Manila was once the largest city in Southeast Asia. The commercial area on the north bank of the Bashi River was full of tall buildings, and many large banks, large companies and hotels were stationed here. Manila in that era was a symbol of prosperity and prosperity. Although it was not as prosperous as Shanghai, it was comparable to Guangzhou.

Unfortunately, when Japan attacked the Philippines in 1942, Manila suffered from firefighting, and buildings were severely damaged, and many parts of the city turned into ruins. However, three years later, in 1945, the firefighting of the US military rebaptized the city. Before the Japanese retreated, they had fierce street fighting with the US military, and three-quarters of the buildings in the entire city were damaged. Today, Manila has no pre-war prosperity, and it is difficult to find a house without bullet holes, and the rest is just ruins.

Nelson was the first American businessmen to return to Manila. He sat in a car, walked on the streets of Manila, looking at the burnt wreckage of houses and the dense bullet holes on the walls, Nelson felt very uncomfortable. He lived in the Philippines for a full twenty years and had witnessed the growth of Manila with his own eyes. He even regarded Manila as his second hometown, but now all this no longer exists.

In the ruins, a dirty Filipino was looking at Nelson's car with a complicated look. The Filipino native's arm was injured by a grenade. He simply bandaged the wound with a piece of rag. He could still seep unknown liquid from around the rag. Nelson looked at the Filipino native and knew that the other party should not have lived for too long. With such poor sanitation conditions and the hot and humid weather in the Philippines, the wound would soon be infected. In Manila, no one would use expensive anti-infection drugs on an Filipino native.

Nelson sighed lightly, but did not sympathize with the poor Filipino native.

Three years ago, when the Japanese were fighting, the Filipinos did not resist with the United States. Instead, many Filipinos were welcoming the arrival of the Japanese. They even regarded Japan as liberators and liberated the Philippines from the United States. Perhaps for these lazy Filipinos, there is no difference between being ruled by the Americans and being ruled by the Japanese. They just want to find a shade to sleep all day in daily life.

Three years ago, the Americans retreated, and they left helplessly and decisively. Before leaving, they directly declared Manila as an unguarded city, which did not cause 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. Some Filipinos were still fantasizing that the Japanese could call back soon, whether to hold a farewell party for the Japanese, come to see them off in a cross-channel.

However, what the Filipinos did not expect was that the Japanese were reluctant to withdraw, and they were not decisive. They fought street fights with the Americans, retreating, destroying and massacres!

They burned universities, churches, libraries, and fired at refugees' shelters, leaving Filipino men and women standing on the streets on the left and right. The men died with machine guns, while the women died with machine guns first.

In the Manila massacre, more than 125,000 Filipinos were killed by Japanese troops.

In the eyes of Americans, if the Filipinos were willing to fight to the death with the United States three years ago, this might not have ended.

Nelson still remembers the tragic situation he witnessed when he just returned to Manila. Nelson had a nightmare for several days. He even swears that he would never eat steak that was cooked in his life again!

"A bunch of poor guys, may God bless them!" A voice sounded from Nelson, speaking of a priest named Thomas, who evacuated Manila with other Americans three years ago and is now the first American civilians to return to Manila.

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

"Yes, I need to find a place to rebuild a church. This time I plan to be closer to the beach, so it is best to see the American warships as soon as I go out!" Father Thomas paused, drew a cross on his chest, and then said, "The merciful Lord will forgive those wicked people."

Nelson did not answer, but was secretly mocking Father Thomas for such reality. After experiencing the war, even the priest realized that only where you can see the US ship is the safest place. When the war comes, God cannot protect the priest's church, but American warships can.

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

"Some houses and tools have been lost, but fortunately the rubber trees are 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 abandoned all his fixed assets, including those rubber estates. Now that Americans return to the Philippines, Nelson naturally regained his rubber estate.

Nelson continued: "Now many American businessmen have returned to the Philippines. Some people have suffered heavy losses and their original industries are gone. Those who are like us who are lucky to build plantations are not as good as long as the land is still there, there will be no big losses. The Japanese can't hold on for a few days. After the Japanese are defeated, they will leave many business opportunities, so a few friends plan to take me to the Dutch East India to see if they can buy some rubber plantations."

"Is the Dutch East India? I suggest you don't go there for the time being, it's not peaceful there." Father Thomas said.

"I know that there are still remnants of the Japanese. I will wait until the Japanese are defeated before going there." Nelson said.

"I'm not talking about the Japanese, but the local national independence organization." Father Thomas paused and continued. "I just received a letter from a church member who told the Dutch East India that there was a youth revolutionary organization that was seeking independence from the Netherlands and that they were not ruled out the use of force. The situation in the Dutch East India is very tense. My church member is also planning to leave the Dutch East India. You know, there are not many people who believe in God there. If the Dutch East India is really independent, God's people are likely to be regarded as pagans!"

The Dutch East India is today Indonesia, where a "August Revolution" concerning national independence is about to usher in.

...

After the United States regained the Philippines, a large number of American businessmen returned to the Philippines immediately. Their situation was similar to that of Nelson. They once owned industries in the Philippines. So when the United States reoccupied the Philippines, these American businessmen couldn't wait to regain their industries. With the support of giant ships and cannons, American businessmen easily regained their industries.

The natural rubber from the Philippines has also begun to be shipped to the United States continuously.

Natural rubber can be cut every two or three days, which means that as long as the tree is alive, it can be produced all year round. Therefore, after American merchants regained the rubber estate, natural rubber was immediately supplied to the United States.

Southeast Asia is the main producing area of ​​natural rubber, while the Philippines is the main producing area of ​​rubber in Southeast Asia.

In the 1940s, rubber production in various places was different from that of now. At that time, the two main rubber production places were the Philippines and Brazil.

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

In the future, the world's extremely large-scale natural rubber producers, such as Thailand, India, and China, did not plant rubber on a large scale in the 1940s. Although Indonesia and Malaysia have some rubber estates, they are not large in scale. The Dutch have never been very concerned about the development of the colonies. Only the Philippines, under the colonial rule of the Americans, planted millions of acres of rubber. In terms of the output of natural rubber, the Philippines is far better than Brazil.

As Chen Qiang expected, before Japan surrendered, the natural rubber from the Philippines was continuously transported to the United States.

The United States still regulates important strategic materials, including natural rubber, but when Philippine rubber appears again in the United States, the quota system for rubber raw materials becomes in danger instantly. Product control and overproduction are always on the opposite side.

In Congress, lawmakers have begun to discuss whether to relax the regulation of rubber resources, while the market's response has become more rapid. The discussions in Congress have not yet come to fruition, and a lot of rubber raw materials have poured into the market.

From a legal perspective, it is certainly illegal to resell important strategic resources without approval, but when did capital care about the law, let alone the war is about to end, even the US regulatory authorities turn a blind eye to this matter.

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

Jared was very happy. He finally didn't have to worry that Nike's shoe factory would stop production due to insufficient raw materials.

At the same time, Jared was also impressed by Chen Qiang. Chen Qiang's accuracy in predicting war exceeded Jared's imagination. Jared even asked Chen Qiang if he graduated from the Military Academy.

...

The Potsdam Conference was over, and China, the United States and Britain jointly issued the Potsdam Proclamation, which also became the focus of Americans' attention. After all, fighting against Japan is currently the top priority for the United States.

But in Europe, people are paying attention to another thing, the British general 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 war, the wartime cabinet was disbanded immediately, Churchill no longer served as British Prime Minister, and a new government will be born in the election.

The result of this election was that the British Labor Party defeated the Conservative Party and won the election, which was the first time that the Labor Party ruled Britain with a majority party!

The Conservative Party lost to the Labor Party, which means that Winston Churchill has officially stepped down!

No one could have expected such a result. Churchill was ordered to serve as prime minister in the most difficult time in Britain, and then led Britain to win the war. With such credit, victory should be inevitable.

When Germany announced its surrender, Churchill's approval rating in the UK reached an unprecedented 90%. Such support rating certainly made Churchill and the Conservative Party confident that as long as the election was held, they would definitely win, so Churchill would disband the wartime cabinet and hold the election as soon as possible.

But by the time the election results were announced, the Conservatives only won 197 seats, while the Labor Party won 393 seats. Churchill won World War II but lost the election. In Churchill's view, this was more like a betrayal of all British people. After the election, Churchill even called it "ungrateful to the great people."

After the end of World War II, two leaders of great powers won the war but lost their powers. Churchill was one of them. Churchill was chosen, while the other was beaten away.

Fortunately, in the general election six years later, the Conservatives regained power and Churchill served as prime minister again. In that election six years later, it was the Labor leader's turn to be depressed because the Labor leader led the British to complete post-war reconstruction and quickly restored the economy. It took only more than three years to restore Britain to its pre-war level. In theory, with such political achievements, there should be no problem with re-election, but the British still elected him and pushed Churchill back to power.

On July 28, Japan rejected the "Perstan Notice".

It was also on the same day that a US B25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building in New York, killing 14 people. The main cause of the accident was heavy fog, and the pilot did not see the Empire State Building. I don’t know whether it was because the Empire State Building was too acquainted or the B25 bomber was too small. The Empire State Building still stood firm and did not collapse like the World Trade Center.

On July 30, a heavy cruiser of the US military was sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine waters. More than 900 survivors jumped into the sea and drifted for four days before they were rescued. During this period, more than 600 US Navy had died before the rescue arrived.

The Japanese knew very well that there was no hope for the navy's head-on confrontation, so they began to play the old Yin force tactic with submarines, and one could Yin. This incident also made the Americans realize Japan's determination to resist. If they did not give Japan some devastating blows and only rely on verbal fire, the Japanese would not surrender.

Truman finally made up his mind to use an atomic bomb on Japan. At this time, only 20 days have passed since the first atomic bomb was successfully tested.

On August 6, at 8:15 am, the atomic bomb code-named "Little Boy" landed on Hiroshima.

On August 9, at 11:02 am, the atomic bomb code-named "Fatty" landed in Nagasaki.

This kind of thing cannot be hidden. Truman, who was returning to the United States from Potsdam on a warship, simply announced that he had successfully bombed Japan.

Although Japan is an isolated island, countries quickly heard about the destructive power of the atomic bomb that destroyed the world. Anyone with a little strategic vision can see that Japan is about to surrender. Otherwise, the whole country will be "shattered".

As expected, on August 15, the Japanese Emperor published the "Decree of Ending the War" through the radio, accepted the Potsdam announcement, and surrendered unconditionally.

World War II is finally over.

—————
Chapter completed!