Late at night on June 1, 1935, Tokyo, the capital of the Japanese Empire, was still immersed in calm.
With a long saber slung across his body, Major General Kanji Ishihara walked out of the Army General Staff Headquarters building with a melancholy look on his face, and jumped onto his assigned military vehicle.
Driving on the bustling streets, looking out from the car window, Tokyo at this time is still a bustling scene of feasting, entertainment, and wealth.
Although the wealth consumed by the war in just a few months was considerable, the deaths in battle would not cause an obvious shortage of goods in the Japanese market.
Although at the other end of the Japanese archipelago, the people of the five northern prefectures of Kyushu Island and the two prefectures of Yamaguchi and Hiroshima on Honshu Island are struggling in the midst of an unknown terrible "plague", and thousands of people are dying of body ulcers; although in the sea On the other side of the river, one hundred thousand imperial troops have been trapped and died on a low-lying sandbank at the mouth of the Yangtze River, crushed bit by bit by bullets, artillery fire and poison gas But all of this seems to be too far away from Tokyo.
For them, feelings about war and disasters seem to come only from newspapers, radios and rare news films.
On the other hand, we bid farewell to the vast land across the sea that is full of hope and disaster, and stay away from the terrifying battlefield with gunfire and killing sounds. Major General Kanji Ishihara found that he was becoming somewhat uncomfortable with the peaceful urban life in Tokyo.
On the streets of Tokyo, there are still propaganda banners touting the war and boasting victory, as if the time has stayed in the "bloodless opening of Nanjing" a few months ago - since the catastrophe of Sasebo, the cabinet announced the news Regulatory Laws. Domestic newspapers and periodicals were strictly restricted. They reported good news but not bad news, and kept advocating "achievements" and "victory of the imperial cause." This made Ishihara Wanji, who regarded himself as a "sober", worried.
¡ª¡ªThe situation has obviously reached this critical point. The military is still dreaming of an imperial dream of dominating East Asia!
In the view of Major General Ishihara Kanji, the battle on Chongming Island should not be fought at all!
No matter how much you boast about the willpower of the Imperial Japanese Army, the catastrophe that occurred in Sasebo has destroyed the main force of the combined fleet in one fell swoop, severely disrupted the mainland's transportation and supplies to the Jiangnan battlefield on the mainland, and temporarily eliminated the potential for Britain, the United States and France to provide Any assistance by force. The failure of the exploratory attack on the Taihu area has fully proved that the Shanghai Communist Army has strong combat power and cannot be underestimated.
According to Major General Ishihara Kanji¡¯s opinion. The most advantageous response for the Japanese Empire in this situation is to use the supply line being cut off as an excuse to retreat from the troops invading Jiangnan. Get out of the quagmire of fighting the communist army in southern China, and let the American, British, and Kuomintang forces fight the Bolsheviks on their own. At the same time, Japan can turn its attention to running North China and seize the natural fortress of Shanxi to complete its suppression of North China.
but. The Southern China Expeditionary Force, which was eager to make meritorious deeds, did not think so. The upper echelons of the army, who were dazzled by the victory, did not agree with Ishihara Wanji's "cowardly" idea - they had coveted the prosperous and splendid "magic city" Shanghai for a long time, and were reluctant to let go of the rich land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River. We are willing to bear the negative consequences of abandoning Wang Jingwei's regime: if we do this too much, we will alienate pro-Japanese factions everywhere.
¡° In this way, if we want to maintain the survival of Wang Jingwei¡¯s regime in Nanjing, we must ensure the smooth transportation of the Yangtze River waterway. If we want to ensure the smooth flow of the Yangtze River waterway, we must overthrow the Bolshevik regime in Shanghai So all problems have returned to the original point. The South China dispatched troops completely ignored the implicit instructions of the General Staff Headquarters to "focus on ensuring Jiangbei." Over and over again, heavy troops were invested in Chongming Island. The Imperial Navy, eager to show off its strength and the value of its existence after the catastrophe, also gathered the light warships and combat aircraft it could collect to join in the fun.
However. Although Japan's aircraft, warships and troops have repeatedly increased, they still cannot withstand the overwhelming and fierce offensive of the Shanghai Communist Army - Chongming Island is located next to their base camp, and the Communist Army can easily invest all its strength - in the end, In the brutal war of attrition that lasted for a month, the spines of the navy and army flying teams were broken, and the precious elite soldiers of the three standing divisions were also trapped on this narrow island, unable to fight. Unable to evacuate, they can only be slowly exterminated one by one like cockroaches in a cupboard.
At present, the 13th and 14th Divisions on the island have lost contact, and it is estimated that the situation is in danger. The Fifth Division was also besieged in Chenjia Town at the east end of Chongming Island. The navy's several attempts to rescue them were repelled by the enemy. Lieutenant General Kuniaki Oiso, commander of the Fifth Division, had already sent a telegram "Declaring to the Military Headquarters that Jade is broken", claiming that although they have run out of ammunition and food, they are still "prepared to fight to the end and sacrifice themselves for His Majesty the Emperor's great cause!"
This tragic death telegram once again aroused an uproar in the General Staff Headquarters - faced withThe biggest defeat in the history of the Japanese Army. The staff of the General Staff Headquarters seemed like red-eyed gamblers. They actually wanted to recruit more troops to continue to reinforce Chongming Island and fill this terrifying flesh and blood mill in order to save face. Kanji Ishihara, who advocated a full retreat, was almost killed on the spot by these radicals who drew their sabers!
"What's 'the success of a thousand years is at this moment'? What's 'the empire rises and falls in one fell swoop'? What's 'let's try harder and take down Chongming Island'? It's clear that he is unwilling to take responsibility and face up to failure. , If you want to drag everyone with you to be buried together, it¡¯s best to do it without punishing everyone!¡±
? Stroking the bruises and swelling on his forehead that were punched by his colleagues from the General Staff Headquarters, Major General Ishihara Wanji couldn't help but murmured.
Fortunately, the Navy, which has almost lost all its capital, no longer intends to cooperate with the crazy idea of ??the Army General Staff Headquarters - the Navy Ministry firmly refuses to send any more ships to the waters of the Yangtze River Estuary, which has been nicknamed "Iron Bottom Bay". They believe that surface ships are used for naval warfare, and precious battleships, cruisers and destroyers can no longer be sacrificed in the narrow Yangtze River estuary as targets, where they can be easily sunk by Chinese boats and shore artillery.
¡ª¡ªAfter the fierce battle at the mouth of the Yangtze River that lasted for a month, the Japanese Navy lost more than 150,000 tons of various types of ships and more than 200 aircraft. It was equivalent to losing the last bit of its wealth after the Sasebo explosion. There's basically not much left to take out.
In fact, according to the most pessimistic thoughts of the cabinet officials, now is not the time for war at all - the catastrophe in Sasebo not only destroyed the essence of the Japanese combined fleet, but also turned a large area of ??the country into a purgatory, at least millions of people Struggling on the verge of death.
Saga and Nagasaki prefectures, which are closest to the center of the Sasebo "disaster", have now almost become places of death where ghosts live. The once prosperous and prosperous port of Nagasaki, where merchant ships gathered, has almost become a ghost town. Fukuoka Prefecture and Kumamoto Prefecture, which are a little further away, are also full of corpses and horrific The current death toll alone has exceeded two million, and only God knows how many people will die next. The resulting loss of tax revenue and the surge in relief expenditures have made the government miserable, and it still doesn't know where to raise the astronomical reconstruction costs. Under such embarrassing and difficult circumstances, the government still struggled to find manpower and material resources to support the huge war in mainland China. It really felt overwhelmed.
¡ª¡ªAs the final victors, the time travelers are all lamenting that the battle on Chongming Island almost drove them to bankruptcy. As the loser, the Japanese Imperial Government was really struggling with this war of attrition that cost people, money, and sacrifices, and it was about to be completely empty.
Therefore, despite severe suppression by militarists, some anti-war forces that advocate "domestic affairs first" have emerged in Japanese society.
As a soldier who lives by war, and as a descendant of a samurai who worships swords, Ishihara Kanji naturally sneers at such "cowardly" peace remarks. But as a rational strategist, Ishihara Kanji also understands that Japan's national power is now overstretched and is somewhat unsustainable.
¡°The helpless thing is that no one in this world is willing to give up the territory and wealth they have swallowed. Most Japanese soldiers will persist in the war at all costs. In the completely fanatical staff headquarters, his conservative and calm opinions were always drowned out by the crazy talk of a group of radical staff officers about "punishing China and conquering the world". Even if he is in a high position, he still can't twist his legs with his arms.
Speaking of which, although the disaster in Sasebo has occurred for nearly two months, no one can still explain clearly what is going on - even the General Staff Headquarters, which has a lot of secret information, only knows that that night first A ray of white light swept across Kyushu Island, and some towns burned directly just by the light. And thenhuh? Wait, why does the sky outside become brighter?
¡ª¡ªWith a burst of exclamations, the sound of brakes and the sound of collisions between vehicles, all seven million citizens in Tokyo were stunned to see a brilliant flash of light piercing the sky. Immediately afterwards, the surrounding scenery became brighter, and there was a strange scene of night turning into day!
"Stop! Stop! I want to see what's going onOh, you stupid driver!"
Ishihara Wanji, who hit his head on the roof of the car due to sudden braking, grinned and rubbed his injured forehead again, cursed in a low voice, stumbled open the car door, got out of the car, stood up and stood in what suddenly turned into daylight. on the streets of Tokyo.
Then, as soon as he raised his head and looked across the narrow street, he immediately saw the majestic Mount Fuji standing on the other side of the horizon, illuminated extremely brightly by a huge fireball rising from the top of the mountain! (To be continued. Please search Piaotian Literature, the novels will be better and updated faster!