Chapter 581 Concession Act

Hawkins read the message carefully and said with a smile: "I didn't expect that Mr. President to respond so quickly, it seems that our previous efforts were not in vain." ”

"Yes, we can relax for a while on the Pacific side, but I'm worried about the European side now." Roosevelt's thinking soon turned to Europe, "Although the Nazi Party led by the mustache hit a nail in the English Channel, the gathering of more than 5 million German troops in Europe is a hidden danger after all, it is like a volcano that will erupt at any time, which will bring great disasters to our human society, and the only way to do this is to let this German force find a breakthrough to slowly consume their amazing destructive power." ”

"Your Excellency, dear President, don't you think that breakthrough has been found?" Hawkins chuckled softly, "And if the Germans can't squander their energy on their Eastern Front, then there's another place in North Africa that can help them drain their extra energy, and that place is."

"Ethiopia" Roosevelt and Hawkins glanced at each other and burst out laughing at the same time.

"Hawkins, it seems that some of our views are quite similar." Roosevelt said happily: "Last year, since Mussolini's Italian army attacked Ethiopia, it has suffered successive defeats, and if the situation continues like this, I guess the Germans will intervene." Only by draining the living forces of the Germans can we in the United States continue to maintain our leading position. ”

"Isn't our support for Britain going to continue?"

"Yes, Hawkins, it's our responsibility." At this point, Roosevelt pushed his wheelchair to his desk, opened the drawer, took out a piece of manuscript paper, and handed it over, "This is a bill that I drafted, and in view of the growing threat to democracies from Germany, Japan, and Italy, I think we can first provide our allies with military supplies free of charge." ”

"But Mr. President, our allies don't have that much money to buy us these supplies right now." Hawkins did not rush to open the manuscript paper after taking it, but first raised his own questions.

"Oh, Hawkins, if there is a fire in our lovely neighbor's house, we can only lend him the hose to put it out of the fire, instead of having him pay for it beforehand, and then our neighbor will return the original hose after they have put the fire out." Roosevelt humorously made an analogy and said in a firm tone: "So I think the United States must become the arsenal of democracies." ”

"Sounds like a good note." Hawkins shrugged his shoulders before opening the manuscript paper in his hand and taking a closer look. The more Hawkins looked at it, the more frightened he was by Roosevelt's audacity, and in this bill, Roosevelt proposed that the bill should authorize the president to sell, exchange, transfer, and lend any military supplies such as weapons, military supplies, and food to countries that are deemed to be of great importance to the security of the United States. Suffice it to say, if the bill passes, it will not be the countries that will benefit the most, but the man in front of him who is in a wheelchair and has been re-elected as president of the United States for the second consecutive term.

If the bill passes Congress, Roosevelt will be able to exert his influence over any country in the name of the president, and the United States will be able to spread its influence throughout the world without going to war.

Slowly closing the bill in his hand, Hawkins took a long breath and said, "Mr. President, I am sure that if this "Concession Act" is passed, our tentacles of the United States of America will be all over the world."

In early December 1940, Roosevelt submitted the "Concession Act" to Congress and loudly appealed to the congressmen that for the sake of America's own security and defense, to expand its sphere of influence, and to establish the United States' leadership in the postwar world, it was necessary to strengthen assistance to Britain in difficult and financially constrained circumstances, as well as to countries in need of assistance. To this end, he hoped that Congress would authorize the President of the United States to "sell, transfer, exchange, lease, lend, or deliver any defense materiel to the government of a country that the President of the United States deems vital to the defense of the United States." He also used the metaphor of the story of the neighbor's house on fire to win the approval of many members of Congress, among which Roosevelt's most touching statement was that the United States could expand its influence by providing war materials to its allies without getting involved in the war. This appealed to the isolationist US lawmakers, and in this way, the bill quickly entered the normal process, and if nothing else, it will come into force by March next year.

Just as Roosevelt was making a big fuss about the concession bill in Congress, the plane in which Bai Chongxi and his entourage were flying for a day and two nights finally arrived in Germany on 8 December. Limited by the range of the plane, Bai Chongxi and his entourage could only fly in a straight line to Germany, so that it inevitably flew through the territorial airspace of Soviet Russia, and the nerves of all the pilots at that time were tense. When the planes were over Soviet Russia, they all flew at a maximum altitude of more than 8,500 meters, for fear that they would alarm the Russians and attract their fighters.

As soon as the plane entered German airspace, the pilot immediately turned on the pre-determined communication channel and called in German: "This is the visiting delegation of General Bai Chongxi, Chief of the General Staff of the Republic of China, and here is the visiting delegation of General Bai Chongxi, Chief of the General Staff of the Republic of China. We have reached your country's airspace, please answer when you hear it, please answer when you hear it."

There was a rustling sound over the communicator, and then a slightly excited German reply sounded: "This is the Luftwaffe Command, this is the Luftwaffe Command, and our radar has discovered your location." Please lower your altitude to 3,000 meters and continue to fly north, please lower your altitude to 3,000 meters and continue to fly north."

After more than ten minutes, the group of planes that lowered their altitude soon found dozens of small black dots flying from the north, and soon a group of Bf-109 fighters with iron crosses painted on the wings appeared around them, and at the same time, a blunt Chinese sentence came out of the pilots' headsets: "We are the 13th Squadron of the 5th Group of the Luftwaffe, friends from afar, I welcome you on behalf of the Luftwaffe"