It can be said that now is the biggest crisis since the success of the Restoration of Japan, if Tokyo is captured by the People's Army, then Japan will be completely finished, even if the first can withdraw from Tokyo, but the authority will inevitably drop greatly, it is difficult to control the situation again, on the contrary, if Japan can hold Tokyo this time, then it will inevitably greatly boost the morale of the Japanese people, and maybe it will bring a little turn to Japan, so Japan ** also immediately decided to set up the Tokyo Defense Command, with Yamaguchi Aritomo himself as the commander, and Terauchi Masaki as the deputy commander and chief of staff. This is also the current candidate among Japan's high-ranking army officers who has experience in commanding large-scale wars.

After taking office, Yamaguchi Aritomo ordered the garrisons in various parts of Tokyo to strengthen their garrisons, and in the event of an attack by the People's Army, they must hold their positions and never retreat, and ordered Terauchi Masayi to personally rush to Ishioka, where the People's Army must attack Tokyo from Mito, and on the other hand, he ordered troops to be mobilized from all over Japan to reinforce Tokyo.

On the third day of the KPA landing at Mito, the KPA concentrated about 20,000 troops and launched an attack on Ishioka. The Japanese army stationed in Ishioka is the 37th Division, which is also an elite unit in Japan at present, but it is not an opponent at all in front of the People's Army.

The KPA first concentrated mortar units and launched a heavy bombardment of the Japanese positions. In fact, the defensive positions of the Japanese army were arranged quite decently, and there was a certain resistance to artillery, but the soldiers of the Japanese army were basically the first to go into battle, and it was the first time to experience such artillery bombardment.

Of course, there were also a small number of people who were really not afraid of death, and shouted "Long live the emperor" in the position, but under the bombardment of artillery shells fired by the KPA, they were suddenly blown to pieces and died.

After the shelling, the KPA launched an offensive on the Japanese positions, led by Russian mercenary regiments. The Japanese Army attaches great importance to the technology of white-knuckle warfare, almost every Japanese Army soldier has received strict training in white-knuckle warfare, and can fight evenly with the Russian army on the battlefield of the Russo-Japanese War, and even surpass, and at the beginning of the war in East China, the People's Army was still inferior to the Japanese army in white-knuckle warfare technology.

The 37th Division has been established for nearly two years, and the training in white-knuckle combat techniques is the most practiced in ordinary times, and in terms of technology alone, it is not inferior to the Japanese troops who participated in the battle in the northeast battlefield. However, the battlefield competition is not pure technology, morale, experience, and tactics are all indispensable, and the 37th Division obviously has a great shortage in these three links, so in the white-knuckle battle, it cannot compete with the People's Army, although there are also some Japanese soldiers who are indeed fighting hard, but the strength is really not good, and they cannot stop the attack of the People's Army, after more than 3 hours of fierce fighting, the Japanese defense line was finally broken through by the People's Army, and then the entire front was suddenly completely defeated.

Even if Terauchi Masashi supervised the battle on the front line, he could not recover the decline of the Japanese army, and as a result, in just one day, the KPA occupied Ishioka, and the Japanese 37th Division suffered more than 3,000 casualties, so it had to retreat to Tsuchiura.

The loss of Ishioka shook Tokyo, because Ishioka was an important garrison of the outer defense line north of Tokyo, but it could not hold it for even a day, and it had to shake confidence in the Japanese army. Moreover, Tsuchiura is less than 50 kilometers away from Tokyo, so it can be said that it is close at hand, so people in Tokyo are panicked for a while, and many people are preparing to flee Tokyo and retreat to the southwest, and at the same time, the social order is in chaos, some people take the opportunity to rob, kill, and make trouble, and dozens of serious social incidents have occurred overnight.

However, Japan's actions at this time were still proportionate, and they immediately took measures at the extreme, first of all, they ordered the implementation of military control over Tokyo, and sent additional troops and policemen to patrol the country, so that those who violated the law and discipline could be killed on the spot; second, they blocked all roads in and out of Tokyo, and strictly forbade residents to flee from Tokyo, so that they could not escape, so they had to stay; and finally, they were strictly ordered to spread rumors and gather people to make trouble, and they were strictly dealt with at once. And the very next day, Emperor Meiji issued an edict calling on the residents of Tokyo to unite and fight to the death against the People's Army, defend Tokyo and Japan, and declare that all members of the imperial family would swear to live with Tokyo, and so on.

Due to years of god-making, the emperor's prestige in Japanese society is still quite high, so the emperor's edict was promulgated, coupled with Japan's toughest measures, finally let Tokyo return to normal order, and at the same time, the military heart and soldiers have also been improved to a certain extent. And Katsura Taro, Ito Hirobumi, Yamaguchi Tomotomo and others also breathed a sigh of relief.

In fact, after the fall of Ishioka, Emperor Meiji recruited Katsura Taro, Ito Hirobumi, and Yama Prefecture Tomotomo into the palace for interrogation, and was furious with the three of them, accusing them of betraying the emperor's trust and making a mess of state affairs. In the face of the emperor's thunderous anger, the three most powerful politicians in Japan could only kneel on the ground and plead guilty to the emperor.

In fact, the Meiji Emperor did not have any real power, but because Japan ** in order to shape the emperor into a representative of Japan's image, become the common belief of the Japanese people, in order to strengthen the cohesion of Japan, so deliberately deified the emperor, the result is such a freak, obviously there is no political power, but there is supreme authority in the Japanese political situation, and even those who have political power must bow at his feet.

Later, Emperor Meiji casually said that in view of the current critical situation in Tokyo, whether the members of the imperial family should evacuate Tokyo and avoid it for the time being, otherwise if the People's Army invaded Tokyo and the members of the imperial family were humiliated, it would be an eternal stain on Japan.

Katsura Taro, Ito Hirobumi, and Yamaguchi Tomotomo are all human spirits, but they don't understand the emperor's true intentions, but they actually have no confidence in the current war situation, and they are afraid that Tokyo will be broken by the People's Army, so they want to flee Tokyo. However, all three of them also knew very well that once the emperor withdrew from Tokyo, the morale of the Tokyo military would immediately collapse, and there would be no need to fight this battle, and the emperor must be persuaded to stay no matter what.

So the three of them immediately made it clear to the emperor that they must not evacuate Tokyo at this time, otherwise the Japanese army would be defeated, and Japan would also be wiped out, and repeatedly assured the emperor that as long as the emperor did not leave Tokyo, then the Japanese army would absolutely hold Tokyo, defend the heavenly room to the death, and never let the imperial family be humiliated.

Emperor Meiji also knew that if these three people did not agree, it would be impossible for him to leave Tokyo, and that not having real political power was his most fatal weakness, so he could only agree to stay in Tokyo without force, and issued an edict to boost morale.

Although the situation in Tokyo was temporarily stabilized after the Emperor's edict was issued, and the morale of the people was somewhat improved, Aritomo Yamaguchi knew that morale alone could not hold Tokyo, and it was difficult to say how long this morale would last, so it was necessary to rearrange Tokyo's defenses.

After consultation between Yamaguchi Aritomo and Terauchi Masatake, they ordered the remnants of the 37th Division to set up positions on the spot in Tsuchiura, with the task of slowing down the advance of the KPA and preparing to block the KPA attack at Shoudan, which was about 30 kilometers away from Tokyo, and at the same time transferred reinforcements from the 40th Division on the western periphery of Tokyo to ensure that there were two divisions guarding Shoudan. Because Moriya is the northern gateway to Tokyo, once Moriya is lost again, the gateway to Tokyo will be wide open. The 39th Division was transferred to threaten the KPA flank from the northwest. Moreover, in order to let the soldiers defend their positions, Youpeng in Shanxian County ordered the establishment of a supervision team, and the soldiers who retreated from the position could be killed on the spot.

Although the arrangement continued, there was no bottom in the heart of the mountain county and the temple of Gunami, because the deployment of the army took time. However, after the KPA captured Ishioka, it did not immediately attack Tsuchiura, but attacked along the coastline, occupying Naka in the north of Mito and Ibaraki Town in the south, which was also to protect the landing site, but in this way, the Japanese army won 3 days, not only did the Japanese arrange the army, but also a division rushed to Tokyo, becoming the first army to aid Tokyo, although there was only one division, but it had a great effect on the morale of the military and civilians in Tokyo.

And at this time, the KPA launched an attack on Tupo. And Yama Prefecture Youpeng considered that Tsuchiura was not the location that the Japanese army planned to garrison, just to buy time, and now the Japanese army's defense line to defend the valley has been strengthened, so it is no longer meaningful to defend Tsuchiura, and the 37th Division stationed in Tsuchiura is the elite unit of the Japanese army on the ground at present, if the loss in the battle to defend Tsuchiura is large, it will not be cost-effective, so Yama County Aritomo finally decided to abandon Tsuchiura and withdraw the 37th Division to Shougu to garrison.

The KPA then concentrated about 25,000 troops and launched an attack on Shougu.

In this offensive, the Japanese army showed much more tenaciousness than Ishioka, and under the powerful artillery bombardment of the KPA, they still held their positions to the death, and after the KPA launched a charge, the Japanese army went forward one after another, filling in one by one, falling one by one, and coming up one by one, almost blocking the KPA attack with flesh and blood. As a result, on the first day of fighting, the Japanese suffered more than 5,000 casualties, but held their positions.

On the second day, the People's Army's offensive was more fierce and the firepower was stronger, and the Japanese army gradually became a little unable to resist, so some troops were forced to retreat from their positions. Seeing that there was no hope of retreat, the Japanese army could only hold on to the position and not retreat, and in some positions, entire squadrons, and even soldiers of the brigade died on the position.

So after another day of fierce fighting, although the Japanese lost several local positions, they still stabilized the defensive line on the whole.

On the third day, the KPA seemed to have run out of energy, and the intensity of the attack was much lower than that of the previous two days, and it hastily withdrew its troops.

On the fourth day, the KPA did not attack again, and the 45th Division, which had arrived from the northeast to reinforce Tokyo, threatened Mito, so the KPA was forced to retreat.