Yes, Prime Minister of Japan

……

Late March.

When Nguyen Thanh Nghia established the Southern Bureau of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam experienced a huge surge in public sentiment. Nguyen Thanh Nghia declared:

"The re-establishment of the Southern Vietnam Bureau is to address the problems of uneven economic development and confusion regarding the national path. We will continue to promote the new 'innovation and opening-up model' and 'fully embrace advanced economic regions.' We will adhere to the socialist line, but we must correct the misplaced pro-American and anti-China policies of the Hanoi regime. The Vietnamese people are, after all, part of the Chinese cultural sphere, and we cannot isolate ourselves from civilization in order to be pro-American. We must orderly restore our integration with civilization."

The so-called integration with civilization means integration with China, Japan, and South Korea.

As the son of a former prime minister, Nguyen Thanh Nghi was naturally very swift in changing policies. He recruited many elderly people with a strong sense of loss and asked them to formulate policies for integrating civilization under an innovative and open model.

This group of people, having received private funding from Li Xinghe and following his core beliefs, naturally did their utmost.

Their so-called restoration of Vietnamese cultural traditions began with the restoration of Chinese character education in Vietnam. Because the Han-Nôm script was too complex and lacked educational value, they directly copied the simplified Chinese character education system promoted by Japan and South Korea. The Vietnamese language itself contains a large number of Chinese character loanwords, and with the popularity of short videos and TV dramas, many people understand Chinese. Based on the restoration of Chinese character education, these sentimental intellectuals also formulated a 'New Southern Thinking Approach'.

This new thinking involves moving beyond the traditional conflict-driven mindset between Vietnam and China, and considering things from a different perspective. As part of the Chinese civilization sphere, Vietnam can integrate into the advanced economic and cultural order of the China-Japan-Korea region, becoming a bridgehead for Chinese civilization in Southeast Asia, thereby gaining economic support from China, Japan, and Korea. With economic development, the nation can become stronger and more independent.

That seems reasonable!

Therefore, Cosmopolitan Vietnam should join the UN forces, allowing them to station troops in Vietnam and absorb Vietnamese soldiers, thus completing the return to civilization.

In addition to meeting the $1000 billion aid criteria in terms of cultural policy, it also needs to decouple from the North economically.

Hundreds of Vietnamese state-owned enterprises in Cochinchina, such as Electronics and Telecommunications, Southern Ordnance Manufacturing Plant, Southern Branch of Truong Son Construction Company, and Branch of Military Joint Stock Bank, were seized and controlled by personnel dispatched by the United Army, along with local officials, and were effectively dismantled.

Meanwhile, Li Xinghe in Tokyo was still watching the spectacle with amusement.

It's indeed a fascinating historical incongruity that the son of a Vietnamese anti-China politician was forced to announce a pro-China strategy. Li Xinghe was curious to see Nguyen Tan Dung's expression at that moment, wondering what his retired father was thinking.

Meanwhile, in northern Vietnam, they no longer cared about the division of the Cochinchina region.

For the first time in decades, Hanoi sounded its air raid sirens. Whether due to negligence or overuse of red alerts, the person in charge was shouting:

"Red alert! Red alert!"

But he was absolutely right.

It is a red alert not only politically, but also economically, and even more so militarily.

Fighter jets, flying in from the east and west, appeared like swarms of insects, while guided missiles flew haphazardly through the sky, striking the Viet Cong, who claimed to be putting up a firm resistance.

The military camp was bombed.

The power plant exploded.

The substation exploded.

The overpass was blown up.

The arsenal was blown up.

With intelligence provided by the CIA, which was as plentiful as satellites and as dense as a sieve, various industries, hydropower infrastructure, and even bridges and roads in and around Hanoi, Vietnam, were bombed piecemeal. People couldn't even find a passable highway to go out, and deployed troops were stuck on isolated bridges with nowhere to go.

After a full day of terrifying bombing raids, Li Xinghe dispatched 2700 fighter jets to fly over Hanoi, dropping over 270 million pounds of aerial bombs and missiles, weighing a total of 1300 tons, over roads, bridges, power plants, and water supply plants near Hanoi.

These bombs and missiles were originally destined for Santiago, to be used by the Americans to bomb Mexican warlords or their own cities. Li Xinghe intercepted them, and they all ended up benefiting the Hanoi regime.

A chorus of weeping echoed across the Red River Plain.

The feeling of national subjugation was overwhelming, pressing down on their shoulders, almost breaking their spines and causing their minds to collapse.

Faced with the city engulfed in smoke and fire, even foreign journalists stationed in Hanoi expressed their genuine feelings:

"Hanoi has been reduced to ruins by Li Xinghe!"

"Is he prepared to send Vietnam to hell for the sake of the yuan-yen system?"

It seems that way, and it is indeed the case.

Li Xinghe informed Vietnam through diplomatic channels:

"If the Hanoi authorities still don't understand my language, then let the entire Red River Delta turn into a sea of ​​blood and return to the primitive era. After destroying it, I will move the capital of Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City."

Li Xinghe's army did not advance north for the time being, but instead focused on precision bombing of infrastructure.

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnam's main forces in the north are still stationed around Hanoi, ready to respond to any threat from northern China. But how can these mere soldiers, even if they risk their lives, withstand the attacks of fourth- and fifth-generation fighter jets flying overhead?

The systematic, integrated, and modernized three-dimensional combat mode left the Vietnamese army, which was maintaining a Cold War mentality, bewildered and seemingly on the verge of a mental collapse.

For this reason, the Hanoi authorities had to painfully admit that the problem was serious.

They underestimated the number of troops Li Xinghe could mobilize, and his determination to attack and kill those who disobeyed.

In a bunker in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Politburo was forced to gather.

"The US troops under Li Xinghe's control are heading north. They have already captured Nha Trang and are now heading north to attack Tuy Hoa."

Further north are Quy Nhon, Da Nang, and Hue. If Hue, the ancient capital of the Nguyen Dynasty, falls into the hands of Li Xinghe, then the 17th parallel will truly be replicated, the people will be in turmoil, and it is not impossible for Vietnam to be destroyed in three days.

Despite having a full army of 400,000, with the establishment of the Southern Vietnam Bureau, Nguyen Thanh Nghi and his group began to pursue their "innovation and openness" and "full acceptance of advanced economic regions" in Ho Chi Minh City. A sense of gloom permeated the people, and a large number of surrender factions emerged. The Vietnamese Politburo had to admit that Medvedev was not talking nonsense.

If Li Xinghe really wants to make up his mind, that's a possibility.

"What should we do? What should we do?"

"If we don't make a decision soon, we'll be back to the Vietnam War era, and we'll have to go into the mountains and fight as guerrillas..."

Things are different now. Vietnam's economy has developed to this point, and it is no longer able to bear the disruptive pressure of going back to fight guerrilla warfare.

Although the main force is still intact, both the economic devastation caused by the south's secession and the frantic encirclement and suppression by Li Xinghe's global media front have brought a suffocating feeling to the Hanoi regime.

In the darkness, all Su Lin could say was:

"Now it seems there are only two options. First, ask China to send people south to prevent Li Xinghe's army from continuing north... Second, agree to accept the CPTPP clearing bank..."

Chapter 862: The Treaty of Annihilation is Broken in Two; Singapore is No Longer Needed (5300 words)

"No, no, no, no..."

President Liang Qiang, as Su Lin's adversary, was deeply uneasy and strongly resisted Su Lin's line.

The reason for choosing to stand firmly with Li Xinghe is that, as representatives of the political propaganda faction of the Vietnamese army, Liang Quang, Nguyen Trong Nghi, Phan Van Giang, and others insisted on withstanding the pressure from the CPTPP clearing bank and resolutely maintained the "bamboo diplomacy" that was originally impossible to achieve, which is to waver between China and the United States.

They still believed that, as an extension of American will in Asia, Li Xinghe should not launch such a fierce full-scale offensive. However, they never expected that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, which had long been perceived as weak, had been replaced by a coalition force essentially in disguise. Relying on its powerful military industrial capabilities, this force practically single-handedly dismantled the Vietnamese government's organization with artillery, missiles, and aerial bombs.

President Liang Qiang is still barely holding on:

"Give it your all, just one last push..."

Defense Minister Pan Wenjiang also proposed:

"As long as our Third Field Army Corps stationed in the Central Highlands, along with the Fifth Military Region, moves south to Phan Thiet City, cutting off the area between Cam Ranh Bay and Ho Chi Minh City, and dividing them into eastern and western parts, there should still be a chance... a chance... to force them to withdraw, right?"

Even now, many Vietnamese generals still cannot accept how Li Xinghe could have routed their elite troops with a surprise attack by plane and ship alone. The situation even escalated to the point of collapse overnight. The Ninth Military Region troops jumped into the Mekong River's paddy fields without even engaging in battle.

Some Vietnamese generals had realized: 'This is our moment in the Gulf War. Forty years ago, the Iraqis were being bombed mercilessly; now it's our turn.'

Many small countries have studied for decades how to counter this kind of multi-dimensional offensive and firepower-superior attack by the United States, but still haven't found a suitable solution. For example, what if Vietnam were to suddenly launch a US landing in the central region and face continuous bombing raids? How would it fight back?

But most people still believe that they still have the strength to fight back and the ability to put up a fight.

"Perhaps by desperately repelling them, we can shatter the delusional idea of ​​conquering Vietnam in three days."

In a state of extreme panic and self-deception, Defense Minister Pan Wenjiang ordered troops from central and southern Taiwan to move south in an attempt to cut off the coalition forces from the east and west, creating a situation that would divide the enemy.

The Third Field Army of Vietnam, the Central Highlands Corps stationed in the Western Highlands near Pleiku, and the Fifth Military Region stationed in Da Nang received orders to launch an attack.

Lieutenant General Tao Tuan'an, commander of the Third Army Corps, had an extremely clear understanding of his situation. He helplessly complained about the hasty battle plan:

"Isn't this sending us to our deaths? Do you think we can organize things right away?"

The only mechanized infantry division in the entire corps, the 320th Infantry Division, was commanded by Major General Ruan Shanying, who proposed with distress: "How can we possibly move south quickly? Our tanks and armored vehicles still need urgent repairs and replenishment, and the road conditions are what they are. If we must set off immediately, we can only send some trucks and a portion of our soldiers to their deaths."

Unlike Li Xinghe, who could quickly get a modern army up and running with cash, the Vietnamese army had been engaged in business for decades, yet the treatment of ordinary soldiers had remained stagnant, and the army's outdated equipment was constantly breaking down and requiring repairs.

The oldest equipment in Li Xinghe's forces is the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Tamamo-no-Mae, which underwent a $30 billion refurbishment. The rest of their ships are generally quite young. In contrast, Vietnamese equipment is typically comprised of centenarian veterans, with 120-year-old Soviet-era artillery being commonplace. The speed of maintenance and startup alone is incomparable to that of the past.

Sending troops south suddenly would only result in sending a bunch of soldiers with them.

But with the nation in peril, they had no choice but to set off.

When the 3rd Army Corps and the 5th Military Region of the Central Highlands took the lead, followed by the 10th Division, the 31st Division, the 2nd Division, the 305th Division, and the 315th Division, the six divisions appeared to be lined up in a long, straight line, but in reality, they stretched out a long marching line of more than 100 kilometers from Boiku City to Da Nang.

The troops stationed at Cam Ranh Bay were dumbfounded when they were tracked by satellite signals.

"No...isn't this a huge insult to us?"

"Don't they know that we have airplanes, naval guns, rocket launchers, drones, and even the most basic self-propelled artillery has a range of 70 kilometers?"

Fighter jets at Saigon Airport quickly took off, laden with bombs.

The newly formed South Korean army corps, which landed at Geumran Port, easily drove their K9 self-propelled howitzers up the nearby mountains and aimed at the Seowon Highlands to the north.

The Third Army Corps, having traveled dozens of kilometers south from the western plateau to Buon Ma Thuot city on the southern side of the plateau, continued south without time to rest.

Tao Tuan'an, Ruan Shanying, and He Shilian were even somewhat smug, thinking that their sudden action, although abandoning a large amount of heavy firepower and armored equipment (referring to old Soviet equipment from a hundred years ago and old Chinese aid), could still be considered a surprise attack, right?

But as soon as we descended the plateau and entered Dak Nong province in Vietnam, countless planes suddenly appeared in the sky. Guided bombs landed overhead with the wings of the aircraft, and a barrage of artillery shells suddenly flew in from the distant mountains.

Drones are also flying in, monitoring and guiding the direction of the artillery fire from the air.

The vanguard of more than 30,000 men was thrown into disarray. The fact that ordinary Vietnamese soldiers were paid only 800 yuan a month and that the long-standing lack of combat readiness and equipment updates became even more apparent. The Vietnamese soldiers did not know what kind of artillery was firing at them, nor did they know the maximum range of these artillery pieces. They only knew to run around in all directions. As they ran, they began to rout, then lost their organization and scattered in all directions.

After struggling to escape the slow barrage of artillery fire and rocket artillery fire, the hastily assembled troops were reduced to less than one-tenth of their original strength.

They also received bad news:

"It's over, Da Nang is lost."

The coalition forces quickly moved north, and with the assistance of two Australian amphibious assault ships, HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide, the G Brigade and the Han Quang Volunteer Army flew like eagles in the daytime, crossing the long coastline of Tui Hoa, Quy Nhon, Quang Ngai Hoi An, and suddenly appeared outside Da Nang, the largest city in central Vietnam and the fourth largest city in Vietnam.

After Da Nang City Party Secretary Nguyen Van Quang abandoned the city and fled, and People's Committee Chairman Ly Trung Chinh was arrested, he made a gesture of cooperating with the Southern Bureau, agreeing to appease the citizens and the city government of Da Nang and defecting to the Southern Bureau.

The line is cut off here, making it a perfect replica of the 17th parallel north.

Not far north of Da Nang lies the Imperial City of Hue, a remnant of the Nguyen Dynasty.

Generals Tao Tuan'an, He Shilian, and Ruan Shanying, seeing a drone flying towards them, surrendered with no will to fight.

"Surrender."

The three people looked miserable.

It’s over.

……

When the Third Army Corps and the Fifth Military Region charged in and suffered heavy casualties, a large group of generals and colonels, commanding their troops, collapsed before even entering the battlefield. This led to the collapse of the entire social fabric of southern Vietnam. Various governments, police forces, and parliaments hastily surrendered to Ho Chi Minh City, each one more eager than the last to do so.

There are only eight military regions and four field armies in the country. Li Xinghe defeated the Fourth Army and two military regions. More than 60,000 troops from the Third Army and the Fifth Army were unable to even get close to the battlefield. They were forced to flee in a miserable state under the enemy's air and space firepower, naval guns, drones, and self-propelled howitzers. In the end, they collapsed without even engaging in battle.

Even the most ruthless Vietnamese guerrillas couldn't remain defiant at this point. Instead, they hurriedly deleted their ruthless posts online and tried to learn some Chinese or Japanese, or seek refuge with downstream companies and factories that had connections with East Asian countries to save their lives.

A vigorous new movement has swept across Vietnam:

"Go back to the village to check our ancestral origins."

Most Vietnamese people have ancestral roots in China. Returning home to check their family genealogy to save their lives and change their identities has become their only option to survive and alter their fate.

At this time, the political landscape of Hanoi began to change.

Suddenly, the Vietnamese political commissars who had vowed to resist completely lost power.

President Liang Qiang was dismissed and subsequently arrested and imprisoned, facing multiple charges of misleading the country.

Seeing that the situation was dire, his deputy, Propaganda Minister Nguyen Trong Van, suddenly took off running, leaving his family behind, and ran hundreds of miles in one breath. Using his border resident permit, he slipped into Dongxing City, China, opposite Mong Cai, and refused to come out.

People's Army Defense Minister Phan Mun Kang was forced to resign and then attempted suicide, but failed.

Su Lin dispatched Tran Liu Quang, the Party Secretary of Haiphong City, whom he disliked but who had considerable influence, to Nanning, Guangxi, to plead for negotiations with the Chinese side.

After several hours of back-and-forth, with Li Xinghe's fighter jets bombing relentlessly throughout the night, Vietnam was forced to accept Li Xinghe's demands, including ceding numerous rights to northern development cooperation with China, recognizing the territorial demarcation in the South China Sea, and revising the maritime demarcation in the Gulf of Tonkin.

The other party's help was actually just:

“Our army will not go south... but we can send a peacekeeping armed police regiment to Hue in central Vietnam, set Hue as a non-military and peaceful city, and establish a peaceful and neutral separation to separate Hanoi from Ho Chi Minh City.”

Chen Liuguang could only plead:

"You must not take the sea route. You must travel south by land and fly the national flag."

The Vietnamese didn't know what Li Xinghe would do next, but they certainly knew he wouldn't go to war with China. This gave them time and the possibility to rebuild their infrastructure, at least enough time to repair the roads. But now it's the 21st century, and having experienced the Cambodian War, there's no possibility of a second Ho Chi Minh Trail allowing the Vietnamese army to smuggle supplies and cadres south.

As the makeshift peacekeeping force, bearing the UN flag and the Chinese national flag, crossed the China-Vietnam border and passed through the streets and alleys of major Vietnamese towns, the UN fighter jets indeed did not appear again.

They drove south into Hue and entered the Hue Imperial City of the Nguyen Dynasty.