Douglas MacArthur, Commander of the U.S. Forces in the Philippines, had been very unhappy in recent days because his plans to attack China, submitted multiple times to the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, had all been rejected. The most recent proposal was rejected on October 25, the day Britain declared war on China.

Clamping a corncob pipe in his mouth, MacArthur asked his adjutant, "Are the British still refusing to accept this batch of fighters?"

The adjutant was not as crude as MacArthur. He replied cautiously, "Commander, Britain stated that all their pilots in the Asian region have already arrived in Singapore. They don't lack fighters now; they lack pilots."

The corncob pipe shook up and down as MacArthur mumbled something; it was unclear whom MacArthur was cursing. The adjutant also felt that the British behavior was too unethical. Britain had a population of 40 million after all. From June 1940 to now, Britain had recruited a very large number of pilots. Today was October 30, 1941. Could they not train a large number of pilots in a full 16 months? Definitely not! In the adjutant's view, the purpose of the British playing the victim so much was to drag the United States into the war.

Having been with MacArthur for so long, the adjutant knew that MacArthur himself wanted to go to war with China very much. Originally, MacArthur thought that it was fine if the American public was indeed unwilling to participate in the "dirty war provoked by Europe," but participating in a war of white people against the yellow race shouldn't cause any fierce opposition from the American public.

Unexpectedly, the American public didn't want to fight a world war at all. It didn't matter whether the opponent was white or yellow; they just wanted to live a humble peaceful life at home safely. MacArthur believed this must be a conspiracy of the Communist Party USA, because some newspapers had begun to propagate to the American public that China was seizing white colonies, which would threaten the survival of the white world.

But the American public said things like "a war fought for colonies is more shameful than a war for hegemony." In MacArthur's view, was this human speech? This was bullshit that only communists would say!

It was useless for MacArthur to be angry alone. Although public opinion in the United States was changing and propaganda crusading against the evil yellow race was rising rapidly—even the saying of rebuilding the Eight-Nation Alliance had come out, and although the guys who made remarks like "all Chinese should have been killed in 1900" were suppressed—the overall atmosphere was getting better.

But from a military perspective, time was obviously unfavorable to the United States. The scale of China's southward movement was very large. The British side stated that China had used 1,200 fighters, and Britain might completely lose air superiority within a week.

After China seized the Strait of Malacca and controlled the communication artery between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, they would certainly not stop. They would inevitably seize the Pacific islands and drive the British out of British India at the same time. This time might be completed within a year. At that time, even if the United States decided to send troops, only the Philippines and Hawaii would be left in the Pacific. Everything would be too late then.

Intervention in the war must happen now!

After making the decision, MacArthur calculated the resources in his hand. After the start of the Two-Ocean Navy Act and the great conscription, both the Army General Staff and the Navy General Staff strengthened the military power of the Philippines. Especially on September 11, the War Department strengthened the air force in the Philippines, sending 8 flight groups, giving such a tiny place as the Philippines a full 15 aviation groups. Its combat aircraft were also updated; 6 groups were equipped with P-47s, and 3 groups were equipped with P-51s. Both fighters were the most advanced aircraft. Britain relied on the same aircraft to struggle bitterly in front of China. Even if the number of pilots was much less than that of Chinese fighters, they did not collapse at the first touch.

Recently, some of MacArthur's old acquaintances traveled to the Philippines one after another. The words they said when drinking and merry were worth pondering. Moreover, such a broken place as the Philippines having 15 aviation groups didn't look like it was for defense no matter how one looked at it.

After thinking it over, MacArthur made a decision. He said to his adjutant, "I heard that the lads in the Air Force want to help the British very much."

The adjutant was stunned. When soldiers watched others fight, they would definitely talk big, blurting out all kinds of heroic words. Just listen to these words and let them pass. If taken seriously... that meant MacArthur was ready to take action.

MacArthur continued, "I think sending a few groups to Singapore, the lads will definitely be willing to help the British."

The adjutant hesitated slightly before asking, "Commander, should we hold a meeting?"

"Yes. Hold it now!" MacArthur made up his mind.

At 2:00 PM on October 30, three groups of P-47s and three groups of P-51s took off from Manila Airport for Singapore. Watching the planes covering the sky and sun heading southwest in neat formation, the deputy commander asked somewhat worriedly, "Commander, will the General Staff blame us?"

At the military meeting, the US command in the Philippines agreed to aid the Singapore theater. The only thing the officers worried about was whether such aid would be blamed by the headquarters. After all, being in the Philippines, these officers' feelings about China were much more intuitive than those of the big masters on Capitol Hill and in the White House thousands of miles away. From a military perspective, China indeed could not be allowed to smoothly take the Western Pacific.

When MacArthur ordered aid to Singapore, someone immediately sent the news secretly to Washington. At this time, it was already night in Washington. Roosevelt was woken up from bed by his female secretary. The new mistress beside him, a Swedish princess, slept in a daze. When she opened her eyes dimly, she saw the neatly dressed female secretary by the bed, and was so shocked that she hurriedly pulled up the quilt to cover her naked chest.

Soon, seeing Roosevelt propping up his upper body to put on clothes with a serious expression, the princess knew it should be serious business. Seeing Roosevelt moving with difficulty, the princess also felt a bit of pity. She grabbed the silk nightgown from the wooden floor, put it on under the quilt, crawled out of the quilt, and helped Roosevelt dress.

Although her long legs wearing garter stockings were exposed, the princess was not so ashamed anymore. After all, when she played with Roosevelt together with the female secretary a few days ago, the female secretary helped push Roosevelt from behind. Although they were naked facing each other at that time, everyone was quite happy.

Roosevelt didn't think about these things. When he was young, he helped various gangs fight lawsuits, and participated in many activities after winning lawsuits. The activities participated in by two women together were nothing compared to the most exciting activities back then.

Arriving at the Oval Office in a wheelchair, the Secretary of State, the Army and Navy Chiefs of Staff, and the special advisor responsible for armaments known as the "Shadow President" were already waiting inside. Behind them, sitting or standing, were cabinet elites and academic elites who advocated that the United States must participate in the war to secure the future.

As soon as Roosevelt came in, Army Chief of Staff Marshall informed Roosevelt of MacArthur's action. Others didn't say it, but cursed secretly in their hearts that MacArthur was too slow-witted, only remembering to secretly send air forces to aid Britain at this point in the war.

However, everyone knew that only a rash fellow like MacArthur really dared to do this. After all, MacArthur came from an American "blue blood" background. His father, Arthur MacArthur, was also a famous American general of his generation, emerging in the American Civil War, becoming the youngest regiment commander in the US during the Civil War and one of the twelve lieutenant generals of the early US military. And the MacArthur family had various connections in the military and politics; Congress could not punish him for such a thing. What's more, there were quite a few members of Congress who really believed that the United States should join the war.

If MacArthur's current position were held by a soldier from an ordinary merchant family like Marshall, even if he knew he must do so, even if he was already the Army Chief of Staff, Marshall could not do it. Because the result of doing so would inevitably be Marshall being held accountable by Congress and finally losing his official position dishonorably.

Roosevelt didn't think so much, because MacArthur became a cadet at the US Army Engineer School in 1906 and concurrently served as President Theodore Roosevelt's military aide. What Roosevelt cared about was the follow-up. He promised during the election campaign not to bring the United States into war, and it was really inconvenient for Roosevelt to come forward on many things.

Marshall continued to introduce the war situation. In the view of this highly acclaimed lieutenant general, Britain could not last long. China was fighting a war of attrition at this stage, and this war of attrition was precisely aimed at Britain's vital point. Britain had the ability to form a very powerful army, but this was relative to European countries and colonies. Compared with the industrialized China with a population of nearly 700 million, the scale of 40 million people was too small.

Even if China adopted the standard of selecting one pilot out of 10,000 people, China could select 70,000. Even if Britain had deep industrial accumulation, if Chinese standards were applied to Britain and one similar pilot could be selected out of 1,000 people, Britain could only select 40,000. Judging from the Sino-British War, the development of the British Air Force actually lagged behind China.

Britain was now using its own elites to fill the lines and fight a war of attrition, while China was attacking the Strait of Malacca, which Britain could not easily give up. Once Britain's elite air force and navy were consumed here, Britain could only rely on the army to confront China. The British Army proved in the Sino-British War that it was not a match for the Chinese Army. If the British Army were stronger, it would not have been possible for the ANZAC Corps to be easily surrounded and annihilated by China, with tens of thousands of prisoners taken to China for trial.

Roosevelt was also very distressed at this time. He agreed very much with the *Pacific Charter* published by He Rui. The Pacific Charter emphasized freedom of navigation, freedom of trade, anti-colonialism, and independent state-building of colonies. This was the path Roosevelt believed the United States should take. Roosevelt had planned to issue a similar declaration with British Prime Minister Churchill when they met, but He Rui seized the initiative. With Churchill ousted, this plan fell through completely.

But Roosevelt could not cooperate with China because of this common route. In other words, precisely because Roosevelt and He Rui chose the same path, Roosevelt could not choose to cooperate with He Rui. Because the world market was only so big, the country leading the future would be either China or the United States. It was impossible to allow two heroes advocating free trade to stand side by side; one country must choose a subordinate position.

Everyone present held the same view. So the situation MacArthur saw had long been seen by the people present. In fact, former British Prime Minister Churchill and current Prime Minister Attlee also knew. Originally, the United States was communicating privately with Attlee, hoping that Britain could drag it out until public opinion in the United States changed.

But they didn't expect the liberated colonial countries to follow China so firmly, winning a great victory over Britain in Lower Burma. At the same time, they created a lot of uprisings in the Bengal region. What was worse was that the colonialist mentality of the British Cabinet was too arrogant. Striking at the Indian independence faction in British India was used by Indian princes to carry out a great purge of Indian intellectuals.

Although Britain had now discovered something was wrong and ordered a stop immediately, the princes did not understand modern economy and international politics at all. They only cared about their own interests and learned only the experience accumulated by the British colonial system over hundreds of years. Under this great purge, the lower-level intellectuals who were close to Britain were slaughtered. The political parties that engaged in parliamentary struggle with Britain, compatible with cooperation and struggle, were beaten to pieces.

On the contrary, those intellectuals who were originally firmly anti-British escaped this blow. The cruel reality made these intellectuals fully accept China's concept of "anti-imperialism, anti-feudalism, and anti-bureaucratic capitalism." When so many Indian elites were forced to China's side by the butcher's knife, the subsequent situation would be very favorable to China.

The meeting went on like this, but there was no result for the time being. Roosevelt made a temporary decision regarding the current situation: "Let Douglas do it first, don't let anyone interfere with him!"