Our country's foreign affairs personnel countered sharply, saying, "I would like to remind the great American side that this is a weather balloon, mainly used by us to study the Arctic climate. Now, with the influence of the global monsoon, it is drifting southward, and our signals can no longer control it. Therefore, we have no idea what it can see now, and thus we have no way of spying on your military intelligence."

Our foreign affairs personnel were telling the truth; the ground signal receiving station was indeed unable to receive the signal from the weather balloon. However, they didn't mention that our low-orbit satellites could still receive the signal.

After some back and forth, the Americans were determined to frame us, while we firmly refused to admit it. Moreover, we said that there was nothing we could do about this balloon; we could only wait for it to die and fall down on its own.

Relevant departments secretly hyped this up within the United States, widely publicizing it on their domestic internet, claiming that in order to maintain the dignity of the world's number one military power, the US Air Force should use its most advanced F-22 fighter jets to cleanly and efficiently shoot down this balloon.

After much hype, it created a wave on the internet. Not only the internet, but also newspapers, magazines and television stations joined the discussion. The final consensus was that the F-22 should be used to cleanly and decisively shoot down the balloon.

The then-President of the United States was George W. Bush, who launched two wars. This proposal was exactly what he wanted, as he could boost his approval ratings by flexing his muscles.

If his father were in power, he would definitely hold a hearing to discuss which aircraft would be most suitable and best, since his father was a torpedo bomber pilot back in the day.

Unfortunately, Bush had never served in the military and didn't understand the intricacies of the situation. He thought the suggestion was excellent. So he ordered the Air Force to scramble fighter jets, their most advanced fighter jets, their fifth-generation F-22s, to shoot down the balloon.

So two F-22s took off from two military airfields in the United States and headed straight for the balloon, but after several attempts, they returned empty-handed.

After the first attack failed, Bush was furious, but he dared not reveal the truth to the public, so he made a news brief on his social media.

The gist is that this F-22 takeoff was not for attack, but for better reconnaissance, to know oneself and one's enemy, so as to win every battle.

He could get away with the F-22 taking off, but he couldn't get away with the balloon incident, because those people were still floating in the air, and he would be ridiculed every day he didn't shoot them down.

Little Bush was furious: "Why can't we shoot them down? We have the most advanced fighter jets in the world, why can't we shoot down two balloons?"

The Air Force Commander could only tell the truth: "The balloon is at an altitude of over 30,000 meters. Our aircraft cannot fly that high at all, and air-to-air missiles cannot reach that altitude either, unless we use ballistic missiles."

"Then let's use ballistic missiles," Xiao Bu said through gritted teeth.

"The Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) ballistic missile, even the extended-range version, can only reach an altitude of 33,000 meters, while that balloon is currently at an altitude of over 35,000 meters. Therefore, we can only use the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3), which was just deployed this year. However, the SM-3 is currently only deployed on Aegis systems, and so far, we don't have a land-based system to hit the balloon inland." "Then let Raytheon come up with a plan as soon as possible so that I can launch the SM-3 from inland and shoot down this damned balloon."

Bush's security aide quickly stopped him: "Mr. President, I must interrupt you. We absolutely cannot use Standard Missile 3 to intercept these weather balloons."

"why?"

"A standard 3 costs $1000 million, while shooting a weather balloon that only costs a few hundred thousand dollars is a losing proposition. We'll become a laughing stock all over the world."

Another of his aides chimed in, "If we use such a high cost to destroy a weather balloon, it will be easy for the opposition to seize on it, which would be detrimental to our Republican Party's next election."

Bush could only grit his teeth and nod: "That's right, I got too excited. I'll leave this to your Air Force. Shoot down this damn balloon in the shortest amount of time and the simplest method."

Those above just give orders, while those below run themselves ragged.

The Air Force Commander reluctantly accepted the mission, but he had no clue what to do.

Liu Hua and Ma Shan ate dumplings and drank wine, getting happier and happier as they chatted: "This time you guys have put the Americans in a very difficult position, they're going to have a hard time."

"Indeed, we had too high expectations for it. We thought the plane could fly that high, but now we are preparing to descend the balloon to 7,000 meters."

Liu Hua frowned: "Isn't it dropping too much all at once?"

“We know what’s going on,” Ma Shan said with a smile. “We were observing them the whole time they were probing. Although we don’t know the exact altitude, it’s definitely not 20,000 meters.”

"If you haven't reached 20,000 meters, why don't you just descend all at once?"

Ma Shan smiled smugly: "We not only want to test his aircraft, but we also want to test how powerful their missiles really are, and see if they are hiding anything."

The US Air Force was delighted to discover that the balloon's altitude was slowly decreasing, which was extremely advantageous for them.

Finally, the balloon reached a high speed of 28,000 meters in Hong Kong. The impatient US space force scrambled two more F-22s and viciously pounced on the balloon again.

The pilot had done everything he could to increase the altitude, and was almost fainting from the suffocation, but he still hadn't reached the missile's optimal attack range, or more accurately, the missile's effective attack range.

So, after this attack mission, the two F-22s had to slink back to the airport. The Air Force Commander was in a real bind, wondering how to announce it to the public. He hadn't come up with an explanation yet.

(End of this chapter)