Chapter 469: Katsura Taro's Conspiracy

The death of a Japanese instructor in China is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some people, and if the Saionji Gongwang does not handle the haze caused by the death of the instructor well, the time to step down is just around the corner. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Of course, the military will not be honest with this, a conspiracy against Saionji Gongwang is unfolding, and within the War Department, Japan's acting Minister of Land Yusaku Uehara and Chief of Staff Hasegawa Yoshimichi secretly discussed, and the center of the discussion is how to bring down Saionji Gongwang.

At this time, Japan's Minister of Land (Minister of War) Shiroku Ishimoto was unable to handle government affairs due to illness, and Yusaku Uehara, Vice Minister of the War Department, had full authority to manage all affairs of the War Department. As for the merger of Ishimoto Shinroku, many people say that he was angry with Prime Minister Saionji Gongwang, because Ishimoto Shinroku has always advocated being tough on China and hopes to increase the establishment of two army divisions in Korea. (Rebuild the 16th Division, 17th Division.) ）

However, Xiyuan Temple Gongwang belongs to the disarmament faction, and it was he who advocated disarmament in the first place, so that hundreds of thousands of meritorious men who made meritorious contributions in the Russo-Japanese War lost their military posts.

But Ishimoto Shinroku, who was not discouraged, kept putting forward proposals, and was constantly rejected by the Xiyuan Temple Gongwang for various reasons, and later the Xiyuan Temple Gongwang didn't even look at Ishimoto Shiroku's proposal, and he told the secretary that if it was about increasing the army and increasing the military salary, he would throw it away.

And this time, because the Japanese instructor was killed, Shiroku Ishimoto advocated declaring war on the Qing and launching the Second Qing-Japanese War. But Saionji Gongwang once again rejected him, Japan spent a lot of money in the Russo-Japanese War, although the Russians were defeated, but they did not pay a dime to Japan, so the Russo-Japanese War was a Japanese to earn face and lose money. This is also the reason why the leader of the political party, Saionji Kotoshi, became the prime minister, and he first wanted to ensure that the Japanese could eat and that Japanese companies could make money, and that he would not drag Japan into the abyss of war again.

But the refusal of the public hope of Xiyuan Temple directly made Shimoto Shinroku so angry that he fell ill. Ishimoto Shinroku is not famous in history, but Ishimoto Shinroku has a strong background, especially the birth of five sons, all of whom are Japanese elites, and his successor, the acting new Minister of War Yusaku Uehara, is a great person, because this person is the founder of the Japanese Imperial Road School.

The so-called Imperial Road faction was a faction within the Japanese Army, which was influenced by Kita Kazuki's ideology and advocated internal loyalty to the emperor, with the emperor managing the military department, and changing the name of the Japanese army and navy to the imperial army, that is, the emperor's soldiers. The composition of the Imperial Sect officers was mainly composed of low-ranking officers and descendants of samurai, who were bold but loosely organized, but had little influence because of their low ranks. But they have one of the most frightening habits, which is to stage coups d'état from time to time, such as the October events in the future.

The opposition to the Imperial Road faction has always been the control faction in the Japanese military, which is mainly composed of senior officers, and the senior officers in Japan are basically from families, that is, they have aristocratic status, such as Suyama Moto. The unification faction advocated the suppression of imperial power by military power, and the cabinet was composed entirely of soldiers, establishing a fascist state in which all the people were soldiers, and transforming Japan into a war machine, so that every Japanese person was a part of the war machine. In the history of Japan, before 1935, the Imperial Dao faction had suppressed the unification faction, which carefully controlled the scale of Japan's foreign wars and was limited to local battlefields in China.

In 1935, the Imperial Emperor was furious because of his brainless behaviors such as frequent assassination of political opponents, and he immediately removed the officers of the Imperial Sect, which greatly damaged the vitality of the Japanese Imperial Sect and brought the ruling faction to power. The composition of the unification faction is all veterans in the army, and once the unification faction is brought to power, it will be difficult to come down again. After a year of preparation, the pro-establishment faction began to launch a full-scale war of aggression against China, and then launched the Pearl Harbor attack, which declared war on the United States.

It can be said that the uneducated, uneducated, and background-free imperial faction that likes assassination did not push Japan into the abyss, while the scheming unification faction played Japan to death, and it is no wonder that when the Americans tried Japanese prisoners of war in the future, they spared Emperor Showa alone, after all, after the unification faction obtained the rights of Japan, the Japanese emperor became a puppet.

Yusaku Uehara, the founder of the Imperial Sect, fell ill with anger after seeing Shiroku Ishimoto rejected the plan to increase the number of troops, so he approached Yoshimichi Hasegawa, the chief of staff, to figure out how to increase the army. Hasegawa Yoshimichi immediately suggested to him that he threaten to resign, forcing Saionji Konobo to increase his army.

If one of the two Lu Xiang of Xiyuan Temple falls ill and the other is forced to resign, I am afraid that he will not have the face to continue to stay in the position of prime minister. The two said they would do it, and Yusaku Uehara immediately submitted his resignation to the emperor. Saionji Gongwang did not expect that the Uehara Yusaku he promoted would stab himself in the back, and when he was in a hurry to deal with the death of the Japanese instructor, Uehara Yusaku's resignation seemed to announce that his tenure had failed.

As a result, under tremendous pressure from both inside and outside the government, three days after the death of the Japanese instructor in China, the Saionji Konozo Cabinet collapsed, and Katsura Taro re-became Prime Minister, and immediately formed the third Katsura Taro Cabinet.

The first thing Katsura Taro's cabinet faced was how to deal with the death of the instructor, and Katsura Taro had already thought of a way to propose to the emperor a plan to intervene in the Chinese civil war and seize Nantong Prefecture in the Jiangbei region. If the Japanese were able to divide Nantong County into a concession, it would be declared that the north of the Yangtze River had become a Japanese colony, and the territory of China had been officially divided with the British, that is, the south of the Yangtze River would be returned to Britain and France, and the north of the Yangtze River would be returned to Japan and Russia.

"First, prepare enough troops, second, prepare enough supplies, and thirdly, prepare enough grounds." Katsura Taro said to Chief of Staff Hasegawa Yoshimichi.

Hasegawa Yoshido thought for a while and said: "Now that the Jiangbei region is under attack by Yuan Shikai, but the two sides are evenly matched, I am afraid that soon they will sit down and negotiate, if we want to forcibly occupy Nantong, we need at least three army divisions." It will take two months for the material reserves, and it is hoped that they will be able to continue fighting for two months. As for the excuse, I think we can shirk the Qing soldiers who assassinated the Japanese instructor and take refuge in Jiangbei and ask Wang Yongan to hand over the prisoners, if Wang Yongan does not hand over the prisoners, we will have an excuse. ”

"But what if they don't admit it?"

"Then we will find someone to prove that this assassination was carried out by Jiangbei." Hasegawa Yoshimichi was the son of a samurai of the Choshu Domain, known as the Japanese swordsman, and when he was in his sixties, no one dared to challenge him in swordsmanship. Although he is not famous in history, but during the Russo-Japanese War, he was the commander of the Japanese Guards Division, and when World War I broke out, he directly commanded Japan to participate in World War I and declared war on Germany on behalf of Japan.