While Ishihara and Cole were bragging about a comical combination of whiskey and dried fish, Hideki Tojo was thinking about the direction of the cabinet like an ant on a hot pan, and he couldn't care about the trouble of Komasayuki now, and he had to settle everything quickly. According to his original idea, the problem was with the navy, and he felt that he had no responsibility and would never resign, but the navy hated Tojo deeply, especially Shimada who had been only Tojo during his tenure, which annoyed them even more, and Tojo tentatively called the Ministry of the Navy to propose a new candidate for the navy, but was unceremoniously beaten back by the navy, of course, the wording was very official - the naval center was turbulent, and it was difficult to make decisions for the time being. This is not a lie, the navy is not in charge of the family now, after the suicide of the sea minister and the resignation of the chief of the military command department, it stands to reason that the vice minister of the navy should be in charge of the center, but everyone knows that without the commander of the combined fleet Yamamoto Isoroku who is far away in Truk to speak, it is impossible for the navy to form a unified opinion, and Tojo can only send a telegram to Yamamoto directly after thinking about it.

While Hideki Tojo was running up and down, a meeting of important ministers was held in the afternoon of the next day to discuss the reorganization of the cabinet. The meeting was attended by Reijiro Wakatsuki, Keisuke Okada, Hirota Hiroki, Fumiko Konoe, Nobuyuki Abe, Mitsumasa Yoneuchi, Yoshimichi Hara, and Saburo Hyakutake (chief of staff), who also presided over the meeting because Koichi Kido had come to solicit opinions on behalf of the emperor. Most of the people on this list are people who have served as prime ministers in the past 10 years, and they are considered to be very important in Japanese politics. Originally, the list of important ministers also included the name of Kiyoura Keigo. However, he gave up because of his poor health, and after Koichi Kido counted it, he found that he had exactly 9 votes, so he decided to report it to Emperor Hirohito if there were 5 votes (not including himself) to agree.

The atmosphere of the meeting was completely different from that of a year ago when Konoe Fumiro's cabinet resigned and elected a new prime minister. At the last meeting, everyone was depressed because no one knew the final impact of the war between Japan and the United States on Japan, as if a student who usually does not study well is about to go through a big exam, and when he is nervous, he has a sense of relief that he has finally arrived. At that time, in the face of the situation of Konoe Fumiro's picking, everyone thought that no matter whether Hideki Tojo was good or bad, the meeting finally chose a prime minister who was capable and willing to take responsibility.

However, after a year of operation, it was found that the cabinet had many problems: first of all, the army in the Chinese battlefield was getting deeper and deeper, and five years had passed since the "China Incident", and at first it was optimistic that it would take three months to solve the problem. Later, he said that it would be six months, and then he said that it would end in another year after cutting off all his foreign aid, but he did not expect that the battles of Burma and Indochina were all over. The Wang Chingwei regime also operated for a long time, but the Chinese side became more determined to resist the war, and on the surface the army occupied a large area, but in fact the battle line was too long, logistical difficulties, and a serious shortage of troops. According to the report of the Chinese troops. On average, there were only two Japanese soldiers per 3 square kilometers of land in North China, and it was impossible to maintain order and stability.

After the fantastic start of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the heavy damage to the US Pacific Fleet, the navy quickly swept through the entire Southeast Asia, and originally thought that the other side would sit down with Japan for peace talks on the basis of acknowledging the status quo, but it turned out that the Americans not only had no intention of peace talks, but instead tilted more than 70 percent of their naval strength to the Pacific region, and went through a series of operations in the Coral Sea, Midway, and Kuah Island. The situation of the Imperial Navy took a sharp turn for the worse and was precarious, especially the loss of four large aircraft carriers accumulated before the war at Midway. More than 300 planes and more than 100 elite pilots almost broke the backbone of the mobile fleet, if there are occasional factors such as luck or the enemy's deciphering of the secret telegram on Midway, the operation on Kuah Island is completely pressed and beaten, the navy cannot drive in, the army is retreating one after another, and now even the front-line material transportation is almost unable to be guaranteed.

Finally, there is the issue of Prime Minister Tojo's employment, who once served as both land minister and foreign minister, and had all kinds of power in one, seriously undermining the balance of the cabinet, and based on the principle of personal likes and dislikes, he only promoted members of his own faction, forcefully suppressed other factions or dissident figures, and even abused public power by sending military police to monitor retired lieutenant generals -- the other party did not commit treason. In the words of the important ministers, it was an unprecedented incident since the Meiji Restoration, and it could be called a rebellious minister and thief.

Although Shitaro Shimada, the prime minister of the sea, committed suicide by seppuku, everyone believes that Tojo's responsibility cannot be escaped. Therefore, when Koichi Kido tentatively raised the issue of cabinet reshuffle, everyone insisted that the prime minister must be replaced, and Tojo should take responsibility for the whole thing and resign the cabinet. And they also made it clear that Tojo couldn't even leave the position of the prime minister for Tojo, and at most let him be a military police commander - didn't he like to rummage through residents' trash cans in the middle of the night to check for waste? Then be a gendarme!

The unanimous agreement to oust Tojo was reached in less than 5 minutes, but the resolution to elect the successor prime minister was not easy to implement, and after an afternoon of heated debate, one figure after another was put forward and commented on by everyone, and by the sunset, there was still no unanimous opinion, and finally only at the urging of Koichi Kido reached a number of principles for the cabinet reshuffle:

First, it is a time of war, and the prime minister must be a soldier, whether he is on active duty or retired, and he must be an army general - because there have been too many recent scandals in the navy, he cannot choose to be the prime minister, and because the prime minister wants to find a way to solve the problem of China, he is not familiar with the army;

Second, it is necessary to choose a shrewd and capable land minister, and the prime minister must not be allowed to concurrently serve as the prime minister, and the evil consequences of Tojo's concurrently serving as land minister are already obvious, and many combat policies are completely patted on the head, which is equivalent to asking for instructions and giving orders to himself, and the decision-making system is in chaos;

Article 3: With the exception of the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister of the Navy, all other members of the Cabinet may remain in office, except for those who clearly belong to the Tojo faction.

One important minister was unanimous: Foreign Minister Koo Masayuki had distinguished himself in this incident, had good relations with Germany without being too pro-German, and recommended that he remain as foreign minister and play a greater role no matter who formed a cabinet.

When Koichi Kido dragged his tired body and was about to report back to the palace after arguing with the important ministers for a whole afternoon, he suddenly found that the commander-in-chief of the Home Defense Forces, the army general Minoru Higashikuremiya, was visiting the emperor. While guessing the intentions of King Minoru Higashikure, Kido Koichi succinctly reported the situation and listed several possible candidates proposed at the meeting of important ministers:

On the prime minister's side, the highest voice is Utsune Kazunari, who was nominated as prime minister when the cabinets of Hirota Hiroki and Konoe Fumiro resigned last time, and this time he also had the highest voice; followed by the Governor of Korea, General Koiso Kuniaki, and finally the Commander of the Kwantung Army, General Umezu Mijiro; On the land side, Umezu Mijiro had the highest voice, followed by General Yan Junroku, commander of the Chinese Dispatch Army, and only one person mentioned General Tada, who is currently in reserve; Originally, there were Yamamoto Isoroku - Mitsumasa Yoneuchi - Inoue Narumi in the famous Iron Triangle in the Navy, and these three people were just suitable for the three positions of Commander of the Combined Fleet, Minister of the Navy, and Chief of the Military Command Department, but the Iron Triangle has always opposed the Triple Alliance and the war between Japan and the United States, and even insisted on this point of view until now, which made the Army absolutely unacceptable, so the meeting of important ministers was ready to listen to the Navy's own opinions first.

"What about your opinion?" Hirohito turned his inquiring gaze to King Minoru Higashikuremiya.

"The governor of North Korea, Koiso Kuniaki, is not good, first of all, in terms of seniority, he is a junior of the Ugaki Issei faction, and secondly, since the cabinet wants to solve the Chinese problem, it cannot do without experience in the Chinese battlefield. And Commander Umezu Mijiro probably can't either. ”

"Why?" Koichi Kido asked curiously.

"Your Majesty has consulted with me just now, and intends to make me the chief of staff, with a transcendent position, to ensure the emperor's commanding power, and to avoid the recurrence of similar incidents of bullying the monarch."

"Huh?" Kido Kodaichi was shocked, in fact, when the new prime minister was elected last year, someone nominated King Minoru Higashikure Miyashi to be the post, but Kido Koichi considered that in case of war with Britain and the United States, if the situation was unfavorable, the imperial family might be blamed and opposed, and finally recommended Hideki Tojo as prime minister. The same is true for the navy, originally it was King Fushimi Miyahiro who served as the head of the military command department before the Tojo cabinet was formed, because Hirohito was unsure about the outcome of the war between Japan and the United States, so he let Shigetaro, the agent of King Fushimi Miyahiro, come to power, but no one expected that Shimada would become Tojo's echo board after coming to power.

Now when he heard the news that King Minoru Higashikure was going to be the chief of staff, Kido Takaichi chuckled in his heart, and His Majesty finally became suspicious: It doesn't matter if the troops defeat the battle, don't look at the middle and lower level officers who are ordered to cut their stomachs at every turn, and it is very rare for senior officers to be held accountable, don't you see that Lieutenant General Nagumo Tadaichi has suffered such a big defeat at Midway and is still alive? However, the emperor could not tolerate his subordinates' concealment and deception of him, and if this momentum was allowed to develop, they would pull the imperial family out to blame him if they lost the battle in the future—this was what the emperor feared the most.

Koichi Kido asked tentatively, "If King Minoru Higashikurenomiya is the chief of staff, will you ask King Hiroko Fushimi to return to the post of chief of the Military Command Department?" ”

"Yes, there is such consideration, and his own opinion has not been sought."

Having said that, Koichi Kido has made it all clear: the emperor is not satisfied with the role of the army and navy in this incident, and is determined to completely grasp the command in his hands, and everyone else can only use the imperial family to block the core position of the two military orders. But he still doesn't understand why King Minoru Higashikurenomiya can't let Umezu Mijiro be the prime minister or prime minister when he is the chief of staff, I haven't heard that there is a major contradiction between the two? (To be continued.) )