On June 3, 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt signed the order to dispatch troops to the four northwestern states. As she set down her pen, she felt a sudden surge of anticipation. She hoped for a swift federal victory that would force the Black veterans to surrender quickly. In the prevailing American mindset, Black soldiers were not considered particularly formidable. With a decisive victory, Eleanor believed she could leverage her prestige to turn and suppress the rising insolence of the Southern states.

In the South, the states had already designated Montgomery as their capital. Upon learning that Eleanor had signed the order, the Southern elite immediately raised their glasses in celebration.

Had Eleanor merely practiced systemic discrimination against Black people, her actions would have triggered nothing more than an internal debate among the establishment. But dispatching troops to suppress the northwestern states, where the Black veterans already held the advantage, was another matter entirely.

Even if the civil rights legislation enacted by the Black veterans was deemed illegal by most states, illegalities were occurring on a staggering scale in America every day; the Black movement was hardly unique in that regard.

The Southern states had exerted pressure within Congress specifically to goad Eleanor’s cabinet into initiating a civil war. Once the federal government fired the first shot of an internal conflict, it would effectively open the door for Southern independence.

The politics played by men and the politics played by women were not the same thing—or so the Southern politicians, who held Eleanor’s capabilities in low regard, believed. Seeing that she had fallen into their trap, the Southern grandees wasted no time in fully activating their machinery.

The Southern states began to stall their tax payments to the federal government. Simultaneously, utilizing gold and silver as collateral, they began issuing their own state currencies while restricting the circulation of federal US dollars within their borders.

Severing the economic ties between North and South was the necessary preparation for the operations to come.

Beyond economics, the South ceased providing manpower to the federal government. Their aim in goading Eleanor into the northwestern suppression was to force the North to continue consuming its own dwindling resources.

With the federal government forced to maintain a defensive line in the North against China while simultaneously suppressing an internal uprising, the breaking point was inevitable. Whether the North collapsed now or in the near future was of little concern to the South; they were content to wait, confident that disaster was coming for the Yankees.

The man who had proposed this strategy was Dan—once a Captain, now a Lieutenant Colonel. The original Southern plan for independence had been a simplistic attempt to "draw a circle and stay within it." Dan felt his fellow Southerners were being as stubborn and narrow-minded as they had been during the first Civil War. He had submitted his plan to the then-Colonel Bourbon—now Major General Bourbon—and secured his full support.

General Bourbon had been under immense pressure until Eleanor issued the marching orders. With the first phase of the plan successfully realized, his influence surged. He was now serving as the Chief of Staff for the Confederate Assembly of the Southern States.

Lieutenant Colonel Dan knew his plan was tearing America apart. He was well aware that such a split would be founded upon a sea of sacrifice. But after surviving the global war, he found he felt nothing toward such prospects. He had seen too much death; he himself was a man who had crawled out from under a mountain of corpses.

Upon returning home, he had tried to return to a life of peace. But that peaceful life was no longer a survival mode he could accept. The repetition of yesterday, every day, made him feel as if he were rotting and dying from within.

Only on the strategic level—moving tens of thousands of men, exerting every ounce of his hard-won knowledge—did he feel truly alive.

Before deployment, the federal army was certain that the Black veterans would resist, likely utilizing small-unit guerrilla tactics.

Thus, when the federal forces entered the Rockies and encountered the first ambushes, there was no panic. The commanders followed their pre-arranged plans, utilizing superior numbers and overwhelming fire coverage. America still possessed vast stockpiles of munitions, enough to deal a crushing blow to any opponent. By June 20th, as the federal columns cleared the mountain passes, they believed the hardest part was behind them.

On June 21st, the sky darkened with fighters. America was not the only nation with an inexhaustible supply of weapons; China’s stockpiles were far greater. Furthermore, the million-strong Black force in the Northwest were not mere recruits but battle-hardened veterans of the regular WPLA.

After centuries of oppression, and with their backs against the wall, these men were more than willing to die for their own liberation.

In the sky, jet fighters clashed with propeller aircraft once more. On the ground, American and Chinese-made tanks engaged in mutual destruction.

Within the Black military command, numerous WPLA volunteers—Black officers and staff—worked alongside the locals, more than compensating for any lack of senior command experience. On the front lines, WPLA veterans operated technical equipment, holding their own against the white federal army in the fields of artillery, electronics, and communications.

The federal government had committed 300,000 men to the campaign. Given the dilapidated state of the North, this represented a significant portion of their remaining strength. Had the enemy been anyone other than Black veterans, the senior military leadership would likely have refused to launch this operation, dubbed "Project Punisher."

From June 21st, after the Black forces completed a maneuver to lure the enemy deep into the mountains, the campaign raged for twenty days. Because the Black units had severed the transport links within the Rockies, the federal army lacked even the ability to flee once defeated. Ultimately, only a handful of white troops escaped the encirclement. The vast majority were either killed or taken prisoner.

When the news reached the North, the states were gripped by terror. Ironically, the supposedly "most racist" Southern states showed no fear. In their master plan, the best outcome was a restored Confederacy and independence. At the very least, they sought a new Constitution built upon their own principles.

If they achieved independence, they had no intention of including the four northwestern states in their Confederacy. If they succeeded in rewriting the Constitution, they demanded absolute state autonomy; whether the Northwest was Black-dominated was of no interest to them. In fact, a Black-dominated Northwest provided a convenient destination for the racial expulsions they planned to carry out internally, significantly easing the task of purging the South of its own Black population.

General Bourbon immediately outlined the next steps: do not seek to assign blame for the defeat, but instead demand that the federal government launch another offensive immediately.

In Washington, Southern congressmen went to work, while Southern capitalists launched a media blitz. Their message was simple: "Now is not the time for recriminations! The federal army must regroup and strike again! We cannot allow this act of 'self-direction' to spread across the entire United States!"

In this media campaign, the outlets controlled by Southern capital pointedly avoided labeling the Black civil rights movement as a "rebellion." Instead, they utilized the precise term "self-directed action" to define the Black veterans' movement.

To precisely guide public opinion, Southern capital hired numerous influential figures to write articles. To broaden their base of support, these figures even included left-wingers and members of the Communist Party USA—the very people the Southern elite loathed most.

The propaganda struggle was waged in the newspapers and through a series of live radio debates. The core objective was to make the American public accept the view that the Black veterans were merely "acting on their own initiative," not rebelling.

Lieutenant Colonel Dan, the architect of this approach, carefully monitored the public feedback with his team. He was delighted to see that as the campaign deepened, the Northern public was becoming divided. Some saw it as treason, while others were convinced it was merely a localized, self-directed action—similar to a revolt, yet fundamentally different.

This result thrilled Dan’s team. If the South sought independence, they had to avoid being seen as "rebels." To build that ideological foundation, they needed a pathfinder. The Black veterans were the perfect choice.

With the plan proceeding so smoothly, the team even found the leisure to discuss whether the Black forces would seize more states. The discussion was rational and calm. Most agreed that the Black population was too small; holding four states in the Northwest would be hard enough. If they truly wished to launch a counter-offensive, they would have to draw China directly into the conflict.

Dan’s team had already discussed this possibility. They believed that China's priority was not the entire United States, but rather the formal independence of Alaska and Hawaii. After another federal defeat, the Washington government would likely be desperate enough to seek communication with China, hoping for a guarantee of non-interference in the internal war.

This would be China’s opportunity to demand that the federal government recognize the independence of Alaska and Hawaii. After all, neither territory had attained statehood; they lacked formal legal standing within the Union.

Having concluded these discussions, the team refocused. The foundation for Southern independence had to be the extreme weakening of the Northern federal government—either through military and financial collapse or the total disintegration of its political legitimacy.

Dan and his colleagues were no longer the hotheads of the first Civil War. Most were students of He Rui’s political and military doctrines. Compared to the crude "cowboy" culture of traditional America, the Chinese methodologies they had learned were vastly more advanced.

In contrast, the federal government in the North had seen its best talents depart. The cabinet members remaining in Washington mostly believed that a "strongman" posture was the only way to retain public support.

In Chinese culture, there was a phrase that perfectly described such men: "A monkey wearing a crown."

Events unfolded exactly as Dan had predicted. The clique in Washington began mobilizing troops for another assault on the Northwest.

When the news arrived, a young member of Dan’s team, James Gan, approached him with a look of confusion. "Colonel, however foolish those people in Washington might be, they must know that sending more troops is effectively splitting the country. Why do they persist?"

Dan looked at the young man. James was talented but lacked an understanding of the stubbornness of older men and the bedrock of cultural accumulation. He answered with patience.

"Your assessment is correct, James. The politicians in Washington are not so stupid as to be blind to the problem. But in their eyes, the Black veterans gaining equal civil rights means their own power is being undermined. Those politicians cannot accept such a change. To them, a changed America is no longer America at all."

Seeing the anger on James’s face, Dan added, "They rely on the Constitution. And the reason we are building an independent Confederacy is that we loathe that same Constitution. It is that document that allows a foolish federal government to limit the freedom of the states.

"Only by shattering this hypocritical Constitution and allowing the people of every state to enjoy their own freedom can we create true happiness for the American people!"

The words struck a chord with the young and impulsive James. He nodded firmly and fell silent.

Dan turned back to his work, his expression a mask of professional detachment. But in his heart, he felt a twinge of guilt toward such a simple-hearted young man. Dan’s true concern was not "justice," but the fact that he was participating in momentous, world-shaping events.

During the war, he had rarely wondered why he was risking his life. It wasn't until his capture and his subsequent study of Chinese culture and politics that he realized he had been a mere pawn for those on high. The elite had thrown young men like him into the fire and forgotten them, for to them, millions of soldiers were nothing but consumables.

Thus, Dan had decided that he, too, would become one of those who stood on high, never again to be controlled by others. And he would see those current elites fall from their heights and shatter upon the ground.

The war had changed him profoundly. Its greatest legacy was that he finally understood what he loved and what he hated. And the definitions of that love and hate were no longer the standards forced upon him by his superiors, but his own choices.

Spiritual freedom was the only true freedom. Dan loved this freedom with all his soul, and he hated those who sought to constrain it—especially the high-born and the powerful.

The next steps were simple. When the next battle erupted, the South would expose the hypocrisy of the Northerners and the games they played to secure their power through war.

Once the American public realized the truth, the United States would either face a constitutional convention or simply explode. The end of the old elite would be as inevitable as death itself.