Manila used to be the largest city in Southeast Asia, the business district on the north bank of the Bashi River, full of high-rise buildings, many big banks, large companies, and hotels are stationed here, Manila in that era is a symbol of wealth and prosperity, when it comes to prosperity, although it is not as good as Shanghai, but it has a fight with Guangzhou.

Unfortunately, in 1942, when Japan attacked the Philippines, Manila suffered from the destruction of fire, buildings were severely damaged, and many parts of the city were in ruins, but three years later, in 1945, the American army re-baptized the city, before the Japanese retreated, there were fierce street battles with the American army, and three-quarters of the buildings in the entire city were damaged. Today, Manila has lost its pre-war prosperity, and it is difficult to find even a house without bullet holes, and all that remains is ruins.

Nelson, one of the first American businessmen to return to Manila, sat in a car, walked the streets of Manila, and looked at the charred wreckage of his house and the dense bullet holes in the wall. He has lived in the Philippines for two decades and has seen Manila grow up firsthand, even making it his second home, which no longer exists.

In the middle of the rubble, a filthy Filipino was looking at Nelson's car with a complicated look, the indigenous Filipino was wounded in the arm by a grenade, he only used a rag to bandage the wound, and vaguely could see that an unknown liquid was oozing from around the rag. Nelson glanced at this Filipino indigenous and knew that the other party should not live for long, with such poor sanitary conditions, as well as the hot and humid weather in the Philippines, this wound would soon become infected, and in Manila now, no one would use expensive anti-infective drugs on a Filipino indigenous person.

Nelson sighed lightly, but didn't sympathize with the poor Filipino native.

Three years ago, when the Japanese came to fight, the Filipinos did not resist with the United States, but many Filipinos welcomed the arrival of the Japanese, and they even regarded Japan as a liberator to liberate the Philippines from the United States. Perhaps for these lazy Filipinos, being ruled by the Americans is no different from being ruled by the Japanese, and their daily routine is to find a shade to sleep all day.

Three years ago, the Americans retreated, and they walked very helplessly, but also very decisively, and when they left, they directly declared Manila an undefended city, which did not bring much harm to the Filipinos. Three years later, when the Japanese retreated, the Filipinos also felt that the Japanese would retreat helplessly and decisively like the Americans, and some Filipinos were still fantasizing that the Japanese would be able to fight back soon.

However, what the Filipinos did not expect was that the Japanese were unwilling to withdraw helplessly, and they did not go decisively, they fought street battles with the Americans, retreating, destroying, and slaughtering!

They burned down universities, burned churches, burned libraries, opened fire on refugee shelters, and made Filipino men stand on the street on the left and women on the right, and the men died suddenly with machine guns, and the women died suddenly with machine guns.

The Manila Massacre, in which more than 125,000 Filipinos were killed by the Japanese army.

In the eyes of the Americans, if the Filipinos had been willing to resist to the death with the United States three years ago, perhaps this outcome would not have happened.

Nelson remembers the tragic events he witnessed when he first returned to Manila, and Nelson had nightmares for days, and he even vowed that he would never eat medium-rare steak again in his life!

"A bunch of poor guys, may God bless them!" A voice rang out from Nelson's side, speaking from a priest named Thomas, who had evacuated Manila with other Americans three years ago and was now one of the first American civilians to return to Manila.

"Father Thomas, I heard your church has burned down, right?" Nelson asked.

"Yes, I need to find a place to rebuild a church, and this time I plan to be closer to the sea, preferably as soon as I go out and see the American warships!" Father Thomas paused, drew a cross on his chest, and continued: "The merciful Lord will forgive the wicked. ”

Nelson didn't answer, but in his heart he was secretly laughing at Father Thomas for being so realistic, having experienced the war, even the priest has realized that only the place where you can see the American warship is the safest place, when the war comes, God can't protect the priest's church, but the American warship can.

Father Thomas asked, "Mr. Nelson, your rubber estate should not have been damaged, right?" ”

"Some houses and tools have been lost, but fortunately, the rubber trees are all there and production has resumed." Nelson replied.

Nelson is in the natural rubber business, he has several rubber estates in the Philippines, when he fled the Philippines, Nelson gave up all the fixed assets, including those rubber estates, and now that the Americans have returned to the Philippines, Nelson has naturally recaptured his rubber estates.

Nelson continued: "Now that a lot of American businessmen have returned to the Philippines, some of them have lost a lot of money, and the original industry is gone, and we are lucky to be plantations, and as long as the land is still there, there is not much loss." The Japanese will not be able to hold out for a few days, and after the defeat of the Japanese, there will be a lot of business opportunities left, so a few friends plan to take me on a trip to the Dutch East Indies to see if I can buy some rubber plantations. ”

"Dutch East Indies? I advise you not to go there for the time being, it's not very peaceful. Father Thomas began.

"I know that there are still remnants of the Japanese there, and I will wait until the defeat of the Japanese." Nelson spoke.

"I'm not talking about the Japanese, I'm talking about local ethnic independence organizations." Father Thomas paused, then continued; "I have just received a letter from a parishioner who tells me that there is a youth revolutionary organization in the present Dutch East Indies that they are seeking independence from the Netherlands and that the use of force is not ruled out, and that the situation in the Dutch East Indies is now tense. That parishioner of mine is also going to leave the Dutch East Indies, which, you know, don't have many people who believe in God, and if the Dutch East Indies were really independent, God's people would probably be treated as infidels! ”

The Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, were about to usher in an "August Revolution" about national independence.

……

After the United States recaptured the Philippines, a large number of American businessmen returned to the Philippines as soon as possible, and their situation was similar to that of Nelson, who once owned industries in the Philippines, so when the United States reoccupied the Philippines, these American businessmen could not wait to find their own industries. With the blessing of the giant ship cannon, the American businessmen easily found their own industry.

Natural rubber from the Philippines has also begun to be shipped to the United States in a steady stream.

Natural rubber can be cut every two or three days, that is to say, as long as the tree is alive, it can be produced all year round, so after the American businessmen recaptured the rubber estate, there was immediately a supply of natural rubber to the United States.

Southeast Asia is the main producing area of natural rubber, and the Philippines is the main rubber producing area of Southeast Asia.

In the 40s, rubber production was different from today, when the two main rubber producing regions were the Philippines and Brazil.

Rubber is native to the Amazon forests of Latin America and was later brought to Southeast Asia by European colonizers, so there are a large number of naturally growing rubber trees in Brazil, and the rubber trees in Southeast Asia are all cultivated artificially.

In the future, the world's largest natural rubber producers, such as Thailand, India, and China, did not have large-scale rubber cultivation in the forties, and although Indonesia and Malaysia had some rubber estates, they were not large-scale, and the Dutch had always been less concerned about the development of the colonies. Only the Philippines, under the colonial rule of the Americans, cultivated millions of acres of rubber. In terms of natural rubber production, the Philippines is far superior to Brazil.

As Chen Qiang predicted, Japan had not yet surrendered, and natural rubber from the Philippines was continuously shipped to the United States.

The United States still controls important strategic materials, including natural rubber, of course, but when Philippine rubber reappeared in the United States, the quota system for rubber raw materials suddenly became precarious. Product control and overproduction are always on the opposite side.

On the part of the Congress, the parliamentarians have begun to discuss whether to relax the control of rubber resources, and the market reaction is more rapid, the discussion in the Congress has not yet been fruitful, and a lot of rubber raw materials have poured into the market.

From a legal point of view, it is of course illegal to resell important strategic resources without approval, but when does capital care about the law, not to mention that the war is about to end, even the US regulators turn a blind eye to this matter.

In the New York market, the price of rubber raw materials is almost a price a day, falling every day, more and more Philippine rubber estates have resumed production, and rubber raw materials are shipped to the United States every day, and the price of rubber is naturally declining.

Jared is happy that he finally doesn't have to worry about the closure of Nike's shoe factory due to a lack of raw materials.

At the same time, Jared also threw himself into Chen Qiang's admiration, Chen Qiang's prediction of war was more accurate than Jared imagined, and Jared even asked Chen Qiang if he graduated from the Military Academy.

……

The Potsdam Conference ended, and China, the United States, and Britain jointly issued the "Potsdam Proclamation," which also became the focus of attention of the Americans, after all, war against Japan is the top priority of the United States at present.

In Europe, however, the focus is on something else: the British election is over.

Due to the war, Britain has not held a general election for a long time, during the war Britain implemented a wartime cabinet system, after the end of the war, the wartime cabinet was dissolved, Churchill was no longer the British prime minister, and a new government will be born in the election.

As a result of this election, the British Labour Party defeated the Conservative Party and won the election, which was also the first time that the Labour Party ruled the UK with a majority party!

The Conservative Party lost to the Labour Party, which means that Winston Churchill is officially out of office!

No one could have expected such a result, when Churchill was appointed as prime minister in the most difficult time for Britain, and then led LinkedIn to win the war.

When Germany announced its surrender, Churchill's support rate in Britain reached an unprecedented ninety percent, which of course made Churchill and the Conservative Party full of confidence, believing that as long as the general election was held, it would be won, so Churchill would dissolve the wartime cabinet and hold a general election as soon as possible.

But by the time the results were announced, the Conservatives had won only 197 seats, while the Labour Party had won 393. Churchill won the Second World War, only to lose the election, which in Churchill's view was more like a betrayal of the British people as a whole, and after the election, Churchill even called it "an ingratitude to the great." ”

After the end of World War II, there were two great power leaders who won the war but lost the country, and Churchill was one of them. Churchill was chosen, and the other was beaten.

Fortunately, in the general election six years later, the Conservative Party regained power and Churchill became Prime Minister again. In the election six years later, it was Labour's leader's turn to be depressed, because the Labour leader led LinkedIn to complete post-war reconstruction, quickly restored the economy, and returned Britain to its pre-war level in just over three years. It is said that with such political achievements, there should be no problem in re-election, but the British still elected him and re-elected Churchill to power.

On July 28, Japan rejected the Postan Proclamation.

Also on the same day, a U.S. B25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building in New York, killing 14 people. The main cause of the accident was fog, and the pilots did not see the Empire State Building. I don't know if it's because the Empire State Building is too familiar, or if the B25 bomber is too small, the Empire State Building is still standing and has not collapsed like the World Trade Tower.

On July 30, a U.S. heavy cruiser was sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of the Philippines, and more than 900 survivors jumped into the sea and drifted for four days before being rescued, during which time more than 600 U.S. Navy officers had died before rescue arrived.

The Japanese knew very well that there was no hope for a head-to-head confrontation in the navy, so they began to use submarines to play the old yin tactics, and they could yin one by one. And this incident also made the Americans realize Japan's determination to resist, and if they did not give Japan some devastating blows, the Japanese would not surrender if they only relied on their mouths.

Truman finally made up his mind to use the atomic bomb against Japan, and only 20 days had passed since the first atomic bomb was successfully tested.

On August 6, at 8:15 a.m., an atomic bomb codenamed "Little Boy" landed on Hiroshima.

On August 9, at 11:02 a.m., an atomic bomb codenamed "Fat Man" landed on Nagasaki.

It was impossible to hide such a thing, and Truman, who was returning to the United States from Potsdam on a warship, simply announced that he had successfully carried out the atomic bombing of Japan.

Although Japan is an isolated island, countries were quick to discover the devastating power of the atomic bomb. Anyone with a little strategic vision can see that Japan's surrender is imminent. Otherwise, it will really be "broken" across the country.

Sure enough, on August 15, the Japanese emperor issued the "Edict of the End of the War" on the radio, accepting the Potsdam Proclamation and surrendering unconditionally.

World War II is finally over.

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(End of chapter)