At about 13 o'clock GMT on April 19, 1946, a detailed report on the naval battle in the Philippine Sea was presented to His Majesty King Joachim I, the double champion of Europe. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Born in 1890, the Hohenzollern family member was in his twilight of life, but he was not the same in appearance and mental state as he was in his prime, and what is even more admirable is that he contributed countless brilliant strategies to the construction of the German Navy and the development of Ireland throughout his life, many of which have been regarded as classics by the world......

After reading the battle report sent by the task force, Natsuki said to Sean Purcell, a special adviser to the royal family and a retired admiral, in a calm tone: "It has been confirmed that this battle sank two large Japanese aircraft carriers, severely damaged two, slightly damaged one, and two light aircraft carriers sank and one was wounded, and through a day-long battle, the main carrier-based aviation force of the Japanese Combined Fleet was basically destroyed, while the American fleet only paid the price of two aircraft carriers being severely damaged and two aircraft carriers slightly damaged, and our St. Patrick was blessed by Lady Luck." , only two near-misses were hit, four sailors were wounded, and no one was killed. ”

The Irish Admiral took the report from the King's hand, read it quickly and earnestly, and then smiled: "The Japanese Navy is as vain as we expected, and the Americans, who have been lying on their back, have won a sure victory. Luckily, Halsey became the hero of all eyes and would go down in history for defeating the Japanese fleet, but few people know who was behind the scenes. ”

Natsuki smiled calmly at Purcell's seemingly casual compliment: "Actually, my impact on this war is far less than my brother who can make half the world tremble with a single stampe. Come to think of it, if it weren't for the military containment of the Russians, Indians, and Australians, the Japanese navy would not have been as strong as it is now, and if the Japanese had been able to put more than a dozen aircraft carriers into the Philippine Sea, Halsey would not have won so smoothly. ”

Following Purcell's review of the battle reports ahead, Admiral Donal Cahi, the current commander of the Navy, asked in bewilderment: "But such a victory with disproportionate losses is not what we really were looking forward to." What is there to rejoice about, except for the slight losses of our participating ships? ”

Admiral Cahi, who came from an old Irish aristocratic family, was not as trusted by the royal family as Purcell, and he never had access to the secrets behind the Tokyo nuclear explosion, so he did not understand the meaning behind the words of the two men in front of him.

"Of course!" Natsuki turned to General Kahi and said, "It is indeed a pity that such a complete victory will not maximize our interests, and we may lose hundreds of millions of dollars in military orders, but for all the innocent people in the Japanese-occupied areas, this is a day to celebrate, and it may well mark the fact that Japan is going faster and faster on its downhill path!" ”

General Cahi shrugged his shoulders: "To be honest, I don't really care about what kind of life those people I have never met are living at the moment, this is their fate, and it is also the test of nature for them. For example, we Irish, a whole century ago, we were in the midst of a catastrophe, but no one came to our aid out of mercy and sympathy, and as a result, half of the Irish were either starved to death or forced to flee their homes, and Ireland sank until Your Majesty! ”

Unlike Purcell, who was good at military command and had a good sense of the big picture and strategy, General Cahi's strengths were organizational coordination and personnel management. After taking over as Commander of the Irish Navy, he quickly and effectively streamlined the otherwise redundant naval administrative structure, overhauled the policy of strategic mothballing of old ships, and rationally adjusted the development and construction plan of the Irish Navy, which enabled the Irish Navy to move forward lightly in the new round of the race.

In view of this, Natsuki did not refute it, but reached out and patted his arm: "You are grateful to me because I reversed your fate, and if we reverse their fate, then they will also be grateful to us." Living in this world is not only to satisfy one's own desires, as a strong man, he should defend the morality and order of this era. ”

General Kahi nodded as if he didn't understand. If we look at a country that is still suffering in the depths of our suffering, we will find that the large-scale aggression of the Japanese army has tended to stop, but this does not mean that the situation has changed. After the Tokyo explosion, the reshuffled Japanese military and political leaders adjusted their strategy of aggression against China, allowing the Wang puppet regime to gradually take over all regions except the northeast and northwest, and on the other hand, stepping up efforts to lure and persuade the Nationalist government to surrender to the northwest. Under the offensive of money and power on the Japanese puppet side, the Nationalist Government, which relied on the assistance of Europe, the United States and Soviet Russia to stabilize its position, was once again faced with a predicament, and the Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia fronts that confronted the Japanese army continued to defect with middle and low-level officers, resulting in a serious leak of the Battle of Lanzhou, which the Nationalist Government actively planned in response to the great uprising in the Philippines and the United States' participation in the war. As a result, the Nationalist Government Army missed a good opportunity to counterattack and defeat the enemy.

Just when the U.S. task force had inflicted heavy damage on the Japanese Southern Front Fleet and the main forces of the Japanese Combined Fleet had hastily assembled and moved southward, the hesitant Nationalist Government finally ordered all front-line units to carry out operations in accordance with the new battle plan. 11 reorganized divisions, 4 newly formed divisions, and more than 200,000 troops of the Independent Tank Brigade besieged three and a half divisions of the Japanese Northwest Front around Lanzhou under the cover of the air force. In order to compete for air supremacy on the battlefield, the air force of the Nationalist Government poured out, and the Japanese army transferred nearly 1,000 fighters from North China and Central China to support the front line, and the air units of the two sides launched a fierce air battle around Lanzhou for 16 days.

They were equipped with advanced fighters such as the IR-39 and Me-90 provided by the Western Allies, and used the I-16 and Yak-1 aided by Soviet Russia as the main force, and the vast majority of the pilots received regular flight and combat training in Soviet Russia, so in the initial stage of the battle, the Air Force of the Nationalist Government showed its sharpness to the fullest, gained the upper hand in the direct confrontation with the Japanese air force, and also provided fire assistance for the offensive of the ground forces. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and in the face of the continuous arrival of the Japanese aviation units and ground air defense units on the front line, they fell into an arduous tug-of-war of will and endurance; in the case of a shortage of spare parts, insufficient supplies, and an absolute disadvantage in strength, they gradually lost the initiative in combat, and later they were even more tired of coping with the wave after wave of Japanese fighters' offensives, and finally had to accept the result of "glory despite defeat."

The Air Force was defeated and retreated, and the ground operations that were once "in the palm of their hands" were also a failure. Seven of the 11 reorganized divisions were disabled, half of the four newly formed divisions collapsed in the later stages of the battle, and most of the reinforcements were lost. The Independent Tank Brigade, built with standard German-style equipment and combat training system, once broke through two strong Japanese defense lines during the battle, so it was regarded as the "elite of the elite" and "the trump card of aces". It can be said that in the battle of Lanzhou, the army of the Nationalist Government lost all its strength, coupled with the loss of the country's land, the political tax system has collapsed, and it is difficult to see the hope of relying on its own strength to turn the tables. Since then, even if the Western Allies have maintained the current considerable military aid, the balance of power between the Nationalist government forces and the Japanese puppet army will only become more and more disparity.

If we want to change this desperate situation and free China and India, the world's two most populous countries, from the exploitation and oppression of the Japanese invaders, we must fundamentally disintegrate Japan's military power, completely cut off the claws of this war monster, pull out its fangs, and smash its head...... But, how easy is that?

After winning the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the US Pacific Task Force No. 1, which had been fighting for nearly a month, began to withdraw from the combat area, leaving the task of blockading and harassing the Philippine Japanese forces and supporting the Philippine Resistance Alliance to the weaker US Pacific Task Force No. 2 and the submarine force. Most of Halsey's lead ships will return directly to Hawaii for repairs, and light ships with no loss or minor damage will be resupplied nearby before joining Task Force 2 under Spruance's command. A few days later, the United States informed the Western allies secretly cooperating with the Philippine theater of the changes in the war situation and the adjustment of the deployment of the US forces, and gave an official reply to the questions raised by the Western allies -- the Japanese side has not expressed its willingness to cease the war to the US side in any form when the main naval force has suffered a heavy setback, and if there is diplomatic contact with the Japanese side in the future, the US Government will certainly inform the Western allies as soon as possible, and will never hold formal talks with the Japanese side without the presence of representatives of the Western allies. Nor will it sign any agreement with Japan without the approval of the Western Allies.

Shortly thereafter, under the active impetus of Ireland, representatives of Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, Ireland, France, and the Netherlands held a high-level meeting in Murmansk, the northern port of Soviet Russia, to discuss the issue of joint intervention in Japan and the reorganization of the Asian order. The biggest problem at present is that Japan still ranks second in the world in terms of economic size and comprehensive military strength, and its military and expatriate agencies continue to plunder resources from most of Asia to supply the country, so that local companies produce thousands of weapons and tens of thousands of tons of ammunition every month, and the traditional practice of sending marines to land and intervene does not work at all, while the Russians make it clear that even if European and American countries provide them with military supplies without restrictions, They also did not have enough men to wage a large-scale land war against Japan, and in order to defeat Japan militarily, they must first cut off the transportation between the Japanese archipelago and the occupied areas with superior sea power, and destroy the military industry of Japan and its occupied areas with strong enough air power, at which point Soviet Russia would mobilize a million elite troops to fight side by side with the European and American forces and drive all the Japanese back to the islands where they had lived for generations.

(End of chapter)