"I myself am not in favor of attacking the Soviet Union, because the combined fleet cannot go ashore." Yamamoto said, "The army and the Soviet Union have fought twice, which time is not disgraced? The most important thing in the war against the Soviet Union is the number of tanks and artillery, and two days ago you also listened to the introduction of the German envoy, and the annual output of the empire is almost the same as that of the United States in a month, and the gap is greater than that of the navy, and the artillery obviously cannot compete with the Soviet Union. ”

"So there is an opinion in the Army that the Navy will suspend the construction of ships and concentrate resources on mecha forces." Tada Jun said with a smirk, "One capital ship is enough to build 1,000 combat vehicles." ”

"No kidding, you know it's impossible." Yamamoto Fifty-six also laughed, "Even if I agree, the Navy will not agree, take 10,000 steps back and say, even if the Navy grits its its teeth and agrees, what's the use?" If you fight the Soviet Union, you will not be able to hit the United States at all, and if you go north to fight happily, the Americans will still fight us. ”

All of you here are smart people, and of course they understand that the benefits of attacking the Soviet Union are limited, and that if you do so, you will not necessarily be able to join forces with Germany to destroy the Soviet Union, even if Germany destroys the Soviet Union, in case the United States and Germany cease war, Japan will still be crushed. State-to-state relations are based on interests, and ethereal assurances, promises, ententions are simply meant to be torn up, and only fanatics among middle and lower-ranking officers who have never seen the world will believe in the guarantees of politicians.

"Does the army think 250,000 men and horses are enough to fight India?" Inoue asked curiously, "Although Indians are weak, there is no modern government. Industrial capacity is also a mess, and there is colonial rule everywhere, but this is also a large country with a population of 400 million. 250,000 troops are afraid that going in is like a drop of water falling into a pond, and China also has a population of 400 million, how many years has it been fighting? Isn't the Army afraid of repeating the mistakes of the past? ”

"Of course, 250,000 is not enough, and the troops that do not withdraw from China and the South Seas will never be enough, but at least we must fight first." Tada Jun smiled slyly, "If everyone thinks that India is a fattier piece of meat than China, I don't think anyone has to gnaw bones in China and not pinch the soft persimmon of India, right?" 250,000 is just the early stage. As long as we open up the situation in India and reap the benefits, the red deer that the whole world is clamoring for not to withdraw troops from China will soon die down. Besides, with the Navy's transportation capacity, I doubt that it will be able to transport 250,000 in the short term. ”

"Fighting India, a peninsula surrounded by the sea on three sides, can give full play to the value of the navy. However, we must wait for the Combined Fleet to open up the Middle East and the Indian Ocean before we can start advancing, at least to kill the British fleet remaining in India, otherwise the threat to us will be too great, as for the Army's proposal to partially withdraw troops from the South Sea Islands......" Yamamoto Fifty-six nodded after thinking for a while. "Yes. But where does the Army want to withdraw? What is the order of precedence? Where are the retreating army forces going to be used? ”

"The Navy agrees with the Indian Ocean Raiders?" Shimomura asked, seizing the opportunity.

"It's too early to talk about approval, but it's certainly ahead of the northward attack on the Soviet Union."

Tada Jun was not in a hurry to get a clear answer from Yamamoto 56, let alone to say that he would withdraw troops from those islands in the South Seas, but asked a different question: "Sea Minister, I am strange about one thing, a few days ago you personally told me that you had deployed the task of retreating from Guadalcanal Island before you left Truk and said that you would cooperate with the army's operations, and you also specifically instructed Chief of Staff Ugaki to carry it out, but the information I received was. The commanders of the Second Fleet, Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo, and Chief of Staff Tsuki Ugaki were still agitating the Army to launch a counteroffensive, promising them to provide fire support if the Army attacked. Now it's all right. Originally, Hyakutake Haruyoshi's 17th Army was haunted by the successive failures of the Ichiki Detachment and the Kawaguchi Detachment, and after being instigated by the Navy, he even held his breath for revenge, but now it can't be restrained at all, Vice Minister Ishihara and I have complained twice, and if we can't stop it, the entire Second Division will have to get in......"

Inoue Narumi was unhappy, and sneered: "At the end of last month, General Hyakutake asked for help from the Navy, and the General Staff Headquarters sent Masanobu Tsuji Osa to fly to Truk as a lobbyist, sarcastically saying that Chief Yamamoto was staying at the Yamato Hotel, saying that the army on Kuah Island, especially the Kawaguchi detachment, was hell on earth, and he did not stop until the commander promised to support. In the early part of this month, the cabinet collapsed and asked the navy to cooperate with the army's retreat, but Chief Yamamoto arranged it according to Tokyo's request, who knew that the army jumped up one by one and scolded the navy for being cowards, and Vice Admiral Hyakutake Haruyoshi was even more sarcastic that our words did not count, not to mention how ugly the words were, in fact, it was the army that wanted to fight first, not us who instigated the army to fight. Since the army wanted to fight so much, the navy could only accompany it, and on the 14th and 15th, the combined fleet poured out, and the strong force of 4 battleships, 5 aircraft carriers, 10 cruisers, and 29 destroyers under the command of Vice Admiral Kondo blocked all the entrances to the Solomon Islands, and the formation with four heavy cruisers such as Chokai, Kinugasa, Myoko, and Maya as the main force shelled Kuah Island at night, and the operation was very successful, and the enemy airfield was in a sea of fire, but the army's general attack failed shamefully......"

"Vice Minister Inoue's statement is inaccurate, the army's general attack is just postponed, where can we talk about failure?" Shimomura said dissatisfied, "The general attack plan drawn up by General Hyakutake Haruyoshi stipulated that Lieutenant General Maruyama would lead the main force of the 2nd Division to attack, and Major General Sumoyoshi would command about two large groups to assist from the flanks, but because the main force of the 2nd Division had to pass through dense jungles and it was difficult to walk, it was not possible to reach the designated place on the 22nd, so the attack had to be postponed until the 24th......

"What about the troops attacking on the flanks?" Inoue Narumi looked at Shimomura with a smile, "Did they postpone it?" Besides, it's the evening of the 25th, have you always succeeded in attacking? ”

Shimomura was stunned: Due to the loss of communication links, the other line commanded by Major General Sumoji launched an attack on time without receiving an order to postpone the attack, and as a result, the American army was defeated disastrously, and the two brigades lost more than half of their offensive capabilities, and this situation is fully clear to him today. However, the results of the main attack of the 2nd Division had not yet arrived, and only the 17th Army sent a vague telegram that "our army is fighting bravely" -- according to the normal operational logic of the army, if the battle report was not sent back at the first time, the results would most likely not be very satisfactory.

Shimomura's speculation made sense: at dawn Maruyama was forced to abandon the attack and sent a telegram to Hyakutake Haruyoshi that it was still difficult to capture the airfield, and Hyakutake did not report this information to Tokyo, but asked him to continue the attack again. Originally, this kind of deception and concealment in history could have succeeded, and the navy would not have poked out to the army center even if it knew the news, but now that the situation has changed, the army and navy bigwigs just sit together and drink, and the little things below can't be hidden.

Sure enough, Inoue Narumi took out a battle report from her purse: "This is the report on the battle situation on the front line of Kuah Island that I received from the Military Command Department this afternoon:...... At dawn today, the enemy's superior land-based air force and aircraft carrier-based aircraft launched an attack on our Kawaguchi fleet, the cruiser Yura was sunk, and the destroyers Akizuki and Mayyu were broken......

As soon as these two sentences were said, Tada Jun and Shimomura Ding's faces were ugly - the delay in the arrival of good news from Hyakutake Haroyoshi showed that the navy's battle report was mostly credible.

"How? Is the army still fighting? Yamamoto said with a smile, "If you want to fight, the navy can do it again." ”

"There is no way to fight, the Americans have already increased their troops on it twice, and there are more planes and tanks than us...... But how can we stop this group of red deer on the front line? Tada Jun stood up irritably, grabbing the few hairs on his head in distress, "It stands to reason that this is the work of the General Staff Headquarters, and it is not my turn to worry about it, but I always feel that it is bad to go on like this." ”

"Now you know my pain, right? I arranged a retreat before leaving, but some people don't give up? As the Minister of the Navy, I can't directly interfere with military orders, and the Combined Fleet is leaderless......," Yamamoto Isoroku pointed his finger at it, suggesting that there were other people who resisted his orders and encouraged the army to continue the offensive, and the biggest suspicion was that the chief of the military command department, King Hirohiro Fushimiya, and the deputy chief, Vice Takeshi Toyoda, intervened. Of course, Kondo Nobutake's command of the Combined Fleet is also in line with the command logic, as the oldest fleet commander with the most qualifications, when the commander of the Combined Fleet is vacant, he is the first deputy in the internal ranking, and Ugaki is far behind him, not to mention that Ugaki is a little unconvinced by Yamamoto's orders.

Tada Jun thought distraughtly: Is it really like Ishihara Wan'er said, if Hyakutake Harumichi doesn't change his mind, he will change people? It is the right of the Ministry of the Army to replace people, but the removal of a lieutenant general in the immediate battle completely breaks the convention, and he has to think about it carefully, at least he alone cannot make such a big determination.

Thinking of this, he barely squeezed out a smile, changed the topic and asked: "I heard that your chief of staff is known as the golden mask and does not say anything to anyone, and now that the prime minister is surnamed Ugaki, your old classmate who has been a businessman for 8 years will not be angry with him, right?" ”

Ugaki is the 9th graduate of the 40th phase of the Naval Academy (144 people in the same period), and he is also a relative of Army General Ugaki Kazunari (the current Prime Minister) and Vice Admiral Ugaki Wanji.

Originally, it was just a joke, but I didn't expect Yamamoto Fifty-six to sigh: "The old classmate's determination is greater than mine." ”

"How?" Seeing that the other party's eyes were wrong, Tada Jun was puzzled, what else happened here?

Yamamoto Fifty-six said something, and the other three all changed color. (To be continued.) )