In the twentieth century, no matter which European or American countries recognized Shanghai as a veritable largest city in the Far East, full of opportunities and hopes, but also full of filth and crime, and countless literary works gave the city distinctive nicknames, such as "Adventurer's Paradise", "Oriental New York", "Oriental Paris", "City of Miracles" and "Magic City".

The Great War of 1937 completely changed the face of the city, it became the first world-class metropolis to be devastated by the war in World War II, the bombing of residential areas by the Japanese Navy created hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees, more than 900 factories and handicraft workshops were destroyed, and more than 1,000 factories and facilities were occupied by the Japanese army, and many important large enterprises were relocated to the interior in the early days of the war.

That year, the city lost 70 percent of its industrial production capacity, and although the Japanese made a series of efforts to restore production, the industrial scale of Shanghai did not return to the pre-war level until the establishment of New China.

The closure of the factories caused more than 600,000 unemployed workers, and in fear of the Japanese bombing, a large number of war refugees poured into the concession, and in a matter of weeks in September and October 1937, the public and French concessions added 2.5 million inhabitants, including valuable merchants and compradors, as well as poor laborers who were alone. At that time, the public concession was overcrowded, and even the famous Great World Entertainment Club was full of people who had fled from Zhabei.

After the Battle of Songhu, both the city and the suburbs of Shanghai were occupied by the Japanese army, and only two concessions still retained extraterritoriality. Since then, the city has been living on an island for three long years.

Of course, this is what happened in the original history, because the wings of a certain apostle were flapped too diligently, and now the situation in Shanghai has become significantly different from history.

Historically, from 37 to 40 years, in just three years, Shanghai has changed three municipal governments, at the beginning of which was established by the Japanese occupation forces [Shanghai Avenue Government], whose name comes from the "Book of Rites. "The journey of the avenue is also, the world is public." The so-called "city flag" with a Tai Chi logo on a white background was specially formulated, in an attempt to replace the blue sky and white sun flag still hanging in the concession in the city, but this plan was terminated with the abolition of the "Dadao government", and the concession did not take it seriously at that time anyway.

The next municipal government was the "Shanghai Special Municipal Government" established by the so-called "Restoration Government of the Republic of China" formed by the traitor Liang Hongzhi, which lasted only six months and ended in its place, replaced by the "Shanghai Municipal Government" established by the Wang puppet regime. Interestingly, in fact, at that time, there was also a "Shanghai Exile Municipal Government" in Chongqing.

It seems that the frequency of changes in the city regime is very fast, but in fact, the team behind it is still the same, just changing a signboard outside.

Shanghai was actually divided into three cities at this time, the public concession and the French concession were merged into one side, and the rest was the Japanese army occupation area in the public concession and the urban area of Shanghai under the control of Wang Puppet, and the three forces were entangled in the city, using each other to fight each other, and soon formed a strange balance in this land.

The so-called area really controlled by the Shanghai Municipal Government was only the generation of Zhabei Jiangwan in Nanshi, and the remaining areas in western Shanghai were actually borderless because of their large and mixed strength, and they had little value, and various criminal gangs, secret services, and underground organizations were turning clouds and rain here, bringing serious public security problems to the concession.

In particular, the secret service of Wang's puppet government and the military commanders of Chongqing regarded the concession as a battlefield for their confrontation, and for a time the cases of assassination, kidnapping, robbery, and drug trafficking rose in a straight line.

Historically, because of the ongoing war in Europe, the Ministry of Industry and Bureau, the management party of the public concession, lost its strength to become tough, because they were worried about triggering a conflict in which Japan took over the concession completely, and they were almost subservient to the Japanese, and the public directors tried their best to curry favor with the Japanese military, even at the expense of infringing on their own interests.

Because of the surrender of the Vichy government to Germany, the French Concession was able to maintain stability in the concession, after all, France was already regarded as a German sphere of influence, and the Japanese were still somewhat taboo about this. Historically, the French Concession held out until 1943, when all concession privileges were finally waived due to pressure from all sides, and from then on, Shanghai really fell to the whole city.

But now that the war in Europe has ended, the public concession that has regained its backing has returned to its previous tough attitude, and most of it has been classified as a German power, and the rest belongs to the powerful United States.

The French Concession is even more domineering, the glory of France cannot be bullied, the affairs in the concession are in charge of Lao Tzu, and whoever dares to make trouble will destroy his entire family.

In particular, since September this year, the Ministry of Industry Bureau of the Public Concession has passed by a majority vote to dismiss a Japanese director who had been shoehorned in for 38 years. At the same time, the police department of the Ministry of Industry also dismissed ten Japanese detectives who had been promoted from patrol, and abolished the special department that the Japanese had asked to set up.

Fan Keling, the general director of the Ministry of Industry and Bureau, suddenly changed his appeased face and arrogantly told the Japanese side that if Japan was not satisfied with this, it could cut off Hongkou and Yangpu and other areas north of Suzhou Creek from the public concession.

Kanjo Horiuchi, the Japanese Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Consul General of Shanghai, who was in Nanjing, was taken aback, and he had never seen anything so arrogant and unruly in his long diplomatic work in China, which was simply a direct slap in the face to the Japanese Empire.

Horiuchi, who served as director of the East Asia Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a China expert and has a deep understanding of the West, making him a qualified diplomat. He knew that the end of the war in Europe would have a profound impact on the world situation, especially the failure of Japan to form an alliance with Germany, and Horiuchi felt very regretful and nervous, because it meant that Japan could no longer use the alliance as a condition to prevent German power from expanding into Asia.

Japan's diplomatic service has always had its own unique perspective, and diplomats have seen it very clear that unless Japan is ready to become an enemy of all of Europe, it will have to watch the Germans slowly infiltrate the Asian colonies.

Now it seems that the previous fears have become a reality, at least in the wonderful place of Shanghai, where change has begun.

PS: On the last day of the year, please vote for the monthly ticket to support, a new volume has begun, and there will be more exciting stories next year.

I wish you all a happy New Year, and I wish you all the best in 2017, good health, smooth work, and abundant financial resources in 2017.

Thank you all for your support of this book for over a year, and we'll see you next year. (To be continued.) )