**Chapter 816: Empire's Survival (4)**

Molotov woke up at six in the morning. He didn't linger in bed; after washing up, he found his wife had already prepared breakfast. Molotov quickly finished his meal, said goodbye to his wife and children, and took a car to his office.

Because Soviet streets were built very wide, the buses filled with workers moved quite efficiently through the traffic. Inside the car, Molotov recalled a rumor that the wide, straight roads in Soviet cities were built so they could serve as runways for fighters during wartime. Molotov found he didn't believe such a claim. Given the vastness of Soviet territory, there were plenty of places to build airfields; there was no need for city streets. Since he had thought of it, Molotov couldn't help but reflect that with so much land, the Soviet Union didn't lack space for roads; even if the roads were twice as wide, it wouldn't matter.

Just as he reached this conclusion about the roads, a thought popped into his head: "That's why so many countries covet Soviet land." He wasn't surprised by this sudden thought. In the CPSU's internal explanations of a potential German invasion, the most important point was that Germany wanted to seize the prime regions of the Western Soviet Union. As the war progressed to this point, only the Soviet Union and Germany among the Great Powers had not yet entered the fray. France's spine had been broken in the Western European campaign; there was no longer any force in Europe capable of restraining a German offensive against the Soviet Union.

The possibility of a German invasion weighed heavily on Molotov's mind. Currently, neither China nor the United States wanted a Soviet-German war, but neither had the power to restrain Germany's actions. The Chinese delegation, led by Foreign Minister Li Shiguang, had already left Moscow after conveying China's concerns about the war. The American delegation remained, seemingly wanting deeper communication with the Soviet Union. Molotov had probed several times and found that Harry Hopkins actually hoped the Soviet Union would take the initiative to bring the two nations closer. While Molotov believed US-Soviet cooperation would benefit the Soviet Union, there was currently no reason for the Soviet Union to join the Allied camp. At the very least, there was no reason to provoke China.

Arriving at his office, Molotov received a call from Stalin's office. Entering, he smelled the lingering scent of tobacco, indicating Stalin had been smoking there for a long time the night before. Just as he sat down, Kirov came in wearing somewhat wrinkled clothes; Molotov was certain Kirov had another long discussion with Stalin yesterday.

Though it was morning, Stalin had already picked up his pipe. Exhaling a puff of fragrant smoke, Stalin said, "Comrade Molotov, is the attitude of the American representative clear now?"

Molotov shared his view: "General Secretary, I believe the American President hopes we can take the initiative to show goodwill toward the US, to help President Roosevelt ease US-Soviet relations."

Stalin, who had discussed things deeply with Kirov the previous night, immediately gave instructions: "Comrade Molotov, I require you to find out exactly what the American envoy is thinking. Does he want the CPSU to help Roosevelt personally, or does he hope for a closer relationship between the US and the Soviet Union? Do you understand?"

Fifteen minutes later, Molotov walked out of Stalin's office. He didn't notice his brow was furrowed, nor did he notice that the leaders walking toward him saw his expression. Molotov hadn't expected Stalin to actually think the United States might want to cooperate with the Soviet Union to counter the potential New Order China was building.

Previously, Molotov had thought the US wanted to use the Soviet Union rather than establish an equal relationship. If it were to be an unequal relationship, Molotov believed the Soviet Union would be better off maintaining its current relationship with China. Although the Soviet Union was heavily influenced by China economically, at least they didn't have to worry about a conflict breaking out between them.

Did the United States truly want an equal relationship with the Soviet Union... was that possible? Anti-communist sentiment in the US was incredibly high!

Whether it was truly possible could only be known after more communication. Molotov met with the American delegation that morning. When he took the initiative to propose an equal relationship between the two countries, a look of relief appeared on Hopkins' thin face. Out of excitement, some color actually returned to Hopkins' pale skin. His tone was sincere: "Commissioner Molotov, if you truly believe that a close relationship must be built between the US and the Soviet Union, it would be a huge boost for world peace."

Molotov did not share his excitement. Facing the visible emotion of Hopkins, who was not a career diplomat, Molotov even furrowed his brows. But they soon smoothed out as he asked, "Mr. Hopkins, have you been authorized by President Roosevelt?"

This reminder made Hopkins realize his reaction didn't fit diplomatic norms. He quickly calmed his excitement, though his tone remained firm. "Commissioner, shouldn't building a close relationship between the US and the Soviet Union be the long-term direction for both our countries?"

Hearing "the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union," Molotov felt a jolt. Before meeting Hopkins, Stalin had shared this view. Stalin believed that at this stage, it was impossible for the US and Soviet governments to establish a lasting, reliable relationship—after all, if the Pacific War were lost, the Roosevelt administration would likely fall. With this consideration, Molotov began his talk with Hopkins.

After the meeting ended that day, Hopkins sent a telegram to President Roosevelt. In it, he proposed a recommendation to advance a comprehensive US-Soviet relationship. Roosevelt read the telegram, trying to understand Hopkins' view. Based on his knowledge of Hopkins, Roosevelt believed that after communicating with the Soviet leadership, Hopkins felt the Soviet Union was a country that could be fully understood and with which one could communicate normally.

Roosevelt did not disagree with Hopkins' judgment, so he considered whether the American elite could be persuaded. The US elite each had their own interest groups to protect, most of which sought to profit from military contracts. If Hopkins was certain the Soviet Union could become a future partner for the US, he could try to convince those at the top.

Thinking of this, Roosevelt recalled the recent battle reports. None of them contained good news. After six months of war, the American military machine was running smoother and smoother. But the Chinese military machine opposite them, having also passed its initial period of friction, was showing increasingly formidable capabilities.

Roosevelt had originally thought the Chinese army would go for a "one-wave" strategy, using the massive amounts of equipment built over the last decade to launch a surprise attack on the US. Most American generals shared this view. As the world's most powerful industrial nation, the US didn't believe China could turn from an agricultural country into a truly industrial one in less than twenty years. What matters most for an industrial nation is "heritage"—the capability gained through long-term accumulation of trial and error.

For example, by frantically building armaments in the short term, China might reach a combat power of 100. Meanwhile, the US, as an industrial nation with heritage, would normally perform at 80. Even if the US met some setbacks initially, it could grow stronger as it fought, raising its strength from 80 to 100. China, due to constant consumption, would find it hard to maintain its power at 100; it would decrease with usage, or at the very least, not improve.

However, after six months of war, China showed no fatigue; on the contrary, it grew stronger as it fought. US forces on the front lines found that the Chinese military constantly adjusted its equipment and tactics according to the needs of the war. Not long ago, the US had deployed a fighter squadron equipped with a nascent night-fighting system to the battles in the Solomon Islands, achieving significant results in several night raids.

But shortly after the US night-fighters were deployed, a Chinese fighter unit also equipped with night-fighting gear was sent to the battlefield. The US side had deployed a group of fighters to escort a squadron of heavy bombers for a night raid on a Chinese base. The US report claimed that this night-flight unit was attacked by approximately three Chinese night-fighter groups. Because the US was outnumbered, 56 out of the 100 fighters in the mission were lost, and the remaining aircraft were forced to retreat.

Without the protection of the fighter groups, eight newly arrived B-29 Superfortress bombers were all shot down under the coordinated attack of the Chinese night-fighter groups.

Roosevelt had believed that, relying on its industrial heritage, the US could continuously develop new equipment and defeat a Chinese military that lacked the capacity for self-upgrading through increasingly powerful combat capabilities. The defeat of the night-flight group made him realize he might be wrong.

The US Air Force had great confidence in the equipment used by the night-flight group; from the reports Hopkins submitted, Roosevelt knew these new devices were a collection of the most advanced avionics technologies currently available to the US military. The report indicated that the US would not be able to develop more advanced technology in the short term.

The battle reports presented Roosevelt with a situation he was unwilling to accept. China possessed equipment on the same level as the US and had research and development capabilities that were not inferior. The Air Force was the field where the US industrial heritage could best be leveraged; if they couldn't even win in this field, the US would be forced into a brutal war of attrition with China.

The US had already acquired German jet fighter technology through technical exchange. Through the efforts of the American industrial team, the US had already determined the first generation of improved fighters based on the German jet prototype. The prototype was expected to be completed in April 1942; as long as it performed well on the battlefield, it could enter small-scale production by June at the earliest.

With several prior lessons, Roosevelt had to consider another, worse possibility for the US: that China, like the US, also possessed jet fighters. If the situation reached that stage, Roosevelt wouldn't have many cards left to win the war.

At this stage, the US military believed there were two weapons that could inflict mass casualties on the Chinese army. The first was biological warfare—releasing powerful viruses in Chinese-occupied areas or the Chinese mainland to cause massive illness and death.

Biological weapons were very suitable for release in the colonies "liberated" by China; the technological level in those areas was low, making it impossible to detect such weapons. Furthermore, the medical level in those colonies was extremely poor; once a bacteria began to spread on a large scale, it would surely propagate wildly.

Thinking of biological weapons, Roosevelt's brow furrowed. It wasn't that he pitied those "liberated" colonies; he had read reports from China and knew that through "Patriotic Health Campaigns," the He Rui government had built a very effective domestic medical system in the less than ten years since liberating China. Through vaccinations and the popularization of medicine, they had eliminated large-scale infectious diseases within China. In the past decade, no large-scale epidemic had broken out in China.

Once the US implemented biological warfare, it would likely be discovered by China. Then, the US could completely deny it, but China would continue to hammer the US with moral attacks on the issue. Moreover, if the US used biological warfare against China, China might very well retaliate in kind. Roosevelt himself was a victim of a virus; he knew very well what the medical system in the US was like. If they faced large-scale biological warfare from China, the US might not be able to endure it.

Having rejected biological warfare, Roosevelt found his remaining trump card was nuclear weapons. At this stage, the US had already begun building a nuclear weapons test site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

In 1939, Albert Einstein, who had just arrived in the US, wrote a letter to Roosevelt explaining the necessity of developing nuclear fission-based weapons.

In the letter, Einstein emphasized: "...I understand that Germany has actually stopped the uranium trade from the Czechoslovakian mines and has taken them over. That it should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsäcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated."

Roosevelt believed Einstein was "clearly indicating" that Germany was conducting nuclear weapons research. If the US didn't keep up, it would fall behind Germany's research progress.

Following that, the US Army began nuclear weapons research. Roosevelt had originally given his tacit approval for these studies. By early 1942, although American scientists had a rough idea of the mechanism of an atomic bomb, the direction they should work toward, and even the cost and time, the massive project of nuclear research had exceeded the capabilities of scientific research institutions.

At that time, the US economy had already shifted toward war, and no industrial company could complete the construction of the relevant production facilities in the short term. Vannevar Bush, one of the heads of US nuclear research, believed that only with the military's highest priority could nuclear materials be produced before the end of the war. In a report to President Roosevelt on January 9, 1942, he emphasized the bright prospects of the atomic bomb and proposed handing over all development and production management to the military.

On February 17, Bush prepared a detailed report for Roosevelt on placing the nuclear program entirely under military leadership. At the time, in his White House office, Roosevelt had already studied Einstein's letter and had been indecisive. Upon receiving Bush's suggestion, Roosevelt immediately approved the report.

If biological warfare was not an option and jet fighters couldn't become the trump card to defeat the Chinese army, Roosevelt could only pin his hopes on the nuclear weapons under development. According to data provided by American scientists, the power of a single nuclear weapon could destroy a city.

Roosevelt believed the US was capable of developing nuclear weapons, but an ominous thought haunted him. What if China also possessed nuclear weapons?

At this moment, Roosevelt felt a surge of self-pity; as a leader, he had to bear such heavy pressure. For those responsible for specific tasks, they only had to focus on their professional fields. For instance, the person in charge of developing the night-fighting electronic system, upon learning that China had the same system, strongly expressed his dissatisfaction with the US government, believing it was because the government started the project too late that the US hadn't developed the system sooner.

As someone working below, such a reaction was not surprising. Having worked so hard to develop such breakthrough equipment, they certainly weren't willing to take the fall for the US Air Force. However, from the perspective of night-fighting system development, this was a false accusation. The technology used in the night-fighting system was all newly developed. Even if the Air Force had started the project earlier, it wouldn't have advanced the development time by even a single day.

The reason the US Air Force was so dissatisfied was not to blame the development company for delays, but because the company had bragged too much before delivering the equipment. They had claimed that China wouldn't be able to develop night-fighting technology for another ten years. For some reason, the US military had actually believed such claims.

According to Roosevelt's son, the US military had even prepared the press release boasting about American night-fighting equipment, just waiting for this night raid to be effective before publishing it in the newspapers. The sudden turn of events caused the military's beautiful imagination to fall flat. This was what made the military fly into a rage and try to blame the development company!

As Roosevelt thought about this, the door opened and his female secretary entered the office with a tray. When she reached him, Roosevelt naturally patted her buttocks and slid his arm around her soft waist.

With the warm body of a woman in his hands, Roosevelt felt the immense pressure he was under ease somewhat. A new thought suddenly occurred to him: could it be that He Rui was trying to control the intensity of the war, which was why he was acting this way?

Once this thought emerged, Roosevelt felt many of his confusions could be explained reasonably. For example, the Chinese Air Force had used gasoline-fueled radial engines in the Western European campaign and achieved great results, leading all nations to believe that the direction of Chinese fighter development was the same as that of the rest of the world.

It wasn't until the Sino-British war broke out that China revealed its fighters using kerosene-fueled engines, completely disrupting the Western powers' judgment of China's combat capabilities. Because the Chinese government had long cooperated with the American Rockefeller company in the oil field, Rockefeller understood China's high-octane gasoline capacity very well. Based on the detailed data provided by Rockefeller, the US side believed China could maintain a combat scale of at most 50,000 fighters. Although this scale was already large, it was something the US, with its industrial strength, could handle.

Having had these experiences, Roosevelt had to consider that He Rui was trying to control the rhythm of the war. As for exactly what rhythm He Rui wanted to control, Roosevelt, still holding his secretary, fell into a new line of thought.